Dave Ambrose

We have a 60 gallon tank in the living room. I'm glad for football season as I can now watch the football game and do tank maintenance. This is the best kind of multitasking.

For me, it was more of a curiosity stimulant than a source of information. It caused me to ask questions. I needed multiple sources too. My dad was a smart guy. He could talk for an hour on how rocket motors work, chamber profiles and pressures, and the role of the nozzle, and why you want different shapes as you get more altitude. But, he couldn't tell me very much about cars. Fortunately, my brother in law was willing to put up with a snotty-nosed kid asking a lot of questions about cars. I can't really tell you how I got interested in cars. It was just something I picked up. And Harry, I'm not trying to generalize my experience to everyone. But, I have seen the notion of model building as educational get traction with parents. Maybe we put some extra information in the instructions, of put it on a web site. Parents would use it. The important thing here is that it would open up modeling to a new audience. I'm not old enough to be aware if any kind of learning aspect was ever used to sell models. I've never seen it. But I do think that model building was considered a good, wholesome activity for boys. Now-days, we should include girls too.On that basis alone, it should be a good thing.

I can only speak from my personal experience. I built all kinds of models as a kid; ships, planes, cars, Oddly enough, no armor. but from that I learned how things were put together. It wasn't perfect and some of my attempts to build flying airplanes were doomed from the start, but I still learned. It probably helped that my dad was an engineer and could answer most of my questions. Most people have only the vaguest notion about how cars work. They'd almost certainly get a much better idea from building a model.

Sometimes the propellant will leak from the can. The paint is still there, but you can't spray it. I've had that happen to me on multiple occasions.

I see they're running it on a very flat runway. Low clearance, and long wheelbase make for unpleasant scraping noises beneath the middle passengers.

I think the ridicule factor is higher than we'd like to believe. A few years ago, I caught a ration of ummm, advice from a family member regarding my daughter's model building activities. It was something along the lines of "gender appropriate" activities. After checking the year on my calendar, I decided to ignore it, but clearly, it's out there. BTW, my daughter is in her twenties. Most of the people who hear of me building models think it's a cool and interesting hobby. Then again, I'm a software engineer. I'd probably get a different reaction in a law office. I'm surprised that no company has publicly made a case that model building is educational. I was talking to the father with a young child and he latched on to that concept immediately. If you get into the right places, that concept could get a lot of traction.

These guys were two of my heroes. Better, I think, to celebrate a life well lived.

I keep an ABC extinguisher in the kitchen and the garage. Gotta replace them every few years too.

I use both. The convenience of a spray can is great, and modern paints work well in them. I really like Tamiya and the Testors one coat lacquers. But there are times when you want to blend colors, Can't find what you want, or you just have to cover a LOT of area. and buying 5 spray cans just doesn't seem financially responsible. I agree that cleaning an airbrush is a pain. It's better if you have lacquer thinner, Q-tips and pipe cleaners. I'm looking forward to the time when I can have a spray booth.

Earlier this year, I saw some prototype 3D printers. They should run about $2700, and in their fine resolution mode, make parts that are nearly model worthy. They heat extrude plastic to make the object. It's paintable. Spools of plastic filament should have a reasonable cost. They currently cost $75 for 2.5 oz of plastic. I don't see them necessarily making parts, but what a great way to make masters for resin casting. Print the part, clean it up, and cast away. That would be revolutionary. As for the ammunition, I don't want to be anywhere near a machine extruding nitrocellulose thankyouveryverymuch. That just sounds like a great way to rest in pieces. The economics will evolve as machine speeds improve, but even short term, there will be lots of good changes.

Yesterday, my wife and I stopped at Pegasus Hobbies. Wile I was getting 4bbl carbs and other detail parts, she brought over a box, and said "Happy Birthday". It was the new Pegasus Nautilus kit.

At her request, my wife and I are celebrating Mother's day by surf fishing at Torrey Pines State Beach. We'll be using our spinning reels w/ 8 and 10 foot surf rods.

I don't know about other areas, but my local hobby shops are only open because of the RC people. They spend big bucks on their airplanes or cars, and most importantly, they crash. That means repeat business. Armor and aircraft modeling is most popular here in San Diego. Not unexpected with the large contingent of retired and active duty Marines. Model cars are something of an afterthought. They have started carrying some detail parts, but if I really want the big selection, I need to drive up to the LA area. Oddly enough, science fiction modeling is growing. They've doubled their shelf space on that genre in the last year or so. Guess there are more geeks than old guys. Though some of us qualify as both.

Our Miata has been lowered 3 or 4 inches. I feel like this every time I see a speed bump.

I also use a block eraser as a smallish sanding block. Mine says "Mars radiergumi," but the ever popular pink pearl eraser should work well too.

Hey Lane. Welcome back. I'm looking forward to your builds.

I also like astronomy, SCUBA diving, surfing, building stuff out of wood, and we have a few 1:1 car projects that need some assembly.

Very cool. What's the purpose of that plastic tube running to the rudder?

Yes. Get a water trap for sure. Harbor freight is a good source. The Paasche hose will take a standard quick disconnect, which is what I use. I think it's 1/4" pipe thread. It might even thread on to the compressor as-is. I would also get a large pad of newsprint and some cheap ink to practice with. That will keep clean-up easy and you can really get a feel for the pattern each tip lays down.

Very nice. I have one of those in my stash. I hope it comes out half as good as yours.

My kit buying habits have evolved. When I first got back into model cars, I would buy new kits that I knew I wanted to build. I'd buy them as soon as they came out because I didn't want to miss out. My kit stash grew by a lot, and it's to the point where I feel guilty about the size. Now that I've been to a few model car shows, I realized that most if the kits I will want to build in the future will be available for half-price. So, I've pretty much stopped buying new kits, and stick to the swap meets. I do keep my eye out for rare kits, but mostly I window shop, and spend my hobby budget on detail parts and paint. But yeah, it was that fear of missing out, aka FOMO that drives a lot of marketing plans and I fell right into the trap. Seth Godin has an interesting take on the phenomenon and is far more eloquent than I.

I got Mickey Thompson's Attempt I. I gave up on this kit years ago when I wanted something to just "go together" w/o a lot of fitting. Now my skills are better, and I really want this one on my shelf.

I've found it helpful to mail from the large processing centers if they're nearby. We have a huge processing center just a few miles from my house, and mailing from there takes a day off the delivery time from my local post office, and their loss rate is much lower. I don't know if this helps for packages, but our newsletter service improved by a lot when we started barcoding the mailing labels.

Sadly, I didn't see your birthday either. That part of my screen is filled with a wide variety of administrivia. In any case, I hope you had a great birthday.

Glues -- I generally use Tenax, but I do use the Testor's on occasion. Tenax is a solvent glue. You let capillary action draw it into the joint. Testor's will work that way too, but I usually paint it on, then join the parts. I like it for joining big things like fuselage halves. When I need an ACC glue, I use Zap. I used to use the gap filling, but have pretty much switched to the thin. The gap filling has a rubbery binder that isn't helpful in most situations. Fillers -- I've been using Squadron white. It's pretty thick and viscous, but you can thin it down with lacquer thinner. It sands out nicely and takes primer well. I've always had a lot of paint drama with my models. I think I need to just spend a weekend painting models. Then I would get all the good habits ingrained in my little brain.