Tom Geiger

I have always supported Model Cars Magazine for a couple of reasons. First, I thought the hobby needed two magazines, because having only one can send the hobby in a wrong direction since it's unchallenged. Both magazines have their place. Scale Auto is more of a broad audience magazine, trying to appeal to all model builders. It's distant from the reader, much like reading any other car magazine. Model Cars is aimed at the "Lunatic Fringe", of which we all are card carrying members. It's appeal is that it's more focused on high end building and the more niche vehicles we build. It has the feel of a very good club newsletter. It was for us, by us and you couldn't help but feel you belonged and had a stake in it. I always subscribed and read both, as well as the old Plastic Fanatic and Model Car Journal. To me, supporting these efforts was supporting the hobby. I will agree with Mike that reestablishing Model Cars Magazine is a long uphill battle. About the same as starting a new magazine. I'd say that it would take about a year or more of on time delivery of a great product to get back in the good graces of subscribers and regain the interest of retailers. Part of a magazine being in a hobby shop is that it brings people into the shop on it's publishing schedule to buy the magazine, and those people buy more stuff. And for the longest time Gregg would say that IF he could get a distributor to put the magazine in retail chains, that would pay the freight. He finally achieved that, and it was the first thing he gave up when things started to go downhill. That said, I've always been a supporter of Gregg and the magazine. Back when things were going well and Gregg had his health, he jetted to all the major events across the country. He was the guy who nudged me to go to GSL the first time. He was fun to be around. It seemed that Model Cars was taking over the hobby in those days! I'd like to see that happen again.

somebody in Norway liked Wayne's World! ? It's a recent import, still wearing US plates, so someone imported it on purpose!

Followed his GPS without challenging it? ?

I was thinking that too... but I took a close look and saw you had drilled them. Many years ago there was a junkyard scene on the cover of Scale Auto or Car Modeler... and right in the foreground was a tire with lugs on it!

Last week I was at Walmart and saw that they were closing out the garden department... Azaleas and rhododendrons were like $9.99 each. I thought I'd grab a bunch, but wanted to see what was up at Lowes first. I saw Lowes is still "business as usual" with no clearances. Then I forgot! Today I remembered. I figured everything was long gone. But I was headed that way anyway so I stopped in. Well it worked out. Everything was on final, final clearance for $3.88 a plant! I bought all the decent looking ones they had. Just left behind the dead and half dead plants! I go through the check out and it's a grand total of $70! Score! Then I remembered... it's friggin over 90 degrees outside and I have to dig ?some 20 holes?

Heck, we don't even look at the directions much of the time! ? Another one of those "not for us" features. Probably helps grandma pick out a model for sonny boy.

Great project, I will be following along. Dump truck is a great idea. For anyone looking for the wrecker body, there was a cheap knock off of the Danbury mint truck. It may be Welly. I have these two, with correct period wheels. I've also seen this same truck with big donk wheels. Price range for these was $15-20.

agreed! I will always wire an engine, but lately have been using pre-wired dizzys. I will never ever pull out a wiring diagram and go crazy getting the wires to the correct plugs. Just not necessary for me. I also will go for the radiator and heater hoses, and battery cables. Stuff that sits on top and makes a visual difference to the finished model. Here's one I went a bit further. I got into a mode of finishing my old projects that have been sitting for years. I finally pulled this one off the shelf and decided I'd finish it, I'd even do it curbside just to get it done! Well a funny thing happened. I pulled up some photos of Volare engine bays on eBay. I saw how full the engine bay was with wiring etc. Then it hit me.... could I do this? How much detail could I accomplish? Well, about halfway. This is the most wired engine I've ever done. And I probably won't be doing this again. Purely one of those, "can I do this?" things! It was fun to do once for that sense of accomplishment, but would be tedious on a regular basis.

Amazing work on the intake! And Fireball's carbs really complete it!

ice cold beers!

Yup, rained cats and dogs here around 5:30pm. A few rain drops as we got into the car to go to one of our favorite watering holes for happy hour and Wednesday burger special. Soon enough it was like driving through a car wash! We pull into the restaurant parking lot, park and the rain dead stopped! Didn't get a drop on us going inside. It's been raining again on and off since!

HL moved in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the past few years... I have found all of their stores to be exactly the same! Aisle set up and even the very same things on the same hooks! Spooky Scary Stepford! ?

Nice work! I agree that this is becoming one of my favorite kits. I built mine for the 24 Hour Build and got it done due because everything went together so well. I've also used the chassis under a Datsun pickup and plan a few more builds with that chassis!

I just took a look at his feedback. Ironically most of his negatives and neutrals are for slow to no delivery, shipping wrong parts and not responding to messages. Very few actually mention poor quality.

pumpernickel, sourdough, wheat...

Aside from the sit / stand desk (which I've had at work and can endorse!) what type of chair are you using? If you are using an old kitchen chair, a folding chair or even an office chair you bought for $100 at Staples, that could be your issue. As an office ergonomist I recommend a name brand professional office chair. Yes, those sell for $600-1200 new, but can be bought for cheap at garage sales and used furniture / used office furniture stores. Brands like Steelcase, Herman Miller, Haworth. I'd rather spend $200 on a used one of these than $100 on a brand new Staples chair! And you want a chair with arms on it. Also make sure that you are sitting in a proper position. Chair facing the bench straight and adjusted for comfort. Feet on the floor in front of you under the bench. Bench at proper desk height. All of this is part of the equation!

Hey Jeff! Since you say you live in the "boot heal of Missouri" and have never been to a major event, I'm personally inviting you to NNL East! This is a national event that people from all over the USA and Canada attend, along with a couple of International folks every year! You will meet a couple dozen of board regulars in person too! Save your pennies, book your air early for the best rates and come on East! You have until April 25, 2020 to save! You will be amazed! Details are in my signature at the bottom of every post!

I post on the "On The Bench" and am grateful for comments that are helpful while the build is in progress. As you said, it helps me get to a better end result. In fact I take frequent pictures as I progress to spot issues myself, and then post them hoping others will spot the things I didn't. Some times you get too used to looking at something to notice something on it is wrong. It's helpful to have a second (3rd,4th etc) set of eyes on it! Irony is that when you post "On The Bench", you'll get 40 comments that just say "cool!" and your first comment once it's "Under Glass" is "Ya know, the roof line is completely off on that kit...yada, yada!" (that actually happened!)

It's not how you screwed it up, It's about how you recovered! That's my mantra! I do get more daring if I have a few of the same kit. It's like playing Space Invaders when you still have three men left!

I had built the Monogram Dodge Ramcharger and put it out to display at a club meeting. A resident nit-picker immediately came over to inspect. His first comment was, "The grille wasn't blacked out on that year." I turned to him and said, "Oh yea? It's my truck and if it was my 1:1, I would've blacked out the friggin grille!" People literally clapped.

Plaster of Paris

of a lovely....

Not to pile on poor Daniel here, but each and every one of us have our interests. Same with people who collect things like butterflies, that would bore most of us silly! For me, I will scratch build stuff and it's more of a "do I think I can..." thing. I'm not super detailing it, just creating things and finding satisfaction when I discover that indeed I can! Here's an example... I was working on a model using the custom engine / trans from the Beverly Hills truck. I was putting it into the old Monogram Green Hornet which has no floor. The transmission had no linkage detail and it would be very visible. So I grabbed a few photos from the Internet and made this. It may look impressive but it's just three pieces of bent wire, two pieces of scrap plastic and four Grandtline bolt heads. It took me an evening of trial and error but I was really stoked when I finished! Will I do this again? Probably not, especially on vehicles where the trans is stuffed up in a tunnel. I just wanted to see if I could do it! The interior in this camper is mostly scratch built. I had admired the work of folks like Ken Hamilton for years and wanted to see what I could do. This wasn't all that difficult to do, it's mostly basswood and straight angles. If you can use an exacto knife and Elmer's wood glue you could make this. The one thing in this photo that was the most fun was making the coffee maker! That was made from Evergreen sheet. I measured off my real coffee maker and then cut plastic to make the small pieces. Not a big deal. But I'm very pleased with the achievement of this interior! I set a goal and was able to achieve it. That was the fun of it. Here's my current project, that I'm hoping to finish soon. I scratch built the entire back end of the truck. It's not all that complicated when you break it down to shapes, something that Joe Cavorley taught me. The rear steps had me stumped for a while and one evening I just started cutting Evergreen sheet into the shapes. The side piece mimics the riser on my deck outside. The roof is nothing more than a few pieces of basswood cut into the shape of a roof. Same basswood cut into small pieces form the shingles. Basic cutting and gluing. I love seeing all these things come together. That's what's fun in the hobby for me. If I was to just build things purely out of the box, well that's like assembling a puzzle to me. Not that it's wrong for others... just whatever floats your boat.

Drives me nutz when guys build an excellent model but don't detail out the side markers! I like your new method. I use BMF and color it with a Sharpie.

Very cool! I have one of those I built from an old built up. I love that series of Monogram Model A's. And I hope to own a 1:1 roadster pickup similar to this one day!