Ace-Garageguy

Another 404 this morning at 09:00 approximately. Site refused to take a post I'd written in Word and pasted in the "what do you drive" thread.. Tried re-typing the entire thing on this site, same 404. Then the connection "timed out" and I got knocked off the site, couldn't re-connect until about 10:30. This has happened before...getting knocked off the site shortly after the 404 message appeared repeatedly.

C'mon Snake...that wasn't the intent. I was GLAD to take it out clean for you. Helped to polish up some skills and all that. Frankly, I'd MUCH rather see somebody get some use out of something I would have otherwise trashed. The whole operation didn't take more than 15 minutes, and it was enjoyable semi-mindless work.

Not a lot, but the slits in the firewall for the frame tubes were still kinda sloppy. Added a little more styrene strip, will continue fiddling with it until it fits nice and tight.

Started the design process for the Carson top...

Here's the first new deck out of the mold, which is cleaned up and trimmed on the left. Hole in the car, original deck removed nice and clean for Snake, and the mold and new deck. This is the poor-fit buggery I'd intended to avoid by just hacking out the old deck on the lines, in which case my NEW deck would have fit the opening perfectly...but I'm such a nice guy () I saved the old panel for Mr. Snake by cutting it out with the backside of an X-acto, and enlarging the opening somewhat in the process. No problem though. A strip of .030" styrene applied all around and carefully shaped will fix it, and allow me to correct the slight asymmetry of the kit opening-line in the process.

New baby. Jag XJ8 with 65K on the clock, bought for about $1500 with a blown engine (minor coolant leak, owner kept on driving until it seized). Bought a low-mile total (airbags deployed on a light hit) with a good engine for less than a grand. Add a little sweat equity. This was a 60 thousand dollar car new, and other than minor cracking of the lacquer on the interior wood, she presents perfectly. Sorry for the blurry photo. It was cold and dark that day and I was shivering She joins my '86 XJ6, bought from the original owner in 1995, slated for an engine swap and paint first of next year (already swapped in a 700R4 gearbox...HUGE improvement).

Thought I recognized this old girl, and a little research turned her up...just as I thought. Couldn't be anything else really.

A fairly typical day at my two places of employment...

In all honesty, I guess I have to admit I've thought the same thing on occasion. Every now and then, a part will disappear from the bench and I'll spend several minutes looking for it...under tools, other parts, everywhere I can think of. I get up, go get a cup of coffee, come back, and the part is lying right there in plain sight. Same thing happens with my keys sometimes too. It MUST be a slight drift between lines of alternate probability, because I couldn't possibly be THAT doofy...could I?

Very clean, good looking paint. Your model reminds me why I like this kit so much. Nice work.

Just for you, I took care and removed the deck clean, 100% intact, with no horrible edges. PM me the address of the SnakePit and it will be on its way in a day or 3. Polyvinyl alcohol, airbrushed. 3 coats minimum, shot wet enough to flow out slick. Specifically, the green-tinted PartAll Film #10 from Rexco.

Though I agree with the fender flares, it's hard for me to make the call on tailgate-versus rear doors. These things could be built either way. Zoom Zoom may very well be correct in the "tailgate" call, as the black handle does appear that it may be centered on the rear, as it would be on a drop-down tailgate, rather than offset to the right, as it would be on a door-equipped vehicle. Tailgate Rear doors. One thing to note: The vehicle in the original blurry photo appears to have a heavy class-three hitch under the rear bumper as well (like the "doors" photo immediately above).

11 pages, no hard info on what happened or when the kits will be back. Fascinating.

I probably have dozens of them around that may get ground into other shapes for scribing lines, or odd cutting angles, narrow chisels, etc. Probably the best way to dispose of them is to put them in a steel can (old bean can, etc....just make sire it's steel) and when it's about 1/4 full, crush it and take it to the recycler.

Your image is so blurry it's hard to be 100% definite, but if I were a forensic image analyst for the police, I'd say the probability is about 99%.

Remarkably, I have found over many years that lost parts, broken parts, glue smears, paint problems and whatever else might be blamed on "gremlins" are invariably the result of my own ineptitude, poor organization, carelessness or getting in a needless hurry. Saying "the part broke" or "glue got on the windshield" to me is the equivalent of saying "the car wrecked". In my OWN case, it's ALWAYS "I broke a part" or "I got glue on the windshield". For ME, accepting responsibility for things that go wrong takes some of the frustration and mystery out of life, and makes it somewhat possible to avoid similar things happening in the future. Any of you may choose to view life differently, and that's OK.

Thanks for the interest and comments. Much appreciated. Mr. Snake, one of the reasons I elected to do a 'glass deck on this is so I wouldn't have to be careful about saving the original. I can make you an f'glass replacement however...now that I have the mold. Interesting to note: the shape of this decklid is entirely different from the shape of the Revell '62 Corvette deck, like they're from two completely different cars. Once again, I just didn't realize measuring and dividing by 25 was so very very hard.

I'd say it's about a '99 Suburban.

PLEASE REMEMBER TO CONTRIBUTE TO HARRY'S CANCER FUND. THE ADDRESS IS : https://www.gofundme.com/2pndgj5w IT'S EASY AND QUICK, HE STILL REALLY NEEDS OUR HELP, AND EVEN A LITTLE BIT WILL REMIND HIM WE CARE ABOUT HIM AND HELP TO KEEP HIS SPIRITS UP. Years back, I developed a way to make near-scale-thickness fiberglass body panels. Since I want to open the deck on this thing to show the battery and rear frame detail, I elected to make a mold of the rear section of the car, and make a replacement deck from that...while other phases of the build are ongoing. The material I use to give my parts sufficient strength is a specialized aircraft epoxy that has to be mixed on a gram-scale, and some extremely fine glass cloth. Mold in place on the tail... ...and popped off...

I think in a lot of cases, the model companies just don't really care. If they were making parts-packs with some of the more popular kitbashing stuff available, it would be one thing. Copying them and re-casting would be direct and unfair competition, where the re-caster had no development or high tooling costs and was taking a free-ish ride on the backs of the manufacturers. But the manufacturers don't make single parts or complete engines or wheel-sets (etc.) readily available, and they probably don't feel like getting all hot and bothered trying to FORCE people to buy an entire kit to get a single part...which I often do anyway, by the way. But when a re-caster appropriates the hard work of a single individual who has mastered (scratch-built the first original pattern) his own parts and made his own molds of same, and the re-caster copies original parts for resale, it's another thing entirely.

You're only as old as you feel. Some days I feel 18, and some days I feel 112.

I'd prefer to see spinning lawnmower blades...

Very fine looking modifications and upgrades.

First American "big-three" manufacturer with a production "hemi" engine, "unibody" construction and torsion-bar front suspension. Most of their engines were pretty well bulletproof, and the 727 TorqueFlite is one of the all-time greatest transmissions in the known universe. Their early Virgil Exner space-ship styling was interesting too, to say the least, and some of my all-time-favorite show cars are the 1950s collaborations with Ghia... And then there's the turbine cars... Kinda hard to top this for pure class too...

I know, they're only models...but bolting a 55 pound piece of useless dead metal to the front of a real car, out in front of the axle, only serves to make it understeer worse and go slower.