Tom Geiger

Barracudas! For while I owned the first and last generation cars. My '65 and '73... they looked great sitting next to one another in my driveway.

The window gasket on Mopars of that era was rubber and the "chrome" was actually a mylar insert that was tucked into the gasket to expand it in place. The mylar finish would flake in time and become a dull plastic. Back when I had my '66 Valiant, I just painted it black and my entire seal was black against my silver car. It's reproduced today.

Norm has no website because as it is, he works very hard to keep up with the demand! A website would only put him further behind! As said, Norm and Holthaus are the cut from the same cloth. Half the formula is quality products and the other half is their integrity. Norm stopped vending at NNL East because he said he was behind on orders and it wouldn't be fair to those waiting to service new customers ahead of them!

Not entered in the project, but an old long dead project finally completed! Full report in the link below. I am hoping to finish my 50 Ford Jitney by the end of this month. Scratch the '57 Nomad, I haven't touched it!

Great job!

Love the gas tanks on weird angles. I've always loved to find these old classics, and wouldn't be surprised if someone remembered it from a contest or a magazine.

Great start! I just bought another of this kit just to have on hand.

A common misconception. Note that both RM and AMT etal have been sold several times. That means that somebody owes something on the purchase of all the tooling, no matter how old it is. It's like saying my house is "Bought and paid for" because it's 50 years old, never mind that I bought it 10 years ago and will be paying it off for the next 20!

I think people know my theme this year is to finish up some long lost projects. I've been doing a decent job at this, several of them are now on my display shelf. And a few more in progress. I had on my bucket list to build a camper someday. This is it! And it's inspired by the work of my friend Ken Hamilton who cheered me on as I worked on it. I finished this one on Friday the 13th, but due to a busy life I only took the photos this morning. In the beginning... way back when I created the purple pickup. I used both ends of a Dodge van body to create the cab. That left me with this odd piece. I didn't toss it, but used it as a paint stand for many years. One day I looked at it twice... and started cutting plastic. Here are the end results: This project involved a lot of scratch building. The top mounted dog house and the chest were made from Evergreen sheet. The air conditioner is a piece of a radiator and the side vents from a 1930s Ford. The power cord is just wire wrapped and glued with a tiny piece of plastic for the plug. Travel decals came from the '49 Mercury wagon kit and a few of them are just the top of license plate decals. The roof rack started life as Tamiya sprue. Just happened to be the right size too! The Dog House decals were made by me and TJ was my dog Ted, who was alive back when I created the house. The mini bike came out of the recent Dodge pickup reissue. I did drill out the handlebars, and inserted a pin so the steering works. That is Don Mills scale diamond plate and the railing is part of a Plastruct ladder. All the windows were scratch built. Tail lights are from the Dodge van kit that also donated the body. I don't recall where I got the license plate holder and light. I did print the NJ trailer plate. The roof shingles are just sandpaper cut to size and put on as you would real ones, except with glue instead of nails. The gas cans came from some kit. They both started out as the same piece, but I modified them to look like different cans. They are painted different tones of red too Two things kept this model from getting finished. First was that I wanted to find a way to be able to have it come apart so people could see the interior. I finally gave in on that and glued it all together. Second thing was that I wanted the leveler up front to work. I finally solved that when I took apart a toy that had a long screw post. Part of that screw post is here, and the screw was mated with a kit jack base. It's extended here. . And the leveler is in up position for the money shot! I pulled an old friend off the shelf for exhibition purposes since it had a trailer hitch. Here is the leveler in retracted position. The crank is just bent wire with a handle made from Tamiya putty and sanded to shape. Interior view through the glass. Everything in here was scratch built. The coffee maker was a replica of the real one we had at the time, all fashioned with Evergreen plastic. Easy to do since it's all straight lines, just measure and cut! The dog house comes off for viewing the interior. And a photo of the interior before it was mated to the body. Old photo from before I put a top on the closet. And there now is a cooler in the front corner too. I am pretty pleased with this project. And glad it's finally over! As they say, "Time to find another house to flip!" I did have a build thread on this board, but cannot find it today. So here's all the progress shots of this project: https://public.fotki.com/ModelCitizen/model_cars/my_model_cars/my-finished-models/dodge-van-trailer/

I lived in New Jersey and was surprised when I went to Denver, Colorado all the old cars on the road there! Yes, they get snow, but they don't use road salts like in the North East! Early evening I would just stand outside my hotel and watch the cars go by! Other times I stopped into cheapie used car dealers and saw things like '71 Dusters with no visible rust! They thought nothing of it but it was amazing to me. I always anticipated on one of my business trips to Denver, I'd get a one way ticket and drive something interesting and solid back to NJ. Unfortunately my trips ended abruptly and I never got that chance. A buddy-0-mine had a brother who moved to Tennessee. He wanted a late 70s Firebird and his brother found him a rust free example. He did drive it back to NJ and had it the last time I saw him maybe 15 years ago.

I used to drive through Montvale, NJ on my way to work. That is home to Mercedes, Smart, BMW, Mini and a few others. It was a regular occurrence to see cars wrapped like this on the road with manufacturer plates. We also would see the full line of Smart cars sold in Europe, and odd makes like Renault and Peugeot that aren't sold here, all with manufacturer plates on them. The Montvale police department had at least one Mercedes SUV in their fleet, donated by Mercedes.

When my girls were growing up, I'd often find a broken toy sitting on my model bench. Dad could fix anything! Still I glue together things for my wife. Most recently a mug she owns had a ceramic butterfly on the handle. Super glued it back on! Back in the day when I worked for big corporation number one, the VP we reported into was using the image of a sculling boat for teamwork. Some senior guys ordered him a large, possibly 1/24 scale boat from England, from a company that made awards for sculling teams. The boat was painted our company colors, came mounted on a wood base that was lettered for us and in a glass case that was made just for this. It was shipped with the boat on the base inside the case, with no protections around it. En route it came off the two pegs that held it to the base and they received a big box of parts. I get the call from my boss.... I'm presented with the box of parts. Can I fix it? I call the company in England who is very happy to help. They give me the Humbrel paint codes and send me all the broken parts. This is a very heavy cast pewter or lead boat. And all those outriggers that hold the oars were busted off. The ones they sent me for replacement were cast pretty sloppy and had a lot of cleanup. They were brittle and some broke as I tried to sand and file them down. It became evident that I was better off scratch building them from wire. Next step was drilling out where they broke off the body. I busted a dozen drill bits doing this! The body was all scratched up so I sanded things flush and was able to spot airbrush the Humbrel paint without going near any of the hand painted lettering. This was an intense project under a deadline of when they wanted to present it to the VP. I broke my tail getting it done and towards the end I even stayed home from work a day to complete it. All ended well. It looked new, everyone was pleased and my brownie point account was full! The VP personally thanked me and just about all of his reports each gave me a company "On The Spot" Award which was a $100 AMEX gift card. I recently was going through the contents of my 50 drawer parts cabinets and realized one drawer still had extra parts for this boat!

I've used clear Magic Tape to handle the parts. From the moment I've separated it from the fret. It's also good for placement. Make sure you have applied the tape to the face of the item. Put some glue or some use clear paint, on the back side. Use the tape as a handle to place it, while viewing it through the tape. Place it. Wait until the glue dries, then peel away the tape!

Yes! It was yesterday. I built the phaeton to commemorate the milestone birthday last year!

Breezed through the 'Lobby today on my way to the beer store. On the clearance rack they had 3 ZZ Top '34 Fords. I bought one. There was still one of the Lindbergh cabin cruisers there.. not salable at any price! ? I used my magic coupon to buy another Foose Ford pickup. Another chassis to fiddle with!

Yup! 50 years from now it'll be down to Keith Richards and Betty White! ? My wife said on the afternoon drive time show on talk radio they were asking callers who would be next... One guy called in to say "Kanye West". DJ said he's only like 42. Caller said, "Just hoping!"

eating gummy bears

Yes. Monogram reissued the woody, the pickup and the phaeton later on. I have no idea why they didn't include the coupe and coupe convertible in that series. They did change things. Only the early issues have the dual side mount fenders. And beware of swapping chassis parts. They modified the suspension, narrowed it, in the 1980s for the wider tires they included in those kits. Just be careful as you mix and match. I got bit! The coupe and phaeton are original issues, and the pickups, one of which is the woody kit, were later issues. I got bit building the phaeton chassis using a later front end! I still have a few more to add to this lineup.

Thanks Alan! I don't think you want my first go at RHD to be in your roadster on the way from the airport! ? Reminds me of when you were here in Pennsylvania and we stopped by the house of that fellow who was working on a couple of street rods... remember the chain drive setup he had on that Model T steering?

Geoff- is your rear hatch operational? I think I see the same issue I have with mine... bottom part of the right hinge is short? Adding info- I just opened the kit I got Saturday and it's that same way. Obviously an issue with this kit!

Since we talked about that article that all the classic rockers will die in the next ten years, we have lost two! Wow!

Also known as "the easy way out" considering that easy install kits are available. I want to find myself a 1930s Ford roadster pickup for my retirement. I'd like it to have an old school engine... give me a flatty, a Caddy or Olds V8 or even something odd like a Studebaker V8... Small block cars are so common they are cliche! I saw a 1930s Plymouth street rod done nicely with a Mopar 340 in it. I appreciated it since it was all Mopar and the owner went the extra mile to fit it in there! And you don't see that every day!

I built this from a junker found in a bag of stuff. Some kid chopped it back in the 60s, I just finished it for him! One of my favorite old series of kits!

I finished a model on Friday! I was out all weekend but will take some photos tomorrow and create an Under Glass thread.