Harry P.

This is one of those questions where the answer is obvious. Anything up for sale on ebay is worth whatever the highest bidder is willing to pay. Period, end of explanation. Some people want a particular item so bad that price is no object. The prices that items sell for at auction simply reflect how badly the highest bidder wanted the item, not the inherent value of the item itself. And obviously the seller can list their item for whatever price they want to, hoping to snag a desperate buyer. It's really just as simple as that.

I typed 1997 Viper chassis in google and found this in about 30 seconds... http://forums.viperclub.org/threads/665139-Frame-rails

Looks like he used a modeler's best detailing friend... a black wash.

That is a terrible thing to do to a beautiful car...

That looks like something Liberace would have loved to be driven around in!

I don't have a big enough table to pose them all on!

I'm waiting for a scale trunk I ordered from ebay, but aside from that one missing item, the model is complete. BTW, since I found no references online, I built it curbside (no engine detail). Comments, critiques, criticisms, even wisecracks cheerfully accepted!

A car most of you have never heard of or seen. Bianchi started in the late 1800s building bicycles, but in the early 20th century they branched out into building cars, too. Bianchi automobiles are long since gone by the wayside, but Bianchi bicycles–their original product–are still being manufactured to this day... in fact Bianchi is the world's oldest continuously operating bicycle manufacturer. This model represents what I think must have been a one-off custom bodied car, Internet info and photos are basically non-existent; all I could find after a really thorough search was one old black and white side view photo. The car was probably ordered by some rich Italian count or nobleman to get him and the Mrs. to La Scala in style. Notice that while the two passengers rode in a fully-enclosed, double-sprung coach (rear axle springs and the four curved springs the coach was suspended from), the lowly driver had no protection from the elements at all... no roof, no doors, not even a windshield to keep the bugs out of his teeth! As usual, too much to mention here as far as what I changed, scratchbuilt, etc... but for those of you who want to see the WIP, you can go here.

Good idea but too late... already glued the roof on. In fact, aside from a trunk I ordered on ebay, I'm calling this one done. On to "Under Glass."

Well, as long as you're groveling in shame I guess it's ok...

So... why no mirrors?

Very crisp and clean model. Nice work.

I think you just committed a micro-aggression...

Ok, now I see the problem with that resin Comet. It looks "squished" on my screen, too. I downloaded the photo to my desktop and opened it in Photoshop... and the body looks much better. I thought at first that the body actually looked like it looks on my screen, which is ridiculously distorted. Ok then... not nearly as bad an item as I first thought.

And she's wearing a boa!

How do people who put out stuff like that manage to stay in business?

Why the self-imposed exile from the forum?

GIS only works on an image that exists on the internet somewhere. If you scan an image out of a book and post it, for example, and try to find it using GIS, obviously GIS won't work. But the way I had been doing Auto ID and ROM was using images I found online... which of course made finding the answer a no-brainer if one wanted to let google do the work.

Yes, clients that refuse to pay are another part of the self-employed world. It's happened to me several times. The client knows that the amount they owe you isn't worth your bother to take them to court. The cost of hiring a lawyer, etc. would eat up the amount owed you, and then some. Sadly there are people that take advantage of that... and like I said, it's happened to me several times. Just one of the "benefits" of being self-employed.

You're completely missing my point. I'm not saying that working a 40 hour a week job is necessarily easy. My point is, if you work for an employer as an employee, regardless of how hard the job may be, at least you know how much you'll be paid, and you know that you'll be paid every other Friday. Self-employed people have no such guarantee. That's my point. Not how "hard" the work is, but knowing you'll be paid on a regular schedule.

No intent on my part to be a jerk. I was just trying to make the point that people who have a 40 hour a week full time job have it easy compared to those of us who have to rely on ourselves alone to make ends meet.

Boy, ain't that the truth! Exactly! I'm either so busy and stressed out trying to meet simultaneous deadlines and juggling several projects at the same time that I can't think straight, or I'm sitting here wondering if I'll ever get another job again. The "feast or famine" aspect of being self-employed has got to be the hardest part of it. You have to be able to deal with the fact that it may be months between paychecks... and when the checks do come, you have to budget carefully because you don't know when the next one will come. Yep, self-employment is definitely not for everyone. When things are going good, you're on top of the world. When things slow down, you wonder why in the he-- you ever decided this was a good idea...

One step forward, two steps back... I made a dumb mistake by gluing the front fenders in place too soon. I had glued them, but I wasn't happy with the paint finish on them. It just wasn't smooth, so I decided I had to take the fenders off, strip them, and repaint them. As you know, cars of this era had the fenders mounted via very thin. spindly fender brackets. On this kit, three per side. So as I tried my best to delicately remove the fenders, five of the six brackets broke. So the fenders are in the stripper, and the broken brackets have been re-glued. I just hope they hold when I re-install the fenders. Meanwhile... no gas tank in the kit, so I scratched one up with sheet styrene and some styrene rod bent over a candle flame for the filler neck. I have no reference photos of this car, so this is purely a guess... I drilled a hole in the top and superglued a bamboo shishkabob skewer into it as a handle for when I paint the tank. Not a problem, as the top side of the tank won't be seen on the finished model (it'll be under the trunk).

And I guess we'll have to retire this phrase...

Yes I did. Sharp eye!