Ace-Garageguy

You do realize that a 1/8" pop rivet with a 1/4" head showing would only be .010" in 1/25 scale, right? That would make the hole for the stem, about 1/16" in full scale, only about .0025" in 1/25 scale. Pretty hard to see the difference on a model.

I just received this...I will not pay their extortionate rates, so the photos in most of my old posts will shortly disappear. As I have all the photos on my own drive, I will replace the P-bucket blocked images as I update the build threads with new content. "This message is to inform you that we discontinued the Plus 20 plan in June of this year. We have grandfathered your expired plan for several months as a convenience. In order to keep your account current and all of your content available, we are asking that you migrate over to one of our current Plus plan offerings: Plans Failure to do so within 30 days will result in your billing to be suspended, and your account will be reverted to a free account. If you have any questions about your account or which of our current offerings is right for you, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Thanks, Sebastian, your personal account manager"

I will refrain from making a comment that could be interpreted as "political'. However, from reading the news reports, I see it was an armed civilian who initially engaged the subject, and gave chase.

The color white you get is dependent primarily on the color white you buy. Titanium white mixing pigment is one of the whitest whites. A white primer will help, but I'd not recommend either blue or metallic for an undercoat. If you airbrush, a competent and cooperative body-shop supply store can mix you a small quantity of the brightest white available. Many body-shop suppliers no longer carry any lacquer colors, but most can still mix acrylic enamel, acrylic urethane, or urethane base (which will need to be cleared).

Many slick recaps were built on 16" truck carcasses, or large passenger car carcasses. The height of the sidewalls and resulting OD of the kit slicks is wrong for most rail dragsters of the period represented. The OD of the Slingster kit slicks is about 27.5". The OD of the ancient AMT generic piecrusts from the early 1960s is 30.25"...about right. AMT's later Firestone slicks, and Revell's wider M&H slicks (supplied in kits like the original SWC Willys, their competition tires parts pack, the double-dragster kits, and various rail jobs like Tony Nancy's cars) would also be much more class and period correct.

Most excellent for a first model. Glad you enjoyed the process, and welcome to the forum.

The system is somewhat "cumbersome" to learn and takes several steps (I believe I referred to it as a PITA) but once it's mastered, it really only takes a few minutes to make a world-class custom transfer. Owners of $100,000+ homebuilt and hot-rod airplanes can be a tough audience to play to. Having been away from the hobby world for a long time, and having missed the whole Alps-printer phase, and also having used the DecalPro system very effectively on commercial projects where absolutely professional results were mandatory, I thought it might be of interest to some modelers here...as it's being used in this field more and more. Another upside of dry-transfers is that they have no clear carrier film once they're on the model. There's no worry about edge "silvering" because there's no clear edge. The downside is that they can be difficult or impossible to get snuggled down over raised details like rivets...which are prevalent on railroad models. Pete's idea of applying transfers to decal film may just be the hot setup for that. I hadn't thought of it. And it is a kinda PITA, like learning anything new.

Thanks for your interest, Scott. Here's the thread... http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/69306-dieselpunk-hybrid-hot-rod-turbines-and-drivetrain-jan25/

True, but that makes no difference whatsoever in my experience. (Yours may differ) The part of the wheel where the "chrome" finish is desired to remain is masked prior to scrubbing. However, all vacuum-metalized finishes are not created equal. It MAY be possible that poorly-adhered "chrome" will peel off with the tape. I've seen older "chrome" begin to disappear and even flake off some kit parts without having been disturbed. Few things in life are guaranteed 100% of the time.

Yes. In the real world, the '67 and '68 are almost identical cars, with only minor differences. The major body parts from one bolt on to the other. The '69 is very similar (especially under the skin) but the parts don't actually interchange with the '67-'68. In the model world, IF your '67 and '68 are made in the same scale, and if they're made by the same company (or even two different companies who got their measuring and scaling right) the parts will swap easily. NOTE: Some of us routinely "fuse" parts from several different models that were never intended to work together...

You can if you want, but you don't have to. They seem to hold up pretty well on aircraft instrument panels with no topcoat. They're not much thicker than a normal water-slide decal, and you can barely feel the edge with the tip or your finger. Model railroaders have been using them for at least 40 years (I used to use the Letraset line made for graphic artists), and I understand military modelers use them too now. Here's a company that will make custom dry transfers from your own artwork if you don't want to do it at home. NOTE: I have not actually tried the ones in the link below https://imagetransfers.com/blog/how-our-dry-transfers-different-from-letraset/

I've seen clear and other paints shrink and peel off of chrome, so I've developed an anal-retentive technique to develop an "as cast" texture using one of Testors "metalizers". I first carefully mask any part of the wheel I want to remain chrome, with a high-quality fine-line tape. Most wheels usually have a polished or machined lip, and only the center is left as-cast. Then I carefully scrub the part I want to make a cast finish on with Comet (or some other abrasive cleaner) and a stiff brush, which roughens the surface just enough for good adhesion. Sometimes it's necessary to re-mask, sometimes not. Then I shoot a fairly wet coat of metalizer, again for good adhesion, and let it flash off completely. After that, I build up a texture by spraying successive dry coats from farther away. Quit when it looks right. Carefully de-mask. The FRONT wheel below was done that way as a test more than 5 years ago. Cast center, polished rim. No pe Wheels that are supposed to represent fully-machined or die-cast (as opposed to sand-cast) units, I simply strip first, scrub with Comet, and shoot wet coats of metalizer...usually 3. Let it dry thoroughly and buff. The front wheel below was done that way.

The feral cats that live under my current domicile apparently ate the dead rats I left in their food bowl. Maybe they'll get to really like the taste, and do their own hunting.

Oh....waterspots, not watersports. Never mind.

This may have been posted before, but I don't recall seeing it. I've used this system to make custom-lettered aircraft panels and industrial design presentation and show prototypes, and though it's a little bit of a PITA to learn, it works very well. I'm seeing it being used more and more by modelers, so I thought I'd pass it on. The complete "kit" is about $100, and you'll also need a LASER printer and a small laminating machine. https://decalprofx.com/index.html

Great idea. Wish I'd thought of it. The remarks about the door length are probably worth considering. Even though the door looks to be about the same length as what's on a '29 closed-cab pickup, it would be a bugger to get in and out of gracefully...especially with today's more volumetrically-abundant people. The roof looks good to me, as do the rest of the proportions, but if you're going to build it up any higher (like the built-up roofs of yore), I'd shorten the framing just a tick so the overall height won't go any higher than your mockup has it.

If it actually works like it looks like it works, and if you can actually brush it, that one can would probably do at least 100 1/25 scale model car bumpers. That's only $2 per. How does that stack up against sending parts out? And for anyone making prototype or one-off full-scale parts (like me) it's certainly worth it...if it works.

Speaking of late to the party...I just finally got one of these today, cheap, at the ACME event in Atlanta. I'm glad it was cheap, because there are several scaling issues that really jump out at me. I'm going to do some serious measuring to verify them all, but two biggies are 1) the slicks and 2) the quick-change rear end. The slicks are ridiculously undersize for cars like this kit builds into. They're appropriate for a modified stock sedan, but hardly for a blown rail job. And the quick-change is a joke. It's as undersized as those pathetic little engines in the "new-tool" Ala Kart. There's more, so stay tuned. Some parts seem to be about right, and some seem to be way off. We'll see.

The models were fantastic. Always a little better overall than last year. This year is going to be hard to top. I was disappointed, however, that neither HRM nor R&M showed up to sell. I had a pocket full of money waiting to go to those guys.

I just got back from the ACME Southeastern Nats. Man, every year, the bar gets a little higher. My advice to anyone who wants to be "competitive" is to look very closely at what the best of the other guys are doing, and try to figure out ways to top it. You have to be brutally honest when you critique your own work, 'cause the level the big kids are playing at these days is no-compromise, no BS, spot-on, damm-near-perfect. The best of my work is just barely good enough to not get laughed off the tables. Is that a disappointment? Jell no...just inspiration to work harder, get better. At the level of workmanship and finish I saw today, you can be damm sure nobody is getting trophies for just "trying". So don't slap something together in 10 or 20 hours and go to a contest expecting to bring home hardware. It's not going to happen.

It just doesn't get any cooler than a prop-driven snowmobile with a ring-mount drum-fed machine gun. Very nice job on that, sir.

By the time the THIRD generation 4-door came along, it was a total and complete turd.

The interesting thing (to me) is that the ORIGINAL design of this car, shown below, was done by Virgil Exner and was quite beautiful, in an over-the-top kind of way. The two-tone pimped-out monstrosity shown at the TOP of this thread was the SECOND design, and every line, panel and detail had been changed by some no-talent hacks who thought they could "improve" Exner's work.

What you have so far looks pretty fine. The FXX-K is the first Ferrari I've liked a lot in quite some time...other than the little devil-horn wings on the tail of some of 'em.

Rats. As soon as it gets cool, the little buggers start getting in the back shop. Then they gnaw the weatherstrip under the door and get in the house. I heard little scufflings and thumps late last night, so I got up and set traps. Got two in less than an hour. Got 4 more since 5 this evening. Even though I feed the 2 feral cats that live under the house just enough to keep them around, it seems they can't quite keep up with the rodent population. Funny thing is, I honestly love just about all animals. First few times I had rat problems, I used live traps and took them out in the country to release. Then when I moved last time, I found most of the photos and souvenirs from my childhood and youth rat-shredded, soaked in urine, and covered in feces. Now, I just kill 'em. But I say "sorry".