Ace-Garageguy

I believe both "nature" and "nurture" figure significantly in the formation of a personality, and each individual personality favors one or the other. But I still maintain that in general, most female human minds are wired differently from most male minds, just as left-handers are wired differently from right-handers, and some folks are born with great musical talent while other's cant distinguish music from noise. There's a compelling body of empirical evidence to suggest that some characteristics are indeed hard-wired (many of them depending on "gender"), including sexual preference. The women I've known who particularly appreciated my involvement with machinery were almost invariably from families where the dad or brother was heavily into cars or aircraft, so that's an indication of "conditioning" to be receptive to the hobby or interest in one's mate, but it's no guarantee the girl in question will want to get out in the shop and start getting filthy. EDIT: I HAVE known women who deviated far from what's expected. I was with a girl for several years who was an aerospace engineering major at Ga.Tech. She had a MUCH easier time with calculus than I did. She was in Air Force ROTC, and went on to become a pilot. Interesting girl, but not at all typical

Sadly, no. And they really won't dig you if you build real cars either...but if you can afford to buy a new Porsche, you're in like Flint. There are SOME women who are turned on by competence in anything, whether it's building models, real ones, carpentry, art, or playing the piano. But you have to find a woman who has an independently functioning mind, and who doesn't like what everybody else likes, just because. Good luck with that.

This is really fascinating to me, because I've been listening to feminists whining for the past 40 years about how women are discriminated against in the tech and engineering sectors, as evidenced by the relatively few women working IN those sectors. The REAL truth, as Richard stated so simply, is that the vast majority of females have zero innate interest in mechanical and techy things, and the ones who do (and I have actually known a few) are exceedingly rare. And I don't think it has anything to do with little girls being forced to play with Barbie and little boys being forced to play with trucks. Just watch small children and notice what they seem to be hard-wired to notice, depending on what sex they are.

I bet that poor truck is SO embarrassed to have people see it like that...

Thanks for thinking of me. As critical as I've been of the industry on occasion, I'd really enjoying getting the opportunity to help things. Almost nothing I'd rather do than work for Revell, but I've trapped myself where I am for the foreseeable future. A full-scale machine shop at the house, plus multiple project cars would make moving to Chicago completely out of the question. I moved everything fairly recently, about one mile, and it took months. Sure would be a dream-gig though. These are the jobs on offer: Design Engineer Seeking an experienced Design Engineer to create new products for our line of plastic model kits. As a Design Engineer: Manage projects to achieve critical milestone targets. Create product concept design and exploded view drawings. Create 3D CAD models and 2D part drawings with detailed dimensions and tolerance. Assist with selection of materials for new products. Create Bill of Material lists for manufacturing. Validate product designs utilizing rapid prototyping techniques and tools. Assure products adhere to licensing and product safety testing requirements. Research subject matter to accurately design products. Communicate with manufacturers during tool construction and product qualification. Consult with quality and technical staff during validation of tooling and first production. Key Requirements for the position: Bachelors' degree in Engineering or related field. Experience with injection molded plastic part design and complex assemblies. Previous CAD design experience (ProE Creo preferred). Ability to manage multiple projects at once and meet deadlines. Other desired qualifications: Experience with injection mold tooling and rapid prototyping techniques. Experience in scale modeling industry. Technical Manager Looking for an experienced manager to lead our Technical team. This is a unique opportunity to work with the best model development team in the business. As Technical Manager: Lead and prioritize work for the department and maintain project log Lead testing and evaluation for new products Evaluate development samples for function, appearance and quality vs. intended design Create test summary documentation for engineering and manufacturing department feedback Maintain safety testing records and lead safety qualification via 3rd party testing labs Perform quality reviews of existing products Lead prototype creation with inside and outside resources Create and validate Bill of Material lists for manufacturing Key Requirements for the position: Previous leadership experience Ability to prioritize and organize work Strong written and verbal communication skills Strong Excel and Word skills Ability to read and interpret engineering drawings Strong experience with model building Strong attention to detail Other desired qualifications: Associates of Science in technical field. Familiar with injection mold tooling and molding process

Wow. Incredibly realistic. Couple of those shots are almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Great work.

Very nice pair of models. Inspiring, too.

Another product I HIGHLY recommend is Invisible Glove. I've used it for many years, it really works, and even keeps grease and dirt from getting in your fingerprints and under your nails. It's non-greasy after it's applied, and washes off with soap and water (taking all the grime with it). It also seems to contain skin conditioners. I've been working outside a lot this winter, and by this time I usually have painful splits somewhere. Not so far this year (My outside winter work is usually not car / mechanical, so I usually don't use the Invisible Glove. This year, I've been doing heavy engine work outside, and have been using the IG to deal with grease getting ground into my hands.)

"...The second set of pics... includes it side by side the AMT 53 ford pickup stock engine. Is one more accurate than the other or do they look different because one is for a pickup?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ While there are some visible differences between a 239 cubic inch '53 Ford pickup flathead and a 239 C.I. '53 car flathead (most obviously the oil pan shape), the engines are largely identical, and the basic blocks and heads should appear so. The variation in appearance between the two model engines is simply the unfortunate result of less-than-perfect scaling by somebody during the model design phase (though the Lindberg version is equipped with an automatic trans). ​The Lindberg engine is just a little short, lengthwise, but looks very good when built. This is a real one.

Thanks for the E6000 tip, Tim. I'm needing something exactly like that.

Man, that transporter is really looking great. Nice work. Very nice.

Hokay...the Ardun engine has nice headers, but they won't work for this one. Happy for me, the old AMT double-T-kit Lincoln engine headers have perfect port-spacing, and long megaphones too. The engine is located in the correct position by the rear crossmember under the gearbox. The headers are mocked up, and the frame is marked for position. Then the marks will be transferred to the hood sides for cutting clearance slots. The mockup also lets me make sure the 4-link bars and bracket will clear.

"Udderly SMooth Udder Cream is a water-based moisturizer. Udderly SMooth is greaseless, stainless, with a light, fresh fragrance. Originally developed for use on dairy cows, Udderly SMOOth , in recent years, the general public has become aware of Udderly SMOOth Udder Cream. They use Udderly SMOOth as an everyday multi-purpose beauty aid due to its rich moisturizing ingredients and performance in softening dry, thirsty skin. Long lasting 12 oz jar" I mean, think about it... Moo.

Sounds good, but to get an accurate center it has to be a square square, and it might be a little fiddly to do with a 1/8 inch disc already punched out. His best bet, by far, is going to be to use a template similar to the drafting tool shown above, with holes just the right size for his dots to drop into. Then he can lightly draw lines continuing the lines on the template, and where they intersect, presto. Really gotta watch line thickness on things as small as 1/8 inch, too...if you want accurate centers anyway.

Everything looks great. Love the engine especially.

I like the way the finished headlights look much better on the Revellogram kit than the AMT version. The Revell body is reasonably well proportioned, but it has mold parting lines on the sides that can be a lot of work to get gone without wrecking the character lines that are supposed to be there. I'm not wild about the big-block engine in the Revell version either. It has some really wonky angles on the heads where the headers go, and a couple other things I've forgotten. The chrome valve covers are very nice, however. This is my build of the Revellogram kit, with a 3" top chop. The AMT kit looks to me (though I don't have one on the shelf at the moment) to have some oddly exaggerated not-correct sculpting on the body sides, judging from pix of built kits. Here's more shots of this champagne metallic one built by Túlio Lazzaroni (below) on this forum. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/?showtopic=84581 This is the real car. Notice the very subtle sculpting of the fender bulges, which is not like the AMT kit pictured above.

I realized I had apparently been sick for a couple of days, and not just getting real old all of a sudden.

Forecast 12 deg. F tomorrow night and below freezing for a couple days afterwards. Just a little irksome as I still don't have the main heat in the house going, and I'll have to turn off the water, as the pipes under the house are not insulated yet either...and there's not time to do it right now. Kinda like living 3rd-world style.

Yup. Pretty. Really pretty.

This is the simplest method I know of to find the center of a circle, and I use it frequently in the fab shop. All you need is a compass and a straight-edge. You don't even have to measure anything. Unfortunately however, your circles are way too small to make this practical. http://www.mathopenref.com/constcirclecenter.html

Here's a pretty good article on the design and development of the LS engine. http://www.netmotive.net/articles/hib/ls1c.html While the port spacing is similar to some Fords, the bore-spacing is exactly the same as the old smallblock Chebby (even though the LS was a clean-sheet-of-paper design otherwise) and the LS shares bellhousing bolt-patterns with its predecessor too. If you recall, the old big-block Chebby also used even exhaust-port spacing from the get-go. Development of the LS began as a stand-alone engine series (not based on the older design) in early 1993, and the first prototypes were running on the dynos by the spring of that year. While Ford guys may want to say the LS engine had things copied from Ford, the truth about engine design is that what makes horsepower (with decent emissions and fuel economy) is well known by ALL the competent engine designers on the planet, and combustion chamber shape and porting are the most important factors overall. Quoting now from the above-referenced article "All previous, production Chevrolet V8 heads have two distinct intake and exhaust port designs. A unique feature of the LS1 head is what GM calls "replicated" ports. Each intake port is exactly same and each exhaust port is exactly the same. This eliminates combustion inconsistencies between cylinders due to variance in port flow quality and quantity." This exact equality of each combustion and inlet-exhaust tract is critical in producing clean horsepower. And as engines these days are designed first in CAD, using state-of-the-art computer modeling (like CFD, computational fluid dynamics, to simulate gas flow through ports) with today's technology, it's fairly quick to go from computer model to running prototype, and to make development changes. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE, of which I'm a member) is the publisher and repository of almost everything known about internal combustion engine design, the body of knowledge is constantly being updated by papers and presentations supplied by the member engineers, and all of the research and knowledge in the field is easily accessed. It's no particular surprise, then, if more than one design team comes up with some similar solutions.

That's generally referred to as "sarcasm", Cameron. sar·casm ˈsärˌkazəm/ noun the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.

i honestly think it works well enough as-is. The only gripe I've ever had is the thing about rodded or custom trucks that would be feature articles in 1:1 custom or rod CAR magazines being relegated to the truck section, where the less ambitious mouse scrollers may not get to them. Not really a life-changing deal, either way. Putting the questions/ answers / tips sections higher up, as in Casey's layout, might save the mods having to reposition quite so many posts, as it wouldn't take so much horrific wrist-finger-eye-strain scrolling down through the list of topics to find the appropriate Q&A headings. But maybe not.

Thanks to all, again, for your interest. I'm having fun with this one and really want to finish it before I get going on something else.

Past 275,000 on my '92 Chevy truck. The guy in the story must not drive much. Only major work she's needed so far was a trans rebuild at about 225,000. Love the quote from the article too..."Then again, who would buy it at this point?" Guess to be an automotive journalist it's not necessary to be aware there are literally millions of people who buy old 'junk' vehicles every year.