Tom Geiger

I was involved in something similar, only with a mortgage company. Ocwen Mortgage (the lowest rated servicer of mortgages) decided to enroll everyone in their own version of Angie's List, for $26 a month. They did this at the same time we got the annual escrow bump so I didn't notice it right away. Soon enough, enough people got upset and complained to their state Attorney General who made them refund everyone!

Great work! Geoff messaged me earlier inquiring about the status of mine. I'm stuck at about that same percentage of completion! I know my issues were the van side panels. I had painted the kit provided glass and someone told me that the glass frame was incorrect. So I have to go back and cut plastic stock side panels. Second stumble is the mount for the rear hatch on mine. One body mounted latch is busted, I have to figure a work around. Geoff, let's see you drive this one over the finish line!

Ha! Restricting myself to buying kits I don't have! It's like an involuntary response... I quick draw my wallet and pay before I know what happened. Like that '50 Ford pickup. Any copy of that kit at a show for $5 or $10 is mine!

I saw something on Facebook yesterday that made me laugh out loud. Pay your kid $10 to clean the bathroom. Give him $3 and give $7 to his sibling who did nothing. Then see how long he likes socialism!

I saw the same problem with Fotki photos last night on the Spotlight Hobbies board. So I'd say it's a Fotki issue. They have many servers and occasionally one gives a hiccup. Great work so far Steve, now

Jealous people who can't afford it? There was a vendor who used to come to NNL East. He had an amazing wall of old annuals and models we'd all love to own. He had enormous prices on them all. Like $250-350. But after every show I'd see people who had bought kits from him. I asked one guy and he said, "I've been looking for this kit forever. So I finally broke down and paid the $300." That's the market he catered to. So each show he may have sold 10 kits at $100 each profit. (I'd also been told he paid fairly when he bought stuff for resale). Figure that's better than having to sell 100 kits at $10 profit each from a business standpoint. And at every show there were whiners who would yell at me (as the show chairman) that I needed to make this guy sell the kits reasonably. I'd ask what they thought was reasonable. They'd say like $75-100 because that's what they wanted to pay. Then they'd brag to everyone what a screaming deal they got. If indeed this vendor offered those kits for $75-100 half those whiners would be buying them to resell! And if indeed he sold all those kits at one show, at $10 profit each, that inventory would be impossible to replace! As he worked, he only needed to refill 10 or so slots in his display every show. Can't find fault with the high price guy. He had a business plan. And people were paying the price. Which means that was the right price.

I screwed up the windshield on my 1950 Ford Jitney project so I went down in the model vault to see if I had an extra kit. I had already dumped a few copies of that kit into a bin that I've been working from, but no more windshields! I found an unsealed copy of the kit and headed upstairs with it. I was surprised when I opened the box to find stuff I know I've never seen before... hence, "What did I get today?" Aside from the kit, which I figured I bought as a parts kit from a guy at $5 each, and somehow never looked inside. There is a note inside the cover, "No Engine", but I was surprised to find all this additional stuff! A 1961 Ranchero custom, along with plenty of dust. I've never owned a copy of this cap before. It's not glued on, just placed on for the photos. That appears to be a '57 Ford hood and a full size pickup tonneau cover which I'll see if I can match up with an early 60s Ford or Chevy. Yea, I jumped for joy when I saw this one. Once I examined it, it's not the 1964 2 door wagon, but the later 1965 wagon with the door lines moved! Not a bad job but evident on the chrome trim. If you removed the body side molding it's pretty good. And of course it came with a ton of dust and cob webs. And assorted parts. Looks like a 1940 Ford grille and rear door from the sedan delivery. I have no idea where the red seat came from, 40 Ford sedan delivery is the first place I'll look.. a water ski and odd tire Two dashboards. Any ideas? Narrow dashboards, modern vents on them... Anyway, I'm pleased with today's findings!

If you can mold them in so they look like they belong there, that would be cool. It's still all Ford then! I'll grant you one free do-over! I have a few parts kits so if you screw up the fenders, I'd be happy to send you a replacement pair.

It's interesting to see the varying responses. I'm sure if we had a thread asking if you sanded seams, ejector pins and attachment points, there would be people ferociously defending not doing any of it. Every January I do the 24 Hour Build. One year I built the MissDeal Funny Car and being an old Revell tool, it had a lot of clean up required. Since this was a timed event starting at noon on a Saturday, by 6pm I realized that all I had accomplished was cleaning up and priming all the parts. Yes! That kit had 6 hours of clean up to get to that point. And I was working quickly! It's all a matter of personal preference and the results you are satisfied with achieving.

soaked in formaldehyde

Absolutely agree. Paul and Dwayne (90 Crown Vic) are true sculptors who get these shapes just right. It doesn't happen the first time, but they keep at it until it's perfect. I wish I had their eye and talent myself! This is the very example of why we need to stop those casters who choose to bootleg and offer original work. Guys like Paul and Dwayne deserve to able to sell and profit from their work without fear that someone is going to be popping out copies for a quick buck. There is at least one caster who is shamelessly copying Modelhaus models, some of which is Paul's work. We need to put them out of business by refusing to purchase these copies.

Very cool. Lotsa work there and love the use of Chevy grille bar for the tail light unit!

Hey Mike! I like that a whole lot. Right in my rusty zone! I own one copy of the kit, and haven't found an extra just yet. I'd love to build it and use the second one for parts. I have a Doodle Bug that would benefit from some of the parts as well as the hood and other accessories for some rat rod!

My father was US Army attached to NATO and we lived in Izmir, Turkey from 1966-1968. I was a little car guy even then. The Turkish economy was in tatters and they had banned all auto imports after a certain date. They had no auto industry then, so there were no new cars available at any price. Four door American cars were coveted and repaired by skilled craftsmen no matter how bad the accident was! And with no replacement parts. They'd hand bang out body panels until they were perfect. To maximize the taxi loads, they'd stretch cars to have an extra row of seats. In 1967 the Turks started their auto industry with the Anadol, which was a small fiberglass 2 door sedan. Eventually that became a full line including light trucks with the same nose. Eventually their own auto industry flourished. Most of the taxi's in Turkey are "Falcon"s a home grown car that wouldn't look out of place in Europe. Ford did some major investments and the first version of the Transit Connect vans we got in the USA were made in Turkey. Eventually the people there got more affluent and the old American cars got tossed aside. Today the traffic in Turkey looks like anywhere in Europe. Just go to Google Street View and walk a few blocks in Izmir or Ankara. The last part of the story is that when we arrived in Izmir in 1966 my father had a brand new Pontiac LeMans 2 door hardtop with 326 and 4 speed. It was dark blue with a white bucket interior. That was our family car. And we were lucky that it was one of the last cars imported into Turkey that was eligible for sale. All cars after a certain date had to be exported back out when you left. My father made a deal with a rich hotel owner for the car. He sold it for more than he paid for it new, and bargained in a month long stay at a waterfront hotel when we had to vacate our apartment and ship our stuff back to the US. The guy had to buy the car and pay 100% import duty. Not out of line if you are rich and there is nothing to buy!

I'd say you were either on their site, or clicked on one of their articles from another site like Facebook that had a subscription thingie buried in it But that doesn't explain where they got your credit card info. All you should need to do is go to your credit card people and deny the charge and any future charges from that vendor. I had the same issue when Sam's Club shut down. Walmart decided to keep on billing me for the annual membership each year. One call stopped it.

and eating shrimp

I stopped into my local store here in Exton PA on Saturday. Nothing to report! Nothing on sale, some empty slots. Left empty handed!

Great! There are probably a dozen different variations of that kit. I have probably 6 of them, but not that one.

Cool. I'm finishing up my 50 pickup this week! Glad to see you filled in the door handles... fiddly little bits!

HOLD MY BEER!

Same here. Clean up, prime, inspect and then paint the wee bits. In my case I use mostly automotive sprays, so priming the parts is necessary to protect the plastic so it doesn't do weird things! I will glue together bare plastic of assemblies like an engine block and everything on it that gets painted the same color, parts of a rear end etc, prior to priming. I just cringed when I watched that HPI Guy's video where he was spray painting complete parts trees with hardware store paint!

nor were harmed

Welcome! Your story is similar to a lot of ours! I too started out around 10 years old in 1968, and walked away as I hit that age of real cars and girls. I had several false starts back into the hobby over the years. I still would cruise the model aisle at the toy stores and occasionally buy one. I amassed a small collection of maybe 2 dozen kits. Every few years I'd start a kit, then not being pleased with my results and progress, I'd pack it up again. Then I found Scale Auto Enthusiast Magazine at a magazine store while on a business trip to Boston in the late 1980s. I was amazed that there was a model car magazine once again! In the back of that magazine was a classified ad to join the Tri-State Scale Model Car Club in New Jersey. I responded and started attending the meetings. That was the jump start I needed. My problem had been whenever I started building again, I did so with my 15 year old skill set. As soon as I had a peer group, I learned tons and my models improved exponentially! That was enough to keep me interested and still building 30 years later!

Looks great from the East Coast of the USA! Especially considering what you started out with! Have you decided on what to do with the tail lights yet?