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Ace-Garageguy

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Everything posted by Ace-Garageguy

  1. Blame the the Starbucks effect: "...Venti Caramel Crunch Frappe, double blended with five bananas, extra caramel drip, extra whip, extra ice, extra cinnamon dolce topping, extra caramel crunch, seven pumps of dark caramel sauce, seven counts of frappe roast coffee, one pump honey blended and heavy cream..." They look at me like I'm nuts when I ask for a medium black coffee. Oops...I meant "grande".
  2. Which brings up another point...religiously test fit everything before you start painting, and remember to give enough gap on the edges of opening panels to compensate for the eventual paint thickness. I've read over and over on this board and others "the paint came out great, but I buggered it assembling because things didn't fit together at the end, and my touchups look like jell".
  3. "Best" isn't really an adjective I'd use for my vehicles, as they've mostly been oddballs, prone to a variety of maladies. But my all time favorite was the Lotus 7 Series II/III SCCA race-spec car, acquired from Coventry Car Sales back in the early 1970s, after it was sold on by Lotus following its appearances as the London Auto Show car in several incarnations. Pushrod, crossflow 1600 Ford "Kent", with Cosworth rocker stands, main bearing caps, and two side-draft Weber 40s. The most responsive thing I've ever driven on the street, period. I still dream about it some nights...and parting with it was one of the stupidest things I ever did. The Beck 550 Spyder I have now promises to be right up there with the Lotus, but still needs work. Second favorite is a tie between the '89 GMC 5-speed pickup I have now, and a '72 Chevy P-20 Step Van I fitted out as a mobile shop when I had fleet accounts back in the late 1980s. Both of them are/were as reliable as bricks, after having had long, hard, abused lives as commercial vehicles. Simple and very tough, they responded happily to being repaired reasonably correctly and well maintained, and never let me down once.
  4. Went back for another look. Yup...damm man, NICE!
  5. As far as Mr. Guthmiller goes, I have to agree with him 100%. The Duplicolor black is a very clean, dark black, covers exceptionally well, and self-levels nicely if you learn to spray correctly with rattlecans. The Duplicolor nozzles work well, produce a nice fan pattern, and you get plenty in a can to do more than one model, including enough to fix whatever goes wrong. But I also always have to chuckle at the widespread misinfo concerning black paint. The fear-mongering began because black shows any minor defect in a surface, and because it's a mirror-like finish if it's shiny, waves and poor bodywork jump out at the viewer. This has morphed into an erroneous idea that "black is hard to paint". It isn't. Get your prep right, get your bodywork spot-on, and you won't have any problems. I've been painting real cars for more than 5 decades, and frankly, I find that shooting black is the easiest of any color out there. A quality black covers better than just about any other color, matching is usually pretty simple (though there ARE different "blacks", stay with one known good black and you won't have issues), and if you lay it down slick, you can very easily make out the wet edge on each coat, helping to get even coverage. The only real "difficulty" comes about during the sanding and polishing phase...if you don't understand the process or try to skip necessary steps.
  6. Bring on the "confused" emojis... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  7. Beautiful model. I'm still in awe of the quality of most of the DM offerings.
  8. OMG !!! OMG !!! BAN HIM !!! BAN HIM !!!
  9. There are models in HO scale. Purchase one, copy parts design and scale-up, not too difficult to scratchbuild what's necessary. Use G-scale wheels from a handcar or small G-scale narrow-gage equipment.
  10. Sealed 1969 release of Revell's 1/8 scale Harley police bike. I got interested in these large scale bike kits while doing my "Then Came Bronson " custom Sportster a few years back. One thing I've learned about these big Revell bikes is that the tires sometimes shrink so badly as to be unusable. I'm just about to open it up to see what they look like. Here's a link to the Bronson Sportster build, in case anybody's interested.
  11. Looks great, especially the way it's posed and photographed in your very convincing and realistic setting. That said, I still can't get past the incorrect windshield height. Not your fault, of course, and the rest of Revell's proportions look fine. How really good this model looks is inspirational as well. Thanks to your post here, I think I've determined how to achieve a relatively easy fix for what has been bothering me about this kit.
  12. What is this thing called "hobby store"?
  13. Beautiful print. Bill Cunningham is the man as far as 3D-print-based models go at the moment. I saw his completed Maser birdcage here back in November, and it's staggeringly good...probably well beyond anything I ever hope to achieve. I was fortunate to have a conversation at the event with both Bill and Pico Elgin, another pioneering purveyor of nowhere-else-available 3D model files and parts. Great guys, both of them. Nice to see you getting in on this one, and your adoption of the technology.
  14. Love that Fordomerc business coupe...
  15. I'll probably leave the asking to the confused party. I figger I did my part by posting in understandable English.
  16. Here's a "barn find" Z102. They imply there's going to be a full restoration too, but I didn't chase down any more links. https://www.musclecarszone.com/1000000-car-barn-find-in-california/
  17. You're welcome, sir. I'd assume all the Pegaso chassis of the period were very similar. Nov. '54 Road & Track (available on eBay) has a Z102 article, but I don't know if it has any underside pix...though I'd guess not. Great projects, beautiful cars.
  18. This site might help... https://www.motorpasion.com/deportivos/galeria-de-fotos-de-un-pegaso-z-102-al-desnudo-en-el-auto-retro
  19. Do you have these? https://www.ultimatecarpage.com/gallery/Pegaso-Z102-95614.html https://www.pinterest.com/pin/338051515756274773/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/801781539908844782/
  20. Wish I could help you, but my old vacuum pumps are diaphragm dinosaurs, no oil. But that certainly looks like water contamination...not surprising probably, depending on your local relative humidity.
  21. You can count on this one never being mainstream, for sure. Nice choice in subjects, good looking work. I'm now kicking myself again for letting one of these that was abandoned at a defunct shop get away decades ago.
  22. I'm continually irked by the little "confused" emoticons posted under perfectly intelligible posts. If somebody's really "confused" by a post, why not ask for clarification rather than just clicking on a relatively meaningless google-eyed emoji? Forums lend themselves nicely to two-way communication and mutual understanding...kinda the whole point. EDIT: See below, right. I'm assuming reading comprehension / verbal communication just isn't some people's thing. Kind of a shame, really.
  23. How hard lines are "anchored" depends on the line, its diameter, its length, and what it's being used for. Large diameter but short oil and fuel hard lines, AN-8 or AN-10 for example, are often only anchored to the chassis or engine where they go into soft lines, or through a panel or bulkhead. Specific "bulkhead" fittings accomplish this, capturing a bulkhead or bracket with an additional nut (shown below). Brackets to mount these fittings only need be simple metal tabs with a hole for the fitting, welded or bolted to the vehicle or engine. Long tubing runs are typically anchored every couple of feet, using a wide variety of brackets, clamps, and clips. Lotsa modelers represent fuel and brake line clips and clamps with appropriately sized strips of BMF. This is a very popular design, below, available in any diameter for any kind of line, and available as single or double (shown). There are many other types of line clamps and clips, but most would be difficult to model, particularly in smaller scales. Click link below. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=brake+line+clamps&t=chromentp&atb=v226-1&iax=images&ia=images
  24. ^^^ Many thanks. As an aside, something that's fascinated me for years now is the number of obsolete Indy cars that finished their days as supermodifieds, or had their components recycled into supermodified builds. It's another internet rabbit-hole I'd like to thoroughly research some day. This is just one of many stories: http://www.retrorockets.org/feature_restore_keenan-addy/feature_restore_keenan-addy.htm
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