Tom Geiger

Hi Jim, we missed you at the Christmas meeting. It was a great time! See you at NNL East!

Don't forget the wiper position! Reversed for LHD. Dash doesn't look all that awful to modify.

Cool. I never realized how small the real car is!

Cool! I like it.

There is no cure for distemper so they put him down. Distemper is highly contagious to both humans and dogs so they couldn't leave him loose.

Odd day here... my wife woke me up early and said there was a raccoon on the deck acting odd. Sure enough, he bopped around the backyard for hours, acting drunk and dazed. He was up on the deck a dozen times and covered the same ground over and over. He wasn't phased by people but wasn't vicious either. I called the town and they sent out two police officers. They told me that they had multiple calls on him in the past two days but he had disappeared before animal control arrived. So the three of us kept tabs on him, and eventually one of the officers was able to pretty much walk up and drop a trash can over him. Animal control showed up. They said he didn't have rabies, but probably had distemper. Animal control took him away. We'd never seen a raccoon so close up in the 10 years we have lived here.

Very nice! That little Civic was many of ours first experience with a Honda. My wife's brother had a white one. I bought that kit recently too. Nice kit!

They have many uses in the model room. Need a little spray paint to touch up something? Spray it in one of these instead of a can cap. They make great paint stands as you see in the photo, if the item is heavy you can stack them up to give it some weight. My wife loves these Swiffer mops. The good news is that the pads come in blue plastic boxes that are ideal for model part storage. They even have a clear lid on them so you can see the contents easily. Remove the green banner, and put a white label on the end. They come in two depths with either 24 or 12 pads. These are the deeper boxes which are ideal for storing a project. The shallow ones are great parts boxes! You can see these Swiffer boxes on the shelves above my workbench, being used to hold ongoing projects.

Not many?? That's four more than a lot of guys on this board finished! ? Nice builds too!

I have a small rolling table... I think it once was a microwave cart. I keep my model parts staged, which is spread out in assemblies so I can see where I'm at with the project. It keeps parts off the bench and clean. I roll this up to the model bench when I need, and roll it to the other side of the room other times.

Thanks Kevin! I have a couple of them so I'm good! ?

Very nice! Black and white on a car always looks like a police car to me... but not on a Caddy! Looks great

I am trying to get the Blue Beetle off my bench. I had the body all painted and ready to go onto the fenders. I found the decals that were on the real truck. (Moon Eyes and Thrush woodpecker) They were from the Revell 1950 Ford pickup custom version.... some folks already have cringed! Yes, I put them on the model and hit them with decal fixative. They shrivelled into useless little messes! That's when I remembered... some RM kits of that era had decals that weren't compatible with fixatives! It wasn't on the decal sheet itself, it was mentioned in very small print on the instruction sheet. As my decal sheet was in my decal file, I had no warning but I should've remembered! I had the same issue with the Checkers decals from their '37 Ford pickup a few years ago! Doh! The decals made such a mess that they wouldn't just float off with water. I wound up sanding the body and prepping for paint again. Then I decided to mock up the body on the fender unit / chassis that already has the engine mounted. The engine goes in one way, as there are not only mounts, but the rear suspension snaps into the transmission. I taped the firewall to the body and... tight fit! I remember having this issue before with this kit series and I attributed it to the firewall hitting the wired distributor I had added. Should I just force and wedge it in? No, I decided to make the body fit better. I figured if I took 2 scale inches out of the panel right behind the door, it would fit like a glove. So I start cutting my body... a bit of man handling and I break the friggin body in half! Grab second body... I managed to do the modification. Body now fits like I wanted it to, just a lot of putty and clean up on the new seams... then... I realize that I have taped the firewall to the outside of the body like on a lot of kits.. guess what? It goes INSIDE the body! Argh! Now I've ruined two bodies. Never giving up, enter in body number three (isn't it grand having a bunch of the same kit?!) which has now been prepped and primed and ready for a color coat. Back to square one, but recovered! Remember, it's not how you screw up, it's how you recover! And I'm still hoping to drive it off the bench by year's end!

Ray, don't worry about it! I am also stoopid! I am trying to get the Blue Beetle off my bench. I had the body all painted and ready to go onto the fenders. I found the decals that were on the real truck. They were from the Revell 1950 Ford pickup custom version.... some folks already have cringed! Yes, I put them on the model and hit them with decal fixative. They shrivelled into useless little messes! That's when I remembered... some RM kits of that era had decals that weren't compatible with fixatives! It wasn't on the decal sheet itself, it was mentioned in very small print on the instruction sheet. As my decal sheet was in my decal file, I had no warning but I should've remembered! I had the same issue with the Checkers decals from their '37 Ford pickup a few years ago! Doh! The decals made such a mess that they wouldn't just float off with water. I wound up sanding the body and prepping for paint again. Then I decided to mock up the body on the fender unit / chassis that already has the engine mounted. The engine goes in one way, as there are not only mounts, but the rear suspension snaps into the transmission. I taped the firewall to the body and... tight fit! I remember having this issue before with this kit series and I attributed it to the firewall hitting the wired distributor I had added. Should I just force and wedge it in? No, I decided to make the body fit better. I figured if I took 2 scale inches out of the panel right behind the door, it would fit like a glove. So I start cutting my body... a bit of man handling and I break the friggin body in half! Grab second body... I managed to do the modification. Body now fits like I wanted it to, just a lot of putty and clean up on the new seams... then... I realize that I have taped the firewall to the outside of the body like on a lot of kits.. guess what? It goes INSIDE the body! Argh! Now I've ruined two bodies. Never giving up, enter in body number three (isn't it grand having a bunch of the same kit?!) which has now been prepped and primed and ready for a color coat. Back to square one, but recovered! Remember, it's not how you screw up, it's how you recover!

How do you guys know what's going on inside of Round 2? Maybe the run is presold kits? Wouldn't be the first time!

This is what it started out as. There was also a kit you assembled yourself. I have one of those. Art designed this kit to be used with the diecast as a donor. I don't believe it came with a hood because of this. He also mastered a Jeep pickup off it.

Great work on one of my favorite old kits. Yes, it is crude but that's 1961 injection molding technology. We are very lucky that so much of this old tooling exists today!

I have exacto brand clear decal sheets made for the inkjet. (note that there are two types of paper - ink jet and laser) I use the Testors decal spray on them with great results. Put it on in think coats, if you go for a wet coat the ink will run

It's coming out great! Remember, it doesn't have to be show quality to be a family gift!

Nice score! I especially like that '32 Chevy. My grandfather would tell me his first car was a 1932 Chevy rumble seat roadster in yellow and black like yours is painted. Later finding photos of my grandparents leaving on their honeymoon trip in the car, what small part of it I can see, it's probably a 1930-1

chose pink carpet

Wow! That is coming out great. I've never done the salt technique, my practices are more around pastel earth tone chalk dust. I use it both dry and in a slurry with dull laquer paint (Testors Dullcote)

Very nice work! Can't wait to see more progress and the finished product!

Very cool Geoff! When I was in England back in 2010 just about every American vehicle I saw was a Chrysler / Jeep product! And a story... Peter Thomas, of South African NNL fame, ordered the very first PT Cruiser to be sold in South Africa. Peter was in the US on business and we made arrangements to meet. I picked him up in New York City and brought him to my suburban New Jersey home for the day. The PT was just arriving in the USA at the time and Peter had ordered his without seeing one in person! He was anxious to see one! I called my local Chrysler dealer, and explained what we would like to do. They said they had their very first PT coming in on Friday. They could surely show us the car on Saturday, and to ask for a specific person. It turned out to be a rainy Saturday so we didn't know what to expect. Upon arrival at the dealer we were greeted and brought to the service department (which is closed on Saturday). In the middle of the open floor was a silver PT Cruiser. Peter was delighted! He had a silver car coming. The dealer and it's employees gave him first class treatment. I've always thought kindly of that dealer ever since! and here's my PT Cruiser GT Turbo convertible! Photo was from when I bought it about 3 years ago.

Very nice! It's got the look!