mikemodeler

Ya know Nick, when you make comments like this under the topic "What pleased you today?" , some of us who used to live in Chicago and really miss having a Portillo's nearby find it hard to like those of you who do! LOL! The hot dogs and beef sandwiches are two of my favorites from Chicago that I miss the most.

Another good source is some of the resin casters who have various parts available. You may find an intake and carb set up for $5 or so from one caster and the air cleaner from another for a couple of bucks. I would also suggest looking to see if there are any upcoming model car shows and swap meets coming to your area. These are a great source of parts, kits and resin pieces at great prices. At some of the shows I go to there are multiple vendors selling already assembled kits as well as pieces at low prices. As Snake pointed out, if you have stuff you don't see yourself using but are in need of stuff, offer it up in the trading sections and most likely get what you need for the low cost of shipping .

nice work as usual Chuck! Love the load in the back!

I'm liking this Steve, great resto and that paint is beautiful!

Thanks Gerry, that Bronco looks sweet! I can see where my lunch money is going come October!

The wife and I went to a matinee movie today. Two tickets, a medium popcorn and 2 hours only cost us $25. I bought a model the other day at Hobby Lobby for $16 and I can promise you that I will get more enjoyment from it than I did the movie.

I find this hobby to be one that I can enjoy and decide how much I want to spend to get that enjoyment. While I would love to have a couple of 1:1 rides, I am a realist and know that it would mean a much different lifestyle, and I doubt the other 3 people in my household (wife and kids) would share that same level of joy. The reality of this hobby is that YOU can decide how much to put into it and what YOU get out of it. Some members here look for builders and parts lots and through trading and searching, find enough pieces to construct a model to their tastes and desires. Others spend big dollars on kits, detail pieces and equipment to build show pieces. In both cases the builder gets to realize their vision and neither one is wrong in their approach to the hobby. Through the internet and forums like this one, we have become a little better educated about deals, companies and ways to maximize our hobby dollars. Considering that fewer hobby shops exist and yet we are still getting new releases says something about this hobby. With only a couple of large retailers to sell through, the model companies have come to depend on places like this to get the word out on new releases. When I got back into this hobby 20+ years ago, mail order was the way to get deals, mass merchandisers still carried models and hobby shops were everywhere. Today, it is the internet or discount coupons from certain retailers, along with hobby shows. Yes, seeing MSRP on a kit at $30 or higher is hard to swallow for some, but for others it is a price to pay for hours of work to build something they like. I buy very few kits at full retail, mainly because I have become educated on not having to! There have been a few that I have bought at a hobby shop or from an online retailer, mostly because of the subject matter. In the end, the reason for spending or not spending money on this hobby is yours, and as long as you enjoy it, it shouldn't matter if you have a set of custom machined aluminum wheels on your model or something you found in a parts lot on eBay!

Nice weathering, great scratch building of the boom and looks spot on!

A fellow forum member here whom I have done some extensive trading and communicating with over the years surprised me with a package today. He noticed I had commented on an upcoming MPC release and also had put a request in the Wanted section with no response for some items and recently texted me that he had something for me, but he needed my address. Today, after a rough afternoon at work, I came home to a package on my front steps, larger that I was expecting. I opened it up to find two complete kits and more than what I was looking for! This person has been generous to me in the past and hopefully I have been to him as we have traded stuff back and forth over the years. Despite living 900 miles apart, we have managed to meet up and spent considerable time talking models, life, and some of the characters on this forum! I am sure he has been just as kind to others here because he strikes me as the type of guy that would be like that. He has done a lot for this hobby and I definitely owe him for this recent act of thoughtfulness.

I stopped in the Rock Hill SC store today on lunch break. They had updated their kit aisle, saw the Revell 66 C10 pickup there, along with a bunch of other kits mentioned above. I did notice that they had a slot for the Dodge Ramcharger, so I will definitely be looking for that one soon! I suspect that as more new kits come to market, they will add some of them to their shelves. If they decide to add the just announced Ford Bronco from Revell, then there goes my lunch money!

Depends. If they split the money with all of the featured people, then it might only be a couple of thousand dollars or less per person per episode.Sounds great, but its not like they film 20-30 episodes for a season like a lot of TV shows, so it might only be $10,000 for a whole season. Then again, Jamie Davis probably gets a bigger slice as the show is centered around him and I would think he used some of his TV money to buy that $750,000 rotator. Unlike some of the other reality TV shows, there probably isn't as much opportunity to cash in on merchandising and personal appearance fees as tow truck drivers aren't in as much demand as motorcycle building father and sons.

Very nicely done, extremely well detailed!

Matt sent me a set as I had loaned him the kit bumpers from the Meng F350 kit so he could ensure proper fit. First time handling 3D printed parts, really cool stuff!

Uh, not to rain on your parade, but they supplied airbags to Audi, BMW, Mercedes and VW as well as domestic and Asian vehicle manufacturers. Very few manufacturers escaped this PR and repair nightmare.

Some really nice cars there Gerry, thanks for sharing!

Actually it is a Datsun, the old Scavenger kit IIRC.

I would be in for some new GM trucks of the 67-72 vintage, the old AMT's leave a bit to be desired when it comes to the cabs and chassis in those kits. Imagine if we got a decent Suburban along with 2 and 4wd options? With the Modelhaus shutting down, we can only hope another resin caster decides to offer a '60's Dodge pickup or a model company tools up some kits.

So, are you saying I should hurry up and put my Chevette kit on eBay and make enough money to buy a couple of the re-issues?

57 Ranchero, that is almost a given. 56 F100, aren't they supposed to be offering one based off of Chip Foose's personal truck? Let's hope it is a new tool! Studebaker pickup? Not sure if it would sell well. Moebius- there will be a 4wd version of the 67-72 F series pickip, test shots a couple of years ago showed a 4wd drivetrain. If Round 2 doesn't re-issue more of their 73-79 F series kits, Moebius could tool them up, although I would think they might venture into other pickups from that era.

If you go to the kit review section here in the Trucks section and on page 5 you will see some great information on the history of these kits and the differences between the model years. With The Modelhaus closed, your options for picking up missing parts just got a little harder.

Ordered up a couple of kits from The Modelhaus right before they shut down orders, spent $105 for a Dodge pickup kit, most I ever spent on one kit.I think I spent around $85 for my original Can Do wrecker kit and about $75 when I bought the Will Do wrecker a couple of years ago. I typically shop at shows and Hobby Lobby or online and rarely spend more than $25 for a kit.

Don't forget that Revell will milk another version of that recent 83/84 Cutlass tool, and some of their other recent new tools. I think if they really did their homework, they would offer a 3 in 1 version of the first gen Bronco. Much like MPC did back in the early 70's with their CJ 5 and Commando kits, they could offer multiple build options in one kit and sell a boat load of them. Imagine buying a kit and building a Baja truck, a stock truck or drag truck, all from one kit and at a decent price? People who are interested in only a Baja kit would buy one just as the person who wants a stock Bronco. The leftover parts could be traded off or saved in the parts box.

We would have except we met at 2:30 and in this heat, one doesn't eat as much.

Set up a trade with Fat Brian and we met today to swap out kits. It was so hot neither one of us wanted to get out of our cars so we pulled up along side each others car and handed them over through open windows. We talked for at least 30 minutes, discussed work, life and models. Found out he is working on some really neat conversion pieces to build models that haven't been kitted before. Not going to spill the beans but will say he has some great stuff on his workbench. Always fun to meet up with a fellow builder, more fun when they have some projects that you get to hear about and are interested in.

Exactly what I thought when I read the first post, except for the last line. I am giving more thought to my purchases as of late and see that continuing next year.