Wow, and I thought I was detail-oriented!! Very impressive work

Welcome back, Jim. Good to see you here on the forums again. Thanks for the kind words, and I hope we will see much more of your amazing work here soon.

1929 Ford Closed Cab Pickup with a 347 Ford engine

A WIP by Jim.
He noted that "Someone will comment that Ford did not produce a 347. That is technically correct. But Ford Racing and others offer this as a crate motor. It's a Boss 302 that is bored .030 over and has a +.400 stroke crank. It is used heavily in sportsman circle track racing and with the street rodding set. Works really well in an early 5.0 Mustang."











Some of Jim's renders of the engine



Wow, right?

@mike amos said:

Pardon me for saying so Steve but you are better than you give yourself credit for. In my book right up there on this forum at least. The integrity of your work makes your models must see from my perspective and your use of textures within sketchup, without a render engine/software is jaw dropping. You rock dood.

Thanks, Mike, but I'm not putting myself down, and It's not false modesty - I just recognize my limitations. I have studied the work of many modelers, and the simple fact is that they are capable of doing things that I cannot do. And, to me, Jim is the supreme example of this. His models are crisp and precise, every detail complete and accurate, clean, with no hint of sloppiness. Mine are "whatever works". They may look ok (from a distance), but I know how I modeled them. I do wish I could learn to use some of the incredible plugins used by others, but I know that ain't gonna happen. It used to frustrate and discourage me, but now I just accept that this is the way I'm going to use SU, and, hey, it probably doesn't mean the sun isn't going to come up tomorrow.
So I'm fine, and if do make a comment about how my work compares to someone else's, I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I'm just telling it like it is.
Bottom line is, if I wasn't having fun, I wouldn't be doing it, right?

His Harley Sportster

He commented that "I had a bike very similar to this in the early to mid 70's. Traded it for my first wife. Maybe the brain damage wasn't from this latest fall".





I asked Jim why the tach was rotated (I knew it couldn't be a mistake, that just doesn't happen with his models) and he replied that "It's a standard racing method for mounting gauges. Race drivers can't afford to take their eyes off the track long enough to study the gauges so they mount them such that the needle is straight up (12 o'clock) when the target value of what's being measured is reached. Desired oil pressure, water temperature, etc. The tach is rotated to indicate target gear shift point".
Just one more example of his quest for perfection.

Still more to come

I don't know if SU itself has a fork in it's future, but I do know that these forums are not what they used to be. For several years it seems member participation has pretty much died down to just a predictable few. Sad

He also did some work with his original '32 Highboy.

On display

And the chassis in a very complete workshop

Some screenshots of the model. Seems like every detail could stand on it's own.










His renders of some of the details

Still more to come

Yes, Mike. His talent is unbelievable, puts my best efforts to shame.

Many of you will remember the mind-blowing work of Jim Jeffries (JMJ Ohio), first introduced to our forum here
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=81%26amp;t=40998%26amp;p=364289%26amp;hilit=check+out+this+amazing#p364289

Well, he seemed to just disappear suddenly, so a few days ago I emailed him to find out where he had gone and what he's been up to, and he let me know that he, in his own words "was forced into retirement 2 years ago due to health issues. Took a nasty fall and suffered some head injuries". Sad news indeed, but he apparently hasn't let this slow down his incredible work with SU, as evidenced by a number of photos he was nice enough to include with his emails. He even went so far as to let me download some of the models, and graciously agreed when I asked if it was ok to post some of them here, so here goes.

(Obviously the rendered images are his)

First, his impeccable 2500hp '32 Altered














Some screenshots of the model



And the specs

32 Altered specs
NHRA TOP ALCOHOL ALTERED

NHRA Class: AA/AM (Double A Altered Methanol with Lenco or BJ Transmission)
Wheelbase: 124 inches
Weight: 2,000 lbs
Horsepower: approx. 2500
Quarter Mile: 5.80 sec's @ 250 mph

CONSTRUCTION

Chassis: 4141 steel alloy round tubing - Tubing diameters and placement per NHRA spec's
Suspension: None
Front Rims / Tires: Billet Specialties 15 x 3.5 Comp 5 Series Spindle Mount
Goodyear 24 x 3.5 x 15 Frontrunner
Rear Rims / Tires: Billet Specialties 15 x 16 Comp 5 Series
Goodyear 33 X 16 x 15 Eagle Slicks
Brakes: Rear only - hand operated - Wilwood Calipers, Rotors, Master Cylinder and Reservoir
Steering: Lowe Race Car Hardware Steering Box. Billet aluminum pitman arm, drag links, bellcrank, tie rods and spindle control arms
Rearend: Narrowed and reinforced Ford 9 inch with 2.83 gears and Strange Engineering full floating axles
Body: Carbon Fiber
Fire Suppression: Fire Bottle
Safety Equipment: Deist
Data Acquisition: DataPak

ENGINE

Displacement: 508 cu. in's (4.30 bore x 4.375 stroke)
Block: Robert Pond Motorsports (RPM) Aluminum Ford FE
Crank shaft: Scat Billet 4.375 stroke
Connecting Rods: Crower Billet 6.700 inch
Pistons: Diamond - Ceramic coated domes, Graphite coated skirts
Heads: Bill Coon aluminum
Intake Manifold: Paul Munro
Blower: Weiand 10/71
Blower Drive: 1.3 : 1.0 overdrive
Magneto: Cirello
Injector: Lowe "Buzzard Catcher"
Bellhousing: Trick Titanium
Transmission: Lenco 2 speed with reverse unit

Will post some more of his incredible work (and hopefully this post will draw him back to the forums)

First-rate work

Nothing, eh? Well, that's ok, I solved it myself.

Yesterday I finally gave up on Windows 8 on my laptop and reverted it to good old Windows 7.
Wasn't easy or straightforward like I anticipated, but I got it done and everything seemed to be working fine, until I discovered that my SU2015 toolbars would not stay in place. I seem to remember that there were posts here about that sort of thing but my searches did not yield anything much, and nothing useful.

Any suggestions?

Moody. I like moody

So glad to see you posting again. And such an amazing model, it's as close to a photo as you can come with SU.

I would kill for just 10 percent of your talent. It's probably not 'politically correct' to say something like that nowdays, but I don't give a hoot in hell about all the PC crap

Please keep posting, your work lifts this forum to higher levels

Wow. Just wow.

Wow, if this is your idea of a 'simple' model with 'bad textures' I would really love to see what you consider a detailed model with good textures

Seriously, don't beat yourself up for shortcomings that don't exist!

Very nice work

Your own modeling?

@dave r said:

On the bright side, the ice went out last week.

Ummmmm.....yeah. huh?

Well, as long as you're sorry, I'll give you one more chance.

But just one

@dave r said:

I don't think so. I think once the splash screen has opened, you're committed.

That's not really what I wanted to hear

You're fired, go home