Ace-Garageguy

Everyone else has already offered all the superlatives I can think of, and I agree with every one. Beautiful model, as always.

It can be a problem, for sure...especially sanding small parts. I haven't really found the perfect tool yet, but I've found that several sizes of hemostats can be very helpful for holding things while sanding parting lines, etc., as well as normally-closed tweezers for gluing small parts in place.

ummm...which thing? I'm not certain as to exactly what specific "thing". I'm not really very smart and I can't grasp the meaning of "thing" without more context. There are several "things" mentioned to this point, and I'd just like to be sure I'm thinking of the same "thing" you're thinking of when you say "thing". PS. This whole freakin' thread is getting to be a joke. I'm done. Anybody feel free to have the last word. Please.

Great gloss. And everything but the up-top, as you already noted, fits well and looks very clean. Nice work.

And hey...I'm having great fun trying to make a point of logic in an intellectual void. But choo know what? For the sake of ending this why don't we all just pretend that I'm a bad bad small little tiny man, and that I'm so pathetically insecure I have to pick on an anonymous kid who posted something on the web 4 years ago? Everybody feel better now, OK?

This is a joke, right?

You're already there. You claim you KNOW what's in MY mind, and I AM here to defend myself. My point, since it seems just TOO hard to understand, is that people need to be self-critical, and if they post something that's ridiculous (as many have found my position here as well) they need to be prepared to be ridiculed.

It looks to me rather like a baby Cisitalia...widely acclaimed as a vehicle design masterpiece.

Mercedes has made some truly wondrous machines over the years, like the '50s Gullwings. Their higher-production engines were also industry standards for a long time, and their older diesels longevity is legendary. One of the first Mercs I ever did an alt-fuel conversion on was a '67 250 SE, and talk about a really lovely inline six...and smooth. A very impressive vehicle overall; a little more complex than many of its contemporaries, and very German in feel and fit and finish, but there always seemed to be a good reason for the way they did things. Sadly, from my OWN perspective (your opinion may vary), Mercedes has lately become pretty much the world-leader in over-complication simply because CAD allows it. It seems to be fashionable now in vehicle engineering circles to find the most complex way to do anything, but engineering "elegance" used to strive to get the job done in the simplest way possible. The engine that's the subject of this post is surely quite an achievement, but when it's 20 years old (or as soon as it's out of warranty and no longer factory-supported) forget fixing it.

"Doubling down?" I had to look it up. No, I'm NOT "doubling down" on anything. What I AM doing is refusing to be browbeaten into admitting to a nasty motive that I never had, but that several people have decided to believe. I asked a question: IS THIS A JOKE? I STILL CAN'T SEE HOW ANYBODY WHO'S CONSCIOUS WOULD THINK THAT "BUILD PROCESS" IS WORTH POSTING A VIDEO OF...unless it's a joke. I guess slipshod mediocrity has become the new excellence, worthy of overflowing praise. Sure seems like it everywhere I look. I'm NOT, and NEVER WAS making fun of the kid's (or adult's or Martian's or whatever he is) skill level. If I HAD wanted to get some pathetic little jollies "picking on a kid" I would have logged on to youtube and ripped him a new one...ANONYMOUSLY. What I AM doing is questioning the rationality and seriousness of putting something that awful up for everyone in the world to see, and expecting anything positive. But apparently, that's a concept that's just too hard for some to grasp, so they'd rather attack what they WANT my motive to be, rather than what it IS. Read the first of the thread. I did NOT attack the poster's skill-set. I asked "is this a joke?" All y'all who want to make out I'm attacking a kid's skill level, feel free to savor any hateful opinions you may have. I can't control what other people think, and I really don't care if some try to make me out as an armchair bully. It must be a lot easier to pile on and borrow THAT position than it is to THINK and have an original point of view. Internet "bravery" indeed. The bottom line is that apparently some people need help in deciphering the difference between carp and quality. I say again: "Accurate perception of reality, critical thinking, and an understanding and acceptance of one's own strengths and weaknesses are necessary FIRST SKILLS in ANY endeavor...whether it is model-car building or brain surgery." My own history on this board shows that I'm one of the FIRST to give praise where it's due, and not to only the best builders, and never just mindless "attaboys". I encourage people who I see putting effort into honing their skills, or who do perhaps only one thing well on an otherwise not-very-good model. Newcomers, old-timers, everybody who manages to do something that strikes me as in TRUTH well-done. And I often go out of my way to try to find something worth making a positive comment about on a model that is being largely ignored by the bleating herd. But praise for the sake of "feeling good about yourself' does nobody any good...other than a fleeting warm-fuzziness the one who offers empty praise apparently gets out of it. Empty praise and acceptance of poor-quality certainly doesn't help a young person to see the world as it really is, and to strive to do GOOD work in his chosen field...whether it is academic, sports OR hobby-related.

Another FYI: the OD of those tires is almost 31 mm for the rears, and almost 27 mm for the fronts. If you have something similar, you can at least mock up the stance and get an idea of the proportions in the meantime.

Very interesting and a technological marvel...but HMOG, the insane complication of the thing. Mercedes has excelled for years at making things complex apparently just for the sake of complexity (work on some of them that are no longer supported by the factory if you want an exercise in frustration and multiple "what were they thinking?" moments), and has almost invariably used 17 specially-designed parts when two off-the-shelf standard ones would perform the same function. Good to see the Mercedes design philosophy is still alive and well. And the article states "Modern V6s are lame; they sound terrible, they’re not especially smooth, and without turbos or supercharges, they tend to lack low-end torque. " Really?

Very believably distressed and weathered two-tone paint. Doing a junker from this kit is a great way to save the half-lifetime it usually takes to fit the doors so they look and operate well too.

Oh yeah. Fenderless '34 Fords on the dry lakes...very right, and somewhat unusual to see modeled. I assume this is the one you were asking about the Revell '29-'30 tires for, and they would be right at home. Whoever did the master for that '34 did a real nice job on the tonneau too, looks like.

One word answer: yes. I've found numerous old photos over the years of in-period dry-lakes cars running rear tires very similar to the the ones featured in those particular Revell kits. The front tires are also very close to what a lot of guys ran. Incorrectly called "implement tires" by some people (implement tires were very heavy straight-treaded low-speed tires not at all suitable for racing) many straight-treaded front tires often seen on old dry-lakes cars were in reality also purpose-built dirt-track racing tires. The particular wheel-tire combination evolved over time and with the potential top speed of the cars in question, and later on you'll see stock-car tires, Indy "champ car" tires, etc. Just FYI, when 100 MPH was considered a pretty screaming fast car on the lakes, you'll primarily see production-car tires, and often larger-diameter rear tires and wheels from bigger cars to effect a poor-man's "gear ratio" adjustment too. It's this tire mis-match that eventually inspired the "big-and-little" tire stagger that's one of the signatures of the whole hot-rod look.

There's your problem. Seriously, it's the "nasty stuff" that does the job. If you use it carefully and intelligently, it's not bad at all.

Exactly. But there's no need to bash the old AMT kit. It is what it is, an old kit with a blobular chassis and scaling issues, but it still makes a fun build...especially if you can pick one up cheap on the clearance table...but it makes a better race car with the headlights molded in (easiest way to deal with the poorly scaled kit bits).

I have not yet encountered any plating "undercoating" that failed to be removed by soaking in Easy Off (in a sealed plastic bag...to prevent the Easy Off from drying out...for several hours) and then scrubbing vigorously with an abrasive cleanser, hot water and a toothbrush, as I mentioned above. Soaking does the work, and the scrub takes only a few minutes. If I may ask, which kits have you had particularly stubborn chrome undercoating on? I have an extensive collection, and if I have the offending kit in stock, I'd be more than happy to chrome-strip part of it to evaluate the problem further.

A lot of truth here. I've been up since 06:00, but I'm just now dragging my sorry, aching tail out the door.

Very nice. She really looks the part.

Hmmm. I'd always heard it was 4:20.

Beautiful model. This old body style is rapidly becoming one of my favorites from the era, and I'm also in agreement that the Torque Thrusts look good on just about anything. Part of the reason for their appeal may be that they were among the first of the real lightweight wheels made for racing, and their appearance was somewhat secondary to their function. To me, clean functionality is always more attractive than overstyled designs that are about appearance first, with function running a distant second.

Always enjoyable to see an old gluebomb brought back to being a nice model. Good luck with this project.

If it isn't a joke, the very first thing the poster needs to be gently made aware of (well before his modeling skills are addressed) is how to LOOK OBJECTIVELY at the world and by extension at his own work and compare it to the work of people he finds he'd like to emulate. He needs to learn to be realistic in his evaluation of his performance, in modeling as well as in other facets of life. Accurate perception of reality, critical thinking, and an understanding and acceptance of one's own strengths and weaknesses are necessary FIRST SKILLS in ANY endeavor...whether it is model-car building or brain surgery. Carping on a plate and calling it art doesn't make it art...though there's a substantial percentage of the arts community who would disagree today.