jbwelda

i think but not sure that the motor kit you linked to is the same motor used in the fujimi nissan s13 with full motor detail. by the way you say you would be happy to buy motors for the same price as the tamiya kits they come in (or did i read that wrong) but it occurs to me you might as well buy the kits and then if you dont want anything other than the motors, PM me and i can suggest a good person you can donate the leftovers to!

man that is good news mixed with the bad, i hope you come out of it ok, my prayers are with you. i smoked for 20 years and quit about 15 years ago; best thing i ever did was put down the cancer sticks. i dont understand how they stay on the market...wait, yeah i do, its called big money lobbying from the tobacco industry, but i have a feeling that wont be for long then they will just sell more to third world countries to make their blood money. anyway enough of the conspiracy theories (though if there is indeed any real conspiracy it revolves around selling death to people in the form of cigarettes) i sincerely hope you get through it and have many more happy years here in your current go round we call life.

absolutely not. but the comment about making them rotate tightly so they can be posed makes sense. im not much for gimmicks like working steering and all that. opening doors are nice to see interiors but working steering is never good unless you make it work lock to lock with multiple turns of the steering wheel. and i never saw much point in working lights, or most things like that. i would rather concentrate on detailing than working features that dont really add much to the model in my most humble opinion. all that said jerry cardinal gave me a diagram of a working door latch so now im going to have to cut open some doors to use the latch idea. its a geegaw gimmick but that one i like. and i have to admit a certain fascination with his spinning engine fans when one presses on the accelerator pedal. but turning wheels? no way. too much chance of an unhappy ending there.

oh i just read the other thread. that boyd.

boyd? maybe im the only one but i havent a clue who you mean. roth yes. barris yes, cushinberry yes even though i cant spell tonite. boyd? coddington? im confused.

driving my carrucha cheby 39 going to el monte legion stadium pick up on my weesa she is so devine helps me stealing hubcaps wasted all the time fuzzy dice bongos in the back my ship of love ready to attack wont you please hear my pleas. -fz

our pre-NNL meeting is tomorrow night so come out and see our project car in its (hopefully) close to final form! round table pizza, approx 48th and folsom blvd, sacramento. people start showing up around 6pm and usually hang out until 8 or so. be sure to bring something for us to look at: current projects, recent completions, or just boxes of parts and dreams!

jeez why the hell do they do that??? luckily i have pretty much a lifetime supply...one bottle...of the old mainstay "Future".

yep i started using the ketchup bottle type epoxy a few years ago and like it. you can get small amounts much more consistently than with the devcon which i used previously, esp if you keep the tops clean like mentioned above. i like to color epoxy with some india ink if i want black or some tamiya clear red/green/orange/etc for other colors. it works fine, just put a bit on the pallet before you mix the two parts. speaking of pallets, i used cd blanks that either dont work when i burn them or that i burn doubles on. they work great and you can get 100 for 5$ at frys these days and they are worth it just for mixing pallets...who woulda thunk that day would come?

> If you do not paint the body it will always look like a plastic model and not a real car. well thats not really true. like i said i have gotten very good *finishes* by polishing the plastic. not even counting that many of the cars i did that too are themselves mostly plastic and therefore looking plastic would be correct. but a tangent point would be that paint right out of the can (less so but still true with an airbrush) doesnt look like a "real car" either, it looks like paint right out of the gun. a "real car" has a "finish" which is why i emphasized that word above. you get the finish from polishing, among other processes, so i would contend thats why a polished plastic looks like a "real car" as much as polished paint does and more than "fresh" paint. finally, even if polished plastic didnt look right, it seems to me a coat of gloss clear over the bare plastic would provide a layer to "finish" and then would look right. about the decals: youre right about them having a hard time adhering to polished plastic but ive had the same problem with polished paint. mostly ive found it was a problem with my application technique or that they didnt respond to solvents properly. then there is always future floor polish to the rescue! i keep looking for the "cheers" emoticon but we dont have one here!

raul, i was just checking out your most excellent willys pickup and i think youre using the same frame and front springs as i am? (my front axle we dug out of the parts box so it doesnt match). could you please take a photo of your front springs and shackles and post it here? a good profile shot is what i need. i looked at the instructions (later...but i did look) and couldnt tell if the shackle side was supposed to face forward or rearward. like i mentioned it sits good with the body on it as is, but if i have to take it apart to fix the shackle/frame fit i might as well put it back together properly. many thanks and by the way thats a killer willys there, really love the pin hinges on the door and that parachute pack! you ought to do a how-to for the tips section on the chute!

yep thats the way i tend to go too: get rid of the magnets and learn to drive the car. its amazing what you can do with non-magnet cars. and especially if you use the magnets in the motor for some downforce (but still legitimately a non-magnet car). i build vintage cars and open body motors like a pittman really have some magnet force available and it makes up in cornering for what it lacks in pure rpm. really makes for a fun time driving cars that you really have to *drive*! it was getting to the point on our track where we could just hold down the trigger all the time and not even look at the car going around the track. at that point you realize youve overused magnets!

yeah i get you on that raul, but i was responding to roadkills question. see ya at NNL then!

yeah ive polished out a number of white cars and it always looks very nice. but i wouldnt suggest a clear coat; ive yet to notice the plastic turning yellow, but clear looking yellow is pretty common in my experience. future (the miracle in a bottle) might work though. if you are using a polishing kit, you will start to notice it looking really nice at about the 8000 step. and the best part is you dont have to worry about burning through the paint! that means you can really lay into the 12000 and get a rock hard look. one i did actually looks like it was carved from solid quartz. i polished out one of those copperheads that was molded in the copper metallic and it turned out nice too. i just did a quick 8k - 12k polish and then some novus #1 i think it was, the non abrasive final finish polish.

jeez i hate photos! i just noticed i have the front springs on backward, but it sits better that way...but what i really notice is the left one isnt really seating on the frame too well. its always something.

thanks raul! > Are you going to have this at the meeting Tuesday? should be, it will be the first time any of us aside from jerry and i see it! come out if you can!

me and jerry amaral have taken on the task of building City Styles club "raffle car" for this years NNL West, coming up next weekend in Santa Clara, and it is meant to compliment both themes this year: "modern muscle cars" and "gassers". well "modern muscle cars" might be pushing it a bit because what we are doing is taking a PT Cruiser (yuck), converting it to a sedan delivery, and adapting a gasser chassis and motor to fit. so its quickly closing in on the show and we are a bit behind the 8 ball on this one but we are working hard to get it done. for my part i am constructing the chassis and motor, while jerry is doing the body and interior. we have had numerous fitting sessions so far and heres what i have...i will post more pics as i complete more and we have a further fitting session set for sunday so i will get some pics of the body jerry is doing and will post them here as i get them. after fooling around with having the body sit high on the chassis we decided it looks best low in the front with the blower and scoop poking out the hood and windshield and it certainly looks wicked like that so i think youll be impressed with the photos to come of the body mocked up on the chassis! darn show is next saturday so we are going to have a long week! anyway heres some shots. the chassis is from the stone woods cook willys, but i lengthened the wheelbase about 4 scale inches to fit the PT Cruiser body, reinforced it, made up some motor mounts and some other details. motor is the Hemi from the AMT double dragster reissue in the blueprinter series of some years ago, but i chopped off the short stubby tranny and substituted one that looked better to my untrained eyes, and wired and plumbed the fuel lines as well as some other detailing. currently i am fabricatind an aluminum driveshaft and u joints and metalizing some front wheels (you can see them in their raw pink (double yuck!!) in one of the photos) and doing some other prep for the fitting session sunday. this is a model our club (City Styles of Sacramento) gives away as a raffle prize at the NNL every year so buy your raffle tickets and take home what promises to be a unique mom-bomb of a gasser. this isnt one of my favorite genres but i have to admit its a fun build and working with jerry is a real learning experience, and i think he would agree on his side too. i keep insisting we include some smarmy reference to soccer moms so theres liable to be a "baby on board" decal in one window or another! anyway heres some shots... hope it turns out good!

>1) 50’s Indy Style Halihrand mag wheels, preferably 16†fronts and 18†rears with period Indy >style tires, Any thoughts as to where to find these? on the halibrands i think rep and min of maryland has some in resin. i know i got a few in my parts bin and i think thats where i got them. cool build by the way. check my offy powered similar one posted elsewhere.

ah another "rotus" lover! ive got a 91 brg that ive autocrossed in looks: lowered a couple inches, konis, big racing beat front sway bar and endlinks and their mount reinforcement kit and a few other changes plus panasport style wheels. very nice little go kart there and the girls love it too! i just got done doing a semi-replica of it using the tamiya kit but i had one problem after another starting with having to strip the paint twice when it pulled away from the panel lines (and it still did it! very strange, never had that problem before) plus i tried to find some appropriate minilite wheels but all i could come up were fujimi and they are like 17" wheels vs my 15s. tried to lower it realistically but it sits a bit high for my taste. anyway i decided to just stick it on the shelf with minimum fanfare but maybe i will take a couple shots and post them here since there seems to be some interest in them. i really love my miata and drive it fast and heavy up in the mountains and in the windy roads of the sacramento river delta. its hard to get the thing to even break loose it corners so well. could use another 100 hp but what car couldnt? nice job there on the red one, keep us posted!

from the name "bonsai wire" i would guess its available at a gardening supply shop and even better a japanese gardening shop. and that sounds like a great idea too, so tomorrow i am off to hasudas garden shop! a slight modification: if you want various size solder, find an electronics supply shop or in a pinch, frys. radio shack should be a last resort but i realize in many areas thats all you got. its just that they typically have everything you dont need and dont have that one item you do need. maybe its just me.

its already been mentioned, but: >The Revell AG Trabant - their first effort in CAD designing a kit and it went all wrong. >The Monogram '56 and '57 Chevies - they look more like a Trabant than Revell AG's Trabant kit. hilarious and undoubtedly true! always liked how a trabant kind of resembles a squished and mangled stovebolt! but all is relative and relative to that porsche undercarriage, at least they presumably resemble the car they are meant to model! i cant even come up with anything comparable to whats in this thread, carry on...

you were *laughed at* when you asked them to sell you ad space for emodelcars? seriously? thats pretty stupid right there. almost unbelievably stupid in fact. guess they are rolling in the money these days. couldnt guess it by the diminishing page count nor the quality of the writing. but maybe i misunderstand what you mean.

>it's not too heavy,it's cast with light weight resin thats good, its going to save you a lot of grief. i picked up a 1/8 willys body one time and i swear it weighted 10 pounds. have to do plenty of chassis reinforcement to support that!

yeah tamiya again rules, but theres some things you can do to help any high gloss paint along, like putting the can in some warm water before spraying it, and trying to keep things as warm as possible when painting during the winter. if your paint was coming out way too thick, i take it you mean so that it ran or sagged, you were probably using model master enamel and yeah you have to watch it with that stuff. tamiya is much thinner and has a much better nozzle that makes getting a nice level high gloss finish easier.

should be killer!