Ace-Garageguy

With the apparently widespread low level of reading comprehension, it's not surprising you'd think that.

You obviously have mediocre language and comprehension skills, as that's not the point of my post at all. And accepting mediocrity in everything is only the beginning of the end of the world as we know it.

Great looking gaggle o' cars.

I've read it through several times and comprehend exactly every word, phrase and nuance. Dave's words do not address this particular issue: major...dimensions...incorrect. Or if you believe they do, please be so kind as to direct us to the sentence, phrase or paragraph that does so. This is the ONLY issue of complaint that any of the reasonable posters here have had of the industry in general: major...dimensions...incorrect.

I as yet know next to nothing about airbrushes, and I wouldn't presume to give advice as to which ones were worthwhile. I DO have vast experience with tools in general however, and buying quality tools that are built to last always makes sense if your goal is to produce good work with minimum frustration. There are several highly experienced airbrush users on the forum who have contributed much good information. Here's one thread. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=81390&hl=%2Bair+%2Bbrush+%2Breviews Here's another one... http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=94993&hl=%2Bair+%2Bbrush#entry1290409

Great in-depth review. I think this is one area where it's better to save up and buy a good airbrush without niggling design flaws like the O-ring, rather than having to frequently compensate for poor design, sloppy machining and questionable long-term reliability and durability.

Interesting possibilities. Thanks for the heads-up.

It takes a while sometimes to recover from major life upsets like that. Glad you're back in building-mode.

Yup. Exceptionally clean, square, and well-fitted. Very nice.

Interesting question in semantics. In-depth knowledge of a subject, especially first-hand knowledge, has never been a prerequisite to folks having strong opinions on the subject, and arguing about them with much energy. Oh oh. Now I'm probably going to be labeled "anti-semantic".

Wow. SERIOUS H-power !!!

Right. Who in his right mind would EVER want to see anything like this??

And in my ignorance, I always thought Fiat was an Italian company...

This is the kind of thinking that will return manufacturing jobs and the good wages that support a strong middle class to America. And THIS (excerpted from above) is the kind of thinking that put America on the map in the first place: " I wear several hats in my job. I took it upon myself to learn a lot of the processes and procedures of our manufacturing when we were still a 50 person shop. When the economy went bust and overseas outsourcing became reality, I did not get laid off because I proved my worth by learning all the machinery and departments. " Exactly. A critical analysis and understanding of the big picture is necessary. Endlessly saying "it can't be done" and irrelevancies like "Maybe the model companies can get the US taxpayers to help them with the costs of the software and 3D printer like taxpayers did for NASA." accomplishes nothing. EVERYTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL SOMEONE MAKES IT HAPPEN.

I have a couple nominations.

Here's his build thread... http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=96752

If the design work and tooling are done stateside and done RIGHT, the tools can be shipped to China for production. Honest, once the CAD work is done, cutting tools is not the major expense. Basically, you feed the data into the CNC machines, and they do the work. Sometimes while everyone is sleeping. There's a bulkhead in the F-22 that's carved from a 700 pound billet. The finished part weighs something less than 70 pounds. Maybe 35...it's been a while. The scrap metal that's left on the floor is almost worth more than it costs to cut the part out. OR. a pre-production set of tools can be cut here, test-shots made, and the verified CNC tooling files transmitted to China to be cut on compatible CNC machines there. That's the way we did it on a vibration-absorbing handle I collaborated on. And as far as 3D printing to verify design work goes...pre tool-cutting...the resolution of the big industrial machines is staggering now, and getting better and better and better. What were limitations just a couple of years ago are dead as dodos now.

Here's a handy thread, Miles. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=94794&hl=%2Bradius+%2Bwheel+%2Bopenings

It's always much easier to accept that it's impossible to do things differently, or to do things that haven't been done, than it is to find a way to make them work. Kinda handy for everyone that folks like the Wrights kept on trying to accomplish what everyone else KNEW was impossible. I'm not suggesting that Americans work for Chinese wages. There are many ways to control costs, and one way I've found that works is to hire exceptionally competent people who get a lot of money, but who get things done FAST, and done RIGHT the first time. That can very often be cheaper than hiring lower-wage folks who aren't really as good at their jobs as they could be. I've proven this multiple times to my own satisfaction.

And that's the standard response. But I'm just not convinced YET that there's no cost-effective way to do all the work here. If US companies with the capability are starving for work, prices for said work become more plastic (pardon the pun), and the cost of highly skilled labor in China continues to rise, as do shipping costs and costs associated with lag-times and correcting mistakes due to multi-language and multi-culture communication problems.

And somehow, American manufacturing has been almost totally convinced that the ONLY way to control costs is by offshore outsourcing of the highly-skilled parts of the production cycle. It's a monkey-see, monkey-do situation to some degree...one company's bean counters seem to make it work, so everyone piles on the bandwagon and throws all the skilled Americans who COULD do the work to the wolves. What's interesting to me is that, as my old engineering company still wheezes and rattles along in its final death throes, I'm constantly deluged by American injection molding companies wanting to do prototyping to full-scale production for us, and just begging me to send them drawings or projects for quotes. After the first of the year, I hope to be able to talk at length with some of these folks and see if they're actually doing the work here, or if it's all outsourced. I have a sneaking suspicion there IS the capability to do this stuff in the US, because I just happened to run across a supplier of styrene pellets for injection molding almost literally in my own back yard, while I was searching for "plastics" suppliers for an entirely different material. If they're selling the pellets HERE, chances are good there's injection-molding capability not too far away. Could they be cost effective? Who knows, but time is money, and lag times created by language barriers doing it the way everyone seems to think is the ONLY way are a factor to consider.