Aaronw

This is the one alternative to an ALPS printer I am aware of http://www.pulsarprofx.com/decalpro/ I have no personal experience with it, and have seen some mixed reviews from really good to works ok, but not great. Cargostar posted some info about a year ago from a friend who was trying it out. It will cost you more than the listed $89 unless you already have some of the required equipment (Lamination machine and a heat gun). There are some custom printers out there, I've used diecast and decals and he did great work. the last I heard he was very backed up though so you might have to wait in line. http://www.diecastanddecals.com/ As far as the ALPS printer they are awesome, but very delicate (so don't handle shipping or neglect well) and expensive. New they were about $1200, and you could get ones used for $400-600 before the ended production. I have no idea what the market for a used one looks like now that new ones are not available. You can get a good used one, but I would be very nervous doing so if I couldn't physically see it work and take it home myself. Lots of people are selling these with no idea what they actually have, how well it works or how to pack it for shipping (the print head has to be secured or it will move around and get damaged in transport). You should use a vector based program (Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator) to get the best effect. ALPS print one color at a time so you need these programs to layer the artwork into colors. I guess you could get by with a program like MS Paint if you printed a seperate sheet for each color and layered the decal on, but that doesn't seem like a good idea to me, not only would the quality of the artwork be reduced, you would also end up with a rather thick decal. There are some free vector based draw programs available, but I don't know of any to recommend.

I think the issue with the Volvo was cost, it was already $70-80 as a curbside. Personally I think another $10-15 for a motor would have been worthwhile even though I don't always leave the hood free to open. I haven't seen either of the Volvo VN kits recently, I'd like to get one myself but didn't get around to it before they vanished from the shelves, so I'd like to see them reissued (slight difference between Revell of Germany and Italeri?).

Seems like there are a lot of options missing from the poll, no IH's at all, no medium duty trucks, and no dozers under construction equipment. I'm not that familiar with many of the newer trucks listed, but aren't most over the road rather than construction / vocational trucks? Really no construction related trailers (I'd like to see a bottom dump gravel trailer, preferably a pair of 28s for a tandem trailer set up), bulk liquid / gas trailers (lots of options here low pressure chemical MC307, corrosive liquid MC 312, high pressure chemical MC-331, cryogenic liquid MC-338), compressed gas tube trailers or a modern lowboy. Any of those would be nice to see. I wouldn't object to any of the items in the poll but with the exception of a feller buncher nothing stands out from the rest.

I'm too concerned about axles, but do you know which Pontiac V-8 they used, and is one available in a kit? I can't think of many 1950s Pontiac kits out there.

I was wondering if they might have been a special deal that the store received. They really are not sturdy enough to hold up to shoppers. Lots of bits on the bottom of the box from bags that had been torn open. Dave, it wasn't the Camaro. I'm waiting for the production version kit Revell says they are doing to build the new Camaro, but for $7.99 I would have snagged one to build a phantom 2010 Firebird.

My "local" Hobbytown had a couple of large boxes full of bagged (no box) Revell snap kits. There were 4, a modern Corvette, Hummer H1, '57 Chevy and a 4th that escapes me. I'm wondering how wide spread these are. It was kind of nice because I really don't care about the boxes, and these kits were being sold for $7.99 which suggests the box adds $7 or 8 to the price. Has anyone else seen these being sold?

I didn't know he did a '57 GMC. I have his 1950 GMC conversion and it is nice. I'll have to add the '57 to my get list.

Not the Impala but I have a '59 El Camino I've been working on off and on (more off) and painting the undersides of the tail fins was something of a chore.

Ok, so it appears I broke the forum, sorry.

<p> </p> <p> </p> <p>Many of the online dealers have flat rate shipping or even waive shipping on larger orders, so it pays to save up and buy in bulk.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>California is trying to do this, but so far it is a voluntary tax since they have no way to enforce it. It appears to be one of those issues that is of questionable legality so the state takes what they get rather than give an opportunity for opponents to get it into court.</p>

I'd love to see a lot of older trucks in plastic, I was just pointing out AITM since unfortunately I think resin is the only way will see most of the older trucks you listed. I don't know how much help the model companies get from the trucking industry these days, but supposedly IH was very involved back when Ertl did many of those trucks. There also doesn't seem to be the same kind of interest in truckers these days, back when Ertl was doing those kits there was a fair amount of ttrucker themed TV shows and movies, Cannonball, BJ & the bear, Convoy, Smokey & the Bandit etc. I can't really think of any recent movies like those. The lonestar looks great, I hope it ignites more interest in new kits from the model makers. If you ever want to give resin a try, I'd suggest the Mack N (assuming the subject appeals to you), it should be a pretty straight forward swap onto the Ford C chassis, and by resin standards is pretty cheap making it a good introduction. http://www.aitruckmo...macknmodel.html

I'd love to see a modern dozer, CAT, JD, big, small, don't care I'd take any of them. While plastic would be nice, you can get most of the old trucks you listed in resin from American Industrial Truck Models. http://www.aitruckmodels.com/

Art you demonstrate pretty much what I found. In the many discussions about spray booths I found Pace (and others) get criticised for being under fanned from a design view point, but those who own them are mostly happy. Pace comes up a lot in these discussions because they are a popular booth. I'm not positive but the one somewhat negative report I heard about the Pace Peacekeeper was from someone I am pretty sure used it with a rattle can which would put out a lot more paint than an airbrush, the method of exhaust duct also plays a major part. I am amazed by the number of people who buy a nice commercial booth then slap a cheap (well that explains that) 4" flexible dryer duct on it. On my booth, using 5 feet of duct, 6" allows the full 485 cfm, 4" would cut it down to 325 cfm (more than a 25% loss). If you have to use a flexible duct at least use a larger size, 6" flexible duct is only about $0.80 a foot. and again if my posts come across as negative towards Pace they are not meant to be, they have a good reputation and in my opinion offer one of the better values. I nearly bought the Super Mini myself. I am however very pro do it yourself for those willing to do it right. Talk of shopvacs hooked to a cardboard box makes me cringe.

Artograph has some nice down draft booths with charcoal filters that do better (only need 50 fpm being down drafts), but they cost quite a bit more and use 3 custom filters instead of a generic furnace filter which adds a little more in long term costs. The filters do supposedly allow the booth to be used without an outside exhaust since they capture the nasty fumes which could be a big plus for some if it really works. The Artograph 1530 is roughly the size of the Pace Peacekeeper but has a retail price of $569 vs $450 (+ shipping, Pace includes shipping in their price). Nice if you have the money but most seem to want to spend as little as possible (same for me which is why I finally just built one). For the most part though I found pretty much everything in the $300 or less range came out between 60 and 80 feet / min if they even provided the cfm of the fan and dimensions of the opening, so about the same as Pace. Annoyingly many booths do not give full specs so you can make a good comparison. By building one I have a sturdy 30x18" booth (1/2" plywood) with a 485 cfm Dayton blower (same type and brand as the Pace booths only bigger) which provides 129 feet / minute at the opening (3.75 square feet / 485 cfm). Total cost (excluding 8-10 hours of my time) was about $200. Here is a neat online calculator that allows you to find the friction loss for a specific size duct and cfm. The outcome is for a 100 foot section of straight duct, just divide by the actual length (so if you only use 5 feet of duct divide the result by 20). You have to remember to add 5 feet for each 45 degree bend and 10 feet for each 90 degree. So a total of 5 feet of straight pipe with 2 90 degree bends is actually 25 feet (5+10+10). http://www.engineeri...loss-d_444.html Mike I do remember seeing an article about running a duct into a bucket of water with activated charcoal (maybe SA or FSM?). It does seem to work but I remember some comments from people who tried it saying that the fumes do eventually come out of the water, so you have to remove the bucket and take it outside after painting. Oh, and I'm not really an "expert" on this, I don't do HVAC or similar, I just read up a bunch when I wanted a booth, and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

In case my excessively long post doesn't explain this, cfm is the blower rating (how much air flows through the actual fan), the 100 (or 50) rating I was talking about is the flow at the opening so a 2x2 booth with a 400 cfm would only have 100 feet per minute passing though any particular point of the opening. It is why you can't just take a 50 cfm dryer fan and put it on a 2x3 foot cardboard box paint booth, but it would be ok, on a shoe box paint booth.

Mike has it right, cfm is how much air the fan moves, but the formula for recommended flow also factors in the square footage of the opening to ensure adequate velocity to pull the fumes out of the booth. So a tiny booth with a 1 ft wide by 1 ft tall opening should have a 100 cfm fan to provide a flow of 100 feet per minute at the face. It is recommended that a cross draft booth pull 100 ft per minute, and a down draft 50 ft per minute. The Pace mini has a 20" wide by 11" tall opening (1.5 feet) By the formula given it should have a 150 cfm fan, so it is just a pinch shy of the 100 value recommended. The Pace super mini has a 24" wide by 15" tall opening (2.25 square feet) so should have a 225 cfm fan but has the same 148 cfm fan as the mini only giving it a value of 65. The Peacekeeper has a 34" wide by 13.5" tall opening (3.2 square feet) so should have a 320 cfm fan, with the actual 265 cfm fan used it only comes up with a value of 82. Ducting further reduces the effective cfm of a fan, not a problem if you just go 2 feet to the vent, but 5, 10, 15 feet with a bend or two can cut the actual cfm by quite a bit. The popular 4" flexible dryer duct creates a huge restriction compared to straight metal duct. Taking the Dayton 265 cfm fan used by the Peacekeeper you will see it makes 265 cfm at 0.0" of water (flow resistance), at 0.1" it drops to 250 cfm, 0.2" 232 cfm, 0.3" 212 cfm, 0.4" 184 cfm and at 0.5" only 135 cfm. With a 4" straight metal duct with a 265 cfm fan you will get 4.17" / water per 100 feet, so 10 feet will put you at 0.4" reducing the blower to 184 cfm. With a 6" straight metal duct on the same blower you get 0.54" / water per 100 feet. One 45 degree bend is equal to 5 feet of duct, a 90 degree bend = 10 feet. Flexible duct causes 2-3x the friction of straight duct (1 foot of flex duct = 2-3 feet of metal duct). So take the Peacekeeper set up with a 2 foot 4" duct out the wall, and you are probably fine, but buy 10 feet of 4" flexible dryer duct, run it to the floor (45 degree bend) then out a dryer vent (another 45 degree) and you could end up off the chart (1.2") cutting the blower to less than 1/2 its cfm. Pace gets beat up a bit in comparisons by "experts" because they mostly fall short of the theoretical ideal (as do most of the available affordable booths), but they do seem to be good enough for the price based on comments of owners. Where you are likely to run into trouble is using a poor duct layout since they don't have any excess fan power, but again this is an issue with most of the lower end (pricewise) booths. I am in no way trying to disparage Pace, I think they are one of the better values out there, just pointing out an issue, make sure you use appropriate ducting.

Online for me, my "local" hobby shop is 100 miles away and it is only good for basics. I have to go about 200 miles for an actual good hobby shop.

I think you will be happy with that. I did quite a bit of research before I built my booth and very nearly ordered that one myself. The Pace booths are a bit light in the fan area falling short of the recommended 100 feet per minute, leading to some general criticism, but nearly everyone that I talked to that actually had one was happy with theirs. The only complaint I remember was someone with the largest booth (Peacekeeper?) and even he was pretty happy, just wished the fan was a bit more powerful (occasionally had to briefly stop painting to let it vent).

Don't really care, one of my favorite shops is in the basement of a hardware store, another is in a strip mall and my nearest is standalone (actually an old movie theater). I would think a strip mall is probably best overall though if the other stores are of a type that would invite walk in traffic (like a pizza place where people might come down to take a look while waiting for their food, or a sewing shop where guys might sneak off while their wife buys sewing stuff).

The FL SD was a Stevens issued kit that came out about 2004, I remember because I was waiting for it to show up for a project I had (that I still haven't started ). I had to hunt around for a General, but it seemed like the Astros were everywhere. It would be neat to see the turbine available again. I wasn't really interested in trailers at the time so didn't pay much attention to them. There was a lot of speculation at the time that it might be the last time the SD got issued due to some sort of licensing issue. Since the DD has since been re-issued hopefully the fears were unfounded.

For structural bits like a truck utility body I tend to use .040" because it is stiff enough to maintain its shape but still easy to work with. .030" will save you some money because you get an extra sheet in a pack (3 .030", vs 2 .040") and works fine for smaller pieces like a truck storage box. .020" is about the thickest you can easily curve if you need a rounded part, although unless it is hollow on the end I prefer to sand a curve into the edge rather than bend plastic. If the thickness is actually important then get the size you need (.010" = 1/4" in 1/25 scale).

I've been designing a display case and plan to go with LED lights. I don't know how handy you are but LEDs offer a huge variety of options particularly if you are willing to cobble something together. Another plus is they don't use a lot of power and create very little heat. Here is just one site that shows some of the options available. http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=/led_prods.htm&gclid=CN7VqaS5raoCFQFvbAodyE-TUw

They have the same cab, but a different hood / grill, the S-2575 has a flat nose similar to the medium duty S-1600, S-1800, the S-2674 has an extended nose with angled fenders. S-2575 http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/morton/2004/cd01/roadway_ih_2575.jpg S-2674 http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/donq/transcon_int_2675.jpg

It would be nice to see a DT466 tooled up for the S-series.

These were all reissued within the last 5 years or so by Stevens or Model King. Those were small batches so they are getting hard to find, but I would assume the tooling is all accounted for and in good condition so they should be simple reissues. Round 2's pricing has been considerably less than the small runs from Stevens and MK. Autocar A64B Mack R600 Mack DM600 Mack DM800 Mack Cruiseliner White Freightliner single drive daycab Twin pup box vans with dolly These were all fairly easy to find on ebay or hobby shops in 2002-03, so again would be fairly simple re-issues I would think. Autocar Dump truck Ford Louisville single drive straight truck with box van International Paystar cement mixer International Paystar Dump truck Kenworth K100 Aerodyne Peterbilt 352 Peterbilt 359 with 1100 series cab with Cummins 350 Peterbilt 359 with 1100 series cab with Cummins 350 tow truck 3 axle lowboy CAT D8 I would be happy to see most of those available again. I'm hoping to see these IH trucks for 2012, particularly the S-series kits which have become quite hard to find even at rather high prices. I paid $75 each for S series dump truck and tractor in 2004 and thought that was a pretty decent price at the time. I'd love to pick up a couple more at Round 2's $30+/- prices. International Transtar 4070 International Transtar 4200 International Transtar II International S-series tractor International S-series Dump truck