bobss396

I should be back on it this week. I have more of the chassis completed.

The Michaels by me in NY used to be good for kits, now they are down to a very small selection. The display keeps on getting shuffled around, the entire store looks like a sparse garage sale lately. I feel that they might be on the way out. I see large gaps of nothing but floor space and very few shoppers. The kiss of death is seeing their self-checkouts. I advised one person at a manned register to start looking for a new job.

I have a large hobby shop (100% renovated in 2022) and a Hobby Lobby almost next to each other that are closest to me. The hobby shop has Tamiya paints galore, lots of glue and putty. Good array of Evergreen stock, zero model car detail parts. Hobby Lobby, great when the 40% off days are there. They have Model Master paints, a good amount of Mr. Hobby glues, some K&S stock, some Evergreen stock. Either place, I see no shortages especially of $30-40 kits. The next 2 big shops are 25 miles each way, again, zero aftermarket stuff for model cars. Just about all the smaller shops that were around 10 years ago are gone.

I had a bunch of them back in the day. IIRC they were in chrome only. This is something we need. I had always said they should make some 1/25 scale small airplanes.

I've been stealing engines from NASCAR kits for a long time now. They look good in almost anything. A guy in my club does slot cars and sells parts he doesn't use. I grab up any 427 Chevy I see, also 409 Chevies and 427 Fords. The ones in the '65 & '66 Ford kits are nice.

One more. Caught napping.

She was listed by the shelter as a calico. She's tough stuff for a small package. She weighed 4.1 lbs, Bleu at 4.8 lbs.

The big box had a real glue bomb ? in it.

This is a 3D printed distributor, source is unknown. It came with a spindly shaft, so I chopped that off, pinned the rest to a piece of 1/16" aluminum tubing. Wire is Radio Shack wire wrap wire. Boots are from a bundle of scrap wire I got somewhere.

Best, Neil Young at the Nassau Coliseum in 1978, the Rust Never Sleeps tour. It was LOUD. We had great seats. Other notables, Jerry Garcia at the Suffolk Arena. March on 1978. With NRPS and Robert Hunter. Garcia came on after midnight, I had to leave at 5 am since I had to work. The Ramones around 1979 at Hammerheads on Long Island. I have seen Hot Tuna around 7 times, from college campus shows, acoustic shows and lastly in 2012 at the Westbury Music Fair.

I still have one speed shop I can spend some time in. The cool guys with stock cars in their garages are gone. I used to be one of them. When I'm working on my old Ford, I still see kids circling in the street on bikes trying to get a better look.

There will be nothing but the Revell Unbuildables. The '56 Ford truck, the OG '31 Woody, '56 Chevy and so on. These kits were a struggle in my younger years. If I broke something... I was up a creek.

Brie on the left, Bleu on the right. They are getting bigger. They had their 1st vet visit a week ago. They were impressed that they came from a town shelter.

I have used the '62 AMT 421 in a couple of builds.

The big and little box versions. The little one is 100% complete down to the putty (still soft), decals and felt interior details.

The 1970 had great style. That looks like a printed model. Are those templates for making the glass?

I would imagine that the molds over the years have seen better days. I need to pull out my OG kit and see how it looks. I have one that was issued in the small box. I built the big box version around 1963.

These were $25 each when they first came out. I see them on eBay for $50 and up.

The pitfalls of resin bodies. I tell friends at shows not to let me buy any resin bodies.

They were sticking out too far. I took 1/16" off the hubs and .030" from each backing plate. Now it looks much better. I have some other big and little tires I may try on it.

This is the one from Ollie's. I used a plastic sign from Ace Hardware and made it 8" deep. Candy thermometer from the supermarket. It works well and the dial is accurate enough. Set it and forget it. I have been using it for putty, glue and paint.

Damn... knew it looked familiar.

Those are very cool too. ?

Mocked up a '56 Ford engine to the kit transmission. In the ballpark but will save it for another build since I will locate it by a hole in the oil pan up front. I'm sticking with the Buick engine. I'll be going with the Modelhaus wide whites with slicks out back. I have another lot of '40 parts from somewhere I pick parts from. Not quite enough to build 2 cars from unless I ditch the torque tube and go with a parallel leaf rear. And... this odd part at the bottom shows up in various '40 kits. I can't find it on the instructions anywhere.

Started on another AMT '40 Ford. I built my 1st one probably in 1964. Removed the floor pan, put in a vacu-formed piece I got at a show. I made new chassis pieces, the kit ones needed too much work. Suspension is otherwise per the kit. I have a set of AMT '66 Ford wheels on Modelhaus tires and a set from Jay's Resin Tires made up. I'm going with the kit nailhead Buick so far. On other builds with engine swaps I have used the kit transmission since it has to be short to fit the chassis. Body is about 90% there. Frenched the headlights and going bumper delete. Made up a new radiator top. The kit one was pretty shabby. I also have it raised up, as is it sits too low in the chassis.