Ace-Garageguy

Same answer for either will be fine.

Wonderful photograph, Ed.

This oughta do it. If you look carefully, you can make out the exact wire routing.

You can also try putting the parts or whatever in a closed box and sprinkling baking soda all over everything, letting it sit for a while. If baking soda will pull the stink out of my sneakers, it ought to work on just about anything known to man. Note: It can be REALLY hard to get cigarette smoke smell out of some materials. I got a lovely used office chair last fall to use at the model bench. Repeated soakings in Fabreeze kinda worked, but I've had to leave it outside for months...yes, months...to get it to the point I can bear to have it in the house.

Cool finds.

Greg's right, but actually, the "silver" part is the vacuum actuator that shifts the gears in the housing. That rear end, without the two-speed setup, looks like this... The two-speed Columbia uses a different RH side axle housing from the standard Ford assembly. The Columbia was used occasionally to help with high-speed runs on dry-lakes cars, way back in the wayback.

Pretty cool. Love the whole idea. Those are some good looking jets on there too, man. Very creative.

Comet, hot water, old toothbrush. I make a paste in a little cup, dipping into it frequently to get fresh material, as Comet loses its abrasiveness pretty quickly. Not all abrasive cleansers have bleach in them. The Comet product I've been using hasn't caused any problems so far...about 6 years. I also recommend a final wipe with 70% isopropyl alcohol just prior to painting...especially if your model has sat around for a while. It's a good insurance against fisheyes caused by surface contamination...which I HAVE had happen to models that have been sitting, after primer, for a week or so. PS: There are gonna be almost as many opinions as there are answers, and lots of different techniques work for different guys. My answers only reflect what works for ME, every time.

For most paints, primer needs to be pretty damm nice to get the best possible topcoat. On REAL cars, we sand it to at least 400 grit before shooting color...600 grit or above if it's going to get a fine-grained pearl, etc. You DON'T need or want to go really slick though. It's unnecessary and accomplishes nothing. For the VERY FINEST pearls, or buffing metalizers, 1500 grit is as far as you need to go. If you have no orange peel, then don't sweat sanding it too much. Orange peel will telegraph right through the topcoats. Paint doesn't magically fill surface irregularities, no matter what you may hear. If your primer is peel-free, I still recommend a thorough scuffing with Comet, etc. This will knock off the slight grittiess you feel, and make a nice, even tooth for the paint to adhere to.

Okay...i suggested this one to otherunicorn yesterday, he suggested I put it up today...and I promptly dropped the ball. So here it is, better late than never. Usual rules, no hints or answer posted on the thread, message me with your answers and PLEASE don't be tempted to use image-lookup 'cause that spoils the fun. Happy hunting.

Yeah, I know, but it's a stupid game. I'll NEVER buy anything that pops-up with the sound turned way high, screaming how wonderful this or that crapp is and that I need it today, don't delay, this is a limited time offer and all my friends are getting it so I have to keep up or be not-cool or if not I can be the first one on my block and the side-effects of this allergy medicine may be cancer, liver damage. dementia or death your mileage may vary at 5.5% APR and yada yada yada yada yada. Want to make SURE I'll NEVER buy a product? Run popup ads. Kinda the reverse of how advertising (oh sorry, it's "marketing" now) is supposed to work, huh? Does ANYONE REALLY BUY STUFF that popups advertise? Or is it just a pretend game to add cost to products and provide employment for thousands of "professionals" who couldn't actually do any REAL work if their lives depended on it?

Here's a link to a Titanic forum. Who knew. http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/forums/forum.php

Did some additional mockup work with the Pontiac engine, all the actual parts that will be used for the model. Lengthened the wheelbase slightly too. First thing was to make a 2-part firewall that would slide over the frame rails. It's not yet quite perfect, but it will be. Then I built a setup that allows the upper and lower sections of the body to snap together, with a nice tight line between the parts. I replaced the existing rear axle mounting plates with new ones fabbed from .020" stock, made front engine mounts that would pick up the block mounts close to the pan rails rather than using a front engine plate, and added a few necessary crossmembers. With the rear axle in place, I was able to mock up the engine, with a dummy centerline glued to the block and running through the trans. The pinion angle is now right, so I could build a rear engine-plate. No universal joints on this setup, everything solidly mounted...so getting the angles right here matters. Also visible is the new push-bar structure.

Thanks again to everyone for your interest. The engine will be based on the vintage Revell Dream-Car Turbine engine kit. It's shown built-up on the left. It doesn't really look like any real turbine I've been able to find, and my research and some input from somebody who ought to know (info from one of Revell's guys) confirmed this. It's kinda similar to some older APU turbines with external combustion chambers, but there are also nonsense parts on it that have no close analog in reality. So, it will be modified to look more like something that actually existed, with an appearance that would be consistent with the function of a real engine. One of the things I snagged from a junk box at the last NNL event here was this chrome tree from the old Johan Chrysler Turbine, and some of it, probably the regenerators, will make its way into the engine bay on this thing.

Getting the roof panel-lines scribed wasn't working as cleanly as I would have liked, and I shelved the model until I could work it out to suit my need for quality. I eventually found just the right mix of epoxy and Cab-o-Sil that would take sharp lines without flaking on the edges. Then I had to find a better method for getting the lines on the left to match exactly the lines on the right. Few things spoil a model quicker (in my opinion) than poorly scribed panel lines, and since these were on the top of the car, very obvious, they had to be right. I laid out the edges of the new lines with a piece of stiff aluminum tape, well burnished down. The new photo-etched razor-saw blades I got a few weeks back made the perfect scribing tool, keeping the lines straight and true. She's ready for primer on the roof at this point.

Some people have difficulty painting. It irks them. S'okay. I can lay slick paint out as well as anybody on the planet, but I've yet to master BMF. That kinda irks me.

Same cost-engineering crew that saved a few bucks on carp rivets figured they could save a LOT by leaving off the tops of the watertight compartments.

Yes, in Georgia there's a law on the books prohibiting the sale of "raw" unpasteurized milk for human consumption, but there are also a number of farms that sell it as "pet food" and advertise on the web. With a DIY pasteurization option, boutique milk oghta be worth $20 a gallon, eh?

I'm surprised nobody's started a DIY boutique moo shop. You brings your own bucket, and you squeezes out your own milk. Oughta be worth 15 bucks a gallon, at least.

Current condition of the SS United States

This is a million bucks for the maiden cruise, probably in the most luxurious cabins. The prices will probably come down to be competitive with top-line cruise ships when she's in regular service. Some cruise ships today sleep as many as 6 in a cabin, for the cheap seats. Far as the engines go, they'll most likely be built along the same lines as other large ocean-going vessels today...either diesel / electric (like a locomotive, but bigger) or gas-turbine / electric, either type running on diesel fuel.

How cool is this? http://www.damngeeky.com/2016/02/12/39551/titanic-ii-to-set-sail-from-china-to-dubai-in-2018.html

Got one of these, specifically for the tires and engine. Nice kit. Got another vintage Revell Buick nailhead, too.

That's a SOLVENT type glue you have there, and it literally welds the parts together by dissolving the plastic, and allowing the molten edges to fuse. There's no way to "dissolve" the bond. You CAN, however, try tracing the bond-line multiple times with a sharp X-acto knife, going a little deeper each time. I frequently use that method very successfully to disassemble old nasty models. Bill Geary (MrObsessive) has an excellent point too.

Yup, good looking chop, for sure.