Russell C

Rik Hoving has a Fotki site collection of Juha's models https://public.fotki.com/Rikster/model_cars/model_cars_from_others/models_by_juha_airio-1/ Saw several of his at one of the prior GSL contests, too. Hugely jealous of his skills, they must be seen in person to truly appreciate 'em.

Plopping just the word "bronco" into the Rocket Fin site's search window turned up this 'unknown manufacturer' result: http://www.rocketfin.com/resin_product.cfm?id=3404

Room, flight booked. Evil intentions with the GSL Common Kit Tamiya Bug category. Will have 4 wheels and will be gray. Running a bit behind schedule, as usual. Engine will have a top on it in a few days ....

Eek. I had never thought of that either, up 'til today. I just always thought they were nicer looking roofs. Never even gave much thought to landau bars, they just said "pointless decoration" to me without ever implying what they were supposed to be in real life. But the more one thinks about it, the more fake stuff there is on cars. E.g. vinyl woodgrain, wire spoke wheel covers with spinners, functionless taillight extensions, etc, etc.

During the GSL contests, I've visited the Museum pretty much every time since it opened. The thing to keep in mind is that the operation of it is a 100% volunteer effort, with more of it going toward receiving & maintaining its content, and unfortunately a lot less toward the website. The stripmall location happens to be a least cost alternative to a much more expensive one, and due to the shortage of available volunteers overall in the immediate area, it's open on a reservation-only, call-way-in-advance basis. Trust me on this, though, if anybody who loves the history of model vehicles has a chance to visit the place, they won't be disappointed. What our hobby needs is a mega-bucks lottery winner who could cover the expense of a much more centrally located larger building and the salaries of museum guides who are absolute model vehicle enthusiasts. Poor as I am, I can't donate money, so I donate services such as helping the Nordberg collection get transferred to the Museum.

Call me an idiot, but from the '70s on up to somewhere in the late '80s, it never dawned on me that vinyl roofs with the little circles around the back lower edges were fake convertible tops.

Cool. I might could use a part or three.

The other guys beat me to it as well. My older brother has had his used '74 Cutlass since the early '80s, and I've long wanted to build a replica of it for him. Never got around to searching to see if anyone had done a resin with the proper opera window roof, Maybe with enough recutting / reshaping, you might end up with a master for resin casting?

Way back somewhere at the beginning of the thread, Kurt mentioned this build was for the GSL contest's "Common kit" category -- scroll down the page here for that description requirement under the "August 24, 2017" news item heading. I'm also building a version of this kit for my own entry in the contest, but I'm taking it in a totally different direction.

Back in the 1980s when I was building only trucks, I tied strings to the axles and threaded them through a plywood base to be held by thumbtacks on the underside of the 'plank.' It was beveled at the top, with a border surround of 1/8th" balsa strips, and inlaid with green velvet "grass." Drawer handles for easy carrying. Still have both of these, and maybe some day in the future I'll alter the Diamond Reo to be a bit more '60s-looking, and I'd like to de-pretty-ify the well driller back to a more realistic working truck appearance,

If only I had more time and more money, then maybe I could be competitive in a couple of the categories, but I have had my fun with one of the popular vote categories in the past, and was honored to play a role in dredging up some iconic models from a long ago builder that are now in the Museum. But as I've said in one of the prior posts on this topic, the thing that has brought me back every time since 1990, poor as I am, is the people who attend. I sure will miss the event, since it was always one of those things that looked like it would extend years into the future as something I could schedule my every-other-year end-of-April activities around.

Yep, I almost never use any online forum's built-in search windows since they tend to be half-baked more often than not. When you do get search results, click on the images results variation, and you can get even quicker to whatever thing you want to see, and when you further put the search item between quote marks, the search filters out results for the individual words by themselves E,g. https://www.google.com/search?q=site:modelcarsmag.com+"fire+iron"&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ved=0ahUKEwjb4teHlNvgAhWE_lQKHf7WBP0Q_AUIDygC

Wow! Been quite a while since I visited that site: https://aitruckmodels.com/product-category/conversionkits/dodge/

Alas, I'm stuck with that status due to having obligations to be elsewhere after late morning, so looking forward to the brief visit nevertheless.

Altered the contrast a bit to get a better look at it. Tempting to steal the idea....

Ted's? http://www.tedsmodelingmarketplace.com/572-valve-covers-1-25/

Borrowing shamelessly from "Modlguy"'s Fotki album and his 2009 photo from the GSL Contest, this is my buildup of that paper model. You can win marvelous awards for such work.

Kurt's just that kind of inspiring guy. In following his thread here, it prompted me to get off staring at my photo alteration idea for my possible GSL-XXVII Common Kit category entry, and start sawin'. Further allows me to finally make some use of the bottom of the curbside engine in the Fijimi Koenig Porsche kit that's been rattling around in my parts box for around two decades. Time is short, though, the end of April will be here before we know it.

Everyone? Overnight low predicted to be 52° here. (this will boomerang back at me with a vengeance around mid-July)

Oh, God! Well, not quite. Very nice, though.

Thought about this last week, as I turned in for the night. Was able to count up my current unbuilt projects easy enough, 20, but only dredged up memories of around 50 before I fell asleep, of all the ones fitting the "completed" status. Had to use a spreadsheet program a day ago to pop in every one I could remember where I could use the column next to the list to rapidly count them all up. 95 altogether, with the bulk of them being from the early years where I could build them in a week or two and play with them in the carpet 'til they fell apart. And I still may be missing one or three in the ol' memory ...

Appears to be a '59 plate? Found a make-your-own image site here: https://www.licenseplates.tv/1959-utah-state-license-plate-2293.html

I'm of the increasingly endangered species whose phone is still connected to the wall with a copper wire. It couldn't track me if you held a gun to its head.

Yes, and when the wildly overpriced complete kits on ebay are skipped, these still tend to go for at least $60+.

Seeing the V8 conversions is entertaining, didn't give a whole lot of thought to it, but after listening to the dyno video of this one, I must say it creeps me out, not in a good way. Much as I like V8s, the flat 6 Porsche guy in me makes it hard to mix the image and the sound together. "1995 Porsche 911 with a LS1" https://engineswapdepot.com/?p=9250