peteski

No, only the reflectors on the rear end have to be red (when illuminated with external light reflect red). The reflectors can be part of of the taillight lens (when the rest of the lens is either red or clear), or they can be totally separate from the taillight. For example my '85 Caddy has red lens taillights with no rear facing reflectors. The red reflectors are actually thin rectangles mounted in the rear bumper. But just to confuse things even further, those red taillights which have no reflectors facing rear of the car have small reflective areas on the sides to act like side markers. Many cars which have clear taillight lenses, have separate red reflectors mounted elsewhere. Manufacturers use many different combinations to be compliant with the laws.

Same is true in America. There are cars here with clear front and taillight lenses but the bulbs (usually LEDs) light up the appropriate color (red or amber). The only exception are the reflectors. In the rear of the car, reflectors have to be red. Then the side-marker reflectors have to be amber on the front side and red on the rear side. That's because reflectors are illuminated by external light source, so they have to have appropriate color lenses to reflect the correct color light.

Man, that guy loves to rant about all sorts of things. I couldn't watch all of the video. Geez! Nowadays with many cars using LEDs in the taillights the non-functioning lamp is very rare. I grew up in Poland with amber directionals in taillights, but it doesn't really bother me *THAT* much that in America they are red and shared with brake light. Especially since 1986, with the CHMSL being required in all passenger cars (and most larger vehicles have them too). The extra bright LED headlights bother me much more than this.

Should be interesting. is this a just-released kit or an older kit from the original release?

LOL, basing my opinion on some really poor spelling, punctuation, and grammar I see here (including myself), this site would be a very poor choice for this. Unless of course the training is about showing bad examples of English writing.

Nor sure if Europeans "straightened" American out or not, but probably as long (or longer) as the all-red taillight in US, Europeans uses amber directional at the front and rear of their vehicles. I think what happened was that as cars started getting imported from Europe/Japan to US, they all came with amber rear directionals. Then as American cars started getting exported to other parts of the world, the manufacturers had to comply with their laws, so they started producing custom taillights with amber inserts for export. Then things started getting all mixed together. I suspect that if one was to dig up the specific information about laws defining US taillights, it will likely state that either amber or red directionals are allowed, unlike with other parts of the world where directionals have to be amber. Lets face it, all-red taillights where the brake lights share the same circuit with directionals is cheaper than one with them separate.

Shining amber color bulb or amber color LED through a red lens will result in red light. Maybe there are small clear or amber color portions in the red lens which allow the amber color to show through. I would be interested to see the lights in question, although in my experience bright lights do not show up well in photographs or videos. Their bright light overloads the image sensor. Human eye is much better in capturing the actual colors. Might be more useful to take a closeup of the lens itself with the lights off.

In today's world I'm sure their are lots of "aunt Matildas", and just as many males as there are females. Even many car mechanics (excuse me: "powertrain technicians") are "aunt Matildas". Scary! Don't believe me? Just ask Ace!

Sure, with LED taillights this can easily e accomplished. But in that example I suspect the taillight lens itself is clear (not red or amber).

That rat's nest of wires and hoses was true in the fairly recent past, but today's engine compartments are so simple that there is nothing really visible. No reason to even model that.

Teslas have engines motors too. And a frunk.

So it probably depicts European Burger King. The windows on the drive-through wall do look European.

The subject line is very vague. A more descriptive subject line might attract the appropriate audience to answer the specific 3-D related questions. Then there is also a sticky thread here where this type of stuff is discussed:

I've seen something similar on certain year and model of a Mercedes. IIRC, it was several years ago. Looking at the taillight, they looked all red. But the yet directionals showed amber and backup lights white. If one looked closely at the lens, there are small slits in the red lens where the directional and backup reflectors are. There is opaque (reflective) material under the red part of those slits but clear transparent in the actual slits. Think Venetian blinds where the blinds are the red colored plastic. When the amber directional or clear backup bulbs are lit, all the light passes through the clear areas of the backup lens.

I'm in USA and have never heard or seen about the green inserts used to make the directional look orange/amber through the red lens. Things I learn in the online forums. I would think it would look more brown than orange. Government regulations specify minimum brightness level for the vehicle lights, but any additional color filter will filter out some light, reducing the brightness. Since light bulbs have standard brightness (wattage), I'm not sure how that works as far as keeping the brightness of directional to the minimum acceptable level. As for John's comment, my '85 Cadillac has all-red taillight lenses and there is no separate directional bulb. The brake and directional is on the same circuit. I don't remember if stepping on the brake while hazards are on will stop the flashing or not. I'll have to check that next time I take that car out for a ride.

Not in my experience. Majority of those new LED headlights are blinding to me. I can't balieve that such a high percentage of new cars have misaligned headlights. Yes, several years ago when many people were retrofitting aftermarket LEDs for their sealed beam headlights, they were very problematic and often misaligned, but most of today's cars have factory installed LED headlights. But we have strayed from the original subject. My fault - I just felt like ranting a bit on a semi-related subject.

Excellent lunar lander model, diorama, and superb Lunar-flavor photography.

Allison, It would be helpful to know more about the model. Looks to me like a kit. Might be H0 scale? What company made it?

Interesting question. Someone working at NHTSA would likely have some info, or know where the documentation is which dictates the colors. As you mentioned, many imported cars do have amber directional lenses in the taillights. But I have also seen cars such as Mercedes with all-red taillights (so they must have made those specifically for the US market). This particularly doesn't bother me as much as all those cars with all those aftermarket red, blue, purple, green lights (like halos around the headlights) at the front of the car. Some of those are fairly bright. That to me is much worse than red rear directionals, and cops don't seem to care. Back in the day, even the subtle "blue dots" in the taillights could get you stopped by cops. Not anymore. Also very bothersome are those those new blinding LED headlights. Sure, they illuminate the driver's road very well, but at the cost of blinding all the incoming drivers. It is just not cool! Again it seems that the NHTSA did not consider the incoming drivers when they made those headlights legal. Yes I know all about the very sharp beam cutoff, but that doesn't seem to help in real-world application,

With AI being the latest buzz, I have seen some AI generated images which weren't half bad (and plenty of not so good ones). I haven't looked into this, but you should be able to locate some AI instance where you can describe (or show similar) image you want to generate, and let it go at it.

Or get take-out! Unfortunately in this country service people like wait staff depend on tips for their income. Making this type of excuse (especially when paying with a credit card) makes them a (word I can't use on the forum).

I mentioned tires too, becasue those are also sorely lacking in most models. Kit tires are often wrong size, have incorrect shape, or have very poor sidewall and tread details. When we take the time to create (likely 3-D printed) better wheels, we will need better tires to complement the wheels. That will greatly improve our models. Also, it would be nice to have them available in more than just 1:24/25 scale. For example 1:32 scale or larger scales. Again, if these are to be 3-D printed, resizing the CAD drawing to print them in multiple sizes should be easy.

Like Mark mentioned, those balloon tires and wheels with in-scale spokes would be very nice. Of course more conventional spoked wheels and tires would also be most welcome. Most kit's tires have thick crude spokes, and tires with no or really crude tread pattern.

Don't worry, eBay will unfortunately survive and even thrive because most of the unwashed masses using it don't really care how they handle things. They are also too big and too well-established to fail. Sad but true. I have also been a member since 1999, and don't like what they are doing. Paradigm is shifting, cheese is being moved - the world is changing (often not for the better). That's why I'm glad to know that I won't live forever. I couldn't take the continuous disappointment of things going to hell without a hand-basket.

There is a lengthy "paint stripping" sticky thread in the FAQ section of the forum, and just by chance earlier today I was discussing brake fluid and other strippers along with they ability to strip various paints and compatibility with plastics and resin. If you are interested go to that post ( https://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/83153-paint-strippers-what-to-use/?do=findComment&comment=2906617 ) and also read few subsequent posts after it.