popeye the sailor

it's been so long........forgot about some of that weird stuff. to think.......I was going to do it to the '40 sedan during my time at Barberville, there was this driver.......won quite a few races. that ended when they found out that he was cheating the weight of the vehicle, with removable parts of his roll cage.........the bars were solid. all cars had to be a certain weight. needless to say, he took the walk of shame

great progress Ben.......didn't know you were majoring in ceramics redos are part of scratch building.......they go hand in hand

....catching up to your log.........so sweet! your bevy of boats look great together.......and the spread out of the yacht's decks show the improvements you've made on her! she's really coming along wonderfully! your almost done.........have you given any thought of your next project?

wow! very nice progress Rob!

beautiful work Doris.........truly amazing!

your the modeler bud.........from the looks of your stash, you can go wherever you want awesome job on the Arado.....I agree, it will be hard to top this one

I especially hate it when you freshly paint a part and send it flying ............picks up everything the vacuum doesn't! minor setback chassis and interior looks great. I noticed you left in the rear seats.......are they molded? they are like this in the '40 sedan......I think I have enough spare plastic to modify them out. does dad know where you've been tak'in the car on week ends ?

hello Richmond,........I'm not sure. there were a few silent movies made surrounding trains. that would be something to look up

hello gents! yepper....I think I'm over the hurdle.......if it wasn't being down with the flu (or whatever it was}, it's the nasty cut I did to my pinkie. but I'm doing better......the finger is healing well and looks real good gotta get back to the table.....I feel I'm wicked behind! it is an MPC kit......when they went out, Round 2 bought up the molds and began producing the kit. the instructions are dated 2015. I believe that most of the model companies at that time, got on board with their own train kits, since kits were only produced by a few companies. the train model market was the last big nut to crack, seeming isolated within these companies. one must remember that trains were the last model subject to be offered, since most enthusiasts were still scratch building their models, and actually seemed to shun the 'pre fab' kit. they were also the last to adopt model scale classification, but they adopted their own.......instead of the fractional scale, they use a lettered scale. some of the layouts I've seen.......when you get into building model train, you enter a whole new world you won't find too many kits out there........model companies soon saw they they could never replicate what these folks do, and moved away from producing them. I knew that the Delorean had been produced as a model kit, but I have never seen these kits......cool beans! I do like to model movie cars ans such.......I'll keep it on the back burner I use brake fluid J........used that as long as I can remember. I had written something about it a while ago..........it does depend on how old the chroming is, as to how quickly it works. older kit are usually the quickest, while newer one take a bit longer. those two parts have been in there over night, and after thinking about it, I saw the heck with it and threw that dome in there too. the bad part in this case, is the paint is on chrome.......it will come off right along with it. I'm good with it I can start over........the paint got under the tape anyway, which didn't stick to the chrome too good. I had a masking tape for past projects that worked really good....then I tried that 3M blue......that was junk! the green frog tape I've been using has been good, but had let me down a few times {then again, I'm not in the habit of washing parts}. I took the bull by the horns last night and cemented the frame onto the boiler part of the loco. the diagram was not too good in showing how the rear part lined up with the four brackets on the body........under or over the tabs that stuck out. in fitting it, I adjusted it until the two sets of braces forward lined up to their mounting pads, and cemented it afterwards. I did the braces separate, since I had to clamp the rear section until it had set. another problem I saw, was that before this step, they want you to add the front truck assembly on the boiler body. I found that with the front cross member in place, there is no way to slide the truck through the frame. I'm setting up to add that today { I hope}. I'm doing more painting as well.......added the inner floor to the tender and gave that a shot of paint. I'll have an update soon

I made a little more progress on the General.......the more I tinker with it, the more I'm beginning to disagree with the Museum quality aspect of this model. the parts are terrible........if it not injection mold marks, it's minute flash along the edges of every nook and cranny. for anyone who has the original kit, I'd say you probably have a better shot of building a museum showpiece. they really need to retool the molds don't get me wrong, it will come out a nice looking model.......we'll see when we get there the main part of the loco has been painted. the flat black I used has just enough sheen......I like the way it looks. the smoke stack has been painted and cemented in place. the frame and reverse gear assemblies has also been painted. I went over practically every edge, to sharpen the edges and remove all the flash junk. reading ahead, there are these two parts that need to be de chromed.......the nose emblem and sand dome. the sand dome is to be painted yellow.........the nose emblem is to be painted multiple colors...makes no sense that they be chrome. so now they are in the process........makes me want to kick myself, because I should have done the stream dome as well. this dome is made up of three parts, the two halves and the top. it's bad enough that it suffers a poor fit issue, but I forgot that it needs to be painted around it's waist. painting on chrome is never good I'd toss it in the jar with the other parts too, but I wonder what would happen to it because of assembly....would it fall apart? I may have to take my chances and do it........this part is in real need of some sanding the center floor of the tender is another issue.......it's warped. I was going to paint it a rust color, but I think I'll cement it in place and paint the tender in it's entirety. this is one of those parts that will show very little on the finished model. to straighten it out, I cut a strip of 1/8 basswood and cemented it on the underside, like a spine. it will never be seen, and it does a great job of straightening the part out once this is in place, I'll paint the tender and move on from there.

I've done a bit more on the coke mobile.......I am a bit hampered though due to a gash on my pinkie finger. I did it at work.......nothing major. I'm still waiting on the engine I ordered.......I may use it on this project. just for chucks and grins, I looked into the '40 sedan to see what the engines look like in that model........there is a stock flathead v8 and a souped up olds 394 cu in engine in the kit. both engines would look big in the small engine compartment of this buggy....so I may have to alter it some. I use enamels....to get a nice finish on the body, I'm gonna need to seal the wood with primer. I have a tin of white primer, but I couldn't get the cap off. so I settled for some Billing primer....I have one bottle left. it covers really nice, but smells the high heaven! I still need to paint the interior areas.... I only have flat red.......I could go over it with clear lacquer and still get a nice shine. I've also seen this model in white, and it looks really nice too. I want to do some trim work on the body after painting, some 2 mm thin strip painted gold will do the trick. the fire wall will need to be altered........I removed the plastic inside the raised outline. the top of the fire wall frame was flattened to fit inside the roof edge. the fenders, which will also be plastic, will need to be modified as well. as I'm fitting all this together, I'm test fitting the parts for the original model. there are few tabs to guide how the body and frame assembles. the engine, frame and drive train is assembled.........the body and fenders are assembled separate, and then the two are fitted together to pretty much finish the model. I need the engine to get the dimensions for how deep the fire wall cover needs to be. until then, I can't do much more. this model has a relatively short wheel base. they just shipped my order yesterday.......... kinda hoping that there is an engine option for the Sox & Martin kit.......but I'm not holding my breath. I may also need to make some custom exhaust too.

please tell me that red on the plate wasn't you! I put a nice gash on my pinkie finger over the weekend.......a non modeling mishap, but my modeling has suffered a little because of it. can be a pain getting rid of mold lines on metal, but so far it looks good. nice work

most kit will include the swastika.........it's in pieces that have to be put together on the plane. serious pain in the butt if you have some of the older kits, you may find them.......I believe they were banned around the mid 70's. I don't believe I've seen a kit with the iron cross, but you can go online and find it.........copy the image and print your own decals. I do that for a lot of my odd ball decals. sorry i'm late to your tour.....I had to go lay down after I saw all your kits! I recently built the Chezooom corvair funny car......love the aircraft carrier and the bombers! now I know where all the gassers have gone! I almost bought the four engine dragster the other week....settled on the sox & martin instead. the Orange crate is an old kit......don't see that one around very often....... my stash pales in comparison

really nice progress Vossie........ the cannons look great!

sorry I got to the fiasco late........not that I had an idea to add. having an automotive background, there is a product out there that is used to buff headlight lenses. clear finger nail polish, I believe, is another old remedy. ship doesn't look the worse for wear .........your still doing a stellar job!

very nice rigging with the cannons.......never knew that sideways was another option. learned something new

after seeing what a tremendous job you did on the Bismark, I'm definitely following along! you sure have your work cut out for you I have the New Jersey, an already started kit that Lou thought I'd be interested in. the fellow building it died......Lou got it from his brother. the paint work that he did is very good.......I won't be changing it. that's quite a bit of aftermarket stuff..........scares the dickens out of me, that there's so much out there! looks like a fantastic journey......gonna be a fun project to be sure!

interesting mountain of kits you have, shown in one of your photos!

they also required sufficient back pressure too....they had trouble 'porting' them. there is no comparison between American engines and foreign engines.......we couldn't come up with the perfect turbocharged engines.

looks to be a very delicate model I'm a big fan of the westerns of the old days.......Wagon train, the Rifle man, Gun Smoke, Bonanza....to name a few. look forward in seeing more prep work is very important

good to see your still modeling.......haven't seen any progress in a while. you've always had a sweet tooth for this vessel too pulling up a seat as well

neat look'in graphics!

I think laser and jet are the same in that respect. I looked into an ALPS printer.......they don't make them any more, but I did find a place that sells refurbs. you could also do something like an oval of white and put the lettering inside the oval. I have something like that in the decal it program as well.....the circle with the number in side of it.....Gran Prix or Le Mans style

looks very nice.......what are those curved parts on the table....fuel rails or exhaust?

yes........white decal paper. you'll need to cut the image out exactly, but ink jet printers max out at 600 dpi, so they need a backing color to print on......kind of like a primer one way to do it, would be to do the image, and then change the background color {white}, to the color you've chosen for the model. my best example would be the Andrea Gail........I did the white name and stern marking, and then changed the background field around the images to emerald green. luckily, it was in the color spectrum within the program. there is a similar color spectrum in photo shop as well. the limit with this, is that you'd need to follow a color scheme that is within the spectrum........not too tough a pill to take