Tom Geiger

Welcome Ludwig, where in Germany do you live? I lived on the Pirmasens US Army Post from 1969-1972. My father was in the army. Did they have drag races on the air strip near you? I have photos from the ones we had in Pirmasens.

Doesn't Richard Rollins own that today? I think this is the same car from Fast and Loud

This site does weird things on Internet Explorer, I found I'm much better on Google Chrome.

You could also be building a model! Gary Kulchock and friends sponsor the 24 hour build each year during this race. This is the NINTH annual build. Start building a new model at noon on Saturday and build straight through the night until noon on Sunday. Gary actually has a group of guys doing this at his house, complete with wives bringing refreshments throughout the night. The rest of us build at our homes, keeping in touch with the group by posting progress photos and messages on the FaceBook group during the build. Gary also will put your photos on his Fotki site, or link to your photo site. There's nothing like posting pictures at 3am and instantly having people respond. The build is a lot of fun. Choose a fairly simple kit, it does have to be full detail with an engine. It helps to have one that is expendable and one that you have duplicates of in case you need a part. I am in my third year. In the past two, I built the Miss Deal Funny Car and a Dodge A100 pickup. This year I am doing the old Ertl International Scout. It doesn't matter if you actually finish, it's all the fun of trying. You also learn a bit about building and yourself as well. I now build a bit more efficiently as a result. Here's the link for more information and to sign up: https://www.facebook.com/groups/455951714469809/ If you aren't on FaceBook or have any questions, feel free to PM me.

Be very careful with your heat source. It doesn't take much to melt a body. I find a lighter to be too wide a flame. I prefer to use a small birthday candle since the flame is small and I can direct it where I want. I mount it in the middle of my ash tray and hold the model over it. Once heated I use an old Matchbox car for the dent to give it some texture. If I don't like the dent, it's not the end of the world. I have put putty in the dent and either used the Matchbox car technique on the wet putty, or have done carving / sanding once it dries. It also helps to have a reference photo of a 1:1 car. I find a lot of photos of dents and rust on eBay Motors. I have saved a bunch of them for future reference. Another thing... when you dent fenders, things like chrome strips don't bend exactly with them. They tend to pop off their mounts and separate from the body. And know the materials that the 1:1 car would be. For instance, the trim on the 'eye brow' on a '59 Chevy is pot metal that would shatter and break off rather than dent. The grille on this one is aluminum so it would bend, but be aware that cars of the late 1960s forward could have plastic grilles that would shatter. I can't tell you how many models I've seen with bent plastic grilles!

Another memory... In my rebuildables, I have a model built by a kid back then... it has no paint on the rockers, and lots of crud in the paint on the body sides. I recognized it immediately as a car that was placed on the basement floor for spraying. The rockers were on the floor and the spray shot all the dirt on the floor up into the wet paint. Been there, done that! And I thought my father was a genius when he saw that and made me a spray rack from a coat hanger! When I was preparing my grandparents house for sale, and cleaning the basement, I saw a blue spray painted shadow of a model body on the concrete floor.

Very cool Janis! She looks much better with arms!

Hmmm... the last Corvette model I had I dented it up and rusted the body!

I remember being 10 years old, having lost my only brush to stiffening since I had no turps, and resorting to painting a model with Q-Tips. I had to laugh recently when I came across an old built up that had been painted that way... those tell tale signs like cotton fibers in the paint!

and the very rare version of the Dodge Omni based Rampage... the Plymouth Scamp. I only saw one once!

I keep a Garmin GPS in the glove box of each car. I got them on sale for $100 each at Walmart a few years ago. Last summer we are in my wife's car, headed for a park that she said she knew where it was. Well, she didn't and soon enough we are lost on back roads through the woods. I reach for the glove box, and no GPS there! I ask and she tells me she keeps it in a kitchen drawer so it won't get stolen, and only brings it when she needs it. Well, we are lost now and need it... and I'm not overly worried that someone is going to steal a $100 4 year old GPS!

Nothing wrong with building a model out of a broken promo. I cruise eBay for those, mainly for cars that weren't done as kits like the Rambler cars, 4 door sedans and wagons of the 1960s. All three of these Ramblers are damaged and bought right. Promo collectors don't want 'restored' cars, so they are prime candidates for modeling. None of these were ever available as kits.

I've been working with old MPC Volare built ups lately and since this question came up, I examined the styrene tires. The ones I have assembled glued well and are intact. The sidewall detail and lettering is nice and could easily be painted white. The tread is almost non-existent, except for the very visible seam between the two halfs. The tough part with the kit is that the wheel back is molded as part of the inner tire, making it tougher to replace the tires with modern vinyl / rubber ones. Still, I did that on the one I built. I recently opened up one of my Rat Packers and was surprised that it had styrene tires on the modern release.

A Tesla is more in the $80s and they will have a $40,000 model in a few years. There are two Teslas in my family right now. If you had told any of us five years ago that an electric car would out drag a Hemi Challenger, Ferrari or Corvette we would've told you that was crazy. And now it's reality. I can't wait to see what the future holds. Tesla is the most well thought out vehicle introduction in history. I have nothing but respect for this company. The big issue with electric cars is fueling, and they have pioneered a network of charging stations across the country. When you use the on board GPS it programs your route and mileage between them. That list is updated to your car computer overnight, every night. My cousin lives here in PA, and has driven as far west as Detroit, up to Maine and down to South Carolina and says that he never was inconvenienced longer than the time it took to have a meal. I predict it won't be long before a major restaurant chain announces chargers at all their restaurants. And with them open sourcing their technology, it will only get easier. And the next generations of batteries will increase the charging distance. This is our future.

Those guys existed before the Internet! Back when I first got involved over 25 years ago, there was a guy in my club who took great glee in tearing apart any model anyone would put down on the table. I was new to building and he ripped my stuff apart. The final straw for me was when he told me that he disqualified my model from the little club contest because it had Krylon paint on the body, and "Everyone knows you can't use Krylon." I nearly quit the club and hobby! A couple guys took me aside and encouraged me, and told me to ignore the dolt. 25 years later this guy still has no finished models.

and it's fortunate that Steve is a good builder. He turns it into something better. It's only blasphemous when someone who builds like a fifth grader turns one into a glue bomb!

I take a lot of photos during my build process. Much of it is so that I see things in the pictures that I may not have see in person. It's interesting how these things jump out at you on the screen. So when I post build threads, I DO want to hear about anything that's not right, especially since it's still in progress and I have the opportunity to fix it. On the other hand, when I was building my '34 Ford sedan, all I got were "Nice" "Very nice" as comments. Then I posted in a different thread asking why Round 2 hadn't reissued the '33 and '34 Ford sedan kits... well, people jumped out to tell me it was because the roof shape was wrong! I hadn't noticed that myself and nobody mentioned anything in my build thread! So I asked for help and got reference photos etc. I had already put the final finish on the car (thankfully it was to be primer red!) so I went about sanding the roof per instructions. I would've felt pretty bad if I found it out after the model was completely done.

This is very cool! Ebbro is doing a great job at bringing out French cars that there have never been models of.... can't wait to get this!

Post away! We've all been there and understand. Grief is a personal thing, and everyone goes about it differently and to different degrees. We lost our dog Ted a few months ago and my wife is pretty much over it while I'm still grieving. Some people get a bit embarrassed to be grieving over an animal, especially around non-pet owners, but they are part of our family, almost human. I am taking Ted's death harder than I have some humans. Part of that is that he lived here in the house and was part of our life. When I clatter a plate in the kitchen I still expect him to come running. When I look in the den and see a blanket crumpled up on the couch, I expect to see him in that pile. It's only once they're gone that we realize how much a part of our daily lives they were!

A few thoughts.... first, be sure to add this trim prior to painting the body. Elementary to most, but I know someone who tried this, so I mention it. As others said, trace out your lines with either a permanent marker or I use a Stabillo pencil, which is a draftsman's pencil made to draw on mylar, so it's perfect for plastic. Beware of the permanent marker, I've had that come through paint. Glue - I like CAs, which come in a variety of thicknesses and drying times. Bob Smith Enterprises makes the ones you see in hobby shops with their names on it. I use the thickest (I believe it's a purple cap). Curves - Plan your trim like on the 1:1 car. If there is multiple pieces, copy this and it will be easier. There are curves and corners yo can't make, so you'll have to cut there and make it appear to be one piece with putty etc. One thing I do when adding trim that needs to flex, is to 'play' with the piece of Evergreen, flexing it so it's not so rigid any more. A bit of friction warmth won't hurt either. Gluing - I put a bit of my thick CA glue on a surface and apply it to the trim pieces with a tooth pick. I do this little by little, incrementally working the trim across the area. Glue a straight piece, hold it in place until it dries. bend your rod to go around a curve, dab a bit of cement onto that portion, then hold in place... and follow that procedure along your piece. You will get some excess glue on the body, don't worry, sand that later. The thick CA should fill some of the little gaps that will appear due to the difference between your flat trim piece and contour on the body. That's a good thing. The gap on the inside will get covered with the masking tape you use for the top. Top material - You want to use a wide masking tape, wide enough to cover the roof up to the seams. You will need to know how the seams look on the 1:1 car. They can be different. And check a few examples, for instance the vinyl top on my 1:1 Plymouth Scamp had been replaced and had the seam in a different place than the stock car. I've never had an issue with tape coming off with aging. Masking tape seems to dry stuck firmly than peeling off. I find that happens when I leave tape on stuff too long! Look at different tapes for a surface pattern that looks like a vinyl top. Some are smoother than others. Sometimes the cheapest stuff has the coolest pattern. I use these for seat cushions as well. Never had one peel off. Hope this helps!

Looks simple enough to do! Just an exercise in badge engineering... Dodge version Plymouth version. Sand "DODGE" off the hood, add "PLYMOUTH" in the middle of the grille. Note the "Voyager" script on the door, same position as the Dodge script would be. Same on the back.. note that this one has the single door. Not sure if all Plymouth vans had this or if it was an option as on the Dodge. My Dodge Sportsman 300 had this.

Tesla is pretty much a game changer! What's the sense of having muscle cars or exotics if a Tesla 4 door sedan can blow them all away!

So sorry to hear Brian! I Iost my 14 year old Ted this past fall. Still miss him every day especially when I work from home!

Just some stuff I have packed away... 1961 Chevy 4 door hardtop 1956 Buick 4 door hardtop '58 Caddy 4 door hardtop 1959 Olds like Steve's but mine is an awful mess! 1961 Olds 4 door hardtop, mild custom bought this way. Nicely done so I don't have the heart to touch it!