Syma Forum

Yeah, need to get myself a set of magnetic jewler's screwdrivers...

It's a big problem with the lack of hobby shops for me. I do a lot with model railroad scratchbuilding, and if I can't get what I need at Michaels, the local train shop, which sells no parts other than grain-of-wheat and grain-of-rice lightbulbs, Radio Shack, or anywhere else that I can randomly think of, I either have to look for hours online to find nothing, order it from two sites I know of, or, to my dismay, make horrible substitutes from nothingness. The closest one is seriously over 50 miles away- there's a "Hobbytown USA" on the other side of Pittsburgh, and I'm 50 miles from there! (although there's an over-priced place somewhere in the northern part of the county that charges an arm and a leg for stuff. They were at this one festival-fleamarket thingamajig, and wanted  seriously $35 for $15 model rocket kits!!!)

Boiler of a locomotive: correctly either standard pre-made, or sheet brass, cast white metal rivets, tubes, air-brake pumps, headlight, steam/sand domes, turbine, whistles, boilerfront and smokestack.

One I could make from what I could get: sheet brass, cast white metal "close enough" headlight, air pumps and turbine, cast smokestack that I had to extend w. styreen, boilerfront and running boards from a junk plastic 0-27 locomotive, steam domes/sand domes made from dowel rod, topped with hot glue, screwed together, covered in model filler putty, filled down to correct shape. No rivets, no fine details, no nothin'.

It just plain sucks!!!

Yeah, last hobby store in 50 miles closed  back in 06...

Not good...