Russell C

When I moved into this overglorified trailer park, my teensy backyard (those bumpy blocks are my property lines) was just a bunch of flat gravel. My sister suggested adding visual interest to it via some fake turf grass, decorative rocks, stepping stone pavers, a birdbath. This morning, courtesy of the long strip of tropical storm moisture vacuumed out of the Gulf of Baja Califorina, now I have my own .. temporary .. personal little lake.

Cone shaped metal studs for leatherwork? https://www.etsy.com/listing/629379849/silver-uk77-cone-studs-bulk-discounts Electronics for dome-shape really durable chrome pieces / sidewalk trash for cone shapes? The shapes on top (from my eclectic non-automotive plastic parts collection) are what the push buttons out of a junk DVD player look like when the machine is disassembled. I found the busted kid's cheap plastic bracelet on a sidewalk somewhere. Looks like the sort of thing a quarter vending machine of little toys and trinkets might stock.

Did not know about that 1:1, had to look it up. http://67fso.com/

Accomplished a quick fit-together today that proves a Monogram '41 Lincoln Continental chassis (from a separate glue bomb project where I only needed the Lincoln body) will do nicely for my Edselized Fairlane caricature dragster. Handy blank area for the rear axle / traction bars, good open front frame area (will be minus the fender liners) for the straight axle and tallblock doublestack supercharged engine. Just need to remove that hangy-down radiator support area on the Lincoln's chassis ....

For my caricature dragster, I accomplished making header extensions today. I remember reading somewhere that you can bash ball bearings into aluminum tube to make end flares - cut a short length, stand it up on end, balance a ball bearing on it and give it a few whacks. Never tried that before, I was a little too aggressive with the hammer on the first attempt, plus I figured out that if I polish the tube with it spinning at high speed in my mini lathe before I cut it the length I need, that works out better. I'll have to try this for velocity stacks in another project someday ...

My initial guess about my Edselized Fairlane caricature dragster was that a short block from my engine parts pile ought to be fine. But in seeing my mock-up today and how the headers must have more clearance over the fenders, I will need - forgive the pun - a tall block.

Too late.

Just learned today of an outfit that uses "AI" to somehow record really long, boring court- or state administrative-style hearings and turn the transcripts into nice short summaries. A guy I know who's somewhat famous across the country for offering technical expertise alerted me to this, where in a particular public hearing the summary described him and what his expertise is all about. Except the guy was never at the hearing. Period. The "AI" that was used to summarize this hearing was guessing who the expert attendees were, and not in a good way.

Yep, it'll be a bit of a challenge, and it could be there's a leftover vestige of the frustration I had with my own self when I was 10 or so and my custom vehicle ideas were beyond my skill level. Did this kind of thing once already with the '62 Ranchero speedster gluebomb I resto-modded. Sold it on eBay actually for just break-even a while after displaying it at the GSL contest, but the nicely reassuring thing there was the guy who bought it said he was glad to add it to his 'survivors' where the twist was that it was ultimately finished to the skill level the original builder wished to have. I see the same way forward in saving the two others I got last year, the '60 Buick shorty and the even more comically shortened Mercedes 190.

I tear apart dead electronic devices before I toss them out, to see what can be repurposed inside 'em as model car parts. I forget what kind of ink jet printer / pen plotter this particular one came out of, it's too big to be a toothed belt for 24th / 25th scale dragsters and likely too small for 1/8th scale. But any kind of printer that has a moving printer head may have real rubber toothed belts or smooth v-groove ones that could be the right size. Companies probably sell replacement belts for such printers, too.

Part of what I thought made this gluebomb "so-terrible-it's-adorable." That, and its tri-carb Ford truck V8. I've scraped off the body decals, but the irony about the perfect circle decal being so far off-center on the spare cover makes me think I should keep it that way and make some kind of extended bumper to hold the spare, using one of the custom bar bumpers out of the old AMT '40 Ford kits. The reverse side of the cover has a V raised emblem and it seems small in diameter, perhaps the size of the old AMT Ford Falcon or Corvair wheels. Meanwhile, I also had a pair of Fujimi 24th scale Porsche 911 headlight buckets in my parts pile since forever. At first I thought they were too small to correct the Palmer walleyed housefly oversized headlights problem, but what I have may not actually too unusable small (ignore the blue masking tape stickies behind 'em). Not going for sheer scale perfection in this simple project, just some kind of nice improvements while keeping the two main elements that the original kid builder wanted.

Aforementioned eBay purchase, posted this over in our Show your Gluebombs thread. For a size comparison, I set my old Honda CRX / 911 Porsche next to it, which makes me think the Palmer company didn't have a good grasp on scale, either, if they were aiming for 1/24 scale. From some digging into MCM AMT engine posts, the long-ago builder here may have used one out of a 1960-ish AMT Ford pickup?

$1.50 off eBay + shipping - this gluebomb is what led to my "What's up with the engine block in the 1/25 scale Palmer Porsche 356 kit?" thread. Since the eBay seller had no idea what scale this thing is, my guess was it might be 1/25 scale, judging from how it looked like some kid long ago wanted to do an outlaw version with an AMT 3-carb V8 in the back. I figured if it really was 1/25 and not 1/32, I could see a way to salvage it with spare parts I have and still take it in the direction the kid builder was headed. The Youtube video I link to in my other thread showed how this ancient Palmer kit actually came with not one but two V8s. So, it's possible that the long ago builder thought an AMT V8 version - outlaw or otherwise - was simply better looking than what was in the Palmer kit. Looks better after a good scrubbing. I'm thinking the leftover 24th scale Fujimi "Koenig Specials" Porsche 928 underside (reversed/shortened/minus exhaust) that I've had in my parts pile since the late 1980s, along with much better wheels/tires, can help save this thing. Jury is out on whether I'll put on the 928 Koenig wing, and if I should widen the back fenders (like our MCM man Ron Clarkson showed here). I'll likely keep the kid's engine for the rebuild/mod, a bigger opening in the deck lid with a clear panel cover could show it off more. Continental spare is likely a keeper too, since that was sort of another signature item for this old buildup. Save the gluebombs, and use up all your accumulation of spare parts!

Done that myself with the various plates in my decals pile. FYI, back then since the populations were so small, the first numbers on the NM plates were the individual county designations, according to NMplates. "6" is Doña Ana right above El Paso, Texas.

When I was 6 to 8 years old in New Mexico, 1970-'72, we had what was probably an early '50s Crosley wagon out in our woods laying on its side (mom ultimately dictated it had to go to the dump at the end of that span), so this one evokes some memories with its NM plate. What's the backstory for the plate choice?