jbwelda

thank you mark. for some others who may question what i just said, what would you think of someone with a swatstika on their car who claims its "heritage not hate"? its roughly the same thing just a different country. and i am not a "pc" person by any means. here in california i am often considered a reactionary because i dare to think for myself occasionally and that a dangerous thing sometimes. however i do have a funny kind of story to relate. my brother and his wife live in the shenandoah valley of virginia. thats where someone, sherman maybe, led the "march to the sea" to sack richmond. on the way they essentially salted the earth of the "breadbasket of the south", the shenandoah valley. that left a lot of enemies in its wake. well the first time i drove to my brothers house i see this big white southern mansion on the road with a confederate flag flying under the USA flag. so i immediately think, whos the racist who lives there? i ask my brother about it and he says aw you get used to it and a lot of people here still hate the "north" for what they did in the civil war to the area. well my bro is from cali too so he knows the prevailing sentiment out here about such symbols. so one day i am driving to DC and i see the presumed owner of the property with the flag, out front cutting his lawn. its a black man. i note it and drive on. a couple days later i am in this cafe there in mt jackson where my bro lives and in walks the same guy and he sits down at the counter a couple stools away from me. after wrestling with my own internal california PC business i get up the courage to introduce myself and ask about his house...if its his etc. sure enough he and his family have lived there since post-civil war days and his family was a slave family in the area during and before the war. i tell him i am interested in the history of the area (completely true) and we start talking about the war and what went on down there and also life as a slave in those days (he of course didnt have first hand knowledge but his family did) so i finally come out and ask him about the flag. he laughed and said he could tell i was from california and while he had reservations about life in those days he WAS proud of the south and the way they fought off those who would change their way of life even though his family (not to mention his race) was on the short end of that particular stick. we didnt get into the racism angle too much but he made it plain to me that at least to him and his family, the south was their heritage and they were proud of that even if they werent proud of what was done to them because of their color, and there was still a lot of resentment there by people of all colors about the way the north treated them during their march to the sea. and to him that flag represented not just heritage but also a rebellion against too much government control by a distant govt who knew little or nothing about the real situation there. he then brought up all the baggage that goes with it but more or less dismissed it as the ravings of poorly educated hillbillies and of people who are so down they need someone to point to and say "at least im not one of them". i was surprised to see how balanced his outlook was; even though i couldnt share it, or actually i could share it i just have a hard time through what the symbol has come to mean to me being out in the "liberal" west. so i do agree there is room for debate, even from those you might think most firmly oppose such a symbol but believe me, out here in the west, most if not all confederate flag flyers know little or nothing of the history and like i said its mostly those who would just as soon fly a swatstika on their car if it didnt mean it would be retaliated against the first night they left it on a public street. speaking of which everyone knows its more or less considered a hate crime to draw a swatstika on something these days and here in the west school kids are even threatened with hate crime charges for drawing one on their school books. but back when i was a kid, it was a common thing to see and i drew them myself. it was just a childish thing, we had no idea what it meant, really, other than it was for german soldiers. one day a man, an officer in the air force (as was my father) saw one on my book and pulled me aside and said to me: "you think thats cute (or something, i dont remember his actual words) but one day you will realize what that stands for and be ashamed of it". i remembered those words and went home and asked my dad about it...he told me more indepth that it wasnt just about some soldiers, it was about a repressive and murderous regime that i was blessed to not have to live with or through and no it wasnt a great idea to have that there. but my dad wasnt one to order us kids to do something, he just told us the story and let us make up our own minds. the next day i got rid of all those symbols, made new book covers and so did my brother. another story: once we were travelling through the south, mississippi or alabama or somewhere, and i had to go to the bathroom. my mom took me to a gas station and we went to use one but i walked toward the "colored" bathroom. she said no not that one bill, and i asked why not, whats that mean "colored". she shussed me because there were people standing around but when we got back to the car i asked again what that was about. she and my dad looked at each other and just said, bill, its not good to ask questions like that here in public because there are very ignorant people here who will cause us trouble for that and we need to get out of here now. and thats how it struck me ever since: confederate flags equate to ignorance, and a willingness to resort to violence to enforce that ignorance. at any rate i do believe on some level it is about heritage but i also believe that is a thinly veiled smokescreen for what some people really do believe, just as mark outlined above, a barely concealed wish to go back to a racist society where violence was what was expected if you even questioned the symbol and a whole race had to live in fear just because of the color of their skin. i doubt there are many people of color today who would be able to hold the same balance in their outlook as the gentleman (and he was a gentleman) i referred to above, it just remains too powerful a symbol of oppression to most of them. and thats not PC, thats just straight talk.

when you see a confederate flag out here, generally on a pickup truck with a rifle rack, it typically means the owner of the truck is only maybe slightly to the left of a nazi, politically speaking, and most probably a good bit to the right of rush limbaugh or even dick(head) cheney. racist skinhead loser meth addicts typically. it is a sign of ignorance, not heritage. those people are to be pitied. if there ever was such a thing as white supremecy, those who talk the most about it are exactly the ones least able to use their own lives as proof of any such thing. it is essentially the same thing to me as an aryan brotherhood tattoo, the sign of a loser, only just a bit more socially acceptable because they typically bring up this "heritage" smokescreen, but then so does the KKK. ps: this belongs in rants if you ask me.

keep an eye out on ebay, theres a guy selling hemi head conversions and complete motors there pretty regularly.

i am kind of surprised to hear about the long drying time for tamiya clear; ive polished out the clear after only one day of air drying with no problem. of course that was in california but during the winter, wet and relatively cold (like 45 f outside and it drying inside at 68f or so).

its tamiya dude! im totally addicted to tamiya paint in particular and anything they make in general. tried their putty? great stuff. masking tape? ditto. the problem is my LHS is not getting their stock replenished. i also heard one of the excuses why was they were changing manufacturers. thats rarely a good sign but for now they got the stuff!

yep ditto on the brush on stuff, works great and protects the decal even when its applied. one thing though, you pretty much have to cut out the decal before soaking it, or at least cut around it with your xacto, which you probably do anyhow. it does build up some depth that has to be cut through.

you might try using tamiya paints or the new testors lacquers. they dry fast and the nozzles are great, spray very little paint compared to what i remember of model master enamels (dont know about the HOK, never used it). the nozzles in MM paints (pre-lacquer anyway) were pretty crappy and seemed to clog easily even if you did clear them by turning upside down and shooting some paint through them. i could usually only get 1 or if lucky 2 coats out of them before the nozzle started spitting paint. and they dump out way too much paint, the tamiya ones are almost like airbrush in terms of how much paint comes out, much more controllable than the MMs but the warm water thing really helps a lot. so does getting a food dehydrator and using it to dry your paint. that should take care of your fogging problem and it will make your paint dry real quick, ready to polish.

another sweet car and another sweet kit! i built the race version a number of years ago and it goes together like a dream! mine is more or less the same color, testors anthracite gray i believe it was. great concept on the series of cars too! have you built the revell germany XK-SS? a bit more challenging but a great kit too.

that is so funny about the boxart...i never even noticed that before you pointed it out! so you live right down the road from SEF? that must be great...do they have a retail store there? i might be in london in march and if so maybe i will try to make it there, though im not that familiar with the geography there so it may well be too far. if so i would love to meet up with you and see some models! i dont imagine you do slot cars too? ive got an invite to visit a major scalextric club in london and try out their club track!

oh, on the rostars, it seems to me someone did or does offer those probably in resin. i cant remember if it was rep and min of maryland, or this company called southeast finecast over in england or if it was some other aftermarket supplier. or maybe it was that scalekraft guy over in south africa. i know ive seen them somewhere though...

heres a couple shots of the rally car i built. i went to considerable pains to lower it properly (that is, realistically underneath) though of course if there was a car that should sit high, it would be the rally version but im just a sucker for low cars: here is the box for the club racer version, it seems to share some special parts with the rally kit, but not all. ive seen this available recently (a year ago or so) but ive not seen the rally version since i bought it originally. note the ultra cool headlamp covers! and finally, not to steer too far from MGs and of course your nice one that started the thread, but here is a car i want to build soon! jay leno evidently has one of these and it was featured on some speedvision program i glimpsed the other night...i did not get a chance to record it though. this is one of my favorite period japanese sports cars ever! anyone ever built this?

man the weather in cali sucks big time. its nearly 40 at night and during the day it barely breaks 70!!! actually im kidding, it does get cold here but not like up in montana where i have a cabin. i just talked to some friends there (cooke city) and there is 500 inches of snow (no joke) and its 20 below. try painting in that! even the bison and moose are looking cold! but i love the ###### weather (defined to me as raining though i like hiking in the rain) because i can feel justified staying indoors and working on models. its amazing what you can get done!

ive built this one once, but it was long ago and i didnt do anything special, didnt even paint it, and it still is together and looking decent though now i wish i had done some more detailing, especially seeing that one from harry! i think youve posted it before and i was ga ga over it then too. man that engine compartment looks real! except theres no gas leaking from the SUs and no oil seepage either! q: why do brits drink warm beer? a: because lucas makes their refrigerators! q: why did the brits give up on making computers? a: because they couldnt figure out how to make them leak oil!

MX5 aka "Rotus"...im currently finishing up a copy of my 1:1 91 BRG Rotus. it actually replaced a 54 MGTF i had had since i was a kid...bought it in 65 with the help of my parents. ive built a couple of these aoshima MGBs, one the rally version that turned out super nice and one a conversion to an All American Models MGB-GT that ive posted photos of here somewhere a long time ago. those kits are nice...i wish i could find another of the rally kits with the nice rally lights etc.

steve i always love your work, its so neat and clean and you make it look easy! i know from experience how hard it is to make it look easy! great build and i hope to see it up close at NNL in march!

man that is killer, i love it. wish i had one parked next to my big tub. i just havent got the patience im afraid.

i posted some pics of this some time ago in some forum, and its just now done. commissioned jairus to do the graphics from some photos of the real thing that i gave him and man did he outdo himself. i brought the just-painted car to my model car meeting and no one could believe it (the graphics i mean, predicably they thought the car itself was pretty goofy). this is a somewhat loose replica of a "mobile record shack" owned by one charlie ace, a record producer and soul singer who lived in kingston jamaica. he would drive this through the streets, selling his records (many on his own label "swing a ling records" hence the name of the vehicle) He would set up in public squares (such as north parade, a place i once took some photos of the vehicle in the late 70s) and blast his music, and attracting a crowd, sell his records out the back of the van. the actual photos i used to model the car were not my own; a much better photographer named adrian boot published a number of photos of the vehicle that have been published in books, used as record covers, flyer art etc for decades now. the replica is "loose" because the vehicle changed over the years it was used, as evidenced by photos showing new body damage, a newly built and painted front bumper, different graphics, hubcaps going missing etc and we worked from different era's photos for different angles. there were some details too small to reproduce and also my build didnt allow the space to do a few others, but overall this turned out very nicely. this particular model began as a die-cast morris panel van. i tore it apart and cut the panel section away from the fenders, raised the panel part up on stakes, and then built wood panels to enclose the newly created space. just like the real one was done i would imagine, in some jamaican backstreet body shop. after gluing that whole thing together and shooting it semi gloss black to make hand painting the graphics easier (i figured anyway), it got sent off to the artist to do his thing and work his magic on. when it returned i put back together the various parts, detailing a bit as i went along, and replaced the toylike wide small wheels and tires with some proper lotus ones (tamiya lotus seven by the way), i whipped up the quick stand. i plan on building a jamaican street scene base for it one of these days and probably a figure of mr. ace. please excuse the poor photos, i really really need to build a light box soon...and now one of my desk lamps is kaput so its very unbalanced lighting. first an overall look at the base and vehicle: a bit closer look: closer still: heres a closer look at the photo we more or less used as reference:

wow that looks really great! ive never bought this kit because i sort of remembered as a kid not being impressed with it. i think it was that by the time it came out it was definately yesterdays design. and somehow i didnt think details looked all that good on it. but man you sure seemed to have solved that! where did you get the fuel tank? is that part of the kit? it looks like spun aluminum so if its plastic you really did a great job on it! i am going to follow this and start looking for a discounted kit! maybe even two, one to build and one to steal from!

finished it up over the weekend, head over to under glass to see the pics! http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9484

well here it is, first some shell-on shots. note that the crack between body halves could be minimized by some strategically placed blue-tac and probably eliminated with some super glue, but i dont want to hide the kart and for these pics i didnt bother... and some detail shots of the kart inside: looks pretty good if i do say so myself!

only three japanese words you really need to know: sapporo asahi bathroom oh maybe wasabi too

ahem yes andy but you see there is a large difference between hacking away on some message board and writing for publication where the results are in print for ever and ever. or even just forever. gregg i replied to your message, i would be happy to assist any way i can.

personally i think the pearl should go over the color, and then followed by regular clear coat. dont sand or polish the pearl, it will dull its luster and kill the pearl effect, make it look like really nasty coarse metallic. the clear over the clear pearl will seal the pearl and give you a neutral coat to polish on. ive only used tamiyas pearl once so i dont recall exactly but i do believe the pearl clear leaves a bit of a mottled finish as the pearl specks stick out above the surface so if you want a smooth paint job (which im sure you do) you will want to build up the plain clear to get the surface smooth by polishing. hope that helps and hope that turns out to be what youre after.

not to put too fine a point on it, but maybe instead of this pidgin business maybe you should concentrate on clearing up the flagrant misuse and out-of-context use of words (english words) in the magazine. believe me it is out of control. if you would like a context checker, send the manuscripts to me to review...i guarantee at least two misused words per page. it really is amazing...but i give you major points for consistency if nothing else. spell checkers have pretty much eliminated the true typo but not the context inaccuracies of just plain using the wrong word in a sentence. clarity can be king you know...in vision as well as thought. the devil is in the details and if we as modellers dont care about details, well, ... maybe this belongs in rants and raves so if so feel free...

one more thing, someone mentioned corvair motor (not such a realistic idea if you ask me) but i was looking through the rep and min of maryland catalogue and a better thought crossed my mind: how about twin triumph 650 motors from the resin motorcycle kit? now THAT would haul a$$