Olle F

My holy grails are really not all that hard to come by: Monogram's Lil' Coffin and Polar Lights guillotine. I built both when I was a kid and now I have new kits sitting on the shelf, waiting for the day I can commit to building them in a way that will do them justice. Or maybe I need to build them as glue bombs, to resemble the models I built back then...

Why delete it? I think it's worth a try, that foil seems to be very close to chrome. You can find some tips about adhesives here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7139

Absolutely. I use the airbrush for pretty much everything, except detail painting. The paint goes on thin, no brush strokes and it's easy to build up the paint coat just enough to get good coverage. And if you use enamels, you can also reduce the drying time considerably by thinning the paint with lacquer thinner. Once you get hooked on airbrushing, you'll never look back.

If you hit the "reply" button in the bottom right corner of this post, you'll see what the correct code looks like: BTW, cool build.

There are many ways, depending on what kind of look you want to achieve. The "rusted through" look is fairly easy, you use a Dremel tool to carv out the rust holes from the back, and (if needed) use an X-Acto knife to trim the hole to the desired shape. Then you paint some "rust" around the hole, dab on some liquid mask and paint the body. When you peel off the liquid mask, it will look like rust forming under the paint. You can also try the "sun burned" look. Spray the whole body with primer, then apply the top coat. Wet sand carefully so you sand through in the areas that are supposed to be "burned", like the top of the fenders, the roof etc. I have yet to try this myself, but I have seen some very realistic finishes done that way. Not sure what's best to use for an all-out rust finish though. The only thing I know of would be the Rust-All you mentioned.

This reminds me of a "kit" they showed in Mad Magazine many years ago. The box art showed a very detailed 15th century battle ship, but the contents of the box were a large balsa block and the brief instructions: "Cut off everything that doesn't look like the box art, then paint". I have actually tried a few airplane kits similar to the one you're showing, and all I can say is that it's not for the faint of heart. I can't remember what my first kit was, but I believe it was a Morris Cowley by Airfix, one of those kits that were sold in plastic bags. It was meticulously assembled, using the whole tube of styrene glue to make sure it wouldn't come apart when I played with it...

I have tweezers that lock with a sliding pin, but they are from Hobby Lobby. And my woman is a nurse practitioner, so I have made it a habit to search through her lab coats before she sends them to the dry cleaners. I guess it's a bit undignified to dig around in the laundry hamper, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, and it can sure be worth it... :D She sure uses a lot of neat stuff, and some of it can actually be bought at flea markets and other outlet places. I have got several different surgical hemostats (bought for $1/ea at the Oshkosh air show, of all places), that are very useful when you need to hold something firmly, like when you trim photoetched parts, pull wires etc. I have also got several different scissors (straight and curved) from the same place, and they are perfect for trimming decals, cutting styrene sheets etc. There's a lot of things at my wife's clinic that I have been eyeballing, I just wish that they could have a yard sale...

Many aftermarket items are just everyday items that they bag and sell as this and that. Some good examples are wires (=hoses), diodes (=fuel lines w/ filters), pins (=shifters) etc. There are also some tools, like sanding sticks, small scissors, files etc. that can be found much cheaper at, for example, Walmart. And if you look in the Micro-Mark catalog, you'll find that many of their model building tools are not really made for model building, it's just tools they found elsewhere and found useful for model building as well. Just keep your eyes open, and you can save a lot of money. Just as a tip, ask your dentist if he has got any tools he wants to get rid of. A couple of years ago, I got a bunch of those stainless picks they use to scrape teeth with, and they make great scribes/scrapers. Also got some kind of stainless, abrasive strips that they use to file between teeth, and they really come in handy sometimes. Not to mention the syringes you can get from your doctor, they can be used for a lot of different things too. Just sweet talk your doctor or dentist and see what kind of goodies they have got.

When I moved to TN, I was told that it's perfectly ok to carry a gun, but that it's bad manners to let it show. Dang, and I wanted to go to Walmart with a .44 mag in a holster, but my wife wouldn't let me. And you sure won't find any Gucci purses around here. On the other hand, the store down the street sells very nice green and yellow John Deere purses.

So what's the question? What it is, or what it once was?

Thanks, and I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. That's just beautiful! On a sidenote: Does anyone make engine compartment decals, like the ones that came with this kit? A simple thing like that adds tons of realism, but the only ones you usually get are the ones for the air filter and maybe the battery. I have been thinking about printing my own, but never found the time to do it...

I found out about the coax cable many years ago when I was gutting an old radio for model building supplies (yes, I do recycle... ). Once you have stripped the insulation, the inner wire will come out easily if you just push the braided shield together slightly from both ends. There are different sizes of this cable, but one size can be used for many different diameters of "hoses". You simply put a wire inside it, stretch the braid and it will shrink to the size of the wire as you pull on it. Radio Shack carries this in different sizes, and it's much cheaper than the aftermarket stuff. As you have already noticed, the braid can come in different colors (copper, tin etc) so you might want to strip a little bit off the insulation in the store before you buy. On the same topic, many of these cables come with very thin copper wires inside, which can be used for various purposes. This is the kind of wire I used for my home-made cable harness in this thread: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10305

Wow... That's a show winner right there! Can we see some engine pictures, please...?

Just a couple of weeks ago, a guy here in town came home to find someone carrying out stuff from his house. The burglar pulled a .38, so the homeowner pulled a 9mm and emptied it in the burglar. The cops just patted his back, said "Well done" and didn't charge him with a thing. I'd call that fair. But then again, I don't think that this means that the burglar's relatives can't file a civil lawsuit for something, lowlifes like that can always find a sleazy lawyer that offers them a juicy contingency case.

Hey, I might just use that idea! I usually keep a roll of paper towels on the workbench (great for those quick and unexpected disasters that strike my workbench now and then... ), but they are often too big for smaller jobs like wiping airbrush parts, blotting decals, cleaning brushes etc. Cutting them up is the obvious solution.

It makes perfect sense to me, but I'm sure that it came as a big and unpleasant surprise to all the anti-gun activists. And the car jackers, of course. As they old saying goes: "An armed society is a polite society".

Very nice build, and great color choice as well! IMO, models usually look better and way more realistic in muted colors like this, rather than loud "come-and-look" finishes. I don't know why, but I guess it emphasizes the detail and craftsmanship in a well-built model instead of just having you staring at the paint. Whatever it is, it sure works great on this one. I love to find gems like this at the shows, you tend to not see them first so you walk by, then you stop and think: "Hey... What was that?" and walk back again to have a look. Keep up the good work! BTW: Do all those decals come with the kit?

Amen to that, most supermarkets and drugstores carry cheap sanding sticks in various grits. I have used them for years, and have never felt the need to buy the more expensive hobby variety (which I suspect is pretty much the same thing in a different bag). I use them as they are, or cut them down to strips, pads or whatever I need at the moment. They usually have a lot of useful tools and gadgets in the health & beauty section, like clippers, files, small scissors etc. The only thing about it is that it feels a bit awkward to shop around in that isle... And no, there's no substitute for Flexi Files, it's a great product that any modeler should have in his arsenal.

I'm sure Arrowhead's distributors are nice, I can't wait to get the one I ordered and paid for 10 months ago...

My dad had a '75 Citroen D Super, and yeah, you can't find a more comfortable car than that! The downside was that the dang thing was extremely complicated and difficult to work on. How about load compensating suspension and load compensating headlights on the same car? The hydraulic suspension system will automatically raise the rear if you load a lot of heavy stuff in the trunk, but for unknown reasons they decided to also include a system that would automatically adjust the headlights in case you managed to load it down anyway. And changing the windshield washer pump required the removal of either the hydraulic pump or the front fender. I ended up putting a new pump somewhere else, as I just couldn't get the old one out of there...

That 1-spoke steering wheel sure reminds you of an old Citroen...

You could talk to your LHS and see if they can order for you. You won't get to see the stuff before you buy, but you won't have to pay for the shipping either. My LHS (Central Tennessee Hobbies in Cookeville) has got a few items in stock but is extremely helpful and can get pretty much anything I want, so I usually don't have to mail order anything. I have to wait until he's ready to place an order with his supplier, but it usually only takes a week or so.

How about this one?

I have used diodes (or maybe they are resistors, don't know for sure) for many models, and you just bend and cut the leads to resemble the fuel line. "No assembly required". As a matter of fact, I have seen the very same thing at model shows, bagged and labeled as "1:25 fuel line with filter". Those cost way more than the ones from Radio Shack, where you can get a lifetime supply for a few bucks.

I built an AT-AT for my son not too long ago, and I really enjoyed it. I just glued it together, added some black wash straight on the gray plastic and called it a day, took about 2 hours or so. From a few feet away, it looks great. I'd think it would be a pretty difficult model to get perfect though, the fit was not all that great. But my 7-year old Star Wars enthusiast sure loves it.