Tom Geiger

A while back my wife and I were at a pub for dinner and there was an ancient photo framed on the wall I was facing.. it was a class photo from 1914. I couldn’t stop looking at it. Knowing they were all dead now, but there they were all young, smiling and ready to take on the world. You have to wonder how they all made out

My cell phone voice mail shows a written transcript. My favorite: You are hiding from the federal government. This needs to be rectified immediately so do return this call as soon as you receive the message. Stern male voice with no foreign accent

Back in last dark days of the hobby, the crayon factory had Revell / Monogram on the market and Racing Champs wanted out of AMT etal. Everyone was worried that it was the end of the hobby and all the tooling would be scrapped for metal value. I wrote an article.. wish I could find it now, that all this hobby needed was a smaller, leaner entity that could work to the reality of the size of the potential market. A company that understood the value in the vast vault of old kit tooling and knew how to pull the value out of it. Bam! Out of nowhere came Round 2, who was exactly that. RM got bought by Hobbyco, and there was a lot of worry that they'd limit distribution, and other hand wringing that never took place. They understood the market and invested in new tooling. New players emerged. Who would've thunk that a Moebius would pop up and produce a line of 1950s Hudsons. And there's more that has hit the market since. So I will go back to my point on that original article some 20 years ago. As long as there is a viable market of consumers, there will always be a company that will know how, and will want to fill that need. It's worked so far. No need to think it won't in the future.

I've had my pool cover open for two weeks and so far I've found drowned four squirrels and chipmunks floating. So I surmise that they do not swim well.

I have had this Exacto brand battery power drill for at least 25 years. I use it for all of my modeling work. It can be used with the very small drill bits, like number 72 bits. I bought it at a hobby shop back then, and I've never seen another one. The design is perfect since you hold it directly above what you are drilling. And the switch can be clicked on and off after each hole. It has one speed, I don't know what it is, the only markings on it are "Exacto - Made in Hong Kong". If someone sold a unit like this today, I could sell oodles of them in our hobby. For the very small bits, like number 80, I found I could glue them into scale heater hose to work with my drill.

I use the phone coupon. You can literally check out and get back on line and use it again. Cashiers really don't care. I was in HL one day. I checked out and got to my car and remembered something I forgot to buy. I went back in store and used the coupon again. A chuckle I shared with my club yesterday. When HL is busy they never have enough cashiers open, resulting in long lines. If I'm standing in a line, I chat and make sure everyone in that line knows about the 40% off coupon. You'd be surprised how many people don't and are grateful. And I figure I cost them more than having a second cashier open!

I'm going to agree with Steve. I don't have issues applying BMF. In fact I find it is the one single thing you can do to a model that drastically improves it instantly. I find it relaxing. The only symptom of old BMF... as in very old 10 years plus half sheet I found in the bottom of a drawer... was that it refused to come off the carrier sheet. So that's more like adhering too good than not at all. A few of my observations... where most people mess up with BMF is being too stingy with the product. When you buy 1:1 carpet, you order 25-30% more because there is that much waste in the installation. BMF is like that, but more like up to 50% waste. So you don't try to save little scraps. Those are the ones you will have issues with. A few of my rules- Cut a piece 3 times the width of that side trim. Center it and press down ONCE. Do not lift it back off the model and re position it. The glue is now tainted. Cut off those two sides to get a clean edge on your chrome strip. Lift off the excess foil and THROW IT AWAY. Do not return it to the carrier sheet to use again. It is tainted. Cut your strips long enough so you can position it by holding onto it with your fingers on either edge. The strip should be longer than needed so that you cut off and throw away the parts where your fingers touched the glue. Once your fingers touch the glue... it's tainted, throw it away. So the basic rule is that the BMF only touches the body ONCE. If your fingers or anything else have touched that glue, it's tainted and needs to be thrown away. It doesn't matter how attractive that removed piece is to you, it will come back to bite you later. And BMF is one of the most forgiving modeling tasks. If your chrome strip doesn't look right, pull it off THROW IT AWAY and try again with a fresh piece. There is no reason to accept a wrinkle or other deformity. Knife pressure- Use a new number 11 blade. You do not press down with the knife. The foil is very thin and will cut with the slight pressure. Put your knife in the groove you are following (like edge of a chrome strip) and just trace it like you are tracing lightly with a pencil. That should do it. Set a reasonable goal for how much BMF to attempt in one sitting. Don't over tire yourself, it just leads to mistakes. And once you are frustrated and lost patience, get up and walk away! It will look a whole lot better tomorrow! Figure that you will get 2 models out of an $8 sheet of BMF. Most of the mistakes I see are people not following the above set of rules. People trying to cut the strip the exact width of the chrome strip, touching and repositioning the strip several times, etc. And of course every time I post this, people debate me! If you are willing to accept mediocre results, so be it. If you want contest quality results, you can do it!

Considering that the 40 percent coupon is perpetually on both store’s website it really doesn’t matter

and it's actually odd to me that the clearance section is random, probably left up to the store management. Hobby Lobby is more organized than that! All our local stores were built in the past few years to a standard template. I find that they are built exact down to the same item is on the same hook store to store!

It's a fact that we folks who are active in the organized hobby... post on boards, belong to clubs, attend shows... are only 1 to 10% (depending on who you ask) of the model car market. I also read that the average stay in the hobby is 18 months. The kit manufacturers target market is this group, not us. When they reissue the same kit every two - three years, they are reaching a new market that has never seen the kit before. I don't know a single person in my town who builds models, but kits disappear at the local Hobby Lobby. These are the guys you bump into at Michaels or Hobby Lobby. And they are hard to engage in a conversation. They act like we're in the naughty movie aisle and they're embarrassed to be there!

You have to search the entire store! Sometimes they just put tags on kits mixed in on the same shelves. One store had a middle of aisle kiosk right near the kit aisle. Another time a kiosk was up near the registers. And another one had kits mixed in with other clearance items in an obscure back corner

Also note that whether you are building the Dart Sport or an old Duster annual... The chassis in the more recent AMT 1971 Duster kit is a perfect modern specimen that should fit right under these older cars. You will also want to cut the engine bay from the body, since it's spot on. The 340 engine in this kit is probably the best one done. It even has air conditioning.

What the old guard fails to see is that when we were young and aspired to build models, we built models of what were then brand new cars! The exact thing the youth of today are doing. Your passion is formed by what you see, what is relevant to your life! And nothing changes. I've heard stories of car shows back when the 80 year old Brass Era guys made fun of younger guys showing 1950s cars!

eBay spends all their energy chasing Amazon's tail. The should realized at this point that they missed that boat and redirect their efforts towards being unique and different from Amazon.

Bingo! The same guys who moan that the younger crowd doesn't get involved will also moan when a manufacturer announces kits that would appear to the younger crowd! We are our own worse enemy. TSSMCC / NNL East has partnered up to start and grow a few new shows. Our efforts with the Philadelphia NNL were an instant success! True, it was at the Simeone Museum, but everyone knew that it was an "old guys show". Our efforts with the Diversified Scalers wasn't as successful as we hoped. Show attracted a group of young modelers that we normally don't see, which is a good thing. We extensively marketed it to our market to dismal results. One of our members was at a South Jersey club meeting the week before and talked about the show at the meeting and was met with disparaging remarks that they weren't going to any "tuner show". Well, it wasn't a tuner show. It had all the regular classes of any show. It had 20 vendor tables of vendors we are familiar with. Our aging herd just didn't support the next generation. And that's a sad accounting.

I'm not a hunter. We live in a wooded area and have tons of deer, I can look out my back window and sometimes there are a dozen deer grazing. I've told my wife if by chance she hits and kills a deer to claim it! I have the information for the local processor, and if that deer damaged my car I want it back in venison! A quick story.. I found out about this the day after it happened. My wife's brother lives in the NJ suburbs. He looked out his back window and there was a deer just sitting there. It was discovered that it had been hit by a car and hobbled there with a broken leg. A cop came and put it down. My bro-in-law was asked if he wanted the deer or to have it removed. He wanted the icky dead animal off his property. The cop made a call and a civilian pickup truck came and hauled it away. I yelled at Bro-in-law that he gave away a few hundred pounds of prime meat! No doubt the cop called a buddy and took the deer for himself.

I don't think they ever fit! And you forgot to mention the molded in dent on the rear panel. You can't fix it because it's under the FORD lettering! When I met my wife she had a '74 Mustang II V6 coupe. It was a decent little car to drive. I took it on a few long trips.

Summer of '68 and I was 10. When I'd stay with my grandmother I'd get dragged off to Bingo in the church basement. There was a luncheonette across the street, so I got handed a few dollars to entertain myself. The small stores only had Palmer kits, so I'd get one. Add in a tube of glue, a Yoohoo chocolate drink and some candy and I was set for the afternoon. I made a glue mess out of the kit all over the church's nice Bingo tables. They must've loved me!

Cool! The 48 makes for an imposing presence!

How about a Crown Burger? Guys who have gone to GSL will know this one. It's a cheeseburger with pastrami and Russian dressing. I made them at home from memory and later realized that I remembered them better than they were!

I also use Miracle Whip My mustard of choice is Kosciusko Spicy Brown a bit of salt and pepper Sweet relish Olive on top with sprinkling of paprika

I don't know if the poster ever did cast and offer the engine. His last post on this board was in 2015. The same engine is available in the Lindberg 1964 Dodge and Plymouth kits. There are several box versions, but the slant six isn't in the race car versions.

Last night? Left over Chinese food. Tonight is hamburgers. Steve wanted pictures... so here's a picture... Devil Eggs. I started making these when I was 18 and worked in a deli. The faces came about when my kids were young. I'd hide one or two faces in the tray. And it evolved to a full tray of faces to keep kids from fighting over the one with a face. Today? I cannot go to my sister's house for Easter without two trays of these. They've become a tradition. All those kids are in their 30s but they still want their face eggs!

and when Fiat opened up again in the USA, that reputation followed them, even though it was pretty much a new company with modern products. My daughter bought one of the first Fiat 500s, she was romanced by the commercial with Jennifer Lopez driving the pearl white convertible. So she bought that exact same car. Bad rumors were out there at that time. A guy I know told me that they had to use three cars for that commercial because the kept breaking down, yea right! Nobody would get away with selling a car like that in today's market. End of story? My daughter has had the 500 for six years and over 120,000 miles. She's loved every mile. The car has never been back to the dealer or failed in any way. It's had regular maintenance, that's it.

For complex curves and perfect separation lines, use Tamiya tapes. You can match the line you want, or you can cut the line the same way you would cut BMF. For those saying that it's too expensive, I just use it for the match line. Past that I'll use painters blue tape to protect the rest of the body.