Tom Geiger

My club meeting was yesterday (Saturday) and due to it being August and having a picture perfect day outside, our attendance was pretty sparse. Only seven of us made the brave journey, but what was really nice is that with a group this small we could sit in a circle and have a conversation. So we ordered some food and had a nice time with some pizza and fried chicken! Sometimes smaller is better.

Great project! I have a couple of those vans and plan on turning at least one of them into a model when the inspiration happens! You are pretty brave looking to fabricate the middle length. I think I would've taken the easy way out and cut up two of the trucks! Funny story... I kept getting out bid on eBay in my quest to get one of these vans. So instead of bidding on them one at a time and waiting, I bid low on three at once... and you see what happened!

You can't beat having a club! When I first got back into the hobby as an adult about 30 years ago, I saw a club advertised in Scale Auto. I was curious and attended a meeting... that was big turning point in my life since I'm still with that club! With peers, instantly my models got 100% better as I got critiqued and they showed me how to do different things. And some of these guys have been my good friends for all that time too!

An interesting aside... when the then owners of AMT/MPC found the trike tool, it was first offered to Model King. Dave declined because the 4 bikes were all one tool, so they would all have to be produced at the same time, and in the same quantities... Dave was concerned that he could get stuck with a bunch of one trike and sold out on others, so he passed on the opportunity.

Cool, I see you addressed the too narrow interior tub as the floor bottom visible from the underside. Note that this kit was originally from Ertl, prior to their purchase of AMT, so there are some primitive attributes to it. Under the hood the kit is sparse on detail, mostly in the firewall area with the absence of a master cylinder and other bits, including the whole heater assembly. That should be on the right inner fender. Great build, I'm watching!

Because they wouldn't have anything to gripe about otherwise?

First I'll say that the logic expressed above by the military modelers doesn't apply to our market because military modelers aren't as cheap as our US car builders, so you are giving the logic of what you will pay for an accurate military model and you'd pay that for a car. The same with comparing Gunze / Japanese, especially exotic cars and such-- again the folks that work in that arena are used to spending a decent amount to have an accurate model. Enter our herd... US based modelers who primarily build US replicas and hot rods. This is a pretty cheap group. Note the constant whining about kit prices on the boards. Note the constant mention of going to Hobby Lobby with the 40% off coupon. That's who we are! And as such, high end kits with all the bells and whistles would delight a few, but wouldn't be consumed by the typical modeler in our demographic. That happened when Galaxie originally did the 46-8 Chevys. Here Gary (and I believe it was Tom West) designed a seriously detailed kit, nice enough that the built chassis can be displayed by itself. They were answering the cry from auto modelers that we needed a higher end, very detailed kit and we'd pay extra for that. Well, WE LIED! Once the kits came out, there was a lot of moaning and grumbling about the price, which was a step above the AMT / Revell kits of that time. And they didn't sell well. At the time we noticed that we didn't see a lot of them built at contests, and we didn't see parts like the fabulous Chevy 6 from that kit used in kit bashes. I remember people posting on the boards asking if the kits would go to Odd Lot stores so they could buy them cheap. Those who did buy the kits bought just one. The Galaxie kit is an ancient example, especially since I believe that the new R/M and Moebius kits done today are at that design level. So the market may be ready for the new variations of this kit that Galaxie is releasing now.

You can always code your own, which is what I've done above. I haven't figured out how to put the poster's name in the box. To do this, copy the quote, and paste it in the Submit Reply box. type [ quote ] in front of your quoted text and [ /quote ] at the end of it. Note that I added spaces between the brackets to keep it from working on this line, eliminate those spaces.

I recently had three visitors from Shanghai for a week at our company in New Jersey. What did they want to do in their leisure time? Shop! They admitted that they'd be buying things Made In China, but either not available there or only available at enormous prices!

I lived in Pirmasens, on the US Army Post that was originally built by the German Army way before WWII. It was captured and turned into an American facility during the war. Pirmasens was bombed heavily because it was the shoe capital of the country, so those factories were producing boots for the German army at that time. I was amazed at how many of the original buildings on an obvious military post were not affected and remain to this day. Also, as a kid we spent a lot of time in the woods, which were pockmarked with deep indents where bombs had landed. These had since filled with trees but were very evident, and they were far from any legit target showing how unscientific bombing was in those days!

When I was a kid in the 1969-72 period I lived in Germany and there were loads of WWII bunkers still around. Not those huge condo ones you pictured in this thread, but small ones. They were an eye sore and since they were heavily fortified, they were impossible to knock over with bulldozers and normal means. Then the Germans discovered something.... if they sealed the bunkers and filled them with water, the winter ice would force them apart! Brilliant!

What do you do with the coupon you printed and didn't use ? I didn't have a Hobby Lobby near by but I always had a Michaels! When I found zero to buy, I'd look around for a woman with a large item in her basket. The 40% off coupon was always happily accepted. I once had a can of Testors Dullcote and the lady behind me had an embossing machine that was over $100. I thought for a minute and decided that the coupon was worth about $2 to me so I gave it to her. The look on her face was certainly worth the $2.

Nothing is uglier than the recent Fiat / Dodge vans! There is no way I'd want those representing my company!

Wow, no theme there at all!

Is that JFK back in his model building days?

That's a model built by Paul Hettick, who has a grand following of his work on eBay. He does a lot of builds from old 1950s curbsides and resin kits. His stuff always sells for big numbers!

I have no idea how the names and such got above this post! I was quoting Dan from the post above mine! And a smart move that was! Round 2 is owned by Tom Lowe who has always followed the TV and Movie market. That's a much bigger audience than the model car hobby. There are memorabilia shows all over the country, professionally run, advertising guest appearances of old stars, and making our model car shows look like lemonade stands. I wish the model companies published their sales numbers because I'll bet the Batmobile outsold any of the recent model car kits!

I remember that picture. But that table is not just the kitchen table, it looks to me like the Formal Dining room table!!! Which we used all of two times a year Thanksgiving and Christmas! I have a dining room like that. Most unused room in the house! The picture was from an ad for some computer maintenance software back in the 1980s... the ad had two pictures, both with the clock at 7:30pm. The second one was the same guy slaving at his computer at work... the premise was that if you bought their software, you could be having fun at home instead of working late!

another thing that I am deleting is the fake roll up curtains that they molded in over the fruit basket. I agree that the fruit and curtains are unrealistic, but no more than the rack of pies in the back of the Pie Wagon. Remember that these kits were created for kids back in the day... actually we were those kids! I think the fruit could be made convincing with some detail paint. Or buy a sack of bird seed. It contains all kinds of types of seeds in different shapes that may mimic fruits in scale. You still will need to do some painting. For the curtains... take a piece of wide masking tape. Spray Testors Dullcote on the glue side. It will neutralize the glue like it was never there. Now you have a decent piece of textured tape that you can use to make things like roll up side curtains. It holds paint well. I've done this successfully in the past. Here's a box of neckties that I made from masking tape in a grand variety of colors. The truck is representative of a restaurant I used to frequent that would cut off your tie if you wore one there. Old visual joke.

Murphy's Law Of Modeling: "You can have 2,000 kits but your next great idea will involve kits you do not own!"

Yea, there is no educating the general public! I just say "no thanks", smile and walk away. Back in the days when I was going to save the world I would engage the seller, but for the most part it was down the road to no good. I remember one time I spied a kit from across the way. It was one of those AMT curbside truck model derived from a promo kit from the 1980s. The ones you can find at model shows for $5-10. There it was, I think it was the Ford Expedition kit, with the boxed bleached from sitting out in the sun way too long at flea markets. The shrink wrap was tattered and blowing in the breeze, box top sagging in the center. As I approached, the seller, a big Grizzley Adams kind of guy got up and was a fixin' for a sale. He had no price on it, and as I looked he confidently said, "$50." Then he added that it was over 30 years old! I told him it was a $10 kit, maybe $5 due to the deterioration of the box. He got upset like I was trying to rob him. I told him I didn't want to buy it, I already had too many. He started following me down the aisle yelling to the other vendors to watch me, I was a thief! Lots of fun! Another one of my favorites was a flea market guy who had an AMT 1953 Ford pickup kit, built by a kid with no paint and that full tube of glue look. He wanted $25 for it. When I told him it was a current kit and could then be bought sealed in a box unbuilt for $10, he countered that his it was worth more because you saved the time it would take to build it. An optimistic kinda guy! Then there was the time I literally got kicked out of an antique shop. They had 3 or 4 kits in their showcase, all marked like "Genuine 1957 Chevy kit". They were all fairly recent releases of kits of old cars. The seller immediately got mad and loud...as I tried to explain that the kits were maybe 10 years old... and that they didn't have zip codes or bar codes in 1957! I learned the hard way!

Ah the Yorkshire BTL trucks! The Bell Telephone Pioneers Club was a group of retirees who did social services. My wife worked for AT&T and the Pioneers often had tables of items for sale as fund raisers, and they had Yorkshire do the series of trucks for them. So I believe I have the whole set, as my wife would bring me home the new ones as they came out around Christmas time, kinda like Hess Trucks. Hosted on Fotki They called this the delivery truck, first of the series in 1983. Here's the Lineman Model A. This was number 2 in the series, dated 1984. Pole digger Dodge Power Wagon. Number 3 dated 1985 This one is a bit small. Guess they did it box scale. The Model T platform truck Tom Az showed was Number 4 dated 1986. The platform actually telescoped on this one. This and the Power Wagon were the coolest of the series. This is pretty much the same as your covered truck with the side curtains, but issued as Number 5 in 1987, your truck was Number 6 in 1988. And I believe that was the end of the line. The BTL Pioneers also commissioned Ertl to do that Bell Telephone version of the old Model T van with the black and white image on the box. Lore is that the people who did the order for the Pioneers didn't understand it was a kit, and Ertl got stuck with a bunch of them. Which is why those are plentiful to this day. Some or all (I don't know) were also done in red paint for Bell Canada. I've seen them but don't own any. Yorkshire also did... (I'm not sure if these were done as fund raisers or just for public sale) Model A mail truck. Hosted on Fotki Model TT Tank Truck. This one is generic and the box is marked "Ninth Edition" so who knows how many Yorkshire models I've missed. A few words. These are a bit crude both in casting and finish, but are cool in their own right. Don't be spending big money on these, they appear regularly on eBay pretty cheap... they also appear at $50 or more! And a reward for those who stuck with us... bit-0-trivia... our own Dean Milano once worked for Yorkshire!

Hosted on Fotki This thread just reminded me of this old photo I had saved... yea, that guy's gonna be in a lotta trouble when his wife sees him working right on the table surface!

Hosted on Fotki Geoff- Here's how I did the bed. As you said, I don't have any information and am assuming it would be a ribbed surface. I used an Evergreen pattern for this.

Perfectly fine to post more diecast vehicles in this thread! Post on!