Tom Geiger

Nice work. I love that kit! I once had a 1970 Impala like that. Mine was triple gold and had a 350. It had a trunk you could put half a dozen bodies into!

I got all new tires on the Buick Lacrosse yesterday. New alignment too. My local garage is also a tire dealer so I bought them from him. He's honest and I enjoy patronizing his shop. Even if I could've gotten the tires somewhere else cheaper. He told me he'll keep track of the rotations and do it whenever necessary. Same with flats, just bring the car in. It had been riding poorly, that snow tire effect. My guy advised me that the tires were worn bad due to bad alignments both front and rear. He says it rides like a dream now. Now I cannot wait to hit the Turnpike tomorrow to check out the new ride!

Ah it's suddenly 2014 again! For me the "Zen" is the total concentration that model building requires. I don't get that from things like browsing on the Internet or watching TV. Those passive type activities only take part of my mind. I'm still worrying, thinking about work issues and the like at the same time. But model building takes me away from my daily bull. I generally don't bother with TV or music because my concentration tunes them out. When I take a beer to the work bench, it goes warm. I can look up and 2 hours have passed. I don't even care what I accomplished, I'm happy. And my headaches have gone away, I feel refreshed!

Brian- I love that fabric tan! It has a texture to it. I just used it on a project. Tulio- You have a hobby shop in Brazil? Please take pictures next time you go there!

My week in models. I've been on a Monogram Model A binge lately. I grabbed this 30 Cabriolet from the 'bay for $15. It was listed as "parts kit - may not be complete". That was fine because I needed parts. Upon receiving it, I cannot find anything missing at all! I've used the stock 4 in a current project. This one will use the Chevy V8 from that project. I bought my friend, Tim Boyd's book! Everyone needs to do this. It arrived yesterday so I know what I'm doing in my spare time this weekend. The top photo is my score from the Super September Showdown last weekend. Spent a total of $20 at the show. The Duster has a partially brush painted body, but I wanted it for the chassis to use in an old Valiant build, so $10 was fine. The Monza is one of those Lindberg 1/32 scale 70s cars. I never pass one of those up for $5. I've been trying to collect that whole series. And yes, yet another Monogram Model A for $5. Brush painted but very nicely built. It does have the tires with it, so I'm going to just put it on the shelf until I need it for a project. Funny thing, another vendor had an old poorly built 1930 Ford Cabriolet that he wanted $25 for, I just chuckled that I had an unbuilt one in a box for much less!

Same kit that I came into cheap, I didn't follow the instructions!

New Jersey Turnpike. I stopped for gas. I'm sitting at the pump and noticed this truck. My first thought when I saw the soft sides was that it was a car transporter. Soon enough someone opened a back panel showing off the apple green Porsche! I can only imagine what the rest of the cargo was! Pennsylvania Turnpike in the rain.. you had to see this one. Doc's Pool Service. The logo is Jesus sitting in a kiddie pool with rubber duckies!

Actually not, they will always be useful as a first class stamp, but you can buy them discounted already. There are tons of stamps out there! Here you go, 39 cents apiece.....

There's a guy in my club who doesn't build anymore, but likes to buy nice built models on eBay. He enjoys bringing them to shows, but always let's people know he's not the builder and that they are just there for display.

You guys will argue about anything! Truth is, it's universally understood that a model car contest is a test of the builder/owners skills. Anyone looking for a loop hole that this specific contest's rules omitted that is dishonest. I don't know how anyone could enjoy winning a model contest, knowing they didn't build the model. In the end they are only cheating themselves. They will never know the joy of winning a trophy for their own efforts.

Back in 2001... Walmart had a gift set, 2 of their AMT Checkerboard 1/25 car kits, a showcase and an Ertl Hot Wheel size car kit, all shrink wrapped together for $20 or so. I came across these on the clearance aisle for $5 each. There were 20 of them and it would've been a $100 purchase. I had recently been laid off and was worried about money so I passed and walked away. In the end I found a new job quickly, way before my severance ran out so I wound up being paid by both companies for several months. I should've bought them!

I was sponsoring a class in Charleston, South Carolina starting on Tuesday next week. Per our corporate travel department, we cancelled the class. Better safe than sorry! Best wishes to everyone in the storm's path. For Hurricane Sandy we evacuated our family from our home at the Jersey shore to our house in Pennsylvania. There wasn't power in the shore towns for weeks! Our home there had some damage, but the next town over was destroyed! Be safe! Get outta there!

Nice model of an awful car! Here's a photo of the 1979 Capri RS V8 car that I bought new. This photo was a happy occasion because it was as it sat on the dealer lot AFTER I traded it in. This car was a problem from day one. And a nightmare to own for the 3 years we had it.

That's called a "plate block". That's the serial number of the plate that the stamp was printed from, and it's collected since there is only one per sheet of 50 or 100 stamps. As a life long stamp collector, I'm dismayed with the direction USPS has taken. During my life there were strict rules to what subjects could be depicted on a stamp. It had to be of national historic value and not of a commercial product. During reasonable years, there would be a dozen commemorative stamps issued during a year. In the past 20 years, that's all been tossed out the window. Large sets of meaningless subjects and they've killed the collector's market with things like this 20 different stamps featuring Hot Wheels cars (a commercial product). Each year USPS puts out 100 different commemorative stamps and people have tired of trying to collect it all. Kids cannot afford to collect. Many collectors I know have cut off their collections at a certain date. Some at 1999, mine only goes up to 1980. No reason to collect the newer stuff. And don't buy these for future appreciation. The collectors market is so saturated with stamps that they aren't even worth face value. The last two large lots I bought were at 60% and 50% off face value to use as postage.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I thought about it all day. Amen

Nice work! Yes that Buick was scary.. in it's special Christmas theme colors!

Model car kits should sell for $2 each because that's what they cost back in 1960. PS- Get off my lawn I remember having a conversation with someone from Revell, it may have been Ed, about some of the parts requests they were getting... When Revell came out with the '66 Chevelle wagon with a custom hood, suddenly everyone was missing the stock hood in their '66 El Camino kit! Also how it was funny how people would be missing specific parts from different trees... such as "my kit was missing the custom wheels and the tires for same"... Idiots seriously took advantage!

In honor of this thread, you guys deserve to see these! I bought them as a lot many years ago. Seller wasn't a model guy and said they were stored on a shelf of a garage. The dirt scared off a lot of bidders, so I got them for $25 plus postage.

Ok, ancient history time... My oldest survivor is my Mini Cooper. I've had this since I was 12 or 13, early 1970s. This was available from AutoWorld as a finished car in a case, and in Europe it was sold that way and as a prepainted diecast kit. I lived in Germany at the time, so mine was a kit. You can see some of my custom touches. Testors brush painted hood with arrow decals off some aircraft model. I didn't like the grill supplied so I blacked out the opening. Testors sticky white lettering on the tires that might be dry by now. At one time it had cut down Mustang GT caps on it, but I found the original metal ones on a later parts car I got on eBay. Dig the orange felt carpet. Somehow this one survived all these years on my knick knack shelf. I still love my Mini! Most everything I had from my teen years got trashed by my father after I moved out of the house. The closet everything was stored in got termite infested so he chucked everything! The only kits that survived were a few Airfix 1/32 cars, an unbuilt Revell Porsche 914 and this Anglia I started to build in my early teens. Didn't get all that far, other than this poor paint job! I still have it in the box. That's what exists from my youth. I got back into the hobby in 1989 and I have all the models I have built since! I can post some of those early ones if requested.

Agreed! I'm thankful for this! Some of the guys we know in this hobby are friggin political loonies on Facebook. I've lost a lot of respect for some folks. Little did we know politics would be the end of this hobby! My peeve today? It's gonna rain all weekend. And predicted for next weekend too! The last two pool weekends of the season!

Since this has pretty much turned into a diecast thread, I bought this one yesterday at Hobby Lobby. Their price $29.99 minus the 40% coupon. Greenlight VW TV themed as Lost - Dharma Van. On the show Dharma had several of these in decent shape, below is a shot of the ones the Lost survivors found in the jungle and got to run. This one is missing the VW front emblem, and has a tampo Dharma logo. The other version HL had of this van was "Field of Dreams". That one came in two color schemes and had a dusty look to it. It had a roof rack with associated holes in the roof. No VW emblem on that one either, it has a front mounted spare tire. Greenlight calls it 1/24 scale and it does compare well to the later van, Revell's Van Camper.

Agreed Bill. And yes, I'm currently driving a 2015 Hyundai Elantra! It is a belly button car, they are everywhere and I see red ones just like mine on the road every day. And I will say that it's a much better car than anything from the 1950s-70s. My base model car has power everything, contoured comfortable bucket seats, back up camera and sunroof and can cruise at 80 on the Turnpike all day long without a whimper and delivering a consistent 32 MPG at the same time. I've put close to 30,000 trouble free miles on it since January and have only done oil changes and changed the air filters. I've had it up to 100 MPH by accident and didn't even notice. Now back in the day in New Jersey there was a lone stretch of the new Route 18 that didn't connect to anything, so there was no traffic. We young clowns would get out there and try to push our 60s cars up to 100mph just to say we did it. No matter which car we had... 66 Impala, 70 Impala, 66 Valiant, 65 Barracuda, 66 Mustang... all of those cars would shake and groan over 80, and felt like we were leaving the Earth's atmosphere when we barely touched 100 and then let off the gas out of fear for our lives!

Nice builds Vince! I know I've seen some of them before! Great work!

I recently learned that First Gear has a couple different Scout variations in the $30-40 range. And how about a C1100 pickup? Never will be a kit of one of these!

Welcome Noman! It's an honor to have a new member from Pakistan! Can you tell us about the hobby in your country? Do you know other model builders? Are there clubs? Where do you buy your model kits? There are things you can teach us as well!