Mark

Single stage, lacquer-based spot putty is at its essence extremely unthinned lacquer primer. It's going to shrink over time, and it will "reactivate" at its surface when lacquer primer is applied over it. It's okay for minor flaws, but for filling routed-out panel lines and everything beyond minimal depth, two-part epoxy is the way to go, period.

The '69 Galaxie kit (which came out earlier this year) has Goodyear tires. Round 2 isn't selling Goodyear tire packs anymore, but some of the kits do still have them.

Milliput will work just fine. Get the "fine" (white), not the "medium" (green). Rout out the panel lines before applying the putty.

eBay is only an indicator that two or three fanatics will beat each others' brains out fighting over an offbeat kit. And one of those bidders is probably a shill trying to max one of the other two out. Back when eBay was a bigger thing, you'd see something out of the ordinary pop up, a couple of guys would bid the thing way up, then the following week three or four more of the same item would appear. With the top knucklehead now having one, and with one less bidder to fight over the newly listed ones, prices came back down to earth.

We're a relatively small percentage of the model car kit buying public. The manufacturers go by what sells in order to determine what to reissue, and when. Some items are consistent sellers and just get new packaging every couple of years. For new stuff, the manufacturers do set up displays at IPMS conventions and shows like NNL East, and do use some of the information they pick up at those places. Someone mentioned Atlantis not wanting to do short track cars. They are a different case from other companies as they do only reissues of items offered by other companies in the past. They're concentrating on things they already have.

Carroll Shelby lost interest after about 1967, when Ford started offering the exact same engines in the regular Mustang as in the Shelby models. They weren't holding anything special over for what was supposed to be the flagship model. I'm not sure about the '67s, but '68 and '69 Shelbys were converted in Michigan by A.O. Smith (among other things, they make water heaters now). The '70 Shelbys were renumbered, leftover '69s with the front spoiler and hood stripes added to differentiate them.

Years ago, didn't one of the astronauts talk about "traveling through space, at high speed, in a craft where everything was built by the lowest bidder"?

Those '53 pickups SELL.

The orange Badman is a weird one. Monogram did switch colors with the 1/32 scale kits, because those were molded more than one kit at a time, together. But they were pretty consistent with the 1/24 scale kits. The Badman kits sometimes came with clear "clear parts" instead of the usual red tint. But the main color was (almost) always as stated on the box.

Waymo trouble than it's worth...

For decal sheets, don't use those photo albums with the clear plastic covered, sticky pages. The sticky on the pages will start sticking to the back of the decal sheets stored in the album.

The dragster isn't modeled on any specific car, but there were a number of similar 1:1 dragster built in the late Fifties and early Sixties. Few, if any, used the clear canopy though. Most were just left open. This kit is a masterpiece of model car kit engineering, with all of the interchangeable parts and different designs that can be built with it.

If I get poor service somewhere, it's usually the last time I go there, at least to that location. No point telling them off...next time you're there, you might get some "extra protein" in your value meal. Just sayin'...

The AMT Challenger has a convertible body with a separate, add-on roof for the hardtop version. There are two Revell kits. One is the ex-Monogram T/A which is in 1/24 scale. The other is the ex-Vanishing Point diecast, now molded in plastic. Claimed to be 1/25 scale, but little different in size from the 1/24 scale one. The Lindberg (ex-PSM) kit is a crib of the MPC annual. It is a '72.

50th anniversary of Niagara's final season (1974). I understand much of the actual track is still there, though both ends have been dug up and all of the buildings are long gone. I was there only once, in 1973. My older brother was racing a '66 Chevelle in Modified Production at the time.

The Ideal Indy car kits were created by, I believe, a company called Best. Ideal acquired the tooling for them at some point. The Monogram Kurtis was pretty much "it" for 1/24-1/25 scale Indy cars until AMT tooled the Watson roadster and Lotus, then IMC jumped in and did another Lotus soon after they got up and running.

The Badman (and later, the black street machine version) were staple items on K-Mart store shelves for many years. You could walk into ANY K-Mart store in the country, walk however many aisles back and across to the toy/hobby department, and there it was, provided they weren't sold out. Monogram had a good thing going with the Tom Daniel kits. Molded in the main color, kids had to only paint the details. Mom, Grandma, or Auntie bought a kit, and one of those Testors paint sets with the six or seven bottles of paint, a tube of glue, and a paint brush. Instant birthday present!

Tom Daniel probably used "396" in the original design, as it probably looked better with the stripe. Each number ("3", "9", "6") probably just looked better when squared off as they are, and those numbers filled the space in the break in the stripe. Monogram probably left the small-block just to be able to use more of the original version '55 tooling. Same reason they left the molded-in exhaust pipes on the chassis, and left the molded-in rear seat in the interior. And they still sold millions, or at least hundreds of thousands, of that version of the kit. Not everything makes 100% perfect sense, or, in cases like this, even has to.

There are other ways the PO messes up in sorting mail. For some reason, two or three times a year I get the mail intended for someone on the next street over, but with the same house number. On those days I end up wondering where MY mail went, because the next street over in the other direction is a main drag, with different numbering.

I'm saying '61 on the Thunderbird interior because it has mounting tabs at the front. It's most likely from a '61 Styline hardtop, because (a) the hardtop kit had the hood molded shut, which would make way for the mounting tabs at the front, and (b) the upholstery stickers. The '61 convertible kit, as well as all '62 and '63 kits (except for one '63 hardtop reissue) had a separate hood which would not leave room for the front tabs.

The Jo-Han chassis is from a Cadillac, it looks like the USA Oldies '64 unit. There's a chance it could be from a '63, but it's most likely '64. The Thunderbird interior is probably a '61 convertible piece. The other chassis and interior are AMT Gremlin parts.

If your kit has the two-piece tires and slicks (most Seventies and Eighties issues did) then there's certainly room for improvement. Just go back to the solid one-piece units that the kit started out with. The slicks can be found in a bunch of other Revell kits (Ford Thunderbolt, Tommy Ivo Showboat, Tony Nancy 22 Jr) while the fronts are in some issues of the '31 Ford, Anglia, and Thames panel. The wheels are correct to that car, not much wiggle room there. Atlantis has retooled similar tires and slicks for their Fiat altered, but those have no lettering. Revell's are better.

Like that color!

Verizon...'nuff said....

Those who use them as part of their job probably change them after each job. For what we’re doing, it's probably possible to go a lot longer between changes. But, I'd give some thought to how the filter should be stored between jobs.