Dave Ambrose

At this point, I think even those who were originally skeptical understand that we're in the middle of a serious pandemic. There are plenty of other places to get COVID-19 information that will be orders of magnitude better than anything we could publish here. Our purpose is to provide respite, support, and friendship. We're going to stick to that mission.

We're taking the board offline for some maintenance Saturday, 6 PM PDT. We expect it to be offline for the rest of the evening. I'm taking another shot at upgrading the board software. With any luck, we should be making some performance improvements.

I doubt it's a private message. Not even mods and admins can see those unless you add one of us to the conversation. In all the instances I've seen, the message has been in response to a member's status. Statuses and their responses are public, not private. This seems to be a common point of confusion. If this was a private message, and not a status, please PM me.

I agree. This is a very fiddly kit. I did some touch-up with a Molotov pen, but really, you should strip the chrome, clean up the parts, then use Alclad chrome. You also need to be extra careful with the rear suspension. Mine wasn't quite symmetrical. I didn't measure them, but I don't think the trailing arms are the same.

I finished final assembly of a Surfite.

Sorry to hear that. Please keep us posted.

Try clearing your browser cache, and if that doesn't work, clear the cookies for this site. I think the forum will lock you out if you have too many wrong passwords, so waiting 15 minutes might work too.

Well shoot. That didn't go the way it was supposed to. Some things are taking a LOT longer than they used to. Overall, this is a good thing because there's more content here, but I need a longer maintenance window. Will schedule another one for later this week. Thanks for being patient.

Versed in the ways of the server we are. ?

We just got notification of a security patch that needs to be applied right away. I will be taking the board offline tonight at 9 PM Pacific. We'll be offline for 2 hours or so. Longer if things don't go well. This bug would let a robot stuff your email box with spam. I think we want this ASAP. Have fun, build models, and post pictures. Thanks, Dave Ambrose

We've had multiple Coronavirus topics spring up. Many of them are turning political. As you should all know by now, political discussions are prohibited. There are better places to discuss those topics, they don't have anything to do with model cars, and they get contentious with no real resolution even possible. At this point, we are prohibiting any further discussion of the Coronavirus epidemic and locking any topics relating to them. However, please do post about event cancellations that relate to the model car community. Likewise, I'm leaving open topics that relate to the effects. Please do not turn them political. Any discussion about whether this epidemic should be considered serious, or about the government's response will be deemed political. At the very least, your post will be hidden, and you may garner yourself further sanctions if you persist. I appreciate everyone's cooperation. If you have any questions, please contact me, or one of the other moderators.

We've had multiple Coronavirus topics spring up. Many of them are turning political. As you should all know by now, political discussions are prohibited. There are better places to discuss those topics, they don't have anything to do with model cars, and they get contentious with no real resolution even possible. At this point, we are prohibiting any further discussion of the Coronavirus epidemic and locking any topics relating to them. However, please do post about event cancellations that relate to the model car community. Likewise, I'm leaving open topics that relate to the effects. Please do not turn them political. Any discussion about whether this epidemic should be considered serious, or about the government's response will be deemed political. At the very least, your post will be hidden, and you may garner yourself further sanctions if you persist. I appreciate everyone's cooperation. If you have any questions, please contact me, or one of the other moderators.

No, it isn't, but modelers who build taxis are braver than the rest of us.

That would be taxidermy. ?

Another Peet's drinker! Been drinking Peet's coffee since college. It was served by Mr. Peet himself. My wife said all the Peet's at the local grocery store was sold out. There was plenty of other coffee. We seem to be a dedicated lot. I just wonder why the liquor department looks largely untouched.

I didn't actually do any model building today, but I did move my new work table into position. This is an adjustable height "workbench" from Home Depot. Got one for my wife for Christmas, and she loves it. Decided to do the same for myself.

Our taxonomy isn't perfect. If it's larger, post it in Big Boys. Smaller can go into the Cars' Under Glass section.

I remember that from a while back. I'm not sure what happened to it. It's probably associated with the theme (appearance package) that we used on the previous version. Unfortunately, they didn't port it to the new version. I'm about to install a new theme, and that might bring it back, but no guarantees. As for ignore topic, that isn't part of the standard board, and I don't see any add-ons for the current version. It's a good idea though.

Hello again. I've merged this thread with another from General. Please leave the discussion here. I'll caution the newcomers against political discussions. There are other places to do that, and it's neither productive nor welcome here.

Post them in the Cars’ Under Glass section.

We’re postponing the San Diego Model Expo until October. We’ll publish a new date as soon as we can.

Folks, please keep the politics out of this discussion. I had to prune it a bit. The salient points have been touched upon. My wife was at the grocery store today. It took an hour to get checked out. The store manager was directing traffic, and people were bagging their own groceries. Everyone was nice to one another. Maybe it's because we all live around here, and have at least seen each other before, but clearly not everyone is overreacting. On a more model related front, we cancelled our meeting for Tuesday. I will miss seeing my friends, but we are sadly in the high risk group. We need to be extra cautious. We're also likely to see the same thing with car shows. Be safe, be sensible, and listen to the scientist.

Not at the moment. I need to assemble the Cass as it was originally designed and take a few pictures. There's a lot to be said for a good refractor.

We've accumulated a few scopes over the years. Our main scope is an 8-inch, f/20 Cassegrain that my wife and I built a long time ago. We also have a 5 inch refractor that we can swap in place of the Cass. To top things off, there is a 4 inch refractor on an old Super-Polaris mount. That is a very nice scope we use for moon or planetary.

I've come to the conclusion that buying model kits and building them are two different hobbies. I'm much better at the former than the latter. My other hobbies are astronomy and scuba diving. Diving, in particular, is pretty spendy, even after buying your gear. Relatively speaking, model cars are pretty reasonable, especially now that I have this stash of kits. Even if I were buying new kits, it would still be pretty cheap with one build costing less than a local boat dive. Don't even get me started with fly fishing. (my wife's hobby)