Ace-Garageguy

Glad you finally got to someone who could straighten things out. A mortgage payment is kind of a big deal. It eventually took me 6 hours online with "customer service chat", on phone hold, and eventually angrily visiting the local office to finally get my internet and landline service provider to admit there was a problem, admit that it was THEIR equipment or lines at fault, and to restore a reliable connection. This was after 3 months of randomly interrupted internet and phone service, and as I work from home occasionally, to say it was exasperating is an understatement. Ain't "technology" grand?

I also admire your effort in getting this model to resemble the real car more than it does as it comes in the box. I bought a couple of these shortly after getting back in the hobby, solely out of ignorance...and the very pretty box-art. After looking at them, in disgusted exasperation I put them on the shelf, where they've been for well over a decade. I'm looking forward to seeing your results.

I looked at several random cans I have. Some state "Made In USA". Some do not. Interestingly, it's the ones that don't (in my admittedly very small random sample) that are leaking.

I just received a used head core for my Neon. Little car is so much fun to drive, so anonymous, and gets such great mileage, I've decided to keep him indefinitely. Plan was to buy a head core, rebuild it on the bench, and then swap it, along with doing the timing belt, tensioner, water pump, and RH engine mount. But as usual, stupidity had different plans. For starters, it was supposed to be a "good" takeoff from a running car with 160K on the clock. Nope. Looks like it's been under water for 6 months. And I've never seen such a moronic job of packing a heavy car part in my life. Rattling around in a cardboard box, with a little shredded newspaper. That's all. The box is busted up, naturally, and the pressed-in spark-plug tubes are ruined. So...I'll have yet more work to do, and more time wasted out of my life, compensating for a mess made by a mouth-breathing, brain-dead chimp.

A lot of times it's the clear "binder" (sometimes called "vehicle") that the pigment is suspended in too. Binder refers to substances that hold the particles of pigment together in paint. All paints include a binder of some sort because this is what keeps the pigment in place after the paint dries. That's the gooey mess that gets the can firmly glued to wherever it's sitting. You may or may not be able to recover the contents by decanting; you might need to add more clear, and the paint might have lost other secondary chemicals as well. Good question. If the lower seal fails, you'd still lose propellant, but the paint itself might still be OK after decanting.

It's pretty simple these days to tamper with a digital odo display now too...though that doesn't seem to be common knowledge. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/even-in-the-digital-age-odometer-fraud-is-a-growing-problem-121620.html

Yeah, that used to be the average frequency I'd get them, but in the past 30 days I've had no less than 5 calls, from different originating numbers. The best place to put them, for sure, but enough people are falling for this stuff to keep them going.

Same thing goes for the extended warranty used-car dealers try to tack on. Another friend bought a low-mileage PT Cruiser when they were cool, and the dealer got really nasty when she refused the $2500 (paid over time) extended warranty. In the end, when the timing belt failed at an indicated 60,000 miles (it should have lasted at least until 100,000+), I was pretty sure they'd turned the odometer back too. This was a big-name new-and-used car dealer, so the appearance of legitimacy is no guarantee of legitimacy.

There are folks out there with more money than brains. The ex-girlfriend of an old friend paid $10,000 for a new engine for her Jag after she drove it with no coolant until it seized, because an $8 plastic fitting cracked. She kept on driving with the "red light" on, because her old Toyota ran forever with the "red light" on, and she just thought it was a petty annoyance. After the ripoff chimps put the engine in, they realized she'd cooked the trans as well (it got HOT)...which is when they brought me in. Turned out there were NO parts available from the manufacturer or aftermarket (at the time) for the trans, and the best price I could get her for a low-mileage gearbox was another $6500. They junked the car. I never really understood why an old hippie chick had bought a nice Jag anyway, especially after she let her dog shred the dash and seats.

Model Master is Testors. I've had similar problems with both.

Lately both my landline AND my cell have been inundated with scammers pushing an "extended warranty", claiming my factory warranty is running out and I'll be...OMG...left with the possibility of staggering repair bills destroying my financial security. Really? Obviously robo-calls that have no real info as to what vehicles I actually own, their ages, or anything remotely connected to reality. Fact is, the newest vehicle I operate has been out-of-warranty for at least a decade. DON'T GET DUPED. These are almost always scams that try to scare people (often focusing on older folks on fixed-incomes), take their money, and either disappear entirely after they've filled their bank accounts to overflowing, or find some reason to refuse claims made against them. If you think you want or need an extended warranty, there are legit companies out there...but do your due-diligence research and SEEK THEM OUT; don't trust some phone call from out of the blue.

Who knows? Maybe it would be better...by far...to have a smart mechanic or plumber or carpenter teaching kids than a multi-degreed "professional" with expertise in alternative-lifestyle basket-weaving and the evils of individualism and self-reliance and Western literature and rational thought.

Wow. Nice work, sir.

Very few things in the modeling world truly deserve the much-overused "awesome", but this sure as jell does. Sometimes, all I can say to myself when I look at this level of precision miniaturization is "damm...".