Tom Geiger

covered with ants

Reminds me of a story.... My wife and I once took a vacation in the Pennsylvania Pocono Mountains. We rented a cozy cabin in a gated community that had sold quarter acre lots where people built neat little chalets and other woodsie homes that were completely surrounded by trees. A pleasant little place. We were looking for the community pool and were driving down the main road. We saw people walking and asked for directions. The guy said, "Drive until you see the blue house. Turn left there." Okay. So we drove a while and were wondering what "blue house" meant. All the houses had natural wood siding. So we are looking at each house intently, may be a blue door? We saw more people walking and asked again. They said, "Drive until you see the blue house. Turn left there." Still puzzled we drove on. All of a sudden there is a big opening in the tree canopy overhead! And there was a huge two story house with bright BLUE aluminum siding. The lot was completely bare of trees and any plants, and was covered with beige stone. The house had bars on all the first floor windows and doors. Big Virgin Mary cement statue out front. The barren lot was completely surrounded with chain link fence, and you'd have to unlock a gate to get into the driveway. Man! What an eyesore! It looked like it had been lifted from Staten Island! We turned left.

I believe it went like this (remember this is back towards the end of the last century) Lady: Hello my name is Jane Doe and my daughter is interested in participating in your modeling competition on Saturday. Me: Great! We'd be happy to have her! Lady: Does she need any affiliations to enter? Me: No, everyone is welcome to participate Lady: I see it starts at 9am. Do we need to be there at a specific time, like 7am? Me: No, anytime after 9 is fine. Lady: How do we preregister? Me: We don't preregister, you can find a registration form at the table outside in the morning. Fill it out and she is good to go! Lady: How many costume changes should we anticipate? Me: (getting uncomfortable) Um, it's a casual event. T-shirt and jeans... what do you think this is? Lady: A beauty pageant. Me: No, this is a model car show for people who build model cars. Lady: +Click+

Thanks Everyone! It was fun and I'm happy to say it matches the image I had in my head! I'm pleased to have it done and on the shelf!

stock and modified ! ? The first time I got a call, the lady got about five questions in before I realized she thought this was a beauty contest!

Yes! A girl I knew had bought a '73 Duster new with a 318. It was silver with a red bucket interior. Summer of 77 she wanted to sell it for $1500 and I couldn't come up with the cash! Argh!

Cool! I have two of those in my stash. I've wanted to build it ever since I read the book "Roadster".

We've had ladies contact NNL East wanting to enter their daughters in our modeling show! ?

from temp agency

Ha! The brats in this neighborhood all drive BMWs! And he has a bratty kid. Pretty much sure he's the one that caused mischief in my pool.

Waiting for a new round! Time is a wastin'! ? Click -- Refresh! Click -- Refresh! Click -- Refresh!

The house around the corner from me had a nice wooded front yard. I would've put that as one of the major attractions when it was for sale. City numb nutz bought the house and took down all the trees. When I asked the idiot why he said, "I'm not raking leaves!" Then why did you move to the country? And the big giggle- all the yards around him are wooded, so he'll get enough 'blow over' leaves to keep him busy!

Welcome to the board! Ask questions, the people here are happy to help!

Stuff I bought at the Diversified Cruiserz show on Saturday. There were 23 vendor tables, and some decent stuff to be had! Great show! Interestingly enough, each of the items I got was $20, for a total of $80 spent! I'd been looking for the Brat kit, and as the usual when you want something it's nowhere to be found. I never saw it in my local Hobby Lobby. This is a fairly new issue. Mint in the box, I don't know why the vendor was selling it for $20. I always liked the first gen Civics. Hasegawa puts out an interesting kit, curbside but a million detail pieces on the chassis. And the most beautiful molding you'll ever see! It only comes with RHD, but the dash is symmetrical and the gauge cluster is a separate part. Easy conversion. My bro-in-law had a white one back in the day, I guess I'll build it. 1960 Pontiac wagon from Vic's Resin. Any ideas on a correct chassis for this one? (Don't say the Trumpeter kit) And from my point of view, the find of the day. An original issue Blue Beetle needing restoration! The original blue plastic will clean up well, a bit of Alclad and a few replacement parts from other kits of the Monogram Model A series that are in my parts box. The unique parts like the Caddy script valve covers are all there. Does anyone make the decals for this one (and / or the Red Chariot) ?

For the hanging

Mine are usually eBay and LinkedIn, which fits my internet browsing. And right now I have Jeep ads. Yea, I looked at a Jeep ad yesterday.

once her daddy...

Congrats to everyone who has finished and to those who gave it one heck of a shot! (sitting here pondering my entry for the next round.... ) ?

Yes, I'm on the roll of finishing long languishing projects! And we can call this one done! Started in 2004 from someone else's unfinished project, I got the idea for an island tour jitney bus from our vacation in St Thomas. The trucks performing this duty then were current Ford trucks with locally produced bodies, but that got me wondering what that would look like in the 1950s. So here we go.. I'm pleased with the results. I made the body behind the cab. It is on a stock wheelbase and fender unit. The passenger body started out with sides from the Tom Daniel Paddy Wagon. The roof is all basswood, and yes I cut all those shingles! I made all the decals on my inkjet. I also made the US Virgin Islands plates from Internet images. The "T" on the plate is for St Thomas. "C" is St Croix and "J" is St Johns. Rear view. The two sides rear sides of the bed are panels cut from kit tail gates to get the embossed Ford emblems. The steps were scratch built from Evergreen plastic as were the seats. Engine is the kit's flathead V8 with wiring. Nothing special under the hood. The driveline is all kit stock The side bands were printed in yellow on white decal stock. Seat cushions were cut from basswood and all the corners rounded off like cushions would be. For fabric I went to Joann's Fabrics website. They literally have thousands of patterns. I entered "tropical" and there were probably hundreds! I chose the palm tree motif. You may never see it, but the headliner is done with this pattern as well. No major trick here. I took their pattern and created an array of it to get the size I'd need to wrap seats. I scaled it to size and then printed it on my inkjet on regular paper. I coated the cushions with good ole Elmer's and wrapped them in the paper tight. I was careful not to let the glue moisture bleed through to the ink side. I'm pleased with the cushions! There is a little message up inside the roof. And that makes for a trio of 1950 Ford pickups on my shelf. None of them would be confused with one another! Thanks for looking!

Yea, I think it's the impending cold that's bringing all the insects inside. My daughter hates crickets. She will relocate a spider, but cringes at the thought of a cricket. She has her own condo in NJ and I get the phone call and the play by play every time she encounters one.

Yea Bobby! Lookin' good! And congrats on the finish! And I'm here to report.... Done! It fought me every step of the way... in fact last evening we gave "off the bench" a new twist. The body I was holding separated from the chassis which went tumbling. It took me a half hour to find all the parts, and most of the morning to get back to the same place I already was! But as of 10pm this evening, she's sitting in the place of honor in my family room, gassing out until morning when she gets packed up to debut at the Diversified Scalerz Show! And as you can see Barney Approves! Full set of pictures in the Pickups Under Glass section, probably after the weekend!

I bought this one for $5 and later on saw another one cheap so I own two of them. This one was bought as you see it, some kid had snapped it together and put it back in the box. I can swear that there was an AMC / Jeep design exercise like this, but haven't been able to find any evidence of such. Chassis isn't all bad. Some decent detail. It's got a different wheel base than a Jeep so it's not a plop down fit. One design flaw was no rear vision. The slot is where the spare tire stood up. The first (and only) thing I did to this kit was to fix that.... I'm thinking that the kit might be better with that entire rear panel missing. Engine bay.... hey is that a hemi! ? The corresponding bottom detail is in the chassis. Interior is heavy handed, and had no interior side detail. End analysis? If you're into this body, you should replace everything else.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason from store to store... someone here posted that they got a couple Foose Ford pickups on clearance, but there were others of the same kit still on the shelf for full price! And I checked my local store yesterday... the only model in the clearance area is that Lindberg cabin cruiser. Same kit has been sitting there for weeks, no sale at any price!

6. Nuke Iran

I believe we modelers see the car first, and that it's a plastic kit second. Lego builders see it as Lego and what they built from the medium. If that makes sense to y'all! And remember that Lego almost went out of business at one point. A fresh new CEO took over and revived the brand to the phenoma it is today. There are books on the subject and business majors study the transformation. I think today's model companies could take a lesson from it! There is a local toy store here in Exton called "Monkey Fish Toys". Their major business is in the high end hard to get Lego sets. We're talking hundreds of dollars each! So there is money in that hobby.