Tom Geiger

drink n drive!

in your martini

Many of you know I collect old custom builds. I consider them the folk art of our youth. I have a pretty good collection of old customs that might have been built by teens in The early 1960s for their local hobby store contest. If only these oldies could tell their story! I’ve owned this old ElCamino many years. I bought it for $5 from a dealer I knew who said he felt good it went to me because anyone else would smash it open for parts. This does appear to be an original issue, a car any 12 year old would be proud of! Brush paint job with Testors paints, and an interesting rack made from sprue takes it above an ordinary build. And of course it needed a blower! Many cars of this era have unpainted chassis, but our youngster continued his creativity here. He didn’t appear to have taillights so he detail painted them in. And then I saw the trailer hitch! I try not to go overboard in improving these.. I replace missing parts like mirrors or spotlights, but those missing tail lights bothered me. I didn’t have a spare set of stock ones so I went for period custom with parts that would have been available at that time. So I used large pin heads for lights. A bit of red paint and we are ready to rock n roll! New taillights in place look like they belong there! And like all my cars in the collection, it got a vintage AutoWorld license plate. Now for that hitch.. I owned this old trailer which someone included when I purchased an old custom. It’s an AMT boat trailer. The builder added some velvet and chrome to make it special! This got my wheels turning.. yes! My Olde Kustom Kollection needed a shop truck! Since I’d be transporting cars, it needed a deck. Sticking with materials available in that era, I went with balsa wood. And I followed Jim King’s advice and bought a 12x12 sheet of velvet paper at Michael’s for $2 and covered the deck. That would’ve gotten lotsa wows in 1966. And our team is ready for its first mission. And we’ve picked up a Vintage custom Valiant. Headed back to the shop! Hey, I have some fun between more serious builds!

A hard bargain

I like that you worked out dual positions for the landing gear. I had the same issue with my trailer below... Up position for travel Down position for rest. I found a screw post on a toy, and used that with the foot being the base from a jack out of a kit. You have to screw the bottom piece, handle on top is just for show.

Be careful ordering kits online from HL. They are known to just substitute another one if out of stock, as if a puzzle is just a puzzle

It looks fine! Remember, you will be looking at the interior from a low side angle, through the side windows, and distorted through plastic glass front and rear! And that hides a lot. Put it inside the body and see how it will be viewed. I’d be more concerned if it was a convertible.

Oh yea! Earlier this year I dumped a brand new bottle of accelerator across the bench.. twice!

Very nice. Sometimes you just need to finish something for the display case!

Got our second dose of Pfizer juice yesterday. Neither my wife nor I had any side effects. Downside is that we had to search hard to find the site and had to travel 2.5 hr each way (times two doses) to receive it. Yesterday it rained hard all day. We started here at home where it wasn’t raining, and headed west through the rains. When we got to the site, it had stopped raining there. Of course we drove thru the storm again on the way home. Like driving thru a car wash. Still, we are happy to be done. Our county still hasn’t gotten past January 10th signups, and the local message boards are full of complaints. Amazing how uneven this effort is, and how proactive you need to be!

Really weird customs

Sam, a bit of encouragement... This Ranchero was downright awful. It had two paint jobs, most trim sanded off. Drip rails broken off, I learned how to replace them on this body. There was a chunk missing from quarter panel right near tail light. All four bumper ends were broken off and body had scratches and dents all over from play wear. The bed had all kinds of glue burns so I added the bed cover which is glued in place. Interior was too bad to use. I redid this one way back before the kit was reissued, before digital cameras so there is no photo set. On a body like this, I’ll work on the damage as a side project. Fix what I can, prime.. repeat as necessary. Take breaks to avoid frustration.

Absolutely, I just found the unacceptable results angle parallel ironic. Plus the shop sequence was interesting.

What a great looking pair! I looked for the old Monogram kit for a long time but every one I found was over $100. Once the new kit was announced I managed to buy one on the ‘bay for $40. I’d like to build the pair too. I had the older kit in my hands the other day, but put it back in my stacks since I didn’t need another squirrel right about now!

Same here! I had the coupon on my phone so I always had one. When I’d go in the store, of course I’d check for model kits first. When usually they didn’t have anything I wanted, I’d grab some supply item.. can of Testors flat black or Dullcote, a pack of Evergreen or stamp collectors pages from the next aisle. I’d always try to buy something at the discount so not to waste the trip.

Funny thing after reading this topic.. in the last episode of Restoration Garage, with the restoration of a Delahaye in season 7 episode 9 which aired last night, David said the million dollar car had $180,000 in chrome on it and they went through 3 chrome shops before they got acceptable work. There is a good sequence at the chrome shop where they went through the entire process. Interesting to watch.

Rookie Resins did do the long bed. I bought one from him. Unfortunately he is no longer in business.

Fuzzy green kind

About Dark Shadows

Cool! It looks great! Chip, you’re fired! Michelle is taking over the show!

Amen Steve! I have never sent out chrome, but I was wondering what would be an acceptable failure rate for a frame of chrome. And I know a lot of it does come down to prep... I’m frustrated with my own work with Alclad, and prep worked that looked great to me, but very visibly flawed once chromed. And I know it’s on me!

In dark caves

think he's dead

agreed! Cannot wait for my copy to arrive!

I’m happy to see the progress. Now more than ever we need a print magazine. Tom’s Rules for Life No 33: ”Always but always root for the underdog.”