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Vibration might work but it might make it worse by breaking up the air bubbles as well. Concrete vibrators are a pretty high frequency vibrator, high enough that it stings to the touch. (Might be why the concrete guys call it a stinger!?!) An old water bed or bed vibrator (massager) might work, but are fairly low frequency, the ones I've seen use two motors with an offset weight at each end of the bed or table. Might be able to find one for free, they make quite a racket on a wood floor.

I would have to second the Parts Box, when I have ordered from them the turn around has always been quick as compared to any of the other Resin Houses here. (3 - 4 Weeks.) I've got a couple of this axle in the works that I am gathering parts for projects. The axle is well constructed and cast, will look great under a traditional Hot Rod. Take a look at the complete front end that the Parts Box sells has really nice backing plates and ribbed drums and split 'bones. I also have a couple coming from R & M which should be in my mailbox soon. You can never have too many Dropped Front Axles they come in so handy under traditional Hot Rods.

Yeah I would probably be interested in one as well. '36 through '38 would be another cool Mopar pickup too. My brother's high school ride was a '34 Dodge pickup. Body was painted the deepest maroon ever the fenders were black, big-n-littles with chrome reverse Ford wheels slight drop in front by removal of one leaf and one leaf in the rear. He made his own bed wood kit in red oak while working in a cabinet shop. It had a '48 Chrysler Marine engine in it, we had a heck of a time getting it running. we were getting ignition parts for the '34 engine which wasn't timed in the distrubutor (cap) like the '48 engine so it cracked and popped but wouldn't idle at all. Once we took the distributor in to the parts house the crusty old guy behind the counter recognized it right off, told us it was a marine distributor with the right parts it started up after sitting for almost 20 years. He split the exhaust and ran two long Cherry Bombs. Sixes and Cherry Bombs were made for one another! It still sounded like a boat at idle (Duh!). I saw a '33 or '34 at a show a couple of years ago which was all black it had Hawiian Koa bed wood, absolutely one of the prettiest wood beds ever.

Did anyone else catch the drift from the American Graffiti race scene where in the movie the '55 Chevy crashes and burns (which they didn't show) to a shot through flames and then the Jiffy Pop Pop Corn?!?! If I hadn't just watched American Graffiti again the other night I think I may have missed the drift.

Scale Hardware. I've used their products to detail a few slot cars with amazing results. Amazing results and amazing service.

Do you suspect that the Evergreen strips are old. Why are they overly brittle? Some of the styrene strip that I have used gets brittle the smaller it is cut. It may be possible that you are using too much glue to the point that the solvent is melting the whole strip. I used about the same size with pretty good results to make a grill for an SS 454 Pickup. I found out the hard way that I was using too much solvent putting it together. I ended up using a small as in tiny hypodermic needle to squirt tiny amounts of Tenex glue. (the size that diabetic people use to inject insulin). The other glue that I have heard used with ABS, PVC and Styrene is the universal type plumbing adhesieve for plastic plumbing. Instead of using the huge dauber use the thread end of a really small sewing needle imbeded into a small peice of wood dowell to apply tiny amounts of adhesieve.

Nice work so far. Proof that anything can be made to shine with enough polishing!

From your description I think I see what you are trying to get accross is 1. The tires are rubbing on the inside fender/body. 2. The brakes from another kit are causing the wheel assemblies to space the sidewall of the tire far enough that it is causeing the rub. 3. The axle, wheels and brakes fit between the confines of the body, just barely Right? If not (as in they stick outside the fenders) you are looking at narrowing the axle itself and moving the rear framerails inward to clear your tires. You will either need to make new wheel tubs or slide the tubs and add enough material between the cut to make the outside edge align with the body as it did before you made the cut. OK lets look at the issues seperately even though they are both contributing to the same issue, tire sidewall rub. 1. Remove the brake assembly, find a way to measure or gustimate its thickness where it mounts to the axle. If there is room to remove that amount from the end of the axle squarely on both sides. Remount the brakes, remount the tires. Check fit, is there still rub? If not you got lucky. If they still do you are going to have to remove material from the inside of the fender itself, see no 2. 2. If you have a Dremel Moto tool try thinning the inside of the body in the area which the tire is rubbing. Try taking a piece of carbon paper between the tire and the body, rotate the tire slightly so that the carbon transfers to the body at the rub. Next use a sanding drum with a light grit grind off the carbon at a low speed. Check the fit. repeat until the rub is gone or greatly reduced enouth that you can live with it.

Talked to a co-worker, car-guy, best bud at work about this today. He's also a casual car modeler as well. He pointed out the fact that we both have big cars that we take to shows how some of the people who bring cars which range from sorta stock to some full tilt hot Hot Rods. His point was that there are guys who show up at any given car show with one thing on their mind. Win that Trophy, Plaque!!! Win, Win, WIN,WIN,Win,win!!!! We hear the same droning whine all the time how so and so's car shouldn't be in such and such catagory it's not stock, it's not a hot rod, it's not a real Cobra, how dare they do that to a real Corvette, it's not a '67 - '69 Camaro, the Mustang badge is a little crooked or has wax residue..... If you can think of it someone's sniveled about it at a car show! You want to see some people get really wacked out go to an all British Field Meet, (in the states) they take their English Cars very seriously would be an understatement! Both he and I have had show winners (and losers), Muscle Cars, Camaro's, GTO's, 'Vette's, Hot Rods, Bug's, Truck's... (He's had more cars than I've ever thought about having!) Point is we've both had our share of nice cars and been around car shows for a long time. Our families have hung out together at a lot of these events and always had a great time doing so. He made the statement that hit me in the gut, fits this discussion to a T. "When I stop having a good time just hanging out with other people who think cars are as cool and worth preserving as I do now, it's time to sell it and quit because it's become work not a hobby!"

Yes, I picked it up off of the newsstand yesterday. I'm keeping an eye on it too!!

This is a must check out you might even want to pick up your very own copy. Covers Hot Rod 1955 - 1965. Worth having for the reference pictures alone. This covers the highpoints of the trends which were going on during the decade it has Drags, Customs, Jalopy Racing, Stock Cars, Car Shows, Indy Cars and lots of Cars! Well worth the $7.99 price (well to me it was ).

Actually it was a rather longwinded way of pointing out that those same complaints about the P-E, machined storebought bits are nothing new.

I build for myself. The two model contests that I have ever entered were way back in the seventh grade when our Jr-Hi had a model car contest, then the county fair that same year which would have been like 1968. There was so much whining and backstabbing in both contests that I have never and will never enter a model contest of any kind again. The contest at school was probably 50 - 75 model cars from 7th - 9th graders. The county fair at least 40 - 50 models or more. The model that I built for that contest was an (then) aftermarket Revell Parts Pack (Kent Fuller style) Dragster Frame (the red one) at a whopping .79 cents, the Dragster Parts Pack chrome stuff at an additional .79 cents the motor was a completely stock Olds from one of the original Skipper's Critter Anglia kits, the rear slicks came from that kit as well. Front tires and scatter shield came from a TV Tommy Ivo dragster that I traded the seats from the Anglia for. The engine wire was thread, fuel line from tank was bell telephone wire, straight aluminum tubing headers slipped onto the stubs of the Anglia headers, the seat came from a couple of the custom front seats out of the Revell '56 Chevy. For a 12 - 13 year old kid it wasn't too bad of a model, blue paint wasn't that great, but it wasn't a glue bomb. (I had an uncle and older brother who passed down a lot of tricks, we all read Car Model and Model Car Science magazines cover to cover.) Ok with that description you know what the fellow contestants major complaint in both contests were? (1.) The Dragster was not a kit, just (an aftermarket) frame. OK that was true. (2.) The "material used to make the ignition wires headers and fuel line wasn't part of a kit. (??) (3.) The whole model wasn't based on one kit but many. (??) Those were the complaints from fellow competitors. No one else added detailing items of any kind to their models other than paint. The Judges, the school librarian (car guy), vice principal (drove a '62 'Vette daily driver) and a local AA/F dragster driver (Herm Petersen, look him up). My model won first place at school, then a blue ribbon at the county fair with an invitation to the state fair. What I hear when others either complain or point out the use of or excessive use of aftermarket details photo etch, machined bits... are those same Jr-Hi kids whining "my model didn't win"! That's all it was, just winning (and whining). None of the guys who built models traded building techniqes or formed a club as the sponsors hoped. Everyone was too busy trashing each other to gain anything good from it. (To add insult to the experience the First Prize - Lindberg Bobtail T was sealed and incomplete given by an unknown donor, so it couldn't be returned.) It's all laughable now. if it makes you happy building a box stock model do it, if you need to superdetail it with add on bits and bobs go for it. Build what makes you happy! Just build. Have a great time while you build and build what you like.

Are your brushes natural hair or synthetic? For natural animal hair brushes first thing that you want to do is to use a mild soap and water to remove the sizing that the manufacturer put in to hold the shape. Dry the brush by first pinching it between paper towel. Don't pull away from the ferrule (while pinching the brush) doing so will loosen the hair causing premature baldness. Next stand the brush on the end opposite of the hair, there are brush washers that have a spring across the top of the reservoir so you can hang the brush hair end down, or you can make a small "clothesline" to hang the brush with a clothespin and do the same thing. You never want to stand a brush on the hair, doing so will deform the brush hairs enough that it may have to be tossed. If you accidently stood your brush on the hairs you might be able to save it by first soaking the brush for a few minutes in water to rehydrate the hair. Next use either a mild hand soap, laundry starch or hair gel just enough to shape the brush back to normal. Then get an old fashond clamping clothes pin hanging the brush so the hair is pointing down, gravity will help the brush to reset to normal or near normal shape. I've had to give a brush a "permenant" a couple of times before it took a straight set again. After you get the brush back into shape repeat the mild soap and water wash until the hair is clean, then dry. (I have saved a couple of expensive pinstriping brushes using this trick, sounds odd but it works.) Depending on what type of paint you've used you will first want to clean the brush with the type of thinner you used to thin the paint. For acrylic water and a mild soap will clean up for the next use. If the brush is starting to get a little crusty with acrylic paint you may need to try rubbing alcohol to clean it up. For enamel some use a three (or more) pot cleaning system dirst daub the brush on a paper towell to remove as much of the paint as possible, the first pot will be the dirty jar, second slightly cleaner and the third nearly clean. Swish the brush through the first staying away from the bottom of the jar then daub nearly dry on the paper towell, do the same thing with the second, by the time you are through the third there should be no visable paint color on the paper towell should look like you dipped a clean brush in thinner. Let it dry for the next use. If the enamel brush gets build up around the ferrule it will cause the hairs to become brittle and break off at the ferrule. You can clean this up a bit with lacquer thinner it won't get it 100% clean but it will extend the life of a tired brush. Best thing is to keep the brushes squeeky clean in the first place. Agree with Mike below don't load the brush to the ferrule in the first place, you will get enough up there just by the wicking action of the hair itself. If you used Lacquer thinner in the brush it will take nearly all of the natural and oils from the enamel thinner and enamel itself out of the brush you can help replenish the oils with either a brush conditioner (sold in art or craft stores), neatsfoot oil (look for it around leather baseball gloves), mineral oil (health and beauty aisle). Run the brush through the oil as you would loading it up to paint daub it off with a paper towell let dry with the oil in it, think of it as a "hot oil treatment", wash the brush out with thinner before you paint. Synthetic Brushes get pretty much the same treatment as do their natural haired cousins. If the brush is stood on it's hair it will take a set and you may as well toss it, never been able to correct this nor have I heard anyone say that they have. If there is someone who has fixed a bent synthetic brush I'm all ears. Since they are not natural hair you won't ever have to treat one with the oils as it won't ever get dried out. Be careful with lacquer thinner as some synthetic brushes won't handle a hot thinner and may melt the "hair". Edited to clarify answer and agree with follow up comments.

I didn't take any pictures, we actually got snow on Christmas. I was too shocked to get the camera out!! Kind of a rarity here in Washington State's Puget Sound country. For the most part we are at or a little above sea level so unless some chilly air comes down from the Great White North we get rain. We don't sing "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" we sing "I'm dreaming of a Wet Christmas"! Christmas morning started out with a cold rain, then it turned to big snowflakes that stuck and got colder piling up an amazing 3 inches of the white stuff, then it turned back to rain. A collective Aaaahhhh was heard throughout the neighborhood!! Seriously we have hills here in the Puget Sound area wet sloppy snow and hills make for some pretty entertaining news footage of people sliding around in the white slush! There are people around here who refuse to drive when it snows, probably better for those of us brave souls who do drive in it.

I see you had Von Dutch lay some stripes on your firewall and Deuce Grill shell! The one on the firewall is a piece he did in the '50's when he was sorta normal if you could call him that! Von Dutch titled it "Harvey, Shaken By Crossbreeding". One interesting thing that he did with a lot of his stripes is that the layout would often be one contiuous stripe rather than a stripes added to one another to make up the layout. In the end Kenneth Howard AKA Von Dutch was one strange individual!

Looks like he is using a "ruling pen" used to ink in the straight lines around the border of the engineering drawing and its title block. It also appears that he is getting the paint thin enough that it flows through the ruling pen making a consistent line. Experience pinstriping with a brush says that if you get the striping material too thin it will spread out to make a wider line which will not be the same width or weight as it is wicked out to the surrounding painted finish. I have attempted to "micro-stripe" using a fine ink pen the kind made by Speedball, JB Hunt with some success in the past. Make sure that you use an extremely light hand on the pen otherwise you will dig right into the paint causing the striping paint to flow into the scratch. Long straight lines take the highest degree of skill to pull. What I finally ended up using was a trimmed watercolor type "Rigger" brush, the type brush used by watercolor painters for fine lines and ships rigging, hence the name rigger. A 2/0 or 3/0 rigger brush will still need some trimming from the ferrule end of the brush. While the brush will produce the most consistent line, the ink pen will take the least amount of practice and skill. Also if you are going to use a clearcoat over the stripes you can get away using a waterbased paint acrylic or even a poster type ink. Enamel while it is the paint used by many stripers can be clear coated requires light mist coats to keep it from spreading or you can leave the striping right on the topcoat without clearcoat.

For paint stripping I like the Glad brand containers with a lid the larger sizes are just a little wider than a 1/25 scale body and just deep enough to cover. Both the Glad and shoe boxes are cheap enough to strip paint in, just matters how much purple you want to use to make a pond. Just bought another dozen of the shoe boxes for $10 they should drop in price a little more during the January White Sales.

That would be correct, Minis were built under Austin, Morris, British Leyland badges from 1959 until the last Mini rolled off the assembly line in 2000. BMW bought the rights to the name and concept, beginning production of the MINI in the 2000 model year for European markets. Another interesting fact is that Mini refers to the original car, while MINI (all caps) refers to the BMW MINI.

Ah, that explains the red thing, the one on my Mini is clear from the factory. Must be red washing fluid.

You did Thom Daniels proud! That's almost as close to his artwork as you can get. Nice!

I have found the shoeboxes at Home Depot, Lowes, Wally World, Fred Meyer, K-Mart. Look for them with the storage containers and closet organizer stuff. Usually after the first of the year you can find them on sale for 5 or 6 for $5 or less. I really find them really useful for projects that you are either kitbashing or gathering parts from multiple sources like ebay or a resin caster, you can keep track of what you need to get the model going. I prefer to have all the parts together before I start building a kitbashed model.

Thanks, that will come in handy, beats the calculator for standard sizes.

That's always a cool effect when it works right. First time that I saw this was in the old Car Model magazine way back in the late 60's when Hank Borger demonstrated it on I think a Mustang Funny Car. He had the technique perfected, the body was placed on the bottom of a pan then filled with water, paint sprayed on and swirled then the body was lifted up through the paint film. I can't remember what he used to lift the body thorugh the paint, fishing line or thread at the wheel wells would work. Almost like the guys are telling us that they made it work too. The second thing that it looks like is that you may not have enough surface area in the bucket to cover your wagon, that's a pretty big body. Picture the body in terms of flat like a box laid out including the flaps for the inside of the ends, that's what you are calculating quick and dirty method but it works. Pretty near to the way that you would figure out how to put a vinyl wrap on the same vehicle including the excess and waste. Say the body is 9" long 5 inches high and 4 inches wide now figure out the surface area it will take to "wrap" the body thinking of the height as another part of the length the two 5" high ends make 10" + 9" for the body gives you 19" long. Now figure out the width once again the ends are going to be 5" each for 10" + 4" body width = 14" so you will need about a 14" X 19" Container add an inch to the height to make sure that you have enough water cover. So you are going to need about a 6" deep X 14" wide X 19" Long container. Easy way to do that would be a cardboard box with a plastic bag liner. Paint, dip, drain, dry bag, toss bag and hopefully keep body!

This isn't really a new concept, I searched through the Tip, Tricks and Tutorials section on Storage of opened kits while in work and found nothing but a few hints at this. As demonstrated with the AMT '40 Ford Coupe seen in primer. After I open a kit that I am going to start work on I place the contents of the original box into a Stearlite plastic shoebox, most kits the box and all fits into it. Usually though I just seperate the kit and box and place it into the clear shoe box. Once you have the body work done and topcoated it then gets a shoebox of its own, which I normally line the bottom with a lint free cloth to keep it from sliding around on the plastic. I try to keep the sub-assemblies and extra parts in zip lock bags inside the shoebox, adds an extra layer of protection. Advantages that I've found with this method of storage, visability you know right away what's in that box and what stage it is in. They stack together and don't slide around like model boxes do. Stack on a shelf and stay put. There are no corners that allow small parts to "hide" out of sight. The lids stay on. You can store the kit, paint and "extra" detailing parts in the box. They look organized. ...