Lunajammer

Blocks and a broom handle?

Saturday, my GF and I celebrated leap year with a dinner of kangaroo and frog legs at Hell's Kitchen in Minneapolis. As dark humor, I asked for mine poached (HA!). The waitress either didn't get it, or refused to acknowledge the political incorrectness, just said, "I don't think we serve it like that but I can ask the kitchen." I kill me.

Sam, these are easily my favorites for the reasons you mentioned. Some guys bring their vintage builds just to see them run again and surprisingly, they still keep up with the pack pretty well. Not winners but pretty respectable. No dremels back then so the craftsmanship was true hand work. My first derby car looks pretty similar to yours, just a lot uglier.

Well, it's a year later and the local VFW had another Pinewood Derby for grown-ups fundraiser which brought in $22,000 for the local VA hospital. There were 107 entries. I entered two, shown below. My copper car place 7th overall and the blue car 10th. The 1st and 3rd place cars were entered by a table of men and women who even wore some zany team t-shirts. The pinewood builds are so much like modeling with the added challenge of function. But it's very creative and the time commitment is only a few evenings. Plus, being an over-21 race, there are no impressionable young mind we need to protect from crackin' beers and talking smack. BTW, these two cars were cut from the same regulation block. The blue car is just the negative cut of the copper car, I just lowered the profile at the back.

Art, so the tool shop sounds like a car garage that is left with an abandoned car that nobody paid the repair bill for... making them the reluctant owners. Later when a buyer is interested in it, they have the right to sell it for what they have into it. Essentially, AMT forfeited the tool for lack of payment. Lindberg buys tool, AMT buys Lindberg.

All of it's first rate. Photos too. Nice choice of background. Wish I could dry brush with as much skill.

I've already learned something.

I went through a phase of trying to hit every nth degree of detail and found it laborious, tedious and not fulfilling (or convincing for that matter). There are those who excel at such things and I leave it to them to be rock stars. I'll just pay my admission to see them. I'm satisfied with wiring engines, building clean and wrapping them up in reasonable time.

I laughed and laughed and laughed at all those. Thanks.

I bought the rally SL maybe a year ago off ebay and I too paid very little for it (IIRC under $10). Not a high demand for them so if you want one, your best and most economical bet would be to watch the auctions.

That's a goll darn serious truck Bruce. Don't tell your people that there's no money prize.

This is my favorite. Worthless for heavy use, not a lot of torque, but I use it constantly for modeling. At $8.99 you get a lot, and when it craps out after a few years then replacing it is still cheaper than two cans of spray paint.

Furthermore, when gas prices rise again, they will raise their prices saying citing oil as the reason and will maintain their current windfall (cynically speaking, of course.)

Another sad marking of the passage of time. While I respected his music, I much more enjoyed his interviews. I loved his sense of irony and whip smart, understated humor.

Good lookin' ute.

As cool as it will look in your home, it's kind of a shame to let so much work just hang so all you see is grey and props. One of the reasons I drifted away from planes, too much goes unseen, yet I can't not detail them. But the B-17 is such a handsome plane and I'm sure a lot of us wish we had yours hanging in our homes. Nice work.

Back in the 80's it would've been a hatchback. Forget about hauling anything but arm candy because that trunk lid is only big enough to insert a memory card.

Sure glad you're getting a handle on the whole back thing, Gregg. Sounds miserable. I particularly want to thank you for the update. It's a rare thing that a magazine is so transparent about what's going on. It proves you're one of the guys and not just some stiff with a corner office and a column. Frankly, I couldn't care less what issue is in my mailbox, I don't keep a calendar of those things. I just enjoy reading the mag and participating in this online gathering of grown up kids. Glad to hear everything's only going to get better. Have a great year my friend.

Unfortunately, locking a thread is no longer an option for thread moderators, only admins. I'll see if Harry can lock it.

Looks pretty cool, but also looks heavily influenced by Jaguar and Aston Martin from a few years ago. I'll take it as a GM product.

You've done some cool stuff here Brian and you're really demonstrating your knowledge of the subject. Good stuff.

Back in '88 while on vacation, Industrial Light and Magic hosted public exhibition at the San Rafael Civic Center of all their coolest movie props; tons of film used Star Wars models, gouls, costumes, almost everything they'd done for every blockbuster movie. On the way out was one of Francis Ford-Coppela's Tuckers to promote his new movie. I was thrilled, had never seen one before and couldn't wait for the film. In the movie, all those gorgeous Tuckers lining up outside the courthouse. If I recall, that was the most Tuckers brought together in one place since they left the factory. How come that's not on the list of greatest car movies of all time?

Beautiful. Yes, the wheels are what I noticed first. They look so much better than the kit wheels. I like the old time colors.

I was pretty jazzed about Tuckers 20-years ago and I own the movie and appreciate the history, as well as the discussion here. I was thrilled to see a Ford-Copella Tucker up close in San Rafael. However, it's not likely I'd buy a Tucker model. Die-cast has covered it so completely for so long that I don't feel the need to commit the hours to piecing one together myself.

Saw it in 3D Sunday. I quite enjoyed it. Nice to see the old cast and the new characters were not a disappointment (except Fin was a little 2-dimentional but not terrible). Entertainment Weekly quotes George Lucas as saying he wishes Disney followed his story line closer. Disney says they gave the audience what they wanted. I think both are correct. One of my few disappointments is how the story climax basically dissolves into a rewrite of what we've already seen in previous episodes, just lived out by different characters.