62rebel

i know i'm one of the many here who suffered through the "multi-lingual" and then "NO language" instruction sheet era, and wasn't aware of the treasure that disappeared from the instruction sheets when the makers could no longer call out specific names, especially BRAND names for those extra performance and custom parts in their kits.... i have a few early '60's sheets that clearly name these parts, recognition that some young builders might have caught from their older brothers or Dads... and then, slowly, those "names" vanished for the most part, except some high visibility stuff like the Weiand parts in AMT's Nova, Offenhauser heads in the '49 Merc, replaced with lots of generic representations that you need a Summit Catalog to identify.... i'd like to see these parts properly identified for the benefit of everyone in the hobby; those of us who faintly remember them, and those of us starting out with little info to guide them.

go ahead, stop buying reissues. then start looking for another hobby, because that's where they make the bread-and-butter money. without those sales, there will be no new tools cut and that will be the death knell. my issue with re-issues is the several that have hit the shelves "de-contented", missing most or all of either the hot rod/custom parts or the parts to build a stock version... not that they've developed flash problems, or ejection pins that fail to line up, or sink marks that need filling. that's model building.

i've got two of my Dad's Cessna O-1E Bird Dogs in the bedroom; i built one from the Guillows kit WAAAY back around '77-'78 or so, then used the kit instruction plan to build a solid balsa version... built a Fokker biplane that i covered with bond paper, too...... always going past what the makers intended looking for different results. wish i'd kept those two, but..... i found that working with stick and paper is a little more restful than styrene... i always get the urge to slice-n-dice styrene, but leave the wood framing alone.

beautiful rendition and, while i see the very few (and, imho, slight) hiccups, they will not deter me from getting at least one of these. i used to have a '69 Ranger with the 390 and it was a beast..... another of the many vehicles i regret letting go.

this isn't "stop motion", actually. not really "animation", either.

is this the AMT kit or the Revell? the AMT has stock and "frenched" headlight buckets on the chrome tree.

which, by the way, is what AMT originally put in the kit. i don't know how much success you've had using plain Elmer's Glue (i am assuming it's the white stuff) but it doesn't have much "grip" on styrene. it has been used for temporary assembly by many builders, but IMHO it will not hold up.

Ford didn't kill the venerable Y even then; they sent it south to do yeoman duty for years longer.

a Black Beauty that isn't 1/32. include the parts to build it stock. heck, include a flip-over garage deck to hold BOTH of them.

since we have the raw material to do so many TV themed cars, and i hate to have empty spots for my favorite detectives, how about Columbo's Peugeot convertible? how about a reboot of the Heller Citroen 15? made out of something more durable than wet tissue paper? a BMW 2002? Lotus Cortina? i'm really surprised nobody has done the box Crown Vic or even a Wagon Queen Family Truckster. Men In Black fans would LOVE to do an "old and busted" black wrapper CV...... and Ford kept styling changes to a minimum for the most part.

Hobby Town nor Hobby Lobby here seem interested in bringing any in. i'm all for supporting local hobby shops but BOTH of the Hobby Towns here give our segment of the hobby pretty short shrift. Hobby Lobby being a larger comglomerate with different buyer strategy, i don't expect them to leap on too many reissues when they're deeply discounting some stuff that's been back on the shelves only a short time. point being, i've already got a scheme laid out, a custom frame ready to shorten, and paint waiting to put on. grrrr.

turned out nicely.

absolutely beautiful. best series Volkswagen ever has or ever will produce.

actually, no; the two i'm restoring are locked in closet limbo right now. i have no room to get models out and actually work on them, as my dedicated work room is now occupied. i haven't been able to indulge for several months and i'm pretty fed up about it. at one point i had to use the motorhome to work in... and now that IT is gone, there's nowhere "safe" in the house. grrrr.

i also built the Hasegawa kit, actually bought the racing version and used the stock parts in the kit. it makes a really pretty shelf sitter with not a lot of work.

in my opinion, the best way to offer criticism is by private message and keep it polite. if you publicly "pick apart" some builder's work, they might justifiably feel a little sensitive about it. my pet peeves regarding builds are inconsistent or unfinished work; say, half the chrome trim foiled, or unpainted wheelwells, flash not dealt with properly, etc, but i don't harp on these when i see them; maybe i should mention it in a PM but i don't feel that's my duty to do so. now, PERHAPS the reputation we as a forum have obtained isn't so much for what we post in comments, but the overall level of skill displayed in the COLLECTIVE work of the members.... there are simply OUTSTANDING builders here whose work is amazing and something to aspire to for all of us. perhaps the level of realism THESE examples have presented simply overwhelmed the lurkers passing through and they felt incapable of holding a candle to it.

when they were still making real cars, they didn't have timing belts.

my take on this: relevance. in the heyday of American muscle cars, which happened to coincide with the heyday of model cars, you had to put some effort into getting a real hot rod powerhouse car, and American kids knew the science inside it. they pored over dozens of magazines catering to their interests, and honed their imaginations whipping models together that, in their minds, expressed their automotive desires. now; fast forward to the present day: automatic instant gratification of every whim is at your fingertips. we don't have to wait a month for a new magazine to come out; we have encyclopedic knowledge literally at our beck and call. we have overnight express delivery of purchases made off internet bazaars, not a summer spent hunting down an elusive limited-run kit using land-line telephones, paper catalogs, and hearsay... and we have factory-direct 500hp pickup trucks in the dealer's showroom. no imagination needed; just check the boxes on the form. there's no challenge left to making high-hp cars, and it's reflected in the antipathy in expressed by modern era kids with no concept of what building a car, or a model of a car, means. no artistry, no talent, just an expectation of excellent results with minimal input. the industry might find a new customer base to expand on; i personally doubt it very much. they've tried several approaches over the past few years to appeal to kids, but each one has simply left retailers with oddly branded re-issued kits that end up on the clearance aisle or at Big Lots, deeply discounted and leaving a bitter taste in the retailer's buyer's mouth.

yep; missed yet another one. absolutely no publicity, it seems, to get the word out beforehand. was it at Cokesbury again?

there has to be a cloning machine somewhere that is malfunctioning, churning out half-scale cars instead of operational and practical ones... here's proof!

they'd be critical to a diorama of Cledus Snow in "Smokey And The Bandit".

i always add some Dawn to my sanding dip water. keeps the paper clean longer and helps disperse residue.

what a great rendition. absolutely beautiful.

easy to look at, too.... that's a pretty car.

i wasn't aware that this kit had that much working detail... for a 1/25th scale model of an already SMALL car.. i might hunt down a couple.