Ace-Garageguy

Here's a secret most people fail to understand: if you can lock the wheels consistently under normal use with the rubber that's on the car, you don't need any more brakes, and all the fancy Brembo calipers and big rotors won't stop you any faster. Brake fade is another story though, so if you drive the car hard enough, using the brakes frequently enough to induce fade, then discs will be of some benefit, even with narrow tires. Cars equipped with larger diameter tires, or with a wider contact patch, will also benefit from upgraded brakes. Of course, on a long downhill grade, or in a car capable of high speeds, you may fade your "adequate" brakes on one stop, but this doesn't happen much on the way to Caffeine and Octane and home again. 90% of the time, typical owners never experience what their cars are capable of. Even a gutless old 2-liter Neon with a manual gearbox is way more car than the vast majority of drivers can use to its full potential. Over the course of my career, I've taken multiple clients for "demonstration" rides in their own cars, probably never exceeding 85 or 90% of their cars' capability, and almost without fail, the passenger seats needed cleaning afterwards.

Perfect-It paint finishing products by 3M for real cars work well for me on models, and I have unlimited access to it.

If ya just drive it at the legal speed limit to shows on Saturday or Sunday, why not? The brakes were adequate for its intended purpose when it was new, and if they're working properly, they're still adequate for the vast majority of average drivers.

"Mutable" is an adjective applied by some people to the concept of "truth", and absolutes like 1+1=2, or A is A.

I do use a remote hosting site for some photos, I keep them all on my own drives as well, and I use this site for photo hosting for this site only. But my reference to "billing cycle" was to ME billing MY real-car clients when sufficient work on either current project has been accomplished on one or the other to justify ME billing MY CLIENT. My billings include highly detailed written documentation of the work performed, with supporting photographs. I currently use the same camera to document my real-car work and my model work, and I only load batches of photos from the camera to my in-house computer storage and photo-editing suite when there's enough work completed on the billable real-car work to justify all the additional work it requires to prepare billing documentation, including photographs. A real-car billing cycle typically represents two hundred or so photos, and there'll typically be 10 to another hundred model photos sprinkled among them. Therefore, I don't load small batches of model work as I do it, but wait until there's enough photo-documented real-car work in the camera memory to justify ME billing MY client. So...I'll upload more photos to this site after I've completed enough real-car work to justify loading the camera storage into the computer at my home.

With the number of ignorant fools in the way today, everything becomes unnecessarily difficult, but some folks chose to deny reality.

Yup. Even a custom or hot-rod built from the ground up, from junk, should have some kind of certificate-of-origin and an ID number that's traceable. And if the seller gets pissy, walk away.

That bites. I hate vandals even more than thieves. The wood chipper is too good for someone who destroys somebody else's property just out of malicious hate.

Wow. 1/87 and really nice detail and proportions on the cars. Great electronics to run the lights so believably too. Impressive.

Yesterday can't be changed, but looking back can help us have better tomorrows

What I don't understand is why AOL and Chrome becoming inop made you purchase a new computer. Search engines and web browsers are NOT integral parts of your computer. Did you try another free browser, like say, Firefox? Or possibly you have old versions of AOL and/or Chrome that just need to be updated. What operating system were you running on your old machine? I have a Win7 dinosaur that still functions fine as long as I keep my browsers up to date.

Teachers would do well to stick to the subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Use the right tool for the job if you want superior results.

Un-wedged heads are not as much in evidence as they once were.

Today is a golden opportunity to get your head un-wedged.

Project your misunderstandings, failures and prejudices on your enemies, and you can be a "leader" too.

Very nice build. One of my favorite real-world cars, so small you pretty much wear it, but it practically responds to your thoughts.

Rhyme, crime, slime, time, climb, grime and mime do too.

Experience is the best teacher.

Quotations have been the enabler of many of the responses in this thread.

Good looking model. Some of those Spec Cast and Liberty Classics pieces are really pretty nice, especially for the price.

Car was insured in a state that takes a rather dim view of insurance fraud. It's a felony under the circumstances, with up to 5 years in prison and a $50,000 fine...but I wasn't in the prosecution loop after the car was recovered, so I don't know the outcome. EDIT: The fraudster, if found guilty, also has to make restitution to the insurer.

She's moving along and getting photographed as we go, but I'm running a series of adhesive tests to verify performance I need for the real-world projects...and real-car work takes priority. I typically load a batch of real and model photos from the same camera to the editing suite on another computer when enough has been accomplished on a real-car project to justify a billing cycle. We're not there yet. I used to run another camera for models only, but it needs one of the battery contacts repaired, which isn't a priority. Thanks for your interest.

Alone, I spend about $75 a week on groceries to eat very well, and that's about a 50% increase from two years ago.

I don't have your answer, 'cause I just don't know...but I sure applaud your dedication to getting the technical details right.