bobss396

I read up on Cardinals a while back. They are not flocking birds and have a certain range. I'm guessing a couple hundred yards perhaps. Another thing generally hard-wired into them.

I tend to rough cut everything and use a small vise with a file to get the perfect 90 degree end. I use a protractor and a scribed line for critical angles, rough cut, back into the vise. Line up the scribed mark and file away. A 22.5 angle is pretty handy in a miter box. In machine shops, we tried to use 15, 30, 45 degree increments where possible.

Cardinals are very territorial. This is why you usually see a pair and rarely an odd one mixed in. The exception is juveniles, which soon enough do fly the coop.

We had noticed years back when I was helping building tow trucks, that all cab lights were odd numbers, like 3 and 5. The last one we put 4 on it... nobody ever said anything... oh well.

I had been to his shop in Baiting Hollow once. His brother was a HS shop teacher and involved in the cars. He had a "new" Vega on the chassis table. The shop was big and had everything you could imagine. Charlie's full time gig was driving big rig gasoline trucks out of the Northville oil depot.

I think I have some thin-ish stainless steel somewhere... hmmmm. I would also do the 45* slots.

In my machine shop days, we made quick'n dirty punches from stainless steel rod. Depending on what was being punched, the edge would break down. Easy to touch up. Before long, it was evident that a thru hole was required to push parts out, via a long industrial q-tip stick. We punched things like solder pre-forms, thin soft metals.

So far i have only tried the Mr. Hobby primers. I can shoot and "lacquer" over them. Do they make other paints? I have to do some research.

I go there when my plumbing is backed up. Red Lobster when I need an express evacuation...

I got another Ron Coon Resins order, finally picked wheels and tires for the Mustang. He has nice wheel backs with good drum brakes detail.

We were there last week. Brace yourself... no CHILI on the menu. We will still go back.

I didn't take a picture, oh well. Last night was a Spanish dish, chicken fricassee. Easy to make and tasty. I used 4 drum sticks and 4 thighs. Washed and seasoned with garlic powder and Adobe. 1 medium size onion chopped, 2 small peppers (I used green, yellow and red) chopped, 6 cloves of garlic, pressed, about a 1/3 cup of diced fresh cilantro. About a 1/3rd of a jar of green olives, 1.5 tsp of capers. All of that goes into a zip lock bag with 2 packets of Goya Sazon seasoning and a bay leaf. Let it sit in the fridge for at least a few hours or overnight. I use an 8 quart pot, it will hold double of what I scribbled down here, start with some olive oil, heat that up. Then dump the whole bag into the pot with 1 8 ounce can of tomato sauce. Get it going, make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom, turn the heat to low, stir fairly often. It takes about 45 minutes, up to an hour if you have things like breasts and backs in the pot. I serve it over yellow rice.

Anything printed, I wash before doing anything with them. I have primed some and had a reaction like on old cast resin parts. Using a 2 part adhesive would be a real PITA in my opinion. Usually CA glue works well. I even had it where Tamiya solvent glue worked.

I keep an old food container by my kitchen sink with all my wet sanding stuff in it. DM cloths, #1500 to #8000, some sand papers, sanding sticks. Also a piece of old flannel and an old tube of toothpaste.

I looked .. nice stuff. I could have went with a donor chassis, but hate dividing up complete kits. I have a lot of these Southern Stocker based kits, some for parts I got on the cheap. I have some sealed ones, the whole series

Did you rocket 🚀 surgeons give up yet? For the rear horizontal attachment, I chose something really convenient without thinking of the rear axle location. AND... I only have 2 other completed examples to look at. It was only about 14 mm off. Copper is really cool to work with over aluminum. I can hold it tighter in the vise without crushing it. Also it cleans up nicely. It is a bit harder to bend and file. I had a couple of copper tubes in my OOPS! inventory already bent up. The next 2 hours was devoted to making them fit what I had going on. A couple of 1/32" pins and some CA glue, I'm back in business. Not pictured, but with the body I took about 5 mm off the rockers and cut the bar slot deeper. I have to assemble the interior buck and tub to finalize what I need to do next. I might just cut a 90* portion of the door corner out. Beer box is for size reference only.

It does look like my cave scribbling...

It is nice to see new kits coming out. I'll cite their Nova gasser as a good example. The AMT kits were quite rudimentary and the molds are pretty much clapped out.

I use beer bottle caps... I find that Miller works best .. ymmv...

I'm using Mr. Surfacer primer lately. It goes on baby-backside smooth. Usually it takes a few rounds to get everything sorted out. After the final-ish coat goes down, I'll lightly wet sand with a DM 1800 or 2400 cloth. Follow up with a warm soapy water wash, rinse, then 15 minutes in the dehydrator to dry it.

I made a major oopsie with the bars on the printed chassis... see if any of you can spot it. Good thing I got that new razor saw. I needed it anyway to cut the top of the cage off and dissect the interior tub.

I got it... I'm a little slow at times.

This happens to me often when I dig out a BACK IN THE BOX! special and start working on it again. Now I leave cryptic notes in the box when I pause during a build. Sometimes months later they make sense.

My kitchen counter looks like a modified junkyard. All 3 bodies are in final or final-ish primer. The chassis on the counter goes with the Gremlin, where it started. The 3D chassis is kind of complete. I need to pick a convenient place to lop the cage off, so the tub will go in. The uprights are .080" and the horizontal bars are .060". The chassis was printed with a wall behind where the tub goes in. So I may have to cut up the tub. I'm happy with the side rails. I was sweating that out.

My problem was the pins not reaching the holes. I wasn't test fitting as I went along, possibly did not do a 100% fit check with all the key pieces like the interior.