While suffering from a bad tooth that got infected waiting for a dentist appointment (which I have today) I have been just messing around the studio.

I got the Jag primed and painted BRG.

Worked a bit on the Type 23 German U-boat. You love the brass prop I got for it. Converting the cylinder to a snort system with an air pump for ballast.

I found cool stuff in my storage closet I’m starting to go through. Like the original script, synopsis and budget for my film “Vortex” you know as “The Day Time Ended” today. The original title was better but the executive producer Irwin Yablans thought people wouldn’t understand the title. Oh well. I guess he didn’t either.

I also found a studio copy sent out to broadcasters of the Worlds of Wonder TV commercial I did. That was Doug Jones first job ever and the first time I ever worked with him. We have been friends ever since. It’s because of this commercial he got Mac Tonight that launched his career. This is a 3/4 inch copy. Hi res for those days I need to get this transferred. It was a great commercial. I’m going to put these up for auction and I will sign them. I thought they were lost.

I found my International UFO Reporters. All of them. This was put out by the late great J. Allen Hynek brought credibility to the subject like no other back in the 70’s. He appears in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, (a term he coined). These are in incredible condition. I treasure these!

I finally got a decent picture of this 2001 painting I did awhile ago with a model of the EVA Pod suspended in front of the Star Gate.

I’ll always find more. I’ll save it for further posts. Now I’m off to get yet another tooth pulled. Getting old is hard. But I prefer it to the alternative. 

I have had a bunch of resin bodies for years now I have been meaning to turn into functioning slot cars. I love to build cars as much as I like buying turnkeys.
I also like scratch building but to date I’ve only made one truly scratch built car. The true definition of that term is every part of the car body you made yourself. You make the master, you mold it and make the body and all the detail parts…from scratch.
This is my Cooper I scratch built with Chris Wright’s assistance and his Beardog frame.

But I digress. These bodies were sent to me by a gentleman in Australia I have lost track of and his name. If you are reading this please chime in. 

My Bugeyed Sprite was his and so is this beautiful accurate XK-120 I’m now using old 60’s parts to build and a brand new Predator motor from Slot Car corner.

Surprisingly with these 50 year plus old tires and parts theis car runs well. She’s just in primer right now and I plan a BRG paint scheme  after filling in the holes for bumpers and the windshield. I plan to make a single wind screen for the right hand driver.

So much fun this hobby is. Day or night, good weather or raining this hobby can be enjoyed at home entirely without ever leaving the house except for trips to the hobby store for paint and glue. Always support your local hobby shop first or family vendors online such as Slot Car Corner, Electronic Dreams, Proffessor Motor and more.

I really enjoy this. Getting to projects that have been sitting collecting dust in some cases for years. This has always been due to projects for paying customers and little personal time. Lately things have gotten quiet and those things collecting dust that require no funds to complete can be worked on.

Most of these things I already had all the parts and supplies for already.

So I’m building my last RC sub model of a German type 23 coastal boat I have always wanted.

I am restoring one of the best ALL scratch built models I have ever made. The Russian WW2 river boat called the Bronekater. Every part of this ugly armored tank boat was made by hand and molded. She’s running again and even the T-34 turit moves by RC.

This was built in 2008.

Then there’s these slot car bodies I got in 2012. A Jag XK-120 and a 57 Vet. Time to put these beauties to good use.

I’m adding a frame and new motor to the Jag. Lots of painting and detailing to do but the body fits the old 1960s frame. Got to get some wire wheels for it.

Fun stuff to pass the time until some buisness coomes through.

After having poor results the first time in the hot tub I had some doubts the Nautilus could be neutral bouncy trimmed. The hulls for this model were really meant for a static display model. They are heavy 1630 resin hulls.

I was able to get a nice trim and get it back to the surface but if I ever lost power with this ballast system I wouldn’t be able to return to the surface. This could cause the loss of the sub if not visible in murky waters. To avoid this possible outcome we trim the boats neutral so that just a tiny bit of the tower (or wheel house in this case) will stick up out of the water when the sub is brought to rest. It will always float slowly back to the surface and the slightest amount of forward motion allows the operator to dive and level under water.

Once on the surface you pump air into the ballast tank and the sub rises to its natural water line height.

I took it back to the studio yesterday and slowly but surely found every nook and cranny I could to place more ballast foam. When I got it home I placed it back in the hot tub and viola! With the tank full she sits high out of the water like the boat in the movie. Fill the tank and she sits with the wheelhouse frog eyes just showing.

Can’t wait to at long last run this boat at Yorba State Park lake in September.

Seaview is next as I get it working again today.

Tinkering and tying up loose ends

I have a lot of loose ends around the shop. Two are new submarines I built a while ago but never had  the time to tweak and go over them. I’ve spent the last couple of days making sure their systems are working well and most importantly, I have no leaks.

The Nautilus has never even got wet or has it been balanced. Yesterday I did that. Got the lights working, modified the pitching prop shaft. Tested. Tested again and got everything running smoothly.

The worst problem is using old FM radio. Since 2.4 doesn’t work under water we have no choice but to use frequency modulation. Whenever I ran the motor the entire system would glitch. It took 2 hours to isolate the cause. It was hair pulling out time but I found that the two cables coming from the servos nearest the motor and it’s capacitors were too close. Just that little bit of field coming from the two servo leads combined with the noise from the motor was too much for the old receiver. So I stretched them back away from the motor and it all stopped. The glitching was gone. Moral to the story? Never give up!
Then I brought the sub home and put it in the hot tub to ballast the boat. That took some doing too but I did it.Now the Nautilus is ready to run!

I also did a bunch more work on the dirt track. I love this little track, what a childhood joy!
So much more to do. Finish the Saturn 1B. Finish Laser Blast. Build a new Estes rocket(have had for a while design by Harry G. Stein). Test the formula one cars and get racing again. Oh and finish the dirt car. It needs an interior, driver and other small bits!