Aaronw

It probably melted. I've seen a lot of cars burned up in forest fires and you will just see a burned out shell, the steel will survive but everything else burns or melts. Steel wheels will remain, but if they had alloy wheels there will be puddles of metal where the wheels were. I've seen aluminum engine blocks turn to puddles under the car too, which is pretty impressive when you think about the heat it takes to completely melt an engine protected in the engine compartment. Thankfully I've only run across unoccupied cars.

We got about 6 feet this week. Haven't had power since monday (so no building after work ), on the plus side got 3 days of overtime out of the storm. Now have a generator on the must get list, but I think there will still be a little extra left over for the model budget this month. Gotta love wood heat though, or the house would be quite chilly.

I can't imagine how licensing artwork for a magazine article is even an issue. It would be very simple to use all original or public domain artwork, for the demonstrations. As far as any liability to the magazine for showing how to pirate material, how would that be different from a resin casting article which many magazines have done. A decal article is actually a good idea, DIY decal questions come up frequently. I've been meaning to do a quick and dirty tutorial for quite awhile, guess I should get to it.

Now you are just being silly, could we please stay on topic. I had to whip up a big batch in my Black & Decker waffle iron yesterday (B&D was the only maker I could find that still sells one with a proper American waffle pattern), all this talk of models was making me hungry.

It is weird, the military models mostly skip 1/24-1/25. There are several 1/16 scale kits, with at least a couple half tracks, and a T-34 tank. Tamiya did do a couple of 1/24 (or maybe 1/25) tanks, I think a Panther, Centurian, Sherman and Tiger. They are kind of hard to find and usually expensive, but I've thought they would make a neat flatbed truck load. There is a resin US WW2 2 1/2 ton truck from Wespe, it is nice but not cheap.

He just introduced the "Belgian" waffle there. The traditional "American" waffle is nearly 400 years old.

I was going to add French toast, but apparently that did originate in France. I also found out Belgian waffles actually did come from Belgium, Brussels specifically. They differ from American waffles by using a yeast based batter, instead of pancake batter. A Belgian, Maurice Vermersch introduced them to America at the 1964 Worlds Fair. He changed the name from Brussels Waffle to Belgian Waffle because of American's notoriously poor geography skills. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle Oh and to keep this on topic, beer has yeast and I love to eat waffles when I build Tamiya kits.

I actually had an interesting teaching time last year. Helping my son build a couple of models, and on the other end teaching my dad (72) how to resin cast parts for his ship models. My mother was pretty neutral about my models, but my dad has always been very supportive and is a modeler himself, so that was neat coming full circle and teaching him something. I also appreciate now how hard it is to build a model with a little guy, you have to be in there enough to keep them from getting frustrated, but back off enough to let them do it.

That is my thought too. Supposedly RC2 refused to seperate the plastic model line from the diecast which made it too expensive for any of the model oriented companies that were not interested in the diecast. With Tomy taking ownership I see either business as usual with Round 2, Tomy taking a more active role and putting some money into plastic models, or selling the plastic models to another company. Obviously 2 or 3 could turn out badly if poorly done, but I just don't see a doom and gloom angle here. As far as the Belgians go, I wish they would take their weird round waffles back. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a proper 4 square American waffle iron these days.

I think Jada did a custom 1940 Ford COE diecast similar to your drawing. Even though it is diecast it might provide you with some useful parts or a place to start. I'm sure you can still find them cheap on ebay.

I'm 43, but I have a 10 year old who builds the occasional model. Hopefully I'll be moving this summer, if I do I'm going to try to make sure there is enough room at the bench for a second. He loves his Legos and other building toys so I think he would be likely to build more if he had a place to build near me. My current bench is a terrifying mess with barely enough room for one, so we have to work on his models at the dining room table.

That is a lot more CFM than I expected I can see why some use them.

Nice job on the booth. Grainger offers an 8 foot cord for use with the blowers, a nice heavy duty 3 prong deal for about $6. There is a plate that unscrews on the side of the blower, 3 screws and 3 wires, so it is a pretty simple wiring job although I'll admit it took me about half an hour to figure out there was a plate to remove. As far as a switch, not sure about that. It is probably not hard to do, but I just plug it in when I want to use it, and unplug it when I'm done.

There have been 2 or 3 posted in the last year or two, one was related to using a shopvac as the fan and it resulted in serious injuries because the cannister went boom, another was a home built booth that caught fire, less severe injuries but as I recall some eye damage, there may have been a 3rd (or 4th) but I could also be bluring them together or they may have been reposts of the same event. I don't have links to either as I didn't save them, but a search might turn up the posts. I couldn't tell you what the specific issue is with computer fans, I just know all of the commercially available booths I looked at use a regular (not explosion proof) squirrel cage blower. I also ran it past the fire marshall I work with and he said the squirrel cage was acceptable for my needs (in other words if I blow up my garage he won't say I told you so ). Out of curiosity what kind of CFM and cost are you looking at with those computer fans? I have a hard time imagining that they can push anything close to the recommended volume of air without buying a stack of them. If that is true they would have to be super cheap to be cost effective.

I saw a resin one at NNL West a few years ago, but apparently it is not available anymore. I've got plans to make one from the AMT 1960 Chevy pickup, since they share a lot of the same sheet metal behind the fenders.

A shop vac is a horrible idea, because they collect the fumes making them far more likely to reach a level of vapors to ignite. To make it worse, these vapors are now contained so instead of a flash fire you have a bomb. If money is really that tight, you can build a small booth similar to those commercially available for about $100. The blower is the most expensive part, Grainger has a 130 cfm shaded pole blower for $73 which is enough for a 16x16" cross draft booth, or a larger downdraft booth. A 4x8 sheet of 3/8" plywood is around $25 and provides ample material for a 16x16" box. A large booth (30x30" +/-) can be built for less than $250 There is really little legitimate reason to take unneccessary risks as a proper DIY booth is quite affordable. All of the commercially available hobby booths I've seen use a shaded pole (squirrel cage) blower, not explosion proof fans, and not bathroom or computer fans.

I've always used the Testors spray, it works fine so I've never tried anything else.I've seen lots of posts from people who like Krylon clear, but never used it myself.

There are a couple of posts about the new Lindberg Dodge Charger police car, which are pretty positive (and if you build cop cars it is great news, been a long time since we have actually had a mostly current model). Both Midget racers are out now, I'm not even into race cars and I thought they were pretty cool. There were several built up at NNL West and it looks like Revell did an amazing job with them.

Ace and True Value seem to allow the owners a ton of leeway in what they stock, to let them tailor the store to the local market. A store in the foothills / mountains will sell a lot more chainsaws and wood splitters than one in a city. Since it looks like you are in Sacramento, Ace Hardware in Berkeley is definately worth mentioning (again). It has a nice hobby section in the basement with slotcars, trains and a good selection of models / supplies. The car models are basically the standard AMT/Revell/Lindberg, but they stock many unusual brands for the other model types including a lot of Eastern European kits. I think they also buy from estate sales because their stock of out of production kits gets added to occasionally. Each month they offer 20% off a particular section, January (right now) is 20% off all models and model supplies. Models come around again in May or June. There are no real hobby stores near me, but one of the True Values had a small model section for a while, and the other has a decent craft section (but no models).

Several WW2 tanks used paired engines, the British Matilda used a pair of AEC diesel bus engines, the Soviet T-70 light tank and SU-76 SP gun used twin GAZ truck engines. The US M5 Stuart and M24 Chaffee light tanks both ran a pair of Cadillac V-8s with Hydramatic automatic transmissions. I'm not sure how the power from the two engines was "coupled" but, I do know they came together before sending the power to the tracks. I also recall reading that the two US tanks were less troublesome since the slip in the automatic transmissions helped balance out minor power differences between the engines.

Oils seem to have come from the armor guys, so yeah, probably not much chrome. I haven't used enamels for years and it just didn't occur to me that it would strip the chrome. Bummer too, because the oil paints get down into the cracks much better than acrylics. Guess I'll have to try some experimentation with the chrome sprues, I'll see if a clear coat of future will be enough protection.

I'm building the Monogram Packard Speedster and ran into a problem I am surprised with. I've started using oil paints for washes and it has been going well, unfortunately when I did a wash on the grill and rock screen some of the chrome has disolved. In the past I've done washes like this with acrylics with no problems, but I am really liking the way oils work for the job. Is this a fluke or does paint thinner usually strip chrome parts? I'm using Mona Lisa mineral spirits which has been recommended by name in several weathering articles because it is supposedly fairly weak by paint thinner standards. If this is a normal issue what do you guys that use enamels do for washes in chrome grills? Luckily in this particular case the underlying plastic is dark brown so the missing chrome gives a kind of patina effect, but this would have been a disaster with a less accomodating plastic color.

I could see bringing the same models to multiple contests within a period of a year or so, one can only build models so fast. Year after year of the same models does seem excessive though, it would make me wonder if he ever builds anything new.

Always nice to see an ambulance built, and you have done a great job. As far as the side door, yes that is seen on most, but I've seen at least one without. We had a late 70s surplus military ambulance similar to yours used as a Search and Rescue truck and it didn't have a side door.

I would post mine, but I added alligators to the moat keeping people out of the stash. Unfortunately during the planning process I overlooked including a way for me to get to the models.