Tom Geiger

Yippee! I got my brass rod! I'm in NJ at my daughter's new house this weekend. Stopped into "The Hobby Shop" in Aberdeen, NJ and they indeed had a K&S rack! So I bought all the sizes of brass rod I could ever want! I believe it's the #8160 I'll be using to make the Ford Model A radiator / hood supports.

I first got the reissue of this kit and the Double Dragster kit the same evening at a club meeting. I got home, opened them up and nearly freaked! You could build like a thousand variations between those two kits! No wonder that was the heyday of modeling!

Very cool model! Loads of imagination in this one. Perfect to do battle on the New Jersey Turnpike!

I find it interesting. We will be seeing more vehicles from different countries. China has been anxious to sell vehicles here. In fact we have had Chinese engines in Chevys already, and I did see Chinese made small utility vehicles that weren't street legal for sale here. We forget that the VW Foxes came from Brazil and a bunch of US labeled cars were produced in Mexico. We were so focused on watching out for cars from China, nobody seemed to notice when Ford sent us Transit Connect vans from Turkey. The current version is made in Spain. And I believe VW manufactures cars in Eastern Europe.. I think Poland. Yes, it's an international game now. Won't be long before we see these... and of course Chrysler is not happy: https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/fiat-chrysler-seeks-block-mahindra-jeep-look-alike-us To Mahindra's credit, they are shipping knocked down kits to the USA and doing final assembly in Detroit. They have invested $600 million into their facility and will employ 670 workers. Detroit needs that about now.

Nice work! Devils Right Hand... I was expecting RHD!

Thanks guys, I will try the local ACE store if I strike out today at the hobby shop in NJ. I'm trying to finish up my Monogram Model As and need a piece to make the radiator support rods. I also replaced most of the clunky chassis parts with rod so I want the sizes to complete a few more chassis.

I am all out of K&S brass rod. That's why I tried to hit the Hobby Town in West Chester, Pa that's no longer there. Then I went out of my way to go to Mainline Hobbies in Plymouth Meeting, Pa, who had an Evergreen rack but told me he got rid of the K&S brass rack because they sold it at Home Depot or Lowes... he couldn't remember which. So today I hit both Home Depot, then Lowes and nope neither had K&S brass. I had already tried Michaels and Hobby Lobby but out of sheer desperation I went to AC Moore which also didn't stock the product. I am going to New Jersey tomorrow, and I will scream out loud if that hobby shop doesn't have a K&S rack! If they do, I will make a sizable purchase and will be able to finish my Model As.

Interesting. And you knew it was bound to happen. Indian car manufacturer Mahindra has been building Jeeps for the homeland since the 1940s. They have set up shop here in the US and are producing a small Jeep for sale here. I saw a commercial for one this evening and couldn't believe what I was seeing. So I looked on the Internet and found that it's true... Prices start in the $15000 range... https://jalopnik.com/the-mahindra-roxor-is-a-tiny-offroad-jeep-to-conquer-am-1823460351

Flies are easy! We have wasps. They have nested up on the roof, coming and going from under a shingle. A few of them a day make their way into the house, one of which stung me on the back of my neck. Not fun. I have been spraying them like crazy, killing a ton of them but there are always a few more.

And what is the first thing you think of when a Toyota pulls up next to you with a big TRD logo?

I am just a participant. I will be the guy with the gray hair.

Rode along with this guy for 20 miles or so on the NJ Turnpike the other day... driving in the rain.

The thing I didn't like about the 1:1 was that huge blank spot of a C-pillar. It just ruins the entire truck's design. I will probably get one of these kits though!

Nooooooo! I've seen those old promos blow up like a Gummy Bear in Vodka from brake fluid. I don't know what modern alternative would be safe with that plastic.

Here's two more that were photographed at last Saturday's TSSMCC meeting. I believe these were built by Doug Van Houten.

I love old Crown Vics! Both my grandfather and father were into them. This was their last one, passed down to me. I drove it over 200,000 miles and gave it away to my bro-in-law back when gas went over $4 a gallon and we thought it would hit $5. Gotta love the trunk capacity! I just got the Dwayne/Greg Wann resin Vic to replicate it. The last time we looked for a family car, I was thinking late model Vic. A friend of mine had a low mile Mercury and I was also looking at an ex government / not a cop car one with very low miles as well. My wife vetoed it since she would have been the main driver. Way too big for her! She also vetoed a Chrysler 300 but somehow we got her into a Buick Lacrosse! Go figger!

Part Two -- for some reason the board wouldn't accept the entire post, maybe too many pictures... Here's a mix of kit decals and inkjet ones. The "Checkers" lettering, the phone and the taxi stripe all came from the Revell '37 Ford pickup kit. The word "Taxi" the number "32" and the phone number are all inkjet. The phone number is my old one from when I lived in NJ. Note that the black inkjet worked fine over yellow. The advertising topper is also inkjet but printed on paper. There are instances like this, and license plates where I'd rather print on paper and use white glue than fiddle with decal stock. Here's red and blue inkjet over silver paint. It works! Note that all my lettering was created in Microsoft Word. This one is mainly from the NNL East decal sheet, and the bus was created to use the sheet. But the "OLD S'COOL" lettering is an inkjet decal. And lastly, here is red over beige paint, my current project. I also found that I can use decal fixative over these. Note that I clear coat the decals with several coats of Testors decal fixative. So this is my take on inkjet decals. Use them to your advantage, plan your work ahead and they can be a big help to getting a model together. Note that with proper planning you can make effective use of inkjet decals. It gives me the ability to create text and images quickly at home. I hope this helps someone!

I make a lot of my own decals. Here's a few things I learned along the way. Inkjet decals are translucent. Think stained glass windows! As said earlier in this thread, professionally printed decals have a mask of solid white under them, that the rest of the design is printed on top of. That's why you can put a kit decal over black paint... sometimes! There are still times where the darker color can affect a decal. Don't abandon the idea of inkjet decals, just work a strategy to make them work for you! I create my decals on my Cannon inkjet on BMF brand clear decal paper. I use the Testors decal fixative in spray can. I will print and allow them to air dry for 24 hours. I then give them a light coat of the fixative, let that dry, and follow up with a few more coats. And then I'll allow that to dry 24 hours before I attempt to use them. (I build slow anyway so that timing doesn't affect me!) One thing you need to know is that when you print decals, the entire sheet is a decal. Unlike where you can cut the backing paper wide around a kit decal and you get a neat predetermined decal, you will need to trim your decal very carefully, because what you cut is what you get! I tend to plan my decals so I have simple designs onto light backgrounds. A decal always works well on white. It will also work on lighter colors like light yellow, and you can experiment on other colors. Important to note that if your source image has white as part of the design and you put the decal on yellow paint, those white area will be yellow. Dark color ink will work on darker colors. For instance black lettering can be done against red paint. Again, you will need to test and see what is working for your project. I will also say that you can add the white mask under your decal, Cady decal style. Print your image on the clear stock, then print the outline of the image on white stock, cut it to size and use it under your image decal. I've done that. You can also paint the area where you are going to apply the decal white. I find my best strategy when creating light commercial vehicles and fictitious race cars is to plan them so that the decals are on white or light areas. For instance, here's my still to be finished Valiant stock car. The Court Jester is a restaurant we like in New Jersey. They have two locations in Matawan and Freehold. I love their Jester logo, and wanted to use it on my car. I swiped the images from their website. Note that I planned the car so everywhere I wanted to place a decal is white. The Jester and all the black lettering were printed on my inkjet. The numbers "30" were not, those are off the professionally printed NNL East 30th anniversary decal sheet. Here's an example of printing onto a white decal on the trunk lid. Still not perfect. Maybe if I did a double image, one decal on top of another. Another experiment, copying the memory of the real truck.... I sprayed white decal paper silver, flat coated it and then printed the image on the inkjet. I believe I printed half a dozen and selected the best one. Here's what happens when you use an inkjet decal over color. Note the white areas in the geyser are green because you cannot print white. This decal would have been an easy one to put a white decal circle under. I left it because it works for the rat rod thing.

Welcome! You are from my favorite beer city!

We will be there!

Wow Alan! How time flies! And NNL East is like twice the size it was on your first visit! I forgot the entire back story about that Fury. And I didn't even have photos of the Valiant, although it was sitting in the Olde Kustom Kollection showcase. So here they are together, I took some quick photos yesterday afternoon. Note that the original builder had one can of paint. And he applied it thick. These are really horrible paint jobs! The vendor proclaimed them absolutely ruined and useless so I believe I paid $5 each for them. Little did he know what we saw in them! Now I'm off to New Jersey and my club meeting!

I seriously need to clean my model room! I keep saying I'll do it as soon as I finish my current project, but I start another one! Here's an article I wrote eons ago about this subject: http://www.carsandracingstuff.com/library/articles/0090.php If you click on my name in the article, it will take you to an index of 18 of my old "The Model Citizen" columns. I'm honored that this site collected them and has preserved them here!

Ha! Am I the only person who actually enjoys applying BMF? I find it relaxing. And there is no other single action that produces the greatest improvement on a model for the time spent!

Testors Clearcoat-- you may be able to see in this photo that the body and the wheels are now two different colors. I had clear coated the body, but not the wheels. They were both plain ole white!

I'm another Duplicolor user! Note that some Duplicolor paints are matches to real auto colors that require a clear coat. Those will go on flat until you add the clear coat. I just painted a '29 Ford Phaeton body with Duplicolor beige clear coat... it went on flat and very even. I have clear coated it with Tamiya clear for a perfect shine. I'm not even going to try to polish it.