Ace-Garageguy

Geez...I know I've seen it before, and when the answer is given, I'm going to have a big "doh" moment, but after scrolling through some of the uugliest concept cars from the period, I understand why I kinda lost interest for a couple decades. Not a bad looking car. Windshield is a little overpowering, but overall the whole thing is a helluva lot prettier than a lot of the dog-awful concepts from the time.

Many years ago ('96-'97?) when I was doing a lot with my engineering consulting company, I developed and prototyped the black vibration-damping part of this line of hammers for the Canadian company Wavex, and assisted with writing the patent application. Based on technology from their earlier vibration-damping line of golf clubs, I built the hammer handle from scratch just a block from where I'm sitting right now, with a hand-laid longitudinal fiberglass core, and an overmolded rigid vibration-damping shell (for which I still have the silicone molds). I also prototyped a cricket bat for them using the same idea. It was to have been manufactured in India, but the project fizzled out. They never paid my last invoice for completed work, and never bothered to return some books I'd loaned them on vibration propagation in various materials and structures, as apparently Wavex went bankrupt, and sold out to another tool company. Still, it's kinda cool having something I made immortalized in a production tool though (and I did get a few hammers out of the deal).

I'm still working every day, business as usual...though shop volume is down about 50% and we laid one guy off until it picks back up (but he's not panicking, 'cause his own shop is full of work he can catch up on). The state is seeing a rise in new cases (primarily among younger people), interestingly about 2 weeks after all those "peaceful protests" where nobody was too worried about social-distancing. Still going for my twice-weekly hikes at the mountain, weekly grocery run, parts and hardware stores for work as necessary, twice to Hobby Town since they reopened, not wearing a mask unless wherever I'm going specifically requires it for entry, and not using hand sanitizer...just a little common sense. I'm well over 65, so I guess I should be hiding under the bed, praying for another round of stimulus checks. Nah.

Thanks for your interest too. I like that hot-rod Maserati. And yes, it's not going to be red.

Thanks for your interest. I'm kicking myself for holding off so long to try the Tamiya stuff, but Duplicolor and PlastiKoke used to work so nicely...

Thanks for the heads-up on the Airfix version. I'm looking for another engineless one to do something else a little different, and boy, have the prices climbed since last time I looked.

Thanks guys. As always, I appreciate your interest and comments. And Pico...you just never know.

And thank you all for your interest and comments.

Kinda hard to understand why that didn't grind to beat all hell, sounding like you were chewing rocks with a front wheel, every time you stepped on the brake pedal. It has to have been crying for help for weeks to get that bad.

Gotcha.

Again, I'm curious. In my understanding, fun=enjoyment. So...why the hell would anybody do this stuff if it wasn't for enjoyment? Much of the narrative always seems to me to be implying that "fun" and pursuing excellence are mutually exclusive, and that those of us who enjoy pursuing quality, even if we never finish anything, somehow are not doing it right. Can "fun" be challenging? Can "having FUN" sometimes be frustrating? Can "fun" be difficult? Can "fun" be very time consuming with little tangible reward? Yes to all the above in my world-view. And in case it's not clear, I'd rather have one unfinished model exhibiting exceptionally fine craftsmanship than a hundred just slapped-together. BUT...that is certainly not to say that I don't see how people can enjoy putting kits together, even with nothing added whatsoever. Minimal effort. Or working to ANY standard they desire to embrace. If that floats somebody's boat, that's just dandy with me. And I don't think we need fun-police. Or quality-police. So...if you enjoy modeling the particular way you approach it, if it adds something to your life (even if it's not adhering to anyone else's definition of "FUN"), even if frustration occasionally makes you want to throw something across the room, then you're doing it right.

Lotsa info here... And here:

Me too. Some of the Homeowners Associations here are run by power-mad baby-Hitlers, commonly known now as "Karens". Their mission in life is to tell other people what to do, how, and when. I've refused to live in any planned neighborhood for decades for this very reason. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to bother a lot of folks to be told what mailbox is acceptable, how often to mow their lawns, trim their trees, or whether they can have guests park in the street for a party. I've had a friend once told he couldn't work on his own car, in his own garage, if the garage door was open...and that working on one's car was discouraged anyway.

Glad to. Box was full; now it's not.

Cycloac is nothing but a trade name for a grade of ABS. CA, epoxy, or one of the hotter solvent glues (MEK, MEK/acetone mix, etc.) will do you, but solvent resistance is high with some grades of ABS, so TEST. NOTE: MEK-based solvents can contain varying concentrations of MEK. Some are much "hotter" than others. Be aware that not everything that has MEK on the label has it in the same concentration, so different products may perform differently on the same base material. NOTE 2: In general, the longer an epoxy takes to cure, the stronger the bond. 30 minute goop is much stronger than 5 minute goop, for instance.

I'm always somewhat mystified by the people who define craftsmanship in terms of what other people think of their models, who say quality doesn't matter because they don't compete, and who say they build for themselves. I approach craftsmanship from the perspective that I care what I think of my models, though I don't compete, and I build solely for my own enjoyment, to my own standards...and part of that enjoyment comes from doing objectively good work, to the best of my ability...and not being content to settle for mediocrity. I'd rather have unfinished models that have some exceptionally fine work in them than a cabinet full of completed models that have little or none. When I look at even a small bit of work that I've done that I'd be impressed by if I saw it on a contest table, that one small achievement gives me vastly more pleasure than looking at a hundred half-assed builds.

Yes. Absolutely. 100%. Guaranteed.

Nothin' too exciting...just a clean copy of the February 1969 R&C for the Shalako article... I had completely forgotten it ran a Porsche 4-cam 4 cylinder from an RSK. Wow. That's probably a hundred-grand engine today. Big bonus is an old-school junkyard-based buildup of a Chevy 350, pulling an honest 440 streetable HP on a single Holley, with the heads I already have. There's a thread elsewhere bemoaning the demise of paper car mags, and boy damm...looking through this old mag, there's at least 4 times more hard-core greasy hands info than in anything still being printed. Stupid me, back in the late '80s, I dumped all my old car mags. I have a pretty good set of early Hot Rod again, but occasionally buy R&C, R&T, C&D, and especially Sports Car Engineering.

That, sir, is pretty damm cool.

While the Atlantic engine is indeed based on two 2-liter Neon blocks, it's a lot more than just sticking a couple of engines together. At the moment, I can't find the full engineering details of the Atlantic engine, but I recall this: The Atlantic straight eight derivative is a DOHC engine, with a custom 8-chamber cylinder head that supplies considerable rigidity to the unit. Kindof a big deal from an engineering standpoint. Look closely, you'll see the plug spacing between 4 and 5 is significantly wider than the others. This is most likely to allow space, lengthwise, for the flywheel of the front crankshaft.

How about a straight-eight Lada?

No reason why not. Crosley, for one, used a crankcase fabricated from steel sheet and plate, oven brazed together...something like this general idea: A custom-cast block isn't impossible either. The most difficult problem to overcome is where to put the necessary flywheels.

HOWEVER...if we can assume the engines can be independently balanced, the stock cranks could be oriented 90 degrees from each other to even out the exhaust pulses, and avoid any two cylinders exhausting at the same time. But let me think this all the way through...

But I'm also wrong. A 4-cylinder inline crank is not half of a straight eight crank.