Ramfins59

Thanks John. So far so good. We were assured by one of the "head honchos" this morning that all our concerns are taken care of. They will come in the Spring to relevel the driveway once it all settles, and add more gravel if necessary. We told them about the "possibility" that they may have lost out on further work for us. He was, of course, very apologetic. Give my regards to Amy.

No worries about the ranting. I've been doing plenty of that over this situation. We're still waiting to speak to people at Mr. Rooter to answer some questions. We called them 4 times and they say they will finally be here tomorrow AM. They aren't getting the final payment from our financing until they satisfactorily answer our questions. In addition, I have a few more smaller plumbing issues that I'd like to get estimates on, but after experiencing their crappy customer service response, i will probably look elsewhere to get that additional work done...... and I will let them know that.

Most homeowners insurance policies will only cover what is "in the house" repairs...at least that's what ours does. Since 95% of the work that was done was "outside" of the house, it was not covered under the policy. For the little bit that might have been covered, it wasn't worth filing a claim due to the deductible amount, plus the fact that my premiums would then increase by about 12 to 15%. Ya gotta love those insurance companies.... you pay premiums for insurance coverage but as soon as you file a claim, they raise your premiums. Overall, looking at the bright side of this mess, we were approved for way more of an equity credit line than we thought we would get, so we'll be able to take care of a bunch of other small projects that we've been wanting to do in the house.

I'm pretty sure I'd take a set of all 4 of those too.

Well James, it was a bit more involved than just digging a long hole and replacing pipes. First they came and camera'd the lines to see where the problems were... found the collapsed section and the non-glued sections of old pipe leading up to that point... Then they came to blow out the lines with high pressure water so we could use our "facilities". They got the necessary "OK to dig" permits from the town and also had to make the PA One Call, which notifies the Electric , Gas & Water utilities so they can all come to mark where on my property all their lines are so they don't cut into something that they're not supposed to... Then they came with the backhoe & dump truck to dig up the driveway and pull out all the old decrepit piping that was put in back in the '60's when the house was built. Then they came with a jackhammer to get to the main drain line leading out from my garage floor. Then they laid several loads of pea gravel under where they laid all new PVC pipe to connect to the town sewer lines. Then the town inspector came to give his blessing on the work. After that came 5 dump truck loads of gravel to fill the hole and resurface my gravel driveway. Finally they came today to cement up my garage floor which they jackhammered up. We have to wait at least a couple of days before we can put our car back in the garage because the 400 lbs. of cement they used to fill and smooth the garage floor has to dry and cure properly. They worked here for a total of 5 days with a crew of 2 to 3 guys each day. Do I think the $17K was a hell of a lot of money...??? Hell yes I do...!!! But I know that all the work was done right, and up to code, and that for the rest of our lives here, we'll be able to flush with no problems. There is a Lifetime guarantee on the work that was done.

The $17K went to the Mr. Rooter company.

And away go "troubles"...... down the drain......

Thanks guys. I just needed to "vent" a little 'cause this situation has had me bummed out for awhile... I'll get back to the bench and immerse myself in my plastic world where usually all goes well... After all, it's only money right... At least everyone here is still healthy and well which is overall the most important thing.

The mufflers are the ones that came in the Revell Merc kit. They look like Cherry Bomb glass packs & I painted them red to replicate them.

Thanks guys... Harry, when you're retired & only getting Social Security, not having a monthly mortgage payment is wonderful. Granted it's only $17K, but when you suddenly have to squeeze an extra monthly payment into an already tight budget it makes things a little tougher to deal with.

Absolutely no reason to jump out of an airplane or whatever either in space or in the atmosphere of earth... Talk about skid marks in your shorts...!!!

And they used a LOT of them too...

Well, the old saying "life gets in the way" has struck here BIG TIME... I have not had the urge or desire to work on any projects for the past week... The following pictures will tell the story... The clay pipe sewer line in my driveway collapsed and my basement was flooded with "you know what"... A call to Mr. Rooter, a week's worth of work, a $17,000 bill resulting in a Home Equity Line of Credit fixed it all. Now I have a monthly "mortgage payment" which we didn't have previously as we paid cash for the house when we moved here from L.I., NY 6 years ago. Life certainly got in my way this past week...!!!

I love the chromed steel wheels & the black paint. really sweet looking.

Thanks a lot guys. It was a fun build overall although at times a bit tedious.

Deron I know that you live in Central PA, but I live in southwestern PA, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh. I subscribe to a cable service called Armstrong and I get both Speed and Velocity with their HD service. If Armstrong is available in your area you may want to look into that re getting Velocity.

Welcome to the madness Larry. I guess you could call what we have here a club of sorts... more like a diversified worldwide group of modelers who share their work, ideas, building methods, opinions, etc... We all seem to learn from each other and we seem to all be willing to share our "secrets". To post pictures here your best bet is to open up a Photobucket account online (it's free) where you would first download your digital pictures to your computer, then upload them to your Photobucket account/album, then download them to your posts here by clicking on the IMG Code box for the picture on Photobucket and then come back to your post here and right click to Paste your picture in your post. The picture will appear once you click on the POST box at the bottom. To send a PM you fist have to know the screen name of the person here on the Forum that you want to contact. Then click on your screen name at the upper right of this screen and then click on Personal Messenger, write your message and click send. You will receive a notification when anyone replies to your PM. Hope this helps. We look forward to seeing your builds.

Great looking diorama Richard... working on something like this makes you want to keep adding more and more details doesn't it...???

You could also try using the T-Bucket from the AMT reissue of the Tall T double kit. The one I bought has a LOT of flash as it's a pretty old tooling, but I was thinking of combining parts from it, and the AMT 25T double kit to try to make a decent looking T-Bucket Rod. I think the Tweedy Pie kit looks like it has some cool parts too. I have a '32 Ford 6" chopped grille shell with a PE insert from MCG that I'm thinking of using, along with some Modelhaus whitewall slicks out back & chrome reversed wheels on wide whites up front. I just haven't nailed down a color scheme yet... Yellow with black interior...... Red with black interior...... Blue with white interior...... Can't make up my mind...

Thanks Samuel, I appreciate the kind words.

Welcome to the madness Piero.

Oh man... Sorry to hear of Norm's passing. I used to watch 77 Sunset Strip just to see Ed Byrnes (Kookie) and his Hot Rod T-Bucket. No wonder I've suddenly had an urge to build a T-Bucket....!!!!

Thanks guys. Yeah James, those wheel covers took awhile to paint with a toothpick sharpened to a hair...!!! The door panels came with the RMCoMD resin convertible kit as did the dogleg pieces for the rear seats under the convertible boot legs. I didn't remove any dogleg detail...

Great job Virgil. Nice break from your rusty, crusty stuff.

Great job Scott... Looks dynamite.