Ace-Garageguy

Beliefs are often not worth the neurons they're imprinted on.

DELETED. The answer is out there but it's too potentially dangerous for me to recommend.

Point-and-shoot cameras are the great bringers of sort-of-focused mediocrity to photography.

"Hooch" has another meaning from some Asian conflicts I'll forego mentioning at the moment, and "shoot the Hooch" is slang for rafting on the Chattahoochee River.

My paperwork/billing is taking a LONG time this cycle, with close to 300 progress photos to label and cross-reference with the work-diary text.

"For he's a jolly good fellow" is something I'd usually deny.

"Term" can mean a length of time or a description.

Beans and franks still appeal to my palate when I'm feeling five years old.

I have to disagree with that. If you're shooting lacquer primer, swelling and ghosting will most definitely show. This Revell '50 Olds hood swelled and ghosted badly after removing the peak and blocking out some divots (white areas). Re-primering, sanding, primering, sanding...until nothing came up produced this when I laid color on it:

1955: 1956:

THIS ^^^

Early flame jobs were pretty basic. Check out the 1948 Hot Rod Magazine cover car about halfway down this page... https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/traditional-50s-hot-rod-flames.1024947/

Yup, that's pretty much the classic explanation, though I've heard versions where it was an Indy car with a fuel leak, or a short-track dirt car. Whatever the truth is, the origin story is good enough for me.

I'm really stoked about this one...a NOS HO-scale powered Bowser Fairbanks Morse H-16-44 "Baby Trainmaster" kit, complete with a factory-modified Athearn F-7 8-wheel drive, all the nice wire handrails, couplers, etc. These ancient die-cast locomotives are heavy, and with 8-wheel drive, will just about pull stumps. The detail is far better on them than one would generally expect from a model this old (originally a Penn-Line kit from the 1950s IIRC), and with a little extra work, they can compare very favorably with today's stuff. There's sufficient room inside for current-generation DCC too.

Tha gas prices aren't all that crazy low when you consider what contemporary prices for other of life's necessities, like beer and chips, were at the time. Inflation never sleeps. It just gets hysterical from time to time.

Beautiful work, as always. And always inspirational.

Not models, but model-railroad-related books. This is basically a printed edition of all the topics covered at the 1990 NMRA convention. Absolutely fascinating stuff to me, including things like the development history of railroad tank cars and boxcars, which are a direct reflection of the growth of American (and Canadian) industrial development. Many model railroaders sweat the details, strive for far more esoteric accuracy than I do, and the research they do and publish for other modelers has to be seen to be believed. This NOS 1995 special edition from Model Railroader Magazine's title is self explanatory...though it's valuable information for modelers of ANY subject. Another NOS publication, this time from 1982. It includes railroad paint mixing formulas for several paint manufacturers no longer with us, like Floquil, but thankfully Microscale has put together an extensive cross-reference chart allowing the same colors to be mixed from currently available paints like Tamiya and Vallejo. Unfortunately, many of THOSE formulas rely on the defunt Testors Model Master line, and Scalecoat closed up shop in 2023. Tru-Color paint is still in business, happily, and have probably every color Floquil ever did...so the mixing charts are still potentially valuable.

1/24 Gnome rotary, same period you're looking for, but obviously kinda hard to package in a car. https://www.shapeways.com/product/ERHEDBKGR/1-24-scale-gnome-7-omega-rotary-engine-x-1 Maybe you could contact the folks who designed this and get them interested in doing an OX-5. https://www.shapeways.com/shops/anyuta3d

It's such a primitive lump, it wouldn't be all that hard to scratch up a reasonable looking model using styrene sheet and tube. Only really tricky bits would be the exposed and complex valve gear. Alternatively, here's one in 1/4 scale. Might wash it in really hot water and hope it shrinks. http://www.airbum.com/NeatShtpix/NeatShtOX-5.html Seriously, the problem with early aero engines is the exposed valve gear on most. Though blueprints can be found, a lot of 3D guys don't like doing a whole lot of fiddly little parts for one engine, when they can print an American V8 in just a few.

"Agenda" was a word I came to despise during my time in the white-collar world, as no matter what was laid out as "today's agenda" at the start of a meeting, the focus inevitably devolved to blame-spreading and backside-covering in the event everything went all pear-shaped as the best-laid ivory-tower plans were implemented by the poor slobs on the ground.

Most excellent. I never really thought anybody'd ever do a model of that crazy thing. Nice work.

1955 The Racers, starring Kirk Douglas and the intoxicatingly beautiful Bella Darvi. An unlikely story about a broke driver who destroys his own car at Monaco trying to avoid an errant poodle. The dog's owner turns out to be a ballerina who moonlights as a gambler, and with her winnings she buys him a second-hand machine in which he wins the Mille Miglia. Noticed by a top team, he's given a ride, wins the world championship, gets badly injured, makes a comeback, gets cocky, etc. etc. etc. Not a great film, but great period front-engined formula and sports cars (when's the last time you saw an Osca MT4?), European scenery, and worth watching just for Bella Darvi...assuming you like sophisticated '50s-style French women. PS: It's free on YT.

Now this is cool...

"PLEASE don't start that again" he intoned as she started one of her standard tirades.

Thank you, sir. But there's a long way to go to get from here to there.