Spex84

Glue bombs are apparently solid gold, according to current Ebay prices Blows me away to see so many pieces of common junk being sold for new-kit prices. It's supply and demand, so somebody out there must be buying them!! I'm currently cleaning up a glue-bomb AMT '28 Tudor. I got lucky and didn't pay stupid money for it. I love those old customs, Tom. Every so often I see really good ones for sale online--lots of replicas of the "Crusader" seem to turn up. I haven't purchased any yet (I have enough projects) but if the prices was right (read: really low) then I might!

Those miniature skis are possibly the best thing I've seen on MCM in ages. Lol. Love them! The techniques you've employed to create these detail parts are very inspiring. I have a drawer in which I store potentially useful junk--and I thought I was nuts for saving some textured yoghurt-lid foil and storing it in the drawer, thinking "maybe someday this trash will be useful". I see now that I wasn't the only one, except you actually found a use for it in the ski boot texturing process. Brilliant

Beautiful! Very clean work and I love that color combo, especially the punchy jade green/chevy engine orange contrast when the hood is up.

Very cool subject. Normally I'm not one for '70s land barges, but it's great to see some variety on the forum. I like the brown 4-door! Nice job on the resin kit, it's quite convincing.

Way cool. Love all the little details, from the generator to the perforated floor plates. I assume the powerplant was scratchbuilt...it really looks the part, perfect industrial colors too!

And then there's the "Skip's Fiesta" Cabriolet--basically the plain ol' Cabriolet as shown above, but the stock wheels are blanked out and instead it gets the chrome 5-spoke option on the chrome tree. Molded in Aqua and later in white.

Haha, thanks Lee! I just got back from taking photos of those exact same parts. I will post them here anyway, as they're a little easier to analyze on the blue background. *Edit* Ok, so looks like there's one tree that is the "custom" tree, and the only consistent part across all the kits on that tree is the "spine" and suspension struts. Everything else gets swapped out--custom bucket seats, skid plate, roll bar, etc get swapped for convertible up and down-tops, interior door panels, and stock wheels on the Cabriolet kit. Of note--in the Cabriolet kit, the chrome tree is cut short, as custom chromed wheels are not included in that version. Because the Lightning Rods version has chromed stock wheels (the Rolls version too), this suggests there must be 2 separate tools for the stock wheels--one in a 2x2 configuration on the plain parts tree, and one as a 4x1 insert on the chrome tree.

I had the Street Machine years ago but chopped it up for other projects and I've been thinking of getting another. Glad to see that it was re-issued in white, and that there are in fact several older iterations of the kit. Seems there are four bodies--normal fenders, flared fenders, dune buggy, and Rolls Royce kit. Inserts on chrome tree for wheels and a set of custom parts-, with choice of nerf bars, roof-mounted air filters, dual exhaust. Insert on main tree for custom parts, with choice of side scoops, air hoses, dual exhaust or stinger exhaust. Custom bucket seats are shared--but I have a cabriolet kit and I'm pretty sure it doesn't have custom seats, so that might an insert too...will have to check on that. Based on the kits shown above, it looks like they've already covered every possible combination of inserts, with the exception of combos involving the Rolls body--and that's probably a good thing, haha! We don't have pics of the cabriolet parts trees in this thread yet, but I'll bet the up-top and down-top fill the spaces where the custom parts would otherwise be, explaining the lack of a cabriolet kit with a stinger exhaust, for example.

Love that lawn tractor! Thanks for sharing--this is a neat combination that I've never seen before.

Nice save! You nailed that "Truckin' Magazine" circa early 2000s look The tribal flame masks worked well with the 2-tone, and the flamed steering wheel (a feature I'd normally cringe at) is perfect for this style and era...ties it all together! I like the wheels too. Well done turning that pile of parts into such a slick ride.

This thing is nuts! Are the tires going to protrude through the fenders??

I wonder if there's a way to make chemical catalytic heaters for batteries, something like the hand-warmers that fit in gloves. Something to that would allow travelers without access to a plug-in or charging station to warm their batteries without drawing down power. It would be a crutch, a backup solution, but I feel like creative/awkward crutches will help electric vehicles get "over the hump" and become useful in all climates and conditions.

A couple days ago AAA released a study of electric car range in the heat and cold. They found that range diminished 12% in 20F weather, but 41% when interior heaters were used. I've now seen a lot of comments to the effect of "well, of course that happens if you leave it out in the cold! You have to pre-condition the battery if you want to keep your range, warm the car up while it's plugged in!" Good point...but what it misses is that 20F isn't even very cold!!! I mean, -6C is practically T-shirt weather So to recap--keep your electric car in a heated garage, keep it plugged in, pre-heat it before you go anywhere, and never street-park the car or otherwise leave it unplugged in the cold. Every time in snows in my area, the highways are terrible...accidents or avalanche control routinely closes the highway for up to 7 hours at a time. Inevitably, travelers find themselves parked on the highway for many hours. In summer this is merely annoying, but in winter it can be downright deadly. ICE vehicles can potentially run out of gas idling to keep warm, but electric vehicles will run out of heat way earlier. ICE vehicles can be topped up from jerry cans, siphoning gas and transferring it, etc...but once an electric vehicle is kaput, it will need to be towed (unless there's a magical battery-booster technology I'm unaware of). If there were affordable, universal, and portable range-extending batteries available AND widespread charging infrastructure then electric car travel in this kind of environment would seem more realistic. How about mobile infrastructure, like booster-trucks that cars could charge from?? I'm imagining a bunch of Teslas clustered around a specialized big rig like suckling pigs

A note on cleaning paint off of 3D printed parts--I've found that the parts get a little soft if placed in Purple Power cleaner...not enough to be critical, but enough that long thin pieces (axles, braces, headers, etc) could potentially get a little saggy if subjected to pressure afterwards.

Lots of good advice here. 3D printed parts will need to be cleaned, and then sanded/filled/primered before they'll be smooth enough to chrome. I've been experimenting recently and found that with Shapeways Detail Plastic, parts started to get relatively smooth after a light sanding, heavy primer coat +light sanding again, and then 2 heavy coats of gloss black. Some detail starts to get lost, but not much, and it leaves the part much smoother. Trying to chrome 3D printed parts without smoothing results in a very "noisy" looking part.