Tom Geiger

Welcome! Share your work, ask questions.. we are all in this together and love to help and share!

I’m not a fan. He has a simplistic view of model building, it’s like assembling a puzzle. His stuff may look okay in the videos, but I’d like to see it in person where those mold lines will jump out at you. I have participated in the 24 Hour Build the past several years, but I’ve always maintained the basic skills of prep, prime and paint with automotive paints I always add detail and wire my engine. The Facebook model pages are full of guys with paint problems asking for advice.. when asked, they followed his videos... no primer or prep, hardware store spray bombs.

Beyond cool!

photo from upstairs window...

Glad to hearing you are back in the saddle Rich! Feeling good?

At Alice’s Restaurant

Here’s a photo of the bridge today. It is one of the coolest things on the property. I’m on an acre which is narrow and deep. The creek is 3/4 the way back. The previous owner built a pool at the back of the property and the bridge leads there. To answer your questions... not my design, it came with the property. I think it’s maybe 25 years old. I’ve owned the house 10 years. A few years ago I paid a contractor to extend it towards the house as the creek caused some erosion of the bank. You can see the unpainted end. As far as maintenance, it’s very solid and I’ve just power washed it each year. I’ve meant to stain / paint it for some time and have actually had the paint for a few years. The past three summers were very busy for us and we were away most weekends. Three years ago my daughter got married. Two years ago my eldest granddaughter was born. This past summer the twins were born! And I spent a lot of business time in Seattle. This year.. sitting here twiddling my thumbs! Anyway, this year was the first maintenance repairs.. I replaced 21 deck boards. They weren’t awful or ready to break, just some rot on an end. Boards still fastened to structure firm enough to be a major effort to remove, and mostly sound enough if you needed boards about 44” long. Let me know if you want any more info!

Go ask Alice

I’m doing okay now and making substantial headway on long languishing home projects.

Very nice work! Funny thing, that color is one of the ones I bought to try for my Jeepster project

A long time ago my sister was at the dollar store and saw two Barbie size man figures that were so funny that she had to bring them home.. two guys, one white and one black, but they had horrible faces. They looked like felons! We couldn’t see anyone buying these for kids, who would probably cry!

I’m keeping busy with house projects. I wanted to power wash and stain my bridge. Here it is still wet from washing. And down the road to a project. I’m now two full days into replacing decking. I’d be done now but I came up two boards short! I’ll be at Home Depot in the morning. I wound up replacing 24 boards. The hard part is prying the bad ones up! I may get to first coat of stain tomorrow.

My house in NJ had a lot of nice trees shading it, and looked great. I had a tree service trim them all nicely. I had built great raised rock gardens filled with perineals that came back every year. It was the nicest house on the block. I sold it and the idiot buyer soon had all the trees chopped down and every last rock and plant from the gardens removed. He poorly maintained the grass so it went sparse. He had a couple lawn chairs out front in the dirt where a garden once was. I spoke with a former neighbor who agreed the guy made a mess out of the place. He said he asked and the owner said he wanted a low maintenance yard! I can’t even drive by it anymore!

What? Do these chicks have four fingers??!!

And very drinkable

Not wearing masks

It goes like this... Modelers are um “thrifty” by nature. They’d sell their mothers to get stuff cheap, and expect to get that new release immediately with their 40% off coupon. People have posted outrage that new releases aren’t available at Ollies for $10. No thought to how that would be possible or what damage it would do to the manufacturer, (Or being the coffin nails in the few remaining hobby shops) just the selfish notion of them getting theirs cheap. As far as “premium brand”, that’s a product only available at close or at the retail price. People know they aren’t getting that Moebius kit at HL, so they’ll go to their local hobby shop and support them with that purchase. As I said Moebius probably isn’t set up to detail with big retailer. I have experience with Walmart and their treatment of vendors from when I was in Pharma and over the counter drugs. Ruthless would be a kind word. There is no negotiating to a happy deal. Walmart is “my way or the highway” and I understand HL is as tough. They tell you the volume, price, terms and delivery schedule. First, they pay on a 90 day or greater term. They have a formula for sell through on their shelf space.. 15-30-45 days. So everything in those stores is essentially still owned by the manufacturers, you didn’t think they rapidly build all those HL stores and paid for all the merchandise in them? You miss a delivery date, there’s a give back since they programmed your product for precious shelf space. When your product expires, they dispose of it and you don’t get paid.. that’s right, the manufacturer doesn’t get paid anything for those clearance $8 kits. Same with returns for any reason. The “spoilage” can be 25% of the product. So indeed the price Walmart or HL will pay can exceed the manufacturers cost of product, shipping, 90 days interest, and spoilage givebacks. Avenel Hobbies was a mainly plastic model shop in NJ for 25-30 years. When HL built a store one traffic light away, their kit sales fell to nothing. Adding insult to injury, people were coming into the store demanding they match the HL 40% off coupon. Randy the owner told me that as a small retailer, that was below what he paid for some of his merchandise. So he closed the store. The hobby lost a great shop that sold all kinds of kits beyond what HL does, aftermarket, supplies etc. And that’s the story

In the USA we have the demolition derby. I was always a fan and in my 20s actually drove a few times. There is no feeling like aiming for another car and nailing it! Car guys here will complain about so called classic cars being destroyed. Being allowed in the pits and talking with the drivers, most have the story that it was their parts car for their good one and there’s nothing good left in it, or that they tried to sell it for a long time with no takers. Notice that the guys complaining to preserve and save these cars aren’t putting up any money to do so!

Very cool! Keep posting, all of your cars are superb!

That is truly cool and unique! I’m a Pie Wagon and Tom Daniel fan and this one is the best play on the Pie Wagon ever!

I think it’s more that Moebius isn’t set up to handle the volume, price and payment terms of HL. I’ve heard they pay net 90 plus, which is tough for small companies to handle. Personally I think Moebius is better off not being there and maintaining its position as a premium brand.

Very cool

More modern chassis, unusual drivetrains

And if I decide to build a Coke truck someday, I’ll have the pick from dozens of decals!

You’d think they’d put scripts on the decal sheet if not on car.