ScaleDale

It's debatable, but one of the best plastic cements is Tamiya thin in the hex shaped bottle. Not the orange label, the other one. Dries fast. Avoid Bondo for strength-critical body work. I like a two part epoxy putty called Milliput. It comes in three different finishes with white being the finest. Dale

To be a little more verbose, CA is short for cyanoacrylate (that may be misspelled) and is generally called super glue. In a hobby shop, ask for CA. It comes in various thicknesses with drying times from instant to not so instant. Heed the warning label: Bonds Skin on Contact. I think the web site for Competition Resins is compresins.com and they have info on CA. Resin won't stick to anything other than CA or epoxy. I use 5 minute epoxy if I can get away with it. The instant freeze property of CA gets me into trouble sometimes. I like a bit of wobble room with parts assembly. If you CA something and it needs to be removed, don't pull it apart. It has very strong gripping force but can be cracked by twisting the effected parts. There is a product sold with CA called Un Cure that will break the bond. Without it I would have interesting things attached to my fingers to this day. Dale

Any Bronco Broncos up in Denver? I have family in Arizona and Colorado. We are all Ohio folk to start with. Should be Browns fans. This year's Super Bowl will be interesting. One of the best proven quarterbacks and one of the best to come quarterbacks.That said, it will all wind up a defensive game. Dale

I don't know about just the fan, but Competition Resins has a fan and radiator. Look in the catalogue. http://www.compresins.com/site/751597/page/3971676 Dale

The only Dremel tame enough for model building is the cordless Stylus. I use one and it's helpful. The bigger ones will tear things up' Dale BTW: It's $70

Danno: Chest thumping has to wait. We each have a game to play. Dale

Welcome from Joint Base Lewis McCord: Between MicroSoft and Boeing, some folks around here have cash to burn. And season tickets, too. Interesting game coming up. Dale

I went to college in Ohio (Ohio University) in the '70s and knew a bunch of guys and gals from the Cleveland area. Real Old School up there. Dale

One of the better treatments of the 12th man theme I've seen. Won't see that in SanFran, tho... Dale

Do hit the link in the above post. The Grumpy's Toy tribute build is a nice one. They do good work. Dale

All this is a good example of why I don't do contests. Building is supposed to be a hobby that is fun and stimulating with no deadlines or judgment passed on the end product. Parents need to realize this about model building: builders are interested in systems of parts and how they work together. That's the definition of an engineer. I'm pretty sure that all those NASA guys that put us on the moon were model builders. Isn't it good to encourage your child to be an engineer? As far as rockets go, the Estes kits were too tame for me. I built my own engines and made my own propellent in the garage. Talk about some grand messes! Tried a two stage once with zinc dust and sulfur that blew in half while still in the launch tube. Dale

Your sister sounds like my dad when I was in Little League. Wouldn't spare $20 for a uniform, and he had the cash. "Hell,no". Funny how you remember stuff like that after, oh, 55 years. Dale

Gibson engines tend to be oversized, so take that into consideration. Here are two BOSS 429 Fords, the one on the left is a Ross Gibson and the other is a Revell from the 70 BOSS Mustang kit. Dale

Straight and round is the name of the game with these things. I built them as a kid and it's what makes them fly straight. The fins help, but if the body is out of round it will go all over the place and it's not a pretty sight. It is a rocket, after all. Some can top 500 feet. They aren't expensive and are easy to build. Go to a hobby shop or even Fred Meyer or a craft shop like Michael's and get a new one. Great fun. Dale

Electrical tape or Duct tape (I forget) and the straps are painted strips of masking tape. Dale

Hi, Scott. Welcome to MCM. Glad to see you finally finished this thing, and it turned out just awesome. I'm not really a rat rod fan, but this is just over the top. Dale

1:1 shops like Allstar Performance and S&W Race Cars have bunches of chassis tabs like this, and it would be great to have them in scale for attaching stuff to scratch built chassis. Dale

The little butane torch is a good idea. My heat gun likes to soften up large areas, which makes free form bends more difficult. Your protractor is really nice! Mines just plastic. The Swiss have all the cool stuff.. Dale

How did you get the angles of the roll cage bends to be so symmetrical? I use wooden molds and a heat gun and it's still very hard to do this. Your cage looks like it was pulled from the Chris Alston ChassisWorks catalogue. Excellent work. Dale

I try to remember this: It's a model car. No NHRA tech inspector is ever going to certify the chassis, Patch it up with whatever any move on. That's what Evergreen styrene is for. 90% of what we fret about is not visible with the body on. You should see what Dr. Cranky does to lower an axel. Never pass inspection... Dale

I'm intrigued by the engineering aspect of model building and get up a big head of steam building a chassis and solving suspension and engine mounting problem. Then I get to the fine details of finishing the project and get distracted by something else. My Pro Mod 49 Merc is a good example. It's just about done except for fitting the windows and finishing the engine details. Then there's the Super Stock 68 Mustang in the garage calling me... Dale

You can't practically achieve this effect at that scale even with an expensive decal printer. Packing that amount of detail into a single millimeter of space is asking too much. Dale

I saw something about surveillance drones in general on TV and noted that they don't seem to have markings that scream POLICE, so could I legally shoot the blasted thing down with something other than a firearm? Returning to topic... Will they leave stickers on the door? Will Siri ask for my signature? If so, can I use one of my Internet sigs? They sell engine blocks, are freight drones in the works? Dale

Go to post number 11 in my '49 Merc Pro Mod build. I paid more attention to the strut mounts than I did on my Pro Stock Mustang. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=78679 Here's the Mustang. Go to post 22. I didn't take the strut mounts into consideration until the chassis was painted and it caused a lot of trouble. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=76723 Here's the real thing on a Top Sportsman. Yours for 85 grand! Dale

They're really "jam jars", but use the same type lids as "canning jars". A bit big still for paint, but better than tossing it out. Dale