Ace-Garageguy

Building "season" is just about to be starting again for me. I STILL have about 2 weeks to finish my move (I've been saying that for months now), but the for-sure end is finally in sight. Of course, with full-time employment starting up again, multiple 1:1 car projects of my own, a couple of model-related obligations to honor, and nice weather for outdoor activities like hiking, canoeing and flying coming up, bench time may be a little limited for a while yet. But it will be nice to have the option to work on models, which I haven't had since well before Christmas.

I recall when I was a wee boy, some of the other kiddies would bring in work that they'd OBVIOUSLY had big-person help on. For credit. And sometimes the parent's work would get the top grades. Kinda same thing. Some of us still do...except sewing the upholstery.

I use those general numbers too. Problem is, I'd have to be making $2500 a week to have the same buying power as my father 50 years ago. And minimum wage 50 years ago was $1.15/hr. It's not $11.50 now. The rise in income has not kept pace with the rise in prices.

Gotta say The Big Wheel was one of my favorite movies. Pretty cool period car piece, and pretty cool period film, period. Don't forget National Velvet, with the already heartbreakingly-beautiful Elizabeth Taylor.

To avoid confusion, I believe you mean 30 gage, which has a .012" OD, plus the coating which probably brings it up to about .015". .32mm or about .0126" is correct 1/25 scale for 8mm plug wires, a very common size. Slightly larger for high-performance, slightly smaller for older factory ignitions. Pretty close anyway.

The Olds Club Coupe does have a longer wheelbase in reality (as Harry notes above), the extra length being between the front axle centerline and the cowl. The Olds front fenders are noticeably longer to accommodate this. Both Revell and AMT did a pretty respectable job getting these two models scaled correctly, as is illustrated in my swap of the coupe and fastback roof sections between the two.

Yup. Early (post-WWII) high-performance hose used in top-line race cars was still primarily military aircraft surplus. One of the biggest suppliers of AN fittings and hose these days, Earl's Supply (now Earl's Performance Plumbing) was a dealer in surplus AN stock in the wayback, and was even cited in Carol Smith's (oversaw the prep on the '66 and '67 LeMans-winning GT-40s) "Prepare to Win" race-car-prep bible as a trustworthy source of surplus. The hose had woven abrasion resistant coverings, but the stainless braid wasn't a widespread spec yet. Black was the predominant color of the hose (with the mil spec # lettered periodically on the braid) and many surplus fittings were anodized light green-yellow (a chromate appearance).

A lot of us over here use beading wire (for necklaces) in .013"-.015" (for 1/24-1/25 scale) available from craft stores. Craft stores here usually have a wide variety of beading wire in various colors, diameters and flexibility. Electronics supply outlets also sell fine copper wire in similar diameters.

That's entirely un-American. Buy what you can't afford NOW, and pay 20% extra in annual interest for the privilege of instant gratification!!!

Like most things in the real mechanical world, sizing turbochargers correctly for a particular application takes some applied knowledge, and (gasp !!!) math. Things like mass flow and pressure ratio at redline, area / radius ratio of both compressor and turbine, trim, and other factors must be calculated and mapped for any hope of good performance.

Not to spoil anyone's fun, but a turbo sized for a 2 liter (or thereabouts) engine isn't really going to work on a tiny scooter mill. There may not be enough exhaust gas volume to spin the thing fast enough to make any boost at all.

Which gets us to my gripe of the day...so many morons don't seem able to grasp the concept that it's the car on the entrance ramp that has the responsibility to match speeds with a highway traffic stream, to achieve a nice smooth merge. It's NOT the responsibility of the traffic to slow down or speed up to create a space for some I'm-the-center-of-the-universe idiot who just shouldn't be driving. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AND...why are Americans content to be continually screwed by big oil? Gas in my market has gone up $.30 per gallon in just a few weeks. Spare me the "changing to summer blends" story. It's just price gouging, whatever the market will bear, pure and simple. It didn't bother me much until recently, because years ago I arranged my life to avoid any long commutes, never more than 6 miles each way. Since shortly after Christmas I've been driving an extra 340 miles a week (to help out a friend...don't ask) and the cost of fuel is really beginning to chap my tired old ass.

Works for me.

Looking into solders that melt at different temperatures is interesting too. I'd always been awed by some of the HO steam locomotives scratchbuilt in brass, with many tiny parts soldered very close together. Then I discovered one of the tricks was different temp solders. Pretty cool (in a hot sort of way).

:lol:

Great looking car. I'm really beginning to get interested in this form of racing from seeing fine models like this on the forum.

Cool. The lower drag classes don't get enough attention, and it's nice to see one well presented like this. Your interesting split exhaust system is very much in the vein of unusual, experimental things real builders would come up with way back when, too. Very nice work.

Welcome back to the hobby. Nice clean build, excellent color choice for this particular car.

I looked in the box last night, and Art is correct in that the distributor cap represented in this kit is not the "crab" style you mentioned in the opening post, but rather a simplified version of the style the drawing shows in Art's post #3, as part #12105, more or less. The wire loom assembly, part #12280, is not represented with the kit-supplied parts, and that's what you'll have to scratch build if you want a stock appearance. This is about what you should end up with. The wiring loom assemblies are light-gage steel tubes with the plug wires running inside. The ends of the tubes are connected to the distributor cap with flexible rubber sections, as shown in the photo immediately above. The easiest way to represent this on a model is to make the "tubes" out of approximately .050" styrene rod, bent to shape. Use about .013" wire to represent the actual plug wires, and use a pin-vise with about a .015" drill bit to drill your "tubes" in appropriate places for the "plug wires" to come out. Photos taken from open internet sources, reproduced here under the "fair use" definition in copyright law. SIDE NOTE: As these cars were serviced over time, a lot of the steel wiring loom tubes got left off because lazy mechanics or shade-tree guys thought they were too much trouble to mess with. Also, as hotter ignition systems were substituted for more performance, having the plug wires so close to each other inside the looms was found to be a source of mis-firing, as a current could be induced in the WRONG wire by one adjacent to it, leading to popping out the carb or backfiring as well. The point is, if your model represents an older car that's been in service for a while, you can wire it more conventionally and still be right. You would have to cut the tabs off the ears on the kit distributor, and drill each ear with a hole to accommodate your plug wires coming out, 4 on each side.

Not my style, but that is definitely good looking, clean work. Great job.

I've got that kit on the shelf in the studio. I'll look at it in the morning and get back to you. PS. I build real period-hot-rods for a living, so I promise to give you correct information.

Yes, a VW engine is similar in appearance to a pushrod Porsche, but you'll give Porsche rivet-counters fits. The truth is, in real life you CAN build a hot-rod VW engine with a lot more power (cheap) than if you hot-rod an old Porsche engine...and the VW bolts to the Porsche transmission perfectly. I've done it.

When I was building slot cars, I often just pinned the parts to a soft wood board with straight sewing pins. Yes, the board burns, but scrap wood is cheap. Hot glue helps stick a quick wooden jig together too. If your parts are cleaned and tinned right, and your iron is hot enough, you won't be on a joint long enough to burn much anyway.

Vagg?

Either way, it's a lot of effing computers. EDIT: According to Online Computers and Communications LLC "Windows XP still operates 30% of the world’s computers, most of those business computers, and many people are worried about how the lack of support will affect them." http://www.onlinecomputers.com/2014/03/18/the-end-of-xp-how-to-protect-your-business/ Computer Weekly.com says "A lack of security updates will put company systems and the personal data stored on them at risk, the ICO said, estimating that 30% of all PCs are still using Windows XP. Research by UK software firm AppSense indicates that around 77% of UK organisations are running XP somewhere in their IT estate." http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240217623/ICO-issues-data-protection-warning-on-Windows-XP ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now does this "PC" mean generic personal computers, or specifically IBM-PC descendent, MS-based machines? Again, either way it's a lot of effing computers.