Sixties Sam

Mike, the diner and all the dioramas are scratch built using plywood, foam board, balsa, etc. The diner design is based on several photos of real diners I saw online. The "stainless" is aluminum flashing. There are more photos on my Flickr account at http://www.flickr.co.../12482094@N07/. They're in the set titled model cars and dioramas.

Sam

Just curious; any problems with people thinking they're diecasts and grabbing them to check them out closer?  That's always a problem we've had when doing public shows.

One guy picked one up and asked if they were diecasts, but put it back and apologized when I said they were plastic kits. Of course, a few kids poked at some of them, but their parents reined them in. Nothing was damaged.

One boy, about 5 or 6 years old came back three times during the afternoon to look at the display with  his dad. He was mesmerized by the models,  moving slowly from one end of the tables to the other, examining each model in turn, over and over. Definitely a future modeler, I would say! The display was worth the effort just to see that kid falling in love with our hobby!

Thanks for your compliments, guys. I appreciate them. I'll have the display at two more local shows between July and September. The organizers saw the display and asked me to bring it to their shows. They like that it's something different for spectators to see.

Looks great! I used one of those flame masks on a 49 Merc a while back, and it worked great. It's a good product.

Sam

I've used model railroading grass. It works well, but I ran out once when I was making a dio and used sawdust instead. I painted the styrofoam dio base with green latex house paint and dropped sawdust on it while it was wet. After it dried, I shook off the excess and sprayed the base with green Krylon paint. I used several shades of green in spots so it didn't look too perfect like a golf course. It worked well, and was free!

Sam

Well done! It looks like a great work in progress refurb! Good weathering!

Sam