jbwelda

Who are the "true hot rodders"? Certainly not those oldsters driving their billet-laden candy tangerine flake baby on Sundays. So who does that leave? jb

well there you go and also revell's tweedy pie, 1 or 2, has a real nice one as do a lot of Revell kits from that era jb

yes the fujimi kit contains 4 or more of the open wheels and at least two of the four bolt closed wheel for disk brake application on the C jb

what are the characteristics you are looking for to distinguish a "Super Beetle"? Curved windshield? certain boxy kinda bumpers? rear deck shape? not sure what exactly defines them though I know there are certain things. heres the rally version I have, has a bunch of extra parts though body etc is probably the same as the Aoshima one you have. this one includes metal parts for the motorize version junk toy. a look at the box full of parts...none particularly spectacular

totally killer mill there! this is going to end up excellent! jb

fujimi enthusiasts series Porsche 356 B/C has spectacular wheels that may well be appropriate or close enough. jb

build a motor as a standalone project, pick one you may want to use in a build someday and just build that. have fun and detail it and make a little engine stand to display it on. this sort of mini project always really gets me interested again. jb

the funny thing is, this height problem seems to be universal, not just 50s USA model kits, but pretty much any Japanese kit of contemporary or classic subject matter, all ride too high for my eye, though I do prefer to have lower-than-stock ride height myself. and this takes into account aspect ratios etc or sidewall height differences. its really kind of a pain especially if you care to retain some realism underneath...sometimes its easy and sometimes not so easy to achieve. jb

eh...not gonna use that roof rack, the top part of it sits too high so instead of further wrecking it I think it will just go back into the donor kit. jb

I love messing around...so I thought I might see how this will look when its all put together: and heres a final one showing some of the detail in the dragster frame: everything is posed, and theres more to the trailer, but this was nice to see how things fit together. the front tires and wheels wont be used, ive got the Reps and Mins photoetch motorcycle wheels for those (which are a project all in themselves) and I may use a narrower axle as it appears I could have done with widening the trailer another couple mm or so. I also got some stuff for the rack (which I think I will cut down another eighth inch or so still and make some feet for) and a little resin wagon for a pit wagon. basically I am in the process of trying to cover for the fact that this motor I have here has two injectors on top and the real Mooneyes had one with four... thanks again! jb

couple of updates to report, trailer is well underway, moon disks on big wide whitewall tires, single axle, widened from the original issue like I might have already mentioned. most of the warpage is gone but still is a little bit wavy on the actual driveramps. hopefully the rail will sit with all four on the floor. I also flipped the front V part to make the hitch lower, and bought a Reese style hitch from Scenes Unlimited for the Nissan tow vehicle. This hitch is super super nice...its soaking in some bleech white or I would take a picture, but it is very nicely detailed and is going to look great hooked to the trailer and sitting up underneath the back of the Cube. I also dolled up some jerry cans from the spares box and a fire extinguisher, the jerry cans will sit over the sink holes you see forward of the trailer fenders. and speaking of the Cube, there was a paint malfunction happening on the roof, kind of hard to see but once you see it, that sort of thing, so I have been thinking of what I could do up there to obscure or cover it up. big huge mooneyes decal? Ehhh... but then I thought of maybe a roof rack or one of those enclosed storage compartments that sit on the roof. just so happens I remember I have one of them somewhere in some Japanese kit, if I recall it came with an enclosed storage compartment, a roof rack, and a Trek mountain bike. so I started digging around and couldn't find it! still has to be around here somewhere but meanwhile I found an old Imai Rally VW Beetle that I had picked up somewhere and lo and behold what was there but a serviceable, nicely detailed, two piece roof rack. closer examination revealed that it sat just a bit high, but fit the roof of the Cube perfectly whether place lengthwise or widthwise. It really did sit very high though so I grabbed some thin tape and laid it on each leg so I would cut at least somewhere in the area of level, took a stiff drink, and cut away. in my usual enthusiasm I took photos of the rack on roof sitting way up too high, but failed to follow up with a photo of the trimmed rack in place to see the difference but I did manage to take a pic on my table. I have it sitting with the floor bars sitting side to side but it looks much better with them front to back, and I think that's how I will do it. thanks again for watching! jb

heres a quick update: foiled the body, installed the glass (thanks to modelmartin for the front and rear windscreens!), and trial fitted the body to chassis. were a few glitches but its looking pretty good now...next is putting the body trim on, grille, door handles, etc and then hopefully will be calling it done (probably months truth be told). also fabbing up some taillights, I don't really think I will go with the prototypical woolsley (didn't you say it was mike?)...I think instead I will make up some circular ones from polished aluminum tubing and make some resin red lenses. nothing too complicated but will look ok on that big flat rear panel back there, along with a two-pipe exhaust system with appropriately over-sized tubing! color doesn't really look like these photos much, the second one is much closer to real shade, but darker and deeper...Tamiya mica red over silver, with clear red overcoat. thanks for looking! jb

I would not, unfortunately, be interested personally in those parts, just because the subject matter doesn't do much for me beyond curiosity's sake, but I would encourage you to follow up on this and do indeed find someone to cast them for you. its kind of a stroke of genius really, and could possibly sell really well, especially in Asia. I think I might consider, if I were doing it, one kit to do all the cars, parts not available separately. that would encourage those who had wanted to build one car to then go out and buy further kits to convert to the "mad police" (not something I typically advocate and hopefully the fujimi "mad police" won't get too upset about it!) format. on the other hand, separate kits for separate cars might be better, considering they all have different wheels. is the chassis of these also different from the base models? did you show a pic of an armored undercarriage? would that be included in your planned resin kit? if so that's a pretty major chunk of resin so the "all in one" thing above definitely wouldn't work... jb

the problem with the pistons I think is that they are both connected to the same lobe of the crankshaft! pharaoh, if you still need those hilborn injectors I might have a spare set, send me a PM and lets talk jb

I really love seeing what is in the box with kits like this with all the wild box art and stuff. this one has some pretty kool armaments that could be used in dioramas, like that sawed off shotgun. thanks for showing them off, I had never seen any of this series and they are definitely different! jb

now that it is polished out, give it a coat of Future and it will totally disappear. in fact in some cases you don't even really need all that much polishing, the Future will go a long way toward making glue on a windshield disappear. now the thing is, what to use to attach the windshield. again I would recommend Future around the edge of the windshield after lightly taping it in place in strategic places. or a drop of clear epoxy in each corner. or even just some white (Elmers) glue if you don't think it will get stressed much. superglue near a windshield give me the willies, just hearing about it is bad enough. jb

didn't notice until right now looking at that pic of the uncertain t: still has the little plastic nubs that should have been trimmed off on each injector stack. duh. jb

shipment from hobby link japan came in, G Reddy Rocket Bunny Toyota 86 (et al), 1/18 scale Tamiya Subaru R-2 SS and some super wide slicks on 15" deep recess old skool wheels. unfortunately fujimi who makes the wheels no longer includes all the disc brake parts but the tires are nice soft and smooth. anyone else notice how MASSIVE this rocket bunny Toyota box is? at least a third bigger than the 1/18 scale Tamiya box! oh yeah and a glue bomb-y but unpainted uncertain t missing a couple of parts, ebay find and not bad once I cleaned it up a bit...got the spare parts already and will just put them on and display as is:

you should do that with NNL Wests of the past! great idea and some sweet cars there! jb

man, I have to hand it to you, you did a very very good job on that hard to build model, and in that limited time frame, that's pretty incredible. decals don't even look bad and I know what you mean about solvaset not working on them but it came out looking very nice. jb

>A few years ago I was in a large hobby shop and the employer behind the counter was >re-shrink wrapping kits between customers. I never went back actually my ex-LHS owner used to do that too, but it was because he would let you open up kits and look inside. if you didn't like it, and I never felt any pressure to say I did if I didn't, he would reshrink it and put it back on the shelf. no harm done, and he never claimed he didn't do it but he probably never was asked either. jb

clean build and nice stance! jb

>If the worst thing in your life is mailing a model kit back, and your time is too precious to even do that, pray to god you don't get a real >problem in your life. heres the thing: you pay good money for a product and find that product is defective...and then you are asked to spend more good money, not to mention your time, to actually get what you paid for to begin with. any way you slice it, that's not right. so there could be a very "real problem" here that you are ignoring in making comments like this. now as it turns out everything is kool and there was no need to follow through with mailing back the original specimen, but his "precious" time has already been wasted by the mere suggestion that he send the kit back on his own dime not to mention time. so I think your comments are kind of misplaced in and other similar instances. corporations should be expected to make good on their promises and products even if it does mean someone can occasionally "scam" something from them. that's the cost of doing business. you are excusing them from that obligations or at least implying that in your comments. I do not mean to aim this at Moebius in particular but in this day and age to ask someone to return a defective product for replacement seems ridiculous. your customer could easily spend as much on the shipping as they did on the product to begin with. if you want the model back so bad for R&D or something then you offer to pay for it being sent back (generally companies will send you packing box prepaid to send back to them so you dont have to stand in line at the PO, you can just drop it in a mailbox) and you reward the customer for their time somehow...with coupons for future purchases for example. jb

the "Slingster" is a perfect example of this exact phenomena jb

that's, to me anyway, defeating the advantage of using an airbrush: being able to lay down thin light coats and building them to just the opacity you want. dumping a bunch of paint on and then sanding smooth is pretty much the agenda for buzzcans. but I do understand what you are saying that it may well be the reason because all that paint had to go somewhere! jb