Ace-Garageguy

In the physical world, some of us frequently have to deal with "assumptions and minor incompatibilities" as well. For instance, the MS (Military Specification), AN (Army Navy, familiar to anyone who plumbs race cars), and later NAS (National Aerospace Standard) for aircraft/aviation hardware and materials was/is an attempt to insure compatibility and performance standards of fasteners and plumbing bits, metal in any form or composition, composite (fiber reinforced) materials, plastics, adhesives, sealants, etc. on things that would fly with human lives dependent on them. The intent was/is to insure that hardware or material from any manufacturer complying with a particular standard would be compatible with hardware or material from any other manufacturer complying with the same standard, and would perform as designed and specified. It's particularly critical on combat aircraft, as one never knows where the next box of a particular widget came from, but if it carries the appropriate label, compliance and compatibility is assumed by people in the field who might not have the time for due-diligence while getting shot at. It usually works, but due to occasional misreading of a spec, misinterpreting a spec, or willful failure to comply with a spec (a frequent problem with "offshore" suppliers), anyone involved with aircraft repair and modification will occasionally encounter "minor incompatibilities" (sometimes not so minor, like when a mission-critical bolt is made from the wrong material and causes a catastrophic failure, like a wing shearing off in flight) based on "assumptions" that compliance with specifications is guaranteed by a part number and a label. Aircraft repair or maintenance facilities generally comply with appropriate AS 9100 / AS 9110 standards (industry specific, based on ISO 9001 QMS - Quality Management Systems), MUST comply with 14 CFR 145, and it can be a significant financial and paperwork burden on small companies to do so. Any aircraft repair or modification has to comply with arcane procedures specified by the FAA, fully documented as to compliance (which is where the old joke that 'the repair isn't complete until the paperwork weighs as much as the airplane' comes from). Anything done "outside of the box" (like the composite fuselage structural repair procedures I was directly involved with developing) has to be documented extensively, with complete engineering data furnished to, reviewed by, and approved by an FAA DER (Designated Engineering Representative) under 14 CFR 183.29...BEFORE the repair is actually done or the aircraft is returned to service. "Assumptions and incompatibilities" occur here as well. One aircraft manufacturer was vehemently opposed to our new repair procedures for their own financial reasons, implying that our work would be "unsafe", as we didn't comply with their outdated, unnecessarily heavy, but "certified" repair procedures...which were very limited in scope anyway. Their motive was that typically, one of their aircraft suffering significant wing or fuselage damage had previously been deemed "non repairable", forcing insurance companies to REPLACE the aircraft (as in buy a new one from them) rather than repair them. When replacement cost for their particular aircraft can be over a million bucks, it's pretty obvious why they didn't want us to fix them for substantially less (insurance only purchasing such parts as were available from the manufacturer, through us, rather than an entire airplane). We ultimately were issued FAA approval, and we were very fortunate that our DER had been, before his retirement, the lead structural engineer on one of the first high-performance all-composite series-produced general aviation aircraft in the world, and was well versed in dealing with "assumptions and incompatibilities" concerning compliance with the relevant FAA rules and specs. Based on the length of this one post, I could probably write a book on instances of "assumptions and incompatibilities" in the physical engineering world, and how they can sometimes even lead to tragic consequences, including lives lost unnecessarily.

"Breakfast of Champions" was the advertising tag line for a well known breakfast cereal, in spite of the well known fact (then and now) that protein, along with carbs, is a much better performance-enhancing breakfast than just sugar-drenched empty carb calories with a little milk, but in some circles of intellectual endeavor, the "breakfast of champions" was 5 cups of coffee and half a pack of cigarettes.

At this point, I'm beginning to understand that most of today's target market for kits don't give a holy darn about the dark and mysterious bits under the car that make it function, or for the majority, have no idea what any of them do anyway. And it's OK with me, as long as what we're getting have well-proportioned bodies that capture the visual essence of the real cars. "Serious" modelers have been dealing with blobular undercarriages for decades. Yeah, it'd be nice to have all the mechanical goodies represented, but it is what it is.

Impulses should not always be acted upon.

Over the past few weeks, I've snatched a few minutes here and there to get the somewhat corrected 1/24 engine for my Pontiac GTO powered Ferrari 250 GTO ready for paint. Lengthened the block and oil pan to correct the proportions, added material to get the block casting details closer to a real one, replaced the blobular timing cover with one modified from the old Revell parts pack Poncho mill, removed the mechanical fuel pump (after sourcing a period-correct electric unit to mount at the tank), lengthened and modified the heads to represent factory freeze-plugs on the ends, removed the cast-in spark plugs and "spot-faced" the wells they live in (after drilling the heads for plug wires), reworked a parts box 3X2 intake manifold to fit the heads correctly, added the manifold-to-timing cover coolant bleed casting, fabbed up a reasonable looking valley cover, located and drilled the modded block for the new Rep&Min distributor, and determined that I'll need to fab headers, as nothing I have is remotely close EXCEPT for the "cast iron" OEM headers from the AMT "Polyglass Gasser". The cast iron headers would be on the heavy side for this particular swap, so I'll only be using their flanges as patterns for new ones, with corrected port spacing to better match the heads I have. I also got the pretty-good-close-enough 3X2 carbs from a GTO snapper kit to play nice with the intake manifold. All this was necessary so I can fit the engine in the chassis, hopefully getting the air cleaners to just fit under the Ferrari hood blister, while maintaining some sort of reasonable ground clearance at the deep end of the sump, and make some passable engine mounts...so I can rework the firewall / footwells as necessary, and get on with the rest of it. This started out as a -cough-simple quickie build for a break from more "serious" projects. Pix will be on the build thread after I load what's in the camera with them (real-car work) into the main computer.

Nope, though something in the general area was discussed at one time. I'd strongly advise getting multiple medical opinions, 'cause if they mess up an "electrical connection", there's no going back, and some functions can suffer even if everything is done absolutely right.

I just wish I'd had the presence of mind and understanding of the ephemeral nature of the resin business to have bought everything I was interested in when it was available. I've learned my lesson, and snap up everything I really want now...but as the man once said "shoulda been here yesterday".

Yup...

IIRC, the original issue of that kit came with too-tall, soft, solid one-piece vinyl tires appropriate to an earlier Indy "roadster" style of car. A later issue came with two-part hard styrene copies of that too-tall tire. Yet another issue came with awful square-shouldered hollow tires that were completely wrong too. These from Indycals that stavanzer linked to would be the hot setup, if they ever come back. I'll be watching too, as I need some, and I'll give you a heads-up if I see 'em.

Looks great, but the cracking on the flare is the reason I always use an ultra-fine fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin reinforcement on any flares, top-chops, etc. Handling accidents happen, and weak joints can easily crack during the color-sanding / polishing process too. For me, the insurance against damaging fine custom bodywork is easily worth the extra hassle.

Standards of quality tend to suffer in an "everybody gets a trophy for just showing up", wholly non-competitive environment where you can't undermine a precious snowflake's self-esteem by telling him to up his game, because his output is 3rd rate trash.

Pretty sure they're Monogram '53 or '57 Corvette.

Actually, from some modelers and vendors, it is. I remarked above that the best of the best aftermarket parts I have (defined by the finest imaginable detail, with zero surface finishing needed) are 3D prints. But indeed, a lot of the stuff out there at the moment is still grainy, warped, or shows print lines.

Thanks Tim.

Price-first-shoppers aren't usually concerned much with quality.

Speaking of "name your own price if the quality is there", look at Singer. You can bet any analyst looking at their "business case" in the beginning would have told 'em "if there was a market for rebuilt old Porsches selling for a half-million bucks, somebody would have done it already''. Now they have a several-year backlog, a gorgeous new facility, and every craftsman in the place probably gets paid very well indeed...and no idiot managers like I've worked under occasionally, cracking the whip to get third-rate work out the door as quickly as possible.

Best Western motels used to be some of the best reasonably priced places to stay on road trips (and may still be AFAIK).

Well...the thing about delegating responsibility is that part of the boss's job is making sure those delegated responsibilities are taken care of. Reliable communication is pretty important where health and medicine are concerned.

Pretty cool...

Gee willikers. You're a doctor and your "message machine isn't working"? I think I'd be looking for a doctor who took his responsibility a little more to heart. Not too hard to send somebody to WalMart to pick up a cheapo for even a temporary fix. I mean, it's not like doctors can't afford 50 bucks...especially when it's a write-off anyway.

That would indeed be nice, but what I'd REALLY like to see is printed wires with integral back-face rims, that were designed to reside in actual machined alloy outer rims. As fragile as printed spokes are, it can be daunting getting a perfect finish on a painted or "polished" rim without damaging spokes. Separate machined (or even printed) outer rims would solve the problem, though the relationship of the outer spokes to the rims might need some tweaking to look almost right...depending on the lacing of the real wheel being represented, of course. Those shown below could work well with machined outer rims. These, not so much. NOTE: Some real Borranis have polished alloy rims, and chromed or stainless or painted spokes. It's a subtle but noticeable difference in color and reflectivity, all but impossible to achieve with one-piece printed wires. The best model wires I've seen to date used printed rims with integral nipples (that had .010" holes printed in), and were then hand-laced using nylon monofilament...but that's way too much hassle for anything other than top-tier models for competition. And then there's the question of how to get the best "chrome" finish...

That is exactly where I was when I used to make aftermarket fiberglass parts for real cars. To be cost-competitive and get the work, I had to price the stuff so the resellers I contracted with could mark it up enough to make their profit. There are companies many of you would recognize that I made tooling and/or parts for. But I was pretty much always behind the 8-ball financially, almost always running behind, and couldn't keep up with demand...partly because, though all my stuff was professional and righteous, my pricing was on par with mouth-breathing hackers who turned out trash. When I got sick of the constant grind and raised my prices to the point demand fell WAY off, I ended up making more money for a lot less work, and had happy clients because they got their stuff on time. If the quality is there, you can pretty much name your own price these days (within reason) because there just aren't many who can (or will) do top-line work. If I was a young man knowing what I know now, there'd be no stopping me from staying in high-end model and real parts, and custom machine and fabrication work.

With 8 billion+ people on the planet, and 336 million+ in the USA alone, one would think there would be at least a few who met that criterion.

This one. Actually started it in about 1995. It's gone through several iterations, still not done.

If the resin was properly mixed and is fully cured (very likely so with Modelhaus), any of the fillers should work just fine. Be sure your part is clean of any lingering mold-release agents (lotsa recommandations elsewhere for that), and roughen large areas that need fill with 220 or coarser grit paper. It's also imperative to let the catalyzed fillers set hard before shaping, as you can get featheredge and adhesion problems if you hit it too soon. This is why learning to apply filler smoothly is a good idea too, so as to avoid the temptation to start shaping it when it's "green" and soft. NOTE: Applying bondo fillers to real cars is often made much more efficient and faster by "cheese grating" the material to rough shape once it's started to harden. But this is generally NOT a good idea with catalyzed fillers on models unless you have experience and a very fine touch.