peteski

I'm not a fan of masking/electrical/duct tapes for modeling. After few years their adhesive either dries up, or gets liquefied, oozing out and making a mess. Using some thin stock with either liquid cement (if the materials are all polystyrene/ABS), or CA glue if the rim is resin. If just gluing the tire to the rim is preferred, CA glue should work well for that. Just make sure the tire bead is clean (use alcohol or naphta, aka lighter fluid).

Vert-A-Pack were a big failure in practice - didn't last long.

Now that's funny!

Exactly!

Professional thing to do would be to at least explain the state of his business. Even stating that it is shut down indefinitely (for whatever reason, or even no reason given) would be better than ignoring emails, and keeping everybody speculating.

In that case, see this info:

That is really strange. First time I have heard of this type of a problem. Have you contated Dale for his opinion? If anybody would know, it would be him. While I can't say I'm 100% certain, I'm pretty sure that I heard it from a reliable source. It was few years ago at the NNL East. Either Bob Shelton (one of the guys who wrote the model kit price guide), or Dale Horner himself mentioned that he did all the Modelhaus plating.

Welcome to the forum Wylie! Here are the forum rules.

What you are doing it perfectly fine. One thing I don't understand is why you need to touch up paint that ended up under the tape? When I attach parts to tape for painting, the spots that are resting on the tape aren't' supposed to have any paint on them. Those are the areas that are supposed to remain bare plastic (for gluinig them to other parts). If some pain seeps on those surfaces, I just scrape it off with a hobby knife. I use the method you use, and I also use the thick 3M clear tape (double sided). I also attach parts to pieces of wire to make "handles" Here we have multiple techniques. The front and rear suspensions have wire attached at the axles. I also masked the axles (yellow) to make sure the glue sticks when I glue the wheels. ON the Popsicle stick and on the other smaller stick I used the 3M tape. On the bottom you see the folded over blue masking tape. While in this example the tape is not holding parts for painting, I also use that technique for painting. I also use wire insulation stripped from wires, or heat shrink tubing for holding long thin parts, or for masking portions of those parts that aren't supposed to get painted.

That's what I thought too, but at this point I have so many tools that I sometimes forget what I have, and end up using another tool that is not the best for the job. And yes, they are organized, but not all are in plain view.

You can probably see those covers in more than one color. Black or brown seem to be the most common. Plus brown adds some visual interest to the engine compartments.

Thanks for the info Clifford. My Guze Sangyo indian kit has many cast metal parts (like the handlebars). Often modelers just polish out the soft metal, but you used the muffler tape over the cast metal?

Looks great Kurt, but you also gave me a chuckle. After first choosing to go old-school by using Testor's square glass bottle PLA enamel for the body, why didn't you continue the no-drama method for the clear coat? Why did you have to get fancy? Aren't there any Testors clears available? Even the slightly amber Testors clear would not affect that yellow color much, and it would have been compatible with the yellow PLA enamel. No drama! Heck, why didn't you just leave the yellow paint as-is? No clear coat. Wasn't it shiny enough for you? I bet the 1:1 cars didn't use clear coat either. Sometimes things you do make me go "hmmmm".

Funny, that is the exact amount at the ending of the fist listing of this kit (but each was won by a different seller).

Yes, very nicely built! I also have one of those and I have the same questions as Bruce. How did you polish the metal parts (like handlebars)? What glue you used? Etc. . .

The front fenders are unusual - they almost look like wings.

Makers of resin kits (Like Modelhaus) have their resin wheels/hubcaps "plated" using the vacuum-metalizing process. Basically the same process that is used by model kit manufacturers to "chrome" plate their parts. Roger doesn't say if that is the process he used on his resin wheels, or did he have them actually electroplated with chrome (same process that is used for 1:1 car parts), but if the bare parts have flawless finish,, then the vacuum-metalizing works really well. In the past we had few after market "platers" for plastic parts (vacuum-metalizing). ChromeTech USA was one of the more popular, but they shut down a while ago. Nowadays it appears that Dale Horner (Little Motor Kar Company) is the only one left for vacuum-metalizing plastic parts. He used to do all the Modelhaus "plating". I would recommend him do "chrome" your wheels. Like you mentioned, there are other alternatives like Molotow, Spaz Stick, Alsa chrome, Alclad II, and others, but none result in the chrome-like finish of vacuum-metalizing.

That's exactly what I was going to say. It is not that the TV programming is something the networks "force" viewers to watch. Their closely monitor the market and produce programs which will have huge audience to maximize their ad revenue. Like with everything else in a capitalistic society, it is all about maximizing profits. Yes Snake, you might not be interested (neither am I), but there are millions of people who will love to watch this kind of schmaltz!

I loved Small Parts Inc. (and their excellent reference catalogs). They carried so many useful products. Amazon bought them out years ago, and killed them. Well, you can still find some of their items on Amazon, but the stuff is totally disorganized. I gave up on the "new" Small Parts inc. There is a company in Florida that seems to use the same part numbering system that Small Parts used, but their inventory is much smaller than what Small Parts used to have.

What you guys are doing here reminds me of the Car Spotter column in the Collectible Automobile Magazine.

Yup, "sniping". Have been doing that almost as long as you have. "Nickel and diming" is counterproductive for buyers, and very desired by the seller. Sniping does not guarantee your win. The high bidder who place the bid earlier, could have bid quite a bit higher amount than what shows as the high bid. That is eBay doing automatic "proxy bidding". When you snipe with what you decided to be your highest amount, but the last bidder had a (hidden) higher amount, eBay "outsinpes" you and the other person wins.

It is nowadays, but when I was a kid (in the late '70s) I built one of them, and they were plentiful. I think I got it at Woolworth. Around the same time I also built the Creepy-T. Id di manage to score couple of these few years back for much more affordable price. One of them even has a box in decent condition.

Thanks for the explanation and the drawing.

Yes, that works. Looks like you likely added the link using the "link" button. Another way to do this is to just paste the link directly into the text editing field. It will then look like this:

That is a cool little truck. So the engine is included but the hood is molded shut? Or does the entire cab tilt up (like on COE tractors)?