Ace-Garageguy

"Clear" (other than floor wax) is just paint with no colored pigment in it, so adhesion isn't really an issue. Paint will stick to other properly-prepared paint. If you do the lights with acrylic, I would suggest you do them after clearing (if you use paint clear), as like Harry said, using acrylic, you can just wash a mistake off the car and do-over.

An acquaintance of mine was lamenting just yesterday that his wife had backed their mommy-van into the garage with the rear door wide open, peeling back the roof on the van and destroying the roll-up garage door. He was seriously talking about suing the manufacturer of the van because it didn't have some kind of moron-warning horn, voice or interlock-device that would prevent reversing if the rear door was too high to clear overhead obstructions. Two more idiots (husband and wife) who always need someone else to blame for their simple LACK OF PAYING ATTENTION, and HAVING A CLUE AS TO WHAT THEY'RE DOING. I'm sure when she called to tell him, her first words were "the CAR wrecked".

Love that black roadster with the Moon caps. She'd be perfect if it wasn't for the square-cornered pipe-fitting roll-bar.

PS. I'm not trying to be mean, just helpful. That excessive orange-peel you have is one of the problems a lot of beginning modelers get into by taking the popular advice to spray your paint in light "mist coats". This almost invariably leads to heavy orange peel and excessive paint film build-up, unless you're shooting well-reduced paint with an airbrush. Learning to shoot rattle-can paints wet enough so they'll flow out is an learned technique, but YOU CAN DO IT. You just have to TRY DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES until you master getting a slick surface every time (or almost every time). There's a somewhat fine line between shooting your paint wet enough so it will flow and self-level, and shooting it TOO wet so that it puddles, bubbles and runs. EVERY RATTLE CAN PAINT HANDLES SLIGHTLY DIFFERENTLY, but if you practice and master the basics, like keeping the can moving and getting good overlap and edge-coverage, you'll find that you can adjust your technique slightly with each new paint you try. This also pre-supposes that YOU HAVE TO EXPERIMENT with each new kind of paint and GET YOUR TECHNIQUE DOWN BEFORE YOU PAINT YOUR MODEL.

Tom, the bus in the background looks like it has a chopped top...

Pure genius. I hope someone is listening. I just happened to find a vacuum-molded clear slot-car '26 / '27 body. We'll see what materializes... I've also made a bucket of this particular vintage by cutting down the AMT touring-car body.

Anybody know anything about the MPC snapper '49 Merc? Is the tooling derived from the AMT kit?? how are the body proportions??? Anybody ????

...and if that's not stupid enough for you, just read all the comments on the story...

If you want to wear a dress (and there's nothing wrong with that)...

No. See that "'1925" ?? The cars in this post are '26-'27. Different animal.

The WHOLE POINT of sanding is to get rid of the orange peel first. Sand it FLAT with whatever grit paper you use first (with that much peel, you ought to start with 600-800). Then, WHEN THE ORANGE PEEL IS GONE, you move to progressively finer grits TO REMOVE THE SANDING SCRATCHES FROM THE PREVIOUS GRIT and bring up the gloss. Also practice painting. You CAN get a finish like this green hood with NO sanding or polishing whatsoever...it just takes practice.

Friendamine in HS had a little faded blue Vauxhall just like your pic. Ran like a champ, simple as a brick.

Hey blunc...thanks for the Digikey reminder. I lost the last catalog during the move and couldn't remember the name for anything.

Day 1. Sleep late. Work very late. Day 2. Sleep late. Work very late. Day 3. Sleep very very late. 5-mile hike. Nap. Work on model. More sleep.

Sunday paper is fine with coffee and a big ol' jelly donut. Monday i'll use it to mop up grease in the garage, as free masking paper, or to line the cat-box. Handy product.

And let's not forget this past-it old man's car was the 2013 AMBR winner. Only the most prestigious hot-rod award on Earth.

Trickest hybrid on the planet...two TURBINES (not turbos) in the Jag CX-75. It will (or would have) run on just about anything...vegetable oil, soybean oil, etc...

Yeah, it's not as if it's one of THE American hot-rod icons, or anything stupid like that. It's just some dumb old car only of interest to almost-dead guys.

Dat bees da meat.

Believe it or not, THREE Tesla S-types: a black one going north (rapidly), a white one going south, and a red one in a restaurant parking lot. All in Buckhead.

Well, it depends on your definition of "is", kinda. It's important to remember that Elon Musk, Mr. Tesla, made most of his money as Mr. PayPal. He saw a ripe opportunity and realized the world was changing so he might as well make a little profit on it. BUT, unlike many super rich smart guys, he's the driving force behind making sweeping changes in how the world works. Besides starting a world-class car company from scratch and turning out beautiful cars that function, he's: 1) establishing a nationwide network of fast-charging stations for electric vehicles; 2) the major force behind the establishment of a US battery-manufacturing plant (AND a solar-panel manufacturing plant spin-off of SolarCity) that will ultimately produce thousands of jobs and help to return manufacturing to this country; 3) heavily involved in developing a reusable, relatively cheap PRIVATE space-launch vehicle. Far as where the government funding help may be coming into the picture, this from Tesla's website: TESLA REPAYS DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY LOAN NINE YEARS EARLY ONLY AMERICAN CAR COMPANY TO HAVE PAID BACK GOVERNMENT WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2013 PALO ALTO, Calif.-- Tesla Motors announced that it has paid off the entire loan awarded to the company by the Department of Energy in 2010. In addition to payments made in 2012 and Q1 2013, today’s wire of almost half a billion dollars ($451.8M) repays the full loan facility with interest. Following this payment, Tesla will be the only American car company to have fully repaid the government. For the first seven years since its founding in 2003, Tesla was funded entirely with private funds, led by Elon Musk. Tesla brought its Roadster sports car to market with a 30% gross margin, designed electric powertrains for Daimler (Mercedes) and had done preliminary design of the Model S all before receiving a government loan. In 2010, Tesla was awarded a milestone-based loan, requiring matching private capital obtained via public offering, by the DOE as part of the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program. This program was signed into law by President Bush in 2008 and then awarded under the Obama administration in the years that followed. This program is often confused with the financial bailouts provided to the then bankrupt GM and Chrysler, who were ineligible for the ATVM program, because a requirement of that program was good financial health. The loan payment was made today using a portion of the approximately $1 billion in funds raised in last week’s concurrent offerings of common stock and convertible senior notes. Elon Musk, Tesla’s Chief Executive Officer and cofounder, purchased $100 million of common equity, the least secure portion of the offering. “I would like to thank the Department of Energy and the members of Congress and their staffs that worked hard to create the ATVM program, and particularly the American taxpayer from whom these funds originate,” said Elon Musk. “I hope we did you proud.” Then there's this from Cal Watchdog.com: "Tesla just paid back its government loan nine years early. But the Wall Street Journal had this to say: The decade-old Tesla debuted its first product, the Roadster, in 2006. With a base price of $109,000, it was discontinued before it hit 2,500 sales. Tesla introduced its Model S a year ago and had sold an estimated 9,650 at a bargain $70,000 through April. By contrast, Ford sold 168,843 F-series pickup trucks in the first quarter alone. Tesla wouldn’t have sold even that many cars without the extraordinary help of government. In 2009 the company received a $465 million Obama loan guarantee, supplemented last year by a $10 million grant from the California Energy Commission. That money has underwritten Tesla’s engineering and manufacturing, but federal and state governments also subsidize the purchase of Tesla products. Any U.S. buyer of a Tesla car qualifies for a $7,500 federal tax credit, while states like Colorado throw in up to $6,000 more in state income-tax credits. Taxpayers pay first so Tesla can build the cars and again to help the wealthy buy them. These subsidies are important enough to Tesla that its website features an “Incentives” section directing buyers where to look for their states’ electric-vehicle benefits—rebates, free parking, exemptions from state sales tax, use of high-occupancy lanes, and the like. Buyers from states that offer no incentives get this Tesla message: “Want to help make EV [electric vehicle] incentives a reality in your area? Encourage your local or state representative by calling or sending them a letter.” Tesla’s biggest windfall has been the cash payments it extracts from rival car makers (and their customers), via its sale of zero-emission credits. A number of states including California require that traditional car makers reach certain production quotas of zero-emission vehicles—or to purchase credits if they cannot. Tesla is a main supplier. A Morgan Stanley MS +0.41% report in April said Tesla made $40.5 million on credits in 2012, and that it could collect $250 million in 2013. Tesla acknowledged in a recent SEC filing that emissions credit sales hit $85 million in 2013′s first quarter alone—15% of its revenue, and the only reason it made a profit. Take away the credits and Tesla lost $53 million in the first quarter, or $10,000 per car sold. California’s zero-emission credits provided $67.9 million to the company in the first quarter, and the combination of that state’s credits and federal and local incentives can add up to $45,000 per Tesla sold, according to an analysis by the Los Angeles Times." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Do your homework, and YOU be the judge of whether Tesla is a worthwhile enterprise or not. Personally, I'm for massive changes and a little future-think. The stuff Musk is doing COULD HAVE BEEN DONE DECADES AGO, but nobody cared enough to bother.

Ad leezt az long az meelkeeng zee goatz waz all zay waz dooeeng...

Man...TRIPLE 40 DCOE Webers AND fuel-injection with TWIN turbos. Geez mister that must be REALLY fast !!! What a moron.

And a real 959 (non-factory conversion of a 959 coupe) See any difference? And a real Porsche 917. Exactly the same, eh??

Saw a bilge-water green Checker Marathon station wagon...all green with a checked stripe at the beltline...sitting on a car transporter on the side of I-75N coming up from Buckhead. Kinda like this, but bilgier.