SSNJim

I mustered all the King's horses, and all the King's men, and put it together again. It doesn't look too bad; everything lined up pretty good. Now to try to get it stripped without any more problems. Then, a bit of putty here and there, and voila! You can see some of the cracks in the fender. I also notice that the front splash pan is missing the bottom bar. So now, I need to come up with a name for it. Humpty Dumpty or Shattered Dreams come to mind. I'm surprised how much this happens. I've been involved with models for about 50 years, and I had no idea this could happen until fairly recently. Thanks to those who shared their own disasters.

I was getting tired of the old ones. It's really not all that bad. It just interrupted another one of my latest projects. This is a (I think) Revell 1979 Toyota Pickup 4x4 Snaptite. I picked up a month or so ago. It was a decent built-up I wanted to convert to a lowered truck. I got it apart without any issues. I was taking it to strip the paint when I dropped it from waist high onto a linoleum floor. It shattered. I've never seen that happen before. I didn't throw it, step on it or anything - just an honest drop, and the body was intact with no repairs or modifications beforehand. I've heard of models getting brittle with age, but I'd never seen it. At least it broke mostly cleanly, and I have all the parts. It should go back together pretty easily - the pieces fit back together solidly with no apparent alignment problems.

The Lindbergh and Revell Crown Victorias are completely different. For starters, the Lindbergh CV is a police version (P71), and the Revell is a civilian version (P73) - the police cars have unique side moldings. I have both, and there are no shared parts between them.

The guy did way too much thinking on this, but I think it's a pretty cool concept. Not really qualified for the the Porsche Hot Rods thread, but interesting nonetheless. https://jalopnik.com/i-looked-at-a-porsche-911-weird-and-somehow-it-became-a-1845576120 Heck, even Porsche put the 911 engine in front of the driving wheels with the 914-6, so it's not totally implausable. If you dig through the comments, there's some pictures of the Deora with the front end open. Interesting article. EDIT: Hey, this is post 917 for me, and it's a Porsche post. Yay!

I've still got it.

Got it. Your project is better than his. I don't know how precise a hand-held foot-controlled variable speed power drill can be; wobbling and shaking is part of drilling things by hand, and a foot control isn't much good for controlling speed beyond on and off. Sounds like you'd be better off with a cheap easily obtainable variable speed Dremel and 3 jaw chuck, and a drill press attachment to make things steady, but you'd rather McGyver it. Good luck, and I truly wish you success.

Why not? Interesting viewpoint coming from someone who spends days and days assembling plastic model kits when there are ready-made diecasts and assembled models easily available. I found it fascinating to see him take found items and turn them into a working tool. He obviously did it for the challenge of it. It was mentioned a couple of times that he had other airbrushes, including one costing 200 times more than this one. I doubt that the PLA-3000 is his primary, or even secondary, airbrush. It's a novelty and bragging rights - "here's the airbrush I built from scratch, and the airplane I camouflage painted with it". I'm impressed.

So, I picked one of these up Tuesday afternoon. Two hours later, I had a rear window for my 60 Falcon coupe. Handy, and easy to use. I had earlier shaped a new rear window for the Falcon out of a scrap block of pine since I would imagine they're rare as falcon's teeth. I used that as the test for the Mold Press machine (henceforth known as the machine). I took the machine out of the box and set it up in accordance with the instructions (you do know what those are, right?). The support legs are marked with measurements so you can measure the droop of the plastic sheet or height of the item being molded. I set my rear window buck in the center of the bottom piece, loaded up a sheet of plastic (they have protective sheets on both sides - dont forget to take them off because they're not mentioned anywhere), and started the process, again IAW the instructions. The first time, it took well over ten minutes to warm the plastic sheet. I turned on the vacuum cleaner, pushed the carrier down, and voila, a nice copy of the rear window. There were some veins around the base, but I didn't care because I only needed the top. There's some discussion in the manual about removing veins and improving the mold, but, again, I didn't care at this point. Maybe later. So, I made another copy. I had left the heater on, so I put a new sheet in and started the heating process. It took less than five minutes to get to temperature. A quick repeat of the vacu-sucking process, and there was another copy. The second copy I attacked with a couple of pairs of scissors, and ended up with a nice, clean rear window for the Falcon. There is too much of a curve to the window, but that is due to the buck. It's a very nice copy. Depending how I feel about it, I may make another copy or two and modify the buck to have less of a curve. The plastic sheets are PETG. I did pick up an additional pack of 40 (with 10 free sheets) plastic sheets. The machine only comes with 4. You can complain about the price, but after the 20% discount, the sheets are about the price of a kit and weigh almost twice as much. I may pick up another package so I'll have 100. That should last a while. I used Testor's Model Master glue to attach two pieces together, and then added a piece of Evergreen plastic. As soon as I find that test piece, I'll let you know how it went. In short, I'm happy with it so far. My Falcon has been staring at me anxiously awaiting completion due to a rear window. Now we can move on. Nothing amazing, just an 80's type street machine, but the early Falcons were a big part of my childhood. Further testing, and pictures, in the near future.

That's what I was thinking. Thanks!

How long do they run the molds a day? For the aforementioned five shifts, would they run the machines continuously for 40 hours or periodically over 5 8 hour days? I guess I'm asking about heating and cooling times, and cool plastic between the plastic supply and the molds.

Here's what caught my eye: We R Memory Keepers® Mold Press™ Plastic Sheets, 40 Sheets Item # 10648516 Apparently a package of clear sheets 6.75" square. They are $40, but there is a 20% code on the web site. Might be worth a shot - I've got a homemade vacuum former, and I've got one sheet of Squadon Clear Thermoform left, and it's yellow. I don't have the Michael's vacuum former, but I'm going to check it out.

Thanks, I hope you find it useful.

I don't know if you know about this site, but it was quite handy when I built my Bora: http://www.thecarnut.com/maseratimanuals.html All sorts of good information on all Maseratis including colors, brochures and technical information.

That's what I would have thought. I couldn't imagine it being how we think of a wood bed today. Thanks!

My question is when you took delivery of a brand spanking new 1953 Ford pickup, how was the bed finished? I can't imagine a bed for a working truck would be a show quality stained and polished wood bed with chrome strips. I'm thinking painted body color or black.