Ace-Garageguy

Scott8950 sent me this rough little C2 Corvette body, rather than throw it out. It's the kind of thing I really enjoy building into something cool. First thing I thought of when I saw it was another vintage M/SP "what if" drag car, in the same vein as this: After a little internet digging, I found this crazy thing. I think we have a vision forming...

Pity that site requires you to accept their cookies if you want to look at it. I'll pass. If I go to a sales site, I'm a possible buyer. They don't need to SHOVE some other damm intrusive marketing/tracking garbage down my throat too.

Thank you, sir. I've paid some dues, that's for dingdogittydang sure.

Very nice. I still love black-and-white, shot a boatload of B&W film back in the dim recesses of tome. Mostly Tri-X , but most everything else that was on the market at one time or another.

The vinegar was kinda supposed to do the same thing as the self-etching primers. I well remember doing that on old die-cast model RR parts too.

Yup. That's a real one. Something to remember if you're building period rods...that K-member often got heavily hacked or replaced completely. One popular old-time mod to those frames was grafting in the X-member from a junkyard '34 Ford.

Sunrise from the door of my new shop out west.

Agreed...but while we're at it, here's a vid from 2012 comparing Alclad 2 vs Mr Super Metallic vs Kosutte Ginsan vs MGM Magic Powder

Only thing I don't like about this kit is the too-tall, too-upright, and too clunky windshield frame. It's not WAY off, but it's bad enough to mar the proportions to somebody who's used to seeing a lot of real ones. Compare the photo below to one of the "built" model shots from earlier in the thread.

I'm not thrilled about it either, frankly. I'd intended to paint the Silverado when I'm finally set up out west, after putting an engine in her here, and trade up to a slightly newer Z71 4X4 to pull a camping trailer. Guess it'll still work, but the dollar numbers will just be higher.

Yup, I'd kinda forgotten about the magic powders. Here's one over black and white bases:

Ditto. My hoard of buffing metalizers isn't going to last forever, and everyone who's been relying on them over the years will need well-tested and predictable alternatives.

At this point, I think maybe he'll be a little more aware in the future. Saturday he had to stack another set of takeoff wheels and tires out of the way until they find a new home. I walked over to him as he put the last one on top, and smiling, said "wow...perfect height for a paint stand". He just looked a little embarrassed, laughed, and smiled too. He seems like a nice kid, and I hope he'll get his head into what he's doing. We'll see. But we've churned through so many useless employees since 2016..."highly experienced" as well as apprentices...I'm not holding my breath.

Well sir, seein' as how most really "insightful and meaningful" conversations are banned here under the headings of "politics" and "religion", at least this is a thread that allows those of us who live in a less-than-perfect world to show appreciation for those rare instances when people actually do their jobs and things go well, and to occasionally let off a little steam as an aside. And it's way cheaper than therapy.

I think I have heem.

What's really crazy here is that decent, clean, late-'80s through mid-'90s Chevy and GMC pickups like mine are now in the $10,000+ range. Makes it kinda worth it to re-engine the '89 GMC long-bed I saved from the crusher for $100, and the extended cab '92 Silverado I bought over a decade ago for $2500. EDIT: Not that long ago, these were $1500 trucks, max.

Yup, very very nice.

Anybody who doesn't have the common sense at 18 to NOT spray paint almost new tires...AND the concrete in front of the main door to the shop AFTER I gave him plenty of masking material to put down first...really shouldn't be playing with sharp dangerous things.

Nope. That photo came from MY computer as a jpg, to P-bucket back in 2016. This is the image link: http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af320/fastoldcarz/Jag XK 120 for Bonneville/DSCN0193_zps9xvzkq5t.jpg How it ended up here as a WEBP, again, just isn't my dog. When somebody needs an example of something, I find my old thread by name on this site and copy/paste photos already posted on this site into the "question" thread. And that USED to work fine. I'm NOT going to sift through thousands of photos on a hard drive to make fresh uploads here just so everybody can see them. Sorry. Giving somebody the RIGHT answer with well lighted, in focus, and highly relevant photos really ought to be enough without jumping through hoops to make sure that photos already visible on this site elsewhere will be visible to every user if copy-pasted into a new thread.

Nope. Photos I upload to this site NOW are uploaded in the same format I've always uploaded photos to P-bucket...as jpgs, straight from the drive on an old Win7 machine that stores them as jpgs. BEFORE this site offered photo hosting, everything I had here, and that still displays fine on my older threads was hosted on P-bucket, uploaded as jpegs. For proof, LOOK at the image link file name I copied directly from the photo displayed on MCM on the Firefox browser and pasted here. It's jpg, as uploaded by me. Any configuration change has zip to do with me. The problem arises only when COPYING FROM THIS SITE TO THIS SITE...and sometimes copying other photos on the web to illustrate a particular point.

That's real interesting, as those photos display the image link file names as jpg on the Firefox browser. http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af320/fastoldcarz/Jag XK 120 for Bonneville/DSCN0193_zps9xvzkq5t.jpg

That's nice. Look at the photos I posted on this thread: They're saved on Photobucket as JPEGs just like I uploaded 'em in 2016. Last time I looked, it wasn't part of my job description to make sure the interdwerbs handle all my photo uploads in perpetuity so everybody and his little dog can see them. EDIT: I've reported occasional problems with photos copied from this site to this site either not displaying or kicking up an odd 502 with some gibberish about "the server can't be reached" bla bla bla. So far I've heard only crickets.

Easiest, most efficient and profitable way to get the car on the ground? Chain it to something heavy, drive the truck out from under it, bill the client to repair the damage. You have to think differently to stay competitive in today's business environment. EDIT: Or just ship the truck with the car in it to China. Let those guys deal with everything, when it's done ship it back to your shop and mark the cost up 100%.

I appreciate the information, Pete, but I fail to see how the problem is my responsibility. I uploaded the photos to the web in JPEG format, some considerable time ago. Far as I'm concerned, if the incessant meddling of a bunch of techie dwerbs makes my photos invisible now to some users, it's not my dog...no more than if I give somebody a car with a properly tuned carburetor setup, later they put EFI on it, then it won't run, and they think it's my place to fix their mess. Nope, not my dog.

There's at least a partial how-to by Bill Geary (Mr. Obsessive) somewhere on here showing how to make a simple single-curved windshield from sheet stock, and making up retainers on the pillars so the "glass" will just snap in place once it's made right. I usually use masking tape to make the first template, transfer it to .010 white stock, get the fit dead on, then transfer that to the clear stock. Works flawlessly every time...but NOT for compound curves (it WILL work on the '63 Poncho).