bobss396

I had them replaced a sheet some years back, same problem with thin stripes.

The fact that the windshield frame is intact... that is awesome!

I think we will have to see how it plays out in upcoming shows. If anyone has contest rules pertinent to the subject matter, please chime in.

Jayes Model Car Garage has some excellent 3D printed ones, fittings on both ends. Very easy to use

They are my personal air force! I have at least a dozen of them.

The OG box art was the bomb. That alone got me to buy the kit at age 12. I should have known from my '56 Chevy attempt. Im not sure if i ever finished it.

Then the category numbers get out of hand. Plus you may only have 1, 2 or no entries in one of those 3. The money to buy those trophies is wasted. We try to keep it down to around 27 classes, not counting best-of packages. There are discussions most years, what classes can be eliminated, what can be added. It goes up to a club vote. With a total of close to 100 awards being given out, we recognize about 1/3 of the entries. Edit: I looked for a flyer for our show with no luck. The back has the contest rules. I believe that it had on it, that 60% of any entry had to come from a model "kit". Going forward to today, the word "kit" would have to be defined. One local craftsman brought in 100% scratch-built airplane engines in scale that ran on gasoline. He did start one up at a show. They were all masterpieces, everything machined from metals. IIRC, these entries went into the miscellaneous category.

From what I have seen, when it comes time to judge a contest, it is hard to come up with enough "qualified" people to get it done in an orderly fashion. I've heard of some really bad things at our own show over the years with some well known modelers getting skunked despite excellent entries. We used to have judging clinics at meetings. This is also a good way to lock in a good judge line up for upcoming shows. The last one I recall was the month prior to the show.

53 F here and not as humid. The sun is trying come out now. It should be nice later on. I went to a house party last evening and we sat outside. It was a real nice night, zero bugs out.

More of my girlfriend's cats. Brie on the bench, Bleu on the table... bad cat...

Brie was sitting with me earlier today a very sweet little cat.

Opening day shots! Actually there was a superstition among drivers, not to take pictures of a stock car before it is raced.

20 years ago I was hearing people grumble at shows over my entries due to the fact that I made machined parts for my cars. But the trend did catch on, to a point. 3D kits or parts don't jump out of the box and build themselves. They often need some work to them. I've been using 3D parts for a while and just finished my first full 3D kit. Nobody has ever said much about conventional resin cast parts or kits at shows. 3D stuff is still resin-based for the most part. The process is different, that's how I see it. My club is IPMS based, we did that to take advantage of insurances, etc. BUT... we do our own thing. We have nothing in our contest rules about 3D made parts or kits.

A few shots with the body off.

Numero uno finished for 2025. I'm happy with how it came out. I spent part of the morning doing final assembly. The paint gave me fits, although I'm familiar with the Extreme Lacquers.

2 of Ivan last night. He stays just out of my reach at times.

The TV special i saw alluded to an open hatch that let water in. It was enough, they alluded to the ship being bridged up on 2 waves and the weight deep in the hull snapped it in two.

The song got a lot of air play, although it was long. I still get shivers when I hear it play.

I believe it was a hatch cover that came loose somehow. There was a special on it, forget if it was Discovery or Nat Geo. A buddy of mine was in the Great Lakes US Coast Guard training program at the time. His ship answered the distress call. They got out to the area... nothing. He said it was the heaviest and roughest water he had ever been out on.

More Bird Buddy visitors. The blue Jay was stunning. 1fe517f1-11da-44ed-a29c-af424c66d453.mp4 59e219d6-7088-4c0e-9423-7f90472eb8c6.mp4 f8f99f51-518d-4829-9075-89db4ab0b730.mp4

Someone in my club mentioned a SAE CD ROM that he got somewhere. Apparently it has every article that was in any magazine including the contest cars from day 1. Supposedly it is searchable.

I'm not like that. I try to buy local before I go online. Locally you get free shipping and no waiting. In later years I've seen dwindling after market parts in hobby shops. I pick up most of mine at big shows and online. One shop does offer to order me anything I may want, but that eats up 5 days and is a 25 mile hike each way.

I go smaller for radiator hoses, like .060" or .050" insulated wire. I use .093" aluminum tubing at the engine and radiator and these sizes slip right in.

Ivan came out of his daytime hiding spot for a while.

I hope to get something done by then. I'm also a kit vendor.