Pete J.

Definitely like that version of the door latch. Good to see you today!

Thought I would throw this up to tease those of you who are not in SoCal. My first flat of the season! Local farm stand has the best berries on the planet. Super sweet, juicy and big. $44 a flat. A fair amount never made them home. ?

PM'd

Well, it is a drive across Mongolia. So it's not about crashing at 45 mph. You never know when a lonely bull yak may decide to make a little car it's love interest. It better be a sturdy cage. ?

Ok, now this looks better! Some of the discoloration of the brass is from the annealing so I could bend it easily. I have a lot of cross bracing yet to do, but this is a much better base to begin with.

Thought you might like to see a current view of downtown. https://hdontap.com/index.php/video/stream/historic-julian

The Julian Pie Company! Yup. Wife and I drive up there for a cup of coffee and a slice of their caramel dutch apple. Worth the drive. Or you may be thinking of Mom's Pie company if you want a great chicken pot pie. They also now have the Julian Cider mill. Fresh made hard cider. Not to drink there, but to take a case home.

Here in California, we are blessed with a lot of great roads to take a sports car out on and enjoy. My two favorites are the famous PCH and the road from escondido to Julian. The PCH(Pacific Coast Highway aka highway 1) it especially stunning from Ventura up to San Francisco. Beautiful tour of the pacific coast on a great twisty road. This is also a place that many movies have included aerial shots. The road up to Julian is just a nice twisty road up through the trees. Great fun to drive. What is your favorite road?

Yup, huge improvement. Nice work!

Eric, are you in San Diego by any chance. We have a pretty good model car club here. You are welcome to join. PM me if you want more info. We meet on the third Tuesday of the month.

Pacer formula 560. It is a canopy glue that gets tacky very quickly and dries clear. I use it when I have to attach parts to painted surfaces as well as windows. Good thing to have around.

Where in Nebraska?

After doing the math, I can see that it is too big. That is 1/8" tubing which specs out to 3" tubes. I just ordered the some 3/32" which calculates to 2 1/4". You wouldn't think that 1/32" would do that much visually but I am going to try it. Next step down would be 1/16" but I tried that it it looks way to small even though it specs out at 1 1/2". Time to try again. Photos are really great for catching errors. Yes, it is a tiny car and that probably has a lot to do with it. With all the work so far, I just want it to look right. Thanks for the compliment on the brass work. My soldering skills are a little rusty, but I am regaining some of my old skills. It also helps that I just got a new 250 watt power head for my resistance soldering unit. The old 100 watt unit was fine for photoetched but a little under powered for tubing this size.

Making progress. Working on the roll cage. After looking at the photo, the tubing looks too big! But then it is a tiny car so it may be right. It just doesn't look that big in person. What is the normal diameter of roll cage tubing?

Being an old jet jockey, Kenny loggins Highway to the danger zone always gets me fired up. Being an old fart, anything from the Beach Boys. ?

I recently bought a new kit on Amazon (Tamiya's Skyline GTR) and they shipped it in a padded envelope!! I opened it expecting to find a smashed kit but to my never ending surprise it was perfect! The box was perfectly straight. I was blown away. I've has stuff in much sturier boxes beat the heck! I guess I will never understand the shipping industry!

Yup, the big container is the stuff I use. All of the tube type modeling putties seem to dry out pretty quick once the tube is opened. I wasn't aware of the small tube but I will have to find one. I buy the pint size and it literally lasts me for years. Bill, not sure how you have a problem with it drying out. The worst problem I have had is that the container will get brittle and crack several years after you get it. I like it because I can thin it with acetone and that makes it lay down very thin and it sticks like ugly on a gorilla. I also like the fact that you can sand it within an hour of application. I have had occasionally turn out a little porous. When that happens I just soak it with a little superthin CA and it seals it nicely.

I like the chipping on the rims. It will add a nice detail for the weathering.

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Best ever? Hands down, Elton John at Caesar's in Las Vegas. The man played for over 2 hours with only one brief brake. The visuals effects, the band and backup singers were amazing. Best money I have ever spent of concert tickets. If anyone has a chance to see these last few on the Farewell tour, and you at least like a couple of songs, go! My only regret was not spending the extra bucks to get the seats that let you go up on stage at the end and gather around his piano while he does the last few numbers.

Looking good Tim! Cutting things open is almost therapeutic for me. It takes a good hour with the photoetched saw to get them out. Lots of intense concentration. Not much room in my mind for anything else! ?

Boring work cutting open doors with little photoetched saws. I will be replacing the "B" pillar with .025" brass. Already have the piece made, but since I am doing suicide doors, I need to figure out the hinges next.

I think I have a rare "learning car". I learned to drive in a Jeep CJ2a. Jeeps civilianize version. The "a" stood for agriculture and it was intended to serve as a very small tractor. Two speed transfer case(actually 3 because there was a neutral) and a manual throttle. Dad had added an aftermarket PTO to run stuff on the farm. At 7 my dad would let us drive the 1/4 mile to the mailbox to pickup the mail. At 10 I was a heavy equipment driver. Spent the day on a John Deere 830 diesel for most of the summer taking care of the fields. Also drove a lot of other farm equipment like trucks and combines before I got my drivers license. That was not at all unusual for a farm kid raised on any rural farm or ranch. Interestingly, Nebraska still has a "school" permit which allows kids who live on a farm, to drive to and from school and school functions unsupervised at 14 years old. The written and driving test were the same as for a regular drivers license. When it came time to get a drivers license at 16, if you had no violations on your record, you could go to the DMV and turn in the permit and get your unrestricted license without any further testing.

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