John1955

Thank you, I was hoping people wouldn't think my post was silly, because we really do need things to cheer us up a bit in today's world. Her name is Pip and she lives up to her name. She is quite old for her breed and is slower than she used to be, she can no longer jump up into my bed at night so I carry her upstairs when I go to bed. (If I forget to, she whines and whines). She also makes me laugh when she barks at the TV screen when a dog appears on the screen. She doesn't like other dogs much but she loves all cats. Go figure, LOL.

With so many bad things going on in this world, we all need to focus on small things sometimes, things to smile about. There used to be something that truly irritated me but now it's okay. My daily newspaper kept ending up halfway down the steps and sidewalk even though I did ask the paper to please make sure it was tossed up on my porch. I'm disabled now and have a difficult time walking plus that early in the morning, I'm only wearing my bath robe so I don't want to walk out there like that. Well, it turns out that my dog had a solution. Without me even training her to, one day she went out there and got the paper and brought it to me. My smile and several dog treats told her she'd done right, now she looks forward to it and so do I. Tail wagging and paper in her mouth, it brings a smile to my face every time. What seemingly small thing makes you smile?

Beautiful job!

It used to be that you could buy model kits and other stuff on eBay and use PayPal with confidence, no more. Most sellers are great people, honest and will do what is right, but if you come across a seller who is not, forget eBay or PayPal stepping in to fix the problem. They used to, now they play games and their so called "buyer protection" is a sad joke. If you are ripped off, contact eBay and get a delayed run around. Delaying tactics also by the seller and eBay seems to be joining in. So go to PayPal and here is what happens: eBay cancels your request and closes your complaint because you went to PayPal. Then check on the status at PayPal and they tell you it's in the hands of eBay! But it isn't, eBay says so. But you filed with PayPal, so you check the status and nothing, so you have to "escalate" to PayPal where you thought the case was already at. Obviously, they are hoping you get exhausted and give up. And I suppose they are right because I'm almost ready to just accept my loss, and live with it. But it didn't used to be this way. I guess real customer service is rare nowadays, especially for online shopping. So far, at least Amazon still provides excellent customer service though but I wonder how much longer that will last. "Satisfaction guaranteed" and "the customer is always right" are apparently obsolete and past tense today. Scotty, beam me up, then initiate time travel and take me back a few decades please.

In my humble opinion, the AMT '57 Chevy is NOT a lousy kit. It is extremely expensive to retool existing molds and more so to create all new tooling. I for one am thankful that so many older AMT and MPC molds have been saved by Round 2. I do like Snake45's idea though, use the Revell snapper body.

The site looks the same as it always has to me. I suppose the text might be small, but it's bold so my old eyes can see it easily enough.

What's the most unusual place you've ever built kits at? I've got a few. I recall once when I was about 10 years old, my family went to a shopping center we'd never visited before, it was rather far away and there were closer places, but my father was told about a store there that sold railroad salvage stuff like tools and the like. They also had toys there much to our delight, and model kits. The kits were sealed and showed no damage and AMT Craftsman kits were just 49 cents each and they even had Pactra glue for 5 cents a tube. (We boys preferred Testor's, but for 5 cents, how could we lose?) The tubes were dirty and smudged but the glue inside was good. The 1/25th AMT Craftsman '60 Chevy wagon I got was molded in color and I actually had it finished in the car by the time we got back home. Years later when I was in the U.S. Navy, I built a few kits while serving onboard the USS Constellation (aircraft carrier). The ship's main exchange sold models and supplies and I spray painted them on the flight deck making sure the breeze was at my back. The warm breeze was actually caused by the ship moving and the hot Pacific sun dried them quickly, lots of gloss and virtually no dust at all. Then down a few decks is where I assembled them later near my bunk or sometimes at my duty station. I stored the finished models on top of lockers, they were safe up there as a heavy carrier has very little vibration even in rough weather. When I had too many, I'd carefully package them and send them home. Unfortunately, careful packing doesn't matter much when shipped that far and with military mail, so when I got out of the navy, I had a rather extensive collection of models in need of repair though some did make the trip unscathed.

I collect vintage Auto World catalogs, usually I find them on eBay. But the other day, a friend had been cleaning out his father's house (his father passed away) and was going through stacks of old magazines. And there was an original AW 1959 catalog in perfect condition!

I have the same problems and all of the suggestions I see here are good ones. I now use toothpicks to paint white lettering on tires, using water based white paint. I use both Sharpie markers and Sharpie paint pens, each has it's own purpose. A Sharpie marker over a chrome surface is a great replication of a 1:1 red or amber light. If not chrome, paint the light silver with an extra fine point Sharpie paint pen, allow to dry a day or so, then use a Sharpie marker. My old hands won't let me use brushes anymore for some jobs. About those Sharpie paint pens and Testor's paint pens, they get dried out too quickly if not used for a while. When that happens, I use a sharp hobby knife to scrape off the tip, then clean the tip in paint thinner.

Actually, I was correct and you are wrong. I owned a 1:1 '68 Chevy pickup and a '71 one, MPC got it right as I stated, AMT did not. I built several of each, so I do know. And thank you for proving my point about the AMT kits and admitting that you don't have the MPC version, thus you wouldn't know why I said no new tooling was needed. Also, for those extra details you want, that is up to the skilled modeler to accomplish. You can not expect a kit maker to cater to every desire. It is EXTREMELY expensive to create new tooling today, and sales will be low production anyway. The same modelers who demand ever greater features and details are the first to complain about higher prices, even though it is THEY who cause the higher prices by wanting the extra goodies that they should be getting from aftermarket suppliers included in the kits. The best way to build a better model is to improve your skills, be creative and have imagination. I have been building plastic kits for 60 years and I stand by every word I said.

Sometimes I listen to baseball games on the radio while building models. Since our local team is the Pittsburgh Pirates and the usual outcome is that they will lose the game, I am not distracted at all. This is not to say that I don't love the Pirates and love baseball, but when you live in an area where your favorite team can't afford to get the higher paid players, you get used to accepting defeat. On the plus side, at least the food has improved at PNC Park where the Pirates play when at home. They finally replaced those dried up and shriveled hot dogs and sponge like fries with delicious hot dogs and crisp fries. Unfortunately, only millionaires can afford to buy them though.

Yes, the Flintstones was based on the Honeymooners, totally. Loud mouth Fred was Ralph Kramden and Barney was Ed Norton. Hanna-Barbera Productions even admitted that when threatened with a lawsuit. Jackie Gleason wasn't happy about The Flintstones and considered suing. Gleason's publicist apparently asked him if he wanted to be known as the man who killed Fred Flintstone. He decided he didn't want to be and didn't sue.

Beautifully done!

Since the '67-'72 Chevy pickup kits from MPC were dead on accurate, it would make no sense at all for anyone to spend huge amounts of money to make new tooling unless those old molds are too worn to be used again. MPC really nailed it, the body was sharp and crisp with details, so was the interior. But the chassis was one piece lacking details though, but at least the MPC version had the more realistic single exhaust while the AMT version had dual exhausts. Replacing that one piece chassis is easy enough by using a Revell-Monogram Chevy truck chassis and converting it to 4WD is easy as well. Given the low production numbers today for even "huge hits", it simply wouldn't be profitable for any company to do as you hope for. That's where imagination and skill come in on the part of the modeler, we can do those variations ourselves.

What pleased me today was that when I woke up, my arthritis was taking a break from the usual severe stiffness and pain. Before it could change it's mind, I skipped shaving and showering and went downstairs and worked on a few model kits, doing the small parts and details that I'd planned not to do. I got about three hours before old man arthritis kicked back in and stopped me. That's okay, at least I proved to myself that I could still do what I used to be able to do.

That's happened to me as I got older and as my collection grew. I began to forget just exactly what I already had.

Very creative and a fantastic way to improve on them. There are so many diecasts out there with so much possibility, even entry level Motormax ones as well.

I remember that, the Buicks with the Chevy rally wheels and Buick center caps.

Growing up in the '60's, all families we knew had only one TV set in the house, in the living room. Almost all were B&W in my middle class neighborhood, most moms were full time moms and most fathers where I lived were blue collar workers. What that meant for Saturday mornings was that my father slept in late, he was a long haul trucker and had to get out of bed on weekdays at around 5 AM. Mom always slept in with him, it was my parent's day off. There were five of us kids and we'd all huddle close together and close to the 19 inch B&W TV set so as to keep the volume low when watching Saturday morning cartoons. Our absolute favorites were the Warner Brothers ones, especially Bugs Bunny, but also Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Daffy Duck and all the rest. Mom was the type who made old fashioned meals, but on Saturday mornings, we ate cold cereal and loved it. I have no doubt that we did disturb our father and mother as they tried to sleep in by getting noisy, but they were tolerant. Cherished memories.

Fantastic job, very well done.

BEAUTIFUL! Beautiful Buick model, I love it.

Cool, thanks for the info. I knew most of that already, but some was new to me, always glad to get new info. Now, if we only get Round2 to stop labeling old MPC kits as AMT kits as I said before. It appears they've taken steps to do that.

I use the same primer I've always used, Testor's.

Not everyone has a YouTube show about modeling and it IS confusing to the average modeler and I didn't say it was being made by Ertl. And although I don't have a YouTube channel, I did actually work in the plastics industry with the actual kits fresh out of the molds. I also already knew what your point was and I wasn't disagreeing with you. A kit based on an Ertl kit not made by Ertl is fine with me. But why bother with new tooling? That original Ertl kit was as near perfect as a kit can get. Who owns the original Ertl tooling since Tomy isn't interested in making plastic products? It is very expensive to create new molds for injection molding, and there is no need to do that if the original Ertl molds still exist somewhere. My father was a long haul trucker, so was my uncle and I was a passenger many times in IH big rigs and those original Ertl molds really nailed it. And I also still say that Round 2 should label MPC kits as MPC kits and AMT kits as AMT kits. Sheesh!

I refuse to enter Hobby Lobby, so I couldn't care less if they have sales or not. I won't say my reasons because that involves politics which are not discussed here and I approve of that policy by this site's admin. I do shop at Michael's and they also have 40% off sales on model kits quite often. And in my area, the Kmart has lower prices than both those chains do.