-
Posts
18,965 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Gallery
Everything posted by Tom Geiger
-
There is no such thing as an easy build. Those always get complicated as they go on and we add 'just one more little detail'. And down the merry path we go! You are right, there are stages of the build. First we have the mental vision of what we want to do. Then we do the kit and parts gathering phase. We are sooo excited when we are able to assemble what we need. Then we get to the fabrication phase. This is where the model image in your head takes shape in 3D. And once I can squint and see how that model will look finished? Bam! I've lost interest. Finishing the model is an inconvenience since I've already seen it in my head. And that's where you want to run off to the next great idea. I think I need understudies who will finish my models once I get to that stage!
-
The Most Embarrassing Cars To Drive
Tom Geiger replied to slusher's topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
I've always been a PT Cruiser fan. I did get to rent one on a Florida vacation and enjoyed driving it for the week. It drove remarkedly like our Plymouth Breeze which is a fun car to drive. It took me a while to warm up to the convertible, it just looked like they lopped the roof off the wagon. I thought they could have done something cooler, like put a 1930s bustle back on it. But it's gotten to me over time, so when I do my usual browse through the car ads, I always look for PT convertibles. The general premise of this thread was "The Most Embarrassing Cars To Drive" and I submit that most people who buy those aren't car savvy enough to know they're embarrassing! Then there are cars that mellow with age... for instance, in 1976 you'd die a million deaths, driving mom's 1973 Chevy wagon with wood on the sides.... today we'd consider that a cool ride! -
I don't know if society has gotten worse or we just have a heightened sense of awareness today. I believe there were always pedophiles, rapists and serial murderers, only it wasn't 'out there' as it is today. Back when we were young, people had 'funny uncles' and the 'odd kid down the street', both folks that young kids needed to avoid. It was brushed under the rug, and as such, a lot of it wasn't prosecuted. For instance digging back to my youth, I knew of a story of a teen age boy who molested a little girl he was babysitting. His parents were informed and I guess he got a beating and was never to babysit again. And that was it. Today would be a different story. I also know of someone whose young sister disappeared in 1965 and was never found. And when I was a kid I lived across the street from a kid who would later be a mass murderer. Stuff happened. With that heightened sense of awareness, people today have lost some freedoms, and are much more cautious about everything, even to the point of over reacting. And that's why we don't feel comfortable talking to kids today, or even smiling at babies in stores. Sad.
-
A tire sitting on the ground or a spare tire in a trunk should not have lug nuts on it! Can't tell you how many times I see that. In fact one time there was a old Ford pickup junker on the cover of Scale Auto that had a tire with lugs on the ground in front of the truck... front and center on the magazine cover! Find the spare tire in the above photo... no lugs, no center cap! And I took the extra five minutes to add valve stems.
-
What did you see on the road today?
Tom Geiger replied to Harry P.'s topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
Yesterday I took my wife for a ride to a hobby shop a distance away because we had seen Sonic restaurants but never tried one, and there's a Sonic right near the shop. I thought it would be neat to take my Tracker convertible to the drive in restaurant. As we're sitting there eating in the car, I keep seeing neat old cars driving by on the highway. Every few cars, there was a cool one... sometimes two together. Little did I know that they were going to a cruise night right in the Sonic parking lot! As we went to pull out, the entire other side of the lot was covered with collector cars! So of course we parked again and took a look. -
My sister and I get each other prank presents. One year she gave me a pair of Barbie size man dolls that she got at the Dollar Store. One was white, the other black... but they had faces like mean felons. Little kids would be afraid of these dolls. We couldn't stop laughing. Figure that this was some Chinese designer's idea of what Americans looked like.
-
The Most Embarrassing Cars To Drive
Tom Geiger replied to slusher's topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
I own a 1991 Geo Tracker 4x4 convertible and I got that same line! Back when I was looking to buy a new one, I was looking for a Tracker LSI with 4WD,air and a five speed. It had to be an acceptable color... the yellow, red or blue.. no black or white. When I visited lots (before Internet shopping) all I would find the right cars but they all had automatic transmissions. One salesman told me they all came that way because it was "a girl's car". Um, scored no points here, sold no car! -
Trabant Universal - Progress Report 11-23-14
Tom Geiger replied to Tom Geiger's topic in WIP: Model Cars
Here's the interior, a platform that sits nicely on the chassis. The factory bucket seats are very nicely done and sit on separate bases. Again you can see my van floor. The van interior gets the spare tire standing up against the left side close to the hatch. Wheels and tires are very nice. Here they are all ready to go on the car, I added my tire valves as I always do. Engine is a cool little 2 stroke and has a lot of details that match the photos I found on the Trabant board... yea there is one! A guy in New Zealand did a complete restoration and took photos every step of the way. His thread is my bible for color and detail. The unfortunate part is that the engine is pretty much crammed into that engine compartment and a lot of this detail will be barely visible in the finished model. For instance, this side is the back of the engine that sits facing the firewall. I've gone as far with the build that I could without having the body color paint. Today I drove to a distant hobby shop and bought the four cans you see here, I had the Tamiya Suface Primer. My own 50 Shades of Grey! I did my color test on the bottoms of small bathroom cups that I use for a bunch of things in the model room. I'm letting them dry overnight. Tomorrow morning I will check them against my photos and choose the color. Anyone else buy 4-6 cans of paint to choose one color? Honestly I don't mind buying all the greys since I use them extensively in interiors, and it's good to have different tones in stock. Once I get the body panels all painted, I can just rush through the assembly. I already have created the decals. One quick Google search for "Deutsche Post" gave me all I needed. Then I used the Word font "Stencil" to do the serial number. As a stamp collector, I do like creating the postal vehicle. In fact that recent Revell of Germany VW Beetle will be perfect to paint bright yellow to create the West German "Bundespost" vehicle to sit next to it. And I was wondering what to do with that low end Euro version of the Beetle! This is a fun project since I'm creating something unique and the kit nearly builds itself. I have been on vacation from work this week, a stay-cation, so this is my early morning and evening project. I'm hoping to get it done before I go back to work next Tuesday. -
I have both versions of the Revell of Germany Trabant. The earlier release is the 2 door sedan, called the Limousine. This is not the old ROG Trabant of 1990 or so. That was a nice kit, but was curbside with a closed hood. This is a new full detail kit. Then they pulled a second version out of the mold, coming out with the Trabant Universal. I remember that a modeler did convert the old sedan kit into a wagon, but hey, procrastination is my friend. I win again! I went looking on the Internet for some reference photos for my painting and detailing. I found several shots of the above vehicle that is restored and in a museum. So the wheels in my head started turning and I decided to build this light commercial variety. And here we are today. I've been working on it a few hours a day, and have all the parts off the trees and mostly painted at this point. There was minimal if any clean up and the kit is so well engineered that there won't be an ejector pin visible, and I didn't sand any away. The funky part is that the body is this tan plastic, but all the parts that attach to it are molded in grey. So there is no way anyone could build it without painting the body. I filled in the side window panels by copying the glass onto Evergreen sheet plastic. One thing that I don't like about the kit is that the fender top trim is all separate pieces. Spindley little crooked pieces that don't have any sure fit. The kit engineers expect you to paint everything, paint these bits silver and them glue them in place. Well, ain't gonna work that way! I went through the torture of gluing them all in place prior to paint, and yes I did have some glue smears to sand. I asked Erik, The Creative Emperor, who previously built one and showed it here on the board how he handled them. He solved the problem by leaving them off. He suggested ditching the parts and using some Evergreen rod to make the trim. I had already glued it in place by the time I saw the reply, so I did sand it all down a bit since it is a bit large. If I was in charge I would've just molded that trim in place on the body like ROG did on the earlier 1990s Trabant kit. I found it much easier to glue it in place, and I'll Bare Metal Foil it once the body is done. The other issue I had was the fit of the rear hatch. The kit gives you two sets of the gas struts, one extended to position the hatch up and one short to position the hatch closed. My kit had the two hinge pieces broken at the top of the body, so I made new ones from brass. The roof isn't glued on, that's why it appears high in the photo. As I'm doing the van, I am not using the rear seat and made myself a deck from ribbed Evergreen sheet, the same sheet I used in my Caravan CV build. Here's the hinge up close. They are model ship building supplies. I bought a pack of these tiny brass eyelets that are used for sailing ship rigging. The hinge on the hatch fits in here fine, when I do my final assembly I'll squeeze these in a bit around the plastic hatch hinges to keep them in place. One last shot of the hinge for Erik since he was curious as to how I was going to work out this problem.
-
Ha Tom! Seeing how many cans of paint you got, I don't feel half bad. I'm working on my own version of 50 Shades of Grey! I went to a not so LHS today and bought four different cans of grey to paint my Trabant Universal wagon. I do my test shots on the bottoms of the small bathroom cups I use for many other things in the model room. In the morning I'll check to see which one dries closest to the color I need. I'm hoping it's the Tamiya, just because it will be an easier paint job. Anyone else buy this much paint to select one color? Going about a half hour west into the woods towards this hobby shop that has a good paint selection, I took the back roads to see more of Pennsylvania, and took the Tracker with the roof off. I promised my wife that if she came along, we'd try out Sonic, which we hadn't tried yet. Of course I wanted to eat in the open car. She wanted to take one of our every day cars... boring. So I told her I was going in the Tracker and she was welcome to come along! She came and I think she got the idea that it was a fun drive. She didn't complain any. Sonic? Highly over rated.. tasteless. I had chili cheese dogs.. I don't know how they made them to have no flavor whatsoever! As we ate a cruise night materialized in the lot, so we got to walk around and check out some nice cars. Probably 30 cars showed up by the time we left and more were coming. So we had a good afternoon drive!
- 38,533 replies
-
- johan
- glue bombs
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with:
-
Garage sale finds...
Tom Geiger replied to fat50's topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
At flea markets, as well as model car shows... if it isn't priced, I'm not going to bother asking. Those are the guys who will name a price after they size you up, and if you look prosperous (or stupid) they will quote a higher price. I've had shifty dealers at shows quote three different prices to three of my group. Don't they understand we all talk? There was a certain resin caster who would have out on display about 100 different kits he produced. He never put prices on any of them. I'd be looking to by several of them, and wanted to be able to add up what I was buying. So I'd ask for a price, he'd answer... I'd ask about a second kit, he'd answer quickly... by the third kit, he was annoyed... -
I will give a tip on this... many tail lights today have red/white/orange/yellow lenses as part of them. Only your kit lens is already clear red. In this photo is the standard red clear tail light that came with my Chevette promo. I then wrapped it in Bare Metal Foil and colored in the red and orange lenses on the foil with Sharpie pens. I painted the white back up lens with some Tamiya white. The light needed a chrome frame anyway, but this is a five minute exercise that anyone can do and it will make your model much more realistic!
-
Thanks Joe! I just like to know stuff.
-
I don't think it's a law, just a law that allows companies to do it? I was subject to one working as a consultant for a Fortune 100 company. Back in the days when I was an employee of that same company, employees were subject to it, but contract employees and consultants were not. I had two occasions where we offered a long time very good contract employee permanent employment and they both failed the drug test for pot. Company policy was to dismiss them, and we lost two very good persons. I think that maybe smaller companies just don't want to pay the cost of testing. I know that many retail companies... Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes etc all have signs up that they test. Amazing that they can find employees these days. I remember back many years ago they were putting an addition onto the county jail and the requirement was that all contractor employees needed to pass a drug test and have a spotless criminal record... they had trouble manning the job! I do believe this is a USA phenomena. I filled out an on-line application for a big international company a few months ago and had to sign off that I would accept a drug test. There was a disclaimer on it that said USA applicants only. Is this testing illegal in other countries? Now with more states legalizing pot, and more to follow, what will the situation be? Will companies still test for pot? Will they say it's against federal law, so they still won't hire people who use pot? For instance, do employers in Colorado still test for pot, or just for the harder drugs now? It should get interesting. I recently was watching Pennsylvania public TV hearings on legalization here. I was amazed at the complete reversal of previous stances... they had the Chief of Police of Philadelphia, Chief of State Police from Maryland and others testifying that it should be legalized and that arresting people for possession is a complete waste of time and money. Amazing times we live in!
-
2010 Chrysler 300C Hearse - Update 7.30.14
Tom Geiger replied to Tumbler75's topic in WIP: Model Cars
I just Googled Chrysler 300 hearse images and found a boatload. Funny since I've never seen one in person! The stock wheels in your first photo would be appropriate. I saw those on a few of the images of 1:1s. An aside is that this seems to be a popular hearse abroad. Many of the photos had Euro type plates on the cars. We see Fiat selling their 500s here, but the part of the ownership we don't see is that they are selling a mess of Chryslers back in Europe! Some of them rebadged as Lancias too! -
I know that sound! My bedroom is over the garage too. Only I have the Geo Tracker in one side, and the other is full of "stuff". So you know the solution? Buy yourself a collector car... yea another '59 Dodge will fill up that garage nicely!
-
I went for my pre-employment drug test. The nurse said to me, "See that cup on the counter? Can you fill it for me?" I asked, "From here?"
-
I've thought that before! In my mind it would be the sport version of the Eclipse convertible. But they wouldn't dare! My wife will be watching some weeks old show that she's saved on the DVR. She'll forget it's not live and watch the commercials for old sales, and sometimes get excited over one of them. Um, that was weeks ago! The Christmas commercials that bother me most are those with very high end cars with bows on them, insinuating that we should be giving them as Christmas gifts. Nobody in my house is getting a new Lexus for Christmas... then at the end of the commercial they pop up the lease deal... Honey, here's your new Lexus, but you gotta give it back in 24 months... here's your payment book! Kinda like giving out library books as Christmas gifts!
-
That I'm off from work this week and my wife (who is not off) sees fit to wake me up at 6:30 every morning when I could sleep in a bit! No doubt done on purpose! This morning she was spraying hair spray in the bedroom. So maybe on Saturday I'll get up at 6:30 and spray some Dullcote in the bedroom just for fun!
-
What did you see on the road today?
Tom Geiger replied to Harry P.'s topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
Yesterday I was sitting at a light and up ahead I saw a street rod on an equally cool street rod style car carrier pull out of the Pep Boys lot.. then it got mixed in with traffic and once my light changed, I had no idea where it went. And I had my camera on my seat next to me. Darn! -
You are right. Some folks avoid it because its a pain in the tail, and you always have some little bit of body color peeking out of your BMF in some corner crevice. Here's a tip... I paint my vent window trim silver, sometimes even with a silver Sharpie before adding the BMF. Then your eye doesn't notice that tiny little misses of BMF. Earl Sheib did! Always thought of that place as a car wash with paint. A buddy-0-mine blindly took a '69 Chevy there for a white repaint. He was horrified that they painted over the emblems! This had to be in 1976 or so.
-
And conveniently become retail marathons! There is something kinda wrong with a 4 day Presidents Day or Fourth of July sale for Japanese cars.... nothing like them waving flags and parading the red, white and blue for the Mitsubishi Sale-a-thon.... from the same folks who brought you the ZERO!
-
I've always had the week between Christmas and New Years off, at all three of my past employers. The thing I like about it is that everyone has that time off so the office stops dead. So there are no calls etc to interrupt your time off, or is there any catching up to do when you return to work in January And of course I have enjoyed my Annual Christmas Model Car Amnesty Build! I recently realized I've been doing this for something like 14 years now. Each year I pull a long stalled project down off my shelf and take the week to finish it! It gets those projects done and on your shelf, as well as being a last minute push to get my overall model car build number up for the year!
-
What did you see on the road today?
Tom Geiger replied to Harry P.'s topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
Yea, the wrong car at the wrong time. And there weren't a lot of them at the dealers, which also deterred sales. I remember looking to see one in person when they first came out and I couldn't find any at dealers. Then I saw a brand new one sitting at a classic car dealer. I asked and he said it was the only one delivered to the local Ford dealer, and he wanted them to take it to auction. The dealer greed thing also hurt sales. I know when I was interested in new cars and dealers wanted to play that + list deal it just turned me off and I never bought the car, even when they became plentiful after a few months. The T-bird was done on the Lincoln LS platform and envisioned as a luxury two seater. I don't know if they didn't sell well or if Ford kept the supply low on purpose. My thought at the time was that if they had taken that body shell, and put it on a low end chassis.. even the Escort chassis like a convertible EXP, at a cheap price, they would've sold a mess of them! -
Bill- When I built mine, I had opened a second kit for parts. I do intend to use the chassis under something someday, but I wouldn't put the same engine in two builds... so if you get stuck, I'd be happy to send you those parts. PM me
- 38,533 replies
-
- johan
- glue bombs
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with: