bobss396

Same by me, the past 2 days were a washout. 30 F this morning, the gutter cleaning crew will be here today. The landscapers should be here as well, to do the fall clean up. Then I can shut off my outside water.

Monday I get a letter from my Medicare prescription provider, they are dropping me for 2026. Open enrollment ends on 12/7, glad they didn't wait until the last minute to notify me. They gave a number to call and apparently Cigna is rolled over to Health Spring. I finally gave up waiting on hold/being run around and found their web site. Which wasn't easy. The initial Google search took me everywhere but where I needed to be. Anyway, I applied and am waiting for approval.

Holy Amityville Horror...

I started on mine a couple days ago...I am inspired. I bought what I thought was a complete kit at a show.. not so fast. So I ordered up another one from Amazon. I'll be using the '53 Ford flathead, so far. I have to paw through my 3D printed engine stash, maybe a Chevy 409... I shaved the trim off the body, rescribed the lines.. fun. I'll do a thread on it soon.

Tamiya paint goes on very well. IMO, you need to be on the razors-edge of a sag to get a smooth coat down. I also save the body painting for very late in the build. A couple of things I do that helps assembly quite a bit: On the chassis I remove between .040" to .060" from each side. For some obscene reason, most kit bodies curve in towards the rockers. I also take sone material off the inside of the rockers. Everything gets a slight radius to it. Since the body/interior might be on & off, I make provisions so it goes back together the same way every time. I'll glue in "stops" so the interior tub isn't a fight, especially in final assembly. On the rear quarters, I'll bond in blocks of styrene. 125" x .188" is what I usually use. Then drill through the chassis (the body taped in place) into the blocks. Then pin it with either 1/32" brass rod or stainless steel pins.

That is a nice kit, even in stock form. It goes together well. Seat belt porn... who made those? I want at least 10 of them. The engine detail is killer. The one thing that stops me on twin turbo swaps is that you need lots of room up front. Looks like you conquered that.

Staggering build. Ive been gathering parts for similar builds. This is the beauty of the Model A. Like giving a master artist a blank canvas.

I used to be real good at foiling. But vent windows on many builds I see on otherwise great builds on contest tables look like Wrigley gum wrappers. No offense to anyone. Most vent windows are out-of-scale anyways. I'm going to try that liquid foil on my next detailing attempt. I'll practice on something first. I have a steady hand and lots of Tamiya tape. I just did a stock car, outlined the glass with one of those silver AK paint pens. I have them in a few flavors.

Thanks. I saw that after my post. I'd like to use what I have around first. I was messing around with the '49 Ford flattie and the exhaust manifolds are molded in, so is the starter. I cut those out and closed up the openings. Then realized I may not have enough room to run the distributor. The same happened to me with the AMT Mercury engine. I dug out a partial Lindberg '53 Ford kit, which has a great flattie in it. It looks promising so far. I have Norm Veber's distributor and his headers. Plus many other of his flathead goodies to fall back on.

Yow... lots to choose from. Thanks! I ordered some on Amazon, it should be here any day. Worst case, I'm out $8 if it doesn't work.

OK. I dug out my street rod-ish tires. From top to bottom: Rubber big and littles, they were in a bag marked 190. Possibly Modelhaus. Rubber big and littles from R&M of MD. Modelhaus resin 130C slicks. Possibly 140C. The difference is the width. The ones shown are 9.00-15. So I'd say likely 140C. Modelhaus 170C resin tires. These are my favorites. They fit the old AMT wheel backs nicely. The "C" means they are whitewall on one side. They used to be supplied all black and also WW on both sides.

I'll be looking for some TS-101 myself. I have 2 shops that should have it.

Got it... how about Zinsser stain block primer? I've used it on water stained dry wall. Or silver paint? Practice on some scrap first.

I looked around my usual 3D printed sites for a 4-barrel intake manifold for a a Ford flathead with no results. Does anyone know if one exists? The alternative is to make one up. Which should not be difficult. Plans are to use a 3D Predator carb and a batwing air cleaner. Thanks!

Which is the basis of GT& D. Geometric Tolerancing and Dimensioning. I have taken a few courses in it... every single one is guaranteed to be close to a fist fight by the last lesson or 2...