Ace-Garageguy

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 Actually knowing how to do ANYTHING that requires some effort is obsolete.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...

Look at the real linkage and tracks. Copy it in scale, appropriately simplified. Sorry if this sounds like a flip answer, but that's really the only way.

Sounds like my last ex. Which is why she's ex.

It's so obvious I didn't bother. I figured EVERYONE here would know it.

Yes, and there MAY even be enough plastic thickness in the roof to get the curve right without filler. Still, wouldn't it have been nice if the brand-new-tool had got the curve right from the factory? I wonder what the excuse is this time. Different languages? Time zones? Sunspots? The tooth fairy?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3668916/Former-Navy-SEAL-killed-wheel-Tesla-autopilot-motorist-die-self-driving-car-recorded-near-miss-just-month-earlier.html

Geez that's a beautiful model Steve. Holy cow.

Yup, they're not great. The engines are marginal too, as are the electrical and cooling systems. Interesting, but really second-rate cars. A real shame too, because the mid-engined concept had tons of potential to be world-class. Too many compromises that crept in during the push to build it at a price that could sell 30,000 units a year made it a mediocre car with chronic problems. The Bricklin is kinda awful too. Like the man says, it comes off like a kit car. Interesting, but another second-rate machine...at least if you've ever driven things like Jags, Porsches and Alfas.

If caffeine was an issue in a "drug" test, they never would have let me work on aircraft or fly. I've been drinking close to 2 pots of coffee a day for almost 50 years. Hope you get it. Work is good.

I don't mean to seem rude or argumentative Tom, but that's EXACTLY what the respondents who just give the old standard knee-jerk reaction that "it's too expensive here" are doing. If it used to be "too expensive" for GE to make appliances and water heaters here, and now it's not...well, doesn't that tell you something? Either costs are rising for overseas / outsourced production or GE's management has trimmed some fat and found a way to make US production work...or both.

Wow, Ed. That one's too beautiful for words.

That's always the old party line, and shows that nobody even bothered to actually READ what I've said. They just react. A brief synopsis of my position is this: A MOTIVATED COMPANY CAN FIND A WAY TO DO IT HERE COST COMPETITIVELY. But to turn things around will take more effort on someone's part than just doing the same-old same-old and spouting constantly that there's no point in even trying because it's just too expensive. One example: GENERAL ELECTRIC is bringing back manufacturing of appliances and water heaters. When's the last time you saw any of those stamped "Made in America"?

Not much of an opportunity for me. I'm sure I could make it work, or die trying...and for what? Probably not even a "thank you". I say things the entrenched "experts" don't want to hear, and they don't often pay for anything that rocks the gravy train boat. However, I WILL continue researching and talking with suppliers as time permits. But here's part of the reality of the situation. I'm hardly alone in my opinions. http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-donald-trump-is-wrong-about-manufacturing-jobs-and-china http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-flips-the-script-on-jobs-reshoring-finally-outpaced-offshoring-in-2014-2015-05-01 Granted, manufacturing has changed dramatically over the past few decades, and we may never see the JOBS in manufacturing that once were the mainstay of the middle-class, but manufacturing as a viable and cost-competitive industry may very well return. But by all means, everyone believe what you've been told. Manufacturing in America is impossible. Period. And don't forget, the Earth is flat.

All I ever hear is "it can't be done", from "experts", and it doesn't matter WHAT field we're talking about. The very first company I talked to about this said they'd be happy to bend over backwards to work out the logistics and do the entire project from start to finish, including shipping out completed kits. Printing, shrink-wrapping and cardboard boxes just ain't rocket science. Of course, I'm not entrenched in preserving the status quo and minimizing the effort I put out. If car models could be made profitably in this country in 1960, they can be today. It's only a matter of having the will to do it. All that's lacking is the will...not the ability. Whenever ANYONE says "can't", it usually means "I'm not willing to make the effort to accomplish it". PS. I've done a lot of things that "couldn't be done", including developing a procedure to splice broken composite aircraft fuselages back together...when the factory that DESIGNED AND BUILT the airplane said it couldn't be done in the field, or without adding significant weight. Proved them wrong, we did. When you factor in costs of delays and re-dos and just poor measuring / scaling / wrong shapes because of the language and cultural misunderstandings, and also secondary costs like shipping, etc., it looks very much like contract manufacturers here could do the job at a cost competitive with the completed in-our-stores cost from Chinese companies.

What's your general fitness level? I ask because several times over the course of my life, when I've been too sedentary, I've developed painful hip joints...to the point walking was difficult and hiking, which I love, was agony. Every time, including recently, I've been able to beat the pain back by starting out walking (aspirin or ibuprofen first) a few minutes a day, then 20 minutes, 30 etc. Now I can hike again for hours with no hip pain whatsoever. (My feet hurt because I'm too damm fat, but that's another story...and THAT pain goes away as I lose the weight)

Shooting black is no different from shooting any other color. It's not magic or evil. What it DOES do is tend to show up any flaws in bodywork (like wavy panels, because it acts like a mirror, and reflections will not be 'true' if there are flaws in the surface). It also shows orange peel or dry spray, for much the same reason. High quality black has a lot of pigment and will completely cover ANY color undercoat. It just doesn't matter. Do your prep right, shoot several decent coats, sand and polish it like you'd do any quality paint job, and it will look great. There's no magic. This is the cheapest rattlecan black lacquer from Ace Hardware. The minor orange peel will polish out. Same body after a light sanding and hand-compounding.

Nice work. This is the first one of these I've seen finished. Interesting mods. Those 4 velocity stacks kinda put me in mind of an Offy.

In several photos of the finished models, I'm seeing what looks to me like a disturbing flat-spot and / or jerky curvature in the roof. Anybody else notice this? The real car has a very smooth curve. (Photos copied from Porscheman's thread here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/114807-revells-new-48-ford-coupe/#comment-1655652 )

Here ya' go. http://vs57.y-block.info/vr57oiling.htm