Modelmartin

Real!

Sweet!

Neither does the owner/builder!!

Great job installing all of those detail pisces!

As always - A great subject and a great build job! I always dig your stuff, Kurt!

Here is a video of several V8 chainsaws and a turbo 4! - hand held. Just a little nuts! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u17ll043Ld8

Those Aurora kits are great and really come alive with some TLC which I am sure you can supply. Happy building!

Beautiful model! Those were sold in the US in Entex boxes.

Off by a few thou here and there.

Some people appoint themselves the "Fighter of other people's fights". He was a jerk, plain and simple. You should tell him to call the police. I think his threats to you were very close to assault. Hmmm. Maybe you should have called the cops!

Slot cars! Seriously? Who cares?

Cheaters are genetically inferior.

I have been painting models with automotive lacquer for 35 years now. I have more problems with model paint than automotive paint! One poster talked about low, med, hot "grades" of thinner. Those are temp ranges and how long it takes the lacquer to dry. Hot is best because it allows time for the paint to flow out smoothly. Use a good quality automotive primer first. I won't use the Tamiya primer under any automotive paint. The Tamiya paint is pretty mild and the automotive lacquers will dissolve it. Use automotive paint from top to bottom - primer, color, clear. I much prefer airbrushing it. The canned lacquers have more volatile components in them to keep them sprayable and are hotter. When I decant from a spray can and then airbrush many of the hotter elements flash off before hitting the surface. Obviously using lacquer thinner on plastic for stripping is bad as you found out. Lacquer thinner is a pretty strong solvent. You could use it as a glue to join pieces of plastic!! Experiment on scrap parts or plastic spoons first if you are unsure about something. After you get used to using automotive paint you will wonder why you wasted so much time and money on model paints! Also, I can not recommend strongly enough to use an airbrush for all of your painting. It will be the best investment you have made in model building equipment. Get a single action good quality with different size tips. I prefer Paasche H.

Far out! Digging it.

But his decal company is not dead. He does not advertise and go to shows to sell anymore. He is not creating new sheets but is reprinting some old ones. He still sells to dealers and mail order outfits and does fill the occasional order that comes to his P.O. Box.

I love the front end. I have never seen an underslung frame with quarter eliptics. Very cool. The camshaft crossmember is a great touch. I love to see what a great imagination combined with a good design sense and good taste can produce.

I talked to Fred two weeks ago. He didn't sound dead. He is still doing reprints in his retirement. He does still fill orders that find their way to his P.O. box which you can find in his old adverts in SAE and Model Cars. He also sells a lot of decals to several dealers.

The biggest thing is to sit down and DO IT! That is how we all learn. Soldering is simple. Clean the oxidization off, apply flux, heat and dip the solder in. Or pre-tin the parts, put them together and apply heat.

I have to root for the Packers. My wife says so. She is a congenital Packer fan.

Happy New Year, Bill! One is better than none!

Very cool! Love Corvairs. Beautiful resto!

Not really. The diecast zinc alloy doesn't work very well soldering.

You nailed it, Ed! That is just the way things are. The world does not owe us anything but it would be nice if a few more people who said they have been wanting a ________ whatever would actually buy it and not complain about the price. I was charging $119.95 for the Firebird III complete kit which came with photo-etch, decals, vac-form bubbles and a 4 page instruction sheet and, most importantly it was buildable! Some people squealed like stuck pigs when they were told the price. Of course, many customers were very appreciative. I basically quit leaving price sheets out at Swap meet tables because no one ever ordered from them. I NEVER got an order from one of those sheets! MY greatest disappointments was with people who enquired about casting services. At one point I had 6 people who wanted kits or bodies cast in quantity for them to sell. NONE followed through. Second most disappointing was pattern makers. They rarely came through and usually were not up to snuff. I learned to only rely on myself. I will still dribble out a few pieces here and there and may put more effort into Aardvark if I ever retire ( which would be minimum 10 years away). I enjoy the process of pattern making and producing kits and it is a great thrill to see them actually getting built! Speaking of that I simply have to build that Willys Pick-up I bought from Ed at NNL east. My local club challenge this year is resin kits and Milwaukee NNL theme is "Keep on Truckin'!" . I think I will put that 4-cam Indy Ford engine in it. That would probably put in C or D Gas class.

Gorilla Glue is amazingly strong and easy to use but I could not think of a worse glue for model building!