peteski

Nice. That is a true scale hinge (as it is the same size as the molded in one. How exactly do you cut the brass tube (soldered to the brass strip) with a hobby knife without crushing it?

Eh, somebody probably just took the plastic engine cover off (because the BWM engine I showed earlier is likely just as complex under that pretty cover).

Airbrushing Alclad II Polished Brass paint over a glossy base coat will likely give you the result you desire. Similar technique to what you use for Alclad II Chrome finish.

Actually, if you pop the hood open on most modern cars with those uber-complicated engines, all you see is some fancy plastic engine covers. No wiring, maybe few simple hoses - mostly just a black plastic cover with a logo on it. Very simple to model.

Yes, that is a clever idea. A word of warning about those non-slip kitchen liners. They seem to leach plasticizer like the infamous vinyl model tires, so they can soften and mar polystyrene. Don't leave your model sitting on it for any extended period of time. Or replace it with some other non-slip sheet (like what Bill mentioned).

Dmiaxion, I also had one of those "What?!" moments when I read the subject line of your thread. You know, you can go back and edit the subject line to better reflect your question. "Gender" and "Fender" rare quite different things. You'll probably get better and on-topic replies to your question.

Splash Paints, Model Car World, and few others specialize in providing airbrush-ready paints for hobbyists, and they can color match to pretty much any automotive paint color. I'm curious as to why you want airbrush-ready paint? Airbrush owners are generally used to thinning any paint to airbrush-ready consistency. Even decanted spray paints often need additional thinning. Not too long ago, all hobby paints required thinning for airbrushing.

Well, you didn't include that tidbit of information. Now that I know that, the QR code became silly.

That doesn't seem all that weird. If the QR code on the billboard is large enough, any smart phone which reads those should be able to read it if iits camera is pointed towards the QR code. It's today's technology.

None of my deliver drivers (UPS, USPS, FedEx, or DHL) come to the door and ring the doorbell. Back in the day they all did, and if you were home, they handed the package to you. Now they only do dthat if signature is required. I don't remember of this started during the COVID pandemic or before, but it has been like that for a while. It's too bad because it was nice to have the package delivered in-person. And especially now, with the new sport of "porch-pirating" it would be good for the drivers to deliver the package directly to the recipient. Just like other things, this is not as nice as it used to be. The other problem is that during inclement weather (rain or snow) the delivery drivers just leave the packages sitting outside. In the past they used to put packages in a plastic bag so they wouldn't get wet. I recently had couple of packages left like that in the rain getting soaked (as I wasn't home). I have to say what every past generation used to say: Back in the past things were much better. I used to roll my eyes every time I heard that, but as I'm getting older I'm noticing the same thing. Sad, but true.

Some eBay sellers only ship once a week (but that is usually stated somewhere in the listing). Plus like Les mentioned, they don't see your payment right away. We have became a "I want it yesterday" society. Remember the days when you received a catalog in the mail, ripped out and filled the order form from the catalog, then snail-mailed your order with a personal check, then waited 4-6 weeks for the item to arrive? And no tracking. Or those C.O.D. orders where you had to wait home for the UPS driver to arrive with your package so you could pay them to get the package? My how things have changed. I guess I became a grumpy old guy.

To me it looks like the metallic paint was not applied evenly over the entire body. Visually the coverage looked solid and even, but some areas have a heavier coat of paint. Then the clear partially dissolved the base layer of metallic green and some of the metallic particles and green dye got into the clear. That is why there are color variations. Or maybe the clear was applied unevenly and where it was applied heavier it partially dissolved the metallic green. If you look at the darker areas around the door line edges, you can see different color (as if the green paint was pulled from those areas). I'm also not sure if primer would have prevented this. The bottom line is that stripping and repainting seems to be the only option.

This is developing into a very interesting project. Nice!

If the body is painted blue than you have to make sure the decals have white undercoat for the colors to look correctly. Unless you have a printer which can print white, your decals will not look good. If this is a recent kit, maybe you can get a copy of the decal from the kit manufacturer?

No specific answer, but any rechargeable batteries in any device (cell phones, tools, etc.) will lose charge-holding capacity with age and the number of charging cycles. If your tool is old then reduced battery capacity is expected. Batteries can also go really bad and hold very little or no charge.

Yes, it makes the link look short, but all the tracking code is still embedded in it (and tracking your usage). I don't like that.

If you are on a Windows computer and create the text artwork in a word processing program like MS Word, then save it as a PDF file, then it will likely work. Windows fonts (TrueType and OpenType) are vector-based and PDF format will preserve that format. There might be some letter spacing issues, but if the decal producer shows you proofs, you should be able to tell if the lettering looks correctly. But you have to make sure the letter size is correct. Programs like Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, or Inkscape make designing artwork (to the exact size) easy. They are like CAD programs where you know the exact dimensions of objects or text. None of the trial-and-errors people go through using tools like Word or MS Paint.

All you need in that link is https://www.ebay.com/itm/124715939732 Rest of the BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH is just bunch of tracking codes and can be trimmed off.

The chemical milling process (photoetching) is not perfect. Sometimes you might get parts which were not fully etched. In that case the holes will be smaller than designed. The way to fix that is to ream out the undersized holes with a drill bit.

If you stretch heat shrink tubing to reduce its diameter and wall thickens, if you heat it up it will compress back to its original wall thickens/diameter while it is also shrinking. Also when shrinking unstretched tubing, yes it will shrink in diameter but its wall thickness will increase. I figured I mention that so everybody has a complete picture of what can happen If you want some really small diameter tubing, the Kapton insulation from ordinary 30AWG wire wrapping wire can be stretched the same way as shrink tubing. That results in very small and thin-wall tubing. Make sure to get the Kapton insulated wire, not the cheaper vinyl. The only issue is that the color of the tubing will lighten a bit when stretched.

I suspect that customline was responding more to my post than yours. I see the same enthusiasm for home-based 3D printing on a model RR forum I participate in, and I'm not saying that I'll never jump in, but not at this time. Maybe when I retire and have more time, and find more space in my workshop. But I still think of it being more like a new complete hobby rather than just a way to print parts for my model car hobby. Also, there are always new technical improvements happening (and equipment prices going down), so by the time I do decide to jump in, who knows what the 3D printing field will look like. Then there is Shapways for printing your own designs without any mess, but it is not quite the same as having a printer at home. I can relate to that with my Alps MicroDry printer. I can design and print decals (usually one-offs) at home rather than getting a 3rd party printing company involved.

That is pretty clever. I have in the past super-glued strips of wet/dry sandpaper to pieces of strip styrene for some specific tight-quarters sanding applications. I wet-sanded, so the sandpaper did not get loaded up with the plastic dust, allowing the strips to last for a while. I do like your idea of the sandpaper being easily replaced on your "sanding blocks".

The question is: are you ready for another (fairly complex, and requiring new computer skills) hobby? I've been watching hobby 3D printing technology for several years and haven't jumped in. I'm not going to address the filament-printing process because the resolution is usually not fine enough for what we need in 1:25 scale. This is about the SLA process using UV light and liquid resin. Not even considering that this 3D printing technology is messy: parts have to be fished out of liquid resin, rinsed in alcohol (or water for some resins), post-cured in UV light, the bigger challenge is the actual computer work. If you want to design parts from scratch you need to get proficient in one of many CAD drafting programs. It is not a trivial task (and it will take lots of time away from your conventional modeling). Even if you will not want to do a complete design, you can find some online designs, but those are not print-ready either. You will have to learn how to use a slicer (the program which converts a 3D drawing into format that the printer can use to "grow" the design, a slice at a time). It is not always an easy process. Then there are the supports that have to be added for the parts to print properly. Again, the auto-support-generation process is not always optimal, and you have to experiment adding more supports or relocating existing ones. Lots of experimentation and trial and error are needed. Then you have to deal selecting the right resin type for the specific task, and deal with the failed prints, and troubleshooting why they failed. That is a lot of things to deal with, instead of building and painting model kits. That is why I'm still an armchair 3D printer.

To me the takeaway of this is not to use that silver paint for primer (unless you have a very specific reason, like a bright red or yellow plastic body and you want to paint it white). Why not use a proper primer otherwise? And I'll say it again: just because some online "modeling influencer" recommends some technique, it might not be the best, or work well for everybody or every application.

Often just paint is not enough (in time the plasticizer can soften the paint too, and then get to bare plastic). Using Bare Matal Foil as a barrier works, as it is real metal and plasticizer will not pass through it.