Ace-Garageguy

Yes grasshopper, one must learn to let go of harmful attachments...

Pilot Ray...exactly what I used to install on the big expensive "real" classics when I was in the resto end of the biz. Far as the sealed beam thing goes, because the Fed regs specified "sealed beam" headlamps once they were finally adopted, the vastly superior separate-bulb halogen lamps the Europeans were using were illegal here for many years. I have been ticketed eons ago for running Lucas, Cibie and Marchal halogens on my own cars when they were still verboten.

I have installed what I was told (by supposed vintage car experts) were accurate reproductions of 1930s aftermarket steering-driving-lights, connected via linkage to the vehicle's tie rod, on 1930s Duesenbergs. Apparently these systems were available to retrofit way back then, if not available from the manufacturer.

While these are all neato keen feats of technology, their having a "huge impact" is debatable, from my own perspective anyway. I've been driving over 50 years, much of the time in very high performance and/or evil handling vehicles...none of which were equipped with any of these bells and whistles...and so far, I haven't hit anything. Knock on wood. Vastly improved crash/crush performance (absorbing energy with the vehicle structure's progressive collapse) and airbags (protecting the occupants from impact with objects and surfaces inside the vehicle, and managing the decelerative forces on heads to reduce secondary brain injuries) have indeed had a "huge" impact. Far as some of the other "safety" systems go, I will always feel they are compensating for inattentive, unskilled drivers who shouldn't really be operating vehicles anyway. If you slow down in the rain, allow plenty of space between you and the next vehicle, actually have some clue as to how control a vehicle (beyond standing on the brakes and blowing the horn in an emergency situation), match your speed to the weather, traffic and road conditions in general, and above all...PAY ATTENTION...then radar/computer controlled brakes and complex "accident avoidance systems" are entirely unnecessary. All the "safety" stuff sends a message that taking personal responsibility for intelligently driving your vehicle is not required, and that the technology will save you when you do something really really stupid. The old phrase I've heard over and over and over..."the car wrecked"...says it all.

I'd sure as h buy that.

It sure as jell does on real cars. I shot an acrylic urethane over a fully-cured acrylic urethane that had been shot over some cheapo (also fully-cured) mystery primer on a Pantera. When my fresh paint hit the properly-prepared recoat areas, the old topcoat wrinkled as if I'd hosed it down with hot paint stripper. It took just about every trick I knew to get the new paint to lay down over the old stuff, and that included stripping all the wrinkled areas to bare metal and starting fresh, plus GENTLY blending all over the rest of the car. No profit on that job.

zero...

Nice looking deviled eggs. Makin' me hungry. I bet they're really really good, too. Did the Easter Bunny lay them?

Improved crush performance in severe crashes and airbags have made the most significant statistical reductions in the highway death toll per million driver miles. Air bags became necessary primarily because drivers refused to use seatbelts responsibly. The 5mph bumper standard was reduced to 2.5 mph in 1982, and is now 2 mph, as the 5 mph version turned out to be much more costly to repair in higher-speed impacts, and the insurance companies didn't like that. Vehicles now handle and stop better than ever before, but drivers are still mostly incompetent because the requirements for getting a license in this country are a joke. Right now, an onboard cell-phone / text message disabler would have the greatest impact on saving lives and preventing accidents, particularly among younger drivers. Of course, superior crash / crush performance and better all-around handling and braking are very good things, but our great leaders, in a misguided attempt to protect us from ourselves and eliminate ANY need for driving-proficiency or personal-responsibility behind the wheel, come up with idiot things like rear-view cameras and displays, which will be required on ALL cars as of 2018, will add more cost and complexity to EVERY car purchased new, and still will only save a tiny number of lives...assuming drivers actually LOOK at the damm display before backing over the grandchildren.

Nice surgery.

Lotsa Beetlebugs run similar carbs. If the model is scaled close to correctly, getting them shoehorned in there shouldn't bee too hard.

There are pins and sockets that align the upper panels correctly with the lower body. Put the pins in the holes, the door lines all line up dead on. I just checked two different issues to make sure.

I wondered which one of you guys would notice first. I like pie too, by the way.

Keep your sense of humor, Scott. I certainly wasn't "attacking" you...only a little gentle "nit-picking". You wanna see "personal attacks"? Read what I've been called on here. If you're gonna call people names...

Nice job routing all that turbo plumbing over-under-around-and-through the suspension and frame. Good stuff.

Looks like a very clean build. Sure is one we don't see very often. Well done.

Great lookin' little Bug. I like the narrow whites / big wheels / disc brakes.

Happy holidays? Is it Christmas again already? Man, how time flies when you're having fun.

Shaping up nicely. Clean work on that colorful engine.

Sadly, I think that this is a question only experimentation will answer. If the Scale Finishes paint is hotter than what Tamiya's primer will block, and if Scale Finishes primer has been formulated to deal with this specific issue, then...yes. Lotsa ifs in there. You may have to modify your color application process, shooting very light coats (which I try to avoid because of the potential for getting grainy orange-peel).

I had an '87 El Camino for a couple of years and rather liked it. Nice car interior for dates, car handling, low...like a car...big enough bed to actually haul something bulky...pretty useful vehicle if you only have one and sometimes need a truck, but don't want to drive one every day. And I'd buy another OLD one before I'd buy a new bells-and-electronic-whistles laden, over-complicated and heavy new one.

The patterns, or "swirls" (the lines that indicate where the plastic hesitated flowing during mold-filling) in the surface are a dead giveaway that there's crazing of the plastic itself going on under the primer. If the primer is not a sufficient barrier, you shoot the color on the "wet" side, and the solvent in the paint is on the "hot" side, you'll get this effect...especially these days as manufacturers continue to experiment with cheaper and cheaper grades of polystyrene that is increasingly LESS solvent resistant. If this were my own model, I'd be madder than hell, because both your paint products SHOULD be entirely compatible with Fujimi's plastic. If there is indeed crazing of the plastic, as it appears to me to be 100% the case, stripping will only uncover bare crazed plastic. If this were my own model, I'd try building up lightish coats of color over what's already there, with plenty of flash time in between. You may be able to fill the crazing, sand it all slick, and apply a wet flow coat over the top as usual. Notice this identical appearance, and the line on the door. Dead giveaway. (This model, not mine, is on the Drastic Plastics board, and is said to have been painted with Scale Finishes too. No mention of what primer, if any, was used. It's a Monogram model, and some of their and Revell's kits are VERY sensitive to solvents too these days.)

They appear to be "anti-roll bars". Some people call them "sway-bars" but that's not technically correct. Also called a "stabilizer bar", essentially, an anti-roll bar is a transverse torsion bar that is allowed to pivot in bushings bolted to the chassis, while the ends are connected to the ends of the axle(s) with links. They can be used on solid axles, as in your model, or independent suspension as shown below. The purpose is to resist leaning, or "roll", as a vehicle traverses a turn.

Not if one of 'em has a big enough hammer...

Sorry dude...but you've just defined yourself as one of those "big nitpickers". Welcome to the club.