peteski

Oh, was that the gorgeous scratchbuilt fire truck?

Sure is! I was just trolling a bit - I admit it. But I agree that at some point our society will be in a dire need of old-fashion laborers. Unless all those glued to computer screens can design robots (which will then be manufactured in China) which will be capable of doing all that manual labor.

I guess at that point we will have to let in all those people from Mexico and South America to handle all those manual-labor jobs nobody else is willing to, or capable of doing.

Stand, because there is nothing to sit on in the area where I airbrush.

Some years ago I was going through Michaels and saw one of these. I was fascinated and bough it. But I just never really warmed up to it. Maybe I should try it again. If interested, look for Fiskars 163050-1001

Is that a "cyclops" driving light on the front bumper? I don't remember ever seeing that (except on a Tucker of course). My mom worked for a lady who owned the same car (same colors too). I always thought it was a cool looking car. One of these days I'll build my Matador kit.

Over the years I accumulated a collection of nozzles and tubes from various spray cans. I also adapted some nozzles by pulling out or drilling the orifice, then installing a tube which fits snugly.

I agree with Kurt. Just pour some isopropyl alcohol (I use 91 or 99%) around the hot glue perimeter it should come off in sheets. It seems that the alcohol instantly breaks the glue's bond.

That is a nice model, and not bad at all for a 15-year-old kid.

Since you are not running any kit manufacturing company (or are even employed by one), you don't have to consider anything or anybody. You opinion doesn't matter either way. You can flap your jaws (or your typing fingers) here all you want, and you will not be accomplishing anything. If you want to even try to make a difference and have some of your exciting racing car models released, contact the model companies and let them know what you want.

No harm done. I"m not complaining about Fernando's prices either. Yes, I have few of his wheel/tire sets and they are all resin castings (except for (stainless steel?) wire spokes. Also, Fernando is in Europe (Portugal or Spain).

I didn't know - thanks Rob! Like I said, I have never seen these models before you just mentioned them recently. Looks like I messed my Brititish nomenclature too. Eh, these are models of Italian cars anyway!

You think so? Labor is cheap in USA? Why then the U.S. companies keep moving all the production to China? I'm also not sure how this applies to the current discussion. What setup and machining? Fernando is a small cottage-industry manufacturer. The wheels are made from silver-painted resin-cast components (likely made from Fernando's hand-made master patterns and then cast in RTV molds). Just like other small resin casters do. Then he is likely using some sort of a jig to keep the hub aligned with the rim and then wraps continuois wire around the assembly to depict spokes. The tires are also urethane resin castings painted black.

He sells just the wheels/tires on ebay (and probably elsewhere) and they are surprisingly affordable. They are not perfect (individually hand-made), but pretty BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH good! I have few sets. Took one apart and they are very cleverly designed and executed (and I can see that it doesn't take all that much time to lace them). I wish I knew his secret so I could do my own wheels that way.

I have strong suspicion that there were no takers for their business. After all, one has to be willing to work really, really hard and has to be very fastidious to consistently produce high quality resin kits. Most of the fastidious currently active resin casters have their hands more than full just keeping up with their offerings. Taking on another large casting operation would not work for them. Just my view of this . . .

Just to follow up on my earlier post (above), after few PMs and email exchanges with Greg and Dwayne, my kits are now of "Modelhaus Quality". Thanks guys!

I was lucky enough to pick up couple of these from him before Bob passed away.

Funny, I use a Badger 200, which is a siphon-feed airbrush. I do have a metal-cup adapter, but I almost never use it. I like the fact that I don't have to worry about spilling paint from an open-top cup. For air pressures I use anywhere from 10-30psi. No problem with the siphon picking up the paint (airbrush-consistency paint is pretty thin).

Hmm . . . that's odd. As I understand, those are the most popular size for vibrators, um "personal massagers".

This is like deja-vou all over again Art. Your post is pretty much identical to one you posted some time ago and I then chimed in that from what I understand about the waterslide decals, the sticky coating on the decal paper is dextrose (sugar), and not gelatin. But either stuff is water soluble.

You need to actually talk to them and tell them that they are calling you by mistake because you . . . don't own a computer!! I did that few times and I haven't had one of those calls for few years now. But I'm getting lots of other Spam from "electric company", and lots of health plans.

Wow! Those are some really early 1:20 scale Tamiya kits! I have never seen those in person (and I don't recall anybody mentioning these to me before you just did). Nice! But as you said, these do not have any opening doors or trunk (bonnet for the "true" English speakers). I'm still curious what kit Craig has.

Also didn't watch the video. Looks like they got the rear wheels wrong (just like Revell did). The rear wheels are supposed to have deep dish mags and fatter tires. But it looks like they used the same wheels and tires all around. To me that is a huge flaw, as those wheels are one of the signature things about this car.

I guess you've missed the ongoing discussion about this, in this section, about 10 posts down from yours. Imageshack did the same thing to me few years back.

While I agree that it is not magic, I strongly disagree that just knowing how to scratchbuild items from physical raw materials gives you most of the skills needed for 3D modeling. Being proficient at designing in a virtual 3-dimansional space on a computer is a whole different skill set which must be learned from scratch. Some of it might be intuitive (especially when you are familiar with 2D drafting), but taking it to a 3rd dimension is a large leap. Designing simple objects is fairly easy, but it takes lots of know-how do design more complex objects, especially with complex surfaces. The degree of the learning curve also depends on the CAD software being used.