Harry P.

How would I know that? And what difference does it make? I see model kits being made and sold very differently than the way they are today. We used to have record stores. We used to have video rental stores. We used to have a lot more book stores than we have today. Entire book store chains have disappeared. Blockbuster Video is gone. How many record stores are there still left? Times change, technologies change, and the way certain products are produced or received by the end user has changed. The TV and movie industry is changing. Movie theater revenue is down, people are downloading movies and watching them on their tablets or laptops. Netflix has become a player in the TV industry, challenging the traditional networks. We now have new, original, first-run programming online, not on TV via the traditional networks.. I see the model kit hobby undergoing change, too... big time–to a completely new business model. It's inevitable. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when.

If the question is where will the hobby be in the future... I think the answer is that we won't be buying kits as they exist today. Depending on how far into the future you want to look, 3-D printing will have either taken a large chunk of the traditional injection-molded kit's market, or taken it completely. The future of the hobby is people buying and downloading a "kit" in digital form... just like downloading movies or music or books... and printing the kit out on their home 3-D printer, a product that will soon be as cheap to buy and common to have as today's "regular" inkjet printers. There will no longer be large buildings with injection molding machines and dozens of employees to operate them, no more "tooling" needing to be cut, no need to package, warehouse, and ship boxes of kits to retailers. The entire process of how a kit is designed, manufactured, shipped, and sold today will become obsolete as 3-D printing becomes common. The hobby of building kits may not go away, but the way kits come to us will be completely different.

I solved the door problem! The problem was that the upper rear corner of both doors wasn't closing tightly... there was a gap there between door and body. So what I did is make a very simple "latch" by drilling a small hole into the rear upper edge of the door and inserting a piece of wire, with just a small amount sticking out... less than 1/16". Then I drilled a corresponding "receiver" hole in the body door jamb. So now, to close the doors I snap the door shut, and that little tip of wire sticking out on the rear of the door fits into the receiver hole on the jamb and holds the door shut tight. Alignment is still not perfect, but pretty good: The "sweep" part of the fenders between the front and rear fender are separate parts, because there is the option of building the car without that piece, and just a small step plate instead of the full running boards. The curve of that sweep piece looks awkward IMO... where it joints the rear of the front fender, the curve looks clunky. So I decided to leave those parts off and go with the small step plates instead. I think the car looks sportier that way. The "chrome" trim around the step plates is silver wire (same stuff I used on the fender wheel openings, but a thinner gauge), super glued in place and the tread area painted flat black. I also cut down the side windows and made them look like they are rolled partway down. They aren't glued in the doors, just placed in the slot between inner and outer door panels. The kit windshield had heavy distortion; I replaced it with a piece cut from Lexan. Now on to the next big problem area: getting the hood panels to fit tightly, both up against the cowl and against the radiator shell.

The topic title is corny jokes, after all...

That looks great so far. I really like your "used but not abused" idea... somehow a factory-fresh dump truck just doesn't do it.

Now that's what it's all about. Beautiful!

Call the Denver office and tell them what you need. 303.296.1600

Two carpenters were re-siding a house with cedar shingles. One carpenter would pull a nail out of his pouch, look at it, then either use it to nail in the shingle or he'd toss it on the ground. After watching the first carpenter for a while, the second carpenter asks, "Why are you throwing out half your nails?" "Because they're defective," answers the first carpenter. "If I pull a nail out and the pointed end is pointing towards the house, I use it. If the pointed end is pointing at me, then obviously the nail is defective and I can't use it!" The second carpenter rolls his eyes. "You idiot! Those nails aren't defective! They're for the other side of the house!"

It doesn't look that bad to me, either. All you need is a little more detail, like foiling the door handles and the logo on the side of the hood, adding black around the windshield glass, etc. A little paint detailing here and there, and you're good to go!

The Aztec is hands down the single ugliest American vehicle of the last century. It looks like it was designed by Salvador Dali on acid! I can't believe that design ever made it through all the corporate levels and into actual production. What were they thinking???

That is so wrong I don't even know where to start. First of all, nobody on this forum expects or demands that anyone else build to their level. That's a ridiculous comment. Just because someone points out a problem doesn't mean that person is "expecting" anything from anyone. And just because a person builds "entirely different subjects" doesn't mean that person can't comment on someone else's stuff. Or that they're all "grumpy old men" with too much time on their hands. That makes as much sense as if I said all the Australian guys on this forum are just slackers and losers. Pretty stupid of me to make a comment like that and lump all the Australian members together, right?

That's where you and I disagree. I've said it a million times... if you post your work on a public forum, expect the public to comment. What kind of a "forum" would this be if we only allowed pats on the back? It would be meaningless, and nobody would learn anything. It's as if movie critics or restaurant critics were only allowed to write positive reviews. What would be the point of a movie critic who was only allowed to write positive reviews? I'm sure Tyler is fine. He's not going to flip out just because someone saw a problem with his model and pointed it out.

OK, one more question (maybe I already asked this but I forgot)... Do you work using some sort of magnifier? Or do you have superhero vision? I can't image putting the lettering decals on a spark plug wire just using my own eyeballs... I would definitely need some sort of magnifier.

Come on, man! You're going to stop posting because someone pointed out a problem with your model? Come on! This is a forum! We post our stuff, we talk about it, we learn from each other, and we try to get better as we go. We all make mistakes, we all can get better. Nobody on this forum has gotten to the "perfect" level yet, so be cool, take criticisms and critique in stride, and use the info to make your next one even better.

Ok, I thought that might be a custom setup. Hard to tell because the photo is so dark.

If we give praise without ever mentioning obvious problems, how is a person supposed to become a better builder? Cliff may have been a little blunt, but as far as the facts go he's exactly right. Praising a model that has obvious problems is, in my opinion, doing a disservice to the builder. Pointing out problems will at least make the person think about what was said, and hopefully he will try to do better the next time. The end result is a person who has more information for his next project, and who will hopefully put that info to good use. It's called growing as a model builder. Having said all that, my comment would be that yes, the paint is nicely done and overall the model looks good. I like the wheels, and the opening doors are a nice touch. But Cliff is exactly right on the "floating in space" brakes and the exhaust pipes with nothing holding them in place. It's really hard to see because the photo is so dark, but I also have to wonder about the lack of a front crossmember under the engine and what looks like no tie rod or suspension. I guess this could be some sort of custom setup, but can't tell from the photo.

Make it two.

Correct. https://archive.org/details/CommercialFor1956DodgeTexanad2

Remember, don't post any hints or answers here! PM me with year, make, and model. The answer: 1964 Lightburn Zeta Sports (Australia)

If I had known about the gaps, I wouldn't have done it either.

Next time you might want to try foiling the window trim, door handles, etc. It adds a lot of realism to a model.

I did. The flash kind of blows out everything... things look a lot different in real life.

Oh, almost forgot. More bad news... The side windows are supposed to be glued in place in the full "up" position, which is what I did. There are locator pins on the inside of the door panel and corresponding holes in the "glass." Again, no way to make any adjustments, and even if there were, you can't see the final interface between the side glass and the windshield until after the body is glued in place and the doors attached. That's when I found out (while test-fitting the windshield) that there are huge gaps between the windshield posts and the leading edge of the side glass. Obviously, in reality the front edge of the side glass would butt up tightly against the rubber gasket on the windshield posts. So I had to remove the doors, pry off the inner door panels, pry off the glass, and then cut the glass down so that I can have it in a rolled-down position... eliminating the huge and unrealistic gaps between side glass and windshield posts. All this while trying to not mess up the paint on the doors, or to scratch or break the "glass," or to break the inner door panels. But I managed to get it done without any catastrophe... Now I'll just place the cut-down side windows into the slot at the top of the door (no glue needed).

And now the bad news: the doors. I have had them on and off three times already, but it's no use. The way the hinges are engineered, there's really no way to adjust anything. You just have to assemble everything and hope for the best. This is as good as I could get it on the left side... it's not exactly a perfect fit. The lower front corner is in too far, and the upper rear corner won't close flush with the rest of the body. And because there's really no way to accurately test fit the doors until the body is firmly glued in place, by then it's too late to do any sort of surgery on the hinges (if that would even be possible in the first place). I'm just going to have to live with it.

More good news: I'm finished with the engine! Got all the various lines hooked up. That was an adventure... The only way to do it is after the body and firewall is in place, and the engine is mounted in the chassis. So you have to sort of snake the lines around all the existing stuff, working sometimes from the top side and sometimes from the bottom. It's tedious... like trying to thread a piece of wire through a maze! You have to thread the lines through where they are supposed to go while at the same time shaping them and getting the curves right. I used thin solder for the lines because it's very easy to bend, yet holds its shape after. I needed a very soft and flexible material to be able to get around all the various engine components while still being able to make the bends as I went, and the soft solder worked perfectly.