Ace-Garageguy

From the same vendor I also got a partially assembled HO scale Ulrich outside-braced wooden boxcar kit dating from the early 1950s. The "steel" bracing and ends are cast metal, the sides are milled, scribed wood that's factory painted and screen-printed, the structure is balsa and basswood, doors and some detail parts are stamped steel, and others are diecast metal or wire. The steel-braced wooden boxcars were a transitional design from the early 1900s between all wood and all steel cars, and many saw real-world service late into the 1960s and beyond. These can be found built-up, but I usually avoid them as some period adhesives weren't great, many were built by ham-handed modelers with resulting poor fit and finish...and dismantling them for restoration often just isn't possible without significant damage to long out-of-production parts. Virgin kits, on the other hand, can build up to rival any of the high-end ready-to-run stuff available today, with upgrades like Kadee couplers, etc. This gives an idea of what a much nicer than average long-ago built-up from this particular kit looks like.

Always liked this era COE Macks. Nice work overcoming a bunch of challenges.

Snubber is what I do to the old girl with no teeth who winks at me every time I have to go to the DMV office.

This is probably THE most challenging model I've added to my collection of very old "craftsman kits" to date, an HO scale Ideal Models Bucyrus-Erie 150 ton railroad crane. I believe it dates from at least 60-70 years back (check the "deco" box-art, different from later versions of the same kit). It's made from embossed foil-coated cardstock overlays that have to be precisely cut out and glued over thicker pre-punched cardstock and balsa underlayments. Even the pulley sheaves get built up from pre-punched cardstock rounds. The boom braces have to be cut and formed from bamboo strip stock, and the steps and grabs have to be formed from wire. It builds up to look like this, and boy howdy, are there a lot of opportunities to bugger it hopelessly. It is similar when completed to the HO scale Gould/Tichy injection-molded styrene 120-ton Brownhoist railroad crane, widely regarded as one of the best engineered and most complex plastic models ever produced (I have several, and they are spectacular when finished).

Ladybugs and crickets are s'posed to be good luck; cockroaches not so much.

Cupboard crawlies like spiders and ants and roaches and weevils can make you just not want to cook tonight...but hey, be happy und eat ze bugs.

"Anymore" is impossible to use correctly as the first word of a sentence, but new studies reveal that contrary to popular usage, "utter" and "udder" are actually different words with entirely different meanings...which we all otter know.

"Guess again, Sherlock" is a phrase I've been known to utter.

"Asked" might mean the same as "axed", or not.

"Mechanic" don mean wat it used ta was.

Nuts to You is a Canadian nut-butter maker... https://www.nutstoyou.ca/

Hurt me once, shame on you; hurt me twice...well, you wouldn't get the chance anyway.

Actually, it's not a "closed system". A closed system would have no air intakes through the filters on the front. It would be a rebreather, essentially. You need to be very careful and verify that those filters are rated for isocyanates. That's the BAD part of 2K, and it can kill you if you're sensitive to it. "Isocyanate sensitivity, or allergy, can occur in some workers who are exposed to isocyanates. This can lead to severe asthma attacks, and in some cases, death from hypersensitivity pneumonitis, a lung reaction." A mask like that would be better with a constant clean air supply. I have one that I use in the big-car booth that runs specially filtered air from the compressor through a waist-worn cooler and into the mask. Because it runs at positive pressure relative to the booth or surroundings, no vapor or smell can get in it. None, zero, period.

Whoa...nice.

Thank you both very much. I'd say we have a definitive answer at this point.

The very helpful and competent supervisor at the PO was able to find the shipment before it got sent back...in spite of their computer screens all showing the onscreen "please wait" spiral-of-doom the whole time I was there...and I'm back home. Unfortunately, there's a hole in the box that looks like the prong of a forklift went through it, and an ominous rattle. Now I have to check the contents, file a claim if necessary, and order a replacement depending on what I find. Not exactly how I'd planned my morning, and of course, as I don't get a salary for dealing with stuff like this, I'm a little miffed. I've already lost an hour and a half of time that would have been billable had I not had to fix the result of incompetence beyond my control...and we're not done yet.

Swam-a-lamma-ding-dong doesn't mean anything.

That dish you were eatin' wasn't billy-goat, but mutton (though the munu said lamb).

Soul patches remind me of sumpin you'd see on a billy-goat.

Nice job, nice mods. I bought one of these, but never really looked at it closely. I didn't realize the general lines and proportions of the body were as good as yours seem to be. I'll have to take a better look.

Done there, been that...or something.

Missed, missed, knocked it outta the park.

That's interesting. I bet it's killer in person.

The local PO seems to have some recent hires who aren't familiar with either numbers or English. There is a small car-lot at the end of the street that's gone up for lease in the last couple days, but it's not my number, naturally. Otherwise, I don't know. I've given up trying to figure out how the brain-dead do what they do...or why they're employed by a gubmint agency. It's less frustrating and more productive to just deal with the aftermath. I will be very glad when I'm no longer dependent on the PO to keep my business running. 8:30 tomorrow morning should be interesting, because I'll be there when the doors open.

Lathe. Another option if the nuts are recessed in rim detail...start your drill with a pinprick in the center of the lugnut, and drill the center out. Then go to a larger bit and machine the outer material off. Magnification is your friend here. Working very carefully, it CAN be done with no damage.