Ace-Garageguy

Pretty cool. I have a lot of fond memories of stopping at HoJos as a kid, during road trips with my parents.

Beautimous.

I'm pretty stoked about these. I've been collecting old "craftsman" kits for a few years now, and recently scored several more Ambroid wood RR car kits manufactured between 1957 and 1962. Eight car kits in all (one double kit), beautiful condition, and almost entirely complete. The only one I've carefully inventoried so far is the H-22 AT&SF caboose, and it's missing one end panel. Miraculously, Northeastern Scale Models, the company that designed and manufactured these kits for Ambroid way back then, is still in business. Though they have no pre-cut parts, they do have the exact scribed basswood siding I'll need to make a replacement. Ambroid made two series of "One of Five Thousand" multimedia (wood, wire, and cast-metal) kits from '57 through '62, as an advertising vehicle for their tube glue. The subjects were primarily unusual and interesting RR cars that no mass-manufacturer would have even considered. They consist mostly of milled basswood strips, shapes and scribed sheets, and are as close to scratch-building as you can get with anything in kit form. Many of the kits included a lead tube of Ambroid glue, and the ones in these kits are still sealed and entirely usable. The prices marked on the boxes, by the way, were what they cost new, not cheap by any means in the period. Today, they're usually many times more expensive. I pretty much have all the ones I'm really interested in now, and multiples of my favorites. The "US NAVY helium car" is among the most fascinating to me (not my model). (yes, it's a model of a real car) Of course I had nowhere near the requisite skills to even attempt one of these when they were new, but I remember longing for the time when I would, as I read about them in Model Railroader Magazine. So these kits were bought with the intent to build 'em, not save 'em.

Information from hundreds of mindless rebleaters who all say the same thing, but don't have any first-hand experience or factual knowledge to back it up, is as valuable as the drool dripping off the village idiot's chin.

My guess is that the CA/micro technique is very similar to the CA/cinnamon technique, as neither additive has much (if any) effect on the set-time of the CA.

"Mush" as a substitute for brains has never stopped anyone from rising to positions of power and influence.

Life may give you lemons, but if you like seafood, that may not be all bad.

Intentions of the good kind are said to be the paving stones on the road to The Eternal Very Hot Place.

Cool stuff. Thanks for the links.

Bought a light-duty pneumatic planishing hammer, barely used, for about 1/3 of the new cost...almost identical to the one below.

I'm kinda leaning towards a cat-poo cannon right now.

Pie...yes, I like pie, so much so that I can honestly say I've never met a pie I didn't like.

"Russian beauties seeking older American men" isn't a scam I've ever fallen for, though at times it's certainly been tempting...

Similar, though it's only one letter different, isn't the same as Similac...

Fascinating. I wasn't aware of that. All the urethane-based products I've ever worked with are used at room temp. This is definitely something I'll follow up on. What are those...housings?...for, anyway?

Yesterday's irk, actually...checked my mailbox on the way in and stepped in dog exhaust. Fresh, slimy, and stinking. Had to take my shoes off and wash 'em prior to entering the house...and not the first time. Though there is a grassy strip of public land immediately across the narrow not-busy street from me, one of my neighbors persists in letting her dog use my lawn as its toilet. I've seen her and her pooch in the act on occasion, walked outside and asked her nicely to stop, she denied it even though I had witnessed the download, and the steaming pile was an obvious "smoking gun". Guess I need to see where she lives and dump my catbox at HER mailbox..though I ought to make sure there are no cameras pointed at the street first.

My kinda guy.

Yes indeed, there are still some conscientious carriers who actually do the job they're paid for. One of my local guys is just like that. The rest are kinda meh, but so much better than their predecessors, complaining would make ME look like the idiot.

Sorry, but I really have to disagree. The reason so many get away with what they get away with is that so many others don't say anything about it for whatever justification they give themselves. I was having almost weekly problems with deliveries from my local PO...packages left on the street next to the mailbox, books hammered into the mailbox with damage to corners and bindings, boxes left in puddles in the driveway, left on top of cars in the rain, left in the middle of the yard, or just mis-delivered entirely (next door, several blocks away, etc.)...and after repeated email complaints to the Postmaster, miraculously, no more problems. I don't have any idea if my complaints had anything to do with the change, but surely I wasn't the ONLY one affected by the delivery peoples' poor performance, so the combined influence of others who probably complained too apparently got something done. And so far, nobody's come to kill me. And if someone should, let's just say I'm kinda prepared (vicious attack-cats).

Nice shot. And notice the thing isn't stupid-nose-high even coming out of the hole at this point in its development, thanks to those whitewall-tired wheelie bars...which I've never noticed before on any of the SWC '40 Willys cars.

Lee Remick was very pretty.

He must have confused "waist high" with "waste high"...as in "if you drop from high enough, it becomes waste".

The site was still up not too long ago, but not open for business, and with a message saying he was reworking things and would reopen soon. I certainly hope he's not gone for good, as his products and service were always 100%.

For quick fits I'll be taking apart shortly, I use a small drop or 2 of liquid cement. Adhesion is instant, I can see what I need to see (like making sure an intake manifold will correctly fit a pair of cylinder heads after they're hard-glued...and then taking it all apart), and disassemble whatever it is with very minimal damage. BUT...recently I wanted to take several in-progress models to a show, and for that, I stuck everything together with trusty old Elmers. Came home, everything came back apart after several days with no damage.

The real problem is that to be close to scale-correct in 1/25, you'll need 1mm square or even smaller hex styrene rod (3-way fittings are usually T-shaped, 2-way are usually straight-through rectangular or hex-shaped EDIT: though there are others), and can de difficult for some modelers to drill, though it is possible (I drill very small holes all the time with a pin-vise, and I'm an old geezer). You can save a lot of grief in 1/24-1/25 scales by sticking to simple shapes for T-fittings, eliminating the recess on the closed side, and the protrusion on the threaded part on top of the illustration below. Nobody but an actual mechanic will ever know.