peteski

Not sure I understand how a private person would be different. The process will be the same. A private person will need to get the information from you and the payment, devote some time time (often several hours) designing the artwork, then hopefully provide proofs to show you how the decal will look. Often sizing the decal (to fit the model) can be a challenge and requires some back and forth between the designer and customer. Professional custom-decal maker will follow the same process. I'm speaking from experience since I print my own decals.

I think the best solution would have been to apply patch of Bare Metal foil to the lettering after the primer coat, then spray the top color, then remove the paint from the raised lettering exposing the metal foil. There are members on this forum who have successfully done that and it looks really good. @StevenGuthmiller is one of them.

Those decals look relatively thick. One of the photos where light reflects of the decal surface seems to show a fine line pattern in it, like it was printed using one of the ink jet printers with UV-cured inks. Those inks usually do not respond to any typical decal solutions. I'll be curious what the SpotModel offers for a solution.

I'm a big fan of model "chrome" (vaccu-metalized) as to me 1:1 scale chrome in smaller scales is not going to be duller. There is no scaling reflectivity. It is the same in 1:1 and in 1:25 or 1:43. But whatever works for you. Yes, some metalized parts could have a rather thick layer of gloss under the metalization, but that is an exception rather than the rule. At least in the models I have dealt with. Anyway, the reason I mentioned that paint will stick is because the OP mentioned wanting to only partially strip the metalization.

If the reason for partial "chrome" (actually very thin layer of aluminum) stripping is fear that paint won't stick to it - don't worry. This is an old modelers tale, likely started when manufacturers warned that the metallic "chrome" layer should be stripped to bare plastic when gluing model parts together. That statement is true when using solvent- based plastic cements. The thin metallic layer can act as a barrier and prevent the cement from melting (welding) the plastic parts together. But paint will adhere to those metalized parts just fine. As well as it would adhere to diecast metal model's parts. No need to strip anything. If you want, use the same primer you would use to paint the body, then shoot the color coat.

But I guess since the current URL and existing member logins will stay the same (current URL staying active for quite some time), this sounds like a totally seamless migration (if all goes well).

Or USPS local mail delivery vehicles. This is already happening. I've seen both - amazon and USPS electric delivery vehicles. They look really strange - you instantly recognize them, but it is a good thing to see them slowly being introduced for that type of a role.

Maybe try https://airlinercafe.com/forums/forum/airliner-modeling/

As you should be going by all the responses. Typical for an online forum. Not much structural strength is needed for a 1:24 mode car kit (where majority of the model is plastic). As long as you properly clean and degrease the metal parts CA (with accelerator) should be more than adequate. I like the instant bond (I hate waiting). 5-minute epoxy does have poor strength but if you want to wait 12-14 hours for it to set JB Weld liquid steel epoxy is plenty strong. Pining the parts is helpful too. I also want to mention that in the Gunze kits I own with metal parts those are made of some sort of tin alloy (some form of pewter?). It is not typical zinc/aluminum white metal (liek Zamak). If you careful, for maximum strength you could solder those metal parts. I mentioned "careful" because you could end up melting the parts. Brass can also be soldered. I have used CA on metal kit parts and they still hold together. Again the key is cleanliness of the glued surfaces and having the surface roughened also helps. The Gunze metal parts already have a fairly rough surface.

CA glue and epoxy are perfect adhesive for these types of bonds. Yes, make sure the metal parts are clean and grease/oil free for best bond. Acetone, Lacquer Thinner, or 99% Isopropanol are excellent degreasers.

I've been thinking about the new name and I'm questioning the word "makers". To me "makers" seems to imply making a model from scratch, while most of us are kit builders. I would think that "Model Car Builders" would be more appropriate.

No need to call me on that. In my reply to your post I agreed that we need to go back to basic vehicles, not giant smart phones on wheels (full of distracting electronic trinkets and hard-to-deal-with-in a moving cars touch screens with so many features and settings they will make your head spin. Like you mentioned, the sheeple of this world want to have all the bells and whistles that can be possibly crammed into a vehicle, while also paying top dollar for those feature-bloated vehicles.

Even every new internal-combustion-powered vehicle is so full of electronics that similar thing can happen in one of the "dino fuel" cars. Exactly, but without trying and trying again, we will never get "there". If people didn't try advancing, we would still be riding horses. You do have a point about need for simpler vehicles. We need to get rid of the bloat of electronics in our contemporary vehicles, but somehow I don't see that happening either.

Interesting news. Congratulations! In the past you welcomed large size photos (not reallynecessary for being viewed in the online forum setting) being uploaded to the forum in case the forum's contents is deemed worthy of publishing in the MCM magazine. Will this relationship between the forum and MCM still exist, or more reasonably sized photos will be ok? I did like the direct link between the forum and the magazine, but I guess in the end it doesn't matter what the forum's name is. Will there be an option for ad-free paid membership, or members (regularly annoyed by very intrusive, some even sexual-themed click-bait ads) will still have to resort to ad-blockers?

In Massachusetts for some time inspection stations had a "treadmill" to run the silly emission tests on pre-OBDII cars. So my '85 Caddy had to be put through the paces. But few years ago they finally got rid of that silly thing, and they no longer test emissions in those cars. The test equipment maintenance costs were probably killing them. I suspect that the only one getting rich was the manufacturer of those treadmills.

Back 30 or 40 years ago most modelers used enamel paints formulated for models (plastic safe). Now there are dozens of brands (with all sorts of chemistries) which are sold for painting plastic models. Mixing brands or even chemistries often results in incompatibility, resulting in ruined paint job. Often touted recommendation on the forums is that wherever you try some new painting method or paint combination, a test should be made on some unimportant plastic item (like a polystyrene disposable spoon) to make sure there are no adverse reactions. And as johnyrotten mentioned, the paint terminology that has crept into the modeling world is often inaccurate and vague. I cringe when modelers use blanket statements as "acrylics" to describe a wide range of paints with different chemistries. There is unfortunately no easy fix for that, but understanding the basics of paint chemistry makes us better modelers.

For plastics I actually hold the drill's 1/8" shank directly in my fingers, but I don't have BFFs. For soft metals yes, I do put them in a pin vise with the free spinning back that rests in the palm of my hand. As for #80 size I suspect you made a typo. It is 0.013" or 0.33mm. Just slightly larger than #85.

Here are my smallest PC board drill bits. I have no problem hand-drilling using #80 and #85 bits in plastic (I do occasionally break a bit), but I only used the #96 bit in my miniature drill press (and broke few even then). When I use a drill press, I can drill #80 and #85 holes in metal. The dimensions in my drill index are in inches. The #96 bit is protected by plastic tube because it will break pretty much even if you gently brush against it.

Mark, chromed parts on 1:1 cars get their mirror-like finish because their surface is glass-smooth. That prevents the reflected light from scattering, resulting in mirror-like reflectivity. Before the chrome layer 1:1 automotive parts are first plated with other metals (like copper) which produce that very smooth surface for the final plating of Chromium. Alclad II Chrome paint (just like 1:1 chrome layer) requires the painted surface to be glass-smooth for the mirror-like effect. You can apply that paint to any surface (without a glossy base coat) and it will end up looking silver, but since the surface is rough, the reflected light will be scattered it will look like silver paint instead of chrome. Your bare 3-D printed parts are already not smooth because unlike injection-molder parts, they are printed in very thin layers which are visible. Alclad II metallic paints go on very thin, so the 3-D painted surface will result in rough finish, making the chrome paint look like silver paint. So yes, you can paint those bare wheels with any Alclad metallic paints, but the result will look like unpolished silver metal. Using the chrome paint might give a slightly brighter finish than just using Alclad aluminum or other metallic paints. It seems like you are ok with that.

If you will be taking the model as a carry-on, make sure it can be easily opened and examined by TSA agents screening you. There is a good chance they will ask you to open the box and examine it. You don't want to stand there in line fumbling to show them your possible "terrorist weapon" inside.

Funny that they (Firehouse, Firestorm or whatever Media) still calls it "Scale Auto's" since that magazine was killed several years ago. But at least they still publish photos from my club's annual contest.

Craig, as mentioned in your other intro post, I suspect that a better place for this request would be in the "wanted" section of the forum. Also, If I may offer a suggestion, using a more informative subject line might be helpful. Something like "Looking for 1:24 '78 Camaro wheels" instead of just "Searching" could give better responses. Subject line is what we all see first when browsing the forum.

In an earlier post Frank mentioned "Theyre only being used for special events 3 of them already got damaged due to lack of experience by their officers", so I don't expect them involved in any high-speed maneuvers.

You probably remember that we had that before the last major reshuffle of the forum. I liked it being separate, but I somehow doubt it will be brought back.

It is not about offense words - those get automatically censored, replaced with "blah, blah, blah". It is about what in my opinion is terrible software design where including words which can be used as a database command language will cause that weird effect you experienced. Instead of giving an informative error about the forbidden words, the forum software just pukes. There are multiple threads in this section of the forum. with more details about this "problem" . EDIT: actually I was going to post few links to those threads related to the problem (some were fairly recent) but they all seem to have disappeared. I found some older thread and here is some useful info from Dave: