wayne sheldon

It might be a top saddle strap and belt. The one piece without the buckle fits in the top saddle that the top sockets sit in when the top is down. The belt and buckle go around the saddle (through loops on the sides!) and over the top sockets (the metal tubes that the top bows fit into!) and buckles so that the top doesn;t bounce up or out on rough roads when the top is down sitting in its saddles. Part of my hesitation is that I can't see the belt well enough to know if it is long enough to reach around the saddle and top sockets. Different makes and models of cars used variations on top assemblies. A few had only two bows and sockets on each side to need to strap down. Some cars could have as many as five! The more bows and sockets, and the bigger the sockets, the longer the "belt" has to be. There were a lot of variations on these. Mid 1910s and later cars, especially more expensive cars, used a clamp that would open up allowing the top sockets to drop inside and then close to lock them securely. However even the Dodge Brothers used the clamps rather than saddles and belts. Ford on the other hand used saddles and belts well into the 1920s.

I really don't like thinking about it. Too many cars I wanted to keep and enjoy for the rest of my life got sold to provide for family that really wasn't worth it (not all family is good!). A few antiques I probably shouldn't have bought like the 1913 Metz basket case. I actually sold it a long time ago when I needed to pay some bills. But then a decade later it was given back to me when the fellow that bought it had died. I still have it. The 1922 Sayers touring car was certainly relatively rare. Fifty years later and I still have not seen another one. It was in poor condition, but I still remember it often and wish I had somehow kept it and eventually restored it myself. It was sold to pay a hospital bill for one of the kids. I think I have restored about ten model Ts, including six era correct speedsters. There was one model A Ford, which I had about half restored before I decided it was too new for my antiques. Regular non-Ford antiques were a 1929 Reo Master semi-sport coupe (a mostly original great running car!). A 1925 Studebaker coach (two-door sedan) followed that (a solid original car that needed a cosmetic restoration begun by a close friend and finished by me). The two favorite over all others were the 1925 Pierce Arrow series 80 sedan and the 1915/'16 Studebaker seven passenger touring car. The Pierce was a mostly original car in very nice condition which I sorted for touring and then drove for several years. The Studebaker had been mostly restored by a good friend who sadly died too young before it was finished. Another hobbyist sort of finished the restoration, I made it tourable (it is the car I often tell about making the brakes actually work!). After I had to sell it, a good friend detailed it, fixed a few more things, and made the car even much better! That eased my pain from having to let it go. There was also a 1910 Fuller two cylinder surrey, a basically original car with a 1950s "restoration". Sadly, I never even got to drive that one. There have been a fair number (not like some of you guys!) of "collectable" daily drivers. Two different 1952 Chevrolets, a 1966 Chevrolet 1/2 ton PU, a 1965 Ford 3/4 ton PU (I put over 1/2 million miles on that one!). There was an AMC Matador, a 1984 Eagle wagon, a 1972 Chrysler station wagon, a Chevrolet van conversion, a Ford class C motorhome, 1988 Chevrolet Suburban, two Audi TT roadsters, A Mazda Miata, and a few others. Current daily drivers are two Ford Expeditions, the 2001 broke down and has refused to pass smog since repaired two years ago. It has been replaced by a 2005 which is in pretty nice shape. The antiques I have left are mostly project piles. The 1927 Paige my dad bought and never restored, the Metz pile, five model Ts (two are nearly done, I just need time to work on them!). I also have a circa 1900 gasoline carriage, not known who built it. That one, the Paige, and at least the two nearly done model Ts I really want to get done!

I have had and/or worked on a number of 1940s and 1950s cars and trucks, but I have never done really extensive work on ones of that era. I have myself restored worse on earlier cars. I find a great deal of satisfaction in bringing parts and cars back from the brink. Even on a few model T Fords when "patch panels" were available, I made my own. I can make them for the area needing it rather than trying to use a manufactured "fits all" and have it not quite fit. Some good heavy gauge (workable!) body steel and a hour or two I can shape a fair size piece. I have hand hammered in moldings, heat to stretch or shrink areas for compound curves. A few large complicated areas I went to a wrecking yard and found a hood or roof section with similar curves and bought that to begin, then reshaping it as needed. My current project, a 1915 Ford runabout. A sharp eye might notice that the fenders in the photo are later 1915 and 1916 style. The car being an early 1915 (February body date!), I wanted the much more rare early style fenders. After I restored these, I found all four earlier style fenders, in much worse condition, and restored them! The car is almost done now. It is inspirational to see others taking on some of these lost cause restorations. As I said before, there is a special satisfaction in seeing hopelessly rusty cars and parts coming back from the brink.

I am not entirely sure. I have only seen a few original era advertisements for them over the years, and I don't recall what most of them said. According to a short writeup I did find from "PreWarCar.com", The term "fatman" does date from the original era advertising. However I did not quickly find any links from what I found to show that. One ad I did find on their site was for a "Neville More-Room Steering Wheel". A couple other era ads I quickly found on the MTFCA forum referred to them as "tilting" wheels. Link to the PreWarCar piece; https://www.prewarcar.com/slim-lady-holding-a-fatman If a bit later I find an era ad saying "fatman" I will try to post a link to that.

Neat! Very rare to find such an early radio mounted in its original car. (Assuming that yours actually is?) My dad was really into radio, repairing them for friends and neighbors when he was in high school. That lead to very early television work and eventually being a pioneer cable television engineer, a career path I ended up following in (whether I really liked it or not?). In his later years he collected early radios, almost to an obsession! When he passed away twenty years ago, he had over 200 antique radios, most from the early 1920s to mid 1930s. Among them were about a half dozen radios similar to yours there. I still have about eight or ten of his radios from the 1920s, however I don't have any of the car radios. My brother sold most of his collection to help support our mom. Others above are pretty much right on the money here. That radio is an early after-market version, very likely 1932 to 1934. It is very similar to and could possibly be as early as 1931. Some of the stuff my dad had I wish I could have kept, but there was just so much of it. And the money my brother got for a bunch of it was better used to care for mom. He had original schematic books and most likely could have dated that radio to a specific year. I would keep that radio in the car for what it is. In spite of the fact it is not an original part of the car. It is an era accessory. Getting it properly repaired these days may not be easy. I don't know anybody anymore that does that. A few years back, there were a couple people advertising in antique automobile circles that they specialized in old tube type automobile radios. They might have been okay for this, however, properly replacing the capacitors in early radios is tricky. Correct type capacitors are generally NOT available in safe to use condition! Many collectors of early radios very carefully "gut" the original and hide appropriate modern replacements inside, re-waxing them so they look correct. Doing so also keeps the original's value information intact. VERY IMPORTANT! Do NOT turn on or power up the radio until after the capacitors have all been replaced! (Or at least tested as safe?) Early type capacitors often fail due to nothing more than age deterioration, and sometimes fail to dead short. Powering up any prewar radio without first somehow making certain the capacitors are at least marginally okay often nearly instantly turns half the electronics to a smoking disaster. It is a very good idea to disconnect the radio completely from any power source so that it cannot be accidentally turned on before the radio is repaired.

I thought that was the case. However, it has been so very long since I have seen this one that I couldn't be really sure about it. Some of their silent films are fantastic! I saw "Putting the Pants on Phillip" (1927) in a 1929 built big screen theater complete with theatre organ. Wonderful! They were without a doubt one of the best comedy duos ever! We are so fortunate that theirs was a time when their antics could be recorded for us to enjoy nearly a hundred years later!

USA built model Ts from the factory had the horn button on the top or side of the steering column from 1915 onward. However, Canadian production for most of those years (I am not sure exactly when it started?) did have the horn button in the center of the steering wheel. In addition to that, several companies marketed horn button nuts to mount the steering wheel that then provided a center of steering wheel horn button. The 1924 coupe I had some years back had such an accessory. Both the Canadian ones and most of the after-market USA versions used a silly wire looped through the steering wheel spider. It had to be long enough to not bind if the steering wheel was turned from kink to kink, yet short enough to not hang up on the spark or throttle quadrant or levers. It looked kind of stupid, however, that was how they were done back in the day, and I never had any trouble from mine being wired that way. A lot of non-Fords in the 1910s and 1920s had horn buttons in the center of the steering wheel. Many of the after-market fatman wheels were made to accommodate the horn button being made and wired that way. Spark and throttle linkages were also installed through a few layers of tubing one inside the next, usually with the horn wire in the center. Some fatman wheels folded down around the steering column to allow the spark and throttle quadrants to remain above the wheel while many of them folded up and over the steering column if the spark and throttle were elsewhere. Fatman steering wheels that will accommodate a horn button are easier to find and get than are the horn buttons needed to use with them. Even with the model A Ford's light switch going through the center, making a fatman wheel to fit a model A would not have been difficult at that time. Why they didn't? I could only begin to speculate.

I have seen hundreds of fatman steering wheels over the years. They are quite popular in the speedster crowd, as well as the nickel age touring groups. Many large quality automobiles in the late 1910s through the mid 1920s offered them as factory options. I think I have seen at least a dozen each of Cadillacs and Lincolns of those years with optional fatman wheels. They were made and sold to fit basically anything! One very popular brand of fatman wheel was made with an oversize hub that required an appropriate adapter for whatever car one wants it for. The "special" adapters are easy to make with little more than a small lathe. They were originally popular with midsize automobiles that did not offer the option from the factory. In the recent past half century, they have been quite popular with the model T crowd because the big fancy steering wheel gives the little car a touch of class! I currently have four of them, two in nice condition and ready to install onto a model T, two in poor condition needing parts (I can make) and significant restoration. I have let a few others go on cars I have sold. I cannot recall ever seeing one made for a model A Ford. Doesn't necessarily mean they weren't made. But it does likely mean they weren't popular then.

1928 Buick, probably a Master series with 120 inch wheelbase. Also probably the car is about eight to ten years old when the photo was taken. It very much appears to be a California license plate of the 1930s, black lettering on yellow background was for even years that decade. While the limited depth of detail doesn't clearly show the year, it appears to be either 1936 or 1938. Offhand, I am not aware of any significant flooding in California at that time, but there likely was some somewhere. Details pinning down the year and model include the three rail rear (and probably matching front?) bumper. The style and hand rail on the rumble seat and the entry steps, and I think I can see just enough of the rear hub above the water to see that it has the six hub bolts as the full floating rear axle used by the Master as opposed to the twelve bolt hubs used on the semi-floating axles of the Standard series cars. Two other identifying items are the little bit of the side of the radiator shell barely showing the "Packard knockoff" dimple sides, and the smooth style fenders first used by Buick in 1928 and continuing until 1932. These "sport coupes" are among my favorite body style cars of the late 1920s. The 1929 Reo Flying Cloud Master I had more than fifty years ago was a very similar five window coupe with the fixed soft top down to the beltline and dummy landau bars behind the corner windows. A lot of cars had similar style coupes in those years, but the Buick was one of the most beautiful and perfectly styled such cars. Almost as good looking as the Reo.

You got that right! I may be in the same boat. It is definitively NOT the OP car. However, a longtime good friend has a 1915 Marmon custom built roadster (known history back to new!). After the restoration was completed (some years back), they were curious about the the length of things. With me sitting in the driver's seat as though I was driving, my friend ran a tape measure. It was nine feet from my nose to the Motometer!

We need to understand this about our antique automobiles and accept and deal with that reality of them. Cars of the 1930s are nearing the century mark, and most of the antique cars I have owned over the years are now over a century old. Any car manufactured before about 1930 had to survive nearly twenty of the toughest years in modern times. Between the great depression, World War Two, its aftermath and economic repercussions, common everyday cars were little more than tools needed for survival. Owners had much more serious things to worry about than keeping records of maintenance and past owner's names and personal profiles. Some of the great Classics were kept track of by manufacturers or other's maintenance records, owner's clubs, but even most of the (big "C") Classics ownership records were not kept forever. I am an opinionated and often outspoken S-O-*, and have often been at odds with common popular belief. Quite frankly, even our hobby is guilty of way too much (the right word is) deception. In stead of restoring nice surviving sedans and limousines, good solid original bodies were literally trashed and replaced with copies of more desirable body styles. Don't get me wrong. I think a lot of them are beautiful! And I most certainly am not against creating a copy of a desirable custom and placing it on a surviving chassis that the original body was somehow destroyed or lost to the ages and weather. Such copies, well done, create opportunities for more people to own, drive and show such wonderful automobiles to even more people. But THOSE cars are still partially or largely reproductions! Enjoy them? Yes. However they need to be known for what they are. Even more importantly, such reproductions even on appropriate original chassis should not be allowed to devalue the true survivors it is like. "Value" is a judgement call. The market place needs to find reasonable valuation differences between very similar cars to recognize the difference between a very well restored 90 percent original car versus a 60/40 percent original/repro, and that against a 30/70 percent original/repro. In comparable quality of restoration, the more original of the car anything metal or wood and even hardware, the more the car should be worth! When getting into really "original" cars, that situation becomes much more complicated with condition issues. With tires, consumable mechanical items, upholstery and even paint (actually a significant portion of the complete automobile!), 90 percent is about as much as can actually be original on a well restored car. Such a car properly restored, should be worth "all the money!" A car that has had most of the wood and a significant amount of the sheet metal replaced during restoration should be worth significantly less. Even if the car is otherwise a known original car. Exactly how much less such a car should be worth is debatable, and would vary based upon rarity and desirability issues. Near the bottom end of the desirability ladder (for otherwise very nice good quality restorations?) would be the "floor sweepings resurrections". In most cases in high end Classics, a floor sweepings car should sell for about a quarter of the price of the best of the best. (My general amount opinion, open to debate?) And that greatly lower value is for a car that likely cost just as much or more to restore it as did the best of the best. The "value" difference in more common Classics and common cars probably should not be as extreme as it should be for the high end stuff. However, similar ideals should apply. The more like original a collector car is kept, the more it should be worth relative to similar cars. Most common prewar cars it may not be possible to have really good provenance. For most such cars of that era, most of that information was lost a half century ago. However, for all collector cars, the more (good?) that one can know and prove? The better.

Most of that $50 was probably amortization of the development and special new casting and manufacturing costs for the new V8 which more than anything else was a new and better way to build a more economical V8 engine for a lower price automobile. Even in the dollar value of those days, Ford probably spent more than a million dollars developing the engine and the process to build it! One has to sell a lot of cars to recoup those investments. Since otherwise there is almost no difference between the two models (other than some very minor badging and trim), the bodies are essentially identical, there would be no need to adjust the price differently between the body styles. Thank you nzcarnerd for providing that figure!

For whatever it is worth (probably not much?) and a bit of curiosity? About twenty or a few years more ago, several times in conversations among a few longtime friends including some very serious collectors of prewar and horseless carriage era automobiles, the name "Varun" was mentioned as someone a few of these people knew. Usually the comment was along the lines of "I talked with Varun the other day about the (car) and he suggested-----" (Specific names of other people and cars shall remain nameless?) Since they did not mention the last name, I can only guess it was likely you/him. Regardless, those that knew "Varun" clearly had a great deal of respect for him.

Some day. I would really like to spend a whole day at a major (early enough?) antique automobile meet with the both of you! Of course I might begin calling the two of you the names of two of my longest time best friends?

Don't let my blathering deter or discourage you. The situation is what it is with those. You and your family are still "aces" in my book! I was never sure. Does your grandfather's Faultless have a Whippet radiator and/or shell? It looked like one, however had been said many years ago that it was not a Whippet shell or radiator. The word around was that it was some similar era original for a model T. That car has always been one of my all time favorite model Ts. It is so fantastic that I don't really like to call it a "speedster".

Yes, sadly, the 1927/'28 Whippet radiator has been so popular with the speedster crowd that if someone owns a Whippet of those years, and its radiator and shell is missing? They are nearly unobtainable, and very expensive as you have to compete with a hundred people that want to build a really cool speedster! A nice 1927/'28 Whippet radiator and shell can sell for nearly as much as a car of the same year needing major restoration. Few parts cars have their radiators as speedster builders offer more for the radiator than all the rest of the car can get. As much as I like the way they look, And I have restored six speedsters over my years, for over forty years I have refused to consider buying or using a Whippet radiator or shell because I prefer to leave them for the Whippet owners. The fact is, that I can make a custom shell to fit some other radiator for less than the going price for the Whippet parts would cost. I always prefer to use correct original era parts whenever possible on my cars. However the Whippet shells I will not use. The 1929 and later Whippets are fine small cars, and fortunately for them the radiator and shell was changed to an updated style that speedster builders do not covet.

Frankly, I would prefer mechanical brakes on a prewar car. Properly adjusted and maintained, they work basically as well as hydraulic brakes from the same era. Four wheel brakes are four wheel brakes. The car's weight and tire footprint are the same. Most antique era mechanical brakes are so poorly patched up and badly adjusted they barely work. However, that is a maintenance issue, not a design issue. One of my cars some years back I bought fully restored and ready to tour! Two wheel brakes by the way. The fellow did admit that the brakes were not good, but said that it was because they were on only two wheels. I didn't believe him, and bought the car anyway (I really wanted it!). When I got it home, the first time I really drove it. all the might I could muster didn't want to stop the car from 20 mph. I crawled underneath the car, and one quick look told me what the matter was. A quick trip to the hardware store and an hour later light pressure on the pedal would lock both rear wheels! One of the brake rods was a couple inches too short. The resulting inability to properly adjust that, like dominoes, threw all the adjustments off. The best thing about mechanical brakes? Is that they do not simply fail from sitting for a short while. I have seen, had, and heard many stories of prewar and postwar cars sitting for a year or two, only to have the brakes fail immediately after pulling it out of the garage. Worse yet? Are the numerous times people have put a car on the road after sitting for a couple years only to have the hydraulic brakes suddenly fail in the first couple hundred miles! As long as they are not left in a damp or outdoor environment? Mechanical brakes can sit for ten years and with nothing more than a few squirts of oil and a few stops to run off minor surface rust on the inside of the drums, be as good as the day the car was parked. I have seen numerous cars of the 1920s with four wheel mechanical brakes pulled out of long term storage after forty or fifty years, and the brakes work just fine with no repair needed for thousands of miles. Yeah, I love antique automobiles with properly adjusted mechanical brakes.

I've gotten to the point that I rarely believe what I am told about the model designation on a car unless there is some valid documentation, verification by a valid expert, or photos showing the key details of the car. More and more in recent years, every Buick of the mid 1920s into early 1930s is a "Master". Just as every Chrysler of the same era is either an "Imperial" or a model 70 (I have run into at least a half dozen four cylinder Chryslers advertised as "model 70"!). Late 1930s Packard 110s and 120s are advertised as "Super Eights" (the 110 is a six!). Half the Roosevelts for sale are said to be a "Marmon", and what does the average person even know about "Marmon", let alone the Roosevelt? It seems that other than people that have been seriously in the hobby for at least twenty years, are so accustom to the use of "buzz words" that they have become incapable of understanding what a model designation means? The "little" Buicks of that era are great cars, for that era. And they are wonderful cars to tour with and enjoy today. They should not be disparaged by being the "little" Buick, or a model 40ish. Yet, somehow, once an owner is misinformed and begins calling his little Buick a "Master"? The name somehow seems to stick to it through subsequent owners.

That is NASTY! But funny. I think? Okay, I enjoyed it!

An old saying I heard in this hobby a long time ago, goes "A nice smooth pretty paint job can hide a multitude of sins." Never were those words more true than on parts that may be structurally important, including fan blades. However, usually, once a fan blade has begun to crack, there is just enough wiggle slowly widening the crack that any paint hiding it will "probably" chip itself away. That in turn however, may not always be true. Some soft epoxies and paints without hardener added might be able to flex enough that they may not show up again for several years. Certain types of structural failures are risks we "assume" when we go down almost any pathway in life. Occasional inspections, even simple visual inspections, are a wise thing to do with our antique automobiles as well as almost everything else we use in our lives. Making a habit of "staying out of the line of fire" of many types of machinery or potentially explosive things like wheels and tires is also wise.

The problem on fans on and engine in the car is simply that one may not be able to get a good clear view of the fan to see a crack. Sometimes even serious ones that ar nearing ready to break cannot be seen. However, that is no excuse! Fans , especially old or high mileage ones, should be routinely checked from time to time. And any time, EVERY time, a fan is removed from its hiding space it should be very carefully examined. It does help a lot to know where and how cracks tend to form. Knowing where to look can help to see even the early beginnings of a crack. Usually, well before they are ready to fly apart, any serious crack will be clearly visible to the naked eye, IF you can get the angle to look at it. I have never worked professionally as a mechanic, however, I have always done my own (and occasionally other people's, family, friend's etc) maintenance. And I have had quite a few high mileage older daily drivers over the years. (I put half a million miles on a 1965 Ford pickup over seventeen years, wore out two engines, original fan was still running true!) I have over the years found and replaced a few cracked fans. So many things can happen to cause sudden catastrophic failures. I had mid1960s Ford V8 that had a rebuild engine complete with a rebuilt water pump. Then the thing suffered a transmission issue and sat for two years before I bought it. The transmission was repaired, and I repaired a few other problems, before I began driving it. Water pumps can be funny things. A new rebuilt water pump, run just enough to break it in, then sat for two years, formed rust spots on the outer seals. With only a couple hundred miles on it, the water pump front bearing blew out and sent the fan into the radiator! However, the fan did not have any cracks in it. I had another car, recently purchased that quickly developed a nasty vibration. I had a feeling, the frequency of the vibration, suggested the fan. Sure enough, a blade had cracked and was likely seconds away from flying off on its own (a twist to one side caused the unbalance!). Like others here, a roadside removal of the fan and I continued on my way, quite pleased with myself for shutting the engine down as quickly as I had. That last one, I probably could have seen the crack if I had used a mirror and a good light to check the fan when I first got the car? I probably would have seen the crack easily. So I shouldn't be TOO proud of myself for avoiding major damage? I won't try here to explain too much the how and where or why cracks form the way they do. I don't have a bunch of cracked fan blades to take photos of. And I can't post the images of ones I remember seeing (wish I could?). Often they form around the outer circumference of the fan hub (a stress point). And sometimes they form out of bolt holes (a weak spot). Four blade fans often form cracks where the two "two blade" blades are spot welded together (both a stress point and a weak spot!). Sometimes they form around the anti-vibration rib stamped into the blades because of a metallurgy issue resulting in fractures caused by the stamping process (seen those three or four times!). Good luck and be safe.

"Four door roadster"? Maybe touring car? At $4500 the price seems right! I almost wish it was closer.

As this is the "Not Mine, For Sale" section, there is a very high likelihood that nobody on here is personally familiar with the car or the seller. Sometimes there are exceptions to that rule. I myself have been personally familiar with about a dozen different cars over the past few years in this section. Several other people have in the past chimed in with an "I know this car!" Sometimes followed by good reviews, sometimes otherwise. On a few occasions, even the actual seller has come in and commented. Beyond that, the picture with the Willys Knight in the background appears to be a film photo, likely thirty or more years old. Most likely a digital copy of a photo in an album to show the car has been well cared for for many years? Purely speculation on my part. But that was the thought process that went through my head when I first looked at this thread myself.

Actually, in 1908, the tires should be all a single color, or lack of color, as the case may be. Most tires at that time were somewhere between all white, all gray, or some sort of milkish light brown. The tire tread and sidewalls being different colors began as part of the evolutionary attempt to improve tire tread wear expectancy. In order to maintain soft sides and keep costs down, the sidewalls remained as before. However in order to extend tread wear, the tread was added to with different materials, often of different colors. Whitish sidewalls on darker treads begin showing up around 1914. They continued to show up on model T Fords and other cars well into the 1920s. Funny how it seems only a couple years from when they stopped being a "convenience" to the manufacturers, to an extra cost "fashion statement"? While not really common then, the fashion statement began in the late 1920s. While they are often not clearly seen, they can be found in a lot of era photographs. I speculate that the muddy and dirty roads of the day often obscure the shade differences due to lightening the blacks while darkening the whites so far as the era B&W films were concerned. They were not all whitewalls! Not by a longshot! However a high percentage of them were into the early 1920s. Even to me, whitewalls do not look right on late 1910s automobiles. Even after finding them in literally hundreds of era photographs. Funny how silly we humans can be at times? However, the era photographs prove it. And they were double sided whitish walls in the earlier days.

Arguably, I am not either. However, I was taught by real engineers to do the work of a real engineer. I have no degrees to hang on a wall. Lots of certificates saying I have completed courses and seminars on a wide range of fields. Other than those, school and I never got along. I went to college enough to take the courses I wanted to learn, and in about half of them I actually learned something other than school and I were not going to get along. My dad was the same way, he often said that "a college education was not a cure for terminal stupidity". And frankly, he was right. I am mostly self taught, and all through school was two to three years at least ahead of whatever grade I was forced to be attending. I was born with a mindset to think like an engineer, and have always been that way. I was trained by real engineers, and for most of over forty years much of the work I did was that of a real engineer. However, in all honesty? I do not have the degree to hang on a wall. JVP, I have read a great deal of your postings, including some of your "projects" threads. I have a great deal of respect for you, and your abilities!