peteski

Yes, those are GM and Bars Leaks turds are the same stuff. GM had them repackaged in a GM-branded blister packs. I have both versions (since I own a 1985 Eldorado). Sctually the slang name was "dog turds". They are a bit large for lizard droppings, unless you mean Komodo Dragon.

Cool! I saw them in the photo of your car so I included them on the decal.

Looks great Pat! Are you going to use the LEVI'S and Hurst decals too?

You think that's odd? The early '80s Caddy Eldorados with the HT4100 engines had lots of problems with coolant leaks through head gasket and porous aluminum block. Solution? GM officially sold "coolant supplement tablets". They were made from ground up ginger root and walnut shells. Might have been some Turmeric in them too. They were compressed into what the Caddy owners called "turds". They were brown things that looked the part. I'm not making it up. As I recall, ginger root fibers expand when they dry, so when they lodged themselves into the voids, they dried up on the outside, expanding and sealing the leak. Kind of like a Dutch boy sticking a finger in a dyke leak.

Funny that the car had integrated bumper in the early '70s, then the 5MPH bumpers were mandated, so "steel rams" were tacked onto pretty much all cars, and yet contemporary calls all have integrated bumpers. Like the adage goes, what's old is new again.

Problem to me with Testors silver (which has been available for probably 50 years) is that it never seems to fully dry. Plus it is nowhere as "chromey" as the kit's "chromed" parts, or even BMF. It is satisfactory to touch up small flaws in kit's "chrome", but I would not use it to paint a while bumper. But we all have different standards.

Are the ingredients listed on the label? Usually chemical bottles have those listed. It is probably what we call Odorless Paint Thinner. It is petroleum based and still has a slight odor. Can likely be used for solvent based enamels (like Humbrol and Testors PLA enamel). I don't airbrush acrylic water-based paints because they are difficult to clean out of the airbrush.

Very well built models. I have the Indian - hopefully I'll build it someday.

Weren't Probes just rebadged Mazdas?

That came out great!

I love the bumper sticker!

Sellers do get creative.

Sure, but you aren't paying hosting fees like Model Cars Forum does. I've been involved with computers for a long time (my first computer came with 1 kB (1024 bytes) of RAM, and I have always been striving to minimize storage use. Nothing wrong with that.

@Dave Ambrose I'm a big proponent of resizing photos to a size that is "forum friendly". I usually use 1200 pixels across, and file size is usually much less than 0.5MB. Whenever I see a thread when a newbie is asking how to upload photos to the forum, I suggest resizing them first. I've seen some photos uploaded here with large enough resolution to print out a poster size print. It is not really necessary, and it eats up the server's storage space. I also realize that not everybody is tech-savvy to easily resize photos, or doesn' want to be bothered to do it. Does the forum software have a feature which would automatically resize photos to a forum friendly size? In a long run that would lessen the amount of server's storage space used up by photos. Another forum I frequent also hosts photos locally and has the automatic resizing feature enabled, it also increases the compression ratio on JPGs, so that further reduces storage requirement, and the photos still look decent. We are now here at half of Tera Byte. How long til we get to 1TB? Something to ponder . . .

I just tried. If I go to the very last page of topics in this section it shows threads from 2006!

Interesting. Then how do some users here find threads that are several years old and bring them back from the dead?

Unless there was a very good reason (like trolling or bad language), I find it hard to believe that it was deleted. Even then, threads aren't deleted, but made invisible or put in some section of the forum not accessible to regular users.

I agree. Unfair advantage in what? Sounds like they are thinking of competition in model contests. Sure, that is true for trophy-whores (yes I also said that), but model building should be done for your own enjoyment, so as far as I can see, everything goes. You might or might not even enter a contest. And even if you have whatever advantage they think is from machining your own parts, or using 3-D printing, if your assembly techniques and paint jobs are crappy, you won't be winning top honors. What I saying that in order to win trophies, you have be pretty damn good modeler, regardless of what extra parts you are slapping on, or whether you are using 3-D printing. The whole thing makes no sense, but as I said, social media brings out the worst in some people. Not that this unwarranted jealousy wasn't present, but it was only discussed by few disenchanted modelers whispering in the corner of the model contest hall (not instantly broadcast to hundreds of people).

Whenever I can I use Tungsten/Carbide (TC) bits with 1/8" shanks which come from PC board manufacturing industry. The are extremely hard and have split point which makes them go through most materials like butter. Yes, the harness also makes them very fragile, but I'm willing to take that chance (I do break my share of them). We had a discussion here about those bits. I highly recommend reading that thread. And another one:

Well, the way some of the FB members of the group mentioned by the OP were behaving, it was a bit more than being disinterested. Getting mad at someone who post info on some 3-D printed model they've built and chewing them out is not quite "being disinterested" If someone was just disinterested, they would look at the model, say "meh", and move on. Catch my drift? Again, I think it is the social media bringing out the worst in otherwise normally behaving people. I can even see me sometimes getting too passionate about things I say online.

That's what I suspected. After all you are taking a flat disk and making a dome out of it. So it gets cupped, making it smaller. Think of a brown paper cup which holds a Reese's peanut butter cup. When you flatten it, the paper stretches out quite a bit larger than the cupped version. Yes, this is a rather extreme example, but similar process takes place during doming. Thanks for the confirmation. As for hypodermic tubing, I used to get mine from Small Parts Inc., a great source of lots of useful items. But some years ago, they got absorbed into amazon, and the amazon store is useless trying to locate anything. But I've found a source of similar type of supplies. They have very wide range of hypodermic tubing and other items which can be useful in model building. https://componentsupplycompany.com/

Just a warning: These paints are fairly "hot". If sprayed on heavily they might slightly craze some kit's plastics.

I already posted my opinion on this but I think I would like a further explanation of this (no, I'm not on FB, and not planning on joining). What modeling groups are those? People who build standard injection-molded polystyrene kits? Or some group that builds models from scratch maybe? What specific reasons those individuals give for rejecting 3-D printed models? How about urethane resin cast models which have been around for long time? Are those models ok in their eyes? How about resin cast models produced in a mold where a 3-D printed model was used as a master? This lack of acceptance seems very silly and limiting. It absolutely makes no sense, but in today's highly polarized world, this is not unexpected. Someone gets some totally unreasonable notion about something, posts it on the Internet, and suddenly we have a mob. Some of those people need a "clue bat".

Thanks Daniel, that clarifies things. I thought you were placing flat piece of aluminum over the surface of the female die, then pressing it into the depression using the male part of the die. Kind of what you would when punching the metal in a regular punch/die set. That also answers my subsequent question about trimming the finished reflector out of the flat sheet - there is nothing to trim. Now it is all clear. Using this technique you are limited to the sizes available in a doming set. Do those provide proper sizes for headlights which would be replacing kit's solid headlights drilled out of the grille of many older kits (or promos) where the headlight was integral part of the grille? Judging by the photos you posted, the answer is yes, close enough.

We had a lengthy discussion about similar dilemma: what is considered scrachbuilding. 3-D printing came up in there too. Who cares what technology created a scale model? It's all good! The end result (the pleasure of building, and a finished scale model) is what counts.