Pete J.

For those who don't have more contact with the school systems, I would remind them that it is not the school system that is failing our children, it is the parents. A child gets as good of an education as the parents demand and contribute to. The majority of parents send their kids off to school and think they are done for the day. They treat the school system as a baby sitter service. Then they expect a brilliant kid to come home. Absolutely unreasonable! Parenting is all about being involved with your child's education. Helping with homework, seeing that it gets done, teaching at home. Going to "Back to school night". Being active in parent/teacher conferences. Here in California schools have "advanced placement" classes. These are the above the standard curriculum classes that challenge the child to work harder. We insisted that both of our children participate in that curriculum. I remember going to a back to school night at the local high school, and the teacher walked into a standing room only classroom. His first comment was, "Oh, right, this is the AP class. Everyone is here." Children will get out of the education only what the parents insist on. If the parents don't care, the kids don't care and the first rule of education is you can't teach an unmotivated student, no matter how good of a teacher you are. I grew up in the 50's and all the parents I knew believed that the only way to a better life was through education. I believe that most parents will mouth the words, but few will actually do what they have to do to make it happen.

Duck, Harry is going to throw a rock at you. See post #1

I am embarrassed to say that I know this one!

I am so tired of hearing people not taking some responsibility for their actions and blaming it all on someone else. Particularly the one that starts with, "I was really drunk and somebody else....." Well, heck, I'm sorry, but you got drunk. Nobody sat on you chest and poured booze down your throat. You are responsible for getting drunk in the first place and you have to accept responsibility for your own stupidity.

sorry!

Oh, god! 70's coachbuilders. There must be a hundred of them. All taking ugly cars and making them uglier!

Chill out man, I just received my issue in the mail yesterday and this thread started long before that!

Oh, heck no! A bit like a lawn mower with no cover. My guess is the builder has no kids.

Wow! under thirty bucks US! Got my order in. By the way I just got the shock of my life last week. Ordered some stuff shipped EMS(cheapest way possible) and I placed the order late on Thursday and it showed up on my door step on Monday! Under theses conditions FedEx makes no sense at all.

Personal technique on Tamiya paints. The nozzle on these puts out a lot of paint. As a result you need to move pretty fast to get thin coats. I hold the can about 6 to 8 inches from the model and move very quickly. One or two very light passes per coat. You won't get full coverage until the third coat. 15 to 30 minutes between coats. Heat the cans in hot water and shake them thoroughly before you heat them. This will give the propellant that you mixed into the paint with shaking time to come out of the paint. Just before you spray, turn the can upside down and swirl the paint around. This will mix the paint but unlike shaking will not mix more propellant into the paint. The science behind this technique- Tamiya paints are synthetic lacquers and dry fairly quickly. When the paint sits on the shelf, the solids settle to the bottom of the can. You need to shake the can vigorously to remix the solids, the carrier and the solvents. Unfortunately this introduces propellant in the form of dissolved gas into the paint. If you spray with the paint in this condition you will get bubbles in the paint as the propellant outgasses. The paint takes a while to settle out, so I you mix the paint thoroughly with shaking then let it set for about 5 minutes. The propellant will exit the paint and you only need a little mixing to get the paint mixed again. Swirling the paint is like stirring and will not reintroduce propellant into the mix. A little swirling just before you paint should be enough. Heating the paint increases the pressure in the can and atomizes the paint into smaller droplets of paint coming out of the nozzle. Smaller droplets means a more even coat. Warmer paint and smaller droplets mean you have to get closer to the surface so the solvent doesn't have time to evaporate on the way to the surface. If the paint is too dry before it gets to the surface it won't flow out properly and you will get orange peel or a really dull surface. Multiple very thin coats is the way to go. The solvent offgases(dries) quicker out of thin coats than thick coats. A coat of paint twice as thick take four to six times as long to offgas, so 3 or 4 thin coats with 15 minutes between coats, will be ready for polishing in a quarter of the time as a couple of thick coats. Good luck and have fun!. If you would like more on painting with Tamiya paints, here is an article I wrote years ago about how to use their paints: http://www.tamiyausa.com/articles/painting-with-tamiya-synthetic-lacquers-35?category_id=8&type=article#.VNJrd3mBGpo

I love Tamiya paints and use them all the time, but your question is best answered with an old saw. The magic is in the magician, not the wand. There is no paint that guarantees the finish you want. I use many different types of paints. I also have several different airbrushes and use brushes and rattle cans as well. In my life, each has a use and purpose. What I will say, is that I have developed techniques that give me what I want and it took years to get there. Tamiya is good paint as is Dupicolor. Don't know about Wal-Mart stuff, but if you practice and work with it, I am sure you can get what you want. Strong suggestion. Pick a paint and get a note book. Every time you try it, note the temperature and humidity, conditions in the room where you painted and how thick or thin you laid the paint down. Write down comments about the result. After a little while you will have a digest of what works for you and more importantly, what doesn't. Sticking with one brand of paint gives you the best chance to succeed. Each of the above conditions will affect different companies paints differently and you will wind up with too many variables to draw any meaningful conclusions. Keep in mind, the quality of the paint job is a result of the painter and not the paint.

Ah, well that would explain it. He thought they were shooting Groundhogs day 2.0. Same actor!

Seriously stupid call. You would think that three tries to get it in, inside the 5 would have been a no brainer. This was an all time bonehead move! Stupid Seaslugs!

Yup, high of 75 with scattered high clouds today. Looks like spring here in San Diego, whether Phil shows up or not.

Not really feasible but this is a model I built years ago. There was a group of us got a bunch of parts from Tamiya and we all had to build something with the stuff we got. This is a 1:20 scale Honda F1 that was missing its engine parts combined with the cowling and engine from a 1:48 scale P-47. There was a big long fictitious story about post war France and some captured German experimental stuff that explained the whole thing. It was all done in jest. Great fun exercising the brain with a jumble of parts.

Randy- Looks perfect. What did you use for rivets?

I am not surprised at all about the footballs. You got me thinking about the balls and I went to the NFL rules regarding the specs on the ball. By engineering standards they are pretty loose. Length 11" to 111/4" Long circumference 28 to 281/2 inches, short circumference 21 to 211/4 inches and weight of 14 to 15 ounces. There is nothing that says a team cannot specify tighter tolerances but the general difference between a ball that met the low end verses the high end of the specs could be significant. The only other spec(other than pressure) is that they must be made by Wilson and have the commissioners signature and NFL printed on them. My guess is this is like bats in baseball. Each quarterback has specs that they prefer. BTW there are many sports that have different pieces of equipment that vary from player to player. Baseball bats being one. Golf clubs are very definitely not one size fits all. Skiing has skis that are custom made for each athlete. Etc. So it is not all that outlandish to have footballs for each team.

Not sure where you got 51 degrees on the field. Every thing I see reports the field temp at around twenty degrees. http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/ravens/ravens-insider/bal-weather-conditions-at-gillette-stadium-are-chilly-and-clear-for-ravenspatriots-playoff-game-20150110-story.html. That would be 50 degrees drop from an temp of 70, which I assumed(and I don't believe that is an unreasonable assumption of a locker room) to be a comfortable temperature in the referees locker room when the balls were initially tested according to the NFL. Thus 50 degree temperature drop would give you about the correct pressure drop measured.

Great idea with the magnets!

BEWARE-SCIENCE INVOLVED! First off, I don't have a dog in this hunt so I don't care one way or the other but consider this: 1. The balls are initially checked in the comfort of the referees locker room. Internal air temperature is probably in the 70+ degree range. The temperature on the field was about 20 degrees. Total temperature variation was about 50 degrees. 2. Formula for ideal dry gases= (pressure 1 X volume 1)/temperature kelvin 1=(pressure 2 X volume 2)/temperature kelvin 2 3. If you do the math a 50 degree drop in temperature would equate to a pressure drop of about a pound and a quarter or more depending upon the humidity of the air in the ball. 4. Assuming that the Patriots want a soft ball to begin with and inflate it to the minimum acceptable pressure then at field temperature this would bring the balls to about the pressure as measured. Having said all this, did the Patriots cheat? Don't know and don't care, but at least get the math right and lets get over this!

Wow, you are getting down to the end Mark.

Cost?? Don't care! This is on the list as of right now!

I had a really nice reply ready earlier and something happened and I lost everything but the first half of the first sentence which is why there is a blank post above, so we will try again. Jake, your models should not be assessed by how long you take. When I started, I could build a model in a couple of hours. As I progressed and my skills improved it took longer. As my interest in a subject increase, the research took time and the model took longer. As I started working with other materials such as photoetched, they took even longer. Now that I am into creating parts from raw materials(plastic and metal) it takes even longer. I can still build a model in a couple of days if I choose to or I can take several years to build one(see Mark Jones super seven scratch build or Randys all metal rat rod wrecker). A simple answer is they take as long as necessary to do what you want to do. The model is only as complex or simple as you choose to make it. There are those who say "I build for myself." We all do that and are the best judge of when we are done with a model. Take whatever it takes to make it what you want. It is not a contest to see who can build the most models. It is about satisfying the craftsman and artist that is in your sole. When that is satisfied, you are done.

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