Tom Geiger

Doug, I think Howard's point is that you have started a second hobby, seeming to be very involved in the 3D modeling and printing community. So you have some skin in that game, as well as in automotive modeling. It's not like you bought a microwave oven and merely use it. In threads on this board I've put 3D printing in the same realm as owning a mill or lathe. When Augie Hiscano made the rounds to shows on behalf of Sherline, they sold a lot of lathes! The problem was that a lot of these guys didn't understand the skill commitment to being successful with these machines. So a lot of them just made metal shavings for awhile and gave up. And those who made the time investment in learning the skills were successful. And 3D modeling and printing will go that same route. A small percentage of auto modelers will put the skin in the game to be successful. And guys like me and Howard will buy things from them!

Agreed. The guys who post under screen names, first names, and that includes some who post with a full name, but no doubt a fake one, are a problem on this board. They have nothing invested, and it's very easy to be rude, insult people and cause havoc when nobody knows who you are. These guys contribute little, provide no proof that they actually build models... in short, contribute nothing. And the scary part for me is that some of them are knowledgeable about kits and hobby history which means they are people we may know in real life and are snickering at us when they see us at shows. And then there are a few who post under their real names and still are a nuisance. There are a ton of folks, many valuable hobby guy and industry insiders who don't post on this board and have expressed that its because they don't want to deal with a certain element posting here. I get PMs on a regular basis from guys who write to support something I've said, but don't feel comfortable posting because they don't wish to be attacked. And I had several very prominent people in the hobby approach me at NNL East and GSL to say thanks for defending the hobby on this board. Which tells me that there are very knowledgeable people reading this board but not making themselves visible. And that's a crying shame. This board could be so much more!

It's tragic! According to an insurance company commercial, Brad was a beloved car that got totaled. That's why he never came for his kit!

Go for it! Living indoors and eating are highly over rated!

I will buy that companies supplying to Walmart cut quality down to make the price Wally dictates to them. Not only is Walmart taking advantage of workers, but they do the same with all their suppliers. They dictate price and terms. Take it or leave it. In fact part of their model is that the suppliers 'own' the merchandise in the stores, absorb all the returns and theft and are paid net 60 or 90 for what's actually sold. It's cheap for them to open new stores because they don't pay for any merchandise. They effectively pay the suppliers long after they have sold the goods. My wife bought me a pair of black sneakers a while back. The soles cracked in half and the rubber peeled back from the toe in a few months. She said she was taking them back for a refund. They wouldn't refund but they'd give her a new pair. So I got to repeat the whole disappointing affair over.

Brad, that's a Revell 1962 Dodge Lancer. Not much there to work with. What did you hope to do with it? Best chassis would be either the AMT 71 Duster or Revell 68-69 Dart. Slight shortening required. You are still missing the hood and the entire interior. Your cowl is also missing a chunk.

We have big decision problems in this hobby these days! And that's a good thing.

I did a double take! I was playing with this one just this morning.

Where I throw my arms in the air are the threads where people are asked what kits need to be produced... guys then answer with a list of ten or more off the wall subjects, showing they didn't put much thought into it... then someone points out that the subject has been available in the past or is currently available in resin. Their reply? Oh, I'm not paying for an old collector kit or resin prices! I want a company to come out with it as a kit... So you want a company to gamble $300,000 on an odd subject just so you can buy one for $25 ??? And probably want to use a Hobby Lobby coupon on it too!

The "capitalists" will say this is what our market wants, and that if enough people refused to work under these conditions, then the companies would have to change it. Well, when every employer offers the same deal, a lot of folks don't have any choice.

Temp employees and folks working on 1099s are a way of life in the tech field as well as engineering. The latest trend is to bring in Indian nationals on work visas to take those folks jobs. The work permits are supposed to be to import expertise we don't have, but companies are using this loophole to bring in cheaper workers and lay off the Americans. And they make the American workers train the replacements before they lay them off!

I dunno guys... when I see a row of shiny street rods (As or '32s) at a show, they seem just too cookie cutter to me. And shops are cranking out brand new ones one after another. At least the ratz have some character. I had built this in the image of what I'd actually like to own someday... maybe a little less ratty, but I'd like to have a roadster pickup. Maybe once I get past a few life things! Heck, I'm gonna be spending at least that on a wedding next year!

When we were kids our friends's fathers had jobs that pay nothing today, but were able to buy nice homes, have their wives home with the kids and buy new cars. I remember when I lived in Ohio in the mid 60s, the man next door sold suits at Sears. As kids we loved to say hello to him there. He was able to buy a new house in a new development with all the trappings of suburbia. My wife chimes in that her parent group included a supermarket butcher, a bread route man, and Mr Edwards next door was a bank teller. The kids all thought he was rich because he went to work on the train in a suit. I recently read that in the 1950s a local guy who was a construction worker had bought a brand new house for his family in my NJ town. He said that every month, one week's salary paid the mortgage. One week paid the groceries and other living expenses. One week paid for the cars, and the last week went into savings. So what has gone wrong? Well, companies like Walmart came in. They chewed wages down to nothing, and work the majority of their workforce part time with no benefits or paid time off. Even in professional environments in big name companies, everything has been outsourced to small service companies that do that dirty work. People aren't taken on as employees, but are considered "Temps" or are paid on 1099s because there is preferential tax treatment for them that way. And pensions have completely gone away. Funny thing, I recently read an interview with the guy who invented the 401K and he said he never intended for this to replace pensions, but to be an extra layer of savings on top of a pension and social security. He predicts absolute disaster in the coming years. It's a completely different situation in Europe. The governments are pro-employee. Everyone gets 30 days vacation to start. Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders just proposed it be law that everyone gets a minimum of 10 days paid vacation. That's a start. Europeans are guaranteed full time employment for life and benefits. The company I work for outsourced a lot of things in the US, but not in Europe. The governments told them no. Doesn't this sound like America maybe 30 years ago? And as our government flounders, companies find ways to take advantage more. Obamacare for instance, Walmart, Target and a few other major retailers just dumped their benefits plans saying that their employees now have the "right" to buy their own benefits. Yea, right. The subsidies come from you and me. I found out that 40% of my monthly healthcare insurance bill, of which I pay 100%, goes to pay for Obamacare. Our government needs to reel in the retail world and companies like Walmart. They should be told by our federal government that they need to have the majority of their employees on full time status with benefits, and part timers should only be supplemental. I'm not talking the $15 an hour fast food thing, although Europe is more like that in wage scales. They simply just shouldn't be allowed to take advantage of people on a broad scale as they have built their empire. I read that the Walmart employee reliance on US social programs is equal to Walmart Corporation's annual profit. So basically you and I are subsidizing their deal. It's got to stop.

What a perfect Christmas Model Car Amnesty Project!

I wouldn't kick any of them off my shelf. From the aspect of what I'd like to have in my garage... I don't like chopped tops. I don't like fake garage signs or other text on the doors I don't like small block Chevy V8s in traditional style rods If I had to pick one to drive off in, I'd pick C... even if I'm uncomfortable with the questionable use of an American Flag... I could fix that!

Looks Good Geoff! I need to get my Trabant postal van back out again. I got stalled when someone pointed out that the side panels were not as deep as I have them by putting sheet stock on the inside of the body. So I'd been fiddling around with adding plastic in front of the current side panels to reduce the depth. I've come to the conclusion that anything I do in that regard will come out badly, and that nobody else will ever notice that the panels sit in too deep! So I should just finish the bugger. As an aside, I recently joined a stamp collectors club so I thought it would be neat to finish the postal van, and along with my Danbury Mint postal Jeep, bring them to a meeting!

It goes both ways... I had several old cars that I owned for many years. Kept them in the garage, but never did get to restoring them. When I finally had to let them go, I sold them to guys who did the song and dance that they were going to immediately restore them to perfect yada, yada... well, several years later these cars haven't progressed an inch. And now they're sitting outside and rotting! Sad!

and don't forget that there were records printed on the back of cereal boxes back in the late 1960s... I think I remember some Archie's Tunes. Again, these were not quality recordings at all!

That's pretty much it. Most of us will not model to a level to win the GSL. That's called the cutting edge of the hobby. It's fun to watch and admire, and it does show what can be accomplished. For me, if I can create a reasonable simulation of the model that's in my head, I'm a happy camper.

So you're saying those figures don't have skeletons and internal organs? Then what good are they! When you mentioned the troll warrior.. There was a seminar on 3D printing at GSL and they gave away some samples. I got the above little figure, that was made for gaming folks. It's about an inch tall and has exquisite detail!

I was looking through my Friends list on Fotki and noticed that Todd's page was still active. So I took a look. He didn't have much on Fotki, but I was delighted to find these progress photos, the only model photos he had! Here's the first photo.. shows what he started with. Progress shot one, new paint job! Another paint shot Interior completed. I had given him the interior door handles and window cranks, resin pieces from Norm Veber. Dash board Engine in chassis. He also had a shot of the instruction sheet of the AMT '56 Crown Victoria, so I know a bunch of the parts came from that kit. And that's all he had there. See my first post for the finished model photos. I'm glad to have this model built by my friend in my collection.

I've never found a model at Goodwill. I've bought some diecasts, they seem to like to put a mess of stuff in big clear plastic bags and sell them for $5 or $10 for the bag. The only models I've ever seen there were two common AMT kit that were totally gobbed with Testors paint and poorly assembled, complete in the box for $5 each! No thanks!

I used to run in the demolition derby back in the 1980s. You'd see some really cool old cars being entered. By the time I'd see them, they had already been gutted and cut up for the derby so it was too late to save them. But the story was always the same, "I had this old car, I advertised it for sale for 6 months and nobody bought it, and I needed to get rid of it." So they took it to the demo. Others drove them down to the junk yard or called up some charity to take it away. In my day, I saw a lot of great old cars in the junkyard. Sometimes the junkyard owners would put them up for sale whole and someone would put them back on the road. Other times the junkyard saw more profit in selling the 60,000 mile engine, so they got scrapped. I've bought cars from the junkyard. One yard I used to frequent called me when they got in a 64 Valiant convertible. Seems the owner, who was doing a half vast resto on it anyway, wound up in the county clink and his family junked his car. I had it for maybe five years. Kept it in the garage because the roof was bad. I'd drive it around on sunny days. Eventually sold it to a guy who said he was going to restore it.

Back in 1979 when we bought the Fox Capri, the Mazda RX7 was on our short list. At the time there was a waiting list to get one. The interior on the first gen RX7 was very small. When my family had the Getty station, my 300 lb bro-in-law couldn't fit in the car to move it into the garage for service!

There was a link to the interview on this board a few weeks ago so I figured everyone knew. His take was that the operation of a McDonalds was very standard and perfect for automation. You would put your order into a kiosk, a robot system would cook and package your food and it would come down a conveyor to you. No need for $15 employees at all.