Monty

I mentioned this company along with some info about what they offered and current pricing a couple posts above. I'm glad Gary was able to find pics 'cuz these have got to be really scarce anymore.

Those are MRC (Model Rectifier Corp). IIRC they were only issued once, around 20 years ago at a very reasonable price (they come with a ton of adapters so they can be used with almost any kit). At one time they were trading (ebay) as high as $75.00 a box, but seem to have settled down to around $35.00. The wheels are outstanding (best Keystones out there IMO) but the tires are suspect. They're very square-shouldered and the words on the Mickey Thompson sidewall look like they were placed on there randomly. They also offered Goodyear Polyglas and Firestone Wide Oval tires, but no BFGs. Wish I still had the email with the info, but Iceman responded very quickly to my question about sizes, openings etc, and he makes some killer stuff. Best of luck in your search.

Just my opinion but I'd bet the wheel opening on those ARII tires is way bigger than your MPC/AMT wheel, not to mention they'd look like dune buggy tires on that 'Vette. A thought: Assuming you're not that concerned about replicating BFG's tread pattern, you could sand off the raised lettering of these AMT tires (or an actual radial tire with the inside diameter you need) and use Fireball's BFG decals.

ARII absolutely nailed both the tread and sidewalls on their version of the BFGs, but as you said, they're generally too big for the vast majority of 1/25 kits. They offered them as part of a wheel/tire kit, but the only wheels i liked were the 5-slots.

Kinda surprised to hear that about the Fireball tires as he's renowned for getting the details down perfectly on everything he offers. Also, hobby boards like this were where I first saw them being used on models featuring an array of AMT/MPC/Revell wheels. Just a thought: if these don't fit, I believe he still offers them in 1/24. OTOH, when I first looked at Iceman's online page, the centers looked too big. I asked for, and got, pics of builds being done using his tires and regular model wheels. Long story short (too late, I know) I've seen enough of your builds to know that the MPC Radial T/As would diminish an otherwise outstanding build.

Len, I'd recommend that you skip these tires and find better (resin) alternatives such as those offered by Fireball Modelworks or Iceman Collections. If somebody could post pics of the MPC tires next to either of these you'd see why immediately.

A number of years ago I bought a bunch of Testors rattle cans online because of rumors that most of the Testors model paint line was going away, and I wanted to have these on hand for future projects. (These are shades such as Ford's pickup purple that aren't as common as their regular hobby shop lineup). Unfortunately, some are now showing the dreaded signs of seepage around the bottom, so I want to try and preserve the paint. 1) What are the best jars capable of taking the contents of an entire Testors can? 2) Many decant-and-spray articles I've read stress the need for the paint to "settle" after being decanted so it will airbrush better better. Do I need to do this before capping the jar? If so, how long? 3) How long will decanted Testors spray paint last in a jar? TIA for any additional info on this. I'd get tossed of this board if I said what I really think about Testors cans and nozzles. ?

I appreciate your willingness to help but I'm going to try doing the AI thing myself.

Let me clarify. I have two separate images I want to merge into one via something like Photoshop, AI, etc. I don't know anything about Photoshop and I wouldn't have the first clue as to accessing AI.

I've come up with an image I'd like to have made via Photoshop, but lacking any ability to use that setup, I'd have to farm the work out. Is there a reliable pay-for-product site you can recommend?

That's weird about the link. Works for me, but I had to go through several pictures before I found one that worked in the post. TBH, I'm not in a position to spend Pentagon money on something like decals. Anybody have a realistic $ estimate for what I'm trying to get?

A couple months ago I finally got my last holy grail kit when Round2 repopped the old AMT Mach Won '70 Mustang funny car. I was elated until I opened the box and found that the original decal designs were no longer included. I had planned to build the kit as a box art replica of the original design just to do an updated version of what I built as a kid, https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/1217/17/amt-1970-ford-mustang-mach-won-funny_1_99930f145fd567a19a043f4d77ad1741.jpg but the current decals are entirely different so that won't be possible at all. Given that, I wondered if a) I could have a decal specialist make a complete set of the originals for me, b) If doing so would be a copyright issue, and c) who actually does this kind of work? TIA for all helpful answers

I’ll just say I must be fortunate. When I moved back to this small town about 8 years ago, I needed new contacts. I asked around regarding the best place to go, but long story short, the results were less than satisfactory, especially considering the high price. I eventually ended up at Walmart and received great service and excellent contacts at about half the price. I’m on my second set and not going anywhere else for eye care.

This. Revell offers more car kits that appeal to me, but some Tamiya kits (Jag Saloon etc) are remarkable in several ways. Also, while they seem to have finally gotten past it, Revell had a stretch where a number of their car bodies were visibly “off”. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that in a Tamiya car kit.

I'm experiencing a delay of several seconds between the time I click on something and the time it finally appears on the screen. I'm not seeing that on any of the other forum/site I'm on. Looks like I'm not alone.

Saw this on one of my 1:1 car forums, but there was no information included with the pic.

I'll touch on a couple of issues here by digging up an old post of mine from 2022, which was specifically about the incorrect use of apostrophes: This has been irritating me for some time, so I'm glad to see someone is finally taking it on. Here's what's embarrassing: Over the years we've had any number of foreign members (mostly European from what I could tell) and they never had any issues using apostrophes correctly, despite the fact that English may not have been their first language, while some American posters mystified me by using them in an almost random way. I've seen sentences with two plural nouns but only one had the (incorrect) apostrophe. What rationale were they using to make that decision? For those of us who learned to use apostrophes the correct way, so much of what we see posted looks as silly as someone typing a'u't'o'm'o'b'i'l'e's. To my way of thinking, this comes down to the dumpster fire of American education over the last 3 decades. I came up through what was considered a "good" school system, but during high school, the German, Japanese and South African exchange students told me privately that they could coast through the year because they'd been taught all this stuff years before and were extremely knowledgeable in every subject, including English. (I couldn't imagine making the transition from Japanese to English). My mom was an elementary teacher's aide later in life, but eventually quit in disgust over the continual degradation of standardized material and methods in favor of whatever flavor-of-the-month excrement was deemed to be "the new normal" by those who made education policy. Long story short: it starts at the low end and, left uncorrected, results in the scenarios you've posted above.

Great stuff! I really liked the Red Hot Chili Peppers sendup.

This is the hurdle I'd like to help him get over. If you saw the name of an original song and singer (say, Blondie, Heart of Glass) you could probably make parody lyrics work with the music mentally, but think of the impact you could have if you were to have the parody lyrics sung in a "voice" that approximated hers.

Dude...massive respect: Love the band name, lyrics we can all relate to, and the fact that we're talking about metal and models without having to deal with metal models (not a fan).

A friend of mine enjoys writing parody songs*, but has mentioned that for them to get the best reaction the listener has to be fairly familiar with the original song, which makes sense. I’m a fairly low-tech guy, but I wondered if there was some kind of software (AI?) that could create a parody adding his lyrics to music and vocals that sounded close to the original performer’s. Links etc would be appreciated. *Most are very political and are just something he does to amuse the rest of us, so you won’t see them published anywhere.

I bought mine decades ago at...Kmart. Being roughly 12 years old, all I had for money came from my small town paper route, so costs had to be watched. I knew that most/all Monogram kits were molded in color, so that would help, plus I really liked the yellow/black scheme of the car. Once I got it home and I opened it, I was profoundly disappointed to find it had been molded in orange, not yellow. It eventually got built, mostly out of boredom, but I didn't feel the usual enthusiasm or desire to do a great job like I usually did. Anybody else get an orange one?

This section isn't limited to cars, so your build is certainly welcome here. In fact, there's at least one more talented semi builder who also uses mostly Testors paints and gets great results. If they turn out like his or yours, I'd say the more the merrier. As regards paint application, the fact that you pulled that off using rattle cans tells me you've got some wicked talent. That color combo rocks. If you don't mind me asking, what exact paints did you use for the pewter and the burgundy?

Kudos for finding a great way to replicate those seat backs. Your solution wouldn't have even occurred to me. Also really like the rest of the interior, especially the dash. Do any "recent" releases (Jolly Green Gasser) have a speedometer decal, or is that sourced from ebay? (I think I've seen them there). Either way, it looks great. Lastly, I made notes of what you did with the wheelbacks etc to improve the stance and make the poseable wheels/tires work more accurately, so thanks for that as well.

Glad they worked for you. A couple years ago I made the mistake of buying cheap Walmart toenail clippers to use as basic sprue cutters. (I blame my "thriftiness" on my partial Scottish heritage) They looked kinda like this, but nowhere as fancy. They were apparently made out of a combination of Chinese welding slag and Pop Rocks because one of the blades broke the first time I tried to use them, attempting to cut through 1/8" MPC sprue, which as we all know is right up there with Tungsten steel...or not. I now have something better.