Nate

Oh man, a modeller on Whidbey! Can you solve the mystery of Guy Hobby World and Mini Mart for me??? What the heck is that place and are there actually hobby supplies in there? I have driven past that place many times, but never had time to actually see what was in there, or it's closed, and it has a weird vibe....

I'm in Bellingham, WA - It was Dark Tower Games in town, but they only had the pistol grip ones, so I struck out there. I'm also noodling on just molding my own with some air-drying clay or Apoxie Sculpt I have laying around - protect the AB body with some tape or Saran wrap, make a planar parting line with some styrene sheet, and put a glob on there until it feels good to my hand. Doesn't get any more custom fit than that!

Thanks gents - good info! I was looking on Grex's site and I think I did find a local gaming shop that is also a dealer, so I'll probably head over and check it out soon. I saw Grex also sells the grip by itself and people fit them to Iwatas successfully, so I might try that too - the grip is a bit overpriced at $20 on Sprue Bros, but cheaper than a new airbrush....

Thanks for the recommendation - I'll check it out and see if I can eventually find one in person before committing. I like the changeable cup sizes too - Now, where did I put that spare $200.....

I've finally had an opportunity to blow the dust off my airbrushes for the first time in several years and had a bit of a eureka moment - my Badger 200 siphon feed is really comfortable in my hand, and my Iwata Ecplise HP-CS gravity feed makes my hand hurt really fast and makes me not like it despite all its other qualities. Upon comparison, the Badger has a forward angled trigger that is also well forward of the middle of the brush, and the Iwata has a vertical trigger basically at the middle of the brush. The Iwata trigger position makes the palm of my hand sore and I have a har

It was definitely composite, so it makes sense that it would have been in that batch - thanks for adding some breadcrumbs to this trail! I can't believe they didn't just destroy all of them; I know that's not where all the secrecy and tech was hiding, but it still seems like something that they wouldn't want out in the open.

If you can find the airfoil type(s) used in the wing from some Mirage/Kfir plans or some other information source, you can just plug in the airfoil type and have an airfoil generator like this create the cross-section curves for you to start your loft from: http://airfoiltools.com/ Bit of messing around with importing/exporting into your design so it works how you want, but might save some of the guesstimating at the early phase of your design....

I'm stumped and I am hoping a resident Blackbird guru has a satisfying answer... We just visited the San Diego Air and Space Museum and they had a Blackbird rudder on display - it is heavily worn, slightly damaged, with tail number 17955, and the Skunkworks skunk on it. The museum plaque only said it was "removed after being damaged." The thing is, 17955 is on display at Edwards (with rudders) and the one at SDASM looks like the one that showed up on eBay in 2012 for $1M by a dude who normally sold crochet needles. I can't find any other info beyond the 2012 eBay offer

I'm sure others with more experience will chime in, but I can tell you from my work/CAD instruction experience that, if you go the 3D printing route, build the wing in your CAD environment from scratch based off measurements you take from the kit. You do not want to scan the part and modify the CAD point cloud if you're new to CAD (and probably still don't if you're experienced with CAD either 😉 ) Point clouds are "noisy" and you will have a little lumps and bumps that you will never be able to smooth out without basically remaking everything from scratch. Also, point clouds are

Thanks! Other than the blisters, the rest of it still looks pretty shiny and new after all that time....now if only someone could get a telescope on Starman to figure out how well Tesla's paint holds up....

Thanks guys, that's super helpful! I hadn't thought about the thrusters and wasn't familiar with the LDEF project - off to the Google to learn some more! After just seeing Apollo 9 at the San Diego Air and Space Museum on vacation today, it's hard to accept that after more than 14 billion miles it basically looks the same as it did in 1977, but it's probably true! I guess no atmosphere, no nearby sun, no significant thermal cycling, no servicing, and no re-entries makes for pretty limited wear and tear on your way out of the solar system...

Does anyone have any insight as to what sort of wear/weathering occurs on various satellites afters years of orbiting the earth or travelling through the solar system? ISS basically looks brand-new browsing through random NASA exterior shots - is there much else beyond sun exposure and micro-meteorites? I'm trying to imagine what the two Voyagers look like right now after decades of travel on their way out of the solar system...definitely not Star Wars level, but it can't be NASA clean-room either... TIA!

It does have to be Tamiya because my AMS won't let me have a mismatch 🙂 I have a Hasegawa one and it looks weird to me....thanks though! Nate

Yup, just one. I'm trying to build an Odyssey Dawn Viper from by brother-in-law's deployment and they all had 3X AIM-120's + AIM-9X/GBU-31/AGM-88, but I only have the 2 from the kit. I'm in WA and happy to trade other explody things or pay outright. TIA! Nate

Do you want any more of the same? I have a bunch of those as well and have no intention of using them in the near future. I'm in WA. Thanks, Nate