Ace-Garageguy

First, I'd put everything in storage and travel for at least a year. See parts of the world I haven't already (Africa and New Zealand tor two), take photographs, eat, write, paint...always wanted to ride a train all the way across Canada... Then I'd build a small but comfortable, solar-powered off-grid house from recycled shipping containers, where the humidity was low and I couldn't see my neighbors...in a dry climate. Add a garage big enough to comfortably work on 6 cars, and a separate fabrication / machine shop, and a paint booth. I probably wouldn't buy anything as far as cars go, just find good homes for what I already have and spend the rest of my life building my own designs and painting and sculpting. Yeah, that would work.

Cool idea. The weathering looks believable.

Wow. Everything you build is wow. Certainly an inspiration.

You're a good man, Ray. The world needs more people who do kind things just because they can.

What they said. Beautiful car, beautiful model.

In more than 40 years doing stuff, I've yet to find the need for sealer on real cars or models.

Man, that's awful. What happened?

Boy, I gotta agree with that. (Civics, not politics. )

Pretty cool. I've been thinking of getting one of these for quite a while, but have held off until I could see more of what's in the kit. I'm curious as to what tank is represented. The most popular tank was the P-38 unit, which is about 13' 3" long, including the flanges, if I remember correctly. This one appears to be a little shorter.

When I started to log time a few years back, it was frankly with the intention of seeing if I could build models for money after I retire. I learned pretty quickly that's there's probably nobody on Earth who'd pay what I'd probably need to get to do a 1/25 scale model to make it worth doing, so I put the stopwatch away and went back to trying to enjoy it. There's a large-scale (1/8) model I've just started and I probably will keep a log on it, just out of curiosity. It seems like it may very well go a lot faster than some of the little ones of the same basic subject.

And I'm also afraid if I knew how much I could have made working on something I COULD have been billing for, it would kind of take the enjoyment out of the hobby time anyway. There are a couple of still-in-progress models I probably have close to 100 hours (or maybe more) apiece in so far. Geez. Don't want to go there.

I run stopwatch time on my 1:1 work, as I've found it's the ONLY way to be fair the the client AND to myself. I once started to put the stopwatch on the model work, but just never did stay with it. i almost never finish anything anyway.

In no particular order (real and semi-production cars as opposed to show cars or prototypes) Ford GT40 Mk I Porsche 356A 1500GS Carrera '72 Porsche 911S Porsche 930 '51 Studebaker Starlight Coupe '53 Studebaker "Loewy Coupe" Studebaker Avanti '36 Ford 3-window coupe (and roadster) '56-'57 Continental Mk II 1949 Ford business coupe and convertible '53 Ford convertible, coupe or or 2-dr wagon '55-'56-'57 Fords ('57 convert best) '67 Cadillac Eldorado Austin-Healey 100-3000 '49 Olds 2-drs, convertibles and wagons '55-'57 Olds hardtops and convertibles (particularly the '57 J2) Auburn 852 Boat Tail Speedster '55-'57 Thunderbird Cheetah Lamborghini Miura Lotus Super 7 S2 Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spyder Veloce Ferrari 275 GTB4 '48 Chrysler Town and Country Corvette C1 (any) Corvette C5 (best bang for the buck)

Remarkable model. I wonder how it would photograph outside at dusk...with the sun on the ship against a black velvet background...with the cloth stretched tight and arranged so the sun didn't strike it directly.

To Scott Colmer: Congratulations on getting started in what you apparently really want to do, and I sincerely wish you the best of luck. Teaching is one of the most important professions, of course. Again, good luck.

You build some fascinating and unusual aircraft models. Very nice work.

Yup,this is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to remember. I was remiss in neglecting to explain all of this thoroughly. As stated above... "This can be done, but make the hole as small as possible and after puncturing, keep the awl in the hole, using it to restrict and control the release of pressure. When done slowly, you won't lose too much paint. Also be sure to do this in some area which will not be messed up by paint splatter and wear face protection and old clothes (just in case)." Also, wrap the can and awl where you're going to punch the hole with a good sized rag. THINK about how paint may try to spray out around the tip of the awl in the hole and plan accordingly.

Cheetahs got drag raced too. This one's even in Bill Thomas livery. And remember, not all Cheetahs were Cheetahs. Most of the ones that did the straight-line thing were clones made by Fiberglass Trends...the company that did NOT get the contract to produce "factory" cars. One of the two (I think) original aluminum-bodied cars. The rest were fiberglass.

Awesome? A Space Shuttle launch was "awesome". Fake louvers? Nah.

Yeah, that's it in a nutshell. Not many people even know what the thing is...or why it's supremely cool. On a practical note regarding the real cars, the not-great handling could have been sorted with enough development time and money. The car was essentially front-mid-engined, and this configuration, though unusual, has demonstrated itself to be capable of competitive race performance in a variety of classes. Results that proved the viability of the concept include the Panoz LMP-1's 5th overall LeMans placing in 2000 and again in 2003, and the subsequent Panoz Esperante GT-LM win in GT2 at LeMans in 2006.

Agreed 100%. It's funny how people will argue that wires that are scale-correct diameter don't look "right".

I tend to agree. I'd get it right on a 1/12 or 1/8 scale model, but probably wouldn't bother on anything smaller. Still, it's a little easier to avoid the "hair part" look a lot of model distributors get if you have something to look at for reference. There are some 1:1 guys (not me) who build a lot of the same engines (like smallblock Chebbys) who would spot a wrong firing order immediately though.

Actually, I DO like the looks of the louvers on Harry's car. Does anyone make a functional retrofit kit for same? .

My thoughts exactly. I live on aspirin.

Which hysteria would that be? Oh, you must mean the lack of complacency while the government becomes more and more needlessly intrusive. You know...one of the characteristics of sheep is to follow along mindlessly, bleating, but articulating nothing. Too funny!