Ken

I saw Jeff live about 15 or so years ago. BAck then, he only had Peanut, Walter and Jose. I still laughed till I cried. I have been a fan ever since. The wife doesn't like him though, ventriloquists freak her out...

I originally had the spare bedroom when we had the apartment. Now, that we have a house, I have the den/front room/office. I usually end up at the dining room table so I can watch TV. Lately, the wife has been complaining that I have taken over the dining table, she is right, I have. Well, I took the week off to finish some other projects and decided to start small and organize the front room, so I can actually use my desk and such. Anyway, here it is in mid-project. The batteries ran out in the camera and the alarm guy is coming tomorrow so the project room is not finished per se. So onto the pics. this is the desktop, that will eventually become my workspace. In the apartment, it was twice as long so I am having to condense quite a bit. Most of it is going under the footwell to the right. All painting is done right outside the back door. I do have a 'paintbooth' out there. but it is all reliant on the weather. This is the closet just to the right of the desk. It houses about 1/3 to 1/2 the stash. The rest are outside in storage sheds. The wife has to use some some of this closet, notice the cow coat and the barbie box. This limits the storage space. Some of the kits worth mentioning... 1/48th B-1B; 1/32nd F-4; 1/32nd Tornado; 3 or 4 Revell Darts... I found them on clearance and bought like crazy!!! What you can't see, 2 more Accurate Minatures B-25s; Revell 1/48th Mudhen (F-15); Revell 1/8 Deuce. This is the top shelf above the desk. The leaning tower of kits is squashed between the shelves and the closet. It hasn't fallen yet.... Stuff that was in the closet and in the way... You can also see my other 'ADULT' hobby. Plenty of storage with all the empty cigar boxes... and yes, I emptied them. A detail shot of the pile. The gig bag holds a bass guitar. My sister brought it back from Russia about 15 or so years ago. I can't seem to get rid of it. Yes, I did play bass at one point and occasionally I can pick out 'smoke on the water' One of the bookcases in the room. Yes, there are more empty cigar boxes... I haven't even shot the cigar storage still in the closet... This shelf houses TRJ, Old Skool, CK deluxe, HR Deluxe and my favorite Rod and Kulture Illustrated. There is a separate bookcase for model magazines. Don't worry Jarius, you have your own shelf... including some really old issues in black and white. Eventually, I would love to have a shed or something to convert, nothing would be greater than sitting working on a kit and smoking a fine cigar, which I must do outside, but this will do for now.

Vlad has been joined by a buddy. I am actually thinking of making Vlad into a 'support' type vehicle. I haven't come up with a name, but the idea hit me walking down one of the isles at Hobby Lobby. Chassis is a Monogram 50 Ford pickup. Weapon so far is a Tamiya german 7.5 cm PAK 40. Brass shells are from Tamiya as well. In 1/24-25th it would work out to about a 50-55mm gun. I figure I will add some armor for the gun crew and maybe a couple flexible gun mounts with 30 cals as well. Vlad will become a very well armed ammo carrier...

I am in the 'little bit of everything' line. Right now on the bench; 2 deathrace builds; Tamiya 1/72 P-47 in George Rarey's livery, mini build of the eventual 1/48th Tamiya build I am planning; Dragon Panther Aust D; Tamiya 1/35 Hummer; Tamiya M1A1 with no corrections; Aoshima S15 drift silvia and a ton more. Subjects for aircraft builds are mainly WW2 piston engine, although the ME 262 is a favorite. I do dabble in some of the century series aircraft and the occasional F4. Armor is mostly Panthers. I do plan on building one of the new Dragon M1A2 AIM kits soon. I tend to never finish very much as I move from project to project. One day, my wife will look around and go "Where did all these finished models come from???"

Really late to the start, but thought I would throw my hat in the ring. I am not promising to have this one done in three months so, but I will try. Dug out a Donks kit that I grabbed at big lots a while back. The idea was actually percolating in my brain since I started reading this thread a couple of months ago. So without further ado, I present 'Vlad the Impala' Here I have shaved off the side trim. Added weld seams on the door, can't have it flying open at high speed. I added some 'sheet metal' to strengthen the sides from impact. I also removed the passenger's door handle. If you can't open it why have it? You can also see some of the armament I have choosen. These are browning 30 cals and some 20mm cannons that came from a Trumpeter 1/24 Spitfire I had laying around. The cannon barrels have been lengthened through the use of styrene tubing and Aluminum tubing for end of the barrels. The brownings are just as they came from the kit. I put them on the car to gain some reference in size. Here are some closer shots of the cannons. They originally had fairings due to the fact that they are intended for a fighter aircraft. The fairing was cut off and then the barrel was lengthened for intimidation. I am not sure where they will be mounted. I don't know yet where these will go. I am thinking right next to the driver with some sort of ocular aiming device ALA longbow apache type system. These are the four brownings. Two will be mounted in the trunk using the existing taillight holes for the muzzles to exit from. I haven't decided what kind of mounting the other two will receive. Most likely it will be some sort of turret like mount.

I had a couple of questions concerning the cars. The white #25 porsche was a 917 long tail right? Steve McQueen's ride was a 917 short tail? The Ferraris, were they 512s I thought I saw a 330 P4 in there as well. The background cars were cool to look at as well. I saw a bunch of Corvettes, Scarabs?, Mclarens I think. I believe that I even saw a Cheetah or two. Great movie for the car watching, but like Grand Prix, very 60s/70s in pacing and movement. The cinemaphotography(spelling?) was great. There were some really good angles and some very cool shots. The movie just moved really slow. I wasn't really watching for the plot though. Just the eye candy Made me want to pull that 512 out of the pile and start painting and glueing!!!!

See, I knew it had to be fake, I sort of found it hilarious. The whole life span depends on feeding and freshness. Just a kooky look at what may be coming down the pike. A great statement on the current course of science. I actually looked through the website and some of the stuff was downright hilarious, like spit soda on the screen funny.

SWEET!!! I want to graduate to one of those someday! One of the guys here at work does 1/4 scale planes. You think 200$ is steep for a car? You should see what he has in some of his planes. He has a crew that does airshows, aerobatics stuff is amazing!

About the same here in Oklahoma City, except without the sleet. It is trying to add that though. I got to stand outside at 10:30PM tonight to do a live shot on a fire that happened at about 7 PM. Literally, we jumped out of the truck, turned on the camera, did our minute and a half of TV and jumped right back in the truck! BBBBRRRRRR!!! it was cold!

Coolest, cutest, neatest thing I have seen done with one of these in a long time!!!! Great job and yes I did smirk and chuckle at it!

Clay, I can only echo everyone else's sentiments. Godspeed and prayers for your family. We will be here when you get back. Take care of the important stuff now and we will still be here later.

I can only add to that by saying past and present service members. Oh yeah, four days off and I get to use two of them to work on the real 1:1 projects

Is this the same car they lambast on 'Top Gear' all the time. This being the first one I have ever seen, I still don't get the hate... Yours looks really good. I too, think it looks a bit like a Fiat that my friend had in high school

Been wrenching on the supra, the celica is gonna have to wait. Between work, the roof and the supra, time has been tight. I did the other day sit down at the bench for a while. Due to Testors' new paint I was able to get a 350Z knocked out, but no pics so far. I even started on a second on the same day. This one is Fiery Orange with Blazing Black wheel centers. That idea came straight from Mr Nellis. Without delay, here is my newest model project a KPGC110. Scripts were bare metaled before the paint and then rubbed down and clear was applied after that. There has been no rubbing of the clear just yet. I may not do that and just leave this one as is. With further ado, PICS!!! And of course the always present helper Apollo!!!

Okay Nick, this is all for you... turn up the volume really, really loud!!!! I took a mental health day at work and boy am I ever glad I did. First, my friend and I went to check out a gen 3 celica GT (RA64). Great car, no rust to speak of. The engine seemed to have a miss when we first heard it run. We took it for a test drive and everything seemed good. My friend bought it... 150$ Clean title, strong 22-RE, nice clutch. No real squawks to speak of. We drove it 30 miles or so getting it back. I think once he gets it titled, he will have a great little example of the breed. The big news of the day... We worked on the supra a bit. I really thought that the fuel pump was bad. Using a diagnostic wire we jumpered the terminals. Fuel pump was okay. After 30mins or so of screwing around with it, it still would not start. So I started checking the plug wires. I pulled plug one and stuck in a decent plug and told him to start it. I did not see a spark, but I heard a clicking noise. After some searching, I discovered the source of the clicking... the coil wire was disconnected from the distributor. Hooked that baby back up and here is the result

'Nother craigs list find. Celica 'pyramid' wheels, no center caps, three nearly new tires... 50$ Here is what they looked liked when I dragged 'em home today. After a little while with a wire wheel and my trusty drill. They cleaned up real well. I do not plan to keep them in this state. I would love to paint them a color. My problem is, what color?

I wish I had the money for ITBs. They are not readily available and would need to be custom made I did find another supra 5 speed non-turbo in my area for 500$ Unfortunately, it has a blown head gasket. Not a hard fix, but more money that I don't have. I am getting a new front bumper and carpet tomorrow night for 10$!!!! I picked up the valve cover gaskets this morning. The grommets(little rubber thingies that go under the valve cover bolts) are 4$ a piece and I need twelve! The celicas haven't met a wall completely. I have been slowly stripping the parts car of what I will need and anything else useable. Work on the white celica has stopped. I am hoping to get it towed to my house shortly as soon as I finish the roof(yes, I am still slowly working on the roof) I need to have a spot in the backyard to store it and it needs to look presentable for the wife. No 'redneck car on blocks' syndrome for the wife in this yard I did almost score a corolla GTS for the LSD rear and front struts. That kind of fell through. It may still happen. I will try to keep updating you as time allows Nick.

Okay, just like my smaller scale projects, this one has met a wall. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, that wall is another project!!! I was sitting at home the other night, minding my own business, when one of my friends calls about a car he saw listed on Craigslist. Long story short, I saved this from the crusher the next morning... For my 200$ I got an 87 N/A non-targa roof supra with a clean title. She has been pretty abused, but I think she has good bones. The front seats are not in too bad shape, considering the windows have been stuck down for a couple of months. The transmission is brand new with just a few thousand miles on it. The starter is dead. It appears that some one did not seat the bolts completely for the starter mount. One bolt loosened and fell out and the starter then torqued enough to crack the housing and the starter fell out. They keys are also missing so even if it had a starter I would have to hot wire it. Other than that, the motor looks like a twenty year old motor. Okay, got the starter replaced and the ignition. Car turned over quick and everything sounded fine... except, no starting!!! I think the main culprit is no fuel in the tank. The next and known cuplrit is this... This is the number six spark plug. All the plugs were under oil, a common problem with the 7M. The fix is simple, but I haven't done it yet. The plug wires are shot as well. So nothing new on the supra front till I get new plug wires and plugs. I will also need new valve cover gaskets and valve cover grommets. All told it is about 100$ in parts. Nice thing I learned in removing in the valve covers is that the head has to have been removed and worked on recently. These engines are noted for blowing head gaskets at about 120K or so. I feared that this might be the cause of this car's demise. After seeing the cams and the valve valleys, I belive that the head gasket has blown and was recently replaced. This is what the cams look like. Remember, the odometer reads 197,000 plus miles. Went to the junkyard yesterday and they were running a special. All doors and fenders in the yard were 15 bucks!!! Needless to say I picked up a cherry passenger's door to replace my bent one. The passenger's fender on the one in the junkyard wasn't any better than mine so I did not bring that home. I also found a cressida with a 7M-GE motor and good plug wires, so I yanked those as well. 24$ and change for 100$ worth of parts. The plug wires were aftermarket 8MM wires and only ran me 6 bucks. Needless to say I am one happy camper. I have a line on a new front bumper and a better carpet. Plan right now is to get the supra up and running and then resume work on the celica. That way I will have at least one running second car to ease the wife's concerns.

That hemi is set up for drag racing. It is alright, but soft on the details. If you have a recent issue of the 29 model A laying around it has a nice early hemi in it. Also the AMT 53 has a great hemi in it as well. If you do decide to use the hemi in the 32, it will need a water pump and fan along with water hoses and such. I don't think the heads have plug holes, but I don't have it handy right now to check. On the valve covers, the bar that is molded onto the top covers the plug holes. The bar is actually the cover that the plug wires were routed under. To wire it you would just drill a hole large enough to fit your wires in on the firewall side of the engine. The the wires go right from the dist/mag into the hole.

If you are going to section, see if you can find an AMT 32 roadster. They are already wedge sectioned. They lose something like 2 mm the in the front of the body. I would try channeling before I went with sectioning the body. Channeling is kinda the same, but different. Drop the body over the rails and rework the interior. The chassis rails hanging off the bottom make the body look taller than it is.

DING, DING, DING!!!!!! We have a wiener!!! I keep waffling... er flip-flopping over whether or not to paint my 1:1 like that when the time comes. The wife has suggested a deep metallic eggplant like color. I figure I have the sport slats, Koing rewind wheels are the new Watanbe and just 400$ or so a set... I just need to find a go-wing to fit.

Okay, got out the old build and got it stripped. It originally was grabber green, but I was struck with inspiration the other night. They call them mini-mustangs so... Anybody know where the inspiration came from? Still have to decide on rims. I may keep the ones here or find some 15 inch watanabe/minilites. Oh yeah, colors are testors one coat Blazing Black and Revving Red.... Anybody got any white 'C' stripes for the sides???

Don't worry Nick, I will keep the updates going if for no one else but you. You are more than welcome to live vicariously through my posts

Actually, the first hobby shop I remember visiting was after we moved to Maryland. I don't ever remember going to a hobby shop with my dad, but I remember building kits with my dad. I believe the first one we built was a Boeing Starlifter. I flew that thing all over the house for months. Eventually, my brother 'test flew' it from the top of the stairs one day. The next kit was either an IMC or Aurora GT40. I distinctly remember the rear engine and its bundle of snakes. He bought it for me because my favorite Hot Wheels was a GT40. My kit was painted metallic green. When we moved to Maryland, I actually got back into the hobby during college. I searched the yellow pages for hobby shops and found some. The first one I went into was either on Timmonium (spelling) Road or Route 1 off the Beltway. I don't remember the name, but I still have one of the models I bought there. A Jo-han 70s Javelin. I also placed an order for the Sox and Martin 'Cuda, but it never came in. Later I found another hobby shop a little closer to home. I went to the Bel Air hobby shop everytime I went home. I haven't been there in 3 or 4 years, so I don't know if they are still around. When I moved here to Oklahoma, I started looking for a new hobby shop. There was one down on the southside in one of the malls. When I first started going there, they catered to the model end of the business very well. Later they started to get into the NASCAR diecast and other stuff. They left us 5 or 6 years ago. The last good hobby shop I have found is up by Marc Nellis in Owasso. Tower Hobbies is the name. They are one of those shops that you walk in and could spend hours there... and I have. Tons of kits, car and military, aftermarket stuff by the ton, paint by all the big guys and some of the little, reference books by the ton. First time there, I spent about 150$, way more than I have ever spent at one time on the hobby. Now, everytime I head to Tulsa, I factor the trip around a stop at Tower. Right now, I have a HobbyTown,6 Hobby Lobbies and 3 Micheals to chose from. They are all great places to shop, but they are not Tower Hobbies.

HUBBA, HUBBA, HUBBA!!!! That is one smooth custom! The others are right, those late 50s early 60s mopars don't need much to look right. That is one kit I wish Jo-han could find the molds for!!!!