charlie8575

STUNNING! The photography especially is outstanding. Yuri, your models are great, but I look most forward to your pictures. Charlie Larkin

This definitely sounds fun! I'll do everything I can to get there. Charlie Larkin

The Model Car Builder's Museum has a website, so a search will pull that up. Alternately, Tom Geiger is well-connected, and I'm sure he'd be happy to act as a conduit for you, or at least give you some direct contact informaiton. Charlie Larkin

Really? Hmmm....any idea who it was, Tim? Folks down in Oz- anyone know? I'd be willing to buy. The crummy part? One of my friends from high school lives in Australia now and just came home to visit. Had I known this a few weeks prior, I would've asked her to bring it along with her! Charlie Larkin

If I suddenly find myself with enough cash to make a not-insulting offer, I'll let you know. That's a beauty. Charlie Larkin

eBay purchases with no snipers stealing them! And yes, waking up is (almost always) a good thing. Charlie Larkin

I want to see this happen. We had two; I still keep my eye open for one for myself, because I liked driving them and I liked the looks. With a little tweaking, the 307 can produce a little more power. I know of one guy that fuel-injected one and it was supposed to be a decent performer. The 231 car can be fixed with a variety of Buick V6 performance parts or dropping in a Buick 350. And yes, from 1978-88, the Cutlass Supreme and its sub-models were usually in the top 5, and almost always the top 10 for sales. Charlie Larkin

Yes, Chris, I think it is. The displacement, at least to my mind, called one of the Polyhead engines to mind. The LoadFlite transmission is the TorqueFlite with slightly different internals for heavier-duty use, although that would have to be corrected for 1962-up cars, which used the smaller aluminum-case TorqueFlite, and the cast-iron unit wouldn't fit in the smaller cars. Enterprising resin-casters- anyone up for giving this a shot? Charlie Larkin

Yes, surely there were, and I think I've seen some ads- your find of a Weiand intake confirms this. Makes sense- contemporary engines. The LA-series engines, however, became much more popular because they weighed a good bit less and were physically smaller, as they were designed for use in the A-bodies. Today, however, at least as far as I know, there's nothing in-production, although I would imagine it wouldn't be too hard to get a custom-grind cam. Chrysler did have a factory 4-barrel intake, and the exhaust manifolds were already essentially headers, so, with a little creative engineering, and perhaps tinkering with the timing a little, you could make a very powerful engine for its displacement out of any of the poly-head engines, of which there were several. Charlie Larkin

While it might be true that you can't get a lot of performance parts for them (at least now,) there are plenty of internals available from specialized shops like Egge Machine in California. You don't see a lot of poly-heads now because too many people ripped them out and shoved in B-blocks and Hemis. For most of the cars they appeared in, the polyhead 318 was, by far, the most common engine choice. Although I don't have numbers, I would suspect, based on what I've read, they were at least as common as the Slant Six, and probably more so in the big cars. The 1962-64 downsized big cars, and the 1965-66 B-bodies had Slants and Polys in almost equal proliferation. The B engines were actually not all that common. Charlie Larkin

Exactly what I was about to say. Very nicely done. Charlie Larkin

Nice job, Bob. Any links for samples of those figures? Charlie Larkin

I hope mine comes out even half as nice. Very well-done. Charlie Larkin

The Boston Pops does a whole bunch of those every year. Great way to gain exposure for good music. Charlie Larkin

I could see, perhaps, to a point, the reverse brim thing, but the rest? I'm with Bill in the maximum sarcasm overdrive. I was laughing and laughing. I needed a good laugh. Charlie Larkin

No kidding...she got any friends? Many more years of happiness to you both. Charlie Larkin

If you haven't, look up Market Basket; you'll never see a more loyal group of employees or customers anyplace, I think. Greed comes two ways. Beneficial and not beneficial. Beneficial- the now-former CEO, Arthur T. DeMoulas, made money hand-over-fist, bought merchandise for cash, paid generous dividends for a closely-held (mostly family and a perhaps one or two investors) company, and bought many of the shopping centers they're in, or simply sub-divided their stores and own most of those outright. The new stores were built with cash-on-hand. Employees only pay $60/week for medical for a family of 4, many employees have worked there for 20, 30, 40, even fifty years, and a lot of them, because of very generous pensions and 401(k)s, retire with over $1million. Even after all that, for 2014, they were offering an additional 4% off on your order, even after specials and coupons. Not beneficial- the CEO's cousin, Arthur S. DeMoulas saw green (as in envy and dollars- been going on for decades,) and wanted more dividends and more pay-out, and didn't like running a business responsibly. He managed to get everyone else to cross the non-beneficial/beneficial greed line and got his cousin fired, replacing him with two co-CEOs who were declared two of the worst CEOs in 2012 and '13 (one of them is a slash-and-burn breakup specialist, the other destroyed Radio Shack,) and now, all 25,000 employees have gone on strike or quit (no unions- protected under certain work-action laws,) and the customers have publicly boycotted Market Basket with the threat of higher prices and poor service and selection. Market Basket is one of the few places a lot of people with very little money can actually afford to buy groceries in this area. When I was in high school, my father was out-of-work or grossly under-employed from Good Friday my freshman year to one week before I graduated. Even though we didn't have a Market Basket near me, there was one near my grandmother, and we'd go take care of her grocery order, and ours, too. Without Market Basket, there would've been a few weeks we wouldn't have had much food at all. Go to most of the other supermarkets in this area, and even with many of their sales and coupons, your bill will be at least 10-15% higher. Wal-Mart's groceries, in many cases, well, the first syllable ("gross") says it all. Don't believe me? Check out the Facebook Market Basket page and read some of what you see here. There have been rallies for customers and employees- separate and together. Many local businesses- even the OTHER supermarkets, are supporting the employees, songs have been written, it's absolutely amazing what this store has inspired. https://www.facebook.com/groups/575637839146416/ What I'm going at is greed is absolutely a two-edged sword. While necessary for survival, excessive amounts of it can be destruction. In the words of MSNBC's Jim Kramer, "Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered." Charlie Larkin

Friday night, I had to prime the hallway. Because of a lot of left-over gunk on the walls, we decided to use the Zinnser Cover-Stain primer, a heavy, oil-based primer. Works well for its intended purpose. But THE SMELL! It got so bad, I had to leave the house for two hours or I was going to vomit. Here it is, over forty-eight hours later, and I can still smell that stuff, albeit nowhere near as bad. Charlie Larkin

Bill- one of the wisest, more erudite people I've ever had the pleasure of encountering- even if only by this board, has once again said what needs to be said, especially the last sentence. When I was a kid, the athletes were the top-shelf as well for popularity, although when I went to high school, most of them were also respectful of the abilities, interests and talents of others, unlike a disturbingly large number of lunks that now seem to populate high school sports. There are exceptions, of course, as there were then, too, but the tide isn't turning for the better, from my observations. That said, a lot of our athletes were also talented otherwise- many being very good musicians, artists, and possessing good stage-craft ability. Today, it seems that too many kids are too encouraged to stay over-focused, and they loose all their vision of the world around them. And, as I remember, one or two would occasionally build a model car or plane. Scott also has a lot of very good points- go back a few comments to my class reunion. I'll openly admit that as good a class as we had, we had a few...."failures to launch," to put it nicely, and I was dreading what would happen if they showed up. While most of them didn't, and one that did was still sitting on the launch pad twenty years later, a couple of the people who I wasn't so sure about had grown up and actually became human. Give it time, Jason. Sometimes that's all that can be done. And Scott, don't worry too much. Twenty years later, the girls still run from me. Charlie Larkin

Amazingly well-done restoration. You'd never know what you started with by looking at it. Charlie Larkin

Looks good. Nice color combo on that, too. Charlie Larkin

That looks very nice, Darcy. Great colors on it, and a per-usual-for-you very nice build. Charlie Larkin

I have to agree, the lowered roof is a HUGE improvement. The interior is coming out nicely, too. Charlie Larkin

The idea of the Badger 250 isn't a bad one- great little spraygun to learn on, and they work well if you want to do a paint job quickly. The Tamiya paint stands are also worth considering. I like mine. Charlie Larkin

That's kind of a sad state of affairs. When I was fifteen and in high school (1990-91, graduated in 1993,) all of my friends knew I built models- evidenced by having copies of Model Car Journal, Scale Auto Enthusiast, Plastic Fanatic, and Model Railroader, Railroad Model Craftsman and Fine Scale Modeler with me most of the time for use in study or at times when I once again outpaced most of my classmates (and occasionally the teacher!) Except for a couple of other guys, nobody really got it, but everyone thought it was a good thing that I had something to do outside of school- just as well, as outside of school, I didn't really exist, or so it seemed. At my class reunion last Thanksgiving, a lot of people asked me "do you still do that?" "Yes, I do, and I'm trying to start a business manufacturing kits and accessories. For better or worse, it's become more of an adult hobby, but in the long term, I'd like to do stuff that'll interest younger kids and teenagers, too." The universal answers were: 1. This doesn't surprise me at all. Go get 'em! 2. I think it's awesome. You've done this all your life, and I remember you talked about doing that for work in high school, too. Go for it! 3. Pursue your dreams- we're all here behind you. (And they are. I think I have the best classmates in recorded history.) Idea for you, Jason. Talk to your teachers (art or industrial arts are probably good places to start,) and consider starting a craft and hobby club. I think you'd be surprised at how many kindred spirits you have. When you, as a club can stand up to these hecklers, a lot of them change their tunes- and PDQ. Take it from someone who has experience doing that at your age. Charlie Larkin