Clunkmeister

I'll second on the Kinetic A/B combo kit, Rog. I'm as much a jet guy as you, as in absolutely not at all, so if you're not sure, grab the Kinetic A/B combo kit. It comes with everything to build either a single A or a two seater B. It's all Academy plastic so it's the best there is, and you can mix and match to get your specific Aussie prototype. It's gonna be good to see another early Hornet build. Heck, given the right time of day, I might even join you, as I've been looking for a reason. E

No,. still a WIP, mt friend. I need to figure out the correct wingtip light fixtures for this bird. Apparently, some used a different homebrewed style. Also, the cheek radars I used are not correct and I need info on the right ones. Of course I can find NOTHING out there on them, which is maddening. Add to that, they cast real oddball shadows on the side of the fuselage so it's tough to make them out. plus I need to plumb the auxiliary fuel tank, add the antenna farms over, under, and on the sides of the aircraft, flatcoat the undercarriage, add a bit of oil residue to the outboard nacelles, reassemble the main components using normal cement, not the canopy glue I used, and then go back in a couple months and recheck my work.

holy CRAP!

Exactly. Like I said before, I have enough checks and balances built in to where I can tell almost at a moment's notice if something's hinkey. This time it worked. The issue with me is that oftentimes at the office, potential customers and employees have been known to mistake my kindness for weakness, and that never ends well. Five families, mine included, directly rely on the health of this place for their sustenance, and I'll be damned if some petty thief is going to slide on in and mess with it. I'm just glad the failsafes worked, and now, if he ever wants to work again, he'll need to move to another city. Or Country if I have any say in it.

Awesome work, man!! Wow. The rigging on these French planes always confounds me because the French seemed to love placing the upper and lower wings very close together, doubling up all the rigging, and adding plenty of junctures and hard spacers in-line with the rigging. In the 1/32 scale it always seems just a bit too tight a space for my meathook hands.

Let’s do it Mark!!! Seriously. I have September Fury that’s been whispering in my ear for a long time. I remember we talked about a semi stock Bearcat.....

Good choice, Gazz. Many of today’s Reno racers use light grey or other typical cockpit colors, but they just tidy them up some. As you know, there’s reasons cockpits are the colors they are. Less distraction, etc.

Well, I have a specialty auto repair shop, and if you’ve ever seen a technician try to run the front end of a high volume retail repair shop, you already have the answer. My trusted guys are techs, with little customer service finesse, would be like asking a giraffe to recite Chaucer. The man I was recommended had 31 years experience and decent reviews. I expect he’s pulled the will over a bunch of eyes in his day. I have enough checks and balances built into my systems to catch even the most dedicated amateur crooks, and it took me about a dedicated two hours out of a day and a half to figure it out. Breakdowns were several, the most serious being my suppliers failure to follow my directions to only bill to my account orders made by one named employee. Yes I’ve made calls, and yes I’m shaking the pear tree here. They have responsibility. Yes, as the owner, in the end the fault’s all mine, but it still hurts.

Yep. I pay really decent money for good help. My two top guys are probably the top paid techs in the North Dallas area. Yet they work and work hard. Some guys left me because they’d rather work half as hard and get 60% wage somewhere else.

We call those techs “rounders”, because they keep going round and round between shops. I won’t hire illegals, I won’t hire drunks, drug addicts, anyone with multiple negative employer reports, multiple jobs over short times, or violent criminals, so I’m sort of limited on selection. I have four really decent blokes, so I’m happy there.

Yeah you never can tell, can you... grrrrrr

it's what NATO referred to as the Bison C, or more exactly as the Myasishchev M-4. The "C" has a specialized search radar, reduced defensive armament, better engines, air to air refueling capability, and is capable of carrying all Soviet nuclear munitions. Like the B-47, it didn't have the range to run from the USSR to Washington DC and return, so like the B-47, it was replaced with a more capable second generation aircraft. But just like the B-47, it looks totally "Cold War" in it's nuclear flash white and grey paint.

Today I was going through invoices and marrying them up with work orders, and lo and behold I find a bunchy of parts invoices that don't coincide with a work order. hmmmmmm.. the plot thickens. I quiz my guys, and one of them tells me that the fill in manager I hired for when I was away had them work on his personal car all day Friday. Instead of the multitude of customer cars we had waiting. So a bit of forensic accounting and matching things up finds me out about $1450.00 plus the loss of the use of the bay and the loss of revenue from that employee. My employees are pretty darn trustworthy and told me that the Temp assured them that I had approved the personal time. One of my guys even stated it seemed a bit hinky to him so he tried calling my cell to verify the story. A search of missed calls verified his story. These guys never get it. When you're called in for an interview, the interviewer already has the answers to the questions he's going to ask the interviewee. Anyway, I fired him on the spot and rightly or wrongly, I feel violated, stupid, and incredibly used.

You got that right. I’ve always loved the Cold War bombers, especially the very early jets such as the B-47 and this one, The Bison C. Bother we’re extrelely capable but hampered by underdeveloped technology and neither, although close, never quite lived up to expectations. The B-52 and Tu-95 got it right with the next attempt.

SIR YES SIR!

I know, Smitty, but I’m going to work on my foiling techniques a bit. B-36 will be a bench hog. I need the Lanc done, tuck done, Helldiver finished, and September Fury as well. This will be much smaller and much more odd. But B-36 for San Marcos sounds cool, I think Omaha is a much more reasonable goal.

B-36 in good time, my friend. This one is too cool for school. It cries out Cold War! Not the most successful strategic bomber ever built, but still incredibly 1950s “Buck Rogers” looking.

I like big models. I like cool bombers and transports. But I like different. So, now I jump into my D-Day build of the WHITE 6x6, then finish the Lanc, and then??? Finish the USN Guppy of course, but after that, the glue sniffing starts. I love challenging builds. Builds that make be reach and leap for the handhold, not just step onboard and ride. Challenging + short run + resin = my kind of build. So, strategic bomber maybe? B-52? Nahh, too common. B-47? Nahh, I’m waiting for HPH, how about..... It’s a LARGE scale model, instead of a LARGE SCALE model, so it doesn’t belong in the big boy pages, but I don’t recall ever seeing one of these built before. Ever.

Larry, the death’s head Albatros, in my opinion, was the best of the bunch by far. I fell in love with the subtleness and I thought it captured the look perfectly.

That’s pretty decent to hear, Mark. It would have been one thing if he talked like that to me personally, but he called out ALL modellers. That was uncool. Plus, a few more stories have come out. One in particular of him berating his own employees in public. No bueno... Let your contact know that if he wished me to give a statement, I will.

For me it always depended on the person. If I knew the person either personally or from the forum, no problem, but otherwise you get an inspection in front of me after the non refundable is in my jeans. I can be a real dick when it comes to business and my money. I fired a guy today over being unable to follow my directions while running my shop. And I was completely out of shits to give. Screw with my cash, my family, or my business, and you’ll have an issue.

And you can make your own poor man's bubble bath.

Vegas looks like a great place for a convention, actually. One thing that needs to be kept in the back of everyone's mind is that many modellers are getting older, and walking that long distance from the rooms to the show areas gets harder and harder every single year. Last week, I saw plenty of older people with walkers and canes really struggling with the distance. Smitty, the hotel was laid out like Omaha, convention center across the streeton one end via flyover, and hotel on the other.

Pfft It’s down for maintenance, right?