Went out earlier Monday evening to do a couple of errands I'd put off and to recon possible sources of needs; took the local buss to Beverly Hills and found that they are now requiring passengers to board the buses from the rear doors, ostensibly to minimize driver exposure to the public (the drivers are all now wearing face masks); The streets were virtually deserted and Beverly Hills was like a ghost town, a sight I had only seen back in the late 70s when I would leave my office in the wee hours of the morning working late; if there was any consolation, the chain drugstore in BH was stripped as clean as the stores in the much lesser income areas...


Strange thing riding the buses now; people are trying to keep the 6-foot 'social distancing' thing while on the bus, but the confines make it difficult; amusing, though, watching the expressions on passengers' faces when a new rider gets on and starts looking for a seat: [looks at new rider and thinks]: "No! Not the seats around me! Back off!"...





<O>

Be glad you/I/we are not among all those refugees that nobody wants around. They have zero to do also.

Saw that on FB the other day :)

Went out an hour or so ago in the car with the wife due to a tip off there was beer in a certain store (something I consider an essential) and enroute actually saw a mobile Police unit in my rearview mirror.

Shortly thereafter my attention was drawn to (once taught you never forget the art of statement writing) three black male pedestrians and the wife says "Look at them I thought the government lock down limited groups of people outdoors to two"

I replied "It did but don't get overly concerned because this mobile unit behind me will sort it out"

Did it? did it flange. The guys were either blinkered or intentionally avoiding any additional workload.

The moral being....if the authorities aren't going to enforce the lock down then don't put the entire blame on those who blatantly ignore it.

@Fubar2Niner: Use a hammer.

My lock down fun in recent days has been the sales at Steams for the DeLuxe Pack of Dirt Rally 2.

I really love it. For 28 coins I got 13 rally locations with 6 tracks each that are driven in both directions, making that 156 rally tracks driven by day, sunset, and night, in clean and rainy weather; and then 13 rally-cross locations, if one is into that. Plenty of car classes and cars. VR works very, very good. The menu in VR with wheel works like crap, but crap menus are what Codemasters excels in since long time. The driving and looks and the mere content volume of it delivers most escellent bang-for-the-buck ratio.

Excellent package, to be had for smile price in sales ending April 5th.

Yesterday the probably last stage, Scotland, was released. Its a car wrecker, I got mauled up pretty badly, the tracks hate people in cars, and it lets them know. :D As buyer of the DL pack a few days earlier, I got it for free.

So you did not use the cheat, put porridge on the tyres. :03:

I was looking at that and decided against, I much prefer tanks on land.

I did not know you were a tank guy. Steel Beasts?

I am a vivid sim racer since a few years now. Assetto Corsa Classic, AC Competizione, Raceroom, Wreckfest and now Dirt Rally 2 are my poisons. All in VR (Wreckfest on a virtual movie screen). Gaming does not get more immersive than this.

I've always been more into the strategy element like the Blitzkrieg game series.

I've got a model building project I've been working on for a couple of years, now. :doh:

https://cdn3.volusion.com/bmfcy.fjqh...che=1533738074

I call this "the impossible Peterbilt" because the basic kit has been around for a long time. I managed to find the kit on Amazon at a pretty fair price but I already knew there would be many challenges.

Like I said, the basic kit had been around for a long time (its actually a Pete 379 that was equipped for heavy haul loads) and Revel (Germany) had kept the molds in a basement somewhere. :doh: The molds have been worn out for quite some time and Revel would just re-release the kit when they felt like it. Really, every part has molding flaws (dirt and dust in the molds) that meant each part required filing, sanding, and polishing.

The kit was well designed but it was well designed in Germany. Meaning, things like engine and running gear detail look great, but they are wrong for an American truck. :doh: Luckily, AMT re-released their old school Peterbilt 359 so I snagged one to donate parts. :yeah:

There were other challenges that cropped up during the pre-building phase. The interior of the cab and sleeper came out better than I had hoped (the bunk features a really nifty Mexican blanket and some cabinets I re-purposed from other kits plus a neat coffee maker) and it got me to thinking, which is always dangerous. :doh:
What if I added a driver figure and maybe a passenger? That meant finding the right figures and re-learning how paint them. :doh:

So, fast forward and things aren't built but many of the sub-assemblies are ready for paint. The engine and running gear are quite detailed and accurate for a "working truck". Things like the "fifth wheel" trailer coupler can actually move like the real article and there's even a trailer or two to hook to the truck. :D Hoses, air lines, and chains are ready. Tires and wheels are ready. The opening doors have been re-designed with working photoetched piano hinges and small magnets to hold them closed.
I finally decided on painting the cab and sleeper in a light blue metallic, overall, to give it a 1980's look and now its down to a decision I keep fighting with. Paint the frame rails semi-gloss black or in a darker "utility" blue? :hmmm:

Really, I can't decide. :o

Thanks to the lock down the kit is now staring at me, as if its saying "Well, get on with it already!".

:D

Hah, nice problem to have :up:

Sry to hear the kit is so bad, cutting, sanding, filling.. it has been some time i built a kit from Revell or Airfix. I found that kits differ very much in cast quality, plastic quality, and details.
I built (or tried) Airfix' B17 two times because i thought that there was something wrong with the plastic material - it was impossible to glue parts together with polystyrene glue, also they would come apart days or weeks later. Second kit was as bad as the first and i gave up, but this was 40 years ago lol.
I found the later ItalAerei models manufactured by someone else but sold by Revell to have a very good quality overall, and then of course there is Wingnuts by Peter Jackson (!!) as the shiny example.

How do you glue those chrome-plated parts, or does one generally use superglue instead of polystyrene glue nowadays?

Whatever, wish you fun and good luck with the project :yep:

Well, no glue is eternal. :03: Old school model glue tends to break down after several years and that stuff is supposed to dissolve the plastic slightly to form a bond. My 1/350th scale submarine kits tend to go back in for over haul every 4-5 years or so. :D

How do I glue chromed parts? Carefully. :O: "Super" glue is bad for chromed and clear parts, it has a bad habit of leaving a nasty fog in its wake. "Super" glues (cryo's) also have what is known as "ping factor". The bond is strong but its also very brittle, so parts may look solid until they get hit with enough force and they "ping" off and fly across the room. :o What I do with chromed parts is the old school method. Scrape the chrome off the parts where they need to be bonded or painted and apply just enough glue. Tamiya has released some glues recently that have upped the game, well kinda. Their Extra Thin liquid cement is incredible until you figure out its just old-old school Plastruct Bondene, which is nothing more than straight acetone. :up:

BTW, don't get the wrong idea about the truck model. I knew what I was getting into when I bought it and I knew it was going to be a bear and half. That was the challenge, was it still build-able despite its flaws? I also wasn't planning to knock it out in a weekend, rather take my time and figure out how to do some things as I went along. :D

As far as kits go, Monogram were always reliable. Again I go back some years, still got a boxed Mono B-29 kit waiting on the shelf. Built the B-17, 1/48 scale, class, pure class. Even tried Sheperd Paine diorama, never pulled it off. Re purchased and rebuilt it sometime later.

Interest switched from A/C to armour, Tamiya was the way to go, several small scale, (can't remember scale size) their first released high detailed Tiger Mk1 kit, then Their R/C Leopard . Then the kids arrived, and models became a thing of the past, but I still marvel at guys skills these days and how things have progressed.

Great kits all but hella expensive. Then I started drooling at Armortek.

However I'm not yet a millionaire ;)