Ace-Garageguy

With a free-shipping US price of $118, it's definitely worth looking into. My first impression is that it's more toy than tool. I COULD BE WRONG. I read through the specs. It IS, naturally, Chinese, so replacement parts and support will probably be non-existent. It's very small, with the footprint of the lathe setup being only about 11.5" X 5.5", with the mill / drill collets listed as being 1mm-6mm. The 3-jaw lathe chuck will only go to 20mm, so that's a little on the small side if you really want to get into custom wheels for 1/24-1/25 or things in a larger scale. The ways and slides are plastic, so that will limit rigidity which in turn limits accuracy. The specs don't say anything about it coming with cutters or fixtures, so you might be on your own, and that could be a problem for some folks. Still, for the low low price, even if it's only occasionally useful for turning very small parts, if used within its limits, it's probably at least worth experimenting with. Frankly, I have a 16mm lathe project right now that this thing could probably handle, so I might just have to try it out. I hesitate though, because no specs are given for things like spindle-runout or flexibility of the ways. Something this small needs to be able to maintain accuracy of not more than .001" to be of any real use, and there's no way of knowing if this will do that.

Yeah, another knockout. Beautiful car too. Great no-BS aggressive Euro lines and proportions.

Fast and sticky little car !. I had no idea those had continued to evolve so far. Fascinating.

I certainly appreciate the heads-up. I'm going to pick some up today. If I can get away with not having to go through the whole decanting PlastiKote thing, or the Killz thing, or something else...at least for a while...I'll be a happy guy. Lazy? Yup, sometimes.

When you've been-there, done-it, you may feel differently. I've been there. The incident is public record. I am not proud of it, I wish it had never happened, and in the same circumstances I'd do exactly the same thing. I recall quite vividly what went through my mind during the incident, and every conscious decision that led up to the conclusion. I fired my warning shot down, where it could do no harm and not ricochet. I did NOT WANT to have to kill the SOB. A .357 makes a loud noise, enough to make anyone relatively sane and capable of being reasoned with back off. Fool didn't stop, so I stopped him. One shot, center of mass. The other one ran away, and once his back was towards me and he was no threat, I let him go. I was held and questioned by the authorities for several hours while the crime-scene techs did their thing at my home, released, no charges filed. THEY told me of his increasingly serious record, and were of the opinion that, had I not ended him, he probably would have eventually killed someone who couldn't pull the trigger, or had chosen to not have a trigger to pull.

How thick is it (as in, does it tend to obscure details like some of the high-build "scratch-filler" automotive primers) ? And how well does it sand? Is it as effective a barrier after it's been sanded? Some products aren't.

The problem is that every situation is somewhat different, individuals are different, motives are different, degrees of courage and cowardice are different, and human-nature is notorious for finding expedient solutions that may not always be the optimum solutions. Philosophy is not much more than an exercise in intellectual self-stimulation, and doesn't accomplish much other than letting the philosopher fill reams of paper or bask in the sound of his own voice. Like I said earlier, treat others the way you would ideally be treated, and be prepared to defend yourself from people who don't abide by that rule. Simple.

Once you find yourself in a position where you're facing severe injury or death from a moron with a long criminal history (who you've never seen before), who's kicked your door open in the middle of the night, who's whacked out on drugs and booze, who doesn't give a tinker's damm about anyone but himself, and who ignores the first warning shot from a .357 magnum, I think you'll find that the "fundamental rightness" becomes pretty self-evident.

And another related thought...a man should not make his moral decisions based on fear for his own safety. It's fine to defend oneself, but it's also necessary for anyone calling himself human to come to the aid of those who can't defend themselves. Like an abused child. Or like 6 million Jews that the world stood by and watched go to their deaths. There are too many who say "it's not my problem" or "it's not my job" or "it's too difficult to deal with" or "I don't want to get involved" or "I don't want to think about it" or countless other excuses for allowing evil to flourish.

A bullet's a whole lot cheaper...and easier...and permanent.

If you look at the thread just below or above this one, you'll see we were talking about this issue today. Bill Geary (MrObsessive) who is a well-known, respected and published modeler uses this product (below) to deal with the problem. Read the thread "Duplicolor too hot for ...etc" for more insight.

For future reference: TEST FIRST. We've talked about this dozens of times on this very forum. BEFORE you ruin a model, TEST what you're going to use. Plastic formulations have changed in recent years and so have primer formulations. And just because something worked on model Y from manufacturer X, that doesn't mean it will work on model Q from the same manufacturer. Spoons aren't an accurate indicator as to what's safe either, because they're not made from the same plastic as kits. This very topic has been discussed just today. You CAN probably save your model, but you'll have to build up the filler-primer very carefully, as it's HOT too. Then you'll have to SAND VERY CAREFULLY to avoid spoiling details. As far as the floor wax goes, I really don't know.

Hmmmmm....so, at this point, it's beginning to look like we can pretty well write off the "getting too hot in the shipping containers" theory entirely. Not just based on the physical evidence and the science of heat-distortion of styrene, but because the kits never went IN shipping containers. Looks like a job for the Revell QA police.

Not me. Of course, I haven't seen the movie yet either. I just HATE to wait in theater lines. Wait...white crusty people? The heartbreak of psoriasis?

This is the "off topic" section, uncle. Not necessarily ANYTHING to do with model-building. Model-related is in "general", remember? And no, YOU probably don't need to worry about it. SOME of us DO need to stay informed on related issues, however.

You have a point.

But rental property CAN be sold out from under a tenant "out of the blue", and it's not that unusual. It happened to me some years back, and drove me to have to file for bankruptcy to protect my lifetime's possessions from being piled up on the street by the sheriff...because there was NO WAY I could vacate within the time frame I was allowed. Rough carp can come right out of left field, even when you're doing everything you're supposed to be doing. PS. I'm NOT taking sides here...just saying things happen, and different people deal with them differently.

Bugger.

VERY nice. I always forget about that one, and I've been sorta after it for a while too. My MPC 1/20 McLaren is lonely, needs a friend.

Thanks, Bill. I've been trying hard to avoid going to the 'big boy' airbrush for everything, but it's looking like the time has about come. I used to be able to do consistently nice work with rattlecan-everything, but the apparent constant tinkering with products and packaging is making that more and more hit-or-miss...and I'm used to knowing my work will turn out well, not having to close my eyes and hope. I appreciate your trying that stuff on a spoon. Only possible caveat is that I've had spoons that seem to be much more solvent-resistant than the "styrene" both Revell and R2 are using now. I have vintage Johan models in progress that will withstand the hottest of the SEM automotive self-etching primers, shot wet to flow, with no crazing whatsoever...and they look great. Last time I tried a SEM primer on a current Revell kit, it practically exploded (well, not really, but the crazing was severe and instant). And I probably really ought to go shake all my old rattlecans, make sure they spray, and turn them upside down. Yeah, like I'm really going to do that. But I should.

A Weber side-draft has a float-bowl cover on top, with a big wing-nut in the center to allow access to the jet carriers. The top-plate does NOT have to be removed to access the venturis, which come out from the side. You can also see the fuel inlet is on the top plate. A filter screen is under the hex fitting to the right of the wing-nut retained jet-carrier cover. This is the typical DCO-series design. A Weber down-draft provides access to the jet carriers through a small, roughly rectangular plate in the center of the carb top plate, which the velocity stacks mount to. The top-plate is removed to access the venturis. The fuel inlet is on the top plate, but between the stacks in this case. This is the typical IDA-series design. Mounting a side-draft as a down-draft would place the float on its side, so it wouldn't float. It would also allow fuel to simply dump out on the ground. Likewise, mounting down-drafts as side-drafts wouldn't work for the same reason. The only other Webers I can think of that I have here are the large (58 DCO) in the Accurate Miniatures Grand Sport, which are correct. Alas, I have no Cobra kits here (most of which would probably be fitted with IDA downdrafts).

I'm still digging for the "reformulation" concerns I remember reading, but this was posted on Amazon, Aug. 27, 2014: "Plasti Kote seems to have gone downhill fast. I ordered a box of 6 primer spray cans, and every one was defective. T-235 was always my favorite primer, but none of these cans worked. At most, I got about one third of the primer before each can stopped working. Little or no pressure in the cans, spray valves clogged and broke, extremely disappointed. Perhaps it was poor quality control or the seller had them in storage too long, but I ordered these because on the east coast Plasti Kote isn't sold anymore."