Ace-Garageguy

No, the BFH isn't necessary. Try dis-assembling old stuff that hasn't been touched for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70 years. Or stuff that's been way over-tightened by the previous "mechanic". You'll see.

It doesn't matter where a tool is made. What DOES matter is how it's made, out of what kind of steel, how the steel is processed, and how tightly the dimensions are controlled on the parts that contact the fasteners. In general, so far, cheap Chinese tools are made from nasty steel that splits and spreads and buggers bolts and nuts and screws that are the least bit stubborn. I have older SK, Craftsman and Husky sets that are just fine. I never replaced my SnapOn stuff after the first time all my tools were stolen in '77 because of the prices...but the old SnapOn stuff was built correctly and built to last. Their Flank-Drive design worked well preventing rounded fasteners, though several manufacturers use it now that the original patents have run out. If you make your living with tools, or trust your life to the results, buy good ones.

I've started running my airbrush (just getting into it too) off of my big shop compressor, with inline filters and water traps, and a large regulator feeding into a small regulator just before the airbrush. So far, no pressure or contamination problems. 40psi is what you use for an old siphon-feed REAL spraygun, for real cars.

My kinda car. Good looking project.

Craig (twopaws) is correct. The Revell Caddy will pass for any '49 or later first generation OHV-V8 Caddy 331-365-390 through 1962, and looks enough like the '63 through '67 390-429 to pass with a little work. The engine in the Revell '49 Merc is also an OK first-gen OHV-V8 Cad, and the one in the Monogram / Revell '59 Cadillacs is very nice.

I agree, but thanks for the Wright Tools mention.

Yup, and as most consumers actually are NOT familiar enough with tool use to really understand that cheap wrenches don't fit the fasteners correctly, and inferior steel spreads or splits, damaging bolt heads and nuts in the process, quality just keeps sliding down the rat-hole. Maximum profit comes from selling minimum possible quality, and if the consumers will accept crapp, that's what they'll get.

Man, I was JUST thinking that...and you hardly ever see V7 engines anymore. Seriously, great looking fantasy drag machine...

I just have to brag a little. Coleman Castellaw's '32 Ford cabrio, originally billed as the Quincy Auto Parts car back in the early '60s and featured in Rod & Custom... ...and completely restored over the past few years by the shop I work with here, Mills Customs (though I had nothing to do with this particular car), won second in the Altered Street Roadster ('32) class 4060.2 at the 2014 GNRS. It's racking up an impressive stack of hardware, including best paint in class at Detroit last year. Seventh car down, here...http://www.hotrod.com/hotroddeluxe/1307_2013_carl_casper_custom_auto_show/

Priceless. Have you ever considered a career in standup comedy?

This is just idiotic. I've NEVER NEVER NEVER dissed mini-trucks. I LIKE THE GENRE !!! What I made a negative comment about was a particular mod, a cockeyed tag recess, that looked STUPID to me. It STILL looks stupid to me. Period. If you're gonna go all pooty-headed, at least get your enemies right.

Maybe more in the spirit of Greg's original post, I see a lot of stuff that has crept into mainstream car design from the customizers and show-car builders in general. Canted quad headlights (which I THINK first appeared on showcars before Detroit picked up the idea), fade-away fenders (though the '38 Buick Y-job was the first, I think...but the customizers picked them up and ran with the idea), the whole big-wheel thing now on production cars, the "enraged catfish" look of a lot of the hi-po Euro and Asian cars, (which started with the tuner crowd), 3-stage pearl paint...I know I'm forgetting some more obvious influences.

Do that long enough and you'll almost surely be universally reviled.

It's becoming disturbing how many people ask me that very same question.

Slick solution to a sometimes vexing problem.

Yup. My last ex went to Home Depot to get installation materials to put a new gas stove in her kitchen. Everything she brought back was wrong, from the fittings to the hose to the pipe sealant. i said I'd go back to the store and exchange it all for the right stuff. She went off on ME, screaming she'd asked the person there and he told her the RIGHT things to get, that he worked there and MUST know better than I did, that I had a real ego problem always having to be right, and that she'd just call a plumber who KNEW HOW TO USE THE RIGHT THINGS SHE ALREADY HAD!!! The plumber just laughed at her, told her the same thing I had, and refused to do the install.

I'm sorry if this seems "mean", but understanding "scale" only requires an understanding of fractions and division. This is fifth-grade math. How can anyone functioning in society NOT have these basic elementary-school skills?

Oh MAN !!! Add 'em to the defendants in the suit...

Hey...it's probably not too late to start a class-action suit against every school and manufacturer that standardized those chairs. I'm left handed too, and the childhood stress they caused is still affecting me with recurring PTSD. I smell $$$$. ;)

Wow...the streamlined dragster is pretty cool. I'd never seen that one before. The poor "'71 Shelby prototype" on the other hand, looks like some thinly disguised 'future-car' from a low-budget sci-fi flick.

No, not really. Here we go again trying to thwart somebody pointing out poor, awful, ugly design. There's good looking stuff, and then there's hideous in EVERY genre, and teaching people to look farther than just "different" and to recognize "taste" and "proportion" and "flow" is a good thing. I mean, they have things called "design schools" that help students learn how to differentiate between this... ...and this... Of course, if YOU like the first one better and want to say so, that's OK too.

Oh yes...definitely getting there.

Really, different companies seem to excel at different things, and some kits from the same company and time period are better than others. Some of the old Johan and AMT annual-based models were pretty spot-on as far as proportions and exterior scaling went, but were light on the details. Older Revell kits had lots of details, but were often considered difficult to build because of their intricacy. Most recent Revell kits are very nicely done, but the occasional large mistake creeps through. The re-engineered AMT kits over the years have been quite nice, with much more detail than earlier versions, but there's also been the occasional lots-of-problems kit. Moebius and Galaxy kits are very very good, as are the beautifully-detailed Accurate Miniatures kits...but again, the AM kits are seen as difficult. I personally really like the very well detailed Fujimi enthusiast series of Porsche kits, but there are some not-so-great Fujimi kits out there too. It really just depends on where your interests lie, and what level of detail, fit and accuracy you can live with.

If you want more info on the injection molding process, including the history, try this site...http://www.xcentricmold.com/aboutinjectmold.php For a bunch of free videos about the "resin" casting process, including pattern making, try this site: http://www.freemansupply.com/video.htm

Heat IS routinely applied to facilitate melting of the feedstock pellets (in the processes I'm familiar with, anyway), and the amount of heat is dependent on the specific thermoplastic material being injected. It is true that the screw-compression process adds heat the the molten mix, lessening the amount of external heat necessary. It is also true that the temperature of the molten material must be controlled VERY closely to achieve correct cavity-filling without degradation of the thermoplastic. From engineeronadisk.com, 46.2 INJECTION MOLDING Basic process - Heat a thermoplastic material until it melts. Force it into a hollow (cooled) cavity under pressure to fill the mold. When cool remove the finished part. Typical materials are, - nylon - styrene - ethylene A typical injection moulding machine is seen below with the covers removed. Plastic pellets are poured in the hopper, and finished parts emerge from the dies.