Aaronw

Here is a review of a 1/700 kit http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/ships/de/de-99/cannon-class.html Hobby Link Japan shows one available in 1/350. http://www.hobbylinkjapan.org/product/PITWB-08 A 1/700 DE is pretty small, 5-6" long. 1/700 is my prefered ship scale because a battleship or aircraft carrier is still only about 10-16" long so not overwhelming on the shelf with other models. For a single ship display piece rather than a collection of many ships 1/350 is probably a better size, particulary for such a small ship.

I'd love to see a few automotive CEO's building kits, I can just see the meeting. Can one of you clowns explain to me why I can't build a model of the 2011 Thundercougarfalconbird? Get on the phone to a model company and make this happen. Unfortunately I don't see CEO as a career path big on creative hobbies.

If you can find the AMT "Hogans Heroes" Jeep it has some bits you might find useful, a .50 cal MG, some carbines and a Thompson SMG as I recall. Also a 106mm Recoiless Rifle which would be post war / Korean War era but it still works for a Powerwagon. Tamiya and Hasegawa have some 1/24 scale WW2 kits but I'm not sure what they included as far as extras.

I'm going to disagree on the quality of RMR, I've got a pile of his resin including the power wagon and have no complaints with any of it or the service I've had from Ron. It is more representitive of older style resin parts, and you will be raiding the parts box for a fully detailed build but his prices reflect that. The diecast is probably the way to go though unless you are a major anti-diecast type. You should be able to find the Ertl or Matchbox diecast for much less than the resin one and you will get a very nice model to work with.

Yeah, Evergreen or Plastruct would be the places to check. You can buy everything online which is fine for the basic stock sheet, strips etc. I prefer to buy the specialty sheets in person so I can really get a good look at it, because the scale listed is often pretty vague. Any decent model railroad shop should have a good stock of styrene you can paw through. http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/ http://www.plastruct.com/ Personally I prefer working with Evergreen's plastic but Plastruct offers many parts unavailable from Evergreen so I have a pile from both companies. Evergreen also sells a book that is pretty helpful if you don't have any experience scratchbuilding with plastic.

You might take a look at Galaxies trailers, they make a 38 foot gooseneck that might work for you or at least provide a starting point. http://www.galaxielimited.com/trailers.htm

I'm sorry to see Dencon is going down this path again. I've made several purchases over the years from Lookout Design / Dencon. He is actually a very good resin caster turning out good quality parts, but maybe not the most on top of running a business. I agree with the comments about not lumping all resin casters into the same bucket, I've bought lots of resin and have only had one bad experience I can remember (a $150 bad experience so it is easy to recall ). The thing to remember is the majority of model car resin casters are just one man operations run by a guy who likes building model cars, I doubt a measurable fraction go into casting with the intent of ripping people off.

Wow the real thing really is smooshed down then. I had a look at the real thing and now can see you did raise it. Maybe lower the rear end a bit putting it more level with the rest of the car? I had the same now it looks like a Mustang thought that Dragracer had. What about putting a 70 Camaro front end on there, that has a fairly distinctive look. The thing for me with the Camaro is it seems to have promise, it just didn't quite pull it off. I've seen some what if Firebirds and Trans Ams based on the camaro concept car that pulled off the look much better than the actual car has.

I haven't seen the issue yet, but if the "chrome in a jar" is like the SNJ metallic polishing powders it should offer a decent alternative to BMF or Alclad for repairing sprue gates and such on chrome parts. The SNJ powders offer a nice alternative for bare metal finishes on aircraft for those without an airbrush. http://www.hawkeyeshobbies.com/catalog/powders.htm

As far as cars looking heavier but being lighter you can thank modern design like unibody construction and new materials, plastics, aluminium, alloy steels etc which are lighter and stronger. I do wish they would move on from the chopped look. I can understand a lot of the concessions made for better aerodynamics and safety, but don't see the point in the slit window look which is not visually appealing on most cars or practical (poor visibility). Harry can you unchop the 2011 Camaro? The production car opened up the grill which I think looks much better than the prototype, and it seems like giving it a bit more window would also improve the look. I know foriegn cars are not terribly popular around here, but I've always thought the 1970-74 Toyota Celica, and the 1970-73 Ford Capri were nice looking cars which was not the case with most of the early 70s small cars. The 1987-89 Toyota Celica isn't bad looking either , somewhat returning to the original look(unfortunately I can't say the same about the Celicas on either side of it).

Bare Metal Foil and Micromark both sell decal paper, as do a lot of less well known sellers. I've only found one decal film that was unusable, someone gave me some stuff from Vitacal that was really thick, almost like shelf paper, horrible stuff. I mostly buy from Tango Papa these days, but they only offer laser decal film. One critical thing to ensure is it is the right kind for your printer, inkjet or laser. The papers are not interchangable in either direction. Inkjet film will melt in a laser printer, and the ink from an inkjet will bead up on laser paper. You need to seal the decals with a clear coat before use with all decals except for those made with an ALPS type printer.

There were other F+B ambulances with the same paint scheme, and some of them had side windows. You might try looking for the Revell 70's custom van, it has the ground effects kit, custom wheels / tires and a custom grill similar to the one in the movie. It will still take a lot of work to duplicate the movie ambulance, but it will get you a lot closer than the more stock Chevy van kit.

You might try the drastic plastic website, they have a ton of instructions online. http://www.thedpmcc.com/home.html

I've done the same thing but I use tables in Word instead of Excel.

Actually the US Navy should be number 2 with 3700 aircraft. China probably got left out because it is under army control rather than a stand alone independent service, air forces tend to have a bit of snobbery about that.

Here is a Hazmat truck I built a few years ago. I did it as a converted beverage truck with the last row boxed in to make a little in the field office. This is a dozer tender I built to go with a dozer and transport and a 1937 Stakeside (still kind of a work in progress). The wheels really look undersize but that is how the photo I was going from was set up. These are not mine, but I saw them at NNL West a few years ago (2008, 2009?), I thought they are nice and fit with your request.

I've always understood Class 4 and above go here, class 1-3 go in the other truck forum with light duty commercial trucks being a grey area.

I've specifically seen Krylon Gloss black mentioned as a good basecoat under Alclad on some of the aircraft forums I frequent. I don't have much experience with Alclad myself though.

No more grizzlys in California, but we have lots of black bears. They are actually pretty mellow bears, kind of like giant dogs, but they can reach 400-500lbs and have big teeth and claws so you don't want to make them angry. We were baffled at first since we don't have food in the garage, but then we discovered the squirrels had been involved. We found boxes stuffed with acorns, and black bears like acorns. The squirrels started a car fire last year too. Poor guy had his car parked all winter, he took it out in the spring and it caught on fire. After we put the fire out we were looking for the cause and found the space between the exhaust manifold and the heat shield was packed with acorns. The acorns caught fire and apparently burned through a fuel line. Then there was the skunk that went under the dishwasher, my wife thought it was a mouse under there so she started wacking the side of the dishwasher to scare it out... she figured out it wasn't a mouse real quick. Nature may look cute but looks are deceiving.

That is funny, I was just talking about 3d printers in Cranky's should they / shouldn't they kit announcement thread. It looks like they have advanced the level of kit from last year, that one was definately a skill level 5. It looked like a pile of wires, circuit boards and other misc bits. This looks more like a real kit.

Ok, two days in and I'm already stripping paint. I opened up the wheel wells 1-2mm to fit the larger wheels, but when I painted the cab & fenders... well it just didn't go well. I've mostly drawn up the design for the pumper body, so at least I've got something to work on while the purple stuff does its job.

Except for the color it looks a lot like a truck a friend had (his was blue & white). Those short bed GMCs are nice, funny how lopping off 18" of bed they go from work truck to "muscle car".

This has to be one of the weirdest things I've seen built. I like it, kind of like a demented flower car for a really out there funeral home.

I expect in my lifetime we will see print on demand kits. 3d printing is making rapid advances, and is already at the level a really dedicated tecnogeek could build one for $1000-1500. The really cool part is the printer can make all the specialized parts so DIY groups are running sort of like a chain letter. You get the parts from someone who has a printer, then you are supposed to make a set of parts and pass them along to the next person. Unfortunately it appears to take a lot more technical know how to build the printer than I have.

They do make square to round adaptors but I haven't got as far as running ducting. A bear broke into my garage shortly after I finished the booth and really made a mess of the place. It has been something of a disorganized mess since then, so for the moment it has been working quite well just to set it up right by the garage door and blow the exhaust outside. The normal daytime breeze carries the fumes away from, not back into the garage (the nighttime breeze is not so thoughtful, but the humidity usually comes up at night making painting iffy anyway). It is way better than my old lay some newspaper on the ground method.