Maindrian Pace

Last week, I dropped off a bag of coupe glass to Greg, and now the body kits are starting to go out. Included is the body, glass, a "slide" to make the 1/4 windows (you can get at least three out of a slide, in case you cut one wrong) and a stock hood. Why a stock hood, and why not just use the kit hood? Because the hood is the only other part that is painted body color, so with a resin hood, you can paint the whole car with any hot automotive paint - base/clear, lacquer, Duplicolor, etc, without worrying about crazing a styrene part. Selling isn't allowed on the forums, so PM Greg Wann to get on the list, and the bodies will go out in the order of which the names are added. So with that finally taken care of, my next post on this thread will be a continuation of how it started, a build thread of my car. -MJS

I'd put a decent resin 5.0 in at least three projects. -MJS

Just noticed, the box art looks like it was taken directly from that ad, notice the angle and shadowing/reflections in the body. -MJS

Sure it does. The front overhang isn't long enough, but that would be an involved fix, so I'll leave it that way. -MJS

1938-39 Lincoln Zephyr stock 3 window coupe. Preferably 1:25, but 1:24 would find it's way onto my bench too. -MJS

Perhaps a 3D printing company can help. -MJS

The truck is great, love the hinged hood and the llama feed bag. The story had me in stitches. I can picture the look on our hero's face upon learning of the canoodling between his father and the footwear model. -MJS

Soon to be featured at a pick'n'pull near you. -MJS

Wow, longest pj-toys thread ever, and in just a day at that. It seems he's getting more polarizing by the week. A while back, I saw that he wanted $40.00 plus shipping for the wheels and tires from a dually kit. So I bought the whole kit from another seller for $35.00 shipped. Vote with your mouse, and click elsewhere. -MJS

I worked at the local Hobbytown when it first opened, around '90-'92. It was always primarily an R/C car/plane/boat store with model kits as a secondary line. But because I worked there, we had the best car selection anywhere in the state. We got customers in our store for car and truck models from a couple of hundred miles away, no joke. We would also order items for them, and any special order item was 10% off of list. If we liked the customer, we hit the 15% button and told them to keep it under their hat, which they did. I forget the name of the model distributor we used, but they were doing well enough that they had a rep come over to the two Hobbytowns that were owned by the same owner and do the model order. At the time, the average car model was around $9, and the markup to list was 100%. So a ten dollar kit cost us five bucks. That left a lot of room to move around, so most kits were discounted 10%, and the bigger, more expensive, or imported kits were discounted 15%. Sometimes we could go deeper on a special order high buck kit, and we usually did. We had tons of aftermarket goods, including some resin parts made by local customers, who got a big kick out of seeing their items for sale in a store. Sales were great for a long time. I quit in '92, and the selection went down hill because nobody else that worked there in the next 20 years really cared. Now they are like any other Hobbytown, small selection, almost no aftermarket, decent paint selection, and list prices. But it wasn't always that way. I don't know what the markup is now, but I imagine that the margins are tighter. They could discount the kits, but I don't think that they really care, R/C is still the main profit generator. -MJS

I've finally got the glass worked out. The sculpy mold was not strong enough to live through more than a few pulls, the resin glass masters were warping under the heat and suction, and the primer surfacer on the glass masters was out-gassing onto the plastic - partially clouding it. The solution was to make a new lower profile sculpy master, reinforce the kit glass masters by JB-Welding the resin copies behind them, pulling a good thick .030 sheet down over them, and having Greg fill that new mold with resin. The resin was then popped out, the new rock-hard master was blocked and polished, and sheets of .015" PETG plastic sheet were tried. Result: Perfect. It's hard to photograph clear parts, but they are very nice. So now that I have this figured out, it's time to find a supplier of .015" PET plastic sheet to get it more economically than going through K&S. Then, the body kits will be ready to go. -MJS

When the corrected notch is out, we will decide on what the next body style will be. It will probably be the one that is requested the most. The convertible will be a bit more involved than cutting the roof off of the coupe; the top well trim will have to be added to the 1/4 panels and the tulip panel, the windshield frame will have to be smoothed and re-contoured, visors added, the inside 1/4 panels that the top frame folds into will have to be made, rear seat narrowed to fit, and the boot and up-tops will have to be modified from the Monogram 1:24 parts to fit and look correct. The trunk rack strips would be cast into the trunk lid, along with the external hinges, and the rear hoop would be cast separately. Also, the provided kit seats would depict 4 cylinder base LX seats, and not the sport seats that GT and 5.0 LX Mustangs were equipped with '90-'93. I would have to see what other kits could donate correct looking seats, and how much it would take to configure them for this model. All of this would load poor Greg down with lots of parts to cast for this convertible, which is also a consideration. The trans-kit couldn't be sold as inexpensively as the coupe body, so that would be another consideration. The hatchback would require just the body with rear spoiler cast-in, a rear interior extension, and the glass. First things first, we'll get the coupe out and in the hands of the builders, then we will see how much interest is in the two other body styles. -MJS

That dash just sings. Looks and feels like I'm driving my '93 Cobra. I love the green LED display on the factory radio. -MJS

That's why they make chocolate and vanilla. Andy, that's the direction that I'm going in right now. I'm getting tired of wasting butyrate, so I am redoing the buck with less slope, and I'll include a sheet of material to make the 1/4 windows rather than forming them - because the material curves nicely so there is no reason to do that. Also, I was using resin copies of the masters, and I glued them to the sculpy with JB Quick. As it turns out, the heat and suction warped the resin where it wasn't reinforced, so now I'm back to using the kit plastic masters on the new form; this time with lots of reinforcement so they won't buckle. I will then pull a clean mold, fill that with epoxy or resin to make it a solid block, pop it out, and use that for the buck. -Mike

My buck fits perfect, the problem thus far is the material and process. But... Here is the latest version in .030" butyrate: Much nicer! Dare I say Modelhaus nice? Thicker than what they use, harder to de-buck than the thinner stuff. I'll have to modify the buck so there are no undercuts. Getting there... -MJS

I have tried the Monogram convertible windshield. Height isn't a problem, but the glass is flatter with not enough curve. And we all know what happens when you try to bend clear styrene. Greg, it is fun to use that machine. But it also brings me back to my less than fun dental lab days. However, I suppose that without working at the lab, I wouldn't have known about the machine, so it all fits together somehow. -MJS

I got the glass master made up for the vacuforming. With no better idea, it's made of Sculpy oven bake modeling clay; I'm sure there is better stuff to use, but this will do for now. Pull one was not very successful, I waited too long with the sheet under the heating element, so it drooped down too far, and I got runs in the windows. Pull two was much better, I didn't let the sheet droop as far, and I got no runs. You can see the first windows behind it. The first usable window unit: We're making good headway on this. -MJS

That was one of my favorite kits as a kid, I must have built five of them. None as nice as yours, though. -MJS

I just pay them. You get a whole different level of service too, and quicker downloads. -MJS

1997, Corgi Starsky & Hutch car. I was a greenhorn and overpaid, still have it. -MJS

Ironically, I just picked up this professional dental lab vacuum forming machine today. Soon, I'll be making glass for, oh, things. -MJS

Great Pinto. Ironically, I always though that a Mustang II would look good in a Bullitt theme. -MJS

Sometimes you just don't see that little red tag on that little mailbox icon in the upper right corner. Occasionally I'm late to respond because of that. -MJS

The warping is actually shrinking. The cars are slightly shorter and narrower than as molded, so the wheel base sometimes doesn't line up and the bumpers and grilles are wider than the fenders. -MJS

I've got a couple of crotchety old friends who swear they will never get into eBay because computers/devil/greasy kid stuff/I ain't sending my bank account/credit card to the internet/back in the old days a handshake and cash, and on and on and on. The kind of guys that trying to explain the proxy bidding system to would make you throw things. But then they see something that they have wanted for 20 years, and I get a phone call sheepishly asking me to please get it for them no matter the price, or up to an amount. So I laugh at them every time, get the item, they thank me, usually are very happy with the total price, rinse, repeat. Good entertainment poking fun at your Rip Van Winkle buddies. -MJS