This knife was done as a thank you gift for a buddy that helped me do a major project on my Jeep at his house, a project that was supposed to take one weekend and took two with the Jeep tying up his garage the whole time.
He and his wife have a similarly built Jeep to mine and it is predominantly red and black with some American Flag accents.
The blade is 440C Stainless steel with red and black linen Micarta for the main part of the grip with Red, White and Blue liners along the tang. The pins are .250" stainless and the bolster is pinned and polished to the point the pins pretty much disappeared. The linen Micarta is grippy but pretty smooth.
Waiting for a sheath to arrive before I can give it to them.
4 Likes
Dang!! There’s a little bit of everything in here!! Awesome knives, musical interests, martial arts, and my fave…hot rodding and auto related stuff. Very cool thread indeed.
She’s not a classic by any means but she’s a fun truck to drive.
383 powered 1994 Chevy Silverado with 429,000 miles on her and counting.
5 Likes
I’ve got two other interests besides car modeling. The 1st one is auto sim racing. At my age I usually just race off line where I can set the AI so I have a great racing experience.
My other non-modeling hobby is just keeping my 2014 Hyundai Elantra Sports Coupe named: The Coupe, as that’s how everyone I know refers to her, looking better then the day I drove it home from the showroom. Of course now being retired, it’s way easier to do as I rarely go out in poor weather conditions.
joel
2 Likes
The cleanliness is off the charts 
Wow! That’s close to 700.000 kilometers! 
Amazing!
My faithfull 2005 Ford Focus has about 170.000 km on the clock …
Here in 2014 far away from home, about 2.500 km, far north of the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lappland. Not for the first time and not for the last time …
1 Like
Torsten,
Your Ford Focus looks great. I was really surprised that you travel north to the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lappland. Just something that I’m totally not use to.
Mustang1989, that’s an amazing feet for even a cross country trucker. How many engine and trans rebuilds were needed to get to that number?
joel
1 Like
@Joel_W Joel, I would guess zero engine or transmission rebuilds.
Correctly maintained 1980’s & 1990’s era GM Small Block Chevy V8’s can easily go 350,000 + miles. Likewise, with many other domestic V8’s that were well maintained.
My 91 RS Camaro went ~400,000 miles with without any engine or transmission issues. The 305 V8 Camaro still got 30+mpg highway when the ~400,000 mile engine & transmission was pulled an a new custom build LS1 engine & transmission swapped into the Camaro.
Wade,
That’s absolutely amazing.
I had a 1970 302 Mustang ( not the Boss version but darn close), and the engine needed a full rebuild @ 140,000. Of course back in those days i really pushed oil changes to the limit.
joel
Thanks Joel! I don’t need my car to go to work, so all I drive is just for fun. My favourite holiday areas are the scandinavian countries Norway, Sweden and especially Finland. So far I have been 6 x in Finland and 3 x in Norway and Sweden each. Last time I came across the Arctic Circle with my Focus was in September 2019 when I visited Rovaniemi again, the “Home of Santa Claus” as they say. When I took the photo above, it was in fact the furthest north I have been so far. It’s north of the finnish city Inari and the road in the background leeds to the finnish-norwegian border at Utsjoki, which is less than 100 kilometers away from that crossing. If you look on the map, you can see how far north I’ve been. And the North Cape in Norway is also only 343 km away from there. Would have been another day trip, which I didn’t make. Maybe another time …
The Baltic Countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are also on my list of favourite holiday areas. Have been in EST and LV with my Ford several times. Plans for summer 2020 went for visiting Lithuania … 
Wade, I find it always interesting that in the US you work with miles per gallon while we in Europe work with liters per 100 kilometers. I just changed 30 mpg into l/100 km and that looks really good for a V8. It’s about 7,8 l/100 km. The engine in my Focus is a 1,6 liter Diesel with 109 hp. It usually needs 4,5 - 5 l/100 km. I usually don’t drive faster than 130 km/h on our highways.
1 Like
Joel, 140,000 miles for an engine with a carburetor is pretty good! Better than average for sure.
Domestic V8 engine durability went up significantly with the 1980’s switch to fuel injection.
Carburetors tend to run rich on cold start until the engine is warmed up. This washes the oil off of the cylinder walls. This greatly accelerates wear and also quickly contaminates the oil.
It’s pretty typical for one of the newer (late 1990’s and up generally speaking) version Gen3/Gen4/Gen5 GM V8’s to still have factory cross-hatching in the cylinder bore at 300,000+ miles nowadays. That never happened back in the day of carburetors.
@BlackWidow Torsten, Indeed in the USA we still think in old ways of mpg miles per gallon 
rather than km per liter.
Fun story, one of my friends absolutely refused to believe a 305 V8 or 5 liter V8 could get 30+ miles a gallon. He rode with me on a 450 mile trip and the RS used less than 15 gallons of gas.
This is of course all highway driving ar ~65 to 75 mph or 110kmh to 130kmh
1 Like
Wade,
Thanks so much for the clarification and explanation as to why today’s engines should reach milestones just unheard of back in my forever era of 1960s-1970s. I knew the basics, but you certainly filled in all the blanks.
joel
1 Like
YYYYEEESSSSSSSSS!!!
Just to let you guys all know, if you want or not:
Germany just won the ice hockey quarterfinal against Switzerland by 3:2 after penalty shooting. They came back after Switzerland led already 0:2. What a fight, what a spirit, what a team!
The german goalie Mathias Niederberger, meanwhile nicknamed “The Octopus of Riga”, saved 4 of 5 penalties! So awesome!
And now in the semi final against who ever …
2 Likes
Weelll, Germany won’t be playing against Sweden because the Swedish team has been kicked out.
Better luck next year, Sweden!
Indeed this is a strange world championship. Sweden loosing against Belarus and kicking Switzerland later. Same Germany: Kicking Canada and loosing against Kazachstan …
Yup, Hockey season has seriously slowed my model building. Tampa Bay Lightning are leading Carolina in Round 2 of playoffs at 2 games to 0. Go BOLTS!! Another cup this year!
1 Like
Guys, it’s ice hockey! One of the most fantastic sports! Everyone has his team. Mine is Germany.
Here the last penalty for Germany. look at the moderator … 
SPORT1-Kommentator Basti Schwele beim entscheidenden Penalty zum WM-Halbfinale
Edit:
Okay guys, the quarterfinals are all played and my heartbeat is back to normal but I’m still smiling from one ear to the other … 
If you didn’t follow the matches, this are the results:
USA - Slovakia 6:1
Switzerland - Germany 2:3 
Finland - Czech Rep. 1:0
Russia - Canada 1:2
So the semifinals are
USA - Canada
Finland - Germany
A fun fact: All teams in the semifinals are from group B and have already met in the preliminary round. All matches are played on Saturday. Enjoy the matches if you can.
1 Like
Hello All,
I hope no one minds me contributing to this thread.
Lots of cool, alternative pastimes displayed here! Knives and engines and bikes, oh my!
I’ve been away from scale model building for a while now, and the cause was a one-time, one-off project. The most modeling I’ve done in the last few years is minor repairs on completed kits, and the occasional assembling and painting of white-metal tracks to replace the rubber-band treads on old armor kits. No new cutting, sanding, gluing, puttying, or airbrushing – zip, nada, nichts.
I’ve been a member of Kitmaker Network since ~2002. For the better part of two decades, I was a relatively regular contributor, posting progress pics, participating in campaigns, commenting on others’ builds, etc. I’ve been quiet of late, mostly due to a venture that had monopolized my free time for the past four years – constructing a 1/12th scale dollhouse for my granddaughter.
Two weeks ago, the dollhouse was driven cross-country and delivered to my granddaughter. I actually miss seeing it sitting on the card-table taking up real-estate in the family room, and I am having withdrawals from working on it.
It was a lot of fun. But I’ll never do it again. I learned some new skills which will transfer to plastic. Now I have the time to get back into scale models. Where to begin? Something simple I suppose. Start small and regain my now rusty skills.
11 Likes
What a great family heirloom for your granddaughter. My Grandfather built a similar one (although 1920’s accoutrements) for my Mother, who passed it on to my sister. It had the lights, furnishing etc.
I am sure your granddaughter and family members for generations to come will enjoy this doll house.
Congratulations on a great build and welcome back to the Armorama Forums
Cheers,
C.
C.,
Thanks for the kind words. The term ‘heirloom’ did come up a few times, and is the intent, but we’ll see if it survives my 7 year old granddaughter, - and worse, the 5 year old grandson. I hope it lasts as long as your grandfather’s has. Time will tell.
Model On!
