Tom Geiger

Oh let me jump in here! We as a group are the people who show up at Star Trek conventions in our Captain Kirk jammies. We can recite the contents of nearly every kit ever made and many of us could do talks on the evolution of injection molding and the history of the industry that would be welcome at technical conferences! We are classic “take a hobby to the Nth degree” kinda folks! That said I can sympathize with the purple guy. I cannot think of another category of consumer goods where 1963 product are offered for sale in our modern world. We often take this miracle of our hobby for granted. But it’s truly amazing that the molds etc still exist 50-60 years later. My brother in law is a modern guy. He goes to work every day and spends his leisure time watching sports on TV. He doesn’t do any crafts, and he’s not mechanical. He comes to my house and sees my models. Not much comment other than a polite “They are nice”. I take him into my model room and he sees my stash.. he gets a little excited and asks, “Maybe we could build one before dinner?” I open a random box and all the 200 parts are blue plastic, like we are accustomed to seeing. His smile drops! I suddenly understand that upon seeing my work, he thought that all the parts came prefinished and I merely snapped them together like a puzzle, or maybe like an IKEA bookshelf! I cannot ask for more from him because he hasn’t been exposed to our world before. I cannot fault his expectations! Our OP bought a product in the modern world. He bought it by modern means.. placed an online order. The kit came to him brand new. factory sealed and with a modern bar code on it. He has every right to expect a modern product in that box! And because he’s only seen one model kit, he assumes all AMT kits are the same. He has no idea of the evolution of injection molding, the history of the company or the eras of kit designers we all take for granted as common knowledge. Based on his year 2020 experience, AMT does suck! This is a business problem for Round 2... they are in the nostalgia business with this grand collection of old tooling. We, as a group, only consume 1-10% of kit production.. depending on where you get your numbers. The other 90-99% must be purchased by John Q Public... I can only imagine the mail Round 2 receives! That’s no doubt why they now show box contents on the bottom of the box and include a folksy history of kits today. So end analysis, some 90% of kit production goes to casual builders... guys who (gasp!) may not even paint their models. Guys who are getting no more involved than spending an idle afternoon assembling a plastic puzzle. And it’s so! I notice the kit turnover at my local Hobby Lobby is constant. And I don’t know a single model car guy in town! And we’d be dead in the water without these guys!

I’ll differ a bit. Don’t clean them! The best place to sell would be on eBay in the promo category. Some collectors would rather clean them themselves. And as already said, there’s nothing you can do with oxidizing chromed, nor warped bodies like the Lincoln or Buick. The warp isn’t due to your dad storing them incorrectly, it’s a bad characteristic if the plastic mix used back then and probably warped within a few years if it’s manufacture. You won’t see this past the early 1960s as each manufacturer got smart and went to a better plastic. If indeed you are going to clean them, as said don’t use any chemicals harsher than dishwashing soap. Use Q-tips to reach inside interiors. And be very careful of small parts like steering wheels, shifters and ornaments like the hood ornament on your Lincoln. They are already broken on a lot of the ones I’ve seen.

That's a nice selection of rusty relics!

Welcome to the board! You are off to a great start!

Looking good! Nice builds and good number for the year!

Good for you! He who screws around screws himself!

Idiot! While he’s trying to talk you down, someone else shows up and buys the item, that’s just how it goes. If indeed he really wanted it, he would’ve paid the price and it would’ve been his!

What are the gray items? And where did you get the milk crate? It’s great!

Of cold beers ?!

And a bomb goes off in Nashville on Christmas Day! You can’t make this stuff up! If you wrote a script for 2020, with all that went down this year, they’d reject it as unrealistic!

Yea, he had a bunch of them, but it seems he only puts a few things on his website at a time and much of it says out of stock. I want to get his 41 Chevy bus to do a movie replica.

I’m glad to see it back. This is the chassis you want to put under your early Mustangs!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas despite the year!

How ‘bout the Duster? I wonder how many they destroyed to get that 30 second clip!

Welcome! We have a good number of active members in the UK. Enjoy!

Agreed! Weathering is perfect for a used service truck.

Highly recommended! I procrastinated for a long time, now kicking myself that I didn’t do it sooner! An investment in quality tools is a must if you are in the hobby for the long haul! Here’s mine. This is the 24” lower price unit. I piped it with rigid duct.

Very nice build of a classic kit! I have a couple of these, need to actually build one someday

RMR Resin Model Ranch, Ron Andrews

EBay of course! Search for Hachette (1:24,1/24). These are very nice appearing diecast. Prices and shipping costs vary widely. Sellers are mostly Euro and Russian

Very nice set of very nice models!

Agreed! I got the same one in September. Packed very well indeed. And I’ve been using mine. Very impressed with how well it contains odors.

But appropriate 2020

Very cool! It looks just great! What did you do with the tailgate? It appears to have a hinge with the tail lights capturing a peg sticking out if either side of the gate.. or did you simply glue it shut?

Great Steve! It’s gonna be a super model!