Tom Geiger

It is what it is! Model building started out as a pastime for kids. Same kids today, only we got old when nobody was looking! As both the hobby and injection molding technology matured, we've come a long way to the kits that are being produced today. We owe a lot of this to the Japanese manufacturers who led the way to amazing kits. The new Revell has been described as "Tamiya-like" on this board. The collectibles hobby hadn't evolved back in the day. That's why the early Hess trucks and Hot Wheels are valuable today. They were just toys then, adults weren't collecting them in that era. Today we have the best of worlds, due to business inefficiencies of the past all this glorious tooling somehow survived, stored willy nilly in dead warehouses. That wouldn't happen in today's fast paced, computerized business world! So we have the privilege of buying and building the kits we remember building as kids. AND we have the ability to improve them to modern standards with the chassis and assemblies from more contemporary kits. Life is pretty darn good!

No doubt that was the original plan under Ed Sexton and team. Let's see the follow through of the "new" Revell, and what their commitment to the USA market will be in the future.

I've enjoyed the reports of your adventures in Idaho! Everyone daydreams about doing something like this, but few actually do it! Good for you!

Tim, when I started to read your post I immediately thought about my tool box. This is a cheapie small replica of a real mechanics tool box, but too light for real use. My father had bought it and I wound up with it when he died. It's perfect for the model room. I keep all my tools in it and can roll it where ever needed.

No model related Christmas gifts for me! I tell family not to, since I buy what I want at pretty good discounts and it would bother me to have them buying wrong or duplicate kits at full retail. So I got some new shirts and a pair of pint glasses engraved with my name. My wife and I are too practical and don’t exchange gifts. This year was all about my one year old granddaughter learning how to tear wrapping paper off presents and her excitement! Can’t beat that!

Nice variety of builds! I love the RHD PT Cruiser

We didn’t put up a tree either, not a single visitor to our house in PA. We have gone to our daughters in NJ for the holiday, so we have plenty of Christmas around us

Before I cut small pieces off the fret, I’ve backed them with a piece of Scotch Tape to keep them in place once cut free. I’ve also placed them on the model on same tape as it’s big enough to hold onto and since you can see through it, you can place the part. Then it holds the part in place until it dries, then carefully peel off. i also like canopy cement.

Lookin good! A good use for that old promo, they are a dime a dozen so it’s nice to see one done up. I’ve redone both a Chevette and a Cavalier.

That’s really cool!

Nice collection Pat! Especially that 1925 Dodge, I loved the build thread on that one. A hard fought battle!

Hi Pat- weathered models after my own soul! Love your photo back drop too! It's very realistic.

Neat! That's a nice build of one of my favorite old kits!

Corvette diorama after the sink hole?

Great builds! Lots of cool little details, you have the eye for this kind of work! I love the headliner on the '54 Chevy and the broken plastic grill on the Blazer! I hate when people melt/bend those like they are metal on the 1:1. I remember gluing pieces back on my father's '71 Belair's grill. The '55 pickup is one of my favorite kits, so I love to see those done nicely. I'll bet many people didn't notice the small window with scratch built slider! And I like the small roadkill marks on the front bumper too! You had a good year!

Love your color choices! Great models.

aha! I thought I had a build thread on this one! I didn't get it done for my Christmas Amnesty Build last year, so I did it again for this year... So it's finished. See thread in Under Glass:

Cool stuff Phil!

I don't remember if I ever had a build thread on the board for this one... but this year's Christmas Amnesty Build is completed! So here we go Under Glass.... Here's where we started. Back when I got into models some 30 years ago, Scale Auto gave you a free classified ad when you subscribed. I used mine for a want ad "Valiants, Valiants Anywhere?" and I bought some kits and built ups. And some stuff just showed up! This one was in a package donated to me by a guy in Colorado who sent two such broken bodies. It sat in my Valiant junk box for years just like you see it. Most notable is that some kid's mother wrote his name on his toy so he wouldn't lose it. I remember mothers doing that when I was a kid! About 12 years ago (according to my Fotki album date!), I started this project. The Valiant body was trashed with play wear. The wheel wells were broken and it had little dents in the plastic all over it. Never mind the roof mishap. Somehow, somebody saved it anyway. The AMT Modified Stockers came out and I thought it would be neat to have a Valiant stocker. The original idea was to take the Falcon Stocker and just transplant it all into the Valiant shell. Simple enough? You know I never get off that easy. Once I had found the Falcon chassis didn't fit, and it was missing so much detail it didn't pass muster. I grabbed a chassis from a junker AMT '71 Duster and figured out how to shorten it. You just slice 5 scale inches out right in front of the rear spring mount, and it pins right together. It's right where there is no detail on the chassis so if you cut clean there is literally no putty work! The Valiant progressed. I cut out the hood and glued in the engine room from the Duster kit. There are small changes that occurred from 1963 to 1971 but nothing that would bother me with this model. And I was so pleased with my progress that I sacrificed a fairly clean 1964 Valiant body for a new roof. The other Valiant is in progress to be a convertible so it won't be wasted. I found that the interior from the Fireball 500 would fit the bill. After all it was the stock piece from this kit modified into the 2 seater. Yes, I know stock cars don't have two seats, but I decided to build more of an exhibition car that I'd want to own today. And just like the Stock Car Racing Experience cars you can ride in and drive at Pocono Raceway, this one is gonna have a passenger seat! The roll cage and wheels are the only thing that actually made it from the Falcon Stocker onto my model. I ruined THREE of the roll cages to get my final result. This was cut into MANY parts and all joined together with bits of straight pin. So for you guys who think we build by magic, nope! We just didn't give up. I'll also mention that the chassis under it is the second one too. There were mistakes made with the first one from a junker, and the second one came from an unbuilt donor car. Now we know how to do this for future builds. And just for illustrative purposes, here's the construction of the roll cage. As frustrating as it was! Working with pins is fairly easy, I use a cheap pair of wire cutters. As this car came into shape, I didn't want to use any of my precious 1963-65 Valiant / Barracuda bumpers since Modelhaus is gone. And they are light little bumpers on the real cars anyway. So I modified a set of '57 Chevy bumpers to fit the Valiant. They are cut in three pieces each to narrow them down and leave in the center detail. I left some of the welds visible. The front over rider is a bit bent up too. They are mounted on straight pins. Here we are ready for our two toning. There is plenty of Duplicolor primer gray under the Duplicolor white. Note the Tamiya tape is used for the critical edges, but the rest of the roof was then covered with cheaper 3M painters blue tape. And here's our first shot of the two tone with Duplicolor Flame Red. There was some minor clean up needed, which I did with light sand paper. I was pleased with the results. The paint job isn't supposed to be perfect. It's a cheap garage paint job on a local car. And that brings us to today! The Court Jester is a restaurant local to my home in New Jersey. There were a couple of them, and now there are just two in Aberdeen and Freehold, New Jersey. I always liked their mascot, he peeks out from different places in their menu, so I always wanted to use the theme on a model. So here it is. I made the decals on my inkjet printer. The "30"s are from the NNL East decal sheet. Note that the paint scheme was planned out to use decals on the white sections. The trunk decal was done on white decal paper as an experiment to see how well they covered. And the NNL East decals were professionally produced, so they don't have the short comings of ink jet decals. The "Thanks Mom!" on the back is a tribute to Martin Terry's mother for making sure he didn't lose this Valiant, and for saving it! Engine is the 340 from that same '71 Duster kit with just basic wiring. Air cleaner fit under the hood, I wasn't looking forward to cutting that ancient hood! The screen is cheap plastic window screen. I had a pack and wouldn't use it on my house, but it's perfect for model cars! Sharp eyes will note that our driver is none other than Martin Terry, the original owner of this model! Chuck Rehberger and I have this running joke about Martin and what would happen if he saw the finished model someday. As mentioned, chassis is a shortened version of the AMT '71 Duster unit. I made the exhaust from different exhaust system pieces found in my parts box. The gas tank was removed and replaced with Evergreen corrugated siding. This is my Christmas Amnesty Build for 2018, finished up last night. It really feels good to get this 12 year project into the display case! And I'll bet Chuck is pleased! And the Jester gives it a big Thumbs Up!

Yea, that green paint deserved to be stripped! Blotchy with no primer under it. Pretty standard bad paint job from us kids in 1968! I'm sure it came off easy!

A good year! I too like these type of threads. I will be posting my own at the end of the year. I should be finishing up at least one more, as I've been concentrating on completing those 90% finished models hanging off my bench!

Sometimes knowing the items went to someone who would appreciate them is enough! My father died in 1999 and he was an audio guy. Foot lockers full of old audio magazines that he never looked at, but we lugged around for decades. The very best stereo equipment, including some that was superseded, all back in their original boxes with paperwork. He had a huge record collection dating back to when he started in the mid 1950s. All in pristine shape, we're talking a dozen milk crates worth. I wanted to do right by him. I didn't want it to go in the trash since this was all important to him. And just like our heirs don't know anything about models, I knew zero about what I had in his collection. I started with the audio magazines on eBay. Started them at 99 cents each and they were bid up from there. the annual books sold in the $10-30 range. I made over $1000 on the paper. Then I hit the albums. I bought special record album mailers. I listed a bunch of them and had a 10% sell through at opening bid. It just wasn't worth the effort. I had listed 50 albums and sold 5. And I had at least 1000 albums. So I took them to a local flea market, put out all the crates and had a big sign that they were $1 each. I sold a good quantity of them. It was easier to put 5 albums in a grocery bag than to package them up to mail. I had nice conversations with collectors, some of which advised me that they were worth more. I told them to buy all they wanted, my goal was to put them in hands that would appreciate them as my father did. In the end, right before I moved, I ran into a lady who was very passionate about old records and gave the remainder to her. I saved them all from the landfill. My father would have been pleased. A year or two later I realized someone I knew was into old audio equipment. I found out when he posted on FaceBook that his beloved ancient 1968 tuner had given up the ghost. It sounded familiar so I checked. I had the exact same one mint in it's box. So I gave it to him. And when he picked it up he noticed a Tanberg reel to reel tape machine and said he always wanted one of those. So I gave him that too. I was happy that he loved them and would give them a good home. For some folks like me, settling my father's affairs was more about doing well by him than a profit.

Considering that I just finished up a '63 Valiant with an AMT '71 Duster chassis under it! It all depends on the project. I've built my share of curb sides, and kits with the promo style chassis. But if there is a nice modern kit chassis available, why not?

Rob, the first step would be to sell off the kits that you have multiples of, I see many in your photos. It's obvious you won't be building 6 of anything! That would get the hoard down from "Oh my God!" to merely overwhelming. I just turned 60, and in the past few years I've started using those parts I was saving for a special project someday. I haven't sold anything off just yet, but I've been thinking of selling some of the more valuable kits that I'll never touch. I don't hesitate to open a common kit to use for parts on a project. And I'll do the same for a friend who needs a part to finish a project.