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Harry P.

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Everything posted by Harry P.

  1. Pledge Floor Care (sold previously as "Future") is nothing more than clear acrylic. Some people, like Bill Geary, for one, use it as a barrier between the kit's bare plastic and the color coats, to prevent any bleed-thru. It certainly can't hurt. And since Pledge Floor Care is simply clear acrylic, you don't need to wait a week for it to dry. It'll dry a lot quicker than that. I actually use it as my final clear coat on top of the paint. I brush it on. Works great (for me, at least!). All of these models feature a Future clear coat...
  2. Yeah, your rubber trim is a bit shaky, but still, what a nice model! Very cool!
  3. Jim, thanks for your continued "kick in the pants" to get me to pack up and leave. Eventually I'm going to do it. There is no logical reason for me to stay here. BTW... how are you doing? Back to normal, pretty much? I hope so.
  4. That's a real nice looking model. You used bits and pieces from all over and really pulled it all together nicely. Very well done. I'm impressed.
  5. You make it sound so easy. Maybe it really is that easy and I'm just afraid to pull the trigger. My daughters have been nagging me to move down to Urbana. It's beginning to sound like a pretty good idea.
  6. The cost of living here is sky high. Prices for everyday goods, highest property taxes in the country, high state income tax, etc. My two daughters both live in Urbana (which is actually the "twin cities" of Champaign and Urbana... where the U of I is located). Nice cities... combined population around 100,000, maybe a quarter million in the metro area. I could sell my house, pay off the mortgage, and have enough left over to buy a house down in Urbana for cash. No mortgage. That's how much less housing costs down there vs. the Chicago metro area.
  7. I hear ya. But packing up and moving my stuff, selling this house, finding and buying another one, let alone deciding where to go, is kind of intimidating to me. I'm not the "moving" type... I've lived in this house since the day it was finished (29 years).
  8. It's still not too bad. A mix of whites and Mexicans/Hispanics. Not a terrible neighborhood, but the mix is probably different now from what you remember.
  9. Any particular reason why you kept on moving so many times? I mean, Wheaton, Winfield, and West Chicago are all just minutes apart. What was the point of the constant moves?
  10. Seems to me that the single biggest hurdle to overcome if self-driving vehicles ever became the norm would be the implementation of one universal operating system, so that all vehicles on the road would be "thinking" the same way. I think Bill mentioned this point in one of his previous posts. But with various different manufacturers spending millions of dollars to develop their own proprietary system, it seems about impossible to imagine that all of these competing companies would agree on one standard. It's like Mac vs. PC or VHS vs. Beta... only worse. You're not affecting the other guy's computing if you are on a Mac and he is on a PC. You don't affect your neighbor's TV viewing habits if you are on Dish Network and he is on Comcast. But if your driverless car is running on operating system X and the other guy's car is running on operating system Y.... what happens in the event of an impending collision if the two cars are "thinking" differently?
  11. Looks pretty good to me, but I really don't like the grossly out of scale metalflake paint.
  12. On average, in Chicago, a person is shot every 2 minutes, and shot DEAD (murdered) every 13 minutes.
  13. Here are the numbers. Total shootings 2014-2016 YTD... 2014 2015 2016 % increase since 2015 Jan103 149299 +100%Feb 72 75189 +152%Mar120 209329 +57.4%Apr263 236 310 +31.3%May269 322403 +25.2%Jun 280 293442 +50.8%
  14. Hard to argue with logic like that!
  15. How's that Bill DeBlasio workin' out for you guys?
  16. Ditto.
  17. Not days before the 4th! In fact, our "4th" was the 5th. When I was a kid, my friends and I lived half a block away from a city park. On the 4th, all the "big kids" and the adults would shoot off their fireworks in the park. But the next morning, us kids would scour the park and find tons of fireworks that either didn't go off, were dropped and/or forgotten in the dark, etc. We made quite a haul without spending a cent... and the evening of the 5th was our "4th." Of course, some of those found fireworks had only very short stubs of fuse left, so setting them off was always a gamble. But luckily none of us ever lost a finger!
  18. Yes, technically I'm sure there is an "ideal" ratio. But I've never had a problem just eyeballing it, and I'm sure I don't get it exactly right every time. But it works for me every time, so obviously there is a range that the stuff will work within. That "salmon" color is what I shoot for. Works every time.
  19. So exactly how does the cutter cut out shapes? Is it a pointed blade that follows the contours of each piece and cuts them out one by one?
  20. When I use the two-part Bondo, I just eyeball the mix. I probably use 1/10 the amount of hardener or less compared to the amount of putty, but the exact ratio isn't that critical. Visualize a golf ball and a pea... that's about the right ratio. If you use too much hardener, the stuff will set up fast... maybe too fast for you to apply it and work it. Too little hardener and the stuff will set a lot slower... but it will eventually set. It just takes a few tries before you get the knack and can just eyeball the proportions. If the mix is a light pink color, that seems to be about right. Too red–you've used too much hardener; too white–you didn't use enough. This is roughly that light pink color to aim for... but the exact ratio isn't super critical.
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