Tom Geiger

Cash is dirty! I read that a lot of bills check positive for cocaine as people roll then up to make straws to snort through! And don’t forget money people carry in various body crevices! The average life of an American Bill is 18 months before it wears out. I did that one too! I used to go to Denver on business on a regular basis some 25 years ago. Always did the Coors tour too!

Then it’s an R&R Resin. Mighty Mouse was Ray’s EBay seller, then he died and his wife continued to sell hence the Ms Mighty Mouse. Ray Parsons was a character. Every time you saw him at a show he was grumpy and said, “This is the last year I’m doing this!” But he said that every year! He never got along with computers and e-commerce so he found a friend who sold for him on eBay and did a pretty good volume... more than Ray sold going to shows! One day at NNL East, Ray was not registered as a vendor and he comes strolling up to the admission tables. He’s smiling ear to ear and declares he’s coming to the show just visiting folks. He has an arm full of R&R kits that he gives us as door prizes. He told me that life was good! He had the eBay seller so he didn’t have to truck it to shows anymore, and that was the part of the business he hated! He said he loved to work in his shop so he’d pour resin as long as he could. Unfortunately that was the last time I saw him. He died later that year. Too bad he discovered the secret to happiness too late!

Thanks everyone! Times change! And I still like this car! It’s fun to put out at shows, stand back and watch the reactions! If I hit the lottery this is one of my models I’d have built in 1:1! I will post my 1959 Chevy convertible next! I have a similar story there!

junk mail full

I typically buy 1/24 and 1/25 diecast of vehicles, primarily light trucks, I cannot get as kits.

Holding post turtles ?

My current workplace has unmanned entry gates with turnstiles activated by your ID card. Works fine with most folks. I have mine clipped to my belt. You are supposed to visibly wear it. Line is moving well... then there’s some lady who has gotten all the way to her turn, and then takes the dive into the deep bag! The world stops!

For square holes

Welcome to the board! As we are in the post Modelhaus era, your services have become more valuable! Just like with 1:1 cars, some must be sacrificed to restore others. I’d say the only folks who will criticize are those who are jealous they didn’t think of it first!

Ordering from China...

Very nice! I have one in bad shape also. All the trim was damaged or sanded flat. I’ll have to see what I can do with it!

Thanks Bill! Funny story behind those! The kit ones were sunken in and unusable. I flattened them with putty and painted them red. Looked awful. I was pretty new to modeling back then so I didn’t know a lot, but I decided to cast them from clear glue. I had a tube of something automotive in the garage. I took one light and glued a length of sprue to the back of it to make it like a rubber stamper. Then I stamped the image into clay my daughter had. I then poured this one part thick clear glue into a cup. I sprayed some Testors clear red into this and stirred. Then poured it into the clay. I had done nearly the whole tube of glue so I made 10 tail lights. I walked away for like a week. They dried and out of the 10 or so I had at least 2 acceptable tail lights! When I showed them to my club mates they told me that process wouldn’t work! Well it did work because I was too new to know it shouldn’t! And they are still good 25 years later!

Yes you should scrape or sand the chrome from the mating surface prior to glueing. Depending on how deep you wish to dive, and local availability, whether you have a real local hobby shop or a Hobby Lobby to buy paints and supplies. Most of us clean up our bodies and parts of molding issues like mold lines and ejector pin marks, which will be round circles either innies or outies. Finer sandpaper like 400-600 grits can be used here. We do prime to look for any issues we’d like to clear up prior to painting. Primer will reveal things you just don’t see in bare plastic! I like Duplicolor auto paint in spray cans. Their primers dry quick and thin. Their paints are hot and will wrinkle bare kit plastic but their primer will protect from that. If you have access to a local shop with Tamiya brand paints, I’ve also gotten excellent results. Glue.. The CA glues.. I like the thicker ones. Hope this helps

Breaking many bits

I got thinking about this car today as I posted a memory on another thread. It’s gotta be 25 years old as it was my first very detailed model as a adult builder. It started as an AMT 32 Vicky but... There is nothing under the hood besides a steering column, master cylinder and a spare tire. I had molded together the nose and hinged it too. I did open the doors and made them work with dollhouse hinges. I added the rear hump from an Anglia... but why? well, to cover the VW engine! Interior wise, it has Deora buckets which hinge forward for rear seat access. The body had VW interior panels and dashboard too. I had made my own VW chassis pan with it’s components from the Revell VW Convertible. And since my kids were young (in their 30s now!) I scratched up a baby seat and found a teddy bear that I painted to match. My whole idea back then was that this was a VW kit car. And I wanted to build something completely different to compete in contests. The hobby was pretty narrow in those days. People had pretty set ideas as to what was an acceptable model. And this wasn’t acceptable! I took it to shows, put it in Street Rod class and never placed! This was the one where a judge told me I was disqualified because I forgot the battery! He was floored when I responded that it was a VW so the battery was under the rear seat. I had one contest tell me it wouldn’t place because “nobody would ever build a car like that!” And I laughed because a car that was winning was a Ford with a Ferrari engine in it! One guy told me I was being disrespected to Fords and I was lucky someone didn’t smash it! My friends and I laughed after every show where it didn’t place. In one contest there were four models in the category and a poorly built model that wasn’t even painted took third! At that point my goal was for it to lose at every show. It became a running joke.. then I took it to MASSCAR and it took second in Street Rod! Man we were surprised!

Amen! A great community and it wouldn’t be the same without Carl around!

Drilled many times

Welcome! It’s a great group of overgrown kids here! Friendly bunch eager to answer questions and get you moving forward!

Very neat! I love that series of Heller Citroen’s! I have at least one of each!

It is indeed the clunky old Pyro!

Cool! We’re gonna have a whole fleet of Valiant stockers! Was the tail end cut off? That’s the influence of Dave Shuklis Bobtail Cat ! I’ve bought a few that way!

I stopped at HL on my way home since I stopped for beer and cut through their shopping center. Nothing of interest. They had the 40% signs out but nothing I really needed.

Thanks Dan! My favorite encounter with a judge was many years ago. I built a street rod with a VW chassis under it. I didn’t place in the contest at all. The judge sought me out to say they “disqualified” my car because I forgot to put a battery in it! Otherwise it would have won the Street Rod category. I still remember the look on his face when I responded, “It’s a Volkswagen, the battery is under the back seat!”

FYI- Here’s my pickup with proper black painted bed. And here’s the truck built back when this kit came out. A judge told me i would’ve placed but didn’t because I painted bed black! People believed that! I gave up and filled the bed with wood!

I fully agree that wood beds were painted black at the factory as these were work trucks and wood just happened to be the material used for beds. I got marked down once at a contest for accurately panting mine black once! But.. pickups have been customized and over restored with shiny wood beds for decades so people do like that look on collector vehicles. Same as the fact that very few cars back in the day had wide whitewall tires, but they’re all over shows today! As such, here’s two I’ve done. I don’t recommend cutting wood as it’s difficult to get multiple pieces to look tight in scale. I use a dry brush method to paint wood grain I learned from Irv Arter. It’s not difficult, with a little practice you can do this. I do have a pdf I am happy to send to anyone, PM me with an email address since I don’t think I can send pdf files through the PM system.