Ace-Garageguy

If you choose to interpret it that way, then yes, well. sort of. But here's the thing.The MEKP added to traditional 2-part polyester products is only a CATALYST that kicks off an exothermic polymerization in the putty, and is not actually PART of the chemical combination itself. UV initiates the polymerization of the UV-cure product, and as such, "sunlight" or ultra-violet light isn't part of the final chemical substance either. The beauty of the UV-cure product is that it eliminates the measuring and mixing steps of using 2-part materials that some modelers apparently find to be problematic. And in the thicknesses modelers are going to be using, getting a full cure from the UV-activated stuff ought to be almost foolproof.

Perhaps, but it WAS state of the art aerodynamics for the time. Unfortunately, what the air likes doesn't always go hand in hand with what the mind and eye like.

Jus' got one of dese wit da 40% coopon at Hobby Lobby. Kinda wanted one for a while for the frame. Pretty nice little kit, with coil-over independent front suspension and Corvette leaf-spring IRS. The frame looks like it will be easily modified to fit up under a '32 Ford. Lotsa other good bits in the box too, not the least of which is a nicely proportioned chopped body shell that should be a fairly easy swap on to the old Monogram 1/24 '37 Ford underpinnings, and a generic-ish smallblock Chebby with billet valve covers and a GM automatic molded separately from the engine.

Pico Elgin, of the ACME club here, developed the 3D file and had this 1/24 scale model of the car printed. Pretty slick, eh?

Bondo has a 1-part UV cure glazing putty. On my 'experimental' list. http://bondo.com/bondo-sun-activated-glazing-spot-putty-930.html#rMZDbYVwIBfbtZhA.97

You mean bidets? They've been in use in Europe since the 1700s. Not really "autonomous", and you still need to dry the water...far as I know.

I'm haulin' out the ol' Gee Bee later this PM to start sanding the incorrect ribbing off the wings. It's really a very simple model, but I've been dreading the task of making masks to paint the signature scallop patterns on the wings, fuselage and landing gear. Time to move out of the comfort zone a little.

I never say "never", but it won't be next week or next year or probably even next decade. Speaking of "never", it's beginning to look more and more likely that faster-than-light space travel as envisioned by Star Trek's "warp" drive (and others) is going to be possible after all, and that the upper limit of light-speed for moving between two points (implied by Einstein's work) may in fact be neatly side-stepped. "So you never know what might develop... " Indeed.

Consider this: in a future world where all or even most of the cars are "autonomous", there will still be failures. Even the MOST robust system experiences occasional failures, and ANY failure of a vehicle transporting living human beings will HAVE to be considered "statistically significant" from a moral and legal perspective. Assume the car you're riding in has a massive system failure of some sort and the redundancies built in fail as well, possibly due to inept maintenance. If the car is in a tightly packed traffic stream, like YOU encounter every time you go on an interstate, the vehicle can't just shut down and coast safely to a stop. Nope, it's going to have to be able to communicate with the vehicles around it and 'ask' for permission to invade their space while it tries to pilot itself over to the side of the road...EXACTLY what YOU do if you blow a tire or experience some other kind of malfunction. All the OTHER vehicles will be responsible for reacting safely to the failure of the first one too. Getting a machine to be able to multi-task in a situation like this and correctly weigh all the possible variables to take life-saving action is a pretty good trick. Most humans can barely do it, and not always. Think about how YOU'D react at 70 MPH if you blew a tire in the center lane of 5, or if the car next to you or just ahead of you did. Get it?

The state of "autonomous" vehicle technology is another one of those things where the popular perception is far from the reality. A substantial number of engineers and scientists actually working on the integration of strong AI, machine vision and all the various and REAL technical obstacles understand that the perfection of the tech may be still 20 years out. I personally don't want to trust my life to the beta version. Machines do a LOT of things far far better than humans, but driving is going to take some really smart machines. No doubt the day will come, but multiple redundancy in case of failure (and fail-safe systems), as well as hardening of the systems against malicious hacking are far from fully developed now...or even really understood in the context of what it's going to take.

Gives a whole new meaning to "male performance anxiety", doesn't it?

She's a little beauty, for sure. Great model. Though I've never driven a twin-plug-head equipped version, the street Giulia with twin sidedraft Webers is a wonderful, well-balanced, agile and fun car to drive.

This is the kind of question that makes me wish I'd picked a different career-path. Being a layer in idiot times like these must be an absolute guarantee of richly remunerative employment forever.

Good question. The bozo who drove into my old truck a couple weeks past is now refusing to pay for the damage, through his attorney, on the grounds that "just because Mr. Zippy was given a police citation for 'improper lane change' doesn't automatically imply responsibility for causing the collision, much less financial responsibility for repairing any damage". OK.

I just love the techno-bozos who endlessly repeat that "steer-by-wire" and "throttle-by-wire" are "quicker responding and more precise" than mechanical linkage systems. Obviously, these are people who never took anything apart (much less put it back together) or played with an Erector Set. It's simply physically impossible to be "quicker" than a simple, correctly-designed (un-worn-out) mechanical linkage. Period. From a societal-engineering standpoint, I see the "autonomous" vehicle trend to be just another way to remove the concept of taking personal responsibility for ANYTHING from the daily lives of the sheeple. Which makes me wonder: when's autonomous toilet paper going to become popular? It would surely remove another one of life's less-than-pleasant tasks and greatly add to quality-of-life. There seem to be a fair number of less-than-skilled users of the old-fashioned manual kind, so surely the market is there. And it probably wouldn't kill you if it failed.

Yup. One of my requisites for female companionship for the past several years has been "must be able to drive a three-on-the-tree". Needless to say, I'm a lonely guy.

There ARE actually steering systems that remove the mechanical linkage between the steering wheel and the road wheels, replacing it with sensors, computers and electric motors. ANY engineer who thinks this is a good idea, and ANY product planner who agrees or promotes this idiocy ought to be put in a shopping cart and rolled down a steep hill to get a feel of what it will be like when the system inevitably fails. Electrically assisted power-steering is one thing, but entirely "drive by wire" steering is stupid and unnecessary complication simply for the sake of complication...and to be all techno-hip with no connection to common sense. It makes about as much sense as designing a computer-controlled hammer to drive a nail.

Nice reference pix. Thanx! The profile shots of the model show how wrong the stance is compared to the real car, but it's correctable. I also remember shuddering when I saw the cooling fan arrangement on the real car long ago. Useless, period.

Hard for me to believe there are grown men who can't drive a manual gearbox. Oh wait. It's 2016. Actually knowing how to do ANYTHING that requires some effort is obsolete. Like staying awake while the car drives itself.

Sorry...I forgot to answer your PM. Any one-part product is basically just thick lacquer primer and it WILL shrink. It's OK for extremely fine scratch or pinhole repairs. but that's it. Any kind of high-fill or high-build situation isn't really a good idea. All of them will do their most shrinking in the first 72 hours, but once re-coated with primer, they'll swell again as they soak up thinner. If you don't give them sufficient time for solvent re-evaporation, and you sand the primer flat fairly quickly, they will shrink again over time...even after having been painted, color-sanded and polished. I have a decklid on a Chevelle that i rushed for a contest after I damaged it. The surfacers and one-part filler has shrunk to the point of needing re-sanding and polishing twice now in 4 years.

Another one of those holidays that actually means something very important to every American (and much of the free world) but has become largely a time to drink too much and make a lot of noise. Whoohoo.

Not too hard to make a cardstock pattern that you fit to the car to get your 'look', then cut it out of styrene as so...