Ace-Garageguy

Like 'em all...but I LOVE the little Cessna. Everything. The oil, the chips in the paint on the cowlings, spinner and leading edges...and MAN, the WATER!! I've seen a lot of model water over the years...used to do HO railroads...and I'm certain your water texture is the best I've ever seen. Looks like a windy chop, and maybe a boat has just gone by and the wake is bouncing off of the outboard float. Motion captured beautifully. But I'm curious. Your airplane has both US and Canadian registration numbers. I wasn't aware that was allowed (I honestly don't know the regs for this, I just have never seen it before). Just FYI: Your US registration N-number N-172MC comes up as a good number in use for a Cessna 172. No surprise there. But C-GFFV comes up as a Canadian-registered Robinson R-44 helicopter.

All your careful detail work is looking really good.

Building this for the last year and a half...'47 Caddy convert, LS-1, 4L80-E, custom Ford 9" rear with 11" brakes, GM G-body front frame clip, lowered about 3" all around, dual-piston front calipers on 12" vented rotors, leather seats and console from a '14 Caddy, massive VintageAir system, nav-HD-radio-pod dock-CD-etc, power everything, HID and LED lighting. Dash, console and door-caps will be woodgrained. Color...candy apple red over a gold base.

Engineers NEED to learn basic machining operations MANUALLY, to get a feel for what the machining processes do, and exactly WHAT can be machined, and what CAN'T. The computer program CAN NOT compensate for a mechanically-ignorant operator. I constantly see production parts that are stupidly designed, and obviously designed by people who have NEVER had any hands-on or field experience with anything. It's pathetic. When I was an ME major at Georgia Tech, we had to learn basic machining operations as part of the curriculum....so we would know how to design parts that could actually be made, and wouldn't fail prematurely from things like inside radii being too sharp. 30 years later, when I hired engineering interns from the same school, they no longer had the hands-on requirement...and it showed in a widespread inability to grasp simple mechanical operations. A couple of them learned a lot working for me, and thanked me for the opportunity. A couple others left, practically in tears.

I'm interested in early Hot Rods. PM me what you have from the '60s if you want.

Very pleasing proportions too.

Is this basically the same or similar to Kosutte Ginsan powder?

To me, the E-type roadster is the epitome of sports-car design, and one of the most beautiful 'things' ever made by humans. Because of that, I'd spring for a Pocher 1/8 Jag. I have some other large-scale models, but no Pocher yet, primarily because the subjects, though interesting, aren't on my favorites list. The E-type is.

i was hoping to see showgirls being interrogated. Oh well.

Thanks for the heads-up. We'll be socked in here for sure. Bugger.

Good looking build. The flathead looks very much at home there, for sure.

Yes, the second poster above, Ken Boyer, recommended stretching a "satin" fabric over the model part and spraying paint through it, a scale carbon-look 'mask' if you will. That's what I was questioning... specifically what type of "satin" fabric the poster used to produce the slightly textured affect in his photo. Real carbon parts come finished in essentially 3 ways: 1) The "flat", no gloss and slightly textured finish is mainly seen on REAL race-car parts, under the vehicle or hidden. Carbon is stiff, and has to be sucked into molds under vacuum to follow curves. If the mold is NOT coated with a clear-gloss gelcoat prior to the carbon layup and vacuum-bagging, the surface texture of the carbon fiber weave remains visible. Carbon-fiber is employed for it's light weight as well as its rigidity. Glossy gelcoat is considered to be unnecessary weight in some applications. 2) A somewhat glossier finish is achieved when a clear gelcoat is applied to the mold before the carbon is laid in and vacuumed. Clear gelcoat is used to seal the weave of the carbon to enhance ease of painting without needing to add multiple coats of heavy filler-primers. Depending on the complexity of the parts produced, a good looking glossy finish can be obtained for visible locations. 3) The very high-gloss cosmetic and showcar parts are often produced by applying multiple coats of clears AFTER the parts have been removed from the molds. This adds weight that would be considered undesirable for a pure competition vehicle, but it looks great. Carbon is so much lighter than the alternatives that the clear-coat weight-penalty may still be considered worth the additional effort.

A little clarification is still needed here. 1) Far as "muscle" and "pony" cars handling goes, they weren't stellar right off the showroom floor, and I'm sorry I gave you that impression. ALL the US cars of the day were set up to understeer initially, with nose-heavy configurations for the most part. They didn't really handle badly, but they weren't as crisp and tossable as European cars of the same period. BUT...the suspension designs under the cars were actually pretty good, and with relatively minor adjustments to spring and shock stiffness, ride height, tires, and in some cases relocating the pivot-points of the front control arms, they could be made to handle very well, corner quite flat, respond predictably, and deliver good lateral-acceleration numbers...like the cars in the video clip. 2) It's not at all accurate to blame GMOs and chemical additives for America's obesity problem (though blaming everything except the actual cause is very popular). I'm anywhere between 20 and 30 pounds overweight myself, and the simple truth is that I eat more calories than I burn off, period. If you eat more than you need, you get fat. It's very simple. Even though I have a job that's physically demanding, I don't burn enough calories to lose the extra blubber. Outside exercise is required, and I usually find an excuse to postpone it. With more and more Americans making their livings sitting in front of computer screens, and the availability of cheap high-calorie snack foods to munch on at the desk, it's no wonder upwards of 70% of the population is overweight today, and 35% are actually clinically obese. Which brings up an interesting point from my own experience: When I'm on the computer surfing the web, watching movies, or even visiting this site, I'm inclined to have something to eat frequently. But when I'm at the bench and building a model (or working on a 1:1 vehicle), I get so engrossed in what I'm doing that I go for hours without a snack, and don't miss them, at all.

If your photo is up on another site, you should be able to do a simple, standard "copy and paste" into the text box here without bothering with the "insert other media" thingie. Works for me, anyway.

...Yeah, but I live in paralyzing fear that if I tell 'em all to go to H., then NOBODY will come to my funeral.

Now that's funny...and true for me on SO many levels.

A lot of these carved-in-stone definitions were apparently agreed on long after the time the cars were actually being built and horsed around by people like me. I wasn't party to the committee that officially named them...nor do I have any interest in arguing about it. The officially designated "muscle cars" had suspensions almost identical to, and sharing parts and geometries in many cases with, their "pony car" stable mates. To make a blanket statement that muscle cars were totally incapable of road-course use is just wrong...and that's what I was responding to. With relatively minor mods, the old boats CAN be made to handle very respectably. Ad uh...oh yeah...if you go the full pro-touring route and take some weight out, you can make them handle as well as anything on the planet. I'd kinda forgotten that the original idea behind this old build of mine was to do an outlaw street-racer suitable for a video game...trying to make it appeal to both ends of the age spectrum simultaneously, ya' know?

I'm a very bad bad ignorant man for using that term incorrectly. Thank you for teaching me the one and only true meaning of the term "muscle car".

Old "friends" who ONLY call me when they NEED something, always starting the conversation with "I wanted you to know I was thinking about you" and always segueing into "listen to me whine for hours" or "can you look at / listen to / fix my car?"

Tru dat. One of my most disturbing realizations is that I'd have to be netting $2500 per week now to be able to afford what I could when I was making $250 per week.

Agreed.

Attended lots of submarine races in my youth. Not so much now. Really got in the way of most other optional activities though. Never was much of a snipe hunter after the first time.

Ummm...the "last century" was only 15 years and some change back. It's not as if we're going to see matter-transfer booths as ubiquitous personal transportation any time soon.

Man Dan, beautiful part of the world you live in. Glad to see you out enjoying it. Love the 4X4 camper / boat / ATV rig. Man. Nice.

I think there is a flaw in some folks' perceptions that all muscle cars were evil handling barges incapable of road-course work. The 1969 Trans Am series was quite something to watch, with Z-28 Camaros, Boss 302 Mustangs and assorted Pontiac, AMC and even the occasional Mopar products all battling head to head on some of the most demanding road circuits in the world. And notice please...these guys are 'drifting'...not slowboating-showboating drifting, but balls-out fastest-way-around-the-course drifting. NOTE: Historical trivia. At the time these films were shot, most Americans were not grossly overweight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0OOSQPXT8