Ace-Garageguy

Surprisingly, the PO has been knockin' 'em out of the park for me for the last several months. Every now and then they seem to have the need to run back and forth between 2nd and 3rd a few times on the way, but everything has managed to make it home in "reasonable" time. Still, every time I have to order anything that will be shipped, I cross my fingers (but I don't hold my breath).

What I find so amusing is that I've been posting for years how injection molded plastic items can be made cost-effectively right here in the good ol' USofA, and all I got was shouted down. I know injection molding companies here who are entirely capable of doing the work, from design and prototyping right through to packaging, but no, model companies chose to chisel out the last few pennies of profit per item, and dug themselves into the hole they're in now. I hate to say "I told you so"...nah, I don't.

The rear end assembly looks to me (on first inspection without having built it up) th be the best representation of the Jag IRS I've seen to date in any kit...and I'm, you might say, somewhat familiar with the real ones.

Right now I'm thinking the above poster just recently graduated from college.

Much as I hate to admit it, I've started going to Wallyworld when I'm on that side of town to save a few bucks on some groceries, so next time I'm there, I'll have a look.

1. Ultrashort power cords on Small Countertop Appliances. Since the Safety-for-All folks decided that small appliances (mixers, blenders, toasters, can openers, small grills, and such-like) are at risk of causing Death and Destruction from the long cords getting tangled or causing mayhem some other way, now all the S.C.A.s have ridiculously short cords. I'd bet anything the short cords are done in the name of "cost-engineering" to save a few pennies per unit, and marketed as being done for "safety". Sure as H wouldn't be the first time. 2. Modren Distracted Drivers.....All of a sudden, folks (esp. in left Turn Lanes) are leaving a whole car length between cars... I started noticing this some years back around here, mentioned it on the board, and was shouted down by people claiming it was "safer" in the event somebody plowed into your butt. I personally believe that most of the dozy phone-obsessed drivers can't multitask well enough to keep a foot on the brake while they're texting, and leaving a car length in front of 'em makes it that much less likely they'll oopsie-roll into the car ahead. That, and I'm seeing a growing number of drivers who seem to have zero sense of spatial awareness, either stopping 10 feet behind the white line at a traffic signal for no reason, or poking their car noses well into the cross-traffic lane when stopped at side streets.

Always like seeing this kit built. It's really the best proportioned of all the '32 roadsters out there. Really like the color too, and I'm always enthusiastic about seeing previously-built kits resurrected into much better models.

SEE: Iberian blackout

Malibu was home to one of my aunts and her husband after WW2.

Him bid bad mean man made me cwy an I'm dunna take my toys an do home.

Politicians, for the most part, have strong and vocal opinions on everything they have no knowledge of, just like most of their constituents.

Exactly. I have a couple sets of US-made small number drills that have lasted for decades doing model work, and I've bought cheap sets "just to see" that wouldn't drill a single hole in soft styrene.

Most of my life has been spent building or modifying or repairing things for other people. Though it's been rewarding creatively and monetarily, there's nothing for me as satisfying as building something entirely to my own vision, without having to accommodate customer goals and influences. And though I've owned a lot of interesting cars, I've rarely built anything for myself exactly the way I wanted. Building cars in non-work time takes huge motivation, shop space, and money, and I usually lacked at least one of those at any given time. Car modeling lets me build things I would have liked to do for myself under different circumstances, and to have scale replicas of some of the real cars I'd like to own if I'd made better life and financial decisions, or things I would have enjoyed building (and possibly racing) had I lived in other eras. Model cars have also been a way to experiment visually, and to some extent work out packaging and engineering, for the small number of full-scale projects I'll be able to get to (maybe) in the time I have remaining. Like these. And I particularly enjoy building replicas of cars that really appeal to me, but that there are no models made of...like this. I also love rebuilding stuff most people would throw out, like these... And finally, I occasionally like to do radical what-if? customs. DIESELPUNK AND JAG C-X75 INSPIRED TWIN-TURBINE ELECTRIC HYBRID:

A little less pain, a little more mobility every day...for which I'm very thankful.

PM'd

"Guy things" often involve getting sweaty and dirty, and sometimes an element of danger.

I know that, but somehow missed the game.

If there's a vertical surface out in the absolute middle of nowhere, odds are some clowns will have "tagged" it in the delusional view that vandalism is Greate Arte.

"Feeling frisky" reminds me of something in the distant past, but I can't for the life of me remember what exactly...

I feel your pain. I still really like TB occasionally, but the prices are just flat nuts now. A bag o' stuff I used to be able to get for around $10 before the Bat Flu is now over $25.

I posted much of this elsewhere recently... My first car was a $250 '62 VW Bug some flipper (yeah, they had 'em then too) put a terminally leaking 36 horse engine in (sposed to be a 40). I was 18, that was all the money I could scrape together, and I wildly overpaid for a total and complete POS. I knew nothing much really useful about cars, only having changed points and fiddled with tuneups on the family rides, and a little bodywork (small crease low on a front fender) with a claw hammer and files and rattlecan touchup paint (which came out very well, as I hammered and filed and primered according to an article in Rod & Custom until the metalwork was just about perfect). Anyway, eventually I rebuilt a junkyard 40 horse for the Bug, added headers and a 2-bbl carb, replaced the front suspension assembly (the torsion bar tubes were bent when I bought it), lowered it all 'round with a rear "camber compensator", fitted a JC Whitney quick-steering Pitman-arm extender (that probably would have killed me if it had broken on the Interstate just a few minutes before it failed in the Burger King parking lot adjacent to the Ga.Tech EE lot where the slaloms were held), and a quick shift kit, rewired it (for real gauges, 12 volts, and in general 'cause chimps had already been at it), gutted the interior and put in a roll bar and fiberglass buckets, bolted on flared glass fenders and wheel adaptors and Chevy chrome-reverse 14" steel rims with Polyglas tires...and finally stuck a $500 Porsche 356 SC engine in it. It was pretty quick as a slalom car by that point, sometimes setting FTD (fast time of the day) if the guy with the 140-horse Corvair engine in a Manx with real race rubber didn't show up. He was unbeatable, period. I ended up wrapping it sideways around a tree after sliding on a patch of loose gravel that was on a hairpin turn on a road I'd never driven before. Body and chassis were pretzeled, went to a junkyard, bought a pan / backbone, swapped everything on to it, drove it like that on the street (bare pan) for a couple of years, and continued running slaloms. Got pulled over frequently just because, but everything about it met the exact letter of the law, including the little square of plexiglass needed to adhere the inspection sticker to (the law at the time said if you had a windshield you had to have functional wipers, but nowhere did it say you had to have a windshield). Always intended to get another Bug shell, but at some point I got into Corvairs and the Bugpan got parted out. Sure wish I still had it. There may be polaroids floating around somewhere, and I may have some slides or B&W negatives of it (I know I have shots of the girlfriend at the time).

Climbing towards the "any number of sentences you feel like writing game" we are, with three (which is more than one, for the numerically challenged) being in evidence above.

Just got a Heller 1/24 scale E-type coupe molded in red, for a good bit less dollarage than the recent oddly proportioned Revell kit I was sorely disappointed with. For my money the Heller kit is VASTLY superior for a number of reasons...even though it's molded in red. I like it so much I have one molded in white on the way.

My ISP is one of the most hated companies in the USA, and for good reason. It's unreliable, overpriced, and engages in illegal throttling even on the highest available data plan...but it's the only available cable hookup at my current address. Oh, I'll be such a happy boy when I can kiss their miserable 3rd rate service goodbye forever. Being stuck in the office chair for a week with broken ribs (and nothing to do but live online or read) has let me see what an entire and total POS these people actually provide.

Save yourself untold unnecessary grief and just use CA and epoxy to assemble white metal kits. I've been soldering electrical stuff, plumbing, and brass models together for over 5 decades, I'm kinda good at it, and there's still no way I'd risk soldering an essentially irreplaceable cast white metal kit together. Even some of the most highly skilled model railroad soldering guys embraced CA and epoxies early on when they hit the market...many many years ago. There are so many things to know about relative melting temperatures and heat sinks and sources for oddball solders and irons vs. guns vs. resistance soldering that it's well beyond the scope of any but the most serious modeler who is enamoured of learning old-school skills.