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Harry, Jim makes an excellent point, about both paying into the system and being a part of that same system. You've paid into everyone of these programs from the first day you worked your first job, you funded others in their time of need; unfortunately now you are in a time of need yourself. You paid for it, you may as well collect on it. I myself know how humbling it is to have to utilize one or two of the programs set up as a safety net in my own time of need. At 25 years old I was a mechanic in a dealership, I was coming down the stairs from the machine area with a Porsche 911 head in my hands. Slipped on probably the only spot of lubricant grease, hung onto the expensive aluminum head, struck my right elbow on the edge of the stair tread. Ouch! I learned a few hours later that between the bone and tread I'd partially severed my ulnar nerve. That's your funny bone. I was off of work on disability for five years, three surgeries and more poking and prodding than I care to remember because a lot of those pokes were with sharp instruments to make sure I still couldn't feel them like I did before I fell! Long story short, lazy ex-wife refused to get a job while I rehabbed, and went back to college, on my dime after the doctors told me I couldn't and wouldn't be returning to my old occupation. I did end up taking Medicaid to replace the health insurance I lost as well as food stamps after losing almost 2/3's of my take home pay. Was I embarrassed, you're darned right I was. I also had two kids five and under to take care of. Utilizing programs that you've paid into while it may be a blow to your ego (it was mine) you've earned that's right to use those benefits, unlike freeloaders who never pay a dime and use that safety net as a hammock. You unlike so many of those on the lifeline programs are willing to and would work if you were able, it isn't your choice, it is your physician who made that decision for you on the basis of your current health condition. Now, you are a very talented artist. You have a commodity that sells on a stress free and probably stress relieving basis. Not saying you become a poor artist, but it's not a bad way to supplement things is it?

Harry, glad to hear that things are on the upswing. (Haven't been around for a week or so, finishing up a project at work; all of this was a real shocker to hear). I've been concerned over the cancer, now this; you're a survivor and with God's grace you will make it through. Yes, God has a plan for your life, sometimes he has to bring us to a point where we will listen for sure he got your attention this time. Now get back on the Chemo regime and wipe out any remaining cancer (if there is any), my Dad went through a bout with the same type of cancer with the help of God some great doctors, supporting family and a positive attitude lived another 25 years. Now for the really bad part, prepping for the colonoscopy, (isn't that just a treat) you get to do that more frequently from now on. I think my Dad was on a three year cycle, had to drink a gallon of that horrible tasting stuff that gets you all pooped out. First two I had done I had to drink the gallon of sodium somthing-or-other, cleans everything out that's for sure. Just had another colonoscopy done about three weeks ago, they gave me something to mix with 64 ounces of Gatoraide, to not make it taste like Gatoraide! Drank half the night before, half the morning of, that alone was an improvement! The found three polyps ranging from 75 to 13 mm, so now I'm on a three year cycle to have my exhaust system checked out too!! This getting to be a seasoned citizen bit sure ain't for sissys is it!! God bless you Harry, you definitely have something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving this year! May God give you more to be thankful for many years to come!

Gary, that was exactly my point, since this tooling is so new it's gonna get fixed. Revell hasn't even seen a full year of amortization on it yet, they're going to get their money back, so you will see the kit back on the shelves too.

Having worked in a tooling shop (for a large formerly Seattle based aircraft company, maybe you've ridden on one of their planes.) for a few years. I can already say without a doubt the hard tooling (molds) are nowhere as big an issue as would have been in the 60's or even 90's. Now if the real proprietary item (the digital files) were damaged or corrupted, that would be a huge loss. In industry, Tooling gets lost, damaged, destroyed and just plain wears out all the time most companies plan for such incidents with hard tooling knowing that they can only pull so many units of anything off a mold; especially tight tolerance injection molding equipment. With the digital files in hand, the hard tooling can be recreated either from scratch and or damaged portion(s) of the tooling restored. In this day of four and five+ axis machining fixing or recreating a damaged is sometimes weeks away versus months away (years ago). The real time consuming part of any type of Injection molding tooling is the hand work required to bring the tool to production, this is getting less and less as machining technology advances along with digital technology. My point, don't believe everything some guy in your local hobby shop tells you and never believe the line some scalper on eBay trys to use to sell an overpriced anything. I totally agree with time to bring production back to the USA where there is better control over it.

The other thing that I have started buying a couple I of years ago is resin parts from, B-N-L, olmandowntheroad - AKA Altered States Models as well as a few others. I like this format for buying resin, much of the time you see the part you're buying, it arrives quickly a it's already cast before the auction began. Once or twice I have had a seller/caster who cast the parts after the auction, but the wait wasn't much longer than an extra day or two. There is a ton of Jimmy Flintstone's stuff there as well. So far I haven't got bit on any of the resin I've bought on eBay, hopefully that trend continues.

Another nice one in the works! Model T, A and B four bangers, their early speed secrets and parts are pretty cool any way you look at them. What's not to like!!! From my research on Model T Speedsters, I found that the Model A engine swap into the earlier Model T car and especially the trucks was a fairly popular swap (after enough Model A's had been wrecked and were in wrecking yards). Whenever the subject of Hotting Up a Model T comes up, the subject of Bootleggers is frequently mentioned. They were amoung some of the earliest Hot Rodders. One of the posts that I ran across on the Model T Club of America sort of implied that it was the Bootleggers who came up with the A into a T swap, probably shortly after the first Model A ended up wrecked. Though they wondered about the "wisdom" of said swap, in part due to the T's somewhat wimpy frame which was usually compounded by the extra leaf or three added to the spring stack front and rear. Their point was that when the "buggy sprung" suspension was stiffened up for the extra weight that the frame itself then became in part a torsion bar flexing back and forth, especially if they added hot parts to the Model A engine! From our perspective today that doesn't make as much impact; especially considering that double and even triple the horsepower of the Model T engines would have been possible with the right parts.

I usually search mostly for the specific parts I'm looking for, per project. There are some parts like specific types of wheels, tires and maybe extra engines that I look for to keep as stock on hand for future projects. Pricing, I try to find the most reasonable, then go with the proxy bid with the most I'm willing to pay for the item. I win some and lose some that way but I won't pay stupid prices just to win the item either. I find in that respect its best to be patient and wait those who gotta have it now out. For me that plan normally works. I don't normally bother with the junk yard sales even if there are a couple of parts I'm looking for. I've already got my own junkyard! Breakers, nope they don't bother me a bit. Most of the time it's cheaper than buying the whole kit for a couple of parts. I sort of have my "favorite" Breakers whom I've dealt with multiple times enough that they're on my favorites lists. If it was a part from some ancient kit I was looking for ID buy it from a breaker as well, as long as I could get the parts needed to finish the project. Parting out kits, I've done it a couple of times with kits I knew were missing parts. I've bought too many "open complete" kits with one or more undisclosed missing parts that I won't pass that mess onto someone else. Seems every time I've parted something out I almost always end up with parts that won't sell, stock seats, weird parts, rear ends,,, I bought a supposedly complete sealed (with tape) Monogram Orange Hauler that was missing most of the body and the hood scoop, seller refused to admit that the kit wasn't complete. So broke it up, pretty much all that sold was the engine and frames, so no from my perspective I didn't make money. I kept the whitewall pie crust slicks tires and wheels; on all the auctions for the rest of the kit everyone asked if I still had the tires and wheels? That's all they wanted too! Didn't make a dime!

Last night as I was perusing eBay I got to wondering how many others here scavenge eBay for extra parts and bits for model projects too. What kind of model parts, bits and bobs do you usually look for on eBay? What kind of pricing to you shoot for? (Yeah we all know there is that one crazy guy who thinks his parts are made of unobtanium, we are Not Discussing Him, at all!) Then there are the "Breakers" you know the ones who buy any kit they can get their hands on, old or new and part them out. Do you buy from them? I know some are bothered by them, does it bother you enough to not buy the part you need for a project or kit missing that piece? While we're discussing Breakers, has anyone pieced a kit out that way, did you make enough to cover your time and the price of the kit? I'm really wondering if most of those sellers actually sell off the whole kit or in the end are stuck with the junk no one wants, plus do they really end up making a dime or two?

Yuk, just looked at that "weld" on a bigger screen, there seems to be more defect than weld! The "welder" didn't even clean or prep the "joints" one can only imagine what is included in that mess. That's not even a sound stick weld, seen better welds on a muffler job!!!

As an AWS Level 3, I don't think I'd even bother looking at that bird poop weld!

It's the Riley Two Port head, looks to be out of the AMT '29 Ford Roadster. Your picture looks different than the Revell '31 Ford sedan, woodie and sedan delivery Riley Two Port Head included in those three kits. So I'm saying it is the AMT, also based on the white unpainted block and transmission. There was a thread asking about the Riley Head Conversion being offered in kit form. See below. Riley started making the Overhead Valve head for the Model T then for the Model A and I think Model B ('32 Ford 4banger). They were a popular conversion with Speedsters, truckers and especially Boot Leggers forcing a few Police Departments to invest in either the Riley or Frontenac (Chevrolet brothers) head conversions just to keep up! In addition auxillary transmissions and two speed rear axels like the Ruckstel and Columbia were necessitated to put all that extra power to the ground! see previous Riley Head Thread below

I've purchased parts from b-n-l both from the website and off of eBay I've got the same great service either way. Parts are always excellent whether it's been a carburetor, transmission or valve cover they always come the same zero to no cleanup required! I've never had an issue with b-n-l, professional, great communication and with a large enough order you might get a surprise goody with it!!! They're one of my favorite resin shops.

Super job! Reminds me of some of the old Hank Borger models he built for his Car Model articles. Low parts count or not, your '56 just has that look that a period correct Ex-Gasser has to have to be credible. With a little tweeking here or there this could have easily been a Stock Class car as well. Every thing about your model is plausible, there aren't any parts or doo dads that don't belong, that's what separates a decent subject related model from a really good one in my book.

Got an email answer from Norm this weekend I added a couple of the firewalls, tops and a roll-n-tuck insert to my current in process order. According to Norm, yes he is running behind schedule for orders placed over the summer, he just said that things got piled up this summer. I highly suspect he got hit with the Modelhaus Hysteria, now everybody is sort of afraid that other resin casters will pull the plug as well. (I have no real idea, that's my theory.)

Statistical Process Control, inspect 1 in 13, find no defect for next 26 lots, inspect 1 in 50, no effects for XXXX, 1 in XXXX,,, The Asian manufacturers bought into everything W. Edwards Deming had to say about quality, they thought Deming's 14 points were the thing the world revolves on, which includes greater and greater use of self inspection procedures. Now couple that with a manufacturing facility in a country where workers are harshly punished for mistakes. Think said worker is going to blow the whistle on themselves, yeah right. Couple that with workers being paid piecework wages and you have a recipe for warped bodies!

Pics open perfectly for me on my iPad. I'd echo th comments already made so far you've done a ton of work on that shoe box and it works, even sectioning and shortening through the interior. Not all cars look good after taking a chunk out of the middle like that, yours looks good.

I like the single air cleaner too, it looks different as in not a cookie cutter Hot Rod. Something you might consider if you do. The bottom flange on the single air cleaner looks both too thick and too wide. Thin it down both in width and thickness adding a nice eye appealing radius as you thin things up. Spray it with Alclad or other chrome replacement, I think the air cleaner would look 100% better after that alone.

Geoff, another winner! These little cars kind of grow on you. Hopefully that genuine Trabant paint holds up better than on some of the cars! I see what you meant in your other thread about the paint being shiny when fresh on the real thing, looks very good.

Better get some really large pulleys to drive that blower on the banger, probably take a over half the engine's horsepower to drive it. Something like a 4-71 with 2 carbs max would be a little more appropriate for a banger. Not to mention the wobbly crank and poured babbit rod bearings, maybe they retrofitted the rods and added a full counterweight crank! Think about going smaller blower and less carbs. Don't get me wrong, that huge blower on that tiny engine kinda looks kinda cool! Your first attempt at lettering isn't too bad at all, actually pretty good. Check out some of the art catalogs, websites or stores for a decent Kolinsky (squirrel hair) watercolor brush, size one or two for the size you're lettering. Next, round up either a piece of glass 6" X 6" minimum or about the same size piece of sheet metal to practice lettering. Next thing (maybe shoulda been the first thing to do) do an Internet search for "free lettering fonts" find a couple of easy fonts and start copying them, (pencil and paper first) to develope the muscle memory for that font. Once you can do the letters a - z, 0 - 9 without looking at your reference too much, you're ready for brush and paint! Go for it, it's fun and relaxing! I've been Signwritting for years on and off, right now as my real job allows, I've only lettered a few models, it's fun. Just watch that your lettering doesn't build up too much that it looks way out of scale, you can adjust that part by thinning the lettering paint to where it lays flat (enamel works best). Good luck and have fun!

Cartoon Gassers, maybe. They look more like a collision between a Gasser and a Donk!! Really they're a conglomeration of parts, making them look like their builder used all the optional parts in the box and half the parts box whether they looked good together or not! Maybe they're the full scale equivalent of the "Glue Bomb"!!!

To all the naysayers, laying leaf is actually a whole lot easier than it looks. The same techniques Jimmy shows you here can help with some of the raggedy edges often seen on BMF where the user fails to burnish it down enough. In my opinion the leaf can do a far superior job of replicating chrome trim, it's thinner more pliable and can be worked into surfaces that would give BMF fits! The leaf is the closest to the original BMF that I've ever seen or used. (Then again, just like Jimmy, I've been gilding sign and striping work for a while, so I see and understand what and how Jimmy is trying to pass along a very useable technique.) I guess the bottom line is if your too impatient to learn to use a new tool, stick with BMF and don't tell some who wants to try a new technique that it's too hard, won't work, the wrong material for the job or the wrong tool! BTW, this is the same exact technique we use to gold leaf signs, as in, let's see, fire trucks, lettering on the side of a Gasser, Dragster, Funny Car, Show Car... So with what little information Jimmy just shared and with a little imagination you can do the real thing instead of a decal that looks just like a decal of shimmering leaf! The other thing here many don't understand about signwritting is that many of these techniques we know and use were either hard learned through trial and error. That's because the old guys we learned from were closed mouthed about many of their tricks. They would tell you part of the way to do something and you had to figure out the rest by applying what you already knew. So, in my opinion just showing you all the steps Jimmy has given you a huge gift, so don't gripe about it until you try it out!

Nice, "Period Correct" Hot Rod! You've got a great foundation going on there, be watching the rest of this one for sure. You sort of did and didn't mention what you'll be doing with the top insert. Perusing the early '60's Hot Rod magazines you see many of the "over-the-top" Hot Rods with plexiglass filled inserts either color complementing the paint or yellow, orange, blue etc.

Nice! Reminds me of a '62 'Bird that shows up at the local (to me) car shows, with a 500 inch Caddy for motervation, he has it disguised pretty well for those who can't tell it's a Cad engine! I'd say both are equally sweet cars!!!

Great subject Bernard, agree not often modeled but it's such an important part of real Hot Rod history. Many forget it was the Hot Rods of the lat 30's and 40's that laid the foundation for the 50's and early 60's Hot Rods so any of us love. Don't know why, but when I read the tag line I thought it was another one of Dennis' builds, you two turn out some real beauties! Please keep the cool pix coming, I'm enjoying the eye candy so far! makes me wonder now that we have some really sweet Model A and Deuce roadsters why no one has done a bolster in resin. I know I'd like to see it happen for anything from one like '27 to '32, it's such a classic look that literally screams "Dry Lakes and Street Driven Hot Rod".

Refer to those jacked up vehicles with whatever tag you want, they're not Gassers, never would have been Gassers in their current form. No one who was around to hear the real NHRA and IHRA Gassers roar would mistake them as for a gasser either!