Codi

Been a little while since I peeked in here, like the updated pics on your build Wayne. Those decals must have been a bear to put on. Nicely done sir. cheers, tim

So many fantastic posts here. Even though on the wrong side of the war, this one caught my attention when I visited the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum next to the Dulles airport in D.C. The Horton 229 was an experimental craft and I think only 3 examples were built near the end of the war. We captured them and brought them back to the U.S. This example is actually at the museum awaiting restoration. Pics of it flying are very rare. I consider it the true ancestor to today's stealth aircraft. Considering it was build in 1944 /45, it's amazing the cutting edge engineering. Jack Northrop saw the potential and exploited it with our own new designs. Here's a pic with its wings removed and it's interesting to see how small it was with the men standing next to it. cheers, tim a pic of it with the wings on...this was a 1:1 mock up that the U.S. made to test the radar cross section of the craft. It was deemed very effective in comparison to most other craft flying at the time. last pic of the one at the Smithsonian.

Summer vacation is officially over for you young man. Time to get back on this one! cheers, tim

Agree wholeheartedly with Ray and it's a nice surprise to see you post here once more. Looking forward to your progress Romell! cheer, tim

Thanks for the reply Doug. KJ, I believe it was their "smooth" finish which is also their best/most expensive option currently available on this part. cheers, tim

So you can print the ape block for me with no lines but I have to pay you to draw your own files up to make the part I want. Did I understand that correctly? If so isn’t that going to be more costly for me?

Now you've got my interest Doug. Checked out your facebook page. Can you print the AJPE engine that I included in this thread? I don't have the CAD? files to do so. Someone else designed it and offer their products on Shapeway's. What material should a newb spec out to get "lineless" prints and is it reasonably priced compared to other materials? Thanks in advance for any insights you might share. Tim

Thanks for sharing those links Pete. Bill, the bad news is this is really only good for small parts as a technique in my opinion. It only comes out in a small stream/area and I know you could use larger media material but to do an entire body this way would take forever and use a lot of the material at the same time. Plus I'm not sure what the larger material might do to the body itself. I'm afraid that for bodies we're stuck with sanding. I've got the same issue you have and I wholeheartedly agree that you'd have to be a masochist to enjoy the sanding etc. If my pro mod mustang body that I started prepping was any indication, I'd say you should be able to get a 1/25th scale body in very good shape for paint in 8 to 10 hours of sanding & priming. I hope! For those interested, I bought the media blast air brush kit and material at TCP Global for about $50. cheers, tim

I did a test on a 1/25th scale AJPE engine block from Shapeways. The print lines on the side of the block where the "ribs" are were pretty bad. You can't sand that area of course so I took my media blast kit from TCP Global and the Paasche Eraser Compound (very fine btw) and shot it at 45 PSI. It did an awesome job of eliminating the lines while not messing with the rest of the material. You'll see some lines on the oil pan but I only passed over that area twice very quickly. Shot at a distance of 1/4". I think this is very workable for small parts but for larger items, bodies for instance, not a great idea. Cheers, Tim

Whop Whop Whop..........what a view it is Dave. No wonder you've been spending some much time on it. See you later this summer! tim

Nicely done Ray. Did the decals come with the kit btw? Cheers, Tim

Burgers and dogs not ready yet so I thought I'd take a moment and acknowledge all of the comments about the paint. BobtheHobbyGuy - Many thanks to you as well. Chris, thanks man but it wasn't as complicated as your Vega paint. Two colors and some simple masking (or so I thought).......but I got a good result at the end of it all. Dave(comp1839) great catching up with you this morning Dave. Looking forward to a ride still and how you're progressing on the BIG big block. Thanks too for the "WOW". Paints not my forte so I'll take this one for sure. John T. - You've been a great mentor on the painting stuff John. The sharing of your experience was most helpful but so was the encouragement to be PATIENT (not my strength) and take it one step at a time. Thanks! Ray (CobraMan) As you can tell Ray from my comments above, it fought me a bit. Appreciate the thought! Daniel- "can't wait" yup, that sums up my attitude on this as well. I refuse to consider this the eternal project. It WILL be done sooner than later. Art- appreciated too sir! Mike (from Germany) & Gilles (from France) thanks gentlemen for popping by and checking it out. It's coming together once and for all and this was the final big step towards completion. Cheers to everyone!!! Now I'm going to go enjoy the cook-out!

Took a while but the paint is done. Thank you John Teresi for the advice & encouragement to correct the mistake and see it thru. I've got to polish and possibly re-clear the radiator shell to get on with the final assembly. The pics are of so-so quality and I'll try to shoot them later with a white background v. the pale yellow you see here. The colors were all Alclad 2. Happy 4th of July to all! Tim

Love the subject car and how yours turned out George. Great color! cheers

Great job there Daniel. I'd love to see the pics with better lighting as I don't think the pics do the car the justice it deserves. It IS nice! cheers, tim

Gorgeous build and paint as always Donn. You've still got it man! cheers, tim

That is a stunning paint job. Sorry, did I say "stunning", I meant to say stupidly stunning it's so nice. Congrats on a great job on the car so. cheers, tim

I remember these cars when they actually raced as a kid and they left quite the impression upon me. With your skills, this should be one VERY impressive build Mark. cheers, tim

That paint polished out beautifully. LIke the color a whole lot! cheers

Thank you guys for your posted comments above......it's been 2 weeks and I've been painting etc. So I got the candy red on and the pic doesn't do it justice. At all. Just a slight bit of orange peel and the body has yet to be polished & cleared. I'm very pleased with the color trust me BUT you can see from the pic that I ran into a problem at the bottom edge of the body when I pulled the tape. UGH! So, I paint so infrequently, but didn't panic and knew who to reach out to.........yup, that master painter John Teresi. He shared some ideas on how I can save the paint job and repair/blend the paint on the edge. I'm just waiting on some more gold paint to arrive Monday and I'll get after it. We're having some great paint days this year and next week we'll have a couple more. Also started the detailing of the magneto and plug wires. I've seen John T. & Clay Kemp detail their plug wires with stencils and thought I'd give it a try too. I used Woodland HO train dry transfers to put the stenciling on the plug wires. I took a piece of renshape and used a ball mill to cut a shallow groove to keep the wire straight while applying the decals. About 90 minutes to do all 8. Pic 1 shows a plug wire about to be detailed and the second shows a bunch of the completed lines. Plug boots & looms to be added upon install to the mag and engine. Hopefully have some good pics of the body next week if I can fix it right. Cheers, Tim

Now that put a big ol' smile on MY face. You're off to a crackin' start Chris on the mill. Congrats and I'm sure we're in for a real treat as your skills improve over the coming weeks/months. You're on your way to having a COMPLETE tool box that only a few modellers possess. I see you getting a CNC some day and marrying it with your crazy CAD skills. Glad to see you back sir! cheers, tim

Many thanks to each of you for your comments and interest. It's amazing how things move or "grow" during assembly. I put the rear body tree on to support the body and finished the rear brake lines. So I thought I'd do a last minute check on the clearances for the inner fenders to the body and the magneto. Mag is great.......inner fenders, not so much. I massaged them to the point of proper fitment but for the life of me I don't know why it was necessary. It was completely fine when I fabricated them in the first place. Oh well. I took a second while I had the body on to check the clearances and took a quick mock up for an idea of where it's headed. Happy Memorial Day to everyone and all my respect to those that are either serving or have served. Cheers, Tim

I applaud your vision on this project and better yet, your execution of the idea. The body looks great and like the others, hope you continue with it. cheers, tim

Jim, absolutely gorgeous paint and the body mods are pure perfection. cheers, tim

Thanks Dave, here goes. The 1st pic I'm sharing is the surprise gift John Teresi sent from the GSL. An official GSL t-shirt with some great sentiments and signatures from people I'm sure you'll recognize. Thanks again fellas. The other pics are of some pieces I fabbed for display purposes. The body "skeleton", adjustable height jack stands and a rack for the slicks/rear wheels to show the hubs & brakes. The jack stands were heavily modified dirtmodeller pieces btw, only the pyramidal base was used. Paint weather has arrived so I'll finally get onto that so I can finish the car. Cheers to all and thanks again Dave for the efforts you're making to have the Forum perform better for all. (fingers crossed as he prepares to down load pics this time) YES!!!!!!!! It DOES work now. btw Dave, the pics did download faster than I've experienced in the past which I'm sure reflects some of the changes you made while doing the site maintenance. Good job.