Ace-Garageguy

Real ignition-wire support looms are generally made from 1/16" (.0625") to 1/8" (.125") material. So an average representative thickness would be .09375" For your scale, divide by 16. You get approximately .006". That would be pretty flimsy. But if you make your looms from easily obtainable .010" thick styrene or brass sheet stock, they will look "scale" and still be strong enough to do what they need to do.

Received mine last week, and they look great. Much appreciated is the comprehensive set of instructions too.

COOL! And welcome. I had a rough Avenger with a Corvair engine for a short while, back at the dawn of time. Yours was beautiful...way better than mine ever looked.

Yup. Exactly. I've never had a weak joint using this method, and have been quite able to drill directly on a seam, or enlarge a hole that was on a seam, or file details at the seam, etc. Occasionally, I'll just hold the pieces in contact with each other while I flow the solvent between them, then clamp them before the liquid can evaporate. You will see a slight "squeeze" of melted plastic, your assurance the seam is "welded". I had to do rather a lot of this kind of thing on this build:

These 1.8 mm 16-18V LEDS are available on eBay (in several colors) for cheap, and include pre-wired resistors. 1.8 mm is less than a scale 2" in 1/25, so they're small enough to work in some side-markers, parking lights, dome lights, instrument cluster lighting, etc. There are others even smaller. I've had good luck with them so far, with only about 5% being inop. A bonus is that the extra-long pigtails on some of them are perfect for correctly-scaled ignition wires in 1/24-1/25 (with the heavier pigtails being good for scale battery cables).

How's this for annoying? Some drive-by-wire equipped VWs refuse to apply significant throttle if there's any steering input. So if you're trying to nail the gas and steer out of the way of an approaching semi, you're toast. A competent tech can go into the computer and disable the idiot function, but try to find one who's competent, VW-trained...and has the nads to defeat a "safety feature".

Exactly...or at the very least if the vehicle is in gear. It's easy. This add-on tech has been available since 2012, and why it's not mandatory...when so much useless idiot stuff is...is anybody's guess. https://newatlas.com/scosche-cellcontrol-disables-mobile-phones/21192/ EDIT: Last time I looked at the stats, texting or other phone-use-while-driving was responsible for as many unnecessary "accidents" as DUI used to be.

Must be the excuse du jour for Taco Bell and McD's and others here only allowing drive-through, no counter ordering or indoor dining.

Yup. Another winner. Beer to me is kinda like wine. What I drink depends on the meal. Others I'm particularly fond of (that come readily to mind): Modelo Negra, Yuengling Traditional Lager, Red Stripe, Guinness Extra Stout, Kingfisher, Taj Mahal...and 100 years ago, nothing could beat an iced down Miller or 3 in pony bottles at the end of a long hot day.

I'm not "cheap" by any means, and I'll always buy a good tool instead of inexpensive and questionable. That said, I won't spend money unnecessarily either. If I were you, I'd put your existing compressor in a closet or somewhere else you won't hear it, and use it for your painting needs. I have a 5-horse, 30 gallon unit in my back shop at home...a loud one...and run a hose up to the modeling area. Works great, and I never run out of air or have pressure fluctuations, even when running small air tools for modeling. Nice thing about running a long hose is that the air is cool by the time it gets to me, so a water trap does a much better job than if it's trying to dry hot, humid air right out of the compressor.

Yeah, but I haven't been able to get with management yet to see how far back their recordings go. Another thing is that the tools in question could have walked off at any time during the weeks I was on the road and in Az. It wasn't until this week when I started back on a massive wiring project that I noticed stuff missing, and the bozo has been gone for two weeks already. Guess I should be glad my $700 electric impact wrench is still there.

To muddy the waters even further, a "roadster" in some circles is defined as an open car with a removable windscreen frame and side-curtains, whereas a "convertible" is often equated with a "drophead coupe" or a "cabriolet", which is an open car with a welded-on, fixed windscreen frame, having more civilized roll-up windows. The Porsche 356 Speedster is a true "roadster" from that perspective, having an easily removed windscreen assembly to facilitate racing, and side curtains. Same for the Jag XK 120 roadster...and the '32 Ford roadster. But the Jag 120 DHC, the Porsche 356 cabriolet...and the '32 Ford cabriolet...have welded-on, integral windscreen frames and roll-up side windows. Somewhere between is the '32 Ford "sport coupe" that has a soft top, a welded on w/s frame, and doors with steel window frames. The Porsche 356 "convertible D" is another tweeny, having a bolted-on windscreen assembly, and roll-up side windows. Confused yet?

What irked me today? After having been a subcontractor with one vintage car shop here since 2016, and NEVER having a single tool go missing, a couple hundred bucks worth of electrical tools and test equipment disappeared the same time they fired the last useless bozo. Though the shop locks have all been changed now, there had been a nice atmosphere of trust and comaraderie...so I wasn't scrupulous about always putting all my tools up and locking my boxes on days I wouldn't be there. Mea culpa I guess...but that's baloney. A thief is a thief.

Things happen. But how 'bout post the list of those of us who got it, so we can gloat in our encyclopedic knowledge?

Holy moley. I might (just) be moved and be able to make this one...

Still a treat to watch this one evolve...

EDIT: Don't feel bad. Scalemates refers to the Gee Bee as a "Reno Racer", which is WAY wrong. The Gee Bee was built in the early 1930s to compete in the Bendix Air Races, among others. The Reno Air Races didn't begin until 1964...decades after the last Gee Bee was scrap and termite droppings. Though Delmar Benjamin and Steve Wolf did build a full scale flying replica of the Gee Bee R2 in 1991, and flew at Reno on several occasions (as well as numerous other air show events), it did NOT race there.

Nope. The Williams Bros. kit is actually 1/32 (I have it, as well as their Gee Bee Z kit, and have checked). The ancient Pyro / Lindberg Gee Bee labeled 1/32 is the one that's actually about 1/26 if you go by the wingspan (though the pilot figure is indeed about 1/32). And, ummm, I was the guy who first discovered the mistaken scaling on the box and spread the word many years ago. EDIT: The misinfo probably arises from the several boxings of both the Williams Bros. and the Pyro / Lindberg kits. The 1/26 Lindberg / Pyro Gee Bee kit makes a brief appearance on page one in the thread below:

Yeah, but lotsa times, when it's the only game in town, you got to take what you can get and go from there. Williams, by the way, made other 1/32 historic race planes...among them 2 different Gee Bee designs. They're nice kits, and can be superdetailed into spectacular models if that's your thing.

Yes, the epoxies are generally excellent if used correctly, and will definitely adhere to diecast better than the polyester 2-part materials. For something a little more exotic, people can consider epoxy mixed with microballoon. We use it for light and strong filler on real airplanes. I prefer the West 105 epoxy, but any decent slow-curing epoxy should work (I'd advise against the 5-minute stuff, unless you experiment first and test its adhesion in thin sections). I used a West 105/microballoon mix on this build, and was VERY happy with the results: EDIT: Scroll to page 6 of the thread below for the final result, one of the very few models I've actually finished (at least to the curbside stage )

Smart move. A cheap way to get multiple LEDs and a printed board. Most you'll usually need to do is lengthen the leads to the individual LEDs. Downside is that the quality of the components can be awful, and they'll sometimes fail in days...if not minutes. But for a buck, it's a decent gamble.

See my post above. In addition, there are a surprising number of somewhat obscure historic racing plane kits available, but you have to kinda know what you're looking for...and in the course of searching for one, you'll come up with more. EDIT: For instance, I just came across this one in 1/32 from Williams: EDIT: Cheap, in the States... https://www.ebay.com/itm/265438075046?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20200818142055%26meid%3Ddf02e2ac3c7d4baf868dcc2210de23e2%26pid%3D101113%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D264433385644%26itm%3D265438075046%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2563228%26algv%3DDefaultOrganicWeb&_trksid=p2563228.c101113.m2108

You just said what I've been saying for a quite a while now. There have always been slackers and shirkers, but it really does seem, to anyone who's actually out and about in the trenches in the business world, that things are getting worse and worse. Neither of the shops I subcontract to has been able to hire anyone competent or motivated since 2017, and one has quit trying and will be winding down operations within a couple of years. All the people there now are old hands, in the biz for decades, but nobody who's come in has lasted more than a few weeks because they're just not worth the paper they're printed on. What's inexplicable to me is that an income in the high 5 to low 6 figure range is possible for somebody with mechanical aptitude, reasonable intelligence, and a strong work ethic...and we can't find anybody.

eBay is a prime example of what is happening to businesses and institutions worldwide. Useless dwerps who couldn't have built whatever in the first place come in in droves, thinking they can make whatever they target "better", and end up ruining something that worked fine.

The 1/48 Comet is usually available through eBay, and usually ships from Europe. Sometimes takes a while, but if you use PayPal you're covered if it's lost. https://www.ebay.com/itm/294495718234 The Caudron C450 is available as a 1/48 resin kit, it's kinda rare, but usually can be found through eBay too. It's very similar to the C460 in your photo. https://www.ebay.com/itm/224763191696?hash=item3454ee2190:g:cRgAAOSwAeFhyyb5