peteski

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.

Keep in mind that not everything you see on the Interwebs is good advice. Primers are designed as undercoat for paint (so it adheres well), and as a barrier for hot solvents from penetrating to and crazing plastic. There are some who recommend silver paint to create a barrier to prevent the dye from bright colored (like yellow or red) plastic bodies leaching out and into the top paint coats, but not as a general purpose primer.

I'm glad it worked out for you. I never tired them, but I they were recommended on another forum. The decal looks pretty good, and with the white undercoat the colors will show up properly applied to any color surface. I do see to render colors they use CYMK printing, so under magnification, you can see the halftone patterns (not solid colors). That is visible on the yellow and blue "new york" decals. However, this is probably not easily noticed when viewed in-person. As for the speedy service, I suspect you provided them with print-ready (and probably vector-based) artwork. That makes things easy for them.

Did Ed pass away or just left the hobby? Yes, he was a great guy. Very helpful too. I met him in-person at a NNL East, and ordered bunch of parts from him (mostly wire wheels).

Yes, those are sharpened with a split point which not only bites into the material better than regular points, it also does not walk on the material being drilled. I also stocked up on the bit sizes which I use most often. I have hundreds of several single size bits. Several years ago there was an eBay seller who sold used TC bits in boxes of 50. These were removed from PC Board drilling machines after drilling certain number of holes. While they were no longer considered usable for drilling the fiberglass/epoxy boards, they are still plenty sharp.

The tolerances of the drill bit shank and drill gauge is too loose for a clean cut. Foil will just fold into the hole in the gauge, and the edge of thicker materials will be rather rough. There are punch-die sets available which have the proper tolerances to cleanly punch even thin material. And yes, a cover is required over the die part to hold the material steadily. Of course those punch/die sets will cost you. I have sets from Waldron (long out of business), Micro-Mark, and even Harbor Freight. For oddball sizes I also use the brass tubing method Charlie described. I use a hobby cutting mat as the base. Works well for paper or other thin materials.

Just the opposite for me. Growing up and being schooled in Poland metric was all I knew, but after I came to USA few decades ago I had no choice but use inch system. I still find the fractional representation a big pain in the butt, so for modeling I use decimal representation.

You mean the kits? No, It was a very obscure French manufacturer - long gone. https://www.scalemates.com/brands/europe-model-kits--4475

David, go to your favorite search engine and look up "cell phone tower near me" , then select one of the websites to find your tower. Towers can be shared by several providers.

It's in the front, under the "hood". The starting crank is up front. You can see the crank on the model. Here is a similar car. I believe it was powered by this spindly looking V-twin engine: Another view of the engine compartment: Some good info on https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Panhard-Levassor

Pretty clever Steve, but don't the 1:1 filters have a rubber seal on top and bottom which has smooth (not corrugated) edge?

I fixated on the piece marked .040 and didn't notice the other numbers. I just write the actual number. I guess if you have a 0.050" and 0.005" pieces, you will mark both as "5", but visually you will be able to tell the difference.

Yes, it is the plasticizer in soft vinyl that leaches out and softens polystyrene. This has been an ongoing problems for certain tires and certain manufacturers for decades. Placing the tires in a plastic zip-loc bag isolates them from other kit parts.

I also do this. I assume that .040 is the thickness (0.040"). That is how I mark mine. Saves getting the calipers out.

Yes the Tungsten Carbide PC Board drill bits with 1/8" shanks are very handy, and I use them as much as I can. Over the years I acquired a good range and quantity of those bits. I also bought a set of the GodHands bits (0.5-0.9mm, 2.5mmm shank) and I I'm not very impressed. They aren't made very well compared to the PC Board bits. Of course their advantage is that being made from HSS, then are nowhere as brittle.

Very nice build! I have that kit, along with few other Europe kits of the late 19th Century cars. Nice to see one in finished state. While fiddly, it sure looks like very finely molded kit of you put some care into the assembly.

That would be good, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Yeah, I miss the days when you had to not only pay insertion price just to create the listing, but also percentage of the opening bid. That is why so many auctions back then had opening bid of a penny. EBay is like wast wasteland nowadays, full of commercial sellers and opportunists hoping for suckers. The search engine also stinks, and all the "helpful" similar items to the one you are viewing are also very annoying.