peteski

Sure, but you chose to live there. I'm in Northeast US - if I wanted tropical heat and humidity I would have moved to Florida. I didn't sign up to have to deal with this unrelenting tropical weather in the Boston area! You can have back, thank you!

Skelzie caps? So that's what they're called here. Sounds like you guys did a bit more advanced stuff than we did. But to sum it up, no matter in which part of the world you grow up, kids find similar ways to entertain themselves. Or should I say "did"? Kids nowadays keep themselves busy other ways. And just like any old fart would say, I think that we had more fun back then. We also didn't have to worry about being politically correct, or getting in trouble in school for making gun gestures with our hands or using a stick as a gun prop. But I don't really want to start anything here - let's go back to talking about having fun when we were kids. As any self-respecting kid, I installed a "motor simulator" on my bicycle (a folded piece of cardboard rubbing against the spokes. it was on a string attached to the handlebar. BY pulling on the string I was able to change the sound. Then one time I needed new rubber brake pads. I think I had no money to buy a new set so I just sliced up an eraser into a brake pad shape and installed them in the holders. Well,, they sort of worked but they also shredded very quickly, covering my pants with eraser shreds. They wore down in no time. Ah, those fun memories. . .

Cool story Joe! Growing up in Poland my cousin and I, along with his buddies caused all sorts of mischief. Some of my favorites were getting a bag of saltpeter, mixing it with sugar and then pouring a small pile of it on cement stairs of one of the neighborhood tenements. We would stick a lit match in it and it would become a smoke bomb! And it also left sticky mess on the step. We also use the same mixture for making flying bottle-caps. We would take those metal screw-top caps from vodka bottles (plenty of those around ) and pick out their cardboard seal using a pocket knife. Then pour the saltpeter mixture into the cap, about two thirds full. Then we would cover it with the seal and crimp the metal cap around the seal. Then take a pocket knife and drill a small hole in the top of the cap (just big enough for a match head to fit into. We would then light a match and stick it in the hole, igniting the mixture, then quickly throw it up in the air. Those things would fly like miniature jet engines, leaving a smoke trail behind it. Those were the days! Then there was the time I was trying to leap over bushes I thin we were running after igniting one of those staircase smoke bombs. Unfortunately I didn't realize that in the middle of that bush was a post made of steel railroad rail. My shin ended up slamming into that rail - still have a scar from it. We also used to climb a walnut tree in one of the kid's backyards and pick the not-quite-ripe walnuts off the tree. They had a thick green skin over their shells and we used scrape it of by rubbing them on cement pavement. We would end up with brown-stained fingers, but the delicate flavor of those unripened young walnuts more than made up for the stained fingers.

Funny that we have lots of correct answers and no comments here. It was a "silent auto quiz".

Alcohol is a good solvent for Sharpies. Hand sanitizer is guess what? Alcohol-based. I often use 99% IPA (Ispropanol, a.k.a. isopropyl Alcohol) in gallon cans from my local hardware store. I find it in the paint thinners section. But like Bill said, it is possible that the dye penetrated into plastic and it will be impossible to fully remove it. The other thing that has me worried is that the solvent used in Sharpies might slightly craze polystyrene. If that happened then the only way to fix it would be to sand and polish the piece.

I actually like Pizza Hut deep dish pizza, and even their thin-crust pizza (yeah I know, that is not a real pizza but it has a pretty good flavor and texture). Make mine Super Supreme. For chain-type pizza my favorite is Papa Gino's (probably limited to Northeast US). I don't much care for Li'l Caesar's, Papa John's, or Dominos. Of course I also frequent small mom and pop pizza parlors. I love New York style pizza too. And a local Italian bakery makes sheet style pizza sold in rectangular slices. It has a nice sweet sauce. Pizza is like art - everyone's taste is different.

Bare 30 AWG wire is 0.010" diameter. A 30 AWG insulated wire wrapping wire has a total diameter (including insulation) of around 0.016". That is useful for 7/8mm spark plug wires in 1:24/25 scales. I have bunch of wire wrapping wire I bought from an electronic surplus vendor. It has Kynar insulation which can be glued with CA glue.

Not to continue this OT diversion, PM sent.

Bernard, you rock! One of the projects I have on a back burned is couple of ESCI Mercedes 500 SLC (the kit has undersized wheels/tires). I was going to try designing and 3-d printing the correct size wheels, but I first have to learn how to use CAD programs. I checked out Misha's eBay listings and he has those exact wheels and tires available. The price ($22 for 4 wheels and nice tires) is quite reasonable too! Now this build can progress. I'll also contact him to see if he would be willing to produce wheels for the ESCI Mercedes 190 (that kit's wheels are also undersized).

Sometimes there is a need to keep a quoted photo in a reply. In those cases I double click on it and resize it to a large thumbnail size. That way the quoted post has a more manageable size.

LOL, even dying he's still as gruff as ever. His last "gfy" as a response to the negative feedback says it all. Once an a-hole, always an a-hole. I have never bought anything from him, but I saw his very wordy tirades here several times. World would be nicer with fewer people like that bozo.

I like it (especially the ending)!

Made me smile. https://www.boredpanda.com/street-art-tom-bob-new-york-city/

Yeah, from what I see embossing powder works well for scale carpeting.

Those styrene shapes are a great idea, but unless you are going for the "hippopotamus skin" effect. that paint job is horrible! Good thing it is on a test piece.

Yeah, it is on late night on MeTV. I watch it sometimes. I agree, nicely done model.

I enjoy following your progress and I can fully relate to just how small these are. I like building small models too. Like these scratchbuilt (cast resin and photoetched) dodgem cars in N (1:160) scale. I hope you don't mind me posting a photo.

A bus? That could probably go in the trucks section?

Yeah, these look like ground-based companions to the Egg Plane kits.

Well executed - I like the color too.

Well done! Amazing how these crippled planes were still able to fly and land.

Plastic soda bottles are made from a different plastic than model kits and will not be a good indicator if the paint will attack polystyrene or ABS (from which most kits are made). Bot if the goal is to verify how the paint covers and its gloss level, a plastic bottle will work well.

I agree that silicone and modeling (especially the painting process) do not agree. While it does seem to be fixing the deformation now, I wonder if it will start leaching out of the tire after some time period.

Interesting. I pulled out couple of older Tamiya kits that were easily accessible to me. Ferrari Mythos from 1991 has the chrome pieces (wheels) molded in red (same color as the other parts of the kit). Mercedes Benz 500SL also from 1991 has its chrome pieces (wheels) molded in clear. Rest of the kit is silver plastic. I wonder if the clear is simply the same plastic they used on other parts without adding the metallic powder?

My Gunze Sangyo 1:32 '57 Chevy was a really fun build and it could be considered famous (the car on the BMF packaging). It is a great little kit and the proportions look "right" to me.