Ace-Garageguy

Looks like a 2-door conversion with a lot of roof and sail-panel rework. I don't know if this thing is real or P-shopped, but it's the thought that counts...

How 'bout a stretched Russian ZAZ 965? Must be a real screamer with the tiny 2-cylinder aircooled engine...

Love that 510. Flares look absolutely perfect.

Is that the same as chicken feed?

Part of my abandoned-kitten rescue's extended family. Momcat looking at the camera is his cousin, a feral I've been feeding for two years. Kittens eating are my rescue-cat's kids by her (there's one more smaller all-black one that always hides and eats last).

I PUT this one back on the road. Considered a total by the insurance company after the front crossmember was buckled while in the possession of the unethical body shop that had it in for a tiny fender-bender (and who tried to pass on the damage THEY caused by driving it into a post while the bumper cover was removed), at the owner's request, I got involved, pulled the car out of the crooked shop, and repaired it for a fraction of the $7000 estimate they'd written. Now we're suing the other shop for fraud. I'm not the guy to try to cheat. Had a nice clean older resto of a '31 Ford coupe in next door... And a pretty nice '68 Camaro convert in for a bodywork estimate...

Yeah, it'd probably make one jell of a mess if you microwaved the wrong one. Should be very filling though. Wow. I didn't know baby noodles were called "cubs". Guess it makes more sense than calling them "kittens".

If I post the joke I'm thinking, I'll most likely be banned for life.

I like heem. Friendamine built a 1:1 kinda like that not too long ago, slammed, bagged, etc. Nice truck.

If you don't enjoy something any more, there's no great virtue in continuing to do it. So maybe take a break, get involved in other things, then see how you feel after a while? If you don't find yourself missing the hobby, walk away and know you did the right thing.

I prefer a miter box and a 32-TPI razor saw blade.

The problem, of course, is that if the model was well assembled with solvent cement, the parts will be literally "welded" or melted together. The freezing method works, when it works, because small amounts of water will find their way into seams that aren't fully glued. Water expands when it freezes, as any elementary school child should know, so it might force apart the weaker glued seams. Weak seams also result if the "chrome" or paint hasn't been thoroughly removed from parts prior to gluing. In this case, very gentle prying with the tip of an Xacto chisel blade works very well. Light tapping on the handle with a small jeweler's hammer may expedite the process. Kits assembled with non-solvent glues will also usually respond to this treatment. EDIT: Sometimes CA glues will break very easily, sometimes not. But unfortunately, if solvent-glued seams are good and strong, nothing but physical cutting will break them. Narrower seams may be worried apart rather like scribing door-openings...repeatedly tracing the seam with a sharp Xacto #11 blade until you break through. Heavier seams can sometimes be cut very carefully with a modeler's saw. I prefer the photo-etched blades for this, as they're considerably thinner than the standard "razor" saws, and do less damage. NOTE: Carefully separated parts using this method may be restored to their original thickness sometimes by gluing on .010" styrene sheet stock, and filing flat with a piece of 180-grit or finer sandpaper attached firmly to a small dead-flat piece of glass. That's about it. Work carefully, slowly, and good luck.

Nobody is blaming "the employees for all the problems". But you don't pay some mouth-breather $25 per hour to hide and play on his "smart" phone all day, or who seems to think he can start at the top because he has a shiny little degree in the philosophy of basket-weaving. A high 5-figure income ($70,000 per annum+) is possible at both the shops I subcontract with, but we can't find any entry-level trainees willing to put in the effort to learn the work. And the "experienced" ones are almost without exception absolutely clueless too. We can't even find competent floor-sweepers. Far as history goes, one of ol' Henry's motivations to pay his workers the unprecedented-in-the-industry $5 per day (which his contemporaries in automobile manufacturing management thought was insane) was that he felt he'd get more engaged workers if they could afford to buy what they built. He was right...but times have changed. We're in the everyone-wants-something-for-nothing era, and I don't see it changing any time soon. I've owned several technical services and small manufacturing businesses over the last 5 decades, and after churning through a few hires-and-fires, I was always able to put together a decent crew after a little while (I paid my people well, too). Today, nobody even wants to interview once they find out there's no AC, they might get dirty, and there are "dangerous" sharp things around. Eeeewwwwww. Icky.

Yup. I'm right there with you. I could write a book on the frustration and bitterness that comes from constantly having to deal with folks who just don't care to do any "quality" work, or who seem to be missing the brain software that allows them to even identify it...and the ones who look down their noses at anyone who does actual physical labor, even if it's very highly skilled. The two projects I'm finishing up now will be my last work for clients.

Interesting point of view, when the media is reporting the problem as "contamination by workers". I usually know whether I've mixed antifreeze with engine oil.

Back when I had a fleet-services company, one of my clients was the largest Domino's franchise in the country at the time. They had an early-'60s stretched Chevy wagon, ex-airport, as a promotional vehicle....all done up in the then-current store colors and graphics. Lots of fun to drive that thing around.

Got an old dead fridge lying around? Make a compressor from junk.

10-15 MILLION doses contaminated and unusable? No wonder pharmaceuticals cost so much. Oh...but it's OK. It's just part of the way things are done in the industry. Maybe so, but I couldn't stay in business if I made errors on that relative scale.

Look to the "everyone's a winner" (and just-not-good-enough being acceptable) mentality that's been sneaking into education, and it's not hard to figure out the source of the problem. And I'm always intrigued amused by folks who try to pass off idiocy, slacking, excuse-making, poor quality, and failure as doing-the-job. I just got hit again using one of my current vendor's website, where their catalog repeatedly locks up while searching it, and nobody on the phone "tech support" is capable of telling me which of their own rack bushings fits one of their most popular steering racks. Crapola like this costs me literally hundreds of dollars of lost productivity...and INCOME...every month, WHILE I DO SOMEBODY ELSE'S JOB. EDIT: But of course, someone who's not personally responsible for turning out something tangible to a consistently high standard in spite of morons in the supply chain wouldn't grasp the frustration inherent in dealing with them constantly.

Most excellent. I'd intended to do much the same thing after I'd completed the series on compare-and-contrast the two kits I started here some time back. The real engine was a very tight fit in the car as well, and that's of course the reason Barris used the little Dodge hemi in the first place. No other hemi had a hope in jell of fitting. Nice work!

15 million vaccines for the-disease-that-cannot-be-named from Johnson & Johnson were contaminated during production and wasted. Big oopsie...but at least they caught it prior to distribution. Still, you'd kinda think they'd be more careful with something like this, wouldn't you? EDIT: I provided a link, but on second thought removed it, as it could be interpreted as "political" by someone who doesn't understand English.

I have some otherwise decent looking tenders that have either toylike trucks or none at all (a while back I was buying a lot of cheap, damaged HO equipment). These sideframes require drilling the holes to receive axle ends, and fabricating the rest of the structure though, so I'll have to look into that first.

1992 issue of Rail Model Journal, Freight Car Models Vol.II, Box Cars...Book 1. Also a set of 4 Pennsy 8-wheel tender truck sideframes, 4 modern Buckeye plain-bearing truck sideframes, and some beautiful fine-grain walnut sheet and strip wood