mikemodeler

Saw this Malibu kit on the website and picked it up yesterday at the CKM show. This casting is cleaner than most styrene kit bodies! No flash, pin holes or warpage! In all I spent $100 at their booth and everything was perfect. Buy with confidence and you will not be disappointed. Like a wise man once said- If you see something in resin that you like, buy it because you may not see it again! I have heeded this advice since passing on some resin parts and kits years ago only to find out the company went out of business or stopped casting those parts.

Not a rant or rave, but just an observation from a visit the wife and I made last night. I had an older Craftsman garden hose and spray nozzle that failed under their "Lifetime Warranty" that needed to be replaced. Truth be told, I rarely need the extra 50 ft of hose but I did buy because of the warranty. Upon entering the garden department, I noticed no one was around so I went to the nearby tool department for help. I was directed to the area where the hoses and nozzles are to select my own replacement as the garden dept. guy was at lunch. Got what I needed and was taken care of quite quickly and painlessly. A couple of things I did notice though: 1. The tool department was very sparse. A lot of wrenches and other tools were marked "Clearance" and what remained was spread out. I remember the old days of it being jam packed with tools and all kinds of great eye candy for tool junkies and now it is a shell of what it once was. I admit all of my recent tool purchases have been at Lowes or Home Depot, mainly because they have a wider selection of tools. 2. The number of employees throughout the store seemed to be very few. I am sure as their business has diminished, so has their payroll, but the old days of Sears saw great customer service, something lacking last night. 3. As we walked through the store and out into the mall for an evening stroll (there were storms coming and high humidity), I noticed the appliance department did not have a single sales rep in it. As a long time customer of the Sears appliance department, I was shocked and disappointed that on a Saturday night, no one was around. I saw several people looking at appliances and waiting for someone to show up. One of the cornerstones of their existence and no one to help a potential buyer! I read in the paper the other day that Sears/KMart lost a LOT of money in the recent quarter but will continue to restructure their business. I think what they need to do is reexamine how they do business and move forward. I find it sad that a store that I have literally spent thousands of dollars at has gone so far downhill that I am not sure if they can turn it around! I am sure others have similar stories and hopefully this doesn't turn into a Sears bashing rant. On the plus side, my wife is a teachers assistant and she works with kids in a K-5 school and therefore goes from room to room and doesn't have an assigned classroom. Last night she saw some tool totes and remarked how they were "cute" and she could use one for her classes. After some roaming around the toll department, I talked her into a 5 drawer lime green Viper roll around tool box! She will use it to keep items locked up and stored in the corner of a classroom and if she doesn't like it, guess who gets another toolbox? Yep, ME!

FWIW, those of you who shop online, Tower Hobbies has free shipping about once a month or so if you spend at least $25. With their selection of kits, along with some accessories and paints, it shouldn't be that hard to come up with $25 of stuff to buy. They ship from a couple of locations and I have never waited more than 4 days for a package to arrive. I like supporting local stores and sometimes will pay a little more to "get it now" over waiting for the UPS truck, but sometimes small businesses can be their own enemy with their service or lack thereof. My local HTU seems to be scaling back on his selection, not sure if it is a sign he may be closing or he is just trying to keep in inventory low before the holiday season R/C car rush? I try to always buy something when I am there, even if it is a bottle of paint or some more Evergreen styrene.

Made it to CKM show in Clemmons, NC today and picked up some resin from Bandit Resins and a VCG engine. Now I have to decide if I want to take that '79 Malibu from Bandit and go Pro Tour, street custom or sleeper. Depending on what I do, that LS7 from VCG could end up under the hood!

You will want to let that enamel gas out for a week or so before clearing it. If there is any dirt or orange peel in the paint you will want to polish it out before spraying the clear. You might get better results using hobby paint as the Rustoleum tends to be thicker.

I went and dropped a bundle on some resin. KDog should eat well tonight! LOL Had to get back to Charlotte so couldn't stay and see all the models but the ones I did see were very nice. A lot of bargains, wish I had more time and money for the show.

I was thinking we could have them in time to "Give Thanks" !

Really nice haul there! I was at a show today and based on the prices there, you could sell off some of the duplicates you have and re-coup your investment and still have a nice collection of kits.

Looking good so far. I so want to do this with a couple of the Model King and recent re-issued kits but have been holding off, now that you have shown us how/where to cut, it might be razor saw time! Of course I can always hope someone does cast a resin bed..................................

very nice and well detailed!

Great conversation here. I registered in the rewards program with a HTU in the Richmond VA market a couple of years ago at the urging of the store clerk. She said how the program rewards with discount coupons and it was a great deal. What she DIDN'T tell me was that it tied into that store only, and my purchases at other stores didn't count towards my rewards. I have a HTU here in South Charlotte that I stop in because here it is either there or Hobby Lobby. The prices at this HTU seem to mirror those of Modelroundup or Tower Hobbies online, so not too bad. The guys there are pretty friendly and while the selection isn't great (and has shrunk recently), they do have the occasional new release priced decently enough that I can justify the couple of bucks difference. I do use them for the Evergreen plastic, Tamiya colors and occasional kit, but also shop online or at Hobby Lobby. There is a HTU about 25 minutes away and it has a new owner who seems to be energized about the place but his kit selection is pitiful and is priced at straight MSRP, so I doubt that I will be hitting him up until I see some improvement. I do stop in and buy my Model Cars Mags there and also some paints too.

Good for the modeling community, bad for my bank account and storage area! I think we will see many parts for this kit and also some variations of the Camaro- Z-28, SS, RS. I agree with others that a base model would be cool to have too.

Just saw on the Tower Hobbies (plastic-models.com) where they have this kit listed as "Discontinued" ; seems odd considering it just came out.

Is there a retailer that would carry them, either online or in store? They look to be nice.

If history repeats itself, this kit will get milked for many variants like the '69 Camaro tool. Should provide a great canvas for the resin guys to fill in some blanks too.

Does anyone know of resin conversion pieces for either the AMT '60 Chevy pickup or the Revell '64/65 Chevy pickups? IIRC the only noticeable differences would be grilles, tailgates and fender badges.

Almost as bad as someone on here requesting parts of a kit a couple at a time until they have enough to build the whole kit! If someone wants those parts bad enough that are on eBay, they will buy them.

Any of the 67-69 Chevelle wagons, 67/68 Impala wagons, 78-83 Malibu wagons, 62-64 Galaxie wagon, 68-70 Coronet wagon. My family owned a 66 Monaco wagon, 71 LTD wagon and a 83 Caprice wagon and they all had woodgrain paneling. I had a 90 Buick Estate wagon back in 2000/01 that my kids referred to as "Woody" because of the woodsides! I have a couple of resin wagons to build someday along with a couple of 66 Chevelle wagons to finish. Wagons are popular in the 1:1 world, wouldn't be surprised to see some new releases in the coming year or two.

Very nice! Well detailed and looks fantastic.

Nice work Chuck, like many of your builds you seem to have a knack for getting the weathered look just right!

Very nice!

Yep, it's that time of year! I was at 2 different ones 20 or so miles apart a couple of weeks ago and they had different models on clearance!

If they do decide to do a '67 Pace Car, I know where a perfect example is at for them to use for reference, along with a '67 Nickey Camaro.

I think you meant to label this "Cycle ID #1" Harry, sure doesn't look like an auto to me!

Thanks for sharing, looks like a great show and congrats to the winners!