Ace-Garageguy

"Allows"...hmmmm...the "s" on there makes starting anything but an unwieldy, convoluted sentence with it kinda difficult.

Very nice so far. I enjoy seeing unusual railroad equipment, and your approach to building this model is very interesting, very clean.

I don't hurt at the end of the day today anywhere near as much as I have all winter, probably because I've been ramping up the exercise a little, as we've been getting a few nice warmish days lately.

At the risk of getting hammered for bad-mouthing the PO again...I have two shipments MIA from two sellers several states apart, both showing the PO hasn't yet received them (though tracking numbers were issued on Feb. 26 and 28). Both vendors insist they dropped them at the respective POs the day the tracking numbers were issued, but neither item has yet been scanned into the system anywhere. I DEPEND on the PO for my business, as many of the items I use building cars aren't the sort of things I'd normally stock, and I plan my work, usually ordering what I know I'll need a couple weeks in advance JUST TO AVOID GETTING HUNG UP LIKE THIS. If nothing happens on these by the 6th, I'll have no option but to put in for refunds and try to source NECESSARY replacements elsewhere. As I said before, I DON'T get a salary. My income depends on what I produce, and I can't produce effectively if the PO keeps dropping the ball...which is becoming a regular occurance.

Sorry to hear that. I wonder if it's a "bad batch" scenario, or if the product is being cheapened like everything else. Primers from PlastiKote that used to be the go-to stuff were simply trash, unusable, after the "new-improved" reformulation a few years back.

Old Herb Deeks resin "1/72" scale '30s-'40s Flash Gordon-style rocket model, part of Mr. Deeks' Past Future Series. Solid, symmetrical, well made kit, looks like a candidate for some upgrading.

Looks like a low-budget Mangusta. Pretty kool in a kit-car kinda way.

Good friendamine offered me one like it for free a few years back when the steering box broke... I bought a factory manual and a steering box rebuild kit for it, then lucked into a spare engine and gearbox from one that went to the crusher before I could save it... My fren gave it to his son instead, who said he really really wanted it...and it's still sitting, dead. EDIT: PM'd

This is the stuff you want...not the enamel. It's SANDABLE...and boy, will it obliterate fine details if you get carried away. Remember...it's made for filling sanding scratches and chips on REAL cars, so you really don't want to use it as a general primer on models. It works well for filling sanding scratches over model bodywork, but if you do your bodywork right, you shouldn't need anything this heavy anyway.

"THINK!!!" is often writ large on signs in shops and businesses where it kinda helps to avoid costly mistakes, but the concept is rapidly being lost to time.

Maybe, someday, if you ever find a large part of your professional life...FOR WHICH YOU DON'T GET PAID A SALARY...to be occupied following up on, repairing, or just flat DOING OTHER PEOPLE'S JOBS SO YOU CAN DO YOUR OWN...maybe you'll understand. I don't go through life mindlessly screwing things for other people. But a lot of other people DO. And I personally post fairly regularly things I AM INDEED GRATEFUL FOR...VERY grateful...but they're the same basic things day-in, day-out and don't need constant repeating. All the irks I post are NEW, invariably caused by the stupidity, willful-ignorance, laziness, irresponsibility, or incompetence of others, and I believe that's the case with the majority on this thread.

Self-righteous hypocrites who suffer from poor reading comprehension (and are blissfully unaware of same), and who can't follow a logical train of thought always raise my ire...and I need to work on how much I allow them to affect me, 'cause they'll never change no matter how frustrated I get trying to deal with them.

Fiction aside, kid gloves (goat skin) have been considered among the best for driving, as the soft, thin, flexible leather doesn't dull sensations from the steering wheel the way thicker, coarser leather can.

Unfortunately, this is not universally known.

Really?

The effect you want was achieved on real boats and dune-buggy bodies and helmets by spraying large dry metalflake particles on top of wet gelcoat with a special gun, and then burying it in more clear gelcoat (which is basically just modified polyester resin). The old Testors "one coat lacquer" line had metallic particles in it that were about scale-correct for large metalflake in 1/25 scale. Shoot a lot of clear over it, you should have a decent scale representation. It looks like this. I have no idea about compatibility with your Tamiya product. ---------------------------------------------------------- There are some guys who do lowriders with much larger flake in the paint, like glitter, so maybe they'll chime in.

Idjits, unfortunately, are rarely aware of their deficiencies.

OK. I'm convinced. But that sure as heck is nothing like the 5-minute epoxies I've tried in the past. What BRAND are you using here? Always good to have another option in the box.

You know, it's really fascinating how often that particular straw-man comes up. Knowing a lot about a lot of things is by no means an indication that someone thinks they "know everything", but it sure is a popular refrain. While you're conducting your exhaustive tests on epoxy, why don't you try bubblegum, silicone, Liquid Nails, Silly Putty, hot-glue, and melted cheese too? After all..."The only thing that will never work is the thing that's not tried".

Sometimes I really wonder why I even bother...

Braided abrasion and burst-resistant soft lines came into use on competition cars shortly after the end of WW II, when rodders began to find AN hardware and hose on the surplus market for very little money. Military aircraft used AN hardware during the last big war. The name "AN" is derived from Army-Navy. A well-known manufacturer of AN-style plumbing bits marketed to car guys today, Earl's Supply, began business as a reseller of surplus real AN bits and hose. Early postwar applications of AN-spec hose usually employed a fabric braid on the outside, still common well into the '60s on race cars, and still widely used today for performance applications where cost and weight are issues. I DO NOT KNOW when the stainless braided hose became widely accepted for automotive applications.

You don't do heavy mods. It's not your build style. It IS mine. While I routinely use solvent bonding agents to 'stick' chopped or sectioned assemblies together, having had failures and cracking at the bond line, even if the joint was reinforced internally with sheet-styrene, I've come to rely on laminated epoxy/fiberglass reinforcements exclusively for that kind of work. But not the 5-minute stuff. I use an extremely high performance epoxy made for aviation use that costs in the neighborhood of $400 per gallon, which I usually have in stock after it's gone out of date, and cannot be used on aircraft safely...but it's still WAY stronger than any readily available adhesive in the DIY marketplace. Since I started using that method many years ago, I've had zero bond-line failures or cracks, even after aggressive sculptural shaping of "bondo" or epoxy/microballoon fillers over the bond lines. HOWEVER...even that stuff simply will not stick to any "low surface energy" plastics like PP or PE, which the OP's material very obviously is at this point.

No. I deal with "difficult to bond" scenarios in the real world on at least a weekly basis. Had you bothered to read the posts the OP made early on about bonding agents he'd already tried that had zero effect, and the posts I subsequently made above regarding specially-engineered adhesives for low-surface-energy materials, it's hard for me to understand that you would think 5-minute epoxy was a reasonable option.

Barbeque venison sammiges sound pretty good right now, but I don't have any venison.

Shur is purty...