Harry P.

Not too many businesses stay in business based on "nostalgia."

The only constant in life is change. We used to have blacksmith shops... soda fountains... dime stores... cobblers... etc. All gone now. And today's newfangled attractions will one day also be gone, replaced by something else. It's been that way since time began. We can reminisce and wish things were like they used to be in the "good old days"... but the reality is, things change. Always have, always will. IMO you're better off accepting change and embracing it that resisting it and living in the past. (not meant as a comment directed at you, just in general).

Enjoy it while you can.

Full, real name is a forum rule. If you don't want us to know who you really are, you'll need to find another forum.

I just heard from Bryan today. He told me to let you all know he's doing ok! I'll just post his email to me here, and you can see for yourselves what he had to tell me: Harry, I havent had internet service and my laptop actually died on me. I should be back in full force in a few weeks. Let the guys know im still alive and kickin. I miss the forum! Me n my girl are gettin a new house in the next few weeks so, it will take me a bit to get the bench set back up and get rollin again. Tell the guys i said hi, and ill be back soon. Its nice to know that people were wondering about me, we have a great bunch of guys. Cheers Bryan So there you go. He's alive and well, and he'll be back on the forum soon.

I'm wondering what's up with the black rims on the headlights?

The LHS is dying because there's a much better, more efficient, and cheaper way to shop–the internet. I can go online at 3 in the morning if I want to, browse the inventory of stores literally around the world, find the best price for what I'm looking for, and buy virtually any kit or supply I can think of, at prices lower than the LHS would charge, spend zero money on gas, and have the stuff arrive on my doorstep in a couple of days. Why wouldn't you shop this way?

Getting close to finished on the wing structures... for the upper wing, all I still need to do is form the curved wing ends and attach them: On the lower wings, I created the curved wing tips by laminating several strips of the same birch veneer that I covered the fuselage with. It was easier to get the tight radius curves using this method than to try and soak and bend a solid piece to shape: I still need to add all the wing trailing edges (actually a piece of stiff wire), then sand and form the leading edges so that they are rounded in profile. Since this model will be covered (not a "skeleton" like the kit is intended to be built), I'm leaving out all of the internal wing detail... a whole network of pulleys, brackets, metal tubes and tensioning cables that was used to keep the wings stiff. Since none of this detail will be seen on a "covered" model, I see no point in spending the time and effort to include it. Also, since I'll be covering the wings, I didn't have to be too careful when applying glue... I flowed a lot of it into every joint, since it doesn't matter whether or not you see any glue. It all goes bye bye when I cover the wings! More to come...

Man! That's the steal of the week! If I were you I'd buy it now! (I'd snag it myself, for that price, but I already have both kits).

If it's a fact that Revell is using a plastic formulation that's cheaper for them to use (and none of us really know for sure)... can you blame them? If any of us ran Revell, we'd probably do the same thing. The bottom line is the first thing a company looks at when making any kind of business decision. If Revell figured that they could save a few cents per kit by using a cheaper plastic, you can bet that's exactly what they would do. The airplane hardware thing isn't really a good analogy... that sort of stuff has to meet certain standards. What standards does the plastic a model car is made of have to meet? Probably only one: it has to be cheap to buy.

Isn't it a '65 Dodge Coronet?

I agree that your paint looks great... but a "lowrider" should have smaller wheels and ride, you know... low. It almost looks like your is is actually riding higher than stock!

So what became of it?

Go to a home improvement store and get one of those big signs that say "for sale" or "yard sale" or "beware of dog" or "no trespassing" or whatever. They're usually made of sheet styrene. I once got an old dog food sign from a grocery store display... it was going to be thrown out. It was sheet styrene, about 2 x 3 feet. It lasted me for a long time!

Very nice! As usual, your paint is flawless. Nice job... But it sure looks like red to me, not orange...

Which is exactly why comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges, like Bill said.

Dave, anything new to show us on this project? It's an incredible piece of model making, you have skills many others can only dream they had!

Al the wood is straight as an arrow, and very crisp and sharp. The diecuts are laser-cut, so the edges are absolutely sharp and perfect. I'm going to make the cone out of the tip of a plastic egg.

Very nice! Especially at such a small scale.

I think that would be one wing too many!

Does it say "NEW and IMPROVED FORMULA" somewhere on the box? What about spraying a barrier coat of Future first? Bill Geary does that, and his work speaks for itself.

Maybe reasonable for the amount of work that went into it, but not a very reasonable price to pay for a pickup truck! If I had a spare 300K laying around, I'd invest it in real estate, not some fancy one-off custom car/truck/whatever. Selling prices are down, it's a great time to invest in property. Of course, a truck like this could become a valuable collector's item. You never know.

Once I had all the wing ribs built (rib, stiffeners and top and bottom caps), it was time to build the wings themselves. Basically all you do is slide the ribs onto the horizontal spars (in the correct order, the ribs have to go on in a particular order). Once all the ribs are in place, I laid the wing down on top of the plan and slid all the ribs into exact position using the plan as my guide. Once everything was in the correct spot and everything was squared up, I clamped the wing assembly to the edge of my work table and added a drop of CA to each rib/spar intersection: In the photo you can see that one of the rib top caps popped off. No big deal, once the wing asembly is dry I'll just glue it back down. Then it's on to installing the leading and trailing edges of the wings, and the wing end caps, which I have to form by soaking some wood strip and then bending it to make the curves. More to come...

Another way to go is to take apart an old lamp cord (or the cord from a broken toaster, fan, or basically anything electric)... cut apart the cord and you'll see that the "guts" are a bunch of strands of very fine copper wire. Take one of the strands and wrap it around a piece of stiff wire to form the "spring," then pull it off the wire and paint it silver (or paint it silver while it's still on the stiff wire and pull it off after it's dry).

Ace has it right. Do not try slicing thin rings off aluminum tube by rolling it under your knife blade, because 9 times out of 10 you won't be able to keep just one groove going... the knife will wander and more than likely you'll get something resembling screw threads rather than one, neat cut line. Much easier–and more predictable results–using a razor saw and miter box, as Ace pointed out. You can slice off extremely thin rings without distortion, then smooth the face of the rings with very fine sandpaper. I lay the sandpaper down on my work surface, lay the ring on the sandpaper, and then use a fingertip to slide the ring back and forth until it's perfectly smooth. Aluminum is soft; it doesn't take much time or pressure to get a perfect surface. They're kind of hard to see in this photo, but all the gauge bezels on this dash were made that way: