Tom Geiger

Ha! Part of modeling is doing things twice, sometimes three times until we get it right! With my current '50 Ford project, I could've built two kits in the time I spent on redos! Some folks look at our models and think we are magicians who never do anything wrong. But it's really that we keep at it until we get it right!

Looking good Joe! Keep moving forward!

If there are masters. A lot of the R&R stuff was just repops of old kits. It's known that some of his stuff was molds made from past copies, resulting in soft copies. Lord knows what he wound up with.

And of course the way my life goes... Everyone else gets big bucks for their stuff, my auctions will fizzle! As soon as I sell something, I'll realize I need it!

There is an earlier AMT US version Rabbit. It is a 1/25 scale kit. This one was for sale on eBay for $80, I believe the tooling still exists and not sure if Round 2 is planning on reissuing it anytime soon. VW actually built Rabbits in the USA for a while.

And didn't you guys north of the border suffer through a bunch of Ladas also? Nothing like obsolete Fiats to curse at! At least they didn't sell those in the US.

A great start! That's one of my favorite kits. The seats are from the kit, along with the console, were the custom interior. The trim on the trunk lid is faint and hard to detail. The door hinges didn't work well and you will be better off making your own hinges from wire.

RMR is Ron Andrews. He's been an NNL East vendor for many years. His work is nice. R&R was the first volume resin caster at a low price point. His kits ranged from direct repops of old kits, to wagon and sedan conversions. It was said that you needed to take a look at an R&R creation before buying it. Sometimes the details would be "good 'enuf". Missing a detail crease, wrong shape on a roof line, things like that. He'd simplify the kit by molding it with details like headlights in place rather than as separate pieces. They also would run a mold beyond it's life, and would produce some second generation molds, which resulted in rounded corners and muddy details on scripts and such. It wasn't Modelhaus quality but it wasn't Modelhaus prices either. You did get what you paid for! Ray was also an NNL East vendor and was a nice enough guy. He was a bit gruff, and for some odd reason he never had prices on his kits at shows. You'd have to ask, "How much for this one?" and by the third kit or so he was getting a little agitated! Still, I'd buy a kit or two when ever I saw him. I have a bunch of R&R kits. Whenever you saw him at a show and asked how it was going, he'd remark, "This is the last year I'm doing this." That went on for several years. Then he found an eBay vendor, Mighty Mouse to sell for him and he stopped doing shows. The last time I saw Ray was a surprise appearance at NNL East. He wasn't a vendor so I was surprised when he strolled up to the admissions desk as a spectator. He was in the best mood I ever saw him in! He had a bunch of his kits he gave us for door prizes. He told me that he was happy now. He liked working in the shop and cranking out kits, it was the selling and traveling part he didn't like. It was good to see him. The next year he died. Ron at RMR has a task ahead of him sorting through the R&R molds. He has to figure out which ones are good to produce and which ones shouldn't be cast again. I can imagine that some of the molds have aged out in the five years they've been sitting also.

Can we call this a "design feasibility study"? My model, I was thinking how cool it would be to build in 1:1

Exactly! I don't even think I wasted a carb and air cleaner on mine!

I have that garage kit and was always perplexed by the single garage. When have you seen a service station with a single bay? You have solved that and made it look like it was made that way! Hurrah!

Very nice. We don't see these old classics built!

I think I would've done the chrome first and then the filler panel. At this point, mask it all off and use Alclad.

Long drive!

I've never really sold anything in all the years I've been building / collecting as an adult... that's 31 years of hoarding! I was down in the model vault the other day looking for something. I'm fairly organized. Most of the unbuilt kits are in AMT/Revell cases and each one is marked with the contents "Chevy Pickups" "Mopar 1960s" etc. so I usually find what I seek pretty easily. Then I looked at the large boxes in the back corner of the room. These are Home Depot Large moving boxes, half a dozen of them, that I've never looked into in the nine years since I moved! They are full of oversized kits, foreign kits I swear I've never seen before and other things I will never ever build. So yes, it may be time to start thinning.

or duck quickly!

Now let's see if they actually pay! Even with Modelhaus out of business, never say never! I'd venture that like model cars, a small percentage of resin actually gets built. Lately I've seen a few collections of resin kits offered at shows. Either people are passing away or liquidating their hoards. With patience we will see it in the secondary market

That's Sanjay from one of the first seasons of American Idol. Guess he found a career! BTW, Ford looks great!

Okay this one isn't that bad... my earliest photos are 2005! This one should've been done other than all the do overs! I had to build the engine twice. I am decaling the body three times. I am cleaning up and painting a second fender unit and this darn cheap paint is driving me crazy! But I am determined! It's sooo close! Just a lot of nitpicking little details and final assembly.

Anudder no progress report! I did get the '50 Ford's flathead wired correctly this time! I wanted to finish the chassis so I spent a few hours cursing at the shock absorbers and their non-cooperation to fall into place. Finally got them sorta right, then touched up the paint on them that got scratched or worn in the process. The shock absorber dilemma was accentuated by the big mess on the workbench. So this morning I spent an hour or so clearing it off and sorting out everything I need to finish this project. There is no stock horn, so I pulled one out of my parts bins and drilled / attached a mounting pin to it. I laid out all the parts on my side table and test fit a few things. Another set back - I tried the fenders onto the body and found I had placed the Island Tours decals too low! Right into the frigging fenders. I dumped the body into the sink and soaked the decals off. I will have to make another batch! Argh. This will be the third batch! I decided to solve the warped fender unit by using a new one from my extensive '50 Ford pickup parts bin. A few years ago I dumped something like 6 of this kit into a bin and am happily building out of it. New fender unit has been painted yellow with the screwy hardware store paint that takes forever to dry. It will need a second coat. So this puppy has been messing with me every step of the way. I should've lost patience by now. I'm hoping to have it finished for my club meeting next Saturday.

I agree, that Fabric Tan looks great and has a bit of texture. I used it on a recent project.

https://motobitz.uk/decals.html I had searched earlier!

Cool light commercial decals! I vote for the Guinness!

One of my previous employers had their data center in a location with sketchy power. There were four huge diesel engines in the basement that ran the generators to keep it all up and running.

Nice job on the Cuban Chevy- Note a few things, very few of these cars have original paint. Most are painted poorly in what ever colors were available locally in that year. Your bright Caribbean Blue is perfect! Same with interiors. Most are locally stitched, so again Score! Perfect! Mirrors- fine without, but a lot of the cars have big modern aftermarket mirrors on them. The only extra I could suggest is to add a small "Taxi" sign on the windshield. Many if not most of these cars are pressed into tourist taxi service because it's one of the biggest money making opportunities on the island! Here's an example of the windshield "Taxi" sign. This one shows every bit of 60 years of hard service on an island. It probably is running a Russian diesel engine too.