bobss396

I avoid paint-to-paint part attachments whenever possible. If I have to I'll use 5-minute epoxy, mix it up and wait until the 3-minute mark to apply it. Any excess wipes off with a damp cloth and won't attack the paint immediately like other glues. Another trick is to fabricate mounting tabs beforehand, before you do the primer. Then use the tabs as the gluing surface and the actual painted surfaces are not an issue. Bob

I like Model Car Garage mufflers. Scale Repros has a good set too. I would look at the MCG site as well as Detail Master. For exhaust tips, I usually make my own. Bob

Yeah, the TV show was a stretch to believe most of the time. Putting all the drama aside, he did turn out some creative cars. The shop was destined to fold up without strong leadership and a vision to keep the work flowing. Basically, no Boyd figure to run the show, no hot rods. However, the wheel shop is the proverbial cash cow. They have an established product line so that should be the easier side of the business to keep going. Bob

We were talking about hearses last night, I had my sister and brother over. I had mentioned earlier about a local funeral home family that was used a "work" vehicle to get groceries. The cars used to pick up "clients" from hospitals or homes are known as a "removal cars". My sister had a friend that worked in a funeral home and filled her in on that as well as other trade tidbits. Bob

All's well that ends, period. Sometimes it pays just to slug it out and finish it although it was a fight the whole way. Use it as a learning experience. It came out nice though. I'm not a big fan of resin bodies though, just too much work for my liking. Bob

The wild part of the saga is that the Big 3 and others making gas guzzling monsters didn't see the handwriting on the wall until they ran smack into it. I was looking for cars since January, trying to justify a nice V6 powered American car. In the end, I just was not able to do it and settled on a used 2.5S Altima last month. 4-bangers are the way to go if you want decent gas mileage. Hybrids now have a great market and I think we'll be seeing some turbocharged diesels within the next year or so. Bob

I spend around $35 per week and my wife does around $60 a week on gas, mostly going back and forth to work. I really haven't been buying that many models for the past few years, I'm well stocked. Trips to my LHS are for glues, paints mostly and other supply items. When I do go out on the road for shows, I car pool with my brother and we take a car that is good on gas. I save up for events like the NNL East and other big $hows. So far the gas prices haven't cut into my modeling funds. I have cut back on things that I really don't need for the most part. Bob

The hearse I was looking at needed work, it was purple with a white top and had "Plum Crazy" lettered in gold leaf on the rear quarters. It had a hangman's noose in the back window and purple crushed velour side curtains. This was during the 1974 gas crunch and my license was hanging by a thread anyway. Oh yeah, Cadaverllac, I made that up years ago, but you can use it. Got any pix of the hearse? Bob

When I was 19 I came SO close to buying a '62 Caddy hearse. I had the $600 in my hand too, but caved into family and my girlfriend at the time pressures. It was probably a good thing too. On a similar note to your story, years back I was at the supermarket and I saw the wife of the local funeral home's family putting groceries in her Buick wagon. It wasn't a hearse per se, but it WAS the car that they transported bodies from hospitals and homes to the funeral home. It was a dark blue with a vinyl top and had those little scrolls by the "D" pillars. So you're not the first to take groceries home in a "stiff hauler" or Cadaverllac. Bob

I had the original issue '40 as a kid and I have a built up original with the box and instructions that I got a couple of years back. There have been other changes to the kit as well besides the ones mentioned in earlier posts. The headers used to exit under the front fenders, or course there was that awesome 31A/G decal sheet. Tires and "custom" hubcaps have varied from release to release. I consider it a timeless kit in any form and have probably built at least a dozen (so far). The first one I did was close to the boxart as possible for an 8 year old. Bob

They were tossing out some shielded wire at work and I grabbed a couple of rolls. Once the outer jacket is stripped, it still has the wire inside (which helps hold the shape) and a tinned braid on top of that. I have it in .035, .050 and .060 diameters. Definitely good for radiator hoses, bigger fuel line, etc. It works well with Detail Master fittings. We also had some semi-flex cable that has an armored outer jacket. It looks just like flex exhaust pipe and measures .086 in diameter. Bob

I get Evergreen products at my LHS, he has a fair stock of almost anything. Check the link below, it has a tab for retailers, but I'm sure you can google it and come up with a place to get it. Bob http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/

Start out easy to see what works for you. I like to use .093 Evergreen tubing. You can add wire of smaller rod to attach it to the interior and to other cage parts, which makes it super strong. Or swipe a cage out of a NA$CAR kit and adapt it. I like to use .080 rod on them. Performance Plastics makes a good plastic roll cage which saves a lot of work and is very adaptable for other projects. Bob

There is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. I tend to take all my parts off the trees, clean them up first. I'll drill holes (where it won't show) to give me a place to "spear" the part with a toothpick and paint away. You can also hold the parts on fun-tack (used to hang posters) and a toothpick. Double sided tape works well for painting parts that have one side that won't show. For mold lines on 2 piece assemblies, I'll glue them with Tenax or Proweld brush-on glue and sand the seams. Almost all my pre-paint assembly is done with the aforementioned glues. I save super glue and epoxy for final assembly where more control is needed on painted parts. I really hate painting dashboards and interiors. I usually spray paint the major pieces and do the detailing with a small brush (buy good ones!) and have been using acrylic paint lately. Hope this helps. Bob

I walked in last night and caught the game right in the middle. I really had no favorite in the series as I like both teams. It was a tough one to lose for Pittsburgh. But they'll be back in force in 2009 I'm sure. Bob

The putty is good stuff, very much like the professional 1:1 putty. And if you have to use more than a thin wipe, you're using too much. All of my putty work goes into the dehydrator, so shrinking is not an issue. Bob

Nice build, really captures the look. I always did line 'shine cars and HAVE to see Thunder Road soon. That should be great reference material, not as good as what you have access to. Bob

I know, how inaccurate is that? There's probably the risk of paying royalties to the Joe Catalytic Converter Company, Inc. out there. Bob

I've owned "old fart" cars made by Buick and Mercury, both are very nice cars especially the Buick Regal and Lesabre lines. Mercury had a winner with the short-lived Marauder. Their Milan is an excellent car. I agree with the Lincoln having overshadowed the Mercury line as a big FM marketing blunder. I'm not sure I'd lay the blame on the bean counters, but something is rotten at good old FM and they may never regain a major place in the car market place. Bob

I agree that by and large, American cars are fugly compared to the Jap and European cars. The Cadillacs are growing on me slowly, the Chrysler line is a general abomination with their front heavy 300 and Charger. We looked at Chrysler Pacificas, me and my wife had to duck to get into the driver's seat, and we're not tall by any means. Fords are a confusion of "F" prefixed models, no wonder they're all eFFed up. I looked at '04 and '05 Chevy Malibus, very uncomfortable and have an ill laid out interior. But now the new ones are coming out and they're superior all around. Does it really cost any more to crank out an American car with good looks and a functional interior? I don't think so. I just added two cars to the stable at home, a 2001 Corolla and 2002 Altima. Both were the right cars at the right price. The Altima is mine and I can't find a thing that I don't like about it. I had hesitated so long in buying a foreign car, but with gas prices and what the US cars have to offer, I really had no other choice. Bob

Mercury used to be a "testing ground" for new product features. Something would come out on the Mercury one year, the next year it would be spread down into the Ford line. I always thought of them as a sportier more of a performance car as compared to the Fords, but they have lost some muscle through evolution. My wife drives a Grand Marquis, it goes like a scalded dog for a big car. The Milans are nice cars, I checked them out when I was car shopping earlier recently. It would be a shame to see them go, but that seems to be the way of the automotive world lately. Chrysler did have an over-saturated line with a lot of overlap, I had said that as far back as the 1970s. Mercury is not nearly as bad by far, they're just not able to adapt with what the consumer wants to buy NOW. Their investment into the SUV market was bad timing. If Mercury has to be the sacrificial lamb to keep Lincoln going, I'd have no problem with that. Bob

Mine ($1500) will be a down payment on my converting from oil to gas heat for my house. Fuel oil is about $3.60 a gallon and I blow through 800 gallons per year. The gas should be more stable and I'm reducing my carbon footprint. Whoever coined that phrase must be smokin' some fine stuff. Bob

Some stores have those little compressors that are steep at the normal price, but with the coupon they're just right. I once bought a few Badger air brush kits for something like $27 out the door and sold them on evilBay for an easy $45 each. Not a bad return on my investment. Bob

I'm all for a revolution, as long as I don't have to drive too far and maybe combine it with a hobby crawl. Bob

I don't know what you're going for, it sounds like too much work to me. I simply paint everything then attach the parts. I never ever worry about getting paint on to-be-glued surfaces. CA glue and epoxy stick to everything, paint, chrome. I never use styrene tube glue or any of the brush type glues for final assembly. I will scrape chrome and glue if it makes the parts fit better. Bob