Aaronw

I don't know about using RIT but in Matt Swan's article on Future he talks about adding food color to tint windows. http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html

Weird but I'm not sure what my own opinion is anymore. Seems to me having large homgenous sections kind of makes sense particularly for a smaller forum such as this. Lets say for example, I have a question about a Moreland truck (a California truck builder from the early 20th century), now you would think its easy enough I should ask in the truck section. However that is really going to limit how many people see the post and there is a good chance that nobody who checks the truck section will know the answer, but there could be someone in the general section who really isn't interested in truck models that see's my post and happens to have a brother who is into 1-1 antique trucks. If we start to break down the site into sections where do you draw the lines? Do we want a site with 27 sections for every possible type of model, but each only gets 2-3 posts a week? Or use a little selective clicking to only open posts who's titles interest us? On the one hand by including different sections it sort of implies the magazine is interested in those subjects and may attract those interested in the area of modelling, on the other hand it starts to divide the community into camps. I guess I would say come up with 5-6 large encompassing groups, for example, factory stock, commercial, racing, sports cars, and custom (yes including Donks), or get rid of the specific categories and let everyone share the same handful of groups general, work bench & display case. Not saying either concept is right or wrong just that the mostly generic areas with a couple of specific areas does seem to be stirring up problems and understandably causes some to feel left out.

I get almost all of my supplies and a lot of my kits from Tower Hobbies. They have a good selection from the mainstream kit makers (Revell, AMT, Tamiya etc), not so good for more obscure stuff. Good prices and fixed rate shipping so on large orders shipping really works out in my favor. http://www.towerhobbies.com/index.html I also get quite a few kits from Model Roundup, they stock more heavy trucks and less common kits like those from Model King than Tower does. http://www.modelroundup.com/index.html

I'm going to be lazy and just say I'd be really happy to see any 1930-60's trucks, particularly Dodge's, IH's or GMC's. Some late 70's through 80's Ford LTD / Crown Vic, Chevrolet Caprice or Dodge Diplomat cop cars would be nice too.

That cab is not currently available but the Quality of AITM's cabs are good. Dave has been improving the molds before he makes them available so if he makes the Marmon's available I would expect them to be of similar quality to his current cabs. http://www.aitruckmodels.com/

Yeah, It's a nice place, kind of like living in a petting zoo and we're the animals. Send me a PM if you come out. The Ahwahnee is nice but you might check Yosemite Lodge too, it is a lot cheaper and the rooms are actually a little nicer.

Well if you get the aircraft bug again there are a couple of nice WW2 Italian fighter kits out now in 1/72 and 1/48. Italeri has several in 1/72 I forget now who has the 1/48 kits. I like to build stuff that is a little different and Italian aircraft and armor definately fall into that category.

If you coat your clear parts with Future, CA glue won't do that to them. It even protects from the dreaded glue and paint covered thumb print, a little windex and it all comes right off. I really should get a kick back from Johnson & Johnson with as much as I push Future to other modelers.

Fire engines, preferably green ones.

I use Future, since I use it as a clear coat and dip the "glass" in it before I start it doesn't matter if I get some some where other than where I need it. It works great anywhere I can use gravity to hold the glass in place while it dries. Once dry it is quite strong.

I'm a fire captain for Yosemite National Park. Hey Rob you might have painted some of our equipment, we have 6 engines and a rescue truck built by Pierce.

I've cast small parts up to complete bodies, even managed to cast a gear shift (that was a joy but I finally got it to work) but Wheels / tires (one piece), steering wheels and fans really vex me trying to find a way to cast them. I manage to make the wheels / tires work, but I'm sure there is a better way, fans and steering wheels end up being almost as much work to cast as just scratchbuilding them, I have just had terrible luck with them. Can anyone offer some suggestions or show what works for you? Thanks

Trading cards are for collecting, models are for building. Tower hobbies has a good selection of supplies, several brands of paint, glue, evergreen plastic, brushes, tools etc. Good prices, good service and flat rate shipping. Sorry can't help you with the broke part, been there and that is no fun.

You would think they could just drop the name and go from there. I mean if there is nobody to approve the licensing who would contest a no-name release of the trailer? If Revell can drop the Goodyear from its tires without re-making the whole tire I would think they could issue the trailer name free. Oh, well its not like most of this licensing stuff actually makes sense to the normal person on the street anyway. That's too bad, I wasn't particularly looking forward to this release but I'm sure many others were.

Thanks, I'll pass that along to him.

On another site I belong to, one of the members is looking for a Kenworth TH-800 conversion. I found a T-800 but no TH-800. He said that it is a "high hood" truck. I don't know the big trucks all that well being more focused on the medium duty stuff. Does anyone know of a conversion that would work for him, or suggestions for making it himself? A bit of scratchbuilding on an existing kit or resin conversion is within his ability if he knew what to do. Thanks

Just an update on the Ford issue, from another website I belong to it appears the calendar issue was driven from the printers side, not Ford. In the past Ford has agressively protected their blue oval and name. Well apparently some overly cautious bean counter noticed Fords have a blue oval and say Ford on them (whoda guessed). It appears Ford is trying to clear this up by specifying the issue they had was products with a promenent FORD or blue oval as if an endorsement, not simply having a Ford car in the photo. It is nice to see sometimes the world is not quite a screwed up as it appears to be.

I haven't made it as far as actually looking for figures. Thanks for the links though, it gives me a place to start.

Thanks, I googled Novas and the late 70's Novas are so different they don't register in my mind as a Nova. I mean when I see them I know they are a Nova but I completely forgot about that body style.

You're probably right about that. Old Hermit that is exactly why I find it strange, I understand the difference between the model companies and our resin industry, I'm talking about the machinery that cranks out 20,000 resin gnomes. There are all kinds of resin products (mostly nick nacks) cranked out by the thousands. These are not made by some guy in his garage (probably hundreds of kids in China ). It just seems odd that this type of resin casting has never hopped into this hobby, even as a failure. Oh, well just a wierd thought that has been bouncing around my head so I thought I'd share.

Actually, I just pulled the '34 out and started working on it again. When I started on it I painted it before extending the frame, rather than mess up a decent paint job I'm making it into a patrol truck instead of the engine. I've got another '34 I'll use to build the engine. The '37 stake bed is about in the same spot, I'm not pleased with the wheels and haven't decided what to do with it. I can't fit anything larger on it without a fair bit of work, but that is probably what it needs. Remember kids measure twice cut once. Then Revell brought out the '41 Chevy and now '50 Ford pickups which further distracted me. I was just looking at the '37 this morning, so who knows it might get done yet.

Thanks, I'll keep my eyes out for one of these. It doesn't appear that Airfix is currently producing this kit, but maybe they'll bring it back as they get back on their feet and there is always ebay. The one I drove was exactly like the one you built but dark green. It will go well with the Jag E-type in my stash.

A bit earlier someone asked about bubbles in plastic and during that discussion the fact there are industrial strength resin casting machines came up, but none are used for making kits. I've been thinking about this for awhile now. We hear how expensive injection molded plastic kits are to tool up, and obviously the aftermarket resin casters are able to make a kit for a miniscule fraction of this cost, although granted the potential output is drastically smaller. Why is there such a gap in technology? It seems strange that nobody has taken that middle technology between the out of the home resin casters and the "big boys" (Revell, AMT etc). It seems like that would be a perfect solution for those frequently asked for but relatively low volume kits. I'm guessing the big companies just don't bother and the cost is beyond even the big resin casters budgets, but it still seems odd.

One of the firefighters I used to work with was trying to paint a bondo patch on his car with one of those touch up paint spray cans. It just happend that one of the other FF's on duty also built models so we were out back offering tips and techniques of painting with a rattle can. I guess we weren't to helpful because he ended up telling us to go the BLEEEEEEP back inside and sniff some glue.

AMT did a Ford Interceptor Police Car, it doesn't say so on the box but it is a 70 Ford Galaxie. My understanding is the LTD is just a different trim level of the Galaxie. Old style model but still a decent kit if you can live with metal axles. It wouldn't hurt to see a more modern version of this kit though, I like those big Fords.