Ace-Garageguy

Man...I haven't had a broken rib in a long time, but I sure didn't feel like building models for some time afterwards. You sir, are a true hero. Looking good. The leather effect on those seats is particularly realistic.

It almost never goes below about 20degF here, but all those things happen to a lesser degree. The most concerning is the pretty-much worn out engine in my '89 GMC, causing a lot of prolonged piston slap during warm-up. It makes me cringe thinking of how easy it would be to shatter a piston skirt if I revved the poor thing when it's stone cold, like a lot of folks I see. Doors freeze shut after a temp drop post-rain too, and it's not uncommon to see people here dump hot water on windshields and side glass, with cracked windshields and exploded side glass being the result.

There's no "chart" that I'm aware of, but a few image searches on google will turn up anything you need to know. Try search terms like "Mert Littlefield blower" (which are based on GMC designs), "GMC 6-71 blowers", etc. There are hundreds of combinations of blower housings, front drive setups, rear bearing plates, etc., so it's pretty hard to go wrong on a model if you understand the function of what you're looking at.

The best one I've seen as far as line and proportion go is the '56 Targa Florio version by Fernando Pinto (and his others that share the same shell). It's a very close scale match to my full-scale Beck 550. The Beck molds were taken from a real car that had never been squashed or modified. There are several variations, some visually significant, among the 90 or so real ones built, but I think the Beck version is by far the most representative, and the most attractive...hence the FP scale version looks the best to me. https://www.stuttcars.com/porsche-550-chassis-numbers/

Living in blissful unreality seems to appeal to some folks.

Places come and places go, but nowhere is forever.

Or you could bore one of the finger holes in an old bowling ball to just accept the glue bottle, and then put the bowling ball on a bowling ball holder... ...which you could 3D print if you were a really cool hot hip happenin' kind of fella... ...which you could put on the back of a trained giant turtle...

It's rarely an issue, but for doing things like fiddly little throttle linkages and springs that may require two hands, those infinitely positionable vises work very well. On the other hand, if you don't want to spend 40 bucks for one, these old kit-sourced engine stands work very well too. Put a no-tip metal or styrene base on one, then glue the engine to it with easily removable PVA. Or tape the stand to the bench so it doesn't move around.

Avoid eBay and you miss out on some really spectacular deals.

That's just reality from my perspective.

To still have the poor eye-hand coordination, nonexistent knowledge base, lack of common-sense, and general skills I had when I was 5 years old, but as an adult. EDIT: The real sadistic kicker would to be able to remember having had superior skills, but to not be able to get the hands to function with any kind of fine control.

"Rare" is the adjective of choice for selling on eBay.

Every kit made to Palmer or Premier design and scaling specs.

Ah yes...the turbine car. Very nice.

Hmmmm. I wonder if a cottage cheese or sour cream container would work. Weeks of intense experimentation and research to follow... Probably going to need to apply for some kind of grant though.

Nice work.

What if you don't like potato salad?

Also bought a couple broken Baldwin "Sharknose" deisels in Pennsy livery. Though the worst one was looking beyond saving, I've already carefully pieced her back together, and the repairs are all but invisible. Every Shark built (but two) was scrapped decades ago, and those two have recently come out in the daylight.

Sad remains of a very heavy cast brass HO scale 4-8-2 light "mountain" type steam locomotive. Bodged, parts lost, thrown out, and rescued from the scrap metal bin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USRA_Light_Mountain I have enough bits to make a nice engine from the boiler, cab, cylinder assembly, frame, pilot truck and trailing truck shown below. I paid $12 for this mess. Decent plastic ones go for $100-200, nice brass ones for up to $1300+. But she'll take a little work... While she's getting rebuilt, her major parts will be featured in an engine erection building diorama. What she looks like finished.

Only if you're currently in the witness protection program.

"Toys" are generally import duty free...especially to individuals. Importing a container load might be different.

Single malt.

The best: Cream. Chastain Park Amphitheater. October 1968. Front row seats.

As I believe somebody else already said...there's already almost everything imaginable available to build any flavor '32 Ford you can think of. The existing AMT 1/25 and Monogram 1/24 '36 Ford kits are pretty good as far as proportion and line go, though the last partial retool from AMT is oddly awful in some ways. Any correct '34 Ford would be nice, but since tooling designers seem to be almost universally measuring-and-math-challenged today, I won't hold out much hope. A '26-'27 Ford rod, a very popular real-world thing, based on the current Revell '29 and '30 offerings, or even on one of the '32 kits, is such an obvious slam-dunk it's surprising nobody's done it yet...though it was proposed right here many years ago.