Harry P.

Very nice!

Or maybe your caliper is loose or worn.

So... did you get this in a trade as is? Or is this your work?

I made ignition wire terminals by crimping the end of some small diameter aluminum tube with pliers, drilling a hole to fit over the plug's electrode, filing the end round, and cutting each terminal off the tube by rolling it under my X-acto blade to score the tubing, then just snapping each terminal off...

Yes, I noticed!

Next, I painted the hex-shaped part silver and installed the plugs into the heads...

There are no spark plugs supplied in the kit; you're supposed to just stick the ignition wires into the holes on top of the heads. That will never do... the plugs are very obvious and visible on the real engine, so I had to scratchbuild 12 of them (two plugs per cylinder). What I did was use some thin styrene rod as the "insulator" part of the plugs. Then I drilled a hole into the middle of some hex-shaped styrene rod, cut off slices of that rod to create the hex-shaped steel part of the plugs, then glued a hex slice onto a length of styrene rod to create 12 spark plugs...

Very cool! Wow, you did a lot of work on this one... nicely done. Two small suggestions... the front bumper is sagging. Can you remove it and re-glue it in place correctly? Other suggestion is strictly my opinion, but I would have gone with the graphite colored rear bumper to tie it into the graphite color rear end for a cleaner look... the way you tied in the front bumper color to the color of the front of the car.

Wow! Spectacular! Love the weathering/rust. Where did the "interior junk" come from?

The engine is fairly detailed but there are a few quirks. For example, the cylinders, which should be black, are molded to the block, making them difficult to paint (keeping the edges where the cylinders meet the block clean, straight and sharp). Also, the flanges of the various pipes and manifolds that attach to the heads are molded to the heads and not to the pipes and manifolds themselves! Therefore I had to carefully detail paint the molded-in flanges "brass," so that when the pipes are installed the flanges will look like they are a part of the pipes, not part of the heads. Here you can see the beginnings of the engine, detail painted to give the appearance of more separate components than there actually are...

I always assemble parts that are molded in halves, or assemblies that will all be painted the same color, first... then smooth the seams, etc. afterwards, then paint these assemblies as a unit. Much easier than painting the individual parts first and then assembling...

I drilled holes in the tie rod and the spindle arms, and used small brass pins as pivots. Now the front wheels are poseable...

Hmmm... something weird happened and this topic was posted twice. I deleted the other thread and will continue here. As you may know, I tend to skip around and not necessarily follow the instruction sheet building sequence. So here we go beginning with the front axle. In order to make the wheels poseable the molded-in axle stubs have to be removed like so... Then the spindles were attached, being careful to keep cement off the pivot points. Finally, new axle stubs of styrene rod were glued to the spindle faces.

The supplied material looks to be some sort of vinyl or maybe nylon "thread"...

Believe me, I am in no shape to travel to the Phillipines!

While I am undergoing cancer treatment, I can't work. With all the constant doctor and/or hospital visits, there's no way I can keep a normal work schedule or make deadlines, so I am basically "unemployed" for the foreseeable future. But I can still build models, time permitting. So here is my latest project...a 1/16 scale 1908 Rolls Royce "balloon car." This is the box... Some background on the car... in the early 20th century hot air ballooning was a popular pastime with the upper class. Charles Rolls himself was an avid aviator and good friend of the Wright brothers, hosting them when they visited England in 1909. Rolls made the first fixed-wing return flight over the English Channel in 1910, in a Wright flyer. To accommodate his interest in hot air ballooning, Rolls had a Silver Ghost chassis fitted with custom coachwork that included an extra long rear deck, which could be used to haul around an uninflated balloon. Unfortunately, Rolls' interest in aviation cost him his life in 1910, when he crashed his plane during an aviation show. Over the years several recreations of the original "balloon car" have been built, with varying degrees of accuracy. Details vary, including wheels (wooden "artillery spoke" wheels vs. wires, brass hardware vs. nickel plated, upholstery color, etc.). And it is unsure exactly what the original coachwork looked like... this model is apparently based on one of the recreations of this car. This kit is typical of Japanese large-scale kits of classics, having been released under various brand names and different box art. This happens to be the Entex version. Pros: Good detail, high parts count, realistic "wire" wheels that the builder makes by stringing thin vinyl "string" on the rims using a supplied jig. Cons: Mismatched left and right sides of most parts due to the mold halves not matching up exactly, leaving a lot of mold seam lines that must be cleaned up; no positive locator pins/holes on engine parts that requires the builder to try and align engine parts exactly before cementing in place.

The engine looks great!

First of all, a huge thank you to all of you who have supported me, either via prayers, PMs, financially, or all of the above. I can't tell you how much it means to me to have the support of so many of you guys. When Gregg calls this place "ohana" (family), he isn't kidding. A quick update on my condition. I have finished (as of last Friday) three weeks of daily radiation treatments to shrink the tumor, which had been pressing on my sciatic nerve and causing me unbearable pain every day and especially at night, causing me many sleepless, pain-filled nights. It was agony. But the radiation seems to have worked to shrink the tumor, as I am now 95% pain-free and have been able to dramatically cut down on my painkillers. Before, I was taking hefty milligrams of both Vicodin and Neurontin three times a day to try and keep the pain bearable. Now I am off the Vicodin all together and am down to just two Neurontins a day... soon to be cut further to just one at bedtime. Now that my pain is under control (thank God), I begin chemotherapy next week, with the hope being that the chemo will put the cancer into remission (basically making it inactive). Chemo will be on an as-needed basis as determined by the oncologist (not an everyday thing), and will continue until (if?) the docs give me the all clear. Here's hoping...

Photos are still there.

The engine is looking good!

Do they really have the rear spoiler on them?

Craig, I see what you're saying. But the point of a public forum is that it is just that...a public forum. We "talk" to each other here publicly, not via personal messages. If all of our conversations were via PM, this forum would be useless. When you post your work on a public forum, you have to expect that the public will respond–publicly. That's just how a public forum works, and is supposed to work. Yes, sometimes people can say things that can be taken as a personal slam (as I think you took my comments), but that goes with the territory. If anyone doesn't want the public to comment on their work, then they should probably not post their work publicly. I'm not talking about you specifically... that applies to anyone. We don't allow personal attacks here, but we do allow people to comment on the models that are posted... whether those comments regarding the model, not the builder, are positive, negative, complimentary or otherwise. I hope you keep on posting your work here. But be ready for the public's response. And of course, you are free to post your comments regarding any model you see posted here, including mine, as long as the comments are in regards to the model itself, not the person who built it. We try to be honest here when we critique each other, and by sharing our comments publicly, we can all learn from each other... not just one person via PM.

As long as straight reissues keep selling, they will keep reissuing them. The tooling was paid for long ago–the only new expense is maybe a new decal sheet and new packaging. Reissues are money makers for the kit companies, and they will sell them until we quit buying them. And from the looks of things, that's not anytime soon.

That's really cool. Also very sharp and clean. Nice work!

The engine looks great! All it needs is brackets for the belt-driven accessories so that they aren't floating magically in space.