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Everything posted by Ace-Garageguy
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'26/'27 turtle deck T hot rod kits requested
Ace-Garageguy replied to Phildaupho's topic in Car Kit News & Reviews
Thanks for your input. This has been covered in much depth by me and others. Still, it's good to remind people. The engine in the Ala Kart is a Dodge "Red Ram" hemi, and as such, is entirely different from and smaller than the Chrysler (as you state)...which is why it was chosen for the real Kart. I HAVE measured them, and the Dodge Red Ram hemi in the ORIGINAL Ala Kart kit is correctly scaled. The Dodge Red Ram in the "new tool" Ala Kart is pathetically underscale. And again, it makes no sense whatsoever why the kit designer came up with that stupid little engine that's useless for anything in 1/25 scale. I HAVE tried the original correctly-scaled engine from the original kit in the engine bay in the "new tool" kit. It fits. -
Bingo. The front suspension is independent, but the rear looks like a relatively stock '90s Mustang setup if I recall correctly...solid rear axle. The Vickie frame also has a nice tubular center X-member. These kits can often be picked up pretty cheap. This is it: (not my model)
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"Indecent"? Like...um...adults only?
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All it's going to take to put paid to the "autonomous vehicle" (self-driving-car) thing is for some antisocial wizard hacker to fiddle with the system on a large enough scale. 100 "smart" cars that all try to occupy the same space at the same time, and the resultant steaming pile of carnage...multiplied many times over...may just make the proponents of this idiocy sit up and reconsider the wisdom of the whole concept. And don't even begin to think it can't happen. Any system one group of humans can devise, another group can defeat. Again, if human-driven cars are legislated out for "safety" reasons, it's just another example of the lowest-common-denominator among humans ruining things for everyone else. The vast majority of drivers out there, while not exactly competent, don't cause serious collisions. It's the distracted or irresponsible or chemically impaired few who bear the real blame. Take THEM off the roads, let THEM have to be dependent on OOBER or traditional forms of public transportation...but allow the reasonably OK drivers to retain the freedom that comes from having a private, human-controlled vehicle. What's happened to the typical American actually having a pair? And HOW did we become a nation of quivering sheep, willing to trade more and more freedoms for the illusion of "safety"?
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Well, since you ask...one of the shops I work with has been in business for 50 years, all the personnel are very competent, and looking at the other guys' work is a pleasure because, even on the quick in-and-out collision repairs, everything is done right. They don't cut corners or make excuses, they never have comebacks (work done poorly, bad paint matches, etc.), and they make money. They're also winding the business down because there just aren't enough competent techs coming in to replace the geezers that made the place. The other shop I work with is full of classic and muscle cars, some of it pretty fine stuff indeed. BUT...there's really only one guy there who I would trust to fix a lawnmower. The owner / manager knows next to nothing about how cars work, and the old guy who thinks he's a "watchmaker" wizard and gods-gift-to-cars is a shortcutting hacker. One of the others worked at an independent Porsche shop for 10 years, but can NOT fix anything on his own. The comeback rate is staggering. One little Pontiac Tempest came back on the hook THREE times for the same thing...a very simple brake job. The unsettling part is that they're all nice guys, I like them, but they can't fix cars (at least not at the level they're charging for)...so what the hell are they DOING? The guy who's actually well on his way to being a capable and competent fabricator as well as mechanic can't take the rampant incompetence, and is phasing himself into his own shop, slowly. And it's all I can do to go in there to finish up a couple of jobs I promised I'd complete. Then there's most of the guys at the parts stores...but that's another story. I don't mind a man who doesn't know what he's doing if he realizes it, admits it, and is willing to listen and learn. But I just can't stand a man who thinks he's good at what he does and just flat isn't.
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Making chrome plated wheels to look like aluminum?
Ace-Garageguy replied to kincer's topic in Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials
I used the "buffing" product on both of them, actually. The '32 Ford wheel was sprayed "dry" to build up a texture, but not buffed. The special Halibrand wheel on Mickey Thompson's Challenger I was shot wet (just on the verge of running, to avoid getting any texture whatsoever) and buffed after being allowed to dry thoroughly. I usually do NOT use Testors sealer for their metalizers as, in my experience, it ruins whatever effect you've achieved and makes everything just look like silver paint. The "buffing" products will look good for a long time if you don't get your fingers on them during assembly (use gloves), and if the surface dulls slightly over time, if it's NOT sealed, it will respond to a careful re-buffing. Just so there's no confusion, the finish I developed for the body in the lower photo is an entirely different process. -
I dunno Scott...I'd like to agree with you, but it's a brave new world out there. A whole LOT of the 50%-less-testosterone-generation (look it up) of dweeps and tewrbs have absolutely no interest in driving or owning vehicles. Story here: http://time.com/money/4185441/millennials-drivers-licenses-gen-x/
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Hmmmmm....some heavy handed scaling there. Very course grilles on the cowl, thick windshield pillars...looks like it was intended to be more "toy" than "model".
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100% agreement there. I probably have enough to keep busy...and I'd just jump up and down for joy if there aren't any glaring errors on whatever they choose to put out. I've got multiples of just about everything Moebius has done in cars, and they actually look pretty much like the real ones. Do I have gripes? Sure, but I've never mentioned them because the majority of what's in the boxes is just so GOOD.
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'26/'27 turtle deck T hot rod kits requested
Ace-Garageguy replied to Phildaupho's topic in Car Kit News & Reviews
This is an original signed Ron Cash resin body. I'm sure he was a great guy and well known in the hobby, but that doesn't make the body "right". Underpinnings here are the MIA Revell '29 frame, and various vintage Revell and a few AMT bits. And though the old AMT '29 Ford body looks great and is what we were used to seeing for 50+ years, Revell actually did a much better job of getting the curves and sweeps of the rear of the body in the aforementioned MIA kit. Again, I'd had difficulty getting the right "look" from a model of the Eddie Dye roadster using the old AMT body. I did some intense measuring and research, and voila, all of a sudden, my mockup of Dye's car actually LOOKED like Dye's car with the Revell body. Let's hope they do as good a job on a '26 / '27 should this come to fruition. -
'26/'27 turtle deck T hot rod kits requested
Ace-Garageguy replied to Phildaupho's topic in Car Kit News & Reviews
One of the shops I currently work with has several smallblock Ford powered vehicles in various states. I'll measure a real one before the week is out. Regarding the fit of the Revell '32-sourced engine in the T...I used a poorly built but fully assembled version to do my test-fit last night. Only the same kinds of minor mods to it (the same accessory relocation, using stock exhaust manifolds or block-hugger headers, etc.) that you would do on a real one are required to get it to snuggle happily in the little T engine bay. And there are many things on the T body as well that could be very slightly modded to ease installation, again just like real. The ledges inside the front fenders can be clearanced somewhat, the steering box can be moved .5 mm, the dish in the firewall can be made a hair deeper, etc. It's just what one does day-in day-out to make things fit other things that were not originally intended to work together. A kit designer with some real-world knowledge of how one actually builds a hot-rod would be at a great advantage here. -
'26/'27 turtle deck T hot rod kits requested
Ace-Garageguy replied to Phildaupho's topic in Car Kit News & Reviews
Yes sir, the discrepancies in proportion and line are very apparent when a real one is shown with the model. A while back, I started a low-slung '26, and though I could get the look close, I could never quite dial it in...and shelved it pending further investigation into what was wrong. Frankly, it didn't occur to me at the time that the aftermarket body was probably the problem. That resin body misses the marks by miles, and spoils the flow of the car. Now, thanks to that great profile shot of your car, using the length of the cylinder head and the height of a '32 rail as scale-referents in about the same plane as the main body lines, I can hack into my little shell and get it to look the way it should. Vielen Dank. PS. I'm not blowing smoke up your backside when I say that your real car is just about the most "right" '26-'27 on '32 rails I've ever seen. All the proportions are in the sweet-spot, and it's THAT EXACT LOOK that makes this such an iconic combination. -
Happy Birthday from me too, Carl. Hope you have a lot more.
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Can you say dun-ning kru-ger eff-ect boys and girls? Today and every day. DunningKruger DunnungKruger DunningKruger ad infinitum.
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Yup, injected nailhead from the Revell parts-pack / Tommy Ivo Showboat. And you're right on about the firewall...I'm also doing an F-85 FX car with an injected 394 from the Anglia kit...and copying the firewall for the long-roof baby Buick.
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I'm not really seeing the problem here. Seems to me Moebius is offering up a "what if" or "nostalgia" gas-class car based on the stock Nova tooling, so they don't have to also tool an altered-wheelbase chassis, or an entire tube-frame like the floppers run. This shouldn't be too hard to understand. Tooling costs money. Minimize additional tooling, throw in a straight axle conversion, and Bob's your uncle. There are plenty of pretend gen-one-Nova "gassers" running today. Unibody cars were in a gray area in the true gasser classes anyway, which is why the very famous Malco Gasser Mustang from 1967 was on a full frame to comply with the class rules...though the car it looks like is a unibody (and so is a Nova). And though the term "funny car" was indeed applied to the altered-wheelbase cars, NHRA didn't have an "official" "Funny Car" winner until Shartman's in '66.
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'26/'27 turtle deck T hot rod kits requested
Ace-Garageguy replied to Phildaupho's topic in Car Kit News & Reviews
The idea of putting a '26 / '27 T body on the old Buttera chassis tooling was suggested. I pointed out that there were scale discrepancies with that kit, and implied that basing a new kit on an old kit with underscale bits would be, to me, a deal breaker. Tim chimed in with WHY, in his opinion, the bits in question were underscale. So, since poor scaling is somewhat endemic in the industry, and a plea for a new kit is being discussed, I thought it might be interesting to explore what reasons might crop up to make the new offering (if it gets offered) subject to scaling errors as well. -
'26/'27 turtle deck T hot rod kits requested
Ace-Garageguy replied to Phildaupho's topic in Car Kit News & Reviews
While we're on the subject of kit-designers' rationales for getting things wrong, as you're an industry insider, you're probably the only person here who might have a rational explanation for these two conundrums: 1) Why was the '34 Ford that was popped out to (apparently) give more legs to the Buttera T underpinnings so underscale? EVERY panel on the thing is wrong, and the overall size makes it suitable for a '34 Fiat, but not a Ford. 2) Why is the hood on this otherwise quite useful kit a couple of scale inches too short (lengthwise)? (It's another one I've measured very carefully relative to the real cars) -
'26/'27 turtle deck T hot rod kits requested
Ace-Garageguy replied to Phildaupho's topic in Car Kit News & Reviews
No. I generally check my facts prior to making remarks, and years ago, I'd tried the fit of the engine from the Revell '32 Fords in the Buttera T. It fits just fine. Tight, but fine. Like in any engine swap in full scale, some things, like placement of accessories (alternator, etc.) need to be addressed. Perhaps a deeper bump in the firewall, or a short water pump (which is available in 1:1 too). Maybe shaving a tad off the headers....but in a quick mockup, none of those things appear to be necessary. The correctly-scaled ENGINE fits just like it does in the real car. And I just checked it again, just now...just like I'd do if I were doing a real engine swap, of which I've done at least 100. Scaling down the ENTIRE engine WAS NOT the right choice.