Pete J.

One of the great things about this forum is that there is something for everyone. If it's not your cup of tea, no one is required to join in or participate. So why choose to rain on somebody else's parade. I considered my question carefully when I wrote it, looking for different information from what I saw on the other thread. To those who are participating in the original intent, thank you for your constructive comments.

Ok, there is another thread going that people talk about how much they would spend to buy a kit. It has gone on for a while and we have a very wide range of answers from free to hundreds, even thousands of dollars. My question is this. Do you have a maximum that you personally would spend on a kit, aftermarket stuff, and everything else to build a model the way you want. This is not "How much would you spend to build a contest winning kit?" That is a whole new thread. You can include everything but the time you would spend. Whether that is rare kits, tools, special paint, decals, aftermarket parts, raw materials, chrome plating or what ever. Just curious.

Ok, I think I have figured this one out and it may be a result of my MacAfee. I have noticed that there are some "pop ups" that appear between posts. These scroll through different advertisers. I think what is happening is that occasionally the Security software doesn't like one of the adds. If I scroll up from where I am, I will see that ad blanked out with red crosshatching. In the upper right corner is a icon that I have not yet identified but if I click on it, it asks if I want to turn it off. If I do so, then it lets me scroll back to the prior page. It would be a workaround.

A couple of my favorites:

Ah yes, real. The three small give aways were the bumper mounts. They are very small and I have never seen a model with them. Yes, I know there are actually 4 but I couldn't see the fourth.

I think it has to do with the advertising that is showing up at the bottom of some posts. Sometimes when I can't go back, I see the ads being blanked out in red cross hatching. They also seem to be changing each time I hit the back button.

Glad to see you sharing your work techniques with us. These can be very helpful. If I may, I would like to make some suggestions. One issue that I had with the video is that most of what you did is hard to see. It appears that you set you camera up and centered the frame on the model sitting on the bench. As soon as you picked it up to work on it, the model moved mostly off screen up and to the left. I really had to guess at what was going on. It would be helpful if you could keep your subject centered in the frame. Here is a camera support I use to do demonstrations. I have my camera set up an the table with this fixture. Because it is facing down I can look through the view finder and mark out the frame on the table with masking tape. This helps me keep my work in view. At demonstrations, I am using the camera to project the image onto an overhead screen so keeping it in frame really lets the whole room see what I am doing. My second comment is on lighting. I noticed that when you were doing your paint work, everything seemed to be in the shadow of your hand and I could not actually see the work. If you relocate some lighting to eliminate the shadows that would be helpful. Also if you put a defuser over the light it would soften the shadows a bit. I am not trying to be critical, just help make your future videos a little bit easier for the rest of us to see what you are doing. Thanks again for sharing.

I have just recently been having an issue with the operation of the board. I can not back up to the previous page. There seems to be some interaction with advertising that is appearing at the bottom of some posts. These are those boxes that scroll through multiple advertisers. When I hit the back button it just continually scrolls and won't let me go back to the previous page. I have to exit the form and come back in to get back to the last page. This is particularly annoying when I want to go back to unread posts after viewing a topic and want to see the rest of the unread posts.

I grew up on the farm and we had a lot of hand cranked, magneto engines on the place. We had a 32 ford truck(a real truck with a large bed and hydraulic lift)with a flathead. I remember hand cranking that more than once when the starter solenoid failed and Dad couldn't get a replacement. We also had an old John Deere that you had an exposed flywheel that you had to spin by hand to start. Amazing when you look at todays world. All that equipment was a hazard to start and run but people lived with it an with the proper respect very few got hurt.

Paint also changes slightly from batch to batch. With the exception of the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels the military really doesn't care that much about the match of the paint. Between sun fading, batch differences, lighting differences(AKA scale effect), and paint aging anything with paint on it is going to have a variation. Heck, you can even find paint variation on different panels on a brand new car.

Harry- Another nice pick. Adventador! There are three little things on this that I think give it away as real and they are small! Or, maybe it is just my eyes getting old!

Oh, I get it! Typical Wal-Mart sales strategy. They only want to take business away from another store and drive the little guy out. They try to cut the pie so thin that the specialty store can't survive. Could care less about the local population. That is why I have never set foot in a Wal-Mart and never will!

Ditto, I wouldn't walk into a Wal-Mart for anything if my life depended on it. I can't think of a single thing good to say about them.

I am so sorry you can't un see something! Why oh why would you do that?!?

The Asante's have to be the ultimate in showing off. Those puppies are just plain ugly. Five straight spokes with jewelry. For that kind of money I would expect a design that would wow me!

At the Yellow Submarine Hobby shop in Tokyo in 2003. There were made by Hasegawa as Formula 1 rain tires in 1:20 scale. They were on close out for 200 yen a set. Mark Jones and I bought all they had. Probably a great story, but not much help if you wanted a set.

Sorry about that! I just hope that you enjoy which ever one you get.

Ultimately it comes down to this. It is not the machine, for just like magic, the magic is in the magician, not in the wand. One other thought that I tell my wife when I get a new tool. I could build a house with a Swiss Army knife, but why would I want to?

Actually this price is about the same as the LFA in yen. 4800 vs 5000. The good price has more to do with the exchange rate that anything else. I just hope this rate holds. Makes Japanese goods very desirable.

I do have a Sherline and that is my problem. The Factory is about 10 minutes way in Vista California. It I need inspiration I go the Sherline (AKA Joe Martin Craftsmanship) Museum about 4 block away from the factory. http://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com

Do you remember the all time great last line from the sketch? "I want you to take this car, it is all paid for, and I want you to give it to George Wallace!"

Done on a Sherline- The square parts were milled. The uprights and jigs were done on the lathe 1:12 scale fire bottles Head light and gas tank rims

Over the years, I have frequently heard, "I got the real paint from the dealer and the color just looks wrong." I think that this is a great example of why. I have done aircraft and had a source for the real deal paint(B-52 camo from the paint shop when they were painting one.) and it always looked way to dark. This is why.

I am glad that you took the time to read my ramblings. Having gone from absolutely no clue what I was doing to now fabricating and entire model with a lathe and mill has taught me a lot. I am sure that you will find the same and the use of your lathe will increase with your skill. Frankly, either machine would work but I see some inherent issues with the Taig that may over time be frustrating. You said you want to do wheels, emergency beacon bases and light bases. The major issue I ran into was tool chatter and melting plastic when I turned it. Both of these are easily controlled with the variable speed on the Sherline. Being able to adjust the speed while the lathe is in operation is very handy. Doing what you are doing, if you run into a speed issue, having to stop and change the belt could easily get very frustrating. As to the power feed, I would forgo that and spend the money on other items. I have a friend who is a very skilled craftsman and he made a power feed for his Sherline with a variable speed drill from parts he had in the garage. This could save you some money by dual purposing a tool that you already have. The other thing I found interesting was that the feed on the bed on the Taig was .060 per turn. That seems a little weird to me. The Sherline is .050. To me this suggests less mental gymnastics when running the machine. Also, the Sherline as zero resettable hand wheels, which cuts down the gymnastics even further. The less things you have to consider, the better. I am considering getting a DRO for the lathe and mill just to help with that. As I said, I am sure that you would be happy with either, but I think on a long term basis the Sherline gives you more options. Personal opinion- I have never been unhappy by having too good of a tool. I have been very unhappy with having spent money on an inferior tool.

I agree. Two big Phillips head screws in the side of the body are really not the way to go. I redrilled the holes to fit plastic rod. I used a short piece glued into the body and filled the holes on the outside of the body and then just press fit the body to the chassis. This came in very handy later on when I had to repair some damage at a contest. The body popped off very easily giving me good access.