Dave Ambrose

I'm also a very satisfied One-coat customer. I've never seen anything like that, though I have managed to put down some paint that would have an orange calling it cousin. I have a couple of ideas -- First, don't put the body in the dehydrator. Lacquer paint dries plenty fast on its own. The warm body may be driving the solvent out too quickly. I've also seen the gas used to pressurize the spray can stay dissolved in the paint long enough to bubble up on the surface of the model. The paint needs to stay liquid long enough for the bubbles to reach the surface.

I'm a dinosaur. I use enamels. Some people think I'm sick. There, we got that out of the way. I use the sniff test to determine dryness. If I can still smell a lot of solvent on the model, it's not dry. Barely detectable is OK. Sometimes it takes a couple of days in my "bake box" to get adequately dry. Enamels skin over, and dry slowly after that. Your reward for your patience is a nice, smooth, paint finish, even without polishing. Once you get your airbrush back online, you can use lacquer thinner when you spray enamels. This completely alters their behavior and they dry fairly quickly, even without a bake box.

My German might be a little rusty, but this is an Austrian creation. The interior rises on hydraulics to give a full featured, modern DJ booth. To borrow a bit of phrasing from the article; Es ist sehr coolen! Ich sage, ausgeseichnet!

I see an armor kit in my future.....:

Nice looking build. Those louvers are a keeper.

Wow. Nice pictures. I swore I was going to go this year, but work prevented that. Next year fer sure.

This ain't your father's roach coach. Food trucks are a big thing in LA.On our visit to the Miracle Mile district, they were lined up and serving some really good food. We seem to have a good rotating set at my office here in San Diego, including one that serves excellent sushi.

I love Morgans. That one is beautiful.

This brings lots of adjectives to mind, but if I used them, I'd have to ban myself. Let's just say it's an epic build and leave it at that.

To me, a clean build is one with no obvious flaws. It goes back to the archaic term "sanitary" to describe a clean, well-executed mechanical assembly that will function well in its intended purpose.

More time between coats shouldn't be a problem. The solvents in lacquer will bond it to the coat underneath no matter how dry it is. unlike enamels, lacquer doesn't "skin over". It uniformly dries.

I get good results from my General, even with the tiniest bits. The top of any pin vise should swivel. Otherwise you're gonna need a lot of mole skin.

No motor mods to ours, but I like the idea of adding the 323 turbo. IIRC, they both use the same basic motor, so shouldn't be a problem, except in California. Someone in my town has a Miats with the Ford 5 litre conversion. It's wicked fast, but you need some fat rubber to get that power to the ground.

Great work! It really looks nice.

Welcome back. I understand about hotel living. After way too many years, I finally figured out that I can bring a model with me. Fitting and brush painting is not problem, but spray painting is problematic at best. Building makes the evenings much more pleasant.

Sounds like it's time for a "bake box." Take a low wattage work light. The fluorescent types work well. put it in a cardboard box with the model and turn it on. Close the box and wait. I find that the paint hardens within a few days. Hopefully, you'll get the same results I do.

We have a similar problem in San Diego, but not as bad. It's the good weather. People don't particularly want to build models when it's warm and sunny outside. I visited a couple of hobby shops in Toronto, Ontario that would kill and eat any shop we have in San Diego, Then again, we don't have 6 months of winter either. I get by with the occasional trip to Orange County or LA, online, and the fortunate fact that my local hobby shops carry a lot of paint. I buy from them when it makes sense, but there are a lot of things I want to buy that I can't get from them, even on special order. So, I go online.

If you go by the one in my driveway, they look really sweet (and handle awesomely) if you lower them a few inches.

Tech Savvy? Me? Yup. Guilty as charged. I've been a software engineer long enough that the machines I learned to program on would make a great acquisition for a museum. I've designed several computers of my own. I was lucky to be attending Cal at just the right time. It was the second stop for a lot of great professors. Now, I have a nice computer, iPhone, iPod and I just got an e-reader for Christmas. I'm not generally a leading edge buyer. But I do like my music. And yes, there's a rather large disk drive full of music. Technology is great when it serves a good purpose. I think the great part of "Web 2.0" is the way it's brought people together. In some ways, we're getting back to the old Usenet environment -- a rich exchange of ideas, but this time, the fonts are better, and we get pictures. I'm not a slave to my machines, though I do use them frequently. Quite frankly the most valuable pieces of technology in my house are a telescope, a wet suit, and a surfboard. My house is full of books; real paper books. And a fair number of models. Our beloved model cars are quite a feat of technology themselves. We'd never have a Hudson Hornet without a bunch of CAD programs and CNC milling machines. So yeah, tech is good, but not everything. I can have a great time with a model car and a cigar box of tools; just like when I was a kid.

Box stock? How about box rock! Very very nice. I'll be very happy if mine comes out half that good.

We need a like button, just for you. Nice clean build. All the little carburetters look very cool too.

I've used them several times, all with good results. They shipped within a couple of days. they're located in upstate New York, so shouldn't be a long trip to New Joisey.

I got back into modeling to tide myself over after knee surgery. But I just really enjoy building. I'm a software engineer and I just need the contrast from my day job.

I've done that. Broke some chrome parts too. It happens, and you just gotta pick up the pieces and get it back together. (a bit more literally than usual)

Sweet. Can I come over and play at your house?