peteski

So, if he decides to build his kit, he can buy himself a very decent $10 set of (correct?) wheels and tires. What a bargain! I would pay $10 just for those tires.

As I understand, they did all the vacuum metalizing "plating" for Modelhaus. I am also less than happy with Chrometech USA and am planninng to one of the other companies for my next project.

Which is it? Acrylic or Polyester? Those are distinctively different types of resins. Acrylic is not Polyester, and vice versa.

Yes, high-impact-polystyrene is stronger and less brittle than plain polystyrene. ABS is just another type of polystyrene Coplymer. A good info on polystyrene is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_impact_polystyrene Here is a quote Pure polystyrene is brittle, but hard enough that a fairly high-performance product can be made by giving it some of the properties of a stretchier material, such as polybutadiene rubber. The two such materials can never normally be mixed because of the small mixing entropy of polymers (see Flory-Huggins solution theory), but if polybutadiene is added during polymerisation it can become chemically bonded to the polystyrene, forming a graft copolymer,[citation needed] which helps to incorporate normal polybutadiene into the final mix, resulting in high-impact polystyrene or HIPS, often called "high-impact plastic" in advertisements. One commercial name for HIPS is Bextrene. Common applications of HIPS include toys and product casings. HIPS is usually injection molded in production.

I was browsing through eBay when I accidentally ran into a kit from a series from which I, as a kid, I built one kit I totally forgot about it until I saw that eBay listing. It sure brought back some memories. The one I built was not any of the Planet of the Apes movie, but the WW I dogfight with the Red Baron plane. The original Toys R Us price: $2.91! Then the other price tag on the box top shows $5.00. Wow! Anybody else built any of these kits?

The straight lines and sharp angles of the hood and roof seriously clash with the swoopy curved fenders and doors. Yuck!

1/8" shank tungsten carbide drills Ace showed are PC board drill bits (used to drill holes in electronic circuit boards). They are very sharp (have split point) and will easily drill through stainless steel. But they are very fragile and shatter easily. Best way to drill through thin material is to sandwich it tightly between 2 thicker materials (like wood or aluminum). Otherwise, as you drill through the thin metal sheet, it will likely climb up the drill flutes and shatter the bit.

Cobra!? Looks more like a Zebra!

I purchase 99% Isopropanol (another name for Isopropyl Alcohol) in my local Tru-Value hardware store, in a gallon size tin can. It is located in the paint thinners section of the store. If they don't have it in stock, they can special-order it for you. Another name is 99IPA. That gives it that 8% extra kick. I just did a google search for 99ipa and it seems to be available from other sources too. And for some educational value, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isopropyl_alcohol

The issue here is that flammable chemicals are usually forbidden on airplanes (for what I think are obvious reasons). But maybe if the shipping company owns their own transport airplanes, they make their own rules.

Thanks. I should add that to the acronym "dictionary" thread in the General section.

The show is coming up this weekend - bring your models and enjoy the show!

The way I understand his problem is the lack of ink opacity in decals printed on clear-film, when applied to a non-white surface. And of course printed on white, the colors are ok, but the white film is visible if not trimmed right to the image.

I'm surprised that flammable materials (paint) was shipped via international airmail. Post office makes a big deal about shipping flammable materials, even domestically.

What is "SB"? Super-Brakes?

Go to https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/decals.htm and scroll down about half way to the Custom Alps decal companies, then pick one in your region. Like you found out, producing good quality color decals is not a trivial task. If you can draw your own artwork (preferably vector-based) that will greatly reduce the cost of producing your decals.

The Win98 SE machine is used strictly to run may Alps Micro Dry printer and old version of Corel Draw I use for designing decal artwork and other things. It works, it is safe (it has been for decades), there is no need to do anything about it. I have full backups (and even the install disks) and it is running on old hardware. It ain't broke, so I'm not fixin' . There is nothing on that machine that would be irreplaceable or worth anything to hackers. Plus there are no new drivers for the Alps printer. I roll my eyes at droves of people who are hell bent on updating their electronic devices and the software to the latest and greatest. Sorry.

I'm not that old, tech-savvy, Unix-literate, employed in high-tech, and I'm not on Facebooks, Twiddles, Snapcats or any other social media. Don't own or want a smart phone. I get my socializing done in online groups and forums. I also have machines running Win 98 SE (not really used anymore for going outside of my LAN), Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 10 at work. I practice safe computing (basically careful where I go and what I open). Have been hack-free for many years. Or at least I think have been hack-free. I also heard that many people (in multiple age groups) are closing their accounts and leaving FB. But that is too late for them, since FB already has all of their info.

Color ink jet and laser printers use translucent inks and depend on the background (the paper when printing on paper, or the model's surface if printing on clear film) to properly render the colors. If the clear film decal is then applied to a non-white model surface., the colors will not show properly. Black is the only ink color which does not require white background. Alps MicroDry printers (like MD-1000 or MD-5000) are capable of printing a layer of white ink, then overprint it with color inks, producing decals which will look correctly on any color surface. But those are long out of production (however, there are still quite a few of us Alps users around). But even with Alps printer, getting quality decal images will require some image editing.

Imitation is not quite the same as copying. If they imitated someone's work by making their own master pattern which depicted the same subject as the original, that would be flattery. But if they acquire someone else's resin item then they make a mold directly from it to make and sell copies, that doesn't seem kosher. But I suspect that you were making that comment in jest. Were you? Chinese copy a lot of products developed by others (who spent lots of money developing the original products). Is that flattery too?

There are Chinese eBay sellers selling oodles of metal stickers and waterside decals. Couple of years ago I bought some Mercedes and a sheet with various makes stickers from them. The seller is globaltoy https://www.ebay.com/str/globaltoy This is one of the sticker sets https://www.ebay.com/itm/182741013696

Nice video and layout. What I found a bit strange was all the red signals the train went through. Pretty impressive for a private layout, but not quite the gotcha factor compared to Miniatur Wunderland. But that is a professionally built and maintained layout. Mr. Porsche's layout is Marklin H0 scale. Back in 2010, I took similar videos of a friend's N scale (about half the size of H0) layout where I had my hand in building and operating. The video is lower resolution and it was a live wireless feed, so the quality is not as good.

I just made my first ever purchase there last week and I thought the price and shipping costs were quite low. I bought couple of Dumas Products Chris-Craft wooden boat kits and their price was quite a bit lower than what the manufacturer charges on their website. Shipping cost was also refreshingly low. I actually went with Hobbylinc because of the low prices.

No kidding! Dan, it would appear that you spend 16 hours a day, 365 days a year building all those models at the same time! Amazing! Don't tell me that you also have a 40-hours-per-week job.

Nice job! I also love the low angle photo from the front - it makes the model look much larger than it really is and it shows lots of details (like the antlers on the ship's bell).