peteski

While it is an amazing piece of military hardware, I would not call it beautiful. It is more of a minimalistic functional design. Kind of reminds me of the iron-clad ships from the civil war (like the Monitor).

Thanks Veezee! It will be great to have you and your buddy attend our show. I'll be spending most of the day in a corner taking photos of the models.

If you look at the photo of the engine compartment in the eBay listing, it is built "box stock". No wiring or plumbing of any kind - only detail-painting. Again, it is the overall quality which brings the big bucks. There is another current thread in another part of this forum asking what a "Contest Quality" model is. Well, those models are perfect example. The clean and fastidious build makes these contest quality (even if they are not super-detailed).

True, but at last that one has some vague resemblance of some sort of a sea creature (at least in my eyes).

You think like a modeler! Consider that there are plenty of collectors out there who don't have the skills, patience, or time to build beautiful models for a kit. Some of them buy diecast or resin models which are factory-assembled. But some of them can afford the pricier custom-handbuilt models. I'm pretty sure they enjoy their models as much as you do. Going back to my Picasso analogy, there are people that have no artistic abilities to paint paintings but they gladly pay for someone else's work.

For more info see http://classicplastic.org/events.html For sampling of model photos of previous year's shows see http://classicplastic.org/photos.html

I don't know. Some people pay millions of dollars for Picasso's scribblings, why not pay a thousand for an extremely well-built model of a rare kit?

Not at all, my solution is perfect for my needs. Actually the Microscalle stuff I have (and don't like) seems quite similar to your concoction.

I don't think it was all that bad. Now if they had couple of model airplanes stuck in the towers, that would be in real bad taste. Nowadays people seem to get their knickers in a twist and get offended by the smallest silliest things. It actually reminded me of when the twin-towers were still around. Kind of like when I look at the cover of the Supertramp's "Made in America" album. I visited the WTC in the '70s and still have fond memories of that trip to NYC.

In my eyes that thing is butt ugly!

I was scratching my head to figure out what the heck "AB" meant until I read the thread. I thought it was a brand of primer! Is "AB" some sort of texting shortcut? I don't do any texting so I might not be "in the know". A also think that your AB-ready primer is not thinned enough or it uses a thinner which is evaporating too fast.

If the decals are H0 (1:87) scale 1" wide decals then they are in actual inches 0.011" wide. The 2" version would be 0.022" wide.

Yup, as I mentioned earlier, small brush works well for this.

I don't care for Microscale mask. It is not latex-based (at least the old bottle I have) - it is more like thick gelatin. I still have a bottle of it somewhere (I only used it few times). But I do extensively use liquid masking in my modeling (but usually to protect gluing areas from paint). The stuff I use is a custom mixture of the latex-based masking agents. Most art-supply stores sell artist's liquid masking fluid. That is a very thin liquid which dries to a thin layer of stretchable latex. But that is usually too thin for my needs. I get some thick liquid mask (used to mask PC boards in electronic industry) and mix it with the thin liquid mask. That gives me a thicker masking fluid - perfect for what I need. Micro-Mark also sell liquid mask, but it is similar to the Microscale mask - not liquid-latex-based. Mixed with something like this.

I like your attitude Harry - keep it up!

I usually use very small pointy paintbrush (like 4/0 or 10/0) moistened with water. I pick up the decal with the point of the brush and apply it to a drop of water placed earlier on the model where the decal is supposed to go.

You mean the up-and-down hard-stroking motion? It is a natural motion for male Homo Sapiens.

There are literally millions of packages shipped using that method without any problems. I repeat, when you print out a postage-paid label with tracking info at home using the post office website (or an app) the tracking info update shows that a label was created, not that the item was shipped. The label can be created to ship the item next day or from a post office different than the ZIP code in the shipping address shows. But only after the package is accepted by a postal employee the tracking info shows it being accepted by the post office. I don't see any red flags in this process.

Since we got into other dimensions, I believe that we still know very little of about the universe which surrounds us. I also suspect that our brains are incapable of comprehending the actual composition of the universe. I also suspect that partially because of that our brains do something to compensate, but that would be crossing the line into religion, so I won't continue.

When I'm sanding or filing parts the shavings go in the apron. With Velcro I can unhook it from the bench while wearing it, hold it up and and then dump all the shavings in the trash container.

I know exactly what you mean (the high acceleration of the agitating ballz).

To me the reduced wait time is important. Not just for car bodies but for some small parts which require multiple colors and multiple masking operations. I also think that it makes the paint finish harder than when just drying at room temperature. I don't just use it for drying paint - I dry the parts after washing them, I cure resin parts in it (again they set quicker and harder). I also often use it to warm up the container with paint stripper with the parts immersed in it (to make the stripping solution more aggressive). So I guess it all depends on your building techniques.

Just as I suspected all along (ignoring the naysayers) - you guys have some really strong arms! Easy does it! I'm also wondering if the newer can bottoms (within the last 20 years or so) are made from softer steel (which makes it easier to dent them by shaking).

Mark, looks like you have duplicate threads on this? I answered your question on the other thread.

You could replace the 12V wall-wart with a standard 9V transistor radio battery. (does anybody still call these batteries "transistor radio batteries"?). But the bulbs will glow a bit dimmer (9V is less than 12V) and the battery has a fairly small capacity so it won't last very long. How long? I can't tell without knowing how much current the bulbs would be consuming at 9V. Another possibility woudl be to get a battery holder which holds 8 AA cells. That gives 12V and the capacity of AA batteries is much greated than the 9V battery so that woudl give you full brightness for much longer time than when using a 9V battery. You could also get yourself a surplus 12V rechargeable gel-cell lead-acid battery. Something like this one . It would probably power your lights for couple of days on a single charge. But you need to have a charger for it (standard car battery charger will work well, or get a dedicated charged like this ). But you need to be careful with this type of battery because if you accidentally short it out it can supply enough current to heat up the shorting piece of wire (possibly to the point of melting or burning the insulation). Another alternative is to replace the light bulbs with white-color LEDs (light Emitting Diodes). They are bright, don't heat up, and use very little current. Those you could easily power from that 9V battery for hours. But they are a bit more complex to hook up properly. If you do this Google search you'll find lots of helpful information on how to hook up LED