peteski

Oh well, I figured I would suggest utilizing the brain power of the forum. No big deal. To be honest, if it is to be a transparent blue stretched sprue, I don't understand why it would make a difference whether the material is solid transparent blue, or clear with just the surface being transparent blue. One possibility I can imagine is if you wanted to use that plastic "rod" as a fiber optic, to pass light through it. But then if it was solid blue, it would be too dark to easily pass light over distance of more than several millimeters. For example if you look down at the edge of typical door glass in any car which comes with factory "tinted" glass with very slight green tint, you will see that from the edge the glass looks very dark green.

Maybe if you would tell us more about what your goal is, someone will have an alternate suggestion.

Why not just stretch clear sprue, then brush or airbrush paint it with one of the transparent blue hobby paints (like Tamiya)? The end result will be a transparent blue rod.

John, That's a blast from the past! Flo-paque paints were from Floquil Corp. from Amsterdam, NY, same company that made model railroad paints (later absorbed by RPM, which also acquired Testors). These older paints are likely "hot" and might craze bare plastic, or at least soften it. I would be careful using them on styrene. But yes, lacquer thinner should work as a thinner. The original thinner was Floquil Diosol, but that has been long discontinued. These are likely flat paints.

That's not bad but I prefer some more lively stuff with some really fast beat which makes me start tapping my foot like this tune from the old Andy Griffith Show: I also enjoy instrumental '40s music like from Jimmy Dorsey or Glen Miller (and others). Then there are quite a few Jazz numbers I enjoy listening to. I also like numbers like this one: Then I also like rock tunes done on classical instrument,or by orchestras. This one always makes me smile: And of course Led Zep.

I don't know if it's been mentioned already but from time I enjoy listing to some (instrumental) Blue Grass music with plenty of banjo and nice bass line. I also like to listen to Jean Michel Jarre. Most is instrumental (electronic music). Another single example is "Green Onions" by Booker T. And basically many of the instrumental tunes from bands which usually have songs with vocals, like "Godzilla" song by B.O.C. "Frankenstein" by Edgar Winter group.

I guess I'm not hip anymore. I'm not a big movie watcher to begin with. I can even say, a very infrequent movie watcher. I've seen The Blues Brothers last time probably over 30 years ago, and I didn't find it as memorable as something like some Mel Brooks movies.

That makes no sense to me. Don't they all own chickens and get all their own eggs for free?

I thought that was an Audi. Who in their right mind would steal an Olds? GM stopped making them some years ago.

You know, I totally forgot about that. I rolled my eyes when they first started doing this. But I don't recall them doing this for the last couple of winters. Maybe I just became deaf to it? In the back of my mind I seem to recall that they started naming yet another weather event (on the Weather Channel maybe?), but I don't recall what that was. Actually I have not watched the Weather Channel for years. Speaking of silly stuff, how do you like "bombogenesis". Another silly term they love to pawn on the unsuspecting viewers. I wish they would stop at nor'easters. Please!

Is "spittier port" an official name name of the device? Could it be a colloquial name?

I have never actually measured model kit tires and see how accurately sized they are compared to what the writing on their sidewall shows. I suspect that they aren't accurately scaled (width, overall diameter, and the wheel diameter). So I guess my answer would be "use whatever looks good".

Yes, that is the honest truth! You hit the nail on the head! Just like that '80s Don Henley song 'Dirty laundry". Still, it is annoying.

Wow! Very impressive build of an old kit.

Yeah, we got a bit too technical about decals. Back to the regularly scheduled program . . .

RE arctic weather: Here in Northeast US the weather "forecasters" have been peeing their pants all week about the short frigid cold spell we will experience Fri/Sat. They are besides themselves, and keep constantly providing all the "helpful hints" about what to do and how to behave in such frigid temperatures. I'm so sick of hearing this over and over again all week. They also keep comparing it to previous occurrences of cold temperature, and keep telling us how many times over the years this happens before. Give it a rest!

Duck Duck Go leverages other search engines to get its results. Have you tried enclosing your search term in double quotes for exact matches only?

You're welcome George. I'm glad I was able to offer a suggestion for good decal paper.

Yes, that is a workaround for printing white, but its flexibility is limited. Yes, printing white images is possible, but when you replace the black cartridge with white, then depending in which order the printer prints all the colors, the white toner might end up on top of the colors, not under them. That is where Alps MicroDry printer shines again. It uses thermal transfer method of printing so the images have very crisp edges. Actually the waxy ink is somewhat similar to what is used in dry transfers. As for the decal paper, I use and like the BMF decal paper. Never had any problems. I use laser decal paper for my Alps.

Alps is still the king when it comes to decal printing. I'm one of the owners of Alps group on groups.io site. Group has over 4000 members. But Alps MD printer is a dinosaur with no updated drivers for any of the current versions of Windows, so we use workarounds. And since there are fewer and fewer Alps printers around, they are getting up there in price. There are printers which can print white (as a color or as undercoat for color images) but they are quite pricey. Not something a typical hobbyist could afford. For an average hobbyist I think the most economical way to get custom decals made would be to have the modeler design the artwork and sent it to one of the custom decal printing companies. But with that, you need to design artwork that well be sized correctly for your project and it will need to be in a vector format. So there is a learning curve involved. But at least the software is free. Inkscape is a freeware which works in vector format.

Yes, and if everything lines up. But that gets a bit more complicated than just printing. Plus you need to lean a new piece of software so you can draw the vector-based cut outlines. But yes, it is doable.

Well, not quite that easy. Any CYMK computer printer (like ink jet or laser) use translucent inks for rendering colors, so unless you apply the decal over white surface, the colors will not look correctly. You need the white undercoat. Printers which print white are capable of laying down a layer of white (opaque) ink before overprinting white with CYMK (color inks). You are also correct, no fancy graphic program is needed, but it does make precise design much easier and less of a guesswork about the sizes.

I'm not a muscle car expert, but I knew (mainly from looking at various model kit tire markings over the years) that back in the day tire markings were different than they are today. Plus the different numbers were mentioned on the box. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_code Prior to 1964, tires were all made to a 90% aspect ratio. Tire size was specified as the tire width in inches and the diameter in inches – for example, 6.50-15. From 1965 to the early 1970s, tires were made to an 80% aspect ratio. Tire size was again specified by width in inches and diameter in inches. To differentiate from the earlier 90-ratio tires, the decimal point is usually omitted from the width – for example, 685-15 for a tire 6.85 inches wide. Starting in 1972 tires were specified by load rating, using a letter code. In practice, a higher load rating tire was also a wider tire. In this system a tire had a letter, optionally followed by "R" for radial tires, followed by the aspect ratio, a dash and the diameter – C78-15 or CR78-15 for bias and radial, respectively. Each diameter of rim had a separate sequence of load ratings; thus, a C78-14 and a C78-15 are not the same width. An aspect ratio of 78% was typical for letter-sized tires, although 70% was also common and lower profiles down to 50% were occasionally seen.

Does "Abteilung 502" smell like ammonia? If yes, then it is latex (natural rubber). I'm nor sure what would remove it from brushes. I use latex-based liquid masks, and I apply them using toothpick (but I never mask large areas - I do those with masking tape).