Jump to content
Model Cars Magazine Forum

peteski

Members
  • Posts

    8,029
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by peteski

  1. ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) is a type of styrene-based plastic fairly similar to Polystyrene (which modelers coloquialy call "Styrene").  ABS is also sometimes used for more recent plastic model kits. Both types of plastic can be welded using solvent cements used by modelers (even though the instructions on the bottle do not specifically say that).  If you want a specific solvent which mentions that it can bond both ABS and Polystyrene then use Plastic Weld from Plastruct.

    Of course CA glue will also work well on both of those types of styrene.

  2. Have you tried it. I have and it works, Using does not affect the Alclad.

    Ammonia applied to Alclad?  No I have not, but I know ammonia is a caustic chemical, and  that is why I stated that it "might" and not "will" affect the metallic paint.  The "might" part is a clue that I'm speculating and not speaking from personal experience.

  3. There are many photo hosting sites out there.  I originally started on Imageshack.us. It was free, then they went subscription-only and I declined, so I lost access to my photos and moved on.  I went with Photobucket.

    One thing that bugs me about all the websites is the fancy coding on the webpages.  I miss the really simple Web interface with just plain HTML. No fancy flash pull-down menus and other silly BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH which makes it slower to navigate the pages and extract links for the photos. I don't need all that bloat - just give me a simple page with bunch of thumbnails and links to the photos.

  4. In order for a model to be a 100% accurate replica of the real vehicle, you would have to take the real vehicle and shrink it at the atomic level. At this time this is impossible.   The model would be made out of metal (not plastic) and would have everything which 1:1 vehicle has (like a working engine and electric system, hydraulic brakes, climate control, etc.).

    As you can see, this to me seems like a silly question. :)  A plastic model of a real vehicle can only be an approximation of the real thing.

  5. By now all (or most) RFID cards have been taken out of circulation.  New cards either don't have the RFID circuit  (plain cards) or they have the new "smart" chip on them (with the matal contacts visible on the front of the card.  Those new cards cannot be read remotely - they have to be physically inserted in the smart card reader.  Those metal card wallets are no longer needed or useful.  it ssme that banks realided how easy was to skim the info from RFID cards so they dumped them.

    RFID card will have this symbol on it (and won't have any metal contacts on the card):

    rfid-credit-card.jpg

    The smart chip cards will have metal contacts on the front like this:

     

     

     

    LabeledSmartCard.png

    Both types of cards usually still have the old-fashioned magnetic strip on the back which also cannot be read remotely.

  6. Future (or whatever it is called nowadays) should not dull Alclad Chrome (or maybe only very slightly).  But if you apply Future, I would not recommend removing it afterwards.  Not only that the Future removal process (rubbing it with a Q-tip or similar) might damage the Alclad, the ammonia will probably do something nasty to the shiny metallic finish.

    I think that Cato was thinking of foiling over the Alclad areas. Foil is more durable than Alclad.

  7. The problem with flat clear coat is the same as with the flat new car paints (Not sure if those are still the cool thing): Flat requires very special care. If you aren't careful it can be easily scratched or repeated washing will polish the flatness out of the finish. Of course you can't wax it either.  If you want to see what I man, take some Dullcoted part and rub it with a towel. It'll loose the flat finish and will polish out.

  8. I'm not a subscriber, but I have to say that it was a great idea!  Thanks! :D

     

    But seriously, I do subscribe to couple of magazines which are delivered in poly-bags and they arrive in my mailbox perfect condition all the time (which cannot be said about the other magazines I subscribe to).

  9. Sounds like "a lot of work." It would be a big undertaking and would probably take awhile to get  the business going "full steam," especially if Don & Carol aren't willing to train anyone either.

    Even if they were willing to train someone, that doesn't guarantee that the product quality will remain the same.  It takes someone who is very fastidious, dedicated and also has talent for this type of work. Not everybody is cut out for this type of work.  Even if someone is an experienced resin-caster, their definition of quality might be much lower than Don's. They might for example cut corners and the products will be inferior quality.  It seems that nowadays more and more people don't have the dedication or drive to constantly do high-quality work.

  10. Go to google.com.

    Type in OEM.

    Bang. Answer.

    Elapsed time? Maybe five seconds? Not exactly a "whole lot of time" put into research.

    Don't misunderstand me... I have no problem with people asking questions here. In fact, I encourage it. But the OP said that he was "wracking his brain" trying to figure out the answer. I just let him know that the answer was literally seconds away.

    I guess nobody dared to click on the link I posted on the first page of this thread. :(

  11. There isn't much that can be done with solvent-type glue joints. Why? Because the solvent melts the plastic surfaces and truly welds the parts together into pretty much a single piece of plastic.

     

    Before now I never seen any CA debonders which would not also attack styrene. I'll have to try the one mentioned here.  If it really works, that will be wicked cool! :)

  12. I don't have any of those kits to check but I know that some companies (like Trumpeter) actually electroplate their plastic parts with chrome (or maybe nickel) instead of vacuum-aluminizing like most other manufacturers do.

    The vacuum-aluminizing deposits just few microns of aluminum over plastic (which is easily melted away by caustic solvents). Electroplated parts have much thicker layer of metal on them and the metal is more resistant to the chemicals we use for stripping plating.  Electroplating is also much tougher to scrape off.

    Maybe that is what you are seeing on Mobius kits?

×
×
  • Create New...