2002p51

Yes.

Cranked out the second Slingster kit. There you have it. The base color is Testors 1127 Orange in the little square bottle. The funky hand painted flames are Guards Red and Bright Yellow with a hand painted white pin stripe. Since I used up two kits worth of blowers on my previous twin-engined car, I dug the blower parts for this one from my spares boxes. I didn't put a drag chute on the back of this car for two reasons; one, not every car used one in those days and, two, I really wanted to use that cool pin stripe decal on the back! And as a testament to the simplicity of this kit, I built this one in basically just one day. This is a fun kit. So let the comments begin!

Yea, Jesse, I know. It does need a few decals.

First thing I did when this new kit arrived the other day was start going through my collection of Hot Rod magazines from the late fifties/early sixties to find some inspiration. I stopped in my tracks when I found this: Perfect! I didn't want to try to make an exact replica of this car but I just let it provide me with the inspiration to build this: Since I had two of these kits it was an easy matter to simply rob the engine from the other kit and turn out this twin engine A/D. It really couldn't have been easier. A piece of Evergreen rod made a connection between the two engines and some smaller pieces of rod created a second set of motor mounts for the front engine. About the only thing I was really disappointed in was the headers. They're pretty rough and the attachment points to the sprue are pretty big and in plain site. That's why I didn't even bother trying to drill them out or remove the really bad mold seams. I made a seat belt from paper that's painted with Testor's flat Rust to simulate leather. I was just looking to create an effect more than any sort of precise detail. In fact, due to the simplicity of this kit it would take quite a bit of work and scratch building a lot of stuff to make it into something that was contest worthy. But that's not a criticism, the simplicity is part of this kit's charm. The overall color is Testors Ford Engine Red and then just a bunch of detail painting with various shades of Metalizer. If you want to see the whole article from Hot Rod with all of the photos, here;s the link: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=84021 As usual, comments, critique, and criticism, are welcome

Here ya go. This one should be pretty easy to duplicate. (Photos from the March, 1961 issue of Hot Rod Magazine)

I think the common idea that kits are cheaper on the internet is a little inaccurate. I can only speak for myself, but the nearest Hobbytown USA to me has kit prices that are, at first glance, higher than the popular on-line kit sellers. Until you factor in the shipping that is. Then the price is just about the same. The situation improves slightly if you order multiples of the same kit on-line, but not by much. The real difference is in inventory. No brick and mortar store can possibly carry the inventory that is available on-line which is literally everything! Again, speaking only for the store near me, the kit selection there is minimal and they are slow to re-stock supplies that run out. And there lies the big advantage that the internet has over at least this one local shop.

My wife is the same way but I don't mind that stuff. I can separate it from reality and know it's just a movie and it's all fake. Nobody's really killed. In fact, because I took several film classes in college, I'm actually fascinated by that stuff because I like to watch and try to figure out how they did it, how it was shot, how the stunt men did the scene, etc. I appreciate great stunt work.

You bet, Harry! That's why there are still large areas of the layout that look more like the desert southwest instead of southwest Virginia!

I've been building a model railroad for the last few years. Here's a link to more photos: http://public.fotki.com/2002p51/misc/model-railroad/

If you do, here's the link to the photos I shot at the VSRA Thunder Road Rod Run this weekend: http://2002p51.fotki.com/showin/4th-annual-vsra-thu/ Hope you like 'em!

I use an airbrush 100% of the time. Don't own a single rattle can. The main reason for me is that spray cans just apply too much paint. Think about this, with a rattle can you're trying to apply a 1/25 scale paint job with a 1:1 scale spray nozzle.

You are correct, Chris Trickle was Dick's nephew. A little trivia about Chris; after his murder (which is still unsolved BTW) he was replaced in the Southwest Tour late model he had been driving by Kurt Busch who then went on to win the championship in that division. And the rest is history. Who know what would've happened to either of them if things had been different. And the Tom Cruse character in Days of Thunder was loosely, VERY loosely based on Tim Richmond.

No. One of the characters in the movie was named Cole Trickle but it wasn't a reference to him.

I just found out that legendary short track racer Dick Trickle was found dead of a self-inflicted gun shot wound. A very sad day for short track racers and fans everywhere. RIP Dick.

Kinda splittin' hairs there. The government was a CUSTOMER of the aviation industry, just like you or I might be a customer of the automotive industry when we buy a car. The government publishes specs of an airplane they'd like to buy and aircraft companies compete for that business. The cost of the R&D for that aircraft is spread out through the contracted price of each aircraft. The government wasn't artificially "subsidizing" an industry, they were buying products that they wanted and needed. That's very different from the government using tax dollars to prop up a company that's operating in the red and ultimately goes bankrupt. And NASA, Andy, works the same way. All of their launch vehicles, the space shuttle, etc. are built by contractors that won the business through the competitive bid process. NASA is a customer buying products they need.

The difference is that all of those advances were made by private investment in a free market system. The incentive was to make a better, more economical mouse trap so that consumers would want to buy it. There was no waste of tax dollars by the government propping up technologies that were not yet ready for the market. Leave the alternative energy industry alone and let it find a way to make a profit by producing an economical product and things will progress a lot faster. And now I'm going to go watch the Cup race from Darlington and leave you greenies to keep on dreaming!

Oops, my bad.

Actually Germany is more than twice the size of Montana, 375,021 sq. mi. to Montana's 147, 042. Just the facts ma'am. (With apologies to Sgt. Joe Friday)

True but the point is that saying Germany; ". . .has five times as much solar power as the U.S . . ." paints a picture that Germany is some sort of green energy utopia which is clearly not the case. The chart shows that they are still producing almost 75% of their energy by means that environmentalists consider "dirty". And they do that because it's still the cheapest way to keep the lights on.

You're not the first person I've heard site Germany as using so much more solar than the U.S. The fact is that even though that may be true, they still produce the vast majority of their energy from coal, lignite, natural gas, and nuclear. http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/p/pow-gen-ger.htm Solar, or "photovoltaic" makes up a mere 3.1% of Germany's total energy production, the least but for that produced by "domestic waste" and mineral oil.

That's very true but, at least for right now, it still costs too much to turn it into electricity.

Yea I read those, I've also driven out Interstate 10 from Banning to Palm Springs, California and seen those hundreds of wind generators out there, most of which are standing still, not being used. Same thing up around Davis and Tracy, California. And I remember the plans to install a few hundred wind generators off the coast of Martha's Vineyard and those wealthy residents up there got the project killed because they didn't want them spoiling the view.

Don't know, I can't seem to find a specific list of successful green energy companies. And that in itself might be the answer to your question. The fact remains that oil, coal, and natural gas are still the most efficient, cheapest, and abundant sources of energy we have and it will be so for the foreseeable future. It's estimated that there is a 300 year supply of oil under Alaska if only the environmentalists would let us get at it. And if we don't build the Keystone pipeline all that Canadian oil will go to China and not stay in the ground. Wind and solar are fine ideas but the cost vs. return are still too high for them to be viable for wide scale usage. We'll get there eventually but probably not in our lifetime.

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies: Evergreen Solar ($25 million)* SpectraWatt ($500,000)* Solyndra ($535 million)* Beacon Power ($43 million)* Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million) SunPower ($1.2 billion) First Solar ($1.46 billion) Babcock and Brown ($178 million) EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)* Amonix ($5.9 million) Fisker Automotive ($529 million) Abound Solar ($400 million)* A123 Systems ($279 million)* Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)* Johnson Controls ($299 million) Brightsource ($1.6 billion) ECOtality ($126.2 million) Raser Technologies ($33 million)* Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)* Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)* Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)* Range Fuels ($80 million)* Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)* Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)* Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)* GreenVolts ($500,000) Vestas ($50 million) LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million) Nordic Windpower ($16 million)* Navistar ($39 million) Satcon ($3 million)* Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)* Mascoma Corp. ($100 million) *Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy. Given the track record of these companies, if I was in the oil business I'd stay in the oil business.

Seriously? I haven't read this entire thread because I got this far and almost choked! I once read a report where CR intentionally threw a car completely out of control on the skidpad and then downgraded it because it didn't correct itself! Really, the car is supposed to correct itself? Is that a test that makes perfect sense? They also once downgraded the Corvette based on it's almost total lack of trunk space. (?) Criticizing a Corvette for not enough trunk space is like criticizing Sofia Vergara because she hasn't got a jump shot! No, when it comes to cars I'll go to the guys who do nothing but test cars. They weren't testing washing machines last week and peanut butter next week, but cars and nothing but cars. Road & Track and Car & Driver not only test "enthusiast" cars but every day, consumer cars too. I'll buy a copy of Consumer Reports next time I need to wrap up a fish or something like that.