Dave Ambrose

Welcome back. There aren't a lot of car modelers out there, but we can congregate here, and that's one of the beauties with the Internet. Model Cars are alive and well on the west coast. But the shows can be hit or miss. We've only got a couple of model car only shows in southern California; Spirit of Speed, and Lower Left Coast NNL. There are a few IPMS shows with big model car contingents. Orange Con had a huge model car turnout this year. Model Expo, which the San Diego clubs organize, usually has a good turnout of model cars. The Spirit of Speed show had a modest, but high quality turnout. (glad I wasn't judging that one! too many tough decisions) I think this is the best time ever to be building model cars. We've got so much knowledge, supplies, and detail parts available.

Great news, Harry. Still praying for you.

Thanks for the update, Cato. Still praying for Harry.

Yup. It's broken. I'll submit a trouble report to the forum software vendor.

I'm getting that too. And just on this thread. I will investigate it tonight.

Damn. Not good news at all. If you have any prayers saved up for Harry, now is the time to send them.

Welcome. I've been drooling over your kits for a while. Gonna get one some time soon. :-)

Happy birthday!

Holy cow! That is just epic. This is my favorite show car. Saw the original as a kid, and must've spent an hour looking at all the details. I'm curious. The car had a reputation for cracking the frame. Did you address that in your recreation, or do you plan on doing a lot of welding?

I believe the Kronos Quartet worked them into one of their pieces. The composer is listed as traditional. I think someone was having a little fun.

Glad to hear your wife is better. Now it's your turn. Surgical procedures have advanced greatly in the intervening 17 years. You'll have a much easier time than your dad. I swear that my operating room came straight out of a Star Trek set. I found it useful to start brainstorming and researching build projects while I didn't feel well enough to build. I could visit my stash and think of ways I could kitbash or customize. I wrote them down in a notebook, and if I ever finish my current projects, I'll have some ready sources of inspiration.

I had some similar results with regular paint thinner a long time ago. Never tried lighter fluid. It's probably a more volatile, but I don't know. I wish my dad was still around. He was a chemical engineer and knew a lot about petroleum distillates.

That would be my maintenance window, but I don't do major maintenance all that often. Most of that is taken care of by the hosting company, which may be running backups in that time window. If I'm doing heavy maintenance, I'll let you know in advance, and take the site offline. I'm glad you're enjoying the forum.

I'll add a third vote for experimenting on spoons. Costco has them in large quantities for a reasonable price. I've been using the Testor's Airbrush thinner on my enamels and like it a lot. It seems a little more volatile, and perhaps purer than the hardware store variety paint thinner (aka mineral spirits, or paraffin if you're in the UK). It goes down nicely, and I found I can spray several coats in a session if I let them dry 10 minutes between coats. It takes a while to dry tho. I put my models in a box with a low-wattage light because I'm cheap. Other people use food dehydrators to speed drying. The California compliant lacquer thinner is a different beast that the stuff used by the rest of the country. If it contains toluene and xylene, then it's the real thing and will aggressively dissolve paint. I've had mixed results using it to thin enamels. Not sure if this was due to very low humidity, or the goofball thinner we're forced to use in California.

Yes, indeed. Happy birthday Harry!

Thank you. Not knowing is the hardest part, and they often have to run several tests to rule out certain conditions. I'm a dyed in the wool technologist so all the instruments and what-not are interesting. I ask a lot of questions. Stay with it. They won't give up until you do.

A lot of our picture content comes from PhotoBucket, and lately they've been more like PhotoBucketOfFail. I see they're back online again. It seems reasonably fast for me now, but we'll have to see how things develop. If you experience slowness, please PM me or post here with the date and time (with time zone!). I want to try to correlate this with server activity and load. Thanks, Dave Ambrose

Better to be over the hill than under the hill. This seems to be my year for having health issues fixed, or managed. It culminated in heart surgery 6 weeks ago. Gotta say that I feel better than I have in years. Some of this stuff just sneaks up on you.

Folks, please let me know if things are acceptably speedy for the rest of today.

Thanks. I saw some slow-down the other day, and wondered whether if were weren't just heavily loaded. We do get slow periodically, and I have to go in and do some database maintenance that seems to help for a while. I'll plan to do that this weekend.

This post should have them as attachments. Let me know if you can download or access them directly. 1968_Drag_Rules.pdf 1958_Drag_Rules.pdf 1958_Operation_Drag_Strip.pdf 1959_Drag_Rules.pdf 1960_Drag_Rules.pdf 1961_Drag_Rules.pdf 1962_Drag_Rules.pdf 1963_Drag_Rules.pdf 1964_Drag_Rules.pdf 1965_Drag_Rules.pdf 1966_Drag_Rules.pdf 1967_Drag_Rules.pdf 1968_Drag_Rules.pdf

I'm 61 as well. A couple months ago, I felt 71, but now am feeling 50-something. A little medical attention will do that to ya.

I, for one, would love a '66 Dart. That was the car I learned to drive in.

I understand your pain. Hang in there. Things will get better. I had the RF Ablation procedure for afib 6 weeks ago. Knock on wood, the afib is gone, and staying gone. The discomfort wasn't that bad, and I recovered quickly. The great thing is she'll feel better immediately, get back to a much better level within a few weeks, then get off the drugs in a few months and back to her normal energy level. Assuming no complications, but the complication rate for this procedure is only 1 in 200. I wish you the best of luck.

Regardless of where it ends up, it's an awesome looking truck.