StevenGuthmiller

I've owned 2 suits in my entire life. One was a light blue catastrophe that I had back in the 80s that I might have worn once or twice, but not to a disco. Ewwww! Every time I hear anything by the Bee Gees, I just cringe!! Steve

That was just an estimate of time spent over the past week Wayne. I rarely can spend more than an hour or so at the bench without getting up to do something else for a while. That's part of the reason why I post so many progress reports on my build threads. I work till I need a break, and then I'll snap a couple of pics and sit down at the computer for a while. Steve

Where's that on the list? Another one that should be at least in the top 100. Steve

Honestly, I don't really think anything is bad. (well........) There are just some things that I can't listen to. Just like my father couldn't take classic rock, I can't handle rap. But to be honest, I would take rap all day, every day over the vapid "bubble gum pop" junk that has infected the airwaves for the past 30 years. Nothing nauseates me more than some brainless blonde bimbo wailing away because someone told her she had talent. Brittney Spears?........Please!! Steve

Sorry. Disco has left scars on my psyche that time cannot heal. Steve

I haven't stripped chrome or paint from a part for gluing in over 30 years. But then again I don't use the old tube model cement either. Steve

Not for my generation of rock music. There were no rap d-js back then. We had disco to deal with! ? Steve

Geezer? Which Geezer? We're pretty much all geezers here! I can tell you right out of the gate that in all likelihood, every person that answers your questions in this thread is going to give you different answers. It's inevitable. Every one of us has developed his own techniques over decades of building. In my case, as well as many others, that can be approaching a half of a century of trial and error, and sampling nearly every product and material available for our hobby. This is good because there is a wealth of knowledge on this board.........but bad because it's going to get very confusing because of all of the conflicting answers, no doubt. I could offer you my thoughts on your inquiries, but right out of the chute some of them will probably contradict what's already been offered, so I think I'll just leave you with the cautionary remarks I've already stated. Don't take anything as gospel. There are a million ways to accomplish a singular task. If anyone tells you that they have the "best" way, or "best" material, they're blowing smoke up your backside. It might be the best for them, but you have a multitude of options to consider. Steve

Yeah, I got your meaning. Some call it "sampling". I would lean more towards "butchering". Steve

Today I finished up one scratch made door panel for my '68 Coronet R/T. Probably got a good 8-10 hours of solid bench time into this one. Hopefully the other side will go quicker. Less experimentation. Steve

Thanks John! Work on the door panel continues. Well, I'm considering the driver side panel done! One more to go. The more that I do these sort of mods, the more I enjoy it. Maybe I'm sick! Steve

I decided to go through all 500 albums listed and found these that I have, or have had in the past. Dire Straits Brothers in Arms Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here Tom Petty Wild Flowers Cyndi Lauper She's So Unusual Police Synchronicity Black Sabbath Paranoid Pink Floyd The Wall Led Zeppelin II Eagles Hotel California Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin AC/DC Back In Black Neil Young Harvest Led Zeppelin IV Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon Beatles White Album Beatles Revolver Prince Purple Rain Fleetwood Mac Rumors Nirvana Never Mind I was very surprised to see that a great album like Aerosmith "Toys in the Attic" didn't even make the list!!! Well, actually I'm not surprised. There's a whole lot of garbage on this list! Steve

The Cars first album and Candy-O.......two of my all time favorite albums!!! Dire Straights, Brothers in Arms and The Police Synchronicity are both great albums as well. Although almost anything from The Police or Mark Knopfler is great stuff! If I had to pick my 10 favorite songs of all time, Dire Straights "Sultans of Swing" would be in the top five! Steve

I suppose if you consider talking, (unintelligibly I might add) with nothing in the background but ear splitting base, yeah.......you "might" be able to call it music. Steve

Yes, but when the people vote with their wallets and buy 45 million albums, it seems to me that it's probably a better indicator of what's a "great" album than what some egg head at Rolling Stone thinks. Steve

I've seen it on lists of top selling albums of all time. Right up there in the 40 to 50 million copies list with Michael Jackson "Thriller", AC/DC "Back in Black" and Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon". (top 4). I don't remember seeing Dr. Dre or Jay-Z anywhere on those lists. But I guess with a paltry 3 million or so albums sold, I guess you wouldn't! Steve

Very good to have you AJ! We share a love for vintage kits. As a matter of fact, that's pretty much all that I've done for the past ten years is to restore old annual kits, and I've bought parts from you on many occasions. It's so good to have someone out there that can help provide hard to find vintage parts for those of us that are addicted to restoring them! I look forward to getting to know you a little better on this great forum. Steve

I guess you could say that there's a difference between a "Top Best" and "Top Favorites" list for this sort of thing. I have my own personal favorites as well as everyone else. But to not include some of the top charted, highest selling albums of all time at the very top of the list just shows you how unserious this list is. No mention in the top 50 of albums like Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon", AC/DC "Back in Black", Meat Loaf "Bat out of Hell", and The Eagles "Hotel California", but they didn't miss stuff like "Jay-Z" and "Dr. Dre", (which isn't even music in my opinion) tells you all you really need to know. Steve

I don't have a lot of confidence in a list of "the best albums of all time" that doesn't even include Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album in the top 50. An album that has sold over 45 million copies, (4th all time) and charted in the "Billboard" top albums chart for 950 weeks doesn't make the top 50? Yeah, right. Steve

Who wants to be the $24.00 guinea pig? Steve

Well, it's a little time consuming, but the first of the scratch built door panels is pretty much finished. The detail is more pronounced than the actual 1:1 door card, but I think that I actually prefer that anyway. It will add more definition to the interior. Steve

It is! Unfortunately it's the only example of a full sized 60s Ford that AMT saw fit to produce an entirely new tooling over the original. If this were not the case, anyone wanting a detailed model of a '60 Ford Starliner would have to do a considerable amount of slicing and dicing to do it well, as with most of the annual kits from that period. Remakes like this are unfortunately few and far between. By the way, one of the best parts about the new tooling of the AMT '60 Ford is the fact that all of the guts make a great starting point for creating a detailed build of a '61- '64 Ford or Mercury. Steve

Thank you for the information Russ, and for taking the time to dig it up for me. I appreciate it. I guess I wasn't really aware of any "attacks for my building style" but I suppose that I might have missed something........or ignored it! I really don't give much weight to anyone who wishes to attack me for my style. I try to let the results speak for themselves. I'm pretty happy with the results most of the time. Steve

I didn't want to get too long winded. Steve

My point was, if you are shying away from subject matter that was initially produced 40 or 50 years ago, and "substandard" by today's specifications, these models are not going to make you happy when you open the box, just like the Duke's Charger pictured above. The OP was wondering why recently issued kits can vary so much in detail level. We were all describing why this is so, and I was just pointing out that if highly detailed kits are what you are striving for, these old "annual style" kits are exactly the sort of disappointment that he is trying to avoid. I think both Snake and Greg understand that I am not the type to shy away from this type of kit. My entire collection consists almost solely of these types of models, and I love re-working them. But if high detail without a lot of parts swapping and re-engineering is what you're after, you're not going to find it in these kits. Steve