Straightliner59

As I frequently tell people; "I'm slow, but I catch on!" 😀

I think I figured it out: It's because the photos I edit are NEF format. When I convert them to jpeg, post-editing, it's an option for quality of the jpeg, related to the NEF file.

The bumpers have all been formed and polished! The rear center section is glued too high, on the body, currently. I will, of course, be level with the end sections. I'm pretty happy with them, considering they started out as raw lengths of 9ga. dead soft aluminum wire! I'm very close to painting the dash, so it can be detailed. As always, feel free to comment, at your leisure.😀 Thanks for looking!

According to the package header: Instagram @jarman_motorsports_ Facebook Jarman Motorsports He's local, here.

Good stuff, Greg! As always.

Thank you very much, Kurt! I appreciate it! Yeah, when I was trying to decide what to do with them, it dawned on me--smiley faces were everywhere, about then!

Thank you, sir!

Plum Nutz brought home this, today! One thing I like about this show, are their awards. The artwork is always way cool!

Attended a local show, here, today. It was in a Hobbytown, and the had an Albion Alloys rack. I picked up a tube of their telescoping brass tubing, in .3, .5, .7, and .9mm sizes. Honestly, it's very difficult to even see the bore, on the .3mm tubing! But, hey, it's .3mm tubing! I also bought a package of 1mm aluminum tube. I love it when I find hard-to-find scratchbuilding materials, in the wild! I also got this 3-D printed stuff, as a door prize/raffle drawing. I've bought some of it, over the years, too. It's impressive-looking, to be sure. For some reason, I just keep scratchbuilding stuff, and the resin sits!😄 I also brought home a Top Ten award for my C/A Badman!

I white-glued the rear bumper on, just to see. I think I like that!

Funny how that works, no?😃

Screens look very nice, Mark!

Good deal, saving the paint. I had to do something similar with my Badman.

Yessir! First time I saw them, and noticed the "Washable/Disinfectable" label, I knew they'd do the trick!

Always happy to share anything I've figured out! Thanks for your kind words, Mark!

You're most welcome! You can bet that if it's on his model, it's correct. I haven't built one, but I have two of them, as well as one, each of the MPC 1/20 scale kits. I guess I like McLarens! Guy is a great builder--one of the best, in my opinion. I tagged him, with the photos, so maybe he'll check in. He doesn't visit this board, too often.

It's been a while since I check in, here. It's come quite a way, since then. Your work is excellent! This is going to be an impressive piece!

Maybe, then, that's where I am confused. Once I resize/resample them to 1024 (long side), when I save them, I click on options, and can slide the quality (I assume) from 100, down. I slide it until it's just below 100k, which could be anywhere. Usually, it's around 80-85, on their scale. I just assumed it was DPI, for printing, but, maybe it's just a meter of quality--or compression. I never worried about what it actually is, because I never thought I might have to try to explain it!

Thanks, Greg! I got the rear, center section done, before bed, this morning, but didn't have time to shoot photos. I noticed that one of my fronts is a tad heavy, so I will have to thin it out, a bit.

I go to Sally Beauty Supply and buy Tropical Shine boards. They come in a variety of grits, from 80-"I can polish this!" They can also be found on Ebay.

It is! That's a beauty!

One front bumper is bent, and white-glued in place. The other has gone from rough to ready-to-bend. For a lot of my modeling life, I would have considered this process drudgery. I've come to where it's somewhat Zen-like, for me. There's a certain calm that comes from watching something come from raw material, right in your hands. Anyway--enough of that! It probably only takes 45 minutes to an hour to make one of these. I'm considering doing one for a grille bar, to reflect the center section of the rear bumper. Once the rear one is done, I can use it, to see how it would look, up front, as well. Thanks for looking!

I use a couple of different free photo editing programs. My favorite is FastStone Image Viewer. That's how I edit all my photos, posted here. I can crop them, resize them, and reduce the DPI. I resize to 1024 pixels, on the long side--in the case of portrait-oriented photos, I go 1024 pixels on the vertical. If necessary, I can reduce the DPI to 72, to keep the file size right about 100k. Irfanview is good, as well, but FastStone is a bit more versatile.

One down, three to go. I decided to give some aluminum armature wire a go, for making the bumpers. They'll polish up, nicely! I'm pretty much decided on this grey. I was going to do white, but I already have three white cars in the display case, and another that's cream-colored. And...I don't have any grey ones, and I've always wanted to do one. I think I compared about fifteen different Humbrol greys, and a Pactra one, alongside the interior. This one looks best, to me. I'm also leaning toward putting the scoop, offset, to accommodate the implied Rochester FI powerplant. To expose the bumper that lies within the wire (thank you, Francis!), I began by clamping the section of wire in my vise, leaving a little less than half, exposed. I removed the exposed length with a 6" mill bastard. I then rotated the wire 90 degrees, and repeated the process. Finally, a 180-degree rotation, and repeat completes the roughing-in process. I should note that the brown phone wire was used to mark the length(s) for the bumpers. The black Sharpie marks denote the front and rear bumper lengths. Next, I superglued the roughly-shaped bumper to the edge of a craft stick, where it was easily shaped and buffed. Next, I'll bend this one, and once I'm satisfied the process is good, I'll move on to the next ones. Comments, questions, and etc. are always welcomed. Thanks for looking!

And, the rest!