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Aaronw

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Everything posted by Aaronw

  1. Personally I just describe parts by the process, I built this kit by Revellomiya, I made the seat belts from some ribbon, the buckles were made from some old PE parts sprues. I turned the shifter knob on my lathe. I bought the wheels and tires from 3D printer guy and I made the decals with my printer.
  2. How is it a red herring? Just because 3d printing can do some things better than machining or resin casting should not matter. 3D printing is not magic just as with machining or resin casting proper design is important. Like resin casting some parts will need to be printed in pieces, and orientation during printing is very important. 3D printers actually do not like undercuts, you often have to add supports, or carefully consider the orientation of the part while in the printer, large undercuts may best be created upside down. Machining and resin casting can also do some things better than 3D printing. Granted resin casting a hand made part, or turning a part on a manual lathe / mill has more direct human interaction, so I can see the argument for including them, but I have trouble understanding why you would accept a CNC made part as scratch-built, but not a 3D printed part. Other than time and skill set hand carving has many advantages over many of these mechanical methods. A skilled carver can do things very difficult or impossible to do with a machine. If it is just about difficultly we may as well go back to arguing balsa and tissue vs styrene and what is "real" model making. I can see the point some of you are making about the "human element". I think that is a legitimate point, the real question being where is the line drawn. I think some believe 3D printing is just push a button and a part pops out. Even printing a file made by another requires skill to set it up properly, lots of ways to mess up a print. If 3D printing was easy everybody would be doing it. Ultimately "scratch-building" is a vague term. It often gets confused with kit bashing, so not surprised to see so little agreement on this topic.
  3. 3D printing is in the same category as resin casting and CNC machining. Is making the master, and then resin casting duplicates scratch-building? Is making parts on your CNC milling machine scratch building? Does it make a difference if you designed the part in CAD or bought the file to upload into your milling machine? If yes to either of these, then I don't see why 3D printing isn't. If no to either, what is the difference? Is their a difference between carving a block of aluminum by hand with a file, doing it with a manual milling machine or doing it with a CNC milling machine? It gets kind of murky once you are not working strictly with your hands, and without power tools. Once you add power, where do you draw the line, hand drill, drill press, lathe?
  4. The tech is finally maturing. It is cheaper to get started in 3D printing than buying the set up for resin casting. You can now get on older generation 2K resin printer for less than $200. There are several 4K resin printers in the $300-500 range and 8K resin printers at the $500-800 range that are big enough to do a smaller car body. The 4K and 8K printers can do extremely fine detail. The layering so many dislike with 3D printing is mostly an artifact of the filament printers. The learning curve for creating stuff to 3D print is a significant, but getting started with resin casting has a pretty steep curve as well.
  5. Just because I need a little levity after writing all that ... I can't tell you how many times I thought of this bit from The Wedding Singer after receiving less than timely help
  6. I went through this with my mother a few years ago. One thing that would have been nice to know that we didn't find out until it was too late is how rapidly it can progress. She had been declining to the point we were starting to look into some sort of assisted care for her, but she was still able to live on her own with my brother or I checking in on her once or twice a month (basically one of us would check on her each week). She went into the hospital for a urinary tract infection, a fairly minor illness, but she rapidly declined from there. Went from being able to live alone with some concerns for us, to couldn't be left alone for a minute. My brother took her for a few days, but he lives alone and couldn't work since she had to be watched. We took her from him, and tried to keep her with us, since it is my wife and I plus our teenaged son so there were more eyes to watch her. That lasted about a week when we caught her trying to feed our 7 year old her meds like candy. We got her into a nearby assisted living facility that seemed nice and it was close so easy to pop in a few times a week to visit. Thankfully she had a good pension so we could afford the $5000 / month rent (1 bedroom apartment with caregivers and cafeteria), because we wouldn't have been able to. At that point she would get confused, but she still knew my brother and I. This went on for about 6 months, and then one week she didn't know us anymore. She would sit right there face to face and tell us about her horrible sons who never visit her. My brother made the 2 hour drive a couple times a month and I was there several times a week, so that was a bit hard to take. I can't blame people who don't visit, what is the point they don't know you and you get to hear what a terrible person you are in the third person. Then she started to get violent, so we had to move her to another facility that could manage violent residents. All this time she was still considered legally competent because doctors are very reluctant to take away a persons rights. Thankfully she had put me on most of her finances before she completely lost it, so I could access her bank account to pay her bills but she had resisted getting a power of attorney so we could legally make decisions for her once she couldn't. It was extra fun when she was finally declared incompetent, but we still had to wait months for the courts to award me conservatorship, so several months of limbo. People yelling at me to do things I had no legal right to do. Nine months after we got her moved into the new, new place, she was dead. I probably burned 3 months sick leave over 18 months, taking her to doctors appointments, moving her (twice), having to deal with crisis after crisis. So glad I had saved up sick leave for years so I had it to use. I learned a lot about dealing with dementia, almost all of it after the fact. One of the big ones being, it moves fast, they can literally be somewhat coherent one day, and then checked out the next. Another that would have been nice to know is the average life expectancy from diagnoses to death is 3 years. Sounds horrible to say, but after dealing with the dementia for 2+ years, getting the phone call that she had died was more relief than grief. She was 79, and she had many on her side of the family live into their 90s so I thought that was going to be my life for quite some time. The 2 years nearly killed us, I don't think I could have done 10. Only advice I can share is be aware that it moves fast. Be aware that people you would think would be understanding and help you (courts, hospital, social workers) won't, most will dump the problems back on you. If you are lucky they may provide you with some literature that is about 6 months behind your current timeline. This is important, get a power of attorney giving a family member the ability to take control, once they are deemed incompetent. If they will sign the documents while they still legally can, it will help so much once they decline beyond that point. If you can, get a will done at the same time, which will save you down the road. We dodged a bullet there as it was just my brother and I and she had listed us as beneficiaries on her savings account which was her the only thing of any significant value. If she had still owned a home or had other valuable assets we would have had months of additional legal wranglings. Take care of yourself. Get a family member to stay with him to give you a break when you need it. The stress is brutal, I contemplated giving up a few times, and if I didn't have a 7 year old that I want to see get bigger, I might not be here. My condolences, this is an issue that gets far too little support. Good luck.
  7. I got a bunch of out dated desk calendars from work, they are about 2x3 feet each x 14 months so I'll be set for years.
  8. If you have a Dremel or similar and a lot of patience you could scale down the technique in this video
  9. There are two really good books on LACO rigs, Ride the Devil Wind, and Devil Wind Fire Wagons. The first book is a history of the LA County Fire Department and its predecessors, the second is focused on the fire apparatus used in LA County 1920-1995. Both are heavily illustrated with vintage photos. These books came out in the 1990s but you can still find them for reasonable prices.
  10. Honestly I'm a little surprised he made it this far. He wasn't easy on his body when he was younger. I'm a big fan of Ozzy and Black Sabbath, so hope he is able to enjoy life for many more years. I saw him twice, 1984 during his Bark at the Moon tour at the Cow Palace (San Francisco), and then during his No More Tours tour, in 1992 at the Oakland Coliseum. I guess we should be happy he was able to keep going 30 years after his 1992 "retirement". I also saw Black Sabbath with Dio at the Henry J Kaiser Center (Oakland). Wish I had made more effort to make one of the Black Sabbath shows for their 13 album.
  11. Before I had a lathe, I used my Dremel a few times to turn round ends on rod to make pressure air tanks. The Dremel drill press I have allows the drill to be turned horizontally making it easier to get a file on the part vs trying to work vertically.
  12. Far from a proper lathe, but the 6 in 1 machines like the Unimat 1 are not entirely worthless. Compared to a Taig, or Sherline they are awful but with some work they could be useful and at around $100 they are far more affordable than other options. The actual Unimat 1 branded sets are far too expensive for what you get. I bought one on a whim when I found one for $80 or so. The biggest issue I found is that the motor is a very high speed unit with no speed control. It would never be a great lathe, but if converted to something like a variable speed Dremel motor, it would actually be useful for simple lathe projects like reducing the size of a wheel stub, or turning simple parts from plastic rod. As is they are more useful as a small drill press or sander.
  13. The 1/2 ton truck shared its front end design with the cars having its headlights integrated into the fenders. The heavier trucks used standalone headlights like the older trucks. Not sure beyond that what changes need to be made.
  14. Same with Ford, diesels were supposed to be 000 series instead of 00 series, but I've never actually seen a Ford badged like that. I think some of this is just on paper / vin vs badging.
  15. No, there is this badly conceived notion that one can just scan a decal sheet and start cranking out reproductions. This can be done using an inkjet or laser printer to some extent, but the decal quality is limited and only as good as the original image. The decals using this method are transparent so unless you are putting them on white, the underlying color will come through altering the decals. It is also not possible to resize more than a tiny amount without lowering the quality of the image. ALPS printers are desirable not because of their having greater resolution. The design of ALPS printers is rather antiquated and most modern ink jets and laser jet printers have better resolution. ALPS are desirable primarily because they have the ability to print opaque colors, specifically white, but also metallics. Unlike ink jet and laser jet that print in one pass, ALPS print in multiple layers. This requires that an image be broken down into layers which can not be done with just any drawing program. You can not just scan and print with an ALPS, as a jpeg image will not work well. You have to use a vector based drawing program like Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, or GIMP (a free, open source drawing program). There are few short cuts so it can take hours to do even simple designs, but the upside is vector based programs are not pixel based so they can be easily rescaled with no loss of quality. Making quality decals is far more labor intensive than most people grasp. Drawing the image is just the start, they also have to be sized and then adjusted to account for the shape of the object they are being applied to. Decals for a Ford Crown Vic will not necessarily work for a Chevrolet Caprice or Dodge Charger. Edit, sorry I went way off on a tangent that is really unrelated to your question.
  16. I love the idea behind this one, but sadly it looks like I'm finishing year 7 on the no building streak. One of these days I'll get back to this.
  17. Bench seat would be incredibly simple to scratch build, it is essentially just a couple of boxes.
  18. No, if anything it will be a boost to truck builders creating more options. If you build super common subjects (1950s60s popular cars) then you may not have an interest in diecast, but for everybody else diecast has often been the only way to get your hands on many vehicles whether that is just to put one on the shelf as is or as the basis for something else.
  19. The ink on home printed decals also tends to crack when cutting close to the artwork, so even if you did print on silver you would have to leave a fairly significant buffer edge. Similar problem printing on white. Your best option may be printing your decal on regular paper, and then using that as a template to cut out your BMF. Then print your decal on clear and put it over the BMF. I've done this with white decal paper to create a white layer that the clear decal is then laid over. ALPS printer is the best home solution, but never cheap and increasingly difficult to get.
  20. Very neat, love seeing quirky cars like this saved. Not surprised that you got it to start so easily. My parents bought a new Toyota Corona in 1970. The body was tin foil, but the engine just wouldn't die. My Dad abused the heck out of that poor little car treating it like a truck and he still got 15 or 16 years out of it. It finally blew a head gasket. By then the body was a mess after having the front end caved in after a car backed into it while parked, later it got sideswiped by a bus. That plus the years of abuse and the head gasket was the end of the line.
  21. I never get tired of the brass work that you put into your models.
  22. I have a selection of nuts, bolts and washers to help with bending rod and tubing, but this is easier once it is made. Adding it to my to do list. ?
  23. Not all CVTs are the same. Subaru has been working with CVT since the 1980s (an option on the 1989 Subaru Justy). Subaru manufactures their own CVT designed for their cars, where many other automakers outsource theirs from a 3rd party, Jatco supplies many automakers including Nissan who has developed a very poor reputation for its CVTs. CVTs are less complex, smaller and lighter weight than automatic transmissions which makes then well suited to small cars. I prefer a manual but we have a CVT in our Forester and it works just fine, I don't find it any better or worse than most other automatic transmission cars I've driven / owned. It keeps the car in its optimum power band when accelerating so makes the most of the engine power, and it drops to a low RPM when just maintaining speed on the highway for better fuel economy. It absolutely does allow compression braking, when I set the cruise control on a downgrade it does a fantastic job of maintaining my desired speed, and in fact it does a better job of holding speed than even a manual transmission on a downgrade, because it just keeps adjusting the transmission to maintain just the right amount of engine compression. Now actually slowing down with compression braking a manual does better, but just holding speed, I'm impressed at how well the CVT does and I do a lot of hill and mountain driving. CVT is apparently not a great choice for a large vehicle, or for serious towing but they work fine for small to midsize cars.
  24. Nice, Lotus Esprit is one of my favorite 80s cars. The Spy who loved me, was the first James Bond film that I ever saw.
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