Harry P.

"Spring." Sheesh...

Why are Australian cars muscle cars, but German cars are not?

I'm a huge Eagles fan, and I've heard good things about this. Anyone out there have it yet? Reviews? Comments? I'm probably going to buy it regardless, but I'm curious if it's as good as I've heard.

Here's a shot of Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois. This is as close to "terrain" as we get here! The "mountains" in the background are maybe a couple hundred feet high. The area around Galena, in the extreme NW corner of Illinois, is similar... one of the very few areas in Illinois that the glaciers missed and didn't bulldoze flat millions of years ago. Actually the area around Galena is very hilly and scenic... to an Illinoisan!

Yeah, a MILE up in space. Here, we are painfully close to sea level, without a mountain within 500 miles. Or more. The only thing flatter than Illinois is Britney Spears without auto-tune...

Cool! Love the lighting!

They're predicting snow here tonight. It's March 24...

Thanks Chris... but they're far from perfect. Like the comment Cato made about the steering wheel earlier... he's absolutely right. It's not accurate, but I let it slide. So much for "perfection!" In the end, my goal is a reasonably accurate and attractive shelf model. I don't do contests, so I don't "sweat the details" as much as if I was building for competition. I can tell you this... if I was going up against a John Teresi or a Mark Jones or one of the other off-the-charts builders here in a contest, I'd be paying a lot more attention to every little detail! But to recycle the old cliché... I build for me. I don't have to worry about whether or not any "judge" likes it.

No, this one is a total curbside. There is a basic front and rear axle, springs, but not much else. But that's ok... it looks pretty good on the top side!

Excellent tip, Matt. There are almost always slight variations in shades of color in a car interior. In a red interior, it would look more realistic if the "carpet" was a slightly darker shade of red than the upholstery or door panels. Again, a Google image search is your best friend here. Don't assume... do the image search, find the appropriate photos, and do your best to recreate what you see. Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. This is obviously a "red" interior... but if you took a can of gloss red and sprayed everything with that, the end result would look very "toylike" and fake. Look closely at the photo... See how shiny the dash top and steering wheel is? Painted metal is a lot shinier than vinyl seats or carpet. There's even a difference in gloss between the vinyl part of the seats and the cloth inserts (although the vinyl here is probably Armor-Alled and too shiny)... and see how the carpet is dead flat? And how it's not the same exact shade of red as the dash or the vinyl seats? Getting these little things right will go a long way to making your interiors really look real, no matter what color they are.

The trick to getting realistic interiors isn't in the color you pick, it's getting the various levels of gloss correct. Nothing looks more toylike and "fake" than an interior where everything is the same gloss level... seats, dash, "carpet," door panels, etc. Look at any real car interior and you'll see various gloss levels on the dash, door panels, upholstery, etc. The '59 Impala, for example, has a glossy painted dash top, but obviously the seats weren't as glossy as the painted metal dash. Look at real interiors and recreate what you see. Glossy things glossy, flat things flat, etc., and your interiors will look great.

Weather is always bad in Russia, comrade...

Hmmm... it's a little dark there in Russia... Oh yeah! Now I see it! Beautiful work if you ask me...

For many years, the typical Danbury model was $109... a few were slightly higher (like the large-scale stuff, of course), but most of their 1/24 scale models were $109-129 or so. They want $250 for this one! That's quite a price jump, last one or not. At $109 I would have bought it. At $250 it's thanks, but no thanks.

Definitely one I want to do. It's been in the planning stage for way too long now.

I've been doing some internet snooping around, and it turns out the model in the box is a 1903 curved dash Olds, not a 1904. The '03 model had only a band brake on the transmission, no brakes on the wheels. Rear wheel brakes were added in 1904... so since there are no rear brakes in this kit, I'm going to save myself a lot of scratchbuilding time and trouble and just call it a 1903. All curved dash Olds (1901-1905) were basically visually identical apart from different chassis details and a slightly larger engine on later models, so calling this one a 1903 makes sense.

I have a feeling my new grandson will be a grown man before I ever finish those two RRs!

One of these days I'm going to have to build the two Pocher RRs I have had laying around for literally years now... one half-built, the other completely unstarted.

Now that the Wolseley has been put to bed, I need to make a dent in that pile of old Aurora kits. This time I'm doing the 1904 "curved dash" Olds. Similar to the other Aurora kits in the series, but this one is molded all in black (with the usual brass-plated parts, of course): This time I'm going with the color scheme as seen on the box top, and as always, I will be jumping around from one subassembly to another, in reckless disregard of the instruction sheet... As usual, I want posable steering. In fact, in this case I want functional steering (through the tiller, like I did on my Rambler)... so the first thing to do is cut the molded-in spindles free of the axle, and rework the various components to allow for the wheels to steer: The real car has louvers on the back panel, which the model does not have. I didn't have any quarter-round styrene rod on hand, but I did have some half-round. Finally getting that chance to use the arithmetic skills I learned back in 3rd grade, I cleverly deduced that if I split a piece of half-round lengthwise, I wind up with two pieces of quarter-round (and I thought the time spent learning math in school was worthless! )... so now the body has the missing louvers: Much more to come...

One of the benefits of being self-employed is the ability to make your own schedule (most of the time, depending on how desperate and/or demanding the client is). And working from home means no daily commute... that gives me probably an extra hour or two every day that most people lose to travel time. Not to mention the huge amount of $$$ NOT spent on gas just to get from here to there and back to here again every day! I did the "rat race" routine for years. Can't say I miss it one bit.

No, the kit wheel is wrong. I should have changed it. The spokes should be wider at the hub than at the rim, and should also be straight, not curved.

That's right, Cheech...

I should probably be in their Customer Hall of Fame...

The "grille" is actually the exposed radiator.

The dome light bulb burned out... I used K&S brass rod #8159 (.020, .51mm) for the loops at the edge of the top and on the chassis. The buckles are made of tine bits of styrene rod, glued together and sprayed brass.