Aaronw

Don't forget about the ignore button. It's kind of like being drunk. What's so unpleasant about being drunk? Why don't you ask a glass of water. The hitchhiker series is my favorite 5 book trilogy.

Now I've got the 8 or so options, but only Comfy says Model cars Magazine at the top which is kind of odd. Its getting there though.

AOL is notorious for having problems with websites. I belive it uses its own browser and my only experience with AOL (very brief, many years ago) it resists the use of another browser, it didn't even want to let me use another search engine. Unless it is the only option for an area I have no idea why anyone uses AOL, it costs more and is horrible. BTW updating to IE8 fixed the covered text box problem. IE7 was buggy so I was still using IE6. I've loaded and used Firefox but it has its own set of issues. It is not the perfection many make it out to be, plus I am used to IE.

Apparantly that is a security issue. I guess spammers and hackers have found a way to use sig lines for their nefarious purposes.

It's hard to know how colors will effect people, one site changed to a light grey / light blue scheme and I basically had to stop visiting the site until they offered some alternate colors because 5 minutes and I had a raging headache. Fine Scale Modeler has decided to go to a green / green scheme which also gives me a headache, and so far they don't seem to plan on alternates . Luckily this one doesn't cause my eyes problems other than being a bit bright. Gregg has said he plans to offer some alternate colors so at least those who are having issues will be able to find something that hopefully works better for them.

Well you do have to to give Gregg credit, he didn't turn half the screen into ad space like SA and now Fine Scale Modeler have.

Well this is the third forum I visit that has changed their forum software in the past month. This one was definately a smoother transistion than the other two which both gave me headaches after a few minutes of reading posts. This one is a bit bright, so some optional skins would be nice down the road but otherwise it looks nice.

You can try white shellac, it seems to seal everything, wood, water stains, cigarette smoke etc. If you need a spray can BIN brand has it in a spray can.

Yep, thats the one I got, thanks.

Dan O'Bannon died on Thursday, he was a screenwriter. Some of his movies included Alien, Blue Thunder, Total Recall and my favorite Dark Star.

Is the newer tool the one Round 2 just re-issued in Orange plastic? I hope so since that is the one I just bought.

As good as anywhere, if you haven't already seen it (like I hadn't) Flatbed KW has two posts in the 1-1 section that are very worthwhile for this trailer. Flatbed conversions http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22503 Flatbed loads http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=20027

Sourkrouts is great to deal with. Just watch your wallet, he has so much neat stuff its easy to blow the food money.

Nice work so far, it is great seeing all these re-issues already showing up on peoples benches. What might work to spice up the tail lights, is some thin clear plastic discs. Paint the lens then drop the clear disk over that. You can get a leather punch to make different sized discs in plastic at most good hardware stores for less than $20. These are a great tool for scratchbuilding so everyone should have one. It looks kind of like a pair of pliers with a star shaped head on one side. Another possibility would be to get the right size punch (looks like a chisel but has a round hollow end), those are usually like $4 for the size you would need.

Nice FL, the color fits it well, very 1970s.

Dave, you are going to bankrupt me if you do the rounded Loadstar as a crew cab. Those were very popular with the US Forest Service and California Department of Forestry, I could easily use a dozen of them.

You can also find a stake bed in the AMT Ford C stake truck, and Testors made a diecast kit from a Maisto Ford F350 that included a flat bed and stake bed.

Yeah, I didn't look at the shipping and he doesn't have any other model kits to combine shiping with. Still under $30 which isn't bad for that kit although I've seen cheaper. I got one last year at NNL West for $10, I didn't really want it but I picked it up to see what it was going for (marked $20) and the guy selling it practically shouted 10 bucks and its yours, I don't want to take it home. I had to help the poor guy out.

As Harry said ALPS is just a brand name. If you just want to know about using them, then yes, for the most part they are like any other decal. One big difference is they are printed on a continuous sheet of decal film, so you need to trim it close to the decal. Most kit decals only have film right around the actual decal. Most of the ALPS printed decals I've bought are on a very thin decal film, so you have to be careful applying the decal. Since each person making decals can buy whatever decal film they choose, this is not universal, you may find someone using a thick film. With that, probably way more than you wanted to know follows. An ALPS is a dry printer that uses ribbons to deposit a waxlike material on the paper. It requires several different ribbons to do all of its stuff. New ALPS printers are available, they are not remanufactured or made from left over parts. ALPS just stopped marketing and selling the printers to the US. They even make them with USB ports and drivers compatable at least through Windows XP (don't know about Vista or 7). If you really want one I can recommend ALPS Supplies in New Zealand, good prompt service. http://www.alps-supplies.com/ He has a whole page about the current status of the printers. The printers are not cheap, and since you are buying overseas the price fluctuates, today they run about $950 US, I saw it as high as $1100 when the dollar was really down last year, it was around $800 when I bought mine 2 years ago. Add to this about $200 for shipping and another $200-300 for supplies to get you set up for awhile (how long depends on how often you print). To get the most from the printer you will need 9 different ribbons cyan, yellow, magenta, black, white, silver, silver foil, gold, and gold foil. The foil ribbons are very shiny like chrome, the regular metal colors are duller, more like paint. The printer only comes with 4 ribbons (1 ea Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black). Each ribbon costs about $20 (+/- depending on type). The ribbons don't go nearly as far as they do on an inkjet or laser printer, a couple dozen pages is suposed to be a good average, so you could be looking at $5-10 per 8.5x11" sheet printed just for the ink. You can find ALPS printers on Ebay, but many people do not know what they have, how well it works, how much life it has left or how to properly ship it. The printer will be destroyed it the print head is allowed to travel during shipping. Some people are outright crooks and will sell you a damaged machine and claim it worked great when they had it. There are lots of horror stories of people spending $300-500 for a boat anchor. Many think their several generations old, or worn out printer is a rare wonder and will try to get almost as much for it as you can spend on a new one. I've seen people selling the ribbons "buy it now" for $100 when you can buy them for $20 from most suppliers. If you decide to go the Ebay route be careful and make sure you know what you are getting. The printers are tempermental, easily damaged, and absolutely worthless for run of the mill printing (unless you don't mind using a slow printer with expensive ink), so don't try to justify the expense by subtracting the cost of a new inkjet printer. The print head has a life of 3000-4000 sheets, then you have to get it replaced at the factory which is not cheap. (this is a lifetime of normal personal use, they are very specific that their printers are not intended for commercial use). There are decals that you can make better and cheaper with a laser or inkjet printer. I guess this all sounds pretty bad, where the ALPS shines is its ability to print white and metallic decals. Other printers make transparent decals, so the underlying color shows through altering the color of the decal. The ALPS prints a layer of white under the color layer so you can use your decal on any color background. Unlike using white decal film, the ALPS only puts the white under the decal. Making decals isn't everybodies thing though, I would strongly suggest you try making decals with a regular printer first to see if it is something you really want to do. Many of the good deals people have found on ebay tend to be from those who bought a printer first then discovered they didn't like making decals. I would also suggest buying Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator or a similar vector based drawing program and learning to use it before deciding to buy an ALPS. These drawing programs will allow you to make the good quality art work you will need for good quality decals. There is not much point in buying a fancy printer if your artwork is going to be rough edged and fuzzy. I love my printer and have had fun making decals, but I would not recommend someone buy one without giving it a lot of thought first. I build a lot of stuff that needs custom decals and could easily spend $100-200 a year for decals, so for me the cost was a worthwhile investment. If you actually made it this far, and have any other questions feel free to ask.

I would think yes there would be a difference, Inkjet uses a liquid and the decal film has a coating to help the ink stick. Laser printers use a dry powder (toner) and heat so the decal paper does not have the same coating as the inkjet. If you use laser decal paper in an inkjet it will run and smear (or so I'm told I haven't tried it), inkjet paper won't work in a laser printer either, I think the coating melts. My big concern with running plastic through a laser printer would be the possibility it could melt, some laser printers get really hot.

Why don't you just use a permanent marker to highlight the numbers? Unless they are really worn down it should be pretty easy to keep the marker only on the raised numbers. Sharpie has a ton of colors available so you could pick something high contrast to the background. If you used BMF you will still have to cut the excess away, and it will probably just peal off after a short time in your wallet anyway. Oops, George beat me to it.

AMT has a round tank trailer that would be a good starting point. Add some ribs around the body every couple of feet and it would look the part fairly painlessly. I see these trailers marked down under $30 quite frequently. There is one on ebay for $15 right now. (not mine, I just did a search to see if I could find the kit) http://cgi.ebay.com/AMT-Ertl-1-25-Scale-Fr...=item3ca859c208

Very nice, 60s and early 70s Ford pickups are a big hole in truck models. Any chance you will offer a cab only or cab and chassis version for those who may have plans for something other than a pick up?

My Dad had a mid 60s F-85 when I was in high school. He got it from an elderly neighbor who sold it to him cheap in return for the many favors he had done for her over the years. That and the fact there wasn't a piece of sheet metal on the car without a dent, she probably should have given up driving a few years earlier than she did. That car was a blast to drive, it was a big old boat that looked like hell, but it ran great. Sadly it met its demise when a guy made an illegal left in front of my brother. It might have survived but to add insult to injury it got stripped while parked in front of the police impound lot. It's too bad they don't make a kit of that, it was a fun car, it would be nice to build it in all of its dented, cruddy paint glory.

If you are really concerned with spam or internet stalkers, just add some spaces to throw off the search bots like so J oh n Do e. That should fix their wagon.