Ace-Garageguy

Yup, their carb linkage is nice. Engine bracket accessories, radiator face panel material, blower hardware, and other PE sets are great. They do machined aluminum parts like gas caps too. All of it first rate. They do ignition wire too, scale-correct, unlike the garden-hose sized stuff some folks sell.

In the thin-skinned offended-by-everything crybaby virtue-signalling PC world we live in today, Monty Python would be taken out and shot. Interesting that intelligence is strongly correlated with having a sense of humor.

Belchfire GT Laundaulet Supreme Limited Custom Signature Edition MK-Z 33 and 1/3

Custom or what-if concept, it's still a striking piece of work. Imagine showing up at a car show with that built on Mustang underpinnings...with no backyard hacking, everything built like the factory would have done it.

I know a 1:1 car builder who sincerely believes he's justified in charging the client for a day like that.

I can count to potato.

Yup.

UNINTENTIONAL DOUBLE POST

There's no blanket answer, though there seems to be an implication in this thread that there should be. Plastic 3D parts are made from a variety of different plastics, using different processes. Filament-printed parts are made from thermoplastics like polystyrene and ABS, and will exhibit the same longevity and stability characteristics as the base plastics the filament spool is made from. Just as model car "styrene" can vary in quality from manufacturer to manufacturer, so can printing filament. 3D printed parts made from liquid resin are essentially modified thermoset plastics, with some characteristics in common with traditional "resin" parts...but light, typically UV, is used to initiate and complete the cross-polymerization that makes the goo hard. With traditional "resin" parts, the polymerization depends on the addition of a chemical "hardener" or catalyst, and sloppy measuring can have a dramatic effect on part performance over time. The light-curing liquid resins don't depend on idiots adding carefully measured chemicals to make them work. The chemical engineering that's done by the resin supplier should be a reasonable guarantee of uniformity and stability, but you really can't depend on that 100%. Light-curing resins in 3D printing applications may also depend on "post-cure" procedures, like a lengthy bath in UV light, to fully harden them after printing. If this isn't done, or isn't done correctly, you're going to have instability and deterioration with these as well.

^^^ Yup.

I would have to disagree with that. One reason I got in the hands-on end of the car biz after engineering school...5 decades ago...was because I could consistently make more money than I could as an entry-level engineer. There was no shortage of people joining the trades back then, and the pay increased rapidly with experience. I was able to get into racing, and all kinds of other fun stuff I wouldn't have been able to afford until much later in my career, had I stayed as a salaried engineer climbing the corporate ladder. I was also able to launch my own garage business soon after learning the ropes...but I didn't hang out my shingle as an independent engineering consultant until 1995. My point? Skilled mechanics and bodymen have always been able to make good livings...at least for the 50 years I've been involved in the car biz. And there's never been a time I couldn't get work pretty much instantly, if I needed to...anywhere in the country. Somehow, many of today's young people have been convinced that the trades aren't respectable work, that everyone needs a college education, and that there's an unlimited market for 3rd rate programmers and emoji designers. Or they're saddling themselves with crippling debt to get useless degrees with majors in, let's say, art history, focusing on things like 16th century Inuit basket weaving...and then whinge because they can only get minimum or sub-minimum wage jobs as Starbucks baristas, having to live in mom's basement, or with a dozen roommates, and can't afford cars and insurance. America's youth are being lied to, misdirected, and screwed in general. Much of America's largely vanished middle-class was made up of skilled tradesmen and factory workers. Until somebody who's driving the bus realizes that, and does what's necessary to bring it back... EDIT: Just as an aside, a non-CNC machinist who can make one-of-a-kind parts can pretty much write his own ticket these days in any metropolitan area, because there just aren't many guys left who can use a mill or lathe with no computer interface. The machine tools themselves aren't that horribly expensive when you consider what you can do with them, and how much money you can make...and that you'll have virtually no competition. The hardest thing is marketing to a populace that's all but forgotten THINGS CAN BE MADE BY PEOPLE WITHOUT APPS.

Holy sweet mammajamma. That is some kinda fine.

But the mags are going AWAY...not just going to a digital format. There are MANY more people in the country than ever before, but far FEWER real hardcore dirty-hands car enthusiasts. Just as the percentage of drivers who can operate a manual gearbox is declining every year (in 2017 it was down to less than 20%), the percentage of the population that would even think working on a car was something they might like to do is dropping rapidly. I'm in the industry. Even though a good mechanic or bodyman/painter can still make high five- to low six-figure incomes, we have NO entry level folks coming in.

Funny in the face of this how people still insist we're not seeing the total wimpifying of American "men", evidenced by a rapidly declining interest in icky dirty smelly dangerous things.

Duplicolor primers are my go-to 95% of the time. As noted, they're safe under all paints. HOWEVER...they are "hot". They will craze some kit plastics if shot wet, so it's imperative to TEST on the kit you're working on. You MAY find you can't shoot them dry enough (from the can) to avoid crazing without getting bad orange peel, but this can be overcome by decanting them and airbrushing very fine "mist" coats. There is also a wide array of products in the Duplicolor primer family..."sandable" primers that are quite thin, in black, red, gray, "hot rod" dark gray, and white; "high build" or "scratch filler" primers in several colors (excellent for finish work over heavy body work, but too thick for general use, as they'll obscure fine detail); "self etching" primers in green, black, and red (hotter than the others, well suited to metal models and resin for better adhesion; and a "sealer" for which I've never found much use. ALL the Duplicolor primers are sandable, except the sealer. Some modelers like to use Duplicolor as a "barrier" coat, and shoot Tamiya or other hobby-specific primers over it. Again, TESTING of the combination of materials you want to use is IMPERATIVE EVERY TIME.