bobss396

30 F and clear. Last night it dropped to 24. Lawn service and gutters are done. Outside faucets are off.

I took a robotics course complete with a 5 hour hands-on lab one day a week. The 3 laws is one of the first things we learned. We did get a teaching-robot to mix drinks like a bartender, not with real booze ...

Digging the headers.

I got back into the hobby in 1995, pre internet, so I had zero resources. The only paints available were Testors (no extra charge for the floor sweeping contents added...) and hardware store paints. Past experiences with car paints made me gun shy. I knew nothing about primer. I still show those at club meetings. They are pretty crude to say the least.

They are closing and blowing them out. I've seen some at shows for the same price. I have 4 of them I paid close to $50 for, but the FOMO is tempting to buy MORE!

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.