BDSchindler

Since I saw this 3 weeks ago, I have been to every Yard Sale in the area looking for a Jig Saw. I have a Craftsman Scrolling Jig Saw but could not see my clear to modifying it. Today however, I finally found the same model used in the video. The guy wanted $10, I offered $5 and he took it. I have 3 of the clamps at home. 10 minute modification, maybe less. Found an old bottle of Testers Orange Gloss that was never opened and OVER 20 years old. Paint was definitely separated. 30 seconds later, I took a paint brush, dipped it and painted a few strokes over a scrap hood. Paint covered perfectly. Thank you, Chris for posting this tip.

I picked up this "Graffiti Remover" today to try after I had a chevy pickup sitting in Purple Power for 3 weeks with very little movement. Truck was painted with Gravity Colors metal flake about a day befor going into the bath. I only soaked a couple of test pieces but t it removed everything to bare plastic in no time and only required minor scrubbing in tight areas. One of the prices I used some squadron to fill a hole and it did attack that also. Since the body has a fair amount of 2-part filler and some squadron on it, I'll just leave that in the purple power and scrub as needed. So far, it does not appear that the purple power is attacking any of the fillers used on the body.

I do that with every package as I primarily just want to know when it is delivered. In this case, as soon as Gravity provided a tracking number, I set it for texting the status and it still sat for days on end label created but not picked up.

Ahhh, no offense, Chris but unless I am reading the dates of the posts at that link wrong, the most recent post was nearly 2 years ago. "Posted on: 31 Jul, 2015 11:05 PM in response to: TheTunerGuy"

Way back when I used to write for hobby magazines, I would get email from people that had issues getting products they had ordered. I would tell them to contact the seller first and if that didn't work, to seek out the more popular forums and place a posting regarding the issue. Nothing promotes a faster response than bad press in a public forum provided you tell the truth. So I decided last night to take my own advice and post my experiences with Gravity Colors...(see two posts above). Low and behold, suddenly there is movement with the tracking information! No response to email, so far, but shipment is expected to be on my doorstep on Saturday. I won't bother holding my breath until its in hand, however! I'm sorry but when items are supposedly in stock, I take that to mean they are in stock in the local office (in this case, Florida). This was not an issue with USPS (item was flagged for shipping a week ago), but more an issue with the merchant. Nothing was lost apparently as the order has (supposedly) been filled/shipped. There are other options out there for future reference. In so far as Gravity is concerned, I'm done.

Last year, I placed an order with Gravity Colors and after a week of no movement on the tracking number (despite the order status showing as "shipped"), I contacted them to find out what was going on. 4 emails later with the last one being somewhat heated on my part, I got a response...an apology, Refund and immediate shipment of the items ordered free of charge. I considered that great customer service...then. So a couple of weeks ago, I placed an $80 some odd dollar order and I find myself faced with the exact same situation again. Nothing rec'd, no additional replies to emails, no movement on the tracking number. Is this the normal way that Gravity does business? After ordering these items from Gravity Colors (located in DelRay Beach Florida), I had placed an order with Ted's (in Naples Florida) and received that in 3 days. Shipping is pretty much equal distance to Maryland just one is on the opposite coast of Florida from the other. Even if ground service, it should not take this long...cripes, it could have walked here faster if it had legs! I will call gravity tomorrow rather than emailing them again, but I doubt I will be placing any more orders with them.

McAffee tells me the site is unsafe and blocked it.

got a chance to see his Bronco items at our club meeting today. Outstanding!

I talked to Bob Johnson a while back (He was also part of Accurate Miniatures) and he said the funding just dried up on the Cobra. Bob also worked for Revell-Monogram for a number of years so it is very possible that a starting point for many of the works-in-progress had their roots from R-M. I am not saying that was definitely the case, just offering it up as a suggestion. In diecast arenas, it was so commonplace to use kits as a base for diecast models that some kit designers from various manufactures starting putting specific identifying tool marks into the kit patterns that the average person would never notice. The Designers knew the tool marks were there but the architects wouldn't realize it and included the tool marks into the pattern. I don't know what the kit manufactures ever did with that info, if anything...but I do know that in one case, it became bragging rights for a designer with regard to the diecast derivative that resulted.

signed in as well, Randy.

Jeff...first off, I am not a lawyer but to me that is an admission of guilt in that he remastered your original work without your permission. In essence, he admits to copying your product. Use it when you contact ebay. Second...seriously contact eBay and get yourself setup in the Vero program. It doesn't cost anything but establishes your products on eBay as being yours. I reviewed a 1/24th scale Danbury Mint 41 Cadillac for my column in the mis-managed The Car Room Magazine. A couple of years later, I sold it on ebay for around $700. In the Auction, I copied the article as as I had submitted it including my name. Many people knew me through the Magazine as well as many diecast forums. The day it ended, some "Richard Cranium" in California ran an auction for the very same model and used my auction word for word to include using my name as him writing the article. While Ebay drug their feet at first, I persisted that they do something. Since my column included my face picture, I had to send them a copy of Maryland Drivers License (minus the number) and a copy of the printed article. I sent them the entire magazine (I had several copies as the owner of the mismanaged magazine apparently had way more printed than there were subscribers!). Ebay ended up shutting down the auction, notified all bidders that the seller was committing fraud and because of the uniqueness of the original auction (mine), removed the seller from Ebay. I also posted it on every diecast forum I could find

thanks for the advice guys, greatly appreciated

Just curious as I have a project waiting in the wings to get started on but does anybody offer any aftermarket engines options for Dune Buggy's/Meyer's Manx kits??

nice...speaking of Mail Trucks...I saw this 1:1 at the beach last summer...

Been working on this little by little based off of a street truck I saw in a magazine a while back. The frame is scratch built with a Corvette rear suspension. Front suspension isn't done yet...still trying to figure out what is going to work best. The bed has a lot of work in it. It's a 99 Chevy 1500 bed with the quarters flattened just a bit and smooth over. The wheel wells from the 50 Chevy bed are attached to the 99 outer fenders. I raised the bed floor by a third. Still a lot to do. It's my first really radical custom attempt in nearly 30 years and my 3rd project in the same amount of time (recently back in the hobby again).

I could tell you tons of stuff about this man since I wrote for The Car Room Magazine from it's inception. We were brothers from different mothers for longer than the The Car Room Magazine going back to Toy Cars and Models Magazine. After 4 years, untold number of lies and 2-faced behavior topped by a breach of contract and failure to pay ANYBODY associated to the magazine, I had enough and took him to court and WON. Rumor mill (and no I do not know for sure) is that Air Age Media who owns Diecast X, uncovered some very dirty things regarding Kelly and fired him. He started Heavy Metal Models but last I was told, nobody has any faith in the guy anymore as he has proven to everyone in the hobby as he is more full of himself than physically possible. Nope...never heard of the guy.

Bill is right on the mark with this. Prior to getting back into modeling, I was very active in Diecast Replicas from a collector, manufacture and Media standpoint. Many of trhe diecast companies stopped putting brand name tires and used generic tread patterns on replicas to avoid paying royalties to Good Year and Firestone. Some manufactures may not even care until a certain amount is available for sale. Like Bill said...YOU need to check into it for yourself.

here's a few more examples of using a Macro lens, f22 f-stop, lt. grey white balance, manual focus and remote (battery operated for total hands off the camera) shutter release for no movement in the camera. This wheel-tire from Danbury's 33 Ford Cabriolet was composed using 3 separate pictures then blended together and cropped...no adjustments for light or exposure... Another example of blending photos depending on the features in your camera, some will take a side-by-side shot...kind of a before/after type that is useful for demonstrating a feature of the car like this opening gas cap on the DM Owens/Corning race Corvette... I agree that reflective backgrounds add a bit of drama to a shot... or even a bit more subtle approach that still packs a ton of drama like the DM 38 Custom Hauler... Work with it and play til you find something that fits what you are trying to do. Fortunately, digital cameras make the whole photography thing much cheaper that the old film cameras once you bought the film and had the slides developed. It was a super expensive hobby back then but now, there's no guilt involved when you take a bad shot...just delete it and reshoot!

here's a couple of the Danbury Little Deuce Coupe... This one is lit from underneath using a photo table One of the cool things you can do with a digital SLR in full manual mode is taking a shot where everything is in focus. In this shot, the lens is 4" from the engine bay and using a macro lens, individual pictures were taken of of the engine bay and then blended together using Paint Shop Pro. 9 pictures make up this shot If there is any interest...I can post more

I used to write for Toy Cars and Models and the poorly managed The Car Room Magazine where I reviewed higher end 1/24th scale diecast cars and trucks. Some were shot with a photo booth some on a photography table. I kept trying new things to get a feel for what I wanted. Everyone used 3 diffused "Continuous" lighting sources...1 overhead and 2 from the sides where I could move them around. I shot with an Olympus E500 Digital SLR in full Manual mode setup in .tif format for ultimate in detail shots. White balance was normally set with a light gray as opposed to white...softened the pictures just a tad but still allowed for a lot of detail. The biggest deal is the fstop...I set it to f22 for maximum depth of field and almost always used a macro lens. Focus was accomplished manually and I used an electronic battery operated remote wireless shutter release to minimize ANY movement in the camera. When you have the lens less than 1 inch from the part you are trying to highlight...anything that can cause the camera to move...and I do mean ANYTHING down to a mouse fart will result in a blurry shot. Take a look at this shot of the headlight lens of a 1/24th scale Danbury Mint '58 Pontiac Bonneville...this lens detail is on the INSIDE of the lens. This lens is less than a 1/4". The camera lens was seriously less than 1/2" from the nose of the Bonnie. Interior shot I'll add more in a second post

Rookie question here but on the recommendation of a good friend of mine, I've been using Evercoat Polyester Glazing Putty but the setup time is so short that it starts to lump on me and just frustrates the beejeevers out of me. I tend to use an amount about the size of a half dollar and just basically a dot of hardener and I get about 10 minutes of time to apply it before it gets clumpy and I go back for more. It feels like I am using more than I should. I know the more experienced I get using it will result in better results. I do like it as it sets up in a short amount of time and sanding is fairly easy as well as the fact I can sand it inside of an hour...which is a plus. Years ago I used squadron green but that has tendency to melt the plastic and the testers stuff is just garbage in my opinion. So... what do you use and how are the results?

Never an issue, good products, fast shipping

"MEAGER efforts"? "fairly SIMPLE shapes"???? Randy, compared to you...I figure I'm the village idiot! Just curious...where did you learn to do this?

picked these up from Steve from the last NNL

Replicas and Miniatures of MD has 3 sets of floor shifters depending on your need. I picked these up from Norm at one of Mama's Boyz club meetings a couple of months back...