Ace-Garageguy

Lotsa money. Guess it's a little out of my reach now.

Most of the older model cars use 1/16" (.0625" / 1.5875mm) diameter steel. 1/16" welding rod works beautifully (for gas or TIG, copper-coated) 1/16" brass rod from the hardware or hobby shop works equally well. 1/16" plastic rod also works if you're not going to play with it...vroom vroom. Many newer kits use .09" / 2.3mm metal rod, which can be harder to find.

Looks to me like it has the glass-fit issues Bill Geary showed how to correct here on this very board. I've seen several less-accomplished modelers just leave it. Backlite is definitely up proud of the roofline, seems as though the windshield may be too. Yup, no doubt about it. Otherwise looks great.

This short video will explain the concept of angular velocity using a 33 RPM record as an example, and why the radius of the circle your dots travel in is important. It will either give you an AHA!! moment, or confuse you hopelessly.

Remember please...RPM is NOT the same thing as SPEED, and the two are not interchangeable concepts. A precise understanding of the meaning of the words here is imperative to grasp what's happening. FORGET the thought that both dots are on the same record for a minute, because I think that's what is throwing you off. Assume you have one record, a 33 1/3 RPM record, with a dot on its edge. At 33 1/3 RPM, the dot will travel 33 1/3 times around the record player spindle in one minute. Now take a smaller record, like a 45, and put a dot on its rim. Spin it at the same 33 1/3 RPM. The dot on the smaller record will STILL travel 33 1/3 times around in one minute, but because the circumference of the circle the dot on the small record travels is smaller than the circle the dot on the big record has to travel, the dot on the small record will travel LESS DISTANCE over the same time...meaning it will travel through space at a SLOWER SPEED, even though it's at exactly the same RPM. Now glue the little record to the big record with the dots in a line. See??

^^^^ A win for all concerned. Nice gesture on the mayor's part, remarkably civil of the taggers to respect the terms of the deal.

Sorry you got bit by some of that potmetal steel that's becoming pretty much standard now that we rely on "offshore" companies to make everything. The machined transition from the major diameter of the shaft to the worm threads is probably too sharp too, and it may just be under-designed, period. I hope they'll make it right for ya.

Remember the relationship between the radius of a circle and its circumference? The inner dot travels a circle defined by its distance from the center, which is the radius (R) of the circle it travels. The outer dot also travels in a circle defined by its distance from the center, which is greater than the distance to the inner dot from the center. Because the radius of the outer circle is larger, the circumference (C) of the outer circle is larger, as determined by the formula any 6th grader should have been required to learn and understand. Because the circumference of the outer circle is larger, the outer dot has farther DISTANCE to travel than the inner dot, which is traveling on a smaller circle. BOTH dots travel the same number of DEGREES OF ANGLE in the same time, but because the circumference of the outer dot's circle is greater than the circumference of the inner dot's circle, more DISTANCE is required to be traveled by the outer dot to cover the same number of DEGREES. That's all there is. No smoke, no mirrors, no magic, no logic disconnect.

I recall this one, explained in some specific detail and concerning angular displacement versus time, distance and speed. Simple math, really, if you understand the terms and concepts. The dot on the outer rim is moving at a far greater speed than the dot close to the spindle in order to maintain the same angular displacement over a specified time, necessarily constant all along the line between the dots. The one farther from the center has to travel a greater distance because the circumference of the circle it traverses is greater than that of the inner dot. Hence the outer dot has to travel at a greater speed to cover the greater distance in the time available to do so. As stated above, RPM and speed are two discrete concepts, and are not interchangeable...even though the record player may be marked as "speeds" of 33 1/3, 45, etc., RPM IS NOT THE SAME THING AS SPEED. Speed is the measure of distance traveled over a specified time. Like miles-per-hour. RPM is a way of stating angular displacement over a specified time. One RPM...revolutions-per-minute... is 360 degrees of angular displacement in one minute (a circle is 360 degrees, so one full revolution is also 360 degrees).

Got a resin Chevron B-16 in 1/24. Interesting model, very thin resin reinforced inside with fiberglass cloth. A few symmetry and parallel issues, and it seems big for the scale...the real cars are quite small...but a great starting point for one of my all-time favorite racing cars (probably in part because it's the first one I ever worked on).

Yup.

Lost words from our childhood? Innocence, idealism and hopefulness come to mind.

Much as the styling of the Juke initially made me want to puke, I'm beginning to feel kinda sorry for the poor things. I'm thinking the intent was to design a car that was as non-carlike as humanly possible, and so to appeal to the legions of people who see and dislike the whole idea of cars as macho symbolism, but who need transportation. The people I know who own them would seem to back up my psychobabble theory. Anyway, they look like frogs. How can you hate a cute little frog? The Aztek on the other hand...yuck. But neither of them can hold a candle to the all-time champion of automotive ugly...

Wow. Nice. Real nice. All of it. Wow. Nice.

I'm sick of LOL, hee-hee, tee-hee, bwa-ha-ha, and all other various and sundry forms of inane written laughter too.

Well, speaking of horses, why do we need several different words to connote "horseness" and adjectives to further define specific kinds of horseness? The term "build" can be looked at as simply differentiating between a "model" that one buys, like a die-cast, or even a 3D rendering (oh, how I hate the current version "render") and a model that one builds or has built. I rest my case. Gots to work on my taxes, and render unto Caesar...

First 911 I drove was a '72 S, slightly lowered. After spending a fair proportion of my youth in hot-rod Bugs, Corvairs and the 356 series, it was like dying and going to heaven. THIS was the car I'd been waiting for all my life. Fast forward to the 930 Turbo. Same thing all over again. Then a wide-body Turbo Speedster conversion. Holy cow. All I'd come to love, brutal power, and wind-in the-face. I recently had the good fortune to drive a Singer reincarnation of the venerable old 911. For me, it's simply the perfect car. Now, if I could only afford one.

Comparing language to a mechanical device is a stretch, at best, but the analogy holds fairly well. Let's take the '57 Corvette as an example. Fuel-injection replaced the previous carburettor (English spelling), performed essentially the same function as the old part, functioned better in some respects, and was bolted together and to the engine with similar hardware (fasteners). The transmission was also upgraded with the substitution of the Borg-Warner T-10 4-speed box, again something that performed essentially the same function as the earlier part, but did it slightly differently and better. It was also held on and held together with the same kinds of fasteners. Is the '57 Corvette not "correct"? Well, only if you hold the '56 version as the perfect example of "Corvetteness". Now let's look at today's C7 Corvette. All the same basic parts are still there, they perform essentially the same function as a whole, but not a single one of them will interchange from a 2016 to a '57...except MANY of the fasteners. The evolution of any system, when things work right, increases the "fitness" of the system (whether car or language or animal) to perform its task efficiently and well, as long as the purpose and function of the system is understood and defined. I insert the caveat "when things work right" because sometimes evolution creates dead-ends. Both the panda and the koala have evolved to rely on a very specific diet. Their evolution has been too narrowly focused, and has created species too specialized to survive for long in a changing environment. Likewise, the evolution of the Corvette has taken it from being a vehicle that was easy to maintain and as reliable a brick for as much as 63 years...assuming it was maintained...to a vehicle that's insanely complicated and heavily dependent on technologies that change so fast as to make it obsolete almost overnight, and WILL make it very difficult to keep running in its present form in another 63 years. Evolution of language should focus on its fitness as a vehicle enabling communication. If a slightly different use of the word "build" is an improvement to the ease with which an idea can be communicated accurately, I see no rational reason to try to block it. On the other hand, office-speak and political-speak exist primarily as means to AVOID actual communication of ideas and thoughts accurately. Those are the things I'd send the language police after.

Mmmmmm...I'm gonna have a dog with Swiss, sauerkraut and dark mustard on black bread for lunch. Swiss IS good with tuna too. On rye. Throw a couple slabs of tomato and some dill pickles on there, a little fresh-ground black pepper, maybe even some jalapenos and just a touch of mustard...tasty.

Many chemicals have a finite shelf-life, and even some materials that require a second component or catalyst will go hard over time, in storage, without mixing. Polyester resin is one example of a material that will do this, especially if it's exposed to atmospheric moisture. Moisture tends to kick silicones too. Also, and unfortunately, many products we use are already close the the end of their shelf-lives by the time we even get them. Materials made for industrial use and divided into smaller-quantity packaging for hobbyists may sit around for a while prior to end-user purchase, and they're also vulnerable to contamination during re-packaging. It bites, but it's just the way of things.

Yeah, that makes my skin crawl. There is already a word for that, ADHERE, which functions correctly for that usage.

Believe me, I see the logic disconnect and I figured you'd probably be the one to bring it up. Maybe I can think of a good analogy for my attitude. OK. Compare language to a well-developed machine. Let's say words are the "parts" of the language, and spelling, punctuation and grammar are the "fasteners" (screws, rivets, bolts, nuts, etc.) that hold it all together and allow it to work right. Sometimes, you can find a new use for an old part (there's even a patent classification for doing just exactly that), but if you're going to expect it to work, you kinda need to attach it to whatever it needs to be attached to with the right fasteners for the job. Fasteners evolve over time too, but usually not as fast as the parts they hold together. And you need to have a solid understanding of the principles of whatever you're working with to have any hope of getting it to work well. If you use deck-screws and nails to try to hold an airplane together, you're going to have a problem...even if you have all the right parts, in all the right places. Same goes for language. (minus 5 points for using the non-word "kinda", even though it appears in several dictionaries and is widely accepted usage)

So by this logic, the language should be frozen at one particular point in time, and not allowed to evolve. And by your own logic, YOUR language is incorrect and certainly "says something about the person who uses it" if your speech and writing were to be heard or read by someone from a hundred years ago. So, at which specific point in time do you propose the language police should freeze English so that everyone, forever and ever, will use it "correctly"? Fifty tears ago? Today? Last month? Evolving word usage doesn't bother me near so much as lazy punctuation, spelling, grammar, and a general inability to communicate ideas clearly...which is increasingly pervasive in our society.

High-handed repression of freedom of artistic expression, if you ask me. I LOVE to see everything covered in colorful scrawls. I think throwing trash everywhere makes a place look more like it's occupied by normal humans too, and not artificially manicured by uptight whitebread types.