Tom Geiger

Great project! I just read the entire thread and will be watching and cheering you on! In fact folks from at least three continents are doing so! Carry on!

Excellent kit! You will enjoy building it. I buy every one I find cheap at shows!

agreed. Folks, Ron sold cars and fleet vehicles for about 800 years! ? and a story... about 20 years ago I was put in charge of tallying up my companies maintenance fleet and buying a new pickup. Keep in mind this was a 100 acre property and the vehicles never left the property. Most didn't even have plates. So I went to the local Ford dealer looking for a Ranger pickup. All of the new ones on the lot had a lot of options etc., not fleet type vehicles at all. Then I noticed a few trucks sitting at the back of the property. Salesmen said they were trade ins from a local utility. White Ford Rangers, basic fleet pickups with ladder racks. 2-3 years old about 25-30,000 miles on them. Perfect. For the budget I had we were able to buy 3 of them. When management saw what I did there suddenly was funding to get a few more! The maintenance guys were pleased! Of course some politically motivated jack said that by buying used trucks, I was cheapening the reputation of our almighty corporation. The VP we reported into told him to shut up!

I'm agreeing with Steve on some of this and adding to some of it... Modelhaus and other prime casters had working agreements with the model companies. Modelhaus actually provided manufacturers with resin kits to do design proposals for the new versions of some kits. At least one Modelhaus model appears on an AMT box. Some of the aftermarket does indeed have auto manufacturers licensing, including decal makers like Slixx. In fact, manufacturers have given pre-production models to resin casters to create variations of that kit. For every body a caster sells, the manufacturer sells a kit to build it on! For those of you who think these are all big corporations, it comes down to a handful of people. In fact many of the spokespersons for model companies personally know the main casters. I know all of them on both sides. I agree that masters like Paul Hettick and Dwayne Lavierre's work should not be copied because these are original works. There are threads by Dwayne here on this board that show the step by step work and rework done to produce the '89-91 Crown Vic. You have to appreciate and honor that work. The original caster of the '58 sedan delivery was indeed Art Anderson of All American. He owned a 1:1 of the car and based it on that. As far as Tom's casting a few copies for personal use, that indeed it for his helpers personal use without intent of profit. Irony is that if indeed they were aware they could buy those bodies from Jimmy for $10-20 each, that would've been cheaper than creating an new mold! So leave it alone.

Fresh photo from a minute ago! This is a hollow core door wrapped in brown paper. I work on top of the pink board, and cut on the glass portion. That’s actually the glass from an old Xerox machine. Note that right now I’m working in that 9x12 clear area!

everywhere but head

My grandfather had a '55 sedan, and my father used to borrow it. It was traded in on a '63 BelAir. Jo-Han did do this promo back in 1955. Three of them available in the 'bay (in promo category) from $100-175 right now. I did a quick search of all my historic resin casters brochures and haven't found one. You can set up that search where it will send you updates as they occur. Within time cheaper ones, or ones with repairable defects should show up.

Terry Jessee just did a review of this kit and your Nova on the Scale Auto site.

It came out nice! Good work! Here’s what’s hanging on the wall in one of our favorite restaurants. I’m thinking of doing one of the snap versions to match this, with their logo on the doors and giving it to them

I’ll buy it just for the accessories, of course that’s their marketing plan!

Same deal here! Every so often I have one of those “Hold everything!” moments where I stop and organize a bit. Then it gets that way again!

better butter dish

I find it easier and preferable to scale and print gauges rather than attempt to detail paint them. They don't have to be perfect. Remember most of them are viewed from a distance through a side window.... and by cranky old men with failing eyesight!

Cool start and idea! With all the Cobras in your collection, you need a service truck!

I'm still on my Monogram 1/24 scale Model A binge! Reference of my shelf above so far.... A few weeks ago at the Diversified Scalerz show I found this lost puppy in a vendor's junk bin. Recognizing it as an original issue Blue Beetle I quickly bought it. Here she is mock assembled for a photo session. Dirty and all the chrome appears to have evaporated. Tire mark forever etched into the bed. Aside from it being molded in a nice blue plastic, that finish was beyond saving due to the abundance of surface glue applied by our over ambitious original builder. We might have been able to track him down by finger prints! And here we are today. After a lot of sanding and fussing, the body and chassis received a few coats of Duplicolor Primer and I decided to try Testors Extreme Lacquer Star Spangled Blue which looks perfect on this body. Here's the roll bar that is unique to this original issue. A friend asked me why I was playing with this old glue bomb since the "Blue Bandito" was reissued with a lot of the original parts... well, just because! I do own one of that kit and will use some new parts where old parts are not restorable. But I drilled out this roll bar and inserted some straight pin, and have it super glued thick so I can sand it down. Why? Just to see if I can! If it doesn't look right, I'll use the new part. Also note that of the four cars in the top photo, only one of them started with a new kit (the yellow woody pickup)! The other three are restos from sad and humble beginnings! And the one part that wasn't reproduced is the Caddy script valve covers! Here they are with the plugs drilled out to accept wires and Alclad applied. I also have cleaned up and have new Alclad on all four original wheels and exhaust headers. This project shouldn't take long.

Knock Knock? No updates from anyone in two weeks? I have not touched my Trabbie yet. I have been distracted by bright shiny objects! At the recent Diversified Scalerz show I found an old built up Blue Beetle and am in the process of completely restoring it to much better than new! And yes it has the correct Caddy script valve covers!

Okey had a partnership with a company called Best Resin, which is not the same company going by that name today. I believe I have their interior for the '56 Plymouth. And as said in this thread, not the greatest resin. Not worth seeking out. There are an abundance of 55-57 Chevy kits. Each has their pluses and minuses, but try a few and you may find one that fits right. Then it's a matter of repatterning seats and door panels. The dashboards may be the biggest challenge.

This photo of Del and Barry was posted on Facebook, attributed to Vince Labosco and taken at the GSL in Salt Lake City. If you saw one of them at a show, you knew the other wasn't far away. It's a shame to lose both of them so close together. After Del's death Barry took his final model to shows on the East Coast, accepting awards on Del's behalf. A good friend to the end!

Yea! That works! Thanks Dave! The post I couldn't get the pictures posted on last night works today also! Same post that was saved by the site.

I have been getting the ad for brand new 1966 and 1968 Mustangs. I clicked on it. The '66 GT Convertible starts at $178,000! ? I'd consider that an obscene advertisement!

Man that does suck! Reminds me of something I saw many years ago. I was getting gas at a station across the street from a Chevy dealer. A couple was pulling out in a brand new blue Corvette and stopped to wait for passing traffic. I looked away for a moment and head a loud POW! I looked quickly and saw a box truck and a Corvette rubber nose in the air! Yea, the Corvette was probably sticking out a bit, and the truck was a bit too far to the right! And they met. Nobody was hurt, and I hung out to watch. Yes, it was brand new. Never got out of the parking lot!

last NNL Nationals

I tried posting these photos earlier and got the dreaded 404 error. Dave said to try it again so here it goes! Top photo: see how low that molding hangs into the windshield, creating too narrow a glass area? Bottom photo: My fix, I carved out the plastic up to the the lip to open up the glass area. The existing glass shot does cover this fine. I see this issue on both the Valiant and Lancer. I haven't looked at the rest of the series.

Hey! Today I finished all my spring yard work chores! Finally in time for winter! ?

I am a proud card carrying member of the 'fringe! And funny thing, I did have a case of the Valiant! Back maybe 30 years ago Dave Burket / Model King came into an old hobby distributor's warehouse on the west coast. I was able to buy a sealed case of Valiants for $25 a kit! I still have the empty case. When eBay came about and I discovered I could get $50 a car, I sold more than half of them! Argh! Back when Dave did the '59 Imperials, Tomy owned AMT and I believe it was missing the chrome tree. My foggy memory says it cost him $10,000 to have that reverse engineered from an original tree he provided. I also remember him having to have new wheels tooled to match tires AMT had available at that time. He did two runs of the kit. I cannot remember if those were 2,500 or 5,000 kit runs. There were issues with those in the market. People who were used to having full detail kits, who didn't understand the history of the tooling, were aghast when they opened the box to see the clunky heavy tooling and low parts count. I remember one guy screaming bloody murder on a board that this was his first Model King kit and they were garbage! The Valiant and Lancer are a bit better technology wise, still had a one piece chassis with molded in rear end, but they had open hoods and came with slant six engines! Still if they are missing the glass shots, tooling that often got separated from projects since they were not part of the main tool, there would be that cost. And they'd have to retool the wheels to accept modern tires that they may have the mold for. I wouldn't attempt to create that 1962 tire mold as those tires were very clunky! Also both cars had too much plastic above the windshield giving them a toy-like appearance. I would want to modify the tools to correct this before issuing new kits. The existing glass shot does cover this fine. I see this issue on both the Valiant and Lancer. I haven't looked at the rest of the series. (I had photos in this post but kept getting that 404 error!)