Z-TARD

Your best bet with a metallic paint is to spray it.

Supposedly these are more venomous than the black Widow spiders, although they are supposed to also inject less venom when they bite..... I wonder who tested this theory out? Once my son is old enough to play outside, these guys had better find somewhere else to build webs.

Good call, I might do this when I decide to serve the eviction notice on them later. Either that, or 2 at a time in the terrarium like "Thunder Dome"

Found this on the local museums website after I found the first spider in my yard last year: http://www.sdnhm.org/fieldguide/inverts/latr-geo.html It doesn't have any explanations for the sudden loss of Black Widow's in my yard. I doubt that the Brown ones are eating or killing them, but possibly breeding faster and occupying all of the good web building sites. They seem to either produce more offspring, or their offspring manage to survive longer than Black Widow offspring. There are definitely more of the brown spiders in my yard now than there ever were of the Black Widows. The first year we lived here, I found about 4 or 5 Black Widows the entire year. I could go in my back yard now and collect 10 to 15 of these Brown Widows within about an hour. It kinda creeps me out if I think about it too much....

Found this in my backyard today: It's a Brown Widow. Originally from South Africa from what I've read online. They seem to be taking over my backyard lately. This is definitely not the first one I've seen, although it does have the nicest paint job. A year ago, I was excited when I found one of these because they were considered kind of rare. Now they seem to be everywhere, and the Black Widows that I used to see all over my yard are now gone. I can pretty much go out in my yard now and find one of these under every flower pot and lawn chair. They seem to like my BBQ grill as well. Out of curiosity, I caught one and have kept it in a terrarium in my garage. I'm feeding it crickets and caterpillars to see how big it will get. So far, the body is about 3/8" in diameter and the leg spread is around 1 3/4". I think once my son is old enough to play outside though, I will probably begin a campaign of genocide against these guys using a propane torch. They are supposedly twice as venomous as Black Widow's. I'd rather not take the chance of having my kid bitten.

Zakk has awesome tone, I don't think anyone has perfected the "Wall Of Sound" the way he has. It's nice to have the capablity to evoke a decent EVH tone, some days are just EVH days, ya know? No matter what you wanna play, the only thing that comes out is EVH sounding chords and lots of tapped harmonics and right hand hammer on's. There are a lot of other tones I like as well, most of which are equally as hard to emulate. Satriani has quite an array of amazing tones. If I were to get just one amp, it would probably be the JSX because it seems so versatile, and is a lot less than the 5150 III. Being the cheap bastard I am, I'll probably end up getting the close copy of it made by Bugera/Behringer: http://www.samash.com/catalog/showitem.asp?ItemPos=0&TempID=1&DepartmentID=1&STRID=25736&CategorySubID=133&CategoryID=133&BrandID=2293&CategorySubPriceRangeID=0&pagesize=10&SortMethod=3&Method=3&PriceRangeID=0&SearchPhrase=&Contains=&Search_Type=Department&GroupCode=&categorysubsearch=true

The flange on the spoiler was cut at a slight curve to accomodate the curve of the hatch. After that I clamped the material to a large welding table so that only the flange hung over the edge, and bent it gradually using a large crescent wrench. I worked from both outer edges towards the middle, it took about an hour of levering on the wrench combined with some hammer work using a dead blow mallet. There was a little warpage once it was bent, but it wasn't too bad to correct by reclamping the part and twisting it back to shape slightly. For thickness, I wouldn't go with anything less than 1/8" for aluminum when used in a flat design like this. If it's going to be capable of generating up to 200 pounds of downforce, then I would think of it more in terms of building a shelf capable of holding 200 pounds of weight. Granted, a certain percentage of the downforce generated will be acting directly against the hatch surface rather than the face of the spoiler, but overbuilding never hurts.

The one negative about the Shiro that I've noticed, is that replacement CV joints are pretty much imposible to find. I've tried for years to find a set to use with a short nose VLSD out of a J-30 in my 240Z. Short of finding some in a Junkyard (I've found one, mangled beyond repair) you are going to have a hard time finding replacements should the original units ever fail.

Here's some pics of the one I made for the dreaded "Pinks" 280Z. It's shaped roughly after the spoilr on the Cobra Daytona coupe. Though not adjustable, it was sturdy enough that the team was able to push the car by grabbing the edge of the spoiler. I don't remember the exact thickness of the part, it was either 3/16" or 1/4" plate. Total weight was about 5 or 6 pounds. It wouldn't be too hard to make an adjustable version of this using a hinged mount and some turnbuckles on the backside. The spoiler would probably have to be moved forward on the hatch about 4 to 5 inches to create some space behind it to mount the turnbuckles to. With mounting hardware installed, lots of countersunk screws up top with large washers and locking nuts below. I have no idea what happened to this part once the car was parted out, hopefully someone is finding some use for it. I plan on eventually building another one, adjustable this time, for my own car. With my current work ethic, this will probably happen within the next 10 years or so...

+1 on ATI mounts being junk. The same could generally be said of most mounts made from aluminum, B-Square also comes to mind. I suppose they are better than no mount at all, but compared to the original military design they are rather weak. The military mount is in my opinion probably one of the best mounts ever made for a bolt action rifle. Quick detach, adjustable for windage and elevation on the mount itself, and pretty much bomb proof. The original sniper versions of the Mosin saw some extremely harsh use during WWII, and many of them lived on to fight in Vietnam, Afgahnistan, and even modern day Iraq using the same mount and optics they had on them 60+ years ago. I don't think the ATI mount would be up to that challenge....

The galvanized coating is normally made up mostly of zinc. When heated up by welding, it not only makes the weld look like crap and prevents good penetration, but it also vaporizes and becomes airborne fumes. It has a very distinct smell when you breathe it in. In about 15 minutes to 1/2 hour you get a real bad headache. Long term health effects are probably even worse, think lung cancer, etc. Old timers will tell you to drink lots of milk before welding on galvanized, the theory being that it will coat your stomach and keep you from getting sick. Yeah...... Don't buy a word of that crap. Get a good respirator rated for toxic fumes, and remove as much of the galvanized coating as possible before welding. Even with a respirator, the fumes from zinc burning off will still get into your eyes, they'll be watery for a while afterwards too. You'll want to remove it at least an inch away from the heat affected zone. As you file or grind on the galvanized metal (Wearing the respirator if grinding of course), you'll notice a slight color change when you get through it into the steel under it. Don't just file until it's shiny, look for the change in color to make sure the coating is gone.

I have a set of Talbot copies on my 280Z, and for the most part they are pretty much useless. They sit a little too low using the stock mounting holes. I can only see half of the mirror on the passenger side. The driver side mirror gives me a really good view of the road about 10 feet behind the car. The adjustment range doesn't allow it to see any higher. I'll probably end up scrapping them for some Raydots, perhaps modified to mount on the front fenders.

Now that is sticking it to the man!

I love the Mosin Nagant, but to me the Enfield No.4 still wins the "Best battle rifle of all time" award. All the positive attributes of the Mosin, with the addition of a detachable 10 round mag and the slickest bolt action ever made. Hey Aux, have you seen the pump action AK's that Big 5 is selling for $259.00? They have one in the store near where I live, I'm debating on getting it. Something about a pump action on an AK just seems really gay. But on the other hand, owning an AK of any kind in Kalifornia is in effect "Sticking it to the man" to some degree, so that adds at least a few cool points to the gun. All my friends in the free states will laugh at me though

And making fart noises with your hands too? Enjoy:

Tonewise I am definitely calling this one a done deal. I'm using a cheap $39.00 GFS Vintage '59 pickup, and combined with the ash body it pretty much nails the early VH tone, at least to my ears. The original PAF's had Alnico II's, and this one has an Alnico V magnet, How much difference this actually makes is hard to say. The neck pickup of course is non functioning, so the copper thread is only for looks. It actually looks better in person than in the picture, the pixeling effect makes the stands of thread really stand out. The thought of rewinding that pickup with ultra thin and easily broken 42 gauge copper wire just didn't sound like fun to me. I'm actually thinking of making a new body for the guitar. Since I've finished it I've had a lot of time to compare it to pics of the original, and I can see that a lot of my stripes are off by a fair amount. The quarter still bugs me, that it doesn't sit over the black stripe the way it should. The white color is also too bright, I should have used more of an antique looking white with a slight yellowish tint. I also should have used a sealer coat before painting black. The black layer is way to thick because I built it up enough to hide most of the wood grain. The reliced areas look weird to me now because of this. Will it be worth it to tear it apart and start a new body? Almost assuredly not. Will I do it anyway because it's nagging in the back of my mind? It's almost inevitable at this point.

looks cool with compacts. Try that with a 79 Lincoln or Dodge Mega Cab 4x4......

If money were no object, I would have me a Volvo Open 70. 30+ knots with a monohull, how cool is that?