peteski

Vacuum metalizing (using aluminum) is the type of metalizing used for a great majority of plastic kits. It is a simple and inexpensive process which results in very good metal finish (both chrome and satin). It is fairly fragile, but we have been using it for many decades and not many people complain about the fragility. The benefit of the fragility is that it can be easily removed (by scraping it off or by chemical stripping). There have been few kits out there (Trumpeter are the only recent ones that come to mind) where the parts were electroplated with much thicker layer of metal. Not only that metallic finish did not look as shiny as the vacuum-metalized parts, since it is actually layer of thicker metal, it was very difficult to remove. And the chemical strippers we use in our hobby were not stripping it either. While some people prefer the less shiny finish, I am not one of them. Vacuum metalizing for me please. As far as Dale Horner goes, I have spoken with him at NNL East few years back. Very nice older gentleman. From what I recall, he told me that at that time he did the "chroming" for Modlehaus. I was hoping to use his service myself (after some Chrometech issues), but now that looks iffy.

I think you guys are talking apples and oranges. The spray cans contain a organic-solvent-based (stinky) lacquer paints. The Tamiya paint in little glass bottles is acrylic paint (almost water based). The solvent is mild alcohol. They are different types of paint.

The way I understood this is that pure Polystyrene is very brittle. When broken it will shatter almost like glass. HIPS is Polystyrene resin with some additives which make it more flexible and impact-resistant. It can be bent quite a bit before it breaks, and the break does not result in sharp shards of plastic. IHIPS should be fine for model work. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-impact_polystyrene

Flat Earth is an old news - here is the newest theory. https://twentytwowords.com/flat-earthers-now-think-the-earth-is-shaped-like-a-doughnut/

There is another possibility: they just simply don't care or mind that they are tracked. Some people's reasoning is that "they are doing nothing wrong, so they don't mind being monitored". I know people like that.

That is exactly it! Complaints are plentiful, but praises very rare. Same goes for the posts in the 2 threads being discussed here. I'm not an unhappy person in general, but I have never posted in what pleases me thread, while I have posted several times in the irk thread. There really are very few things which would be pleasant enough to make me post in the pleased thread. I guess my threshold for telling the world how I feel is skewed towards the irk side. Other than being alive or having great sex, there is nothing pleasant enough in my day-to-day life to make me post in the pleased thread. And those 2 pleasant things I just mentioned aren't really good subject to post here.

I guess by not even knowing who Chrissy Teigen is I'm ahead of the game here. No need to elaborate - I'm ok not knowing (I'm not stupid - I suspect she was a host of the program). But it's ok.

I have feeling that Snake's token reply will be that the primer you are using is not opaque enough to fully hide the color of the red plastic (but opaque enough to cover blue plastic).

Fine, but like Bill said, it will all work semi-ok until some fun-loving hacker (or even some foreign government) hacks the self-driving car infrastructure and creates a pandemonium. If self-driving cars were self-sufficient and operating as single entities then this would not be a big problem. But in order to have everything work, all the cars will be dependent on an external wireless network. And we all what happens when there is an "impenetrable" network out there . . .

What exactly do you mean? Mr. Surfacer is not opaque enough to cover the red plastic, or some solvent in Mr. Surfacer is causing the red dye to leach out?

Bill, you made me laugh. As things are today, having a great handling car will not help in avoiding accidents when the driver is not paying attention to the road anyway, because he/she is staring at the smart phone they are holding against their steering wheel. These are sad times we live in. Besides, with the automatic braking and line change avoidance, the car is super-safe anyway. I also find it extremely amusing and silly (and sad) with all the Bluetooth-equipped cars people own (which is pretty much standard equipment in today's cars) I still see lots of drivers talking on their smart phone held to their ear. Use the hands-free capability dammit! I think there is a large part of the driving population out there which just can't wait for self-driving cars.

Looking at the photo Steamboat posted I would have thought differently. Besides, you made a blanket statement while there are many different formulations of polystyrene and red dyes being used for model kits. Some might leach out, while others don't.

For body color reference there is http://autocolorlibrary.com/

In the area I live in (Northeast Mass.), most cop cars (local and state) are SUVs (crossovers maybe). In New Hampshire state police still uses sedans (Dodge or Chrysler). Some towns also have few sedans left.

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And look at all the various car colors. Nowadays it will be mostly black, white, and all sorts of grays (mostly metallic, and silver).

Color guides? That sounds like you are coming from the military (armor or airplane) modeling world. In model car modeling world there aren't any painting guides. Well, some model instructions do offer some rudimentary color guidance, but those are often inaccurate. As others have said, the Internet is your color guide, and then you can still decide to chose your own colors (within reason).

I wouldn't go quite that far - there are no poly-caps to hold the wheels, or metal transfer emblems on the Revell model. All kidding aside, it looks like a really well-done kit! Too bad that the car itself does nothing for me, but there will be lots of happy modelers out there, I'm sure.

I wouldn't be so quick with that recommendation. Some water-based acrylics are very sensitive to solvents (even if those solvents are safe for decals). Whenever a new paint technique, or paint combination I always recommend a spoon test. Seeing unexpected paint reaction on a car body I spent hours preparing is not something I want to experience. And plastic spoons are cheap.

Excellent tip! Thanks.

Thanks Rico. If you offer these for sale (especially with the "glass"), I'll be in for at least 1 body. The wheel-well moldings still look too wide to me. Maybe @Paul Hettick could measure how wide they are and let you know. Yours still look about 1/3 too wide to me. They probably also do not stand off more than 0.25" from the surface of the body. That would be only around 0.010" or about 0.25mm! Again, I hope Paul can chime in here since he owns the real car. Door handle looks nice, but it seems too rounded and a bit too thick. Again, knowing the dimensions of the 1:1 handle woudl be handy.

Funny, the same model was being discussed here earlier, but the thread was moved to the Truck Stop section. That thing is incredible!

I agree. It is so good to finally see kits released with branded tires. I'm so sick of all those plain blank sidewalls. Tire companies should be glad that they are getting free advertisement.

Excellent! Will you be selling those bodies? Also, will you create a vacu-formed glass for it? I have couple resin kits, but I would love to get a more accurate model of this unique car.