Ace-Garageguy

I just received a used head core for my Neon. Little car is so much fun to drive, so anonymous, and gets such great mileage, I've decided to keep him indefinitely. Plan was to buy a head core, rebuild it on the bench, and then swap it, along with doing the timing belt, tensioner, water pump, and RH engine mount. But as usual, stupidity had different plans. For starters, it was supposed to be a "good" takeoff from a running car with 160K on the clock. Nope. Looks like it's been under water for 6 months. And I've never seen such a moronic job of packing a heavy car part in my life. Rattling around in a cardboard box, with a little shredded newspaper. That's all. The box is busted up, naturally, and the pressed-in spark-plug tubes are ruined. So...I'll have yet more work to do, and more time wasted out of my life, compensating for a mess made by a mouth-breathing, brain-dead chimp.

A lot of times it's the clear "binder" (sometimes called "vehicle") that the pigment is suspended in too. Binder refers to substances that hold the particles of pigment together in paint. All paints include a binder of some sort because this is what keeps the pigment in place after the paint dries. That's the gooey mess that gets the can firmly glued to wherever it's sitting. You may or may not be able to recover the contents by decanting; you might need to add more clear, and the paint might have lost other secondary chemicals as well. Good question. If the lower seal fails, you'd still lose propellant, but the paint itself might still be OK after decanting.

It's pretty simple these days to tamper with a digital odo display now too...though that doesn't seem to be common knowledge. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/even-in-the-digital-age-odometer-fraud-is-a-growing-problem-121620.html

Yeah, that used to be the average frequency I'd get them, but in the past 30 days I've had no less than 5 calls, from different originating numbers. The best place to put them, for sure, but enough people are falling for this stuff to keep them going.

Same thing goes for the extended warranty used-car dealers try to tack on. Another friend bought a low-mileage PT Cruiser when they were cool, and the dealer got really nasty when she refused the $2500 (paid over time) extended warranty. In the end, when the timing belt failed at an indicated 60,000 miles (it should have lasted at least until 100,000+), I was pretty sure they'd turned the odometer back too. This was a big-name new-and-used car dealer, so the appearance of legitimacy is no guarantee of legitimacy.

There are folks out there with more money than brains. The ex-girlfriend of an old friend paid $10,000 for a new engine for her Jag after she drove it with no coolant until it seized, because an $8 plastic fitting cracked. She kept on driving with the "red light" on, because her old Toyota ran forever with the "red light" on, and she just thought it was a petty annoyance. After the ripoff chimps put the engine in, they realized she'd cooked the trans as well (it got HOT)...which is when they brought me in. Turned out there were NO parts available from the manufacturer or aftermarket (at the time) for the trans, and the best price I could get her for a low-mileage gearbox was another $6500. They junked the car. I never really understood why an old hippie chick had bought a nice Jag anyway, especially after she let her dog shred the dash and seats.

Model Master is Testors. I've had similar problems with both.

Lately both my landline AND my cell have been inundated with scammers pushing an "extended warranty", claiming my factory warranty is running out and I'll be...OMG...left with the possibility of staggering repair bills destroying my financial security. Really? Obviously robo-calls that have no real info as to what vehicles I actually own, their ages, or anything remotely connected to reality. Fact is, the newest vehicle I operate has been out-of-warranty for at least a decade. DON'T GET DUPED. These are almost always scams that try to scare people (often focusing on older folks on fixed-incomes), take their money, and either disappear entirely after they've filled their bank accounts to overflowing, or find some reason to refuse claims made against them. If you think you want or need an extended warranty, there are legit companies out there...but do your due-diligence research and SEEK THEM OUT; don't trust some phone call from out of the blue.

Who knows? Maybe it would be better...by far...to have a smart mechanic or plumber or carpenter teaching kids than a multi-degreed "professional" with expertise in alternative-lifestyle basket-weaving and the evils of individualism and self-reliance and Western literature and rational thought.

Wow. Nice work, sir.

Very few things in the modeling world truly deserve the much-overused "awesome", but this sure as jell does. Sometimes, all I can say to myself when I look at this level of precision miniaturization is "damm...".

VERY nice. Always good to see someone who understands the necessity for a Panhard bar on a setup like this, and who generally tries to get the greasy bits done right.

Absolutely first-rate beautiful. The first shot is especially realistic. I have a couple of the ancient metal-body versions in progress, and it's inspirational to see here how good this kit can look.

It's an Isetta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta

Thank you, sir.

I'd suggest a coupla things...assuming Duplicolor hasn't changed the formula on their primers yet again. I've had some similar "gumming" of the sandpaper over the years, but it can usually be minimized by allowing every coat of primer to flash off at least 10 full minutes between applications. Another anti-gumming procedure that works exceptionally well, almost always, is to use waterproof sandpaper, wet. The water acts as a lubricant and helps to disperse sanding particles rather than allowing them to build up and clog the paper. Unfortunately, there have been lotsa issues with automotive primers lately, and experimenting as you go these days is about the only way to insure good results.

Actually, most model car bodies are wavy as eff. I routinely block the waves out with 400 wet, then go up to 600 or 800 prior to primer to minimize scratch swelling. On the areas that need no remedial work, my tried-and-true surface prep is a careful all-over scrub with hot water and a mild abrasive cleanser like "no scratch" Comet, using a toothbrush. That gets all the little nooks scuffed...nooks that can allow paint to peel later, or pull away if left glossy...without softening details like sanding can. The Comet-scrub also removes any of the dreaded "mold release", and if you're really anal, a wipedown with isopropyl alcohol is cheap insurance against fisheyes. EDIT: Your paint looks good TJ, whatever you're doing, and that just proves there are lotsa ways to skin this particular cat. I've turned out a few decent ones too...

Correct. And amazingly, this common-sense idea is routinely overlooked by lotsa folks who should know better. Better by far to pin small parts.

What specific primer are you having this problem with? Duplicolor makes several, and they don't all behave exactly the same way. There's also an unfortunate tendency to re-formulate rattlecan products to cheapen them lately...the last version of PlastiKote I tried being one such now-useless mess.

Very cool that your father flew Spitfires. The reason the Lagonda engine would start easier on the coil is that a mag has to be spinning to develop sufficient electrical oompf to light off the mixture. With the relatively slow cranking speeds of car starters, the rotational speed of the mag might be just borderline for starting, particularly with a somewhat flat battery in cold weather. Mags typically make more juice at higher RPM, hence their use on racing engines...and why push-starts were usually the norm back in the old days, to get the mag spinning fast enough to make a fat, hot spark. EDIT: Just for clarification, many old race cars didn't have onboard batteries or coils anyway, so push-starting a mag-equipped car (or using an external starter like some vintage Indy cars) was the only way to get them going.

Just as an aside, that's exactly what happens during a "mag check" on an IC aircraft engine prior to takeoff. Reciprocating aircraft engines have dual magneto ignition systems for redundancy, and the mag check consists of switching off each mag alternately at a particular throttle setting. Acceptable RPM drop when one mag is shut down is typically in the 50-100 RPM range, with 175 being about the absolute allowable maximum. Considering mag checks are generally done at around 1800 RPM, that's a lot of power loss with one shut down. PS: Nice work on this, Matt. Beautiful kit too.

Exceptional work preparing this thread so far...professional quality. The kit is a real beauty, and if you build it as well as you're presenting your info, it should be a knockout.

Very attractive model, exceptionally clean build. Though it has a few inaccuracies, it looks as though Revell got more right with their rendition of this car than anyone else has to date. I'm sold.

To the best of my knowledge, that's a re-branded "Coke" repop of the approximately 1/26 scale model I refer to, and show, earlier in the thread. The Lindberg kit was always INCORRECTLY labeled as 1/32, a mistake endlessly rebleated on the interdwerbs, when in fact it is 1/26 (determined by using very simple arithmetic after measuring the model's wingspan). The tiny little pilot figure in the Lindberg kit is 1/32. The rest of the kit is 1/26. Numbers and grade-school arithmetic have apparently been exceptionally difficult for "professional" adults for decades.

Thank you, sir. Glad you're enjoying it.