Ace-Garageguy

Though I'm NOT a Mustang expert by any stretch of the imagination, both cars obviously share the same basic body shell, structure and chassis...so updating the 1999 car to the '03 or '04 specs and appearance is just a matter of researching and changing one difference at a time.

On this anniversary of the beginning of the invasion of Europe by Allied forces on D-Day, it's important to remember that the Americans who died in Europe during World War 2 were there for a far more compelling reason than just "defending America", which seems to be what so many attribute as justification for America's military involvements over the years. (I don't mean you, Danno.) The Americans who served and died in World War 2 gave their lives defending the IDEALS that America was founded on, and preserving those ideals and freedoms FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD. IDEALS and IDEAS like freedom of speech and freedom of religion, which we all pretty much seem to take for granted, are far more important than national boundaries.

1) Nobody with a brain is going to build a stock '32 from an old AMT kit, unless as an exercise in either nostalgia or fabrication / heavy modification...but I didn't understand that as being the question. 2) The AMT body seems to fit the Revell chassis?? Well...yeah. They're both '32 Fords, in 1/25 scale, so if the guys who did the tooling for the kits were doing their jobs, like measuring and stuff, they SHOULD fit each other. 3) To get some feedback as to whether folks would be interested in resin models based on the AMT kits, maybe you should post on the car-resin thread, and ask over there. You might also look around at what's already on the market. Reinventing the wheel is rarely business-smart, unless you have a MUCH better wheel. 4) The '32 Ford is THE HOT-ROD ICON. There will always be '32 Fords being built in 1:1...we're building two REAL-STEEL survivor cars in our shop right now...and repop-steel and f'glass cars abound in reality. IF you make WELL-DONE resin conversion bodies for '32 Fords, I'm CERTAIN people will buy them. Whether it makes business sense, as in "will it ever make a profit?" is anybody's guess.

I have a pair of 1/25 aluminum flathead heads done by my friend Pico that have to be seen to be believed. Only a single coat of Duplicolor primer made them just hunky dunky. But I guess they don't really exist, eh? And don't forget, bumblebees can't fly (according to some outdated understandings of aerodynamics). The bumblebees didn't know that, though.

"Valid" ?? Why not?? A mild sectioning job could be done, still, in the real-world for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that a body a builder started with was rotten off at the bottom. Valid? I think so. This is one of mine. Build thread here. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=63112

3D printing has been mainstream for thinking industrial manufacturers for a while, but the cost of high-resolution parts for hobbyists is just recently beginning to become affordable.

Wow. The Cleavered beaver. A babe in '57. I wonder if she was into manufacturing...

...Yes, and on a chassis that has more similarity to a Cobra than to a T...

Rod, that looks like a good start. Nice tubular front crossmember with a suicide perch, enough rear frame kickup to be interesting. A model-A rear crossmember would indeed be good, to give the appearance of more strength if nothing else. That is the frame I started with in the photo at the bottom of post #7. With a dropped front axle and an A or T rear buggy-spring over a quick-change rear-end, you'll get a nice rake...with a little experimentation and fine tuning. Mock up your work as you go, and look carefully at photos of the cars YOU REALLY LIKE, and study the inter-relationship of the parts to understand how the builder got the look. Not a T "bucket", but a T nonetheless. This final mockup of the model on the frame in post 7 is the wheelbase you can expect from that frame, though I've kicked the rear of mine more. Squint and imagine a roadster body instead of the coupe.

Sorry...guess I missed that episode. When does the boxed full-season set come out?

Ladies and gentlemen, in order to compensate for the rising cost of fuel (so we can continue to pay our CEO's multi-million dollar a year salary, even though he doesn't actually even know how planes fly) we've out-sourced our maintenance to the lowest bidder. Relax and enjoy your flight !!!

In general, I'm not much of a fan of T-based hot-rods, because in my eye, most of them end up with odd proportions or looking like caricatures of hot-rods. That said, I think Bernard's little flamed T is one of the best-proportioned cars of its genre I remember seeing. It's a car I'd lust after in 1:1, and it's inspired me to start gathering parts for my own bucket-build. What he's built would work well in the real world, with good weight-distribution and enough rubber on the front to stop and handle acceptably. Lots of good lessons to take away from carefully looking at this model. And I agree with Bernard...the front radius rods could be improved.

Ummm, Harry? I thought early on you said the thing would run for a couple seconds and quit... Doesn't really sound like a defective motor, unless it has a starting capacitor and it will only run with the cap engaged...which may point to a bad run-capacitor, if it has one. Just thinking out loud here...of course not actually "loud", as in sound waves being propagated, but you know what I mean...

That's kinda how I learned my wide array of skills and crafts, and my perpetual "self-reliant can-do" attitude including a reluctance to give up when things get a little difficult. Sounds like good advice to me.

The last batch of Micro I used came from Aircraft Spruce. http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cmpages/bubbles.php The $9.95 bag will last a modeler a long LONG time. As mentioned, be careful using it, as it's extreme light weight makes for a new experience in airborne dustiness. I worked out ratios with West 105, which I mix on the gram scale for consistent results. Misplaced during the move, when I find them I'll put them up. You guys have got me sold on at least trying Devcon 5-minute. It would be great to have a 5-minute epoxy that actually worked, so I'm in for a test, anyway. Back in the old days, in a pinch we used a Devcon "F" product to repair VW cases that had thrown rods (as long as the bearing webs and oil passages were OK) so they obviously knew their chemistry back when.

Is ANYBODY on here an engineer besides me? Does ANYBODY write and debug code? Do ANY of you realize how incredibly difficult it is to get ANY system operating 100% RELIABLY with as many variables and unknowns as an autonomous vehicle will be expected to deal with in REALITY? There's NO EXCUSE for any human to "mistake the throttle for the brake", period. Why not put a little effort into some DRIVER TRAINING INCLUDING ACCIDENT AVOIDANCE in this fool country, and take just a little PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for getting places alive? I do have to add that if ANYBODY can actually pull off a successful real-world self-driving car (more than just a demo-piece in a relatively isolated environment) Google's team has a good shot...they've been gobbling up the best and the brightest in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence for some time.

Is that a Johan Chrysler Turbine car? Man, that's REALLY flashy.

Harry's posting on other threads, so he must have his smart-phone in the garage with him. Can they send pizza through a smart phone yet? And if not, why not? That would be a SURE seller. I'm sure someone could sell the idea to Jeff Bezos if the "drone-delivery" scheme doesn't quite work out. So... you could be trapped in your garage, and still have internet and pizza. Why bother to ever come out?

And ejector pin marks are most often the result of slightly incorrect registration of the pins when they're in the retracted position. Remember, they form part of the mold surface when they're retracted, but they have to move to do their job of pushing parts or trees out of the dies. Because they have to move, they also have to have mechanical linkages to MAKE them move, and if everything isn't absolutely perfectly aligned and clearanced, you'll have pin marks that are either higher or lower than the mold surface. It's difficult to keep all of this stuff in perfect alignment in a computer model of a mold or die. In the real world with hot, functioning presses and molten plastic, it's almost impossible to hold ejector pin marks to zero. That's why any reasonably competent tooling designer will place the ejector pins on the side of the part what will not be seen. But this is sometimes impossible...especially where both sides of a part will be seen...like the roof section of a car body...which will usually have pin-marks on the side LEAST LIKELY to be seen, the underside headliner. Ejector pin marks are pretty much an inherent part of the injection-molding process, and only the most careful tool design and maintenance will minimize them. The illustration also helps to illustrate how "flash" forms by being squeezed out between less-than-perfectly-fitting mold halves (parting lines), and around the ejector pins themselves. Another issue with injection molded parts is "sink marks", where a slightly short-shot of molten plastic (caused by a variety of possible factors) will allow for more local shrinkage than is ideal. You'll see slight depressions in the surface, usually close to where the plastic was actually injected into the mold.

And the old joke about "don't muddle my opinions with facts", or however it goes, still holds true. It takes effort, an understanding of how the world and things like basic science and economics work, and CRITICAL THINKING skills to compare all of the information available with reliable primary-source material in order to ferret out the "truth"...all of that is necessary in today's complex world to be REALLY well informed, and to know reality from BS. The really sad part is that it takes more effort, and more having-been-there during high school (even assuming one was taught anything about science, economics, etc. in high school) than most people (at least in my experience of the "average" man-in-the-street) seem willing to put out. Far easier to just accept whatever dogma is regurgitated by whichever line you most closely align with, and to jell with what's actually TRUE. I honestly believe a "basic knowledge" test of some kind should be REQUIRED in order to vote. If you don't understand the issues, what moral right do you have to vote on them ??

Just for the record, the old AMT '32 kits all had bodies that were "sectioned" in the front, not "channeled". "Sectioning" is removal of metal from body panels to make them lower. "Channeling" is lowering the body relative to the frame rails. This is the difference between the Revell '32 body height at the firewall, and the "sectioned" AMT '32 Victoria. ...and this is what's necessary to get the correct stock line back... The Revell parts-pack T-bucket frame has side rails that are deeper than an A-model. It's most probably modeled on a real frame fabricated from plate and sheet, which would also account for the curved kickup. It's designed to accept the Halibrand-style quick-change in the parts-pack speed-equipment, which is set up with split-wishbones to accomodate the kickup. The Ford 9" can be considered acceptable in any hot-rod built since 1957, when it was introduced and began showing up in junkyards. T and A crossmembers are used to accommodate the high-arch springs needed to accommodate a Halibrand or other quick-change in the '32 chassis. Swapping an A crossmember into a T chassis could certainly be done in an effort to get exactly the right stance, but just like in building a real hot-rod, you have to fit and measure carefully before you start cutting, and as you go, to get the look you're after. The AMT chassis is a good starting point for heavy mods because of its simplicity. This one is getting more rear kickup and a tubular front crossmember with a suicide spring perch.

Just use a couple of pieces of telescoping brass tubing...one for the steering column and a smaller, very short one on the back of the steering wheel. Slips in, nice, no-wobble fit, easy.

Nice collection of goodies you have there. I'm a frequent modeler of "traditional" hot rods, and a fabricator / mechanic /designer at an internationally known 1:1 hot-rod shop. Just this year, one of our cars took a second-place class-win at the Grand National Roadster Show, so I know a little about this stuff. Any of the kit chassis you have would make an excellent base for a T-bucket. It just depends on what you want, the wheelbase and proportions you're after, whether you want a heavily Zeed frame and the low-low look, or something more upright. Roth's Tweedy Pie is similar in concept to the Kookie car, but the proportions may need a little adjusting. As for the Revell '29 A truck front suspension, it's the same as the Revell 1/25 Woody, and a couple of others in the line. It's an absolutely excellent unit (though it has a reputation for being "fiddly" and "difficult"). It has mechanical model-A brakes though, so if you want something built like the vast majority of hot rods after the war (WW II, for those of you who are historically challenged), you'll need to change the backing plates for some that represent 1939 and later hydraulic brakes. You'll find the correct ones in the Revell Roadster Speed Equipment pack, though they will have to be modified to work with the poseable steering feature.

Remarkably real cracked-varnish effect. Very nice.

I tend to think of it more like a 50-shot of nitrous. Get a little more power out of those last few miles, 'cause it's too late for a rebuild at this point.