Pete J.

There is a market out there for a limited number of high end models. The wealthy don't have time to spend on their models like us "regular Joe's". But they want outstanding, limited edition models. I know several builders who sell to that market and it does exist, but it is very small.

Got me a nudder one right! Wow! It was the fasteners on the head light lens that gave it away for me. They would be recessed. You can see they are glued on the surface on the passenger side. Other than that it is a great model. So what is the story on this one Harry?

Best Porsche engine ever - Tamiya Martini 935 1:12 scale. Photos speak louder than words.

I concur - The screws on the lens covers look to be in the wrong spots and on the passenger side they are definitely standing proud of the surface. Got to go model on this one.

Kit of the decade? Well that would require some criteria otherwise you wind up comparing apples to oranges. Here are a couple I would suggest. most popular best engineered most accurate most fun to build best of catagory best by a manufacture feel free to add your own.

OK, now we've opened a different can of worms. A V8 does not define a sports car - There are a ton of sports cars without V8s - ie - Porsche-flat 6, 240Z inline 6, XKE - inline 6/V12, MG Tseries - inline 4, Ferrari 250 series - V12, Austin Heley - inline 6 etc., etc. Defining a class of car is now, was, and always will be difficult. There are a lot of gray areas. As far as the Barracuda - can you imagine if the first Mustang was a fastback Falcon. Boy Ford would have sold 2 or 3 of those!

Right you are. This is a type C and the prior one was the Type D that created all the stir at Christy's a couple of years ago. I remember it because I got yelled at for giving it away(didn't know the rules) That one was real, this one is anyones guess. All though the #5 car does exist it is a replica. The original was destroyed after the war buy the Russians. Don't know if this is the replica or a model but if it is a model my hat is off to the builder. Either way it is a great example of 30's automotive art. Love it!

Harry - Haven't you done this one before??? real

WOW! Nice tool, nice result

If the clouding doesn't go all the way through, yes you can restore it but it is a lot of work. Sand it down with consecutively finer grades of sanding medium. I use Micromesh. Start with 3600 grit and take it all the way down to 12000. That would be -3600, 6000,8000,12000. Once you have done that there should be some fine scratches left. Get a fine polishing compound(I use Tamiya) and polish it out until you get a gloss. There will still be some very light scratches left, but they should be very fine. Now get some future floor wax(a misnomer it is actually a clear acrylic paint) and cut it 50% with 91% isopropel alcohol. Pour it over the part and set it in a dust free environment to dry. The Future may take a couple of times to get the hang of it, but if you mess it up, soaking the part in the 91% IPA will get the coating off in a matter of minutes. Good luck.

Maybe not. The engine would not work very well at all. Huge amount of turbo lag, infact I think the word was invented for this car, and when the turbo came on boost it came like a freight train and was almost uncontrolable. You really didn't want to hit boost in a corner with this beast. Be very tough to control on a drifting course.

Great look on one of my favorite cars. Don't blame you for leaving off the side stripes they are an absolute bear to get right!

Ah, the brass era cars. I love 'em! A lot about this says real to me. I betting that this was taken in Deerfield Village. Kind of has that flavor to it. Real!

I did a build up and artical on the Enzo several years ago. I encountered a number of issues with the build because of the tight tolerances on the kit. The artical is still on Tamiyas web site and you may find it helpfull in avoiding a couple of issues that are not really apparent until you get to the finishing stages of the build. http://www.tamiyausa.com/articles/feature.php?article-id=30 Good luck!

That is true, but I use Weldon 3 & 4 and if you leave the cap off, about half of it goes away in about 4 hours. Got to keep the stuff capped.

Drew - Absolutely correct - It has been a while since I had to speak to DOF - Less light(passing through the lens due to smaller opening) = longer exposure = greater DOF. I know how I do it, I just don't always know the exact termenology as to why. By the way - we do miss you at the SMCC meetings! Any chance you might be joining us some time for a meeting?

Harry - That would be the window latch for the sliding window in the door of the Tamiya Porsche 935 - 1:12 scale. It is 9 pieces of photo etched, soldered togeather with silver solder. The parts are from the SMS superdetail set.

I agree. Shoot the best possible quality and then edit the photo to a managable size. This photo was taken about a foot way from the subject and then editied in photo shop. The orginal file was TIFF format which is very large. When I edited it, I first cropped it. The penny had a border about a 1/2" around all sides. I then reduced the size of the photo by 50% to keep it from being too huge. The keep the band width lower I then converted it to JPEG. This went from umpteen million MP down to a managable size without giving up quality. As I said, learning to use your tools is not hard and only takes a bit of basic understanding of the essentials of photography. A little knowledge and even a simple camera can go a long way. Good luck!

Wayne - Touch and Flow applicator - Micro mark - http://www.micromark.com/TOUCH-N-FLOW-APPLICATOR,7841.html Been using them for years. Only needed 2 - I messed one up by pushing the needle into the plastic an clogging it. They work great. For super glue I use a fine piece of wire held by a hemostat. I put a drop on a piece of scrap plastic and dip the wire in to get as much or little as I want.

Here is a quick brake down of things to look for in no particular order - 1. Measurable White balance. You shoot models under a variety of light conditions. Having a camera that can measure and set the white balance is important to getting accurate colors. You set a sheet of white paper down and let the camera measure it and that becomes the standard for that shoot. 2. Telephoto lens. Getting really close to a piece causes distortion around the edges and can have an problems with the focus. I shoot a lot of my models from several feet away and then zoom in. The image is much less distorted and looks more like a real car. 3. Ability to shoot long exposures - AKA adjustable aperture - The longer the exposure the greater the depth of field - Depth of field refers to how much of a photo is in focus from front to back. Short depth of field will mean the front of the model is in focus but the back is blurry. 4. Good quality optics- The lenses make all the difference in the world. I am still shooting with an old 2 mega pixel camera and because it has excellent optics, my photos are as good if not better than some of the new 8 mp cameras. The image must be sharp and clear or a billion mega pixels will be worthless. Top quality optics are either from a known supplier(Carl Zeiss) or a camera maker known for their optics(Nikon, Cannon, Minolta, Olympus) Better to spend money on optics than pixels. 5. Tripod mountable - Just makes life easier especially if you are shooting long exposures 6. Remote shutter release - See #5 Same issue 7. Macro focus - It is important to define what the manufacture means by macros focus - It is a nebulous term that implies focus close up. In some cases the builder is referring to feet and in other cases fractions of an inch. It doesn't mean the same thing across the board. You need to fine out what the focal length is. My camera will focus down to 3/4" but I rarely use it. The shadow of the camera makes shooting anything that close a problem, but you get the idea. 8. The photographer - Cameras are a tool. A pocket knife in the hands of a skilled craftsman is a wondrous tool to behold. A Bridgeport mill in the hands of a beginner is a tragedy waiting to happen. Spend a little time, and it won't take much, to learn the basic tools of photography and all these things will make sense and you can get great photos from most cameras, but a high end SLR without basic knowledge will just frustrate the *#)) out of you. Good luck

Stupid thing that drive me up the wall: Red Plastic - Why would you build something out of a plastic that is pretty much guaranteed to bleed through no matter how much sealer/primer you slap on it. Metallic plastic is about the same - Please, white or black only!!! Seams are bad, but why in the @#%% would you put one across a clear piece like a windscreen or canopy????? Ejector pin marks that are concave rather than convex. I can sand the extra material off. Filling the #$%% things and then trying to get a smooth finish is really a head ache. Even worse is concave ejector pin marks on clear plastic parts. Tampo printing on tires and other parts: For #%$@% sake it's a kit! I want to put it were it should be. Don't help me in a way that I can't fix. Just give me a decal or dry transfer. Decals that are 6 inches long and 1/16" wide. They are going to break or be impossible to put on straight. I don't know anyone who can do these right.

It was a very interesting episode! I was aware of the reason for dimples on golf balls but never thought of there being a effect that would scale up. I was very pleased to see the mythbusteres covered the bases to make a relatively rigorous scientific test. They made 5 runs in each car. The weight of the car was the same each time so variation in ride height would not occur. They eliminated the effects of the weight by measuring at a constant speed(it takes almost no additional energy to keep an object going at the same speed regardless of relatively small percentage variations in weight). They scaled the dimples up to car size. The only thing that they didn't mention was temperature and wind, but still the outcome was significant. I am curious to know if smaller dimples would have a similar effect or if they needed to be at scale. I have an engineer friend of mine who I am going to ask to explain to me why this worked. Are dimpled cars in our future?

WRC - Far and above other forms of racing because it includes all of the. Mud bogging, off road racing, asphalt, snow, dirt, jumping you name it. Every week end is another miniature Paris Dakar. These guys have a to have a pair that needs a semi just to get to the track I have never been so happy as the day I saw it was coming back in HD. DVR is set to record it permanently. I have been wanting to do a diorama of it for a long time. Now it is the next project. Glad it is back in the USA.

I'm very surprised that my all time favorite movie about fast cars was only mentioned very late in this discussion and then only once in passing. John Frankenhiemers "Grand Prix" is generally acknowledged as the greatest movie ever made about racing. I was lucky enough to see it in it's original format-Cinerama. I became addicted to F 1 racing after seeing that. I was just watching it again on DVD(I hope they do it in BluRay). The art of showing cars moving at speed was invented by Frankenhiemer in that movie. The expertise in editing the race scenes is beyond anything I have ever seen. The use of the 1966 Belgium Grand Prix is a great historical document. The drivers meeting has all the greats of the day. Household names from the era - Stewart, Hill(Phil and Graham), Mass, Ginther, McLaren, Moss, and just about any one else that was in F1 at the time. I was about 17 or 18 at the time and it left an indelible impression on me that lives to this day. If you have not seen the movie - get the DVD, a big screen, and a massive home theater system, crank up the volume and be prepared to be blow away. For those to young to remember, the camera car used in this film was a Mk I GT40 driven by Phil Hill. Can you imagine one of todays prima dona's doing that?

I bought a Shurline about a year and a half ago and have had great success with it. There are a lot of accessories that make it a great choice. I have used the ball end jig for a lot of pieces like fire bottles. I have recently taken the time to learn about gravers and made a set of my own. They are great for subtle detail like intake trumpets. All of this stuff is covered in "Table top Machining". I agree that it is great for reference. It is not hard to get a copy. Just order it from Sherline. Joe is the founder and president of the company. You might go to the Sherline Forum for a bit more info. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sherlin...group&slk=1 There are a some great machinists with advise there and a whole lot of amateurs like me, with a whole lot of questions. Good luck with the choice.