Ace-Garageguy

"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.

This is generally the case. In the particular case I mentioned, the epoxy was MGS 285 with the slow 287 hardener. It's a high-performance material certified for use on several aircraft (most German sailplanes and the Cirrus SR20-SR22 for example). MGS 285 has a nominal pot-life of 45 minutes to 4 hours depending on hardener. It reaches full room-temp cure in 24 hours, and full strength after an additional 24 hour elevated-temperature post-cure cycle. In critical aviation use, it HAS to be mixed on a gram-scale to a ratio of 100:40 by weight (100:50 by volume) accurate to within about 2 percent...or it doesn't reach its full strength (and for aircraft use, we often have to have "test coupons" from EVERY mix validated by an FAA-approved lab, and the test results included in the paperwork before the aircraft can be signed-off and returned to service). I also use it for modeling and a wide variety of real-car applications because of its exceptional strength, and always mix it on an accurate scale. It allows me to make almost-scale-thickness fiberglass model-car panels that are many times stronger than styrene, and are stable up to 176 deg F if post-cured properly. 10 grams of 285 plus 4 grams of hardener is about as small a quantity you can mix with reasonable accuracy for non-aviation work, so after I mixed that amount and used less than half (on a warm, humid day), I forgot about what was still in the cup and walked away. I heard "sizzling" coming from the bench area, and turned around to see a plume of smoke rising from the sputtering mass of resin. Luckily it wasn't sitting on anything flammable. The actual lamination I'd used the stuff on was just fine, because it was spread over a large enough area so any heat from curing dissipated quickly. Lesson one is that thicker masses, even small masses, may runaway-exotherm. It's easy enough to avoid if leftover material is simply poured into a flat pan with enough surface area so heat isn't concentrated in a confined volume like a mixing cup. Metal paint pans work well for smaller amounts, and metal under-car drip-pans work well if you have more waste to deal with. Lesson two is try to not mix more material than you can use within the pot-life window, and pay attention. EDIT: Lesson three is that higher ambient temperatures and higher relative humidity will have a very noticible effect on shortening pot-life...so PAY ATTENTION

Breakfast of Champions.

Epoxy tastes pretty foul too...and it sticks to your tongue like glue.

I did at first, but after having to plow through several every year, I got to hate the sight of 'em...but I saw one in a store the other day and almost bought it, just for the nostalgia. They really are pretty good if you have your mind right.

Boy, that brings back memories. When I was much younger, we were floating in them around the holidays. Seemed like everyone in my father's family and everyone he worked with sent us one.