I Wish I Could Build A Model Car Or Plane Half As Well As This Reader: COTD

I like to think I have many skills, be it returning a plane to terra firma in one piece or driving a diesel-electric locomotive. But of all the many things I can do, being good at model kits isn’t one of them. On the other hand, this reader’s skills sound awesome.

Jason wrote a Cold Start about the moon bus in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Canopysaurus branches away from their normal comedy routine to get all of my respect:

I built four of the Aurora model kits of the moon bus. In the best one – using a heated Exacto blade – I excised cutouts in the instrument panels and inserted different colored transparent photography gels, some scribed with fine grids, to create screens. Using a hot needle, I poked tiny holes where buttons and other controls were indicated and placed gels behind these holes. All of this was then backlit with grain of wheat bulbs. I mounted four red colored bulbs in the overhead to create the overall cockpit ambiance. The rest of the model, I airbrushed in details, including ‘moon dust’ on the lowers external surfaces. It took me months to construct the model and fabricate the tiny wiring harness and hidden battery placement. Not to mention learning to airbrush. I was so proud of the detail on my moon bus … but I forgot the sandwiches.

Here’s what a Moon Bus model looks like:

The last time I tried building a model kit, I made a Smart Fortwo that looked like it was melting. It was a straight horror show.

Mike Harrell:

…these dudes are treating it like they found some slightly unexpected kind of rock amongst the other rock.

You’ve just accurately described my geology undergraduate thesis, master’s thesis, and doctoral dissertation.

…one of the greatest discoveries in human history and has the potential to change everything we know about life and our place in the universe…

This is a somewhat less accurate description of them.

James McHenry:

There’s something to be said about regular, pedestrian spacecraft. Sure, spaceships that explore other stars, and spaceships that explode other spaceships, they’re all exciting, but something that just does its job, probably doesn’t get any of the glory…y’know space trucks and space busses just delivering people and things where they need to be, that’s just a neat thing. I like the idea of mundane spaceships doing their jobs in the background while the Enterprises and X-Wings of their universes get the glory. Slice of life stuff in fiction is cool.

Jack Trade:

Not to mention we actually had this in real life! The space shuttle was designed to be exactly that, and while things didn’t totally pan out, its everyday functionality captured the hearts of my generation; I had a blueprint book about it and pored over every detail.

Nlpnt:

The Soyuz was made for passengers and the Shuttle for cargo.

For a generation humanity’s space fleet was a Ford Econoline cube van, a Moskvich 2140 sedan and that’s it.

DangerRoad:

I recall that the sandwiches were imitation chicken and ham. Soylent green sandwich anyone?

Thomas wrote about how Fiat sold less than one car per day in America last quarter. I would have loved to see Ranwhenparked’s turnaround strategy implemented.

I will say it before and I will say it again, the Fiat brand never should have had such a large scale sales organization or standalone showrooms or pressure to add models to fill them. They should have just stuck the retro 500 in the middle of CJDR showrooms, advertised it as the “Fiat 500, Imported for Chrysler” and left it at that. And the new model should be a hybrid.

Huffy Puffy:

“What would you say… you do here?”

Carbon Fiber Sasquatch:

“I HAVE PEOPLE SKILLS!”

Here’s the reference:

Have a great evening, everyone!

Top graphic image: Julien’s Auctions