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If Mr. Scott thinks he got hosed maybe he should look at what Revell did to Ed Roth. They took Roth's kits that he was getting (1 cent each) royalties on, moved them to non-domestic (U.S.) markets, changed their names and then cut Ed Roth out of the deal all together. That would be a pretty good definition of getting hosed in my book. Can Steve Scott come up with anything comparable to that? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the Uncertain Tee kitted by any maker who is willing to manufacture the kit to both the quality standards Monogram originally did; (plus maybe today's standards wouldn't be to bad either). In parts alone the Uncertain Tee is a great kit for anyone building traditional 60's hot rods, that nailhead is a beauty!

Pure subjective hype! The seller is hoping to wring a buck or two more out of someone who can't or is too lazy to build their own! By their definition of "Pro" nearly everyone who posts their built models here, must be a "Pro-Modeler" as the overall quality seen here is a world apart from evilBay.

I use both, the deciding factor is usually desired finish quality. I own six working (big name) airbrushes Iwata, Badger, Paasche and even a couple of the Harbor Freight DeLuxe models. I shoot all rattle can primer and clear coat. The Harbor Freight DeLuxes can take quite a bit of abuse, they are cheap enough that you can literally use them as a starter airbrush. I know several sign/Kustom Kulture professionals who use them every day, these are guys and gals who have an early every make of airbrush in their bag of tricks, yet are using a cheap Harbor Freight airbrush. Why? They work great, which makes them great to learn with. They aren't built as stout as some of the Name brands, they are stout enough to learn the tricks of the "trade". If you already have any sort of working air compressor go for, get one and see if you like it, if you don't someone will always trade you something for it. Keep them clean and they work great! For rattle can paint the difference for me besides all the can warming tricks mentioned by others is I shoot everything in my Paasche spray booth. Everything is allowed to flash off, then is final cured in the dehydrator which is a huge improvement in itself.

I replace the Purple Pond (Castrol Super Clean) about every six months, used to keep it longer topping off as needed. Once it begins taking noticeably longer to strip paint its time to toss, plus at that point there will be a significant build up of paint residue on the bottom of the container. I use (Glad) plastic containers 48 ounce size which will fit most smaller bodies whit some room to spare. If it won't fit in the container I use a gallon sized ziplock bag and pour it back in the plastic container when done. Anyone ever notice that the Castrol Super Clean gallon jugs sometimes develope leaks? I've had two of them leak, I store the jugs in a bucket and the Purple Pond in a plastic shoe box, sort of like a secondary containment!

The other night I was bored on evilBay and ended up searching Doll House hinges for a non-model project that I am doing. The thought struck me or rather a memory from the distant past, Autoworld used to carry miniature door hinges which looked a lot like the doll house hinges I was looking at. My question is does anyone have any experience using Doll House hinges on exposed hinge 40's and earlier model cars. I can see that they might take a little fiddling and bending to get the hinge set to the thickness of the door, after that looks like they would be pretty straight forward epoxy the brass to the plastic. Anyone try this type set up? If this works it could be adapted to VW Bugs and Bus variations as well.

This is really turning out nice!

Dremel, bought my first one at a garage sale for $3 tossed in a set of brushes and it lasted me another 10 years! Have both the stylus and corded Dremels. I like the corded model better as I use the flex shaft with it gives me better control. Going to have to ditto on the bi-focals and optivisor!

Nice model, well built, the color is perfect it practically screams 50's!

I think rather than going for amazing detail and accuracy with the Badman, if it were me coming back from a 15 year modeling hiatus I would use this one as a tune up to rebuilding skills. Have fun with this one then work up to accuracy if that's your thing.

I'd go for a Stocker too so X9. A stocker would give you the option of any level of souping up from gasser to early gasser hot rod versions, leaves more for the imagination.

How small are your letters, inch size? You can use enamel paint to letter down to 1/8" with some practice, anything smaller requires lots of practice. Are you going over raised letters or trying to eyeball in the lettering onto the ship's hull? First things first: 1. Find Stabilo colored art pencils either 8041 White or 8052 Blue - Light for light paint, dark for dark. 2. Get 3-0 and 2-0 detail brushes, natural hair decent quality brush - no camel hair you are going to pay $3 - $5 or more per brush. 3. Cut the very tip off of your brand new brushes off, just enough to make the tip straight across, eithr very sharp scissors, new razor blade or new X-Acto blade, you are creating a chisle tip. If you can't visualize look up sign painters brushes. 4. While you are waiting for the Stabilo pencils to arrive because you ordered them or got them off evilbay. Grab a pencil and paper, look up the font you intend use on the internet, start copying the font with pencil then felt tip until you begin to get proficient at it. You should be ready after 100 to 300 reps with pencil then pen, it's all about building muscle memory. Once you can get the font to look right you are now ready to begin practicing the font with brush and paint. Use an old magazine or plastic lid to pallette the paint from, add just enough thinner to allow you to pull the line at least double the height of the lettering, for this amount it should only take a drop or two from the brush. Practice lettering the font onto a flat surface like pastic sheet another larger plastic lid, until you get the lettering the best that you can get it, try 25 times to begin with, if you need more 25 times more. Paint use regular Tester's square bottle paint, thinner Tester's airbrush thinner. Use cheap thinner for clean up only. 5. Once you have the Stabilo pencils in your hot little hands, sharpen them to a very sharp point, take the ship's hull and lay it in an old towel so the lettering surface is as flat and level as you can get it. Take the Stabilo pencil and layout the Hull Numbers, Ship's Name etc.. Next paint the lettering onto the Ship's Hull just like you practiced, if you mess up use a little thinner to dampen a rag rub the surface clean, dry and go for it again. The other route to look into is "Dry Transfer Lettering" You can find it in both Black and White, they rub right on very little practice or time involved. Cheaper than painting. Hope this helps.

That was really sad news to read, Trickle was a war horse on the short tracks. Saw him a while ago at Berlin Raceway in Michigan, where he won of course!

I've got that same grill / pit, had it for almost 12 years works great took it a couple of years to get seasoned in. We just did 15 pounds of pork butts in it on Mother's day last Sunday for pulled pork sandwiches! We had chopped pork tacos tonight for dinner, purdy tasty!! We have a gas grill as well for a quick steak or burger otherwise it's BBQ Low and Slow.

That picture was taken of ironworkers who worked on the Empire State building wasn't it? Notice any of them with any kind of fall protection on? Nope none of them have any! That was long before anyone wore harnesses of any type. They had to convince guys that the harnesses would help protect them, even then many refused to wear them they were afraid they would harm their balance rather than catch them in case of a fall. A lot of those guys were Mowhawk Indians who were renowned for their ability to work the high steel, many were second and third generation ironworkers. I've seen pictures of ironworkers doing handstands on i-beams that couldn't be over a foot wide, that's just plain nuts. I worked on a bridge electrical retrofit project working at (200+ feet) every day for a year and a half inspecting Contractor's work, I still never got used to the height. The first time I climbed over the rail onto a two foot wide chord I literally had to make myself inch along, even though I was harnessed and double clipped off to the structure. I never lost the fear of the height more like a profound respect for it, you do what you have to do then get back on solid footing. What never ceases to amaze me is the people who jump off bridges, they crawl right over the rail onto some pretty small places of climb around to even more precarious positions like they did it every day. They just don't worry about how they are going to get down.

Yes a respirator is an absolute necessity, your lungs and health are worth more than the respirator and cartridges combined. Some of the stuff we paint with can build up in your body to the point of either allergy or sensetivity to where you can no longer work with or around the paint or chemicals. I know of a very tallented modeler who is no longer in the hobby because he became sensetized to everything from CA glue, laquer thinner, enamel and nearly everything else used to build a model. Some maybe all of this could have been either alleviated by using respirators, spray booth and proper ventilation. I also know of more than a few car painters who are so sensetized to chemicals that they have had to find other work. Anything you can do to minimize your exposure to chemicals is going to lengthen your enjoyable time spent in this hobby. I am amazed at some of the guys I've worked around over the years who scream bloody murder to their employer about chemical exposure, then go home to build models without any respiratory protection. Bill is also correct about keeping the respirator wrapped up between use. The minute the cartridges are unwrapped from the factory plastic wrapping they begin absorbing stuff out of the air. Keeping them wrapped up in a bag minimizes the exposure time. Many cartridge filters have a time period that the factory says they are good for that information can be found on the cartridge package. Cartridge filters are made to filter out many different toxins whether they be particulate or chemical. Most cartridge filters are not a one size fits all in respect to what they filter out, if there is a question read the manufacturer's pamphlet that comes with the filter. If there is a question what the cartridge you are purchasing filters out ask the salesperson, better yet go to the manufacturer's website. Don't gamble with your health, it's your responsibility to yourself and your family.

Did the kit come with the piece that goes under the "shifter tunnel / backbone" ? If not needs a piece of sheet plastic to close it off. On a full size VW it both adds extra ridigidity to the belly pan and closes out the elements (water) to the shift rod, throttle and clutch cables which would all want to rust and seize up quickly. Small detail, huge point of accuracy. I think that you said you were entering this one in a contest any judge worth their salt would ding at least a few points for that. Can't see a kit of this calibre omitting that part of the frame.

No Bill that's why I am asking where to purchase, beg, borrow or steal a few. Almost every model magazine, book... reccomends using really small gauge hypodermic syringe and needles to apply liquid cement. There is a guy on eBay who sells "liquid bearings" (I think) who I bought a couple empties off of him, I use one to squirt on super glue accelerator on with the bottles use a larger gauge hypodermic needle. Plastruct used to sell a hypodermic with needle to apply liquid cement. Trouble is that liquid cement and CA acellerator are both like water, when applied with a large gauge needle tend to flood rather than pin point application.

I have been buying the 3m fine polishing paper at Wally World for years. I use them with the Meguiar's Mirror Glaze - Sanding Backing Pad E-7200 (2.5" X 5.5"). I cut them down with a sharp knife to 1-1/4" X 2" if you cant find the Meguiar's pads a regular household sponge would probably work. Then cut the polishing paper down to fit, using a straight edge and an x-acto knife from the backside of the paper. Most shops that carry automotive paint products should carry sanding backing pads 3m makes a similar pad. (If the link doesn't work, search "sanding backing pad" on the Meguiar's website.) http://www.meguiarsdirect.com//webstore/store/meguiarsdirect/product_list.do

For others who use hypodermic needles to apply glue, CA accelerator, etc.. Where do you buy just a couple of needles? Specifically 28 - 32 gauge needles. I looked on eBay and you can get them there but the smallest quantity is like 100, don't quite need that many. Any ideas or sources? (Don't know anyone who injects insulin.)

Wow, John those are proof positive a Turd can be polished! Those were pretty simple kits to start with if I remember right, they have the bones and you really added the cool to them. Went back and reread your original description, the kits you started with for the day were detailed compared to the Monogram kits. (Which didn't even have a frame did they?) What did you wash onto the chrome to get the realistic polished aluminum and magnesium effect, I'm all ears?

Like the idea of trimming the backside of the bumpers, that was my first thought when you showed that picture. Those wheels match the Pegasus wheels nearly perfectly, hard to believe that they didn't come out of the same package. The untrimmed wheelwells look good on that body, may not show off the wheels as well but they look good. Hope you are dropping it to the ground with a slight Hot Rod rake and the Biggest Big Block you can physically stuff under the front end! I built the Bad Actor box stock when it first came out, Monogram did an OK job on this one and most of Thom Daniels stuff, a little simplistic in some ways but they sold for like $2 back then.

I saw that yesterday on one of the pinstriping boards. I'll go out on a limb here but I liked most of Dean Jeffries' stuff a lot better than most of the oddities that came out of Barris' shop (with the exception of the Mercs that is). Dean just had an eye for what was cool and cutting edge, as has been mentioned a great example was his Porsche 356A clean with out all the angel hair interior junk! Dean and Larry Watson both were amazing painters who could do it all, in many ways both had a huge hand in the custom paint we see today now they're both gone. Dean may be gone, but he had a good time getting there!

It would probably work. Wonder how many mils thick the tape is, if it is something intended for professional use it would be thinner than the home use stuff,

Sizzler, right? I've drooled over the ones that have come up on evilbay for as long as I've drooled over old styrene on there. I have never got one for one reason, the price they fetch is over what I have been willing to shell out for one. I've had one partially (neatly) started original Sizzler in my hands, it was so tempting to shell out the $100+ asking price; the original was that beautiful of a kit. (Not quite on par with the Little T era kits yet almost there, between the multipeice bodies and the Little T.) So I nearly did backflips when I saw that they were going to re-engineer the kit from it's original 1/24th to 1/25th scale. Most of us build in 1/25th scale, the aftermarket parts are also for the most part in 1/25th scale in case someone wanted to add a few doo-dads to their model. Hopefully the new kit will have the flavor of the first Sizzler using todays quality standards, if they are going to do whole new tooling it should be done right. Vintage Dragsters, Traditional Hot Rods and speed parts trip my trigger, you can bet I will get at least one Sizzler or a few to build in the versions shown on the original box. Can't wait to get one in my hot little hands!

Speechless, for once!