Ace-Garageguy

Some of us derive immense satisfaction from building and modifying our own stuff. Even if it takes forever. Different strokes, ya' know? Good frienda mine spent 5 years building a world-class chopped '36 Ford, only to sell it shortly after completion. He's just happier building them than driving them, and doesn't give a rat's backside about going to shows. Hope that's OK with you.

You'd think if it's truly 'interactive" like your heading states, it would send you an e-mail or text to let you know how to thin it. You might try to find a TDS online on the product (technical data sheet) rather than relying on info from people who have no idea what the product actually is. Good luck finding info. It's often helpful to understand the chemistry of a product before you buy it, in order to know what ELSE you're going to need to use it.

Looks OK, still Camaro-y in a fat, bloated Mustang-y kind of way, with a whole passel of unrelated lines, creases and details running every which way...which seems to be the case with most designs these days. Lost what purity there was in the original 'retro' design, obviously just changing stuff kinda randomly to make it seem "newer, better". Yawn.

Definitely capital-C cool. Only thing I'd consider changing is to pull the front wheels just a tad forward...put the front-axle centerline even with the grille shell. Neat little machine, either way.

I'm a home-owners-association nightmare. Have several inoperable cars on the property, actually WORK on them frequently, hang my laundry to dry in the sun and wind, and refuse to paint my mailbox the exact same shade of green as the neighbors. Nah, I'll continue to live in older homes on big lots, built when things were a little different.

Indeed.

Great idea. Everything Ford built from '35 through '40 (and the '41 pickup) is on basically the same frame. Good way to give longer legs to the very nice '40 kit tooling.

AMT was VERY far off concerning the cowl-height of the bodies of all their '32 kits. Never really understood why, as most of the rest of the kit is pretty well scaled. Anyway, the tire cover depicted in the kit was either aftermarket or optional.

Cutting on a particular line or plane depends entirely on what you're trying to achieve. Think it through. Measure and cut carefully and accurately. Measure several times, be sure you understand exactly what you're trying to accomplish...then measure a lot, cut once. Of course, with plastic, you can always fix it, but it's ever so much easier if you get it right the first time.

I agree with the need for a good styrene '26-'27 kit too. The car has been immensely popular as rod material since the beginning of the movement, and has been strangely ignored in styrene. That's why I asked for 2 bodies...one chopped, one stock. Give us only the stock body, guys who won't or can't do their own chops will complain. Give us only chopped, guys like you won't like it. I'd be happy with un-chopped only, as chopping doesn't intimidate me. An accurate starting point would be grand.

Yeah, that old 2-fer Aurora kit was one of my grails...until I got one. Wrong scaling and proportions everywhere. Put it all back in the box to decide whether to correct everything, or build it as-is as some sort of "nostalgia" thing.

You can get good results with Testors enamel rattlecans, but it takes a bit of practice and persistence, as well as patience to allow for things like recoat-windows and full dry-to-polish times (geological).

Both Plastikote and Duplicolor primers are excellent. I'd personally stay away from primers made for craft and household use...if you want professional looking results. The Plastikote and Duplicolor products are made for real-car work, are sandable, and come in several colors and high-build and regular. Primer, especially no-name unknown formulation junk is NOT the place to save money...if you want consistent good results with no primer surprises (like crazing).

No...they're probably just trying to get it right. I'd rather have it late and right than on time and dorky.

A correctly-scaled 1:25 '34 Ford 3-window coupe would be nice. Everything available has serious proportion issues. Do a chopped-body kit built as a highboy, like this. Would nicely complement the '32 and '28 kits. Do a little homework and make the body actually fit the pretty good AMT '34 fenders and guts. Include a stock (non-chopped) body in the box too.

True. Nicely detailed with opening panels and chassis bits, but if you want a very accurate model of a DB, you'll have a lot of work to do. It makes a great start for a cool custom though, as in bill_67's post.

That looks to be some very fine work. Is your intent to 3D print your masters, and then make molds for resin?

I don't think they were officially imported, but my friends father was Air Force, and brought the car back from Germany. It was pretty easy to bring in cars in those days of pre-emissions and crash BS. Living close to an AF base, I saw a lot of unusual (for the US at the time) European cars. Another kid's mom drove a Borgward Isabella cabrio, and somebody had a Humber Super Snipe too.

This is one of the side-by-side setups in the AMT double-dragster kit (not my model). The engines are angled to narrow the whole package (as Roth did on the Mysterion too, even though the Mysterion uses two gearboxes and two rear-end center-sections, as noted above). Bear that in mind if you're going to run carbs. The blowers and /or fuel injection don't care if the engines are angled, but carbs (which have floats in them that have to be more-or-less level) do care. Roth built manifold extensions to level the carbs on the Mysterion.

Yup. Ummm.no. The Challenger has 4 LaSalle 3-speed gearboxes, 1 for each engine, and each gearbox in turn drives through its own Cyclone quick-change. The Showboat has the engines coupled end to end, as you say, and each pair of engines drives through a large champ-car quick-change. The front QC is used as the center-section on a Dodge 4WD truck front axle, to allow steering hubs.

Good man. More money to spend on cars and models.

Exactly.

My understanding is that the B1 can carry at least 30,000 pounds more bomb-load (perhaps as much as 65,000 pounds more), flies almost as fast with the wings swept back, and lands slower with the wings extended...making for an easier aircraft to operate, with much more destructive power (using conventional weapons, anyway). The B-58 was really intended to be a delivery system for a single nuclear weapon, and ICBMs took over the role there. The 58, though highly sophisticated technologically (for the time) and one of the most strikingly beautiful aircraft ever built, was also reputed to be kinda a PITA. To keep the aircraft trimmed required constant shifting of the fuel between tanks...which I seem to recall was done manually by the flight engineer. At mach+, she would be burning a lot of fuel, and trim was critical. I think politics came into the decision to retire the 58s as well, and I was personally very disappointed to see them go. The B1 is an impressive machine up close, but I don't think there will ever be an airplane that looks more the part of America's top-of-the-line bomber than the B-58.

X-actly. They filter better if you oil them too, but they also get a lot more restrictive. And they almost always leak at the lower perimeter of the foam, where it contacts the base-plate.

Man, you've got my record beat. Most I ever billed in one day in my old flat-rate days was 32 hours...and I thought I was hot stuff.