Harry P.

Wow... a 12 page thread on a kit nobody has even seen yet! Once the kit actually gets into people's hands, this thread could be an all-time record breaker!

The "Cam-a-matic" Mercer looks to scale out to just about 1/9 scale, if the Fuman Mercer is scaled correctly (I'm taking measurements off that model and multiplying by 16 to get the full scale numbers).

Scale Hardware looks good, but pricey. Does anyone know of a source of 1/8 scale (approx.) nuts and bolts sold in bulk (as in dozens per pack, or more).

Right. In person it's sharp.

This week's car is a BMW Z1, sold from 1989-91. Who got it right: Badluck 13 kataranga slusher PowerPlant sjordan2 Gee Bee Chris R Johnag4004 DonW The Creative Explorer MikeMc Draggon wisdonm Erik Smith Jon Cole mr chips carsntrucks4you Pete J customsrus otherunicorn

I'm not sure why you're having a problem. I just tried it. Made a plate at Acme, saved the image to my desktop, opened Word, clicked Insert Image or whatever it says, selected the license plate image, and sized it down. Sharp as a tack. This is just a screen shot, but the image in Word looks fine.

No, it's Seinfeld, four!

Not sure what part of this you're not satisfied with. It looks pretty darn good to me.

You can't increase an image's DPI and make it better. You can increase the DPI, but that doesn't make the image any better. You can't create image information where there is none to begin with. And secondly, when you reduce the size of an image, it doesn't blur... it gets better. If you enlarge an image, it blurs.

Ditto. Except we didn't even have school buses. Where I lived, all kids walked to school. Walked home for lunch, walked back to school after lunch, and walked home when the school day was over. There was no bus for anyone.

It wasn't in the "news" section, it's at the bottom where the general features are.

Oh man... I couldn't agree more. It happens all the time! Seems like the plow driver somehow knows exactly when I finish shoveling out the driveway apron... and he comes by about five minutes later and in one quick drive-by undoes all of my work...

Getting really close to finished. I accidentally broke off one of the little "wings" on the radiator ornament and it went flying to who knows where... so I fixed it by breaking off the other one, drilling through the base of the cap, and using a short length of brass rod to replace the wings. The "balls" on the tips of the wings were made with tiny blobs of 5-minute epoxy that I painted "brass." The hood isn't really hinged, it's just lift-off, but the piano hinge was faked by scoring lines along a length of aluminum rod and gluing that in place on the top of the hood. I used the hood hardware from the Fuman Mercer kit. I'm still trying to decide if I want the monocle windshield or not.

That's exactly why I love building them. There is so much character there, so much exposed detail and such a level of "machine" that you just don't see in a modern car.

Now that is some awesome modeling.

Here is one of the Hudson Miniatures. 1900 Packard. The kit is copyright 1949! This is model car history, people. As you can see, it's not so much a "kit" as a supply of raw materials and full scale plans. Lots of builder skill needed here to turn one of these into a realistic scale miniature. This kind of stuff really gets my motor running. I love scratchbuilding, and a kit like this is right up my alley.

Actually, come to think of it, I'll probably use styrene instead of the balsa for the models. I can use the balsa parts as patterns, but with styrene I don't have to seal it to get rid of the wood grain. Probably will be easier to work with sheet styrene than the balsa kit parts.

1/16. They are basically raw material. Sheets of balsa, strips of wood, etc. The body panels are diecut balsa, you have to do a lot of "semi-scratchbuilding" like the frame, springs, seats and upholstery, etc. They have a few plastic parts, specifically the wheels/tires, the steering wheel, and the headlights... but you have to make the rest! The best way to explain them is that they are the raw material you would need to scratchbuild the model, plus a few plastic detail parts thrown in. Definitely not the type of "kit" we are accustomed to.

Ok... the Mercer is basically an unassembled toy. The "Cam-a-matic" motor and assorted stuff takes up all the space under the hood, so this will have to be a curbside. The rest of it is going to take a lot of work to turn it into a respectable model, but the basics are there. I see a lot of scratchbuilding in my future...

Today the mailman brought me four Hudson Miniatures kits and my "Cam-a-matic action" Mercer. I don't even know where to begin! The Hudson Miniatures are so cool... a real piece of model car history. It's amazing to open those boxes and see model kits made so long ago, still unbuilt and pristine. Aside from the yellowing of the instruction sheets, it looks like they were locked in a time capsule for the last 50+ years. Amazing. I almost feel bad that I'm actually going to build them... sort of like I'm defiling them somehow! But I'm not a collector... I bought 'em to build 'em. And now to open up that "Cam-a-matic" Mercer and see what's inside...

And that's why a Z28 costs $75 grand...

You just answered your own question.

Skip, check your email.

So... yer not impressed?

Yup. That's the only solution.