PeteJ

Same principle but mine stays assembled in a corner. I uses 2 large sheets of velum sandwiched between two frames made from foam core. This gives me a little softer light and I am less likely to light the lights on fire.

Oh, yea. Spirit of America I &II, Art Arfon's Green Monster, Blue birds and Blue flames, SoCal Belly tankers! How much fun would that be!

Dick - Interesting subject but in the automotive end there really needs to be a caveat: of "by a mainstream company at a reasonable price". There are a lot of resin and high end companies out there that do specialty cars but charge an arm and a leg for them. My personal favorite would be Dan Gearny's AAR Eagle F 1 car. Model Factory Hero in Japan does a beautiful model in 1:20 scale but the darned thing is $375 fob Japan! I would love to see Tamiya or Hasegawa do it at about $60 to $90. That is true of so many subjects.

Love the Bimota Tesi - Really strange concept for the front suspension. The tiger stripes are very cool and very nice artwork to get the tears. It'll be a winner when you are done!

Building vintage kits? Wow, that is a tough one. No, not really. To me building a vintage kit is a bit like drinking a vintage wine. I still build them because is takes me back to my youth. I don't really care that much about the value to a collector! Heck, I always say I am a builder, not a collector. Frankly, I get no more pleasure out of looking at an old kit than I do out of looking an a old bottle of wine. You have to crack them both open to truly enjoy them the way their creators intended you to. Frankly a $100 for a rare kit really isn't that much for the hours of pleasure I would get out of the build. The one concession I make is that when I am done, I flatten out the box and staple it to the wall of my garage/model room. I preserve that part of it, also for my pleasure. Let the museums and collectors preserve history. That is what make them happy. I wish to consume them. That is why I bought them.

Just what I was looking for! Thank you Mark.

I could appreciate some help and figured this would be the best place to find it. I am building a fantasy rally car and am trying to find military fire arms in 1:24 or so scale. I want to mount them on a gun rack, so accuracy is not the highest priority. Any recognizable modern military rifles would be acceptable. Any one with some ideas?

Aircraft - Tamiya Spitfire 1:32 - any version Auto - Tamiya Enzo - The detail is just beyond compare and the fit is legendary.

I find it very interesting that when Hasegawa reissued these little gems, that the P-38 got left out of the mix. Wonder why?

Optivisor! these are a bit more expesive but they are top quaility and you can select different lenses up to 10 dioptors and there are a couple of lighting options that work very well. As my eyes have matured(yea, nice eupomisis for getting old) I have gone from 3 to 5 and now 7 is my norm. As I said they are not cheap but I really think they are worth the money. http://www.micromark.com/Optivisor-Binocular-Magnifier,6711.html http://www.micromark.com/Quasar-Lighting-System-for-Optivisor,8608.html

I have the three Gerald Windgrove books and I frequently read them. They are as much an inspiration as an instructional tome, though I frequently get ideas which translate to plastic.

Hey, you never know when you are going to need that one obscure graphic that is only avalible on that one decal set that was produced for a little know version of an obscure subject of an unknown regiment of the Mongolian 4th attack brigade as they fought on May 14th of 1936. There is no rule that says you have to use an entire set for a single model. After all, no set of decals is perfect for a given subject. You will always need mutiple sheets to get is just right!

Well said. I don't know how many cars have had the tops of tires sanded down or chopped off to get fender well clearance. Basically, if you can't see it, it doesn't count.

Whoa! Great idea. That will work well on race cars with farings as well. Thanks!

34 a. You must purchase the latest digital camera with all the appropriate macro stuff, so you can use the high end computer you have from 34 to post out of focus, poorly lit pictures of your progress on models so other modelers will be able to ooh and ahh over them. The out of focus part is very important because you don't want to let the cat out of the bag before Nat's or other modeler are likely to copy your lead and flood the table with look a likes. Only after a model has run the competition tour can you really use the camera stuff the way it was meant to be used so people can truly appreciate what a masterpiece you have created.

It really depends upon how hard you want to work. I and several of my friends use some version of Photoshop. It has a lot of options which recommend it, such as ease of selection and adjusting the image, but they are not really intuitive. I really had to work hard and read a couple of books to figure out how to make them work. Once I got that down though, it has proven easy to work with. Kind of like learning to ride a unicycle. Once you have it, it is easy, but getting it ain't so easy. Also Photoshop Elements does all I want and it was only $80. Not bad for a professional program.

HUMMMMMMM, 10 cans you say. If you happen to see a couple of guys dressed in all black with masks on walking out with a can or two someday. Pay no attention to them they will working for me. They will be there to Hummm , ahh , clean your model room, yaaa that's it. What are fellow modelers for if we cannot help each other. Right Buddy!!!!!^_^ As I said, in the safe man. Actually, I am lucky and value that stuff a lot. In the past I have done some building for Tamiya and they pay me off in product. When ever that happens, a box of white primer is always first on the list. I really would have to look far and wide to find a substitute. In the past I have assisted desperate modelers. Unfortunately it is about like wining the lottery. Once some one finds out, everyone comes knocking at the door. Next time you get desperate(have a deadline to finish a model for a show, customer or contest) try posting on the board. No guarantees, but people here are pretty generous. By the way, I looked on eBay after you mentioned it and it seems that the only stuff left in the world is in Hong Kong. I will have to call the boys up in Irvine and see what is up.

But in fairness, this is duplicating wear on the paint, not a scale effect. You would, in essence, still be painting it the same color as the actual vehicle with its weathered finish. John John - You are absolutely right. I guess my point is that very few military finishes aren't weathered. The initial fading happens very quickly, at least on the aircraft I have been associated with. In fact I think the only aircraft that I have a photo of that is not faded to some degree was a T-38 that my class had their hero photos taken on. It was just rolled out of the paint shop and was not yet a line bird, but then how faded can white get? Another bit of info is that primers make a difference on a number of cars, particularly Ferrari's. Certain shades of red are very difficult to match because in some instances(the modern Testa Rossa for one) had a orange or pink primer. Red is a very translucent color and if you put gray primer under it, it absolutely kills the red. Other primers give different effect. Yellow is another translucent color that is just hell to get right. Good discussion. This is one of my favorite subjects!

Dang man! I only have 10 cans left! I think I'll lock it up in the safe!

Although atmospheric distortion is a portion of the scale effect, it is only one factor. I discovered this years ago when I was in the Air Force and painted a model B 52 with the actual aircraft paint I got from the paint shop. The model looked way off. Much too dark. A large part of the difference is that, although machines of war are generally meticulously maintained, the exterior paints are rarely given the care that personal automobiles are. They also almost never have a glossy surface coat. Flat paint does two things. First and foremost is that is fades in the sun, so a lighter shade is more often what is seen on the actual machine, unless it is fresh out of the paint shop. Of course the closer to the tropics you get the more exaggerated this gets. Second issue with flat paint is that there are no protective coatings over the paint such as a clear coat so they tend to get rubbed away and dirt tends to stick to it more tenaciously than polished glossy surfaces, so the color is changed that way. In fact if you go to a armor base, the wash rack is generally a concrete stand with fire hoses and large stiff bristled brooms. Not exactly the way you would want to wash your personal car. That kind of care has it's impact of paint. Now, how much do you thin the color? Well, I always used the method I was taught in pilot training for adjusting ones flight path. We used the TLAR method. It was probably the most accurate we could get. Oh, you never heard of TLAR? Highly scientific approach, probably too technical to go into here but TLAR stands for That Looks About Right.

You should read the story in Air & Space. I am not suggesting it it new, just that cutting a hole that size in the location that they did and leaving it open in flight so that it doesn't offer any structural integrity is a stunning engineering accomplishment. The one in the 141 is tiny by comparison. This compromises fully 1/4 of the fuselage in an area where torsional rigidity is critical. This ain't just a cargo door that is open on the ground. Flying about with that big of a piece of missing fuselage is quite an accomplishment. If you just cut a hole that big in a aircraft sitting on the ground, a light puff of wind would likly cause the tail to come crashing down.

For all you surly bond slippers and aero engineer types - I thought you would like to see this. If you can get your head around the stresses involved with doing this, you are a better man than I! http://www.airspacemag.com/video/Open-Sesame.html

I too am a great fan of Clarke and his books. 2001 was an art movie more than anything. Keep in mind that it was originally released in Cinerama. For those who don't know, it was a huge curved screen. The film was shot with three separate cameras and projected by three projectors. It was an immersion type film and the special effects and cinematography were the major focus. It was more about the experience than the story line. This is much like the movie Gran Prix, also a Cinerama film. Cheesy story line to support the immersion effects. I still like HAL. IBM -1 Next letter up from H is I, A is B and L is M. Nice bit of trivia.

Modelers rule #1: Never ever reveal to a spouse what a kit really cost, especially all the aftermarket stuff and special paints and glues. Modelers rule #2: If you are tempted to reveal costs, Don"t. The word will spread on the spouse to spouse INTERNET and we will all suffer and that will be the end of the hobby. Sworn to the secrecy of the brotherhood!