Ace-Garageguy

الكلب لا يعلم سيده كيفية النباح

I have found that for me, the only possible long-term partner is a woman who has her OWN creative and constructive interests, and doesn't derive her sense of security or identity or importance solely from being the center of someone else's attention. Women who have their OWN interests...and I don't mean collecting shoes or pool-boys...understand that a man's hobby is NOT A THREAT, and they appreciate their OWN time just as much as a man who has varied interests does. They also understand that trying to run a man's life is the surest way to make one who's worth having start looking for a way out.

Had to physically go to one bank yesterday, and with a couple ibuprofen it wasn't too bad. Since I was within 100 yards of the "antique mall" where I'd been getting the fantastic HO scale train deals, I figgered I might as well take a look. The stall that used to be my train go-to no longer has anything worth anything in HO, and has shifted entirely to mostly toy tinplate O gauge and a little S gauge stuff. However...the stall that sometimes has pretty good deals on plastic models had a 1/32 Revell Spitfire Mk. I in the "Lone Eagles" boxing, a little crushed but still sealed, cheap. Years ago I'd buggered the wing assembly on one with an experimental bare-metal finish that crazed it badly (which I ended up salvaging by building it as the light blue test prototype from 1936). Anyway, I'd wanted another one to do as a production aircraft, and this one was so cheap, I let it follow me home. EDIT: Years back, I found a 1/32 Matchbox Spitfire Mk. 22/24, so now I have what I wanted, models of the first Spitfire prototype, the first production version, and the last production version, all in 1/32 scale.

Had to physically go to one bank yesterday, and with a couple ibuprofen it wasn't too bad. Since I was within 100 yards of the "antique mall" where I'd been getting the fantastic HO scale train deals, I figgered I might as well take a look. The stall that used to be my train go-to no longer has anything worth anything in HO, and has shifted entirely to mostly toy tinplate O gauge and a little S gauge stuff. However...the stall that sometimes has pretty good deals on plastic models had a Monogram 1/24 427 Cobra "Metalflake" edition and a repop boxing of the AMT 1/25 '63 Ford 500XL Styline kit, both sealed and unmolested...cheap. I already had plenty of 1/24 Cobras, but this one was so cheap I can always use it for parts...or maybe a what-if blown Dragonsnake...and the '63 Ford plugged another hole in my AMT annuals lineup. Though I'm kinda tempted to build one of the Styline kits with the full-boogie kit-supplied custom bodywork now that I have the skills (the ones I built with AMT's shrink putty when I was a kid weren't great), most likely I'll do it up prepped for NASCAR. There's something I really like about the wide steel wheels and fat rubber under this body style.

Yup, that would be the way I'd describe it. And don't be afraid to ask real money for it. A genuine one-owner low-mileage creampuff is worth WAY more than something that's had a hard life, several owners, and who knows what kind of flipper-chimp "restoration" done to it.

A while back I suggested starting a thread about 3D-printed parts suppliers, naming names for both the good ones and the garbage. I've bought a fair amount of 3D stuff that was just plain trash for one reason or another, either incorrectly scaled, poorly proportioned, poorly printed, warped, or gooey. I've also bought some stuff that was acceptable, and some that was over the top excellent. HONEST product reviews with no bashing, just fair and reasonable descriptions of quality and business practices, would go a long way towards getting the bad makers out of the game...or just warning us who to avoid.

Free TV wasn't, because you had to sit through mindless commercials that eventually became so long and frequent that programming became unwatchable.

Wars cause more damage than even bacon-flavored interplanetary food fights.

"Series production" of automobiles can mean anything from a few handbuilt semi-prototypes to 50 or fewer "homologation specials", all the way up to hundreds of thousands of similar units.

Dime rolls contain five dollars.

Waddya mean? I finished two since about 2012.

Video cameras around your property may not deter theft, but at least you'll know what the thieves look like, and maybe get vehicle descriptions and tag numbers.

I said I had up to 5 being actively worked on at any given time, spread across multiple benches. I also said I had storage shelves for in-progress projects immediately adjacent to the benches. That means I could easily rotate between builds when something needed to dry or cure or I needed to figure something out before proceeding further. The highest "in-progress" count I recall when this topic came up several years ago, including active builds on the benches and stalled or resting builds on the "in progress" storage shelves was somewhere around 60.

Method acting often results in some exaggerated facial expressions...

Newly minted "journalists" journalisiming. Lotta that around now. Numbers are hard. Words are too.

True pigheaded stupidity is really quite something to see when it's so proudly displayed.

Weather is whether or not there's precipitation or other atmospheric disturbances wherever you are.

"For he's a smelly old fellow" is what they'd sing if I went out in public today, pre-shower.

I've been flogging this dead horse for years. I've been building, restoring, modifying, and race prepping real cars for decades. I have had access to most old American engines. I have measured and scaled most 1950s engines, including Mopar's Chrysler Firepower, Dodge Red Ram, and DeSoto Firedome hemis. The Red Ram in the original Ala Kart and all its derivatives is very, very close to being correctly scaled, as is the Firedome in the AMT '53 pickup, and the majority of Firepower hemi engines from all manufacturers in 1/25 scale. The Red Ram in the "new tool" AMT Ala Kart is an underscaled joke. And just FYI, the Chrysler, Dodge, and DeSoto engines are entirely different, though similar, designs.

There are lotsa clever little tricks, called "mnemonics", designed to aid memory.

When I was at my building peak I had as many as 60 going at any one time, in "rotation", with 3 or 4 or more getting actively worked on, and I've never had a problem staying current in my head with several projects running concurrently. This was possible because I had several benches where I could leave a project undisturbed while I worked on another one, and in-progress shelves immediately adjacent to the benches. My projects usually involve heavy modifications, scratch-building, problem solving, and much scale-engineering, so pushing one through to completion really isn't a realistic option. When I'd get to a major stopping point or run up against a complex problem that I needed to work out, before boxing things up for the "resting" shelves, I'd make notes to record exactly where I was. Probably not an approach for everyone, but it works well for me. Last time I was building seriously I had 5 going, but most of them are now boxed up for a cross-country move, the benches are stacked high with packed kits, and the atmosphere in my house right now just isn't conducive to building much of anything...and the modeling space that's clear is tied up making parts for a custom full-scale instrument panel for a client.

Honestly, sometimes trying to communicate is 100% totally and completely pointless.

If being stupid and willfully ignorant weren't so popular, the world would be a much better place, but idiots are rarely aware of their own idiocy and many folks seem to think ignorance is a virtue.

"Right" is sometimes considered to be defined solely by who holds the "might".

Looking at the previous post carefully, responding with some understanding of exactly what constitutes a "sentence", and comprehension of standard English punctuation would all go a long way towards playing the game according to the very simple rules, but that's apparently expecting too much.