styromaniac

That is SWEET!!! Your Fotki album provides many images of NNL East 2011 that others did not, thank you...I feel like I was there. It looks like you have many big name car model guys as your Fotki "friends" as well. Nice that you could go and be a part of it all.

Art - Pretty spot on rendition of what the hobby was like "back in the day"..when us baby boomers were taking our cues from the real life 1:1 customizers & drag racers we could only read about in a few publications found at the drugstore or maybe the library if you couldn't afford the subscription. One thing we had going for us was the car craze was so widespread back then you could pick up kits just about anywhere...not just a hobby shop but five & dimes, hardware stores, you name it. Merchandizers everywhere were getting in on the act. The tough part was as you so eloquently described...the "tools of the trade". There just wasn't many ! Any of you old timers remember the AutoWorld Auto Cutter? ( aka Ungar Woodburner? ) About the only way to section bodies and chop tops. Like cutting butter...yeah. I like to call those days in the early 60's "The Golden Age of Car Modeling"..due primarily to the widespread popularity of the hobby with the big nationwide contests sponsored by Revell/Pactra & then Revell/Testors.( pack up your model car in popcorn..not styrofoam mind you..it didn't exist! I mean real popcorn! But hold the butter please!) I thought I'd revisit those "Golden Days" and I found & purchased a few old Car Model/ Car Model Science magazines and refreshed my memory. It occurs to me that while there may have been some wildly original ideas here & there and a few nice paint jobs..realistically ...90% of the builds back then were just plain ######. They don't hold up to today's standards...which given the plethora of kits, tools,and shared knowledge on the internet..might be called "The Platinum Age" of car modeling.

WASHINGTON CAPITALS!!!! ( Hey..I can dream, can't I ? )

Awesome mills! Yours are especially well made Mr.Obsessive..I know..I've seen'em close up. Your D-Jag is one of my all time favorites.

I second that emotion. I've puchased many of his nostalgic hot rod / flathead speed equipment parts through the years and he's quite simply the best there is. If you can attend a MAMA meeting or see him at one of the shows he attends by all means stock up...he might even give you a little discount.

I've always thought the box art for those early 60's Revell Tri-Five Chevy kits was great...the drag racing '55's & '57 Bel Air as well as the mild custom '56. The beach scene w/ the flame painted Nomad is inspirational too ( although its a slightly doctored photo of a real car , not bona fide "artwork".) I always loved the original Revell "Big Daddy" Roth box art as well...the auto show room with two guys going Ga-Ga over the "Outlaw", the spooky haunted house w/ the "Mysterion" , the wanted poster w/ the "Road Agent". Come to think of it..a lot of that early Revell stuff like the '29 Model A hot rodded pick up, the '31 Woody/Sedan surf scene & Mickey Thompson's "Attempt 1" were just plain cool...too bad some of those kits didn't go together as nice as the pictures. But when it comes to getting your imagination fueled up nothing can beat those ancient Aurora 1/32nd scale hot rods...the ones with the funny scenes like the guy's date getting rained on sitting in the "Moody Monster"...the teenagers gawking at the "Wolf Wagon", or the "Shiftin'Drifter" parked outside the soda shop.In this case the box art far exceeded the contents..no way those simple toy like kits could do justice to the artwork.

Didn't Model Car Garage used to have a resin track style nose w/ a photo etch grille inlay?

Where you been hiding yourself Bill ?

The 4 banger in the Revell '31 Woody/Sedan kit is basically the same as the one in the Revell '29 Model A Pickup kit...if memory serves. I think the Revell '31 Woody had a somewhat rudimentary looking Riley set up in it, maybe not totally accurate but usable. The AMT 4 Bangers weren't as refined in detail as the Revell counterparts, in my opinion. As far as speed/after market parts...you may have to look over Replicas & Miniatures of Maryland's pretty cool line of flathead stuff to see if anything is adaptable. Norm Veber & Rik Hoving put together a nice selection of vintage stuff for flatheads under that line.

I remember that. I also remember a Drew Carey episode in which he was going off the deep end after a break-up and his buddies were trying to coax him out of his place where he had been holed up for days building model airplanes. The funniest was an episode of Law&Order where Vincent D'onofrio found a tiny chrome rear view mirror off a model car in some carpet and linked the murder of an old man to his demented son who obsessed on exotic sports cars and had a hangar full of 1:1 domestic & foreign cars hidden away. According to Hollywood grown men who build Models are mental cases.

Back in the early 60's while living overseas my twin brother and I must've built a million of those Airfix 1/72nd WWI&II airplane kits. Monster movies were big back then but we couldn't access those Aurora Frankenstein/Dracula/Wolfman kits. It wasn't until we rode the big boat back to the states we built our first bona-fide car kit...an AMT '57 Ford 3 in 1...by the time we put down roots again in the Chicago/Palatine area the Hot Rod - Custom Car craze was in full swing...couldn't get enough of those Monogram Lil Coffin/Little T/Predicta and Revell Roth Rat Fink / Hawk Wierd-Oh kits. We entered a local hobby shop contest w/ a Little T kit that we mildly modified...shortened pick up bed, lime gold paint set off by the bright white interior & bucket seats & white walls. A clean build for a couple of nine year olds. We were shocked when we found out from friends at school the next week we had won Junior division...the trophy was a neat little gold fat fendered '34 Ford on a wood pedestal.Cool stuff for a 4th grader.

Wow! Cushenberry's "Cotton Candy" version....nice!

Another masterful job. You and Ken Hamilton are my favorite practitioners of the craft.

I thought I saw a Revell 1/25th scale BSA bike on ebay a few days ago. The only 1/25th scale mini-bike I recall is the one from the Monogram Vandal custom van kit. AMT had a cool 1/25th Go-Kart w/ a Bonneville streamliner racing shell included w/ one of their 60's era pick-up truck kits ..whenever one of those pops up on ebay it usually goes for big bucks.

The Chevy 283,the Pontiac 421,the Ford 427 & the Cadillac 354 are the re-releases I have from the mid-90's. Back in the day (the 60's)I believe Revell also had an injected Buick ,a blown Chrysler & the Dream Car Turbine engine. Its funny to see those .69 and .70 prices on the old boxes...the 60's ones usually go for close to $ 20.00 each now.

Think there will ever be an "Uncertain T" released ? Based on some of the comments I've read at another website it sounds like the history of that particular car is muddled in complex issues...including personalities. Wonder what happened to the molds of that one.

An Aurora 1/32nd "Beatnik Bandit"kit? I doubt it- me thinks you meant the "Beatnik Box"..that little companion pick up to the "Wolf Wagon", the "Scat Cat" and those other 1/32nd Table Top hot rods.

Speaking of Law & Order..I seem to recall an episode in which Vincent D'Onofrio is investigating a crime scene and sees something shiny in the carpet..he holds it up to the light and its a car model part..a chrome side mirror.It leads to a plot in which the deceased person's son was obsessed with model cars and had somehow bilked people out of money to the point in which he was able to fill a small hangar with expensive full size cars. Then there's that movie "Butterfly Effect" where one of the disturbed kids just sits in his room and builds models. Then there's a Drew Carey episode where Drew is depressed cuz he broke up w/ his girlfriend & friends were trying to get him to come out of his apartment where all he did was build model airplanes all day. It was about this time that I thought all Hollywood had to say about guys who liked scale models was that they were deeply disturbed.

ME LIKE TOO ! I LOVE THE TRI-FIVE CHEVIES !

Dang Jeff...your skills have expanded exponentially since I first saw your work at an IPMS show in Fairfax Va. a few years back. Where do you find the time. You must have an understanding wife...or you just don't require much sleep.

"Shiftin'Drifter" 'Wolf Wagon" "Ram Rod" "32 Skidoo" I remember those little 1/32nd scale Aurora hot rods.... they first came out in '62....for 49 cents each. Pretty primitive...no chrome parts....plastic tires........but the box art was great.

"Gators" got their surprise all right..Saturday night in Atlanta at the hands of Alabama.

Funny you should mention that '57 Nomad TxRat...I just acquired a couple of'em on ebay to add to my vintage Revell "Tri-Five" collection..I love the box art on that particular issue.

Dang Bill ! Your first attempt at scale modeling was at age 17 ? ( That means you acquired all of your superior modeling skills as an adult, huh ? ) I cut my modeling teeth as an eight year old..my twin brother and I were living overseas and everytime our parents went out on the town our mother would toss us a couple of those little bagged Airfix 1/72nd scale airplane kits to keep us busy..they were plentiful back then and taught us the essentials of reading & following instructions..and the smell of the old styrene tube glue was rather "habit forming"...still brings back those happy childhood memories whenever I catch a whiff. My bro' and I ran the gamut of WW II fighters & bombers & ships & tanks before we graduated to our first car kit..the venerable old AMT '57 Ford Fairlane kit..which we assembled in the solarium of the U.S.S. Constitution on our return to the states in the summer of '63 ..just in time for the exploding Hot Rod / Custom Car craze. Our mom was pretty cool...she bought us Roth Rat Fink kits..she also encouraged us to enter a local hobby shop contest..where my bro' and I collaborated on a very nice clean build of a Monogram Little T...we tried our hand at the new AMT spray lacquers...think it was Aztec Gold..and we wired the 283 w/ sewing thread. With those wide whitewalls and white interior and top it looked pretty cool..cool enough to nab us second place Junior division at the tender age of 10...it was a really neat trophy...a gold '34 coupe on a walnut pedestal. That put the hook in us I guess...we left the hobby when we discovered rock music & girls..but as over 40 old farts have come back to it for its "therapeutic value". And the glue still smells funny !