peteski

The latest issue of FSM actually has a car on the cover! Imagine that guys!

Delrin does look good when used to model tires, but it is a non-stick type of plastic, so any paint or lettering will not stick to it. While the general shape of the tires looks really good, I wonder if sanding them with some 400 or 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper would make them look more "ruber-like" (less shiny). It woudl likely also get rid of the machining marks.

If you form (bend) the siphon tube like this, you can get very last drop of paint out of your Badger 200 bottom feed airbrush. Yes, the tube touches the bottom of the jar. This has worked for me for over 30 years. The black "bonnet" at the end of the tube is just some very fine nylon screen I have there to filter out any crud from the paint. It does not affect the ability to suck up the paint from the bottom.

Are you willing to share with us your new plastic-compatible paint remover?

If you are willing to donate the kits to a worthy (at least to me) cause, consider donating them to our armed forces personnel. See https://ipmsusa.org/support_the_troops/index.shtml Link to contact Steve is on that page. My club sent a donation several years ago, I collected the kits and supplies donated by club members, packed them, and sent them to the APO address given to me by the IPMS coordinator. The went to troops in Iraq (when the U.S. troops were still fighting there). The postage was very inexpensive, even for those large boxes of kits. Once you contact Steve, he should provide all the needed details.

Sounds like a plan John. Be sure to let us all know how the decal comes out.

Whether the source file is vector or raster, a printer itself is a raster-type of device (since it prints dots, just like pixels are on the screen or in a PNG file). Even vectors get converted to raster for printing within the printer driver, and raster is sent to the printer, it is just that vector format provides the sharpest possible image to the printer driver. But since this image consists of color gradients (the yellow shell), using a raster format at the same resolution as what the printer uses should yield good results. Just remember that those colors will be represented not by solid spot colors, but halftones (which are composed of small dots of the CYMK inks). While likely those dots will not be visible to the naked eye (if the printer's resolution is high enough), those dots will be likely visible in close-up photos. You might also have to play with the colors/contrast/saturation of the yellow shell for optimal results of the printout. That image to me looks like a a photo of a 3-dimensional logo that was photographed, then carefully masked. The shadows in the lower seem to indicate that. Those darker areas will also be visible in the printout. You could totally rasterize the logo. The vector version of the shell would then be up of multiple shapes of slightly different shades of yellow. Think of paint-by-numbers type of picture. Both Corel Draw and AI are capable of "auto tracing" (at least that is what Corel call is) which would trace the color variations into individual vector objects that in the end will approximate the shades in the raster image. But unless you are thinking of doing some additional cleanup, there won't be any advantage to doing that instead of sending high enough resolution raster version of the shell to the printer.

Music (piano) wire is hard steel. I have a pair of dikes (diagonal cutters) with damaged jaws that sometimes use for cutting music wire. The other 99% of the time (especially for the larger diameter wire) I use cut-off wheel in my Dremel tool. That works really well and no tools are damaged in the process. Plus it leaves a nicely finished end., because after cutting I gently spin the end of the wire at an angle against the side of the cut-off disk to clean it up. Doing it this way also allows for precision cuts. I don't run the Dremel at full speed - I run it at about 1/2 speed. And I use very gentle pressure to have best control. Ad for those solid-metal toolboxes, you might be able to take a Dremel tool with a milling/grinding bit, and hollow them out from the invisible side to lighten them up.

. . . and it appears to be right-hand drive. That should narrow down the search. I'm not looking, but will be interested what it is. It looks like something a child woudl have built out of wooden play blocks.

Looks like some sort of weird sex toy, but then I have dirty mind.

Yes, the wheels look very familiar (I was afraid to mention that, but I guess you gave that as a clue).

I can't disagree with that statement.

LOL! I believe it was a reference to a scene from Young Frankenstein. A classic!

Nicer? No paint that I know of woudl result in that specific gold-hue, shiny polished metallic look. I remember him telling me that he will likely never try this technique again. He might have done this to replicate 1:1 car which was wrapped with that type of wrap.

Even if nothing is entered in the text field, there are number of selection the person reporting can choose to indicate what the problem is. If the report contains no explanation, and the default reason is selected, maybe someone accidentally clicked on "report post", then instead of hitting the X in the upper right of the reporting window they hit "submit" button?

Yes, it really is a gem of a model. It was clever of you to add the figures.

Exactly! Takes no time. Well, about a minute.

Yes, it was a plastic model. Here is a high res. photo which should give you some more info about the wrap (check out the engine cover to see how he wrapped it). To see the photo at full resolution, right-click on it and select "view photo" or whatever equivalent your browser uses. Or right click it and save it on your computer, then open it up.

You know, back in those days they didn't use paint with a clear coat! Just bustin' your cookies Mat - the Rolls looks great! The general appearance and the level of detail makes it look larger than 1:24 scale. More like a 1:18 or 1:16. So there are figures included? That explains the "rump depression" in the seat cushion I noticed earlier.

Not at all. That is not why I posted my reply. Your points are all valid, but I just wanted to show that if someone wants to do something really bad, it might just be possible. I spoke to that modeler briefly ( I wish I had more time to ask more questions), but I remember him telling me that it was a major pain in the arse to do the wrap. Many small pieces had to be carefully fitted over the body.

This 1:24 model was entered in my clubs 2018 contest. It has gold wrap on it, and the modeler did a great job applying it.

15 minutes?! Are you using water-based paints? If you are using standard (stinky) enamels or lacquers, a good cleaning should not last more than 1-2 minutes. Then the airbrush can be put away, or ready for next paint job. At least for me. I always wonder why people complain that cleaning the airbrush is such a chore. It's easy-peasy! Just slightly longer than clearing an aerosol can nozzle after spraying.

Not sure why the name is changing, but since 2018 Alumilite has been owned by Polytek. Polytek resins have been used for many years by resin casters out there. https://www.mcall.com/business/mc-biz-easton-plastics-company-polytek-acquisition-20180712-story.html

So did you kindly do the needful and hung up urgently?

I actually have couple of positive experiences. Couple of items I bought on eBay. Both shipped on Jan. 29th, standard First Class Mail. Both small (about 5 x 7) padded envelopes. One mailed from RI, the other from CA. I'm in MA. Bot arrived today (Feb 1st). Quite reasonable, especially for the one from CA.