Ace-Garageguy

Addiction to food and water is a terrible thing to suffer from.

Now it's in Montgomery, Alabama. Musta sent it to Alabama when it was already in Atlanta because of all of those closed facilities elsewhere, right?

Got the '05 Neon and the '89 Celica ASC convertible moved down to the vintage car shop so's I can work on 'em inside where most of my tools are...and avoid the wrath of the county inspector on the 14th. Neon's still in pretty good shape, and with the head rebuild shouldn't need too much more to be a daily again. I bought it from a "mechanic" who swore he'd just done the timing belt...so I overpaid a little because the job is kindof a PITA and I needed instant reliable wheels while I worked on my '89 GMC. Yeah, right. I only put 2000 miles on the Neon before it failed, bent every valve in it. The "mechanic" is nowhere to be found. So she's been sitting. Building a used head on the bench, and the head swap with timing belt, water pump, etc. is about two day's careful work. EDIT: The cost of the work to fix the Neon, if I had to pay somebody else, probably exceeds the "value" of the car (which is why most of 'em are in junkyards now). But since I can return it to like-new for a few hundred in parts, good for at least another 100,000 miles with no major issues, what is the "value" of a clean little car that's fun to drive and gets great gas mileage? Poor little Celica has really gone downhill though. LR brake was locked solid, wouldn't even break loose when I pulled her out of the hole with the GMC. Half a day of hammering on the drum with a lead hammer and flooding everything with penetrant got her loose, and my wrecker guy moved them both in one shot with no problems. I got the Celica free from a girl who was afraid of it after it failed its emissions, didn't even want to try to fix it. A $28 part got it clean, and I commuted in it to an aviation job in South Carolina for a year before it dumped its water pump. The crank pulley seal was leaking lotsa oil too by that time, so I covered it intending to get back to it ASAP. Life happened in the meantime, and even though I was pretty good about starting and warming it up every few months, I got lax and the electronics all went south. Anyway, both of 'em will make nice cars for somebody, and will go a long way towards financing the first round of upgrades on my AZ place. Finally today, I decided to walk the several miles back down to the shop to pick up my Blazer and cover the Celica, as the canvas top has started leaking, and I don't want to ruin the nice interior. Rain forecast next few days. Got home about an hour ago, tired and hurting, but pleased with another very productive day. Time for some salmon on the grill. Probably going to take most of tomorrow off, but I have a full day's work Monday finishing the house spiff-up for the county re-inspection on the 14th.

Coroner Creek is a great old western starring Randolph Scott...if you like films with no CGI, car chases, gratuitous you-know-what, and stuff blowing up every few minutes.

Hmmmmmmm... As you already mentioned, it's going to be different depending on things like how many coats of primer and paint you apply, whether you're using 2K clear or lacquer, etc. Somebody can tell you .010" and if that's too tight you're screwed, and somebody else can tell you .030" and if that's too loose you're screwed too...but worse. Best thing to do is experiment, writing down exactly what you do each time, and adjust as necessary for your technique and materials. And...this is one of the reasons the only 2K product I use on models is urethane primer-surfacer over extensive bodywork. I think 2K clear for real cars builds too much film thickness (and in my opinion usually gives a model a dipped-in-syrup look), and if there's a thinner product for models, I have zero experience with it.

Plans often go awry, especially if they're too short-sighted or rigid to cope with the unforeseen.

Moment by moment we grow closer to shuffling off this mortal coil, so make your time here count for something.

One man's eight year odyssey to get what he really, really wanted:

Plant a colony on the Moon or Mars in my lifetime, please.

"Purpose" is not a large fish-like aquatic mammal.

Seals of the trained clapping kind may be looking for alternate employment in the near future.

They're logisticking again. A shipment of Christmas gifts for women in my life left Woodstown NJ on the 5th, and arrived at the Atlanta regional distribution center at 12:30 yesterday afternoon. Not bad. Normally it takes half a day to two days to make it from there to my abode in the Atl. suburbs. I just checked the tracking, as delivery was estimated to occur today, it didn't, and my package is now in Mobile, Alabama. I'm impressed.

Smart be hanged, but seal leakage is becoming more and more problematic, as many made offshore are of inferior materials that don't even meet specs for bubblegum, and last about as long.

Play me a song on your glockenspiel.

Today...I have a ton of stuff to do that HAS to be done by tomorrow, if it takes all night. (So I'd better get off the computer and get cracking.)

Cue Twilight Zone music...

Cross your fingers, but don't hold your breath.

Yup, but the kinda tricky bit would be doing it with the engine assembled, keeping debris and chips out of the engine, to avoid having to disassemble it. Just for grins I measured the vertical travel of the table on my Bridgeport clone, and a Corvair engine will fit vertically to do it with an end mill. Alternatively, it could be done with a slotting cutter, with the engine mounted horizontally on the table. Sure would be cool if somebody could find a manual on that engine that covers all the mods and special castings Horning made.

Again FWIW, these "primer" finishes are not flat, not gloss, but definitely semi-gloss...and there really isn't much noticeable overspray of body color, if any.

FWIW, at the ACME show last month, I saw an application of Revell's chrome that had been done earlier by the guy running the display, right out of the can. It was very obviously done without extensive prep or special technique, as there were multiple dust nibs in it. There was one flat-sided part and a set of 4 wheels still on the sprue. The shine was as good as "quite good" kit chrome, no silvering, no visible "grain" either from flake size or dry-spray. I purposely rubbed one side of one part with my bare finger, pretty hard, and the gloss did decrease noticeably. I believe that gentle handling, especially wearing light cotton gloves like come in some diecast model boxes, would make the dulling almost a non-issue. Wearing cheap latex gloves while handling Revell "chrome paint" parts might also alleviate the dulling issue. Obviously, the worst opportunity for handling-caused dulling is probably going to be in situations where higher pressure is applied, like pushing wheels into tight openings in tires. EDIT: IIRC, the guy who did the application thought the wheels looked better, and I thought the flat-sided part looked better (as far as the chrome effect went), so opinions are subjective, as always.

Morning means slowly rebooting my tired old brain and overcoming chronic pain, but once I get past those, everything is lovely.

Yes, at least twice, and one is still MIA...but it'll probably reappear as I finish packing to move.

Close the door on your way out, and don't let it hit your backside.

"Tomcat" also refers to the Grumman F-14 swing-wing fighter.

Many recent Mopar products do have light olive under panels.