Pete J.

I bought one also that I need to get on with! I had a 1972 in lime yellow. Scale Motor Finishes got me the paint. I am going to build my with the twin SU carbs. I had a yellow brown interior. Loved that car. Wish I still had it.

I will take it a step further. When I was in school, engineering students spent two semesters in the university machine shop leaning how to use real tools to build stuff. Once CAD and CAM became part of the curriculum, engineering schools lost interest in manual machines. At that point the complaints about engineers designing stuff that couldn't be built went way up! Everyone who designs stuff should be required to spend time actually building stuff with manual tools. It changes ones perspective.

Ok, I've been at the bench again after some frustrating time off for health issues. Got these done for our local club auction(all proceeds to the club). The rims are machined on my Sherline mill and lathe. They are each made of three pieces of 7075 aluminum. The lugs are machined by RB motion. The tires are parts from the scrap box. The Goodyears were painted on with a stencil that I bought many years ago in Japan. The axles were machined to the type that Tamiya uses. It feels good to be back at the bench.

Not going to pm 'cause I cheated. Google lens is wonderful. I thought I had seen this little abomination. I lived nearby the "Factory". It was so ugly I choose to forget about it!

That looks like all the horrible styling cues for the 70's all crammed onto one small ugly car!

Glad I am not the only one who has hit a rough patch. I am 74 and had open heart surgery almost a year ago. Implanted a battery operated pump to assist my failing heart. Now I wear 4 lbs. of batteries and controller to keep me going. When I first got out of the hospital after 4 week, I had very shaky hands from the meds. Over the last year, I was weaned off most of the drugs and my hands became much steadier. My children kept me going buy buying me complex Lego kits to build. That scratched the modeling itch a bit. My hands are now good enough that I have gotten back out to my workbench. I am currently working on finishing several projects I started years ago and just never got back to. I have promised myself that I won't start a new kit till the started ones are on the shelf. I hope I have many more years of building left in me. Of course, I now look at my stash and realize that I need to downsize it. I have put that off long enough. Time to sell some kits.

I switched over to GoogleFi(I have google phones) about a year ago. So far I am pleased with the service and my bill is exactly half of what I was paying Verizion!

This is a photo of the work I have done over the last 5 days on U Gears Aeroclock. Don't let anyone tell you this is an easy build. No glue, but a ton of sanding(each tooth on each gear needs touching up). Complicated piece of work!

.

pm'd

Been using ALSA for a long time now. Their latest iteration is Easy Chrome. I have found that for it to work right, you must use there clear base coat. It seems that some chemical reaction occurs between the base coat and the chrome. When done right. it is extremely durable. You don't need the top coat unless you are going to try to bury decals. Per ounce cost is not really that expensive. 6 oz. will give you a lot of coverage!

Now that it is done, I can see the family resemblance to to Ace/Cobra.

Love your work. Beautiful finish. Always preferred the Spyder. Hiding all that great interior work just seemed wrong to me.

I haven't seen this thread in a while. Amazing as always! Just stunned by your work!

I agree with you. One other thing that I discovered several years ago is that the rims are slightly conical. I discovered this when I chucked one up in my lathe to trim the lip. That slight cone shape can make the tires not fit flat on the ground. The tires are snug enough fit to work well with the rims squared up.

Just a personal preference. I don't like paying Amazon a cut. For many years now(at least 15) I have dealt directly with the manufacture, Micro Surface. They have a very comprehensive catalogue and will sell directly to anyone. I buy their sanding sticks in packs of 50 but you can buy just a few. I just buy a lot just to reduce the shipping cost. They have a huge variety of products from cloth to sponges in abrasives down to 12000. Get what you want, not what someone packaged for you. By the way, they started out selling abrasives to polish aircraft canopies. Here's the direct link. https://micro-surface.com/

I got tired of it also, but I took a different solution. I bought 3 more pin vices when I found them on closeout at Tamiya. You would be surprised how handy it is to have an extra or two around.

Here is another piece of the puzzle. You will need some precision measuring tools like calipers and micrometers. You can buy the inexpensive stuff, but it is iffy. Starrett, Lufkin, and Sumitomo make the best tools. What I do is look on eBay for used Starrett tool. If they are broken, that is ok. Starrett tool has a "rebuilding service" to completely refurbish any of there tools. You can buy them cheap on line and send them in to Starrett and they will send you back a tool in perfect working order for a reasonable cost. That is how I collected all of my fine measuring equipment.

I will vote for the Sherline. Why? Because I live about 20 minutes from the Factory and If I need something, there is no waiting(except for the paycheck to come in). Now that I have cleared that up, I have been using a Sherline for better than 10 years love the precision I can get. The latest accessory I added was a digital read out system. That relieves the brain of some of the effort of machining, ( did turn the wheel 5 times or 6?) I have both a mill and lathe and have it setup so I can swap the head out and use it on both. That was a dollar saver for me. You can get these machines fully set up to be computer driven. Having said that, I started with a basic lathe and learned how to cut my own tools and how to do basic machining on different metals. All good skills to develop. They also offer a Hand book that will teach you all the stuff you need to know and aren't aware that you need. Great customer service as well. You can call their customer service line and talk to a machinist if you have questions or problems.

I've always found this question perplexing. The answer is so dependent on the individuals situation. You really have to be much more specific about where and how you are going to use it. Also other uses you may have for it. Example. I have a 10 gallon craftsman professional pancake compressor that puts out 150 psi. I also have a single car garage that is my hobby space and I have plumbed it in under the length of my bench(10' long) so I can run different tools. It is relatively loud. You can actually talk over it but it is disruptive. However it is perfect for my needs. I can fill the tank once and paint for hours without running out of air, so it is mostly silent when I use it that way. I also have a secondary regulator with an water trap, that is very precise at low pressures. It is also perfect for my nail gun, tire filler, and blowing off saw dust. It didn't cost any more than a good airbrush compressor. So my point is you can have different answers besides a single purpose airbrush compressor.

.

Personally, I prefer to express it as a ratio "x:y" That keeps it straight in my head. By the way, these ratios convert to metric with no conversion. 1:25 is one centimeter on the model equals 25 centimeters on the one-to-one

Great idea! I never thought of that. I have a Sherline lathe and cut a jig as a guide. I tried blue and red gel pens over white with no sucess. The markers would have worked much better. By the way, I had several club member ask me to make them a jig. I will pass the magic marker idea on to them. Thanks Bill!

Ok, I know I've been away a while but I can't figure out how to send a pm anymore. Help!