Tom Geiger

I started this Valiant stocker with intent of just using all of the Falcon stocker kit with the Valiant body. Once I saw how simplified the Falcon kit was, I kinda went my own way and used a different chassis etc. In the end I believe I only used the wheels and modified the Falcon's roll cage to fit. I wound up using two of them to get what I needed! The Modified Stockers were low budget kits, and have one piece chassis and the interior builds up right on the chassis. Think the detail level they could get away with selling to teen age boys back in the day. I have collected all the reissues, and still plan on building a Falcon as a companion piece for my Valiant. I have a color and decal plan in mind!

Was Elvis Presley

At my club meeting yesterday a friend sold me another Universal kit, that he wasn’t going to build! So beware!

And someone in the distant future will be cursing you out, same as we feel about those kids in the early 1960s who glued skirts on models we’re trying to restore

Part of the 9-11 coverage on Philadelphia news was a mother and her high school senior son. She said she was pregnant on 9-11 and her son was born shortly there after. A new generation born after the event. 9-11 was the worst attack on America. More people were killed on this day than at Pearl Harbor, and it was an attack on American civilians on mainland America. Pearl Harbor was an attack on our military, on a US possession 2400 miles from California. Hawaii became a state in 1958.

I had posted back a while ago that I am a stamp collector, so was Harry! But my period of expertise is 1903-1908. It was a very interesting time postally. It was the first time mail vehicles were motorized. And pneumatic tubes carried mail over the Brooklyn Bridge! Junk mail was new and various automation was invented to speed up the processing. The mails actually traveled faster than today! And it's interesting to collect examples of all of this. A friend of mine gave me some of the original postal manuals from the era, all scanned into PDF. It's a time capsule of old ways and methods that I find fascinating. Here's a bit: LEAVE ON ACCOUNT OF SICKNESS FOR RAILWAY POSTAL CLERKS. July 5, 1906. Order No. 1080. Modify Section 1419, Postal Laws and Regulations, edition of 1902, as follows: After paragraph 2,. insert — 3. Leave of absence with pay for a period not exceeding thirty days In any fiscal year may be granted a clerk on account of sickness, as indicated by a physician's certificate, the clerk who is sick to furnish a suitable and competent substitute at his own expense to perform his duties during the time he is absent. Imagine that flying today!

The last renovation I did... It's always best to go down to the studs and replace everything. This one was originally 1950s sheet rock with old poor insulation and fabric covered old wiring. I decided to replace everything. So it has new efficient insulation, and all new code wiring. It's pretty much a new house. I will agree with Bill to outsource the sheet rock. I've done it myself and it was a lot of back breaking work and I could still see my tape lines no matter how hard I tried. On this house I hired a crew and they knocked it out in a matter of days. I would've been a month or more of my available time. And their finishing was perfect! Worth every cent! In fact in my case, this was a vacant property so the time differential vs mortgage payments, I probably was even cost wise.

There are some fiddly little bits! ?

On Monday we were sitting at the bar enjoying Happy Hour at our favorite watering hole. A couple in our age group was sitting next to us, and "Jumping Jack Flash" was playing. They were debating that it didn't sound like Mick Jagger... So I told them it was Peter Frampton's version. They laughed and we wound up friends with them for the evening.

Yea, I could tell you were a fan! Howard was originally the local afternoon drive time DJ on AM radio in NYC. I used to commute an hour to work in those days, my father and I worked in the same company and drove together. He wasn't so over the top back then. His persona was more the "every man" story of being a family man in suburban NY. One bit I remember was that his wife made envelopes with Christmas bonuses for the various services, like mail and trash removal. He said they put a note on the trash barrel to knock on the door. And they did. That's when he noticed his wife addressed the envelope to "Garbage". He talked about his apprehension of handing an envelope addressed to "Garbage" to another human being! It was funny. I actually got to meet Howard and have drinks with him! He announced he was going to do a live event at Club Benet, which was a small dinner theater in Sayreville, NJ. My dad and I agreed we wanted to go, and we dragged my wife and mother, who had no idea who Howard was, along for the evening. As luck would have it, we were seated at the table right next to his wife and parents. He singled them out during the show. We got talking with them, and after the show was over, Howard came and sat with his family and talked with us. Back then he had short hair and looked like any suburban dad. We had no idea where his career would go!

A lot went on behind the scenes that day. Four of my brother in laws were involved to some degree. I am from New Jersey and lived there in what was considered a "bedroom community" to New York City. We knew a lot of people who commuted there to work every day. And we were a stone's throw across New York Harbor, on the other side of Staten Island, from the city. On a good day we could see the Twin Towers from our shore. My wife's brother Ken was supposed to go on an interview in the Towers that day. His family thought he was there. Fortunately he ditched the interview. He later said, "Something just didn't feel right." so he didn't go. My wife's brother Don was en route to New York via Subway (what we call "The Tubes") from Jersey City, New Jersey to NYC. He was supposed to go to the station in the basement of the Trade Center. His Path Train stopped in the tunnel under the river and stayed there for some time. Nobody knew what was happening. They all thought it was a train delay. The train reversed and returned to NJ. He watched the towers crumble from the roof of the Port Authority Building parking garage that day. My wife's sister's husband Tim was in the air to Houston on business. He was on a flight that the hijackers had test run. His flight was grounded in Atlanta. There were no rental cars. His boss was going to buy a new Chevy Suburban anyway, so he bought one and they drove it home to NJ. My sister's husband worked for an ambulance manufacturer in New Jersey. The boss grabbed everyone in the facility and told them to drive ambulances to the ferry docks in New Jersey. They took every truck that was driveable. New ones, customers rigs in for service... they all went out. No customer ever complained. My friend was in the maintenance department for Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. All of the New York ferrys were just loading up in New York and taking overloaded boats to their ports with no regard to tickets or capacity limits. My friend was on the receiving dock and his crew was hosing down people who were covered with dust. My brother in law was taking people to area hospitals in those ambulances. I had a young friend who worked for me in Central NJ but thought it would be cool to be in Facilities Management at the World Trade Center, so he left my company. We couldn't get in touch with him and thought the worst! He called me after a week that he had been involved in the aftermath. As someone else mentioned, it was downright eerie that there was no air traffic. We were in an area in the flight paths of all the NYC airports and could always see a dozen planes in the sky at night. To have nothing in the air was totally unsettling. And the smell in the air was a constant reminder. All of the local NY TV stations had their antennas on the roof of the World Trade Center. Everyone who didn't have cable's TVs went to fuzz. We broke down and got cable that week! The cable company worked 24/7 to get everyone on, I believe it took 2 days! It was an awful time locally as the week unfolded. You found you knew people in town who had perished. You found that your co-worker's sister died. We discovered that three Tri-State Scale Model Car Club wives all worked in the towers. Fortunately all three survived!

That is neat!

That article about all the great rock stars passing in the next ten years.. Well, they scored another one! Sad!

or Dead Christmas

I have found that they are too small to drill out for a pin! And I pin everything! I have suggested to the maker that he turn the sprue piece on the button end to a peg so we can drill a hole and plug it into the body. So for now, we glue!

Correct. The white layer behind is called the "mask". I believe it's all printed in the same process.

My wife took this photo from the end of our street in Hazlet, New Jersey on 9-11. We were right across NY harbor, on the opposite side of Staten Island. It was so intense that it smelled of electrical fire, so strong that you thought it was a fire on your street. This lasted about a week. Being a 'bedroom community' to New York City, everyone knew someone who perished, and people who had close calls. I knew that day that life would never be the same again!

Cok Guzel Abbi! Where in Turkey do you live? I am an American but lived in Izmir for 3 years.

Hey Steve that's TWO steps! Today I got one decal back on my '50 Ford truck! Then I walked away to give it time to dry.

Very pretty! I once saw one like that at a show with the rotating bucket seats!

Very Cool Geoff! You are motivating me to finish mine! Maybe when my '50 Ford truck roll off the bench, hopefully this week too!

Nice models! I'm sure the recipients will be pleased, especially when they understand the hours you put in on their behalf! I have found that it's better to give than receive! I built a model of my wife's sister's first car. It was a bright green Chevette that she and I went out to purchase together. One day she was saying that she and her friends were talking about their first cars, and she fondly remembered that car and the back story! That did it! I had to build it. And I gave it to her at the Thanksgiving table after dinner. She actually cried she was so touched! And that was my best modeling moment of the year. I hope yours goes well. You will have to tell us!

Here's my little hunk of the wall. My father's friend bashed the wall and made these up.

Ah! Static electricity! I've had that happen with the darn Molotow pen. I've been holding it away from the body and the paint jumps off the tip onto the body... of course where it's not wanted.

Yes. The last tube of Squadron white I had separated into white stuff and clear brownish stuff.