Ace-Garageguy

If you're painting VINYL or other soft-plastic tires, I recommend one of the flexible paints from the real-car parts store. SEM is one good brand.

You don't need a hosting site here anymore. After the PBucket debacle, the powers-that-be decided to allow uploads of photos direct.

Wow. THAT'S a cool tool.

Snagged a partially disassembled N&W J class 4-8-4 streamlined locomotive in HO scale. I usually buy model trains in roughish shape, as the SOP in a large part of that community is to take things apart that only require very simple repairs or adjustments, be unable to accomplish same, and sell them on cheap. This model is the same design as N&W #611, running again now after her second restoration. I rode an excursion train she pulled back in the late '80s.

Fella that worked as a "mechanic" for one of the shops I contract to (who has since been superseded by someone possessing something closer to a functioning brain) was going on and on about the virtues of being "tech savvy", and how he understood EVERYTHING technical, and what he didn't know off the top of his head, he could find the answer to in seconds on his smart phone. Never mind the fact that this is a guy whose work constantly came back for having been done wrong, and that the reasonably competent members of the crew carried him. I asked him to explain, then, why the lights come on when you flick the switch on the wall. I expected a response having something to do with moving magnetic fields inducing an electrical current in coils of wire at power generating stations, and the electricity so generated traveling through wires and transformers to the switch, that sent it on to the lights on demand. Oversimplification, but the basics are covered. And it was "common knowledge" science I had been taught by about the sixth grade. He looked at me like I was a moron, like the question was beneath his dignity, and said haughtily "because you turned the switch". So I asked him where the electricity came from, and how it got to the switch. Deer in the headlights. Then he got on his little device, but apparently didn't know enough to phrase a query to get an answer. And also keep in mind that this was a high-school graduate, with 10+ years "experience" working on cars, and part of the work he was entrusted with was vehicle charging systems...and this is typical of a lot of "technical" people these days. When the zombie apocalypse happens (or some other SHTF scenario plays out) they're going to be SOL. Back to the earlier digression and the original topic: of course, not everybody was well-versed in using a slide-rule even in the misty recesses of time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I was young. However, EVERYONE was expected to be able to do long-division with pencil and paper. Granted, it's not the most "fun" way to pass the time, but it's probably not a bad idea to occasionally take the dust sheets off the part of your brain that was taught how to do it, and give it a little run around the block. You just never know when being able to do some things without "technology" might come in REALLY handy.

Yes sir. Here's a dictionary entry: sprue /spruː/ noun 1.a vertical channel in a mold through which plastic or molten metal is introduced or out of which it flows when the mold is filled 2.plastic or metal that solidifies in a sprue A lot of people call 'em "parts trees" too, which is also an accepted term.

Sprues. I'm not being mean. I've seen "spruce" too, and some other interesting takes on the word.

Somewhere around here, I have a slide rule and a pencil in a wooden case kinda like a fire-extinguisher, with a little hammer dangling from a chain. It's labeled IN CASE OF COMPUTER FAILURE, BREAK GLASS It hung on the wall behind my desk back in the '90s.

It's fairly common for modelers to post photos of mystery parts or sprues down on the "Model Building Questions and Answers" forum. There's usually someone here who can identify exactly what you have.

Interesting. I thought I knew all the old f'glass kit cars, but this is one I never heard of. Thanks for teaching me something new.

The trick is to work on improving in whatever area you may be lacking in, and to not get discouraged if you sometimes miss the mark you set for yourself. This hobby ranks as "highly skilled" if you take it seriously, and a high level of skill in anything takes practice. Some people consider trying to improve skills as counter to their perception of "fun". That's fine for those who feel that way. There's nothing wrong in building models as a minimum-effort way to pass time. But personally, if I'm going to bother doing something at all, I'm going to try to do it WELL. Many of my own builds languish for years until my skills catch up with my vision, but I gotta tell ya...NOTHING beats the feeling of finally accomplishing something I just couldn't get right earlier. (My own nemesis right now is BMF. Still practicing to get to a point where I'm consistently pleased with the results. Not "prefect", but up to the standard I can do some other things to.)

Thanks. Good to know. The West 105 / 205 is far superior to any random 5-minute goo you may have lying around. Epoxy that has a "sticky" surface is a problem in my world. Use whatever you want, but if you intend to use the stuff as a high-quality structural filler, and shape the stuff aggressively, and if you need a beautiful feather-edge with no chance of lifting when hot primer hits it (which I do), and have it stay stuck forever (which I also do), use a decent grade of epoxy. You can't do work like this with 5-minute crapp. Or this either... You can SCRIBE very fine lines in West / micro. I was able to scribe the double roof-seam lines, about 1/32" apart, in this roof panel...with NO chipping or edges flaking off. Try THAT with ANY other filler. I have, and NOTHING else will do the job I needed here. And it's kinda pointless to use polyester resin with micro. All you're making is lightweight bondo...which you can buy already mixed commercially. A high-quality epoxy resin and micro mix will just flat outperform ANY other filler. Every time.

Way cool. Nice proportions for a little doorstop too. Something like this could be built CHEAP in 1:1 with a little DOM tubing and some junkyard bits. For example, I bought a salvage (running and driving) gen-one MR2 for $400 a while back that has all the mechanical parts anyone would need (except for a set of coilovers). Another few hundred bucks worth of steel, some trick wheels and tires, and a pair of lightweight f'glass seats, you're down the road. Hardest part is figuring out where to put the radiator.

I know exactly what you mean.

Several magazines (remember those? actually printed on paper by Luddites?) used to market their back-issues with the phrase "every magazine is new until YOU'VE read it". Get it? Same goes for old threads. And speaking of old mags...there's FAR more useful technical and how-to info in the old ones produced well before the attention-span-of-a-goldfish, wouldn't-read-even-if-they-could-generation became the target market.

Sorry, but this idea always raises my hackles. It's the striving for perfection that separates craftsmen from hackers, and winners from also-rans. It's what made the Wrights keep working until they had achieved powered flight, and Edison until he'd found that tungsten would last as a lightbulb filament. Striving for perfection is why there's ANYTHING of quality in the world, provided by people to whom sloppy, slipshod, second-rate just isn't good enough. We'd all be sitting in the dark, on dirt floors, eating our food raw, if "the OCD-driven attempt for perfection" didn't exist.

I could go for a life-size model of Dana Scully.

Seems reasonable. With a touch of insanity.

Passion is what gets you started. Dedication and guts is what keeps you doing it, day in, day out, for morons who don't understand anything but price. Dedication is what drives you to master skill after skill, to do things over as many times as necessary to get them RIGHT, to not allow your standards to drop to the level of the slipshod hackwork that generates more money for the hackers, because it takes less time to cover bubblegum welds full of holes with an inch of bondo than it takes to get the metalwork almost flawless. Unless you're a top-name builder like Foose, there's very little reward...other than personal satisfaction...for turning out Stradivarius quality in a world that, for the most part, can't discern how it differs from a plastic ukulele. And it's the same rare, almost unknown, dedication that can enable an amateur to build a world-class car in his own garage or backyard shop. The passion I once had for building cars has been dead for decades. I only hope it returns after my retirement, when I can build exactly what I want to build, when I damm well please. It's dedication that keeps me going in the meantime. I gave my word I'd finish my part of three last customer cars before I quit.

Randyc mentioned "spraylat". Many new aircraft canopies and windows come with a protective layer of the stuff both on the inside and outside. When we install them (canopies and windows are usually bonded in) we remove the latex from the bonding area only. After installation, a hard-edge masked line is created with 3M fine-line tape, and wider tape to bridge the gap back to the latex mask. After painting, the whole mess is peeled off. If you have a LARGE area to mask, spraylat to cover the majority of it might work very well.

Thanks for the heads-up on that. I believe you 100%, but I'll probably try my own test anyway, just to see if it looks like the mix might work for anything else. The West 105 / 205 system is the one I swear by for micro as filler. Good to know there's another West product that also works well. I'll look for the Zap Z locally too.

Cool project. Always glad to hear of another hot-rod Pinto in the works. I ran a twin-40 DCOE Weber carbed, cammed, headered, lowered & lightened etc. early 2-liter 4sp car back in the late '70s that surprised a lot of BMW and Porsche owners. Kinda wanting to build another one if I live long enough. Not a real fan of the A4LD though. I encountered a number of low mileage failures in the Rangers that were part of a fleet my company maintained in the late '80s. Seems like the rear thrust washer and the overdrive planetary were the main mechanical problems. There were electrical solenoid issues as well. And when we opened them up, some of the machine work internally was pretty rough. Many happy good luck with your build.

A lot more "sporting" if the ducks can return fire. I like it.

If you don't do something like this with your little LOUD car, you're just a dwerp. Separating the posers from the real go-fast guys...

Nice technique. Very imaginative.