Ace-Garageguy

The way I see it is if you've actually bought ONE copy of the music, whether on vinyl, tape, CD, MP3 or whatever, you've paid for the right to listen to the music an unlimited number of times. If the playback and storage technology changes, and you make an own-use copy, or download one, to take advantage of the new playback or storage technology, I don't see how you've committed any moral breach...at all. The right to listen to a particular piece of music forever doesn't get used up just because the storage and playback technology changes. That's my argument, anyway.

Sorry to hear that, but it's happened to us all. It happened to me on an engine just the other day, so I stripped it and started over. That's always an option.

So, if somebody gave a free jazz concert in a park, and every 5 minutes, sometimes in the middle of a song, some clown came on stage shouting at the top of his lungs how great Tide, or Kia, or some off-the-wall mortgage company was, it just MIGHT kinda take the pleasure of the "free" concert away, ya think?

And so is using AdBlocker, or some of the other software that lets you download music. But I already HAD all this stuff, and I'm NEVER IN 100 YEARS going to buy any of the crapp that's constantly being shoved in my face, so I really don't give a rat's rear about the fine points of morality on this one.

Thanks Austin. I didn't know that.

Don't you mean so I CAN'T listen to music for free? By the way, I've got well over $20k of paid-for music, so I'm not exactly making a habit of trying to get something for nothing. It just used to be nice to be able to listen to stuff there's virtually NO market for without having to buy it all over again (I lost most of my jazz and classical stuff in a burglary many years ago, and I'm sure the mouth-breathing thieves dumpstered most of it)

Beauty is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder. I've seen Future look very good, especially some of Harry's examples, but to my eye, it's just no match for properly done paint-clear, sanded and polished. But my opinion is that most of the time, I've seen it applied over grainy or orange-peeled paint in an attempt the get a no-effort finish, and that's what it usually looks like...to me. Your opinion may vary. Well, if you've shot enamel and you break through the paint while sanding, and then shoot more enamel, you will almost certainly get lifting and wrinkling around the sanded edge...even if the paint has cured well into it's recoat-window. Ask me how I know this.

Used to be able to listen to Miles, Chet Baker, Coltrane, Mingus, etc. on youboob, all albums all the way through. Now every few minutes there's some hysterical blang blang screaming fool or some pre-pubescent twerp nutless marketing moron trying to sell something or other. Yeah, you can "skip ad", but the computer's across the room and the intrusion of the 5-second intro spoils the mood entirely. I guess that's ruined. Have to start buying music again.

Not actually "on the road" either, but "on the street". The streets around the square in my little town are blocked off for a 3-day art festival, and I saw dozens of really pretty girls. Man, sure makes it a drag to be old and decrepit.

I LIKE it.

Almost everything I needed at the grocery store was on sale, "buy one, get one free", and the store lets you have just one for half-price. I saved enough just in one trip to buy a model. Gotta love it.

I agree entirely...

Greg...I'm really curious about those headers in post #7. They defy everything I ever learned about equal primary-pipe length, bringing primaries in to a collector, length and diameter of collector, and one pair of primaries is actually behind the crossover, etc. Granted, I haven't actually designed a set of headers in over 10 years, but either the science has changed considerably since then (and I no longer know what I'm doing) or the designer of these headers doesn't have a clue. So, please sir, what's the story behind these?

I first started paying attention to Australian cars (probably like a lot of Americans) after the first Mad Max movie. I've particularly liked some of the ute variants we never see here, and especially the one Aussie car we DID get...the 2004-2006 GTO based (i think) on your Holden V2 / Vz Monaro. Absolutely brilliant car, and sounds just perfect.

So I guess there really is no-free-lunch?

Nice thorough review and pix, and it's really heartening to learn that Revell expended the effort and $$ to correct the faults, AND is issuing the kit with up-content decals and PE. This is a car I really had no particular interest in previously...though it's a good looking design and I even owned a 1:1 for a short time, I guess I just saw too many of them back when they were current. However, this new release is just begging me to get one (or a few)...in part to show appreciation to Revell for making the changes...and I'm thinking it would make a really trick, lightly-chopped pro-touring car.

I've encountered persistent tales of FE-based quad-cam engines, but I've never even seen a photo of one. There have been quite a few other Ford-based DOHC engines though, including a conversion for the flathead, done in the 1950s, and a more recent version done with a belt drive...

I think you'll like Duplicolor. You get a lot in a can, it's easy to handle, there's a WIDE selection of colors, and it produces excellent results. The green Oldsmobile hood in my post #9 is Duplicolor rattlecan over Plasticoat primer (very similar to Duplicolor primer, which also gives excellent results). The green hood is EXACTLY as it looked after spraying with NO sanding or polishing. After a few days, it lost a little gloss as it shrunk in, but a light polish brought the gloss up better than in the photo. Remember that every model painter has techniques he's developed from trial and error over time, and what we say here is only a guide, each based on his OWN experience. That's why some things may seem to be contradictory, but all I know for sure is what actually works for me, over and over and over, and what I have pictures of to illustrate. I'll put up a little more info about what works best for ME this afternoon when I have more time.

As a pilot, you should know better than to fall into that. I've had my share of brain farts, but I really, actively try to learn from them and catch myself BEFORE I do something stupid. THINK. It only takes a second to kill a kid, permanently injure or cripple someone, or set the house on fire. Stupid people doing stupid things is understandable. I mean, they're too stupid to know better, right? SMART people (and pilots are usually at least a little smarter than average) really have no good excuse. ''

It's about 220.000 miles. The 2.0 engine is interference, but the 2.4 isn't (valves don't hit pistons but they MAY hit each other, depending on engine speed at the instant the belt fails). There's a lot of mis-information about these on the web, just like most things. The worst part of the job is the idiotic engine mount / timing cover design that requires FAR more dis-assembly than would have been necessary if the PT engineers had ever bothered to look at how the rest of the world designed transverse-engine mounts for DOHC engines. The downside of this job is that the last wizards who did a belt on the thing also did a head gasket, and apparently used a Chinese "exact replacement", didn't get the block and head mating surfaces perfectly clean, or incorrectly torqued the head. The head gasket has been leaking combustion gas into the coolant for over a year now, but I've managed to keep it contained. I'll be doing the head gasket as well, a quick valve-job, etc. while I'm in it.

Good to make that distinction. Course, you can always bolt your cutouts or dumps to side or lakes pipes, and then it gets really confusing from a pure-definition standpoint.

Well, so much for best-laid plans gang aft agley. I'll be spending the rest of the weekend doing a timing belt on a PT Cruiser...a beeyotch of a job and the SECOND time this particular friend has let the belt go WAY beyond the replace-interval, resulting in failure in the middle of the road.

Thanks Glenn ! Yes, that body DOES look very very good. Just what I needed to know. I've got some no-body AMT donor kits that became slotcars or hopelessly mutilated top-chops in the wayback.

I still run into people afraid to use (fill in the blank: enamel, resin, fiberglass, BMF, fractions, 2-part filler, measuring in scale, spell-check, etc.) and don't want to be bothered by learning...

I don't mean to be argumentative, but any decent-quality paint will give excellent results if you learn to use it correctly. Lacquer is very forgiving of technique and dries hard and fast, so wet-sanding and polishing work very well to bring up a maximum gloss. Enamel works well for getting a gloss straight out of the can. (I freely admit Testors enamels can be frustrating, as they sometimes do like to bubble for absolutely no apparent reason, and they take forever to dry enough to sand and polish...if you shoot from the cans... but the problems CAN be overcome with patience and practice) This body was shot with cheap hardware-store rattle-can black lacquer, lightly sanded and polished. The WHEELS were shot with Testors ENAMEL (directly from the can) precisely because it self-glosses and there is NO WAY to sand and polish wheels. I needed something that would gloss itself. The results speak for themselves. Learning to shoot your paint wet enough to slick-out and self-level, whether lacquer OR enamel, will save you hours and hours of tedious and repetitive wet-sanding. This is the body above, just-shot. Notice the orange-peel is almost non-existent. And this is what your paint should look like AFTER the orange-peel has been leveled, prior to sanding with finer and finer grits and polishing to get the gloss back...