peteski
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Posts posted by peteski
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On 1/15/2025 at 8:09 AM, ranma said:
Logistics at work??? A H.O. scale kit I bought on ebay left Sacramento Ca, Completely missing Ohio and now on the east coast in Boston Mass!
Something similar happened to me in December. I mailed a Priority Mail envelope to an address in West Virginia. The tracking showed it being delivered somewhere in Pennsylvania!
Since I was the sender, I went to my local post office and asked to speak with the postmaster. Nice guy. He took me into his office and started doing research on his computer using some internal Post Office apps. He finally found a photo of my item from one of the scanners (looks like a photo is taken and stored for every tracked piece of mail at various checkpoints). He showed me that photo and it became clear what happened. An address label detached from another piece of mail and stuck to my mailing, covering my mailing's destination address with the address in PA. When I asked why didn't the (human) mail carrier notice that before delivering the mailing to a wrong destination, the postmaster told me that the stray address is for a large regional merchandise return center for Macy's. They receive hundreds of mail pieces a day and they are delivered to them in bulk (no human is involved).
I asked what were the chances that my misdelivered item would get to the intended destination and he told me that the odds were pretty good. Once the (human) staff of the return center actually sifts through the individual pieces of mail they will notice the stray label, they will remove it and send it back out. He told me that it might take some time for this to happen. If that does not happen, he told me to file a claim with the Post Office for missing package.
Well, he was correct. I kept checking the tracking info and after few weeks I noticed that the tracking picked up the new trail and was delivered to the correct address in West Virginia. I just brought the tracking info for that package and unfortunately it not longer shows that it was delivered twice. The tracking algorithm must have cleaned it up.
Originally tracking info showed the package delivered in PA on December 17, then back into "Processing" state on December 28, and delivered second time on December 30. The first "delivered in PA" step has been deleted. I wish I took a screen capture when it still showed it delivered twice.
If your package was delivered to a wrong address (not due to a mistake made by the shipper), you should ask the shipper to engage their postmaster to find out what happened.
This is one of those USPS stories which started out like a horror show, but got cleared up and I even got an explanation of how it happened.
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On 1/15/2025 at 12:23 PM, Ace-Garageguy said:
PO's not sposed to release mail, tracked mail in particular, to anyone without proper confirming ID.
Only if signature release was required. If not, the mail carrier will just drop of the package at the address. Most of the items I receive or send throough USPS do not require signature or ID check.
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Never used the stuff but going by all the surface polishing you did it seems to indicate that the cloudiness is within the material itself (not on the surface).
If you still think the cloudiness is due to the lack of surface smoothness, take some clear paint (actually "Future" or whatever it is called now would be best) and apply it to small area of the front and back of the windshield. Even clear nail polish would work. The liquid clear will fill any unevenness and make the surface appear clear.
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The screen shot seems to indicate a smart phone or tablet being used. I wonder if the problem is related to the mobile version of the forum?
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New members have their posts moderated, so you will not see it show up until moderators approve it.
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4 hours ago, Dave G. said:
Right now Harbor Freight according to the online add anyway, has the Fortress 1 gal and 2 gal listed at the same price, $159.95. These compressors review well. Just sayin.
That is even a better deal ($10 less) than the one I got before Christmas.
And to me anything with a "brand" name at Harbor Freigth is basically a "non name" generic item. Actually in today's world, even the prestigious or well respected brand names of the past are all made in China anyway, because those brands were all bough out by Chinese investors.
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I have a loud compressor with a 4 gal, tank. It has oil. Then few days before Christmas, on Ace's recommendation in another similar thread, I bought the Fortress brand oilless compressor with a 2 gal. tank from Harbor Freight. It was on sale too. It is so much quieter and lighter than my other compressor. It has a lower cfm rating but it is more than adequate for my uses. Now my loud greasy compressor will sit unused.
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8 hours ago, Can-Con said:
French Canadian Peter, much like how you spelled "Canadian". 😉
But, wow, I just wish you guys would post as many comments on my latest build as you do my spelling and grammar mistakes. 🙄
I spelled it "Canadien" on purpose. As I understand that's how it's spelled in the French-speaking part of Canada.
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15 hours ago, Can-Con said:
No Canadian. The mouses are all imported from Australia here. 😉
"Mouses"? That must be Canadien too. In American English I would expect "mice", or if you are a old cartoon fan, it would be "mices".
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I guess to be perfectly in-scale one would have to actually measure the specific 1:1 wheels. I guess that 0.5" (or 0.021" in 1:24) one way or another is not going to make that much difference after all.
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On 1/12/2025 at 7:40 AM, PappyD340 said:
I've always used a drop or two of 5 minute epoxy for gauge lenses and have never had any yellowing issues!
My experience (over the last 30+ years) is exactly opposite. I have used multiple brands of 5-minute epoxies for "glass" and other tasks (even the ones where the liquid hardener looks clear, not slightly amber like others), and after few years they *ALL* turned darker amber. If someone wants their model to look good after several years, I strongly discourage using 5-minute epoxies to represent gauge "glass" or any other item which is supposed to be clear.
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On 1/9/2025 at 1:33 PM, Old Buckaroo said:
I have a motto - if the wiring harness going into the door is larger around than a , ummm kielbasa sausage - I want no part of it. Way too much electronics for me.
Sean, in today's world, it's nto quite like that. The diameter doesn't matter. In some cars you have one of those couple dozen of computer modules in a car sitting in the door, and all the switches in that door (power windows, locks, power seats, mirrors, etc.) are all connected to that tiny computer module which monitors them. Then that computer passes the status of the switches to the other computers inside the car. So all you need in that door harness you are talking about is 12V, Ground and thin CANbus network cable (sort of like car's Internet). No need for any sausages, and if the computer module in the door malfunctions, hell brakes loose. 🙂
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On 1/11/2025 at 5:28 PM, tim boyd said:
Looking at your pix again, the thought strikes me that it is not just your photographic and background treatments that make the wrecker look so real, it is the outcome of an excellent kit painted and assembled by one very, very talented model builder. Again, my congrats! TIM
Thank you Tim. This means a lot to me coming from a modeler of your caliber. I still have that model and occasionally I display it at local model shows. Unfortunately the clear coat yellowed, so it lost some of its visual appeal. Back when I built that model I didn't know about the yellowing Testors clear.
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On 1/11/2025 at 11:46 AM, meanmachinemodels said:
My 15" wheels are scaled to 16" to account for the bead and have an outer lip to "sit" into the tire. With the lip it measures 17.6mm diameter. Everyone has their own way of doing it, this is just mine.
What I was explaining is that your bead diameter, to be properly scaled, is still not quite large enough. The lip of a 15" diameter wheel would measure 16.5" (not 16"). I mentioned that because when you do your won CAD design, it is easy to change it to make the dimensions more accurate. Just making a suggestion . . .
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Len, does it really matter whether the "problem" is with the plastic or the stripping fluid? Bottom line is that the incompatibility is the real problem. DOT3 brake fluid was never meant to be a plastic-safe paint stripper. If you use it, you run a risk of failure. Having said that, even when using plastic-safe paint strippers (designed for that task) there is always a warning on their labels to check compatibility first.
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Some model magazines (like FineScale Modeler) had a special discounted rate in the ad section for advertising model contests and similar events. But realistically, this is year 2025 and the advertising section in printed magazines is pretty much non-existent. Most of this happens online now. Using social media for show announcement provides much larger (and free) audience, which then gets to even larger audience by others sharing the info with their friends.
The club I belong to has our show flyer downloadable as a PDF file on our website and it is also shared on Facebook. That is likely better coverage than just a printed version in a magazine. I'm old-fashion and I enjoy reading hard copy magazines, but I also realize that I'm a dinosaur and the future is on the Internet.
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7 hours ago, Bugatti Fan said:
No dedicated Motor Cycle section on this forum. A bit annoying having to wade through aircraft, afv, science fiction, figures and so on to find any threads about bikes.
Big rigs have their own thread, but as they are not cars as the title of this forum implies, why should motor bikes be segregated? They are mainly civvy vehicles like big rigs after all !
I feel your pain but I believe the answer is "popularity". As you likely know by searching the forum for motorcycle models, they make up very small fraction of the posts. Not enough to warrant splitting them up into separate section.
Back when they reshuffled the forum's categories few years ago I was also not thrilled that they got rid of the large scale section. it was nice to be able to just browse the large scale models (and there were not that many of them either). I also was not fond of getting rid of the separate big-rig subsections, merging them into the various general sections.
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These wheels look very nice.
While the inner diameter of a tire is 15" that does not translate directly to what is visible on the car and on the properly scaled wheel of a model. That is because the wheel has a raised rim in which the bead sits. The visible diameter of a 15" wheel is roughly 1.5" larger than the specified diameter. And that is what we see on a real car or on the model.
So a 1:1 scale 15" wheel has a visible diameter of approx. 16.5". In 1:24 scale that would be 0.6875" or 17.4625. Remember that when designing your model wheels. This is true for all the passenger car wheels. Might be different for truck tires - I have not measured those.
16.93mm in 1:24 scales up to 15.99" visible wheel diameter. It is slightly undersized, but not by much (about 0.5 scale inches).
16.93mm in 1:25 scales up to 16.66" visible diameter, so that scale 15" wheel is actually better suited to be perfectly in scale for a 1:25 model.
Looks like Alex did make an attempt to make his wheels correctly sized (visually), but IMO didn't go quite far enough. At least according to my calculations. I might be splitting hairs, but when designing something from scratch, might as well scale them properly. Good thing is that using CAD and 3D printing on-demand, it is fairly easy to resize the design.
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Yes, toothpaste as polishing compound. That trick has been around for a long time.
But it needs to be the white opaque colored paste, not any of the translucent gels that are out there. Also, it's not the baking soda grit that does the polishing - that grit is way too coarse to polish paint. Take some polishing compound for 1:1 cars and put between your fingers and you better not feel any grit. Should be smooth. Polishing compounds use very finely ground abrasive particles.
Those opaque (usually white in color) toothpastes contain polish (those finely ground abrasives) to to polish your teeth. As such, they can be used to polish other surfaces (like paint on a model car), but they are very mild - it will take a lot of rubbing to get a mirror-like surface. I say you are better off using a polishing compound designed for the job of polishing paint.
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3 hours ago, espo said:
That may have been the case on this car in this movie. Check Google Image Search and look at the photos of real cars that are registered and driven for real, and you will notice that Chevrolet mounted their offset license plates on the passenger side in front. This was true not only on the Cameros but on any of their models with an offset front license plate. Why the staff providing the vehicles for the movie mounted the license in this way? Only they could answer that question.
I don't disagree with you David. But as I mentioned, this model is supposed to be a specific replica of that show's car. So rivet counters (or license plate location checkers) should be very happy that Revell actually rendered this small detail correctly.
As to why the staff decided to do that, who knows why.
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1 hour ago, 1959scudetto said:
Tamiya TS red sprayed directly onto a Welly diecast without primer ! I just masked the rear fenders and sprayed Italian red directly onto the silver body: the color is very hard and cannot be scratched with fingernails!
I don't think that is what the question was about. In your case you sprayed the Tamiya paint over another paint (and the silver paint was likely painted over primer which is over bare metal).
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Looks good Bart!
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7 minutes ago, stitchdup said:
if you have molotowe or similar, you can put a thin coat on a flat eraser, then when its tacky gently roll the light over it, taking care to do it evenly. if you tape a cocktail stick to the light it makes it easier. it might take a couple of tries but you can build it up if you let the lights dry between atempts.
Exactly! I posted the eraser idea 2 posts earlier.
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The belt material is just a cloth ribbon - it has no adhesive on it. As others stated, you need to cleanly glue it to the seat.
CA glue or even white glue can be messy if not applied carefully. Another alternative would be to coat one side of the belt (after adding the buckles) with a thin layer of Microscale Metal Foil Adhesive. It is a white fluid which becomes clear when dry, and it remains sticky. Then just stick the belts to the seats.
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What Irked You Today?
in The Off-Topic Lounge
Posted
Ah, this is the same problem you mentioned in the USPS thread. If you paid using PayPal, file a dispute with them. If the PayPal payment was through credit card, you could also start a dispute with the credit card. Yes, that is a hassle, but you will likely get a refund (since it seems that you have all the proof you will need). And don't deal with that eBay seller again (and leave them negative feedback).