Tom Geiger

Here's an article: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/07/25/how-to-save-hobbies/ No big relevations here, but a good opening for a discussion. Our hobby is cheap next to some of the hobbies / sports listed in the article. I can say that I've never used monies needed for my family. Anything I spend is purely extra money, after all the bills are paid and the family is well taken care of. Still, I see and hear different in the hobby.... Thoughts?

I went to Walmart (I know, my first mistake) and I see they have boxed desktop PCs on the Clearance cart. So I stop to look. Not the latest, but could work for me at the right price. There are three of them and of course there is no price on any of them. No help around anywhere either. So I take this large box and lug it about halfway across the store to a price scanner. I scan the bar code and get "See An Associate". Never saw that before. So I lug it back where I got it and some young girl is now behind the counter. So I ask her how much. She scans it and with great authority tells me $475. which was the original price. I tell her that and she blinks and tells me that was ALSO the clearance price. So I left! Oh, and it's a nice cool evening here in PA. That means that my neighbors are enjoying their fire pits... I can smell it in the air... why does it smell like they're burning couches or something?

Ok, new gripe! Restaurants that put Catches in their specials.... Tonight we tried a new place, an Irish pub in one of the local towns. They advertised $3 beers and half price appetizers for Happy Hour. We were really pleased with the place, the service and atmosphere... until the bill came. That's when I noticed that they charged half price for my wings, but $10 for my wife's nachos. So I ask why. Ha! Without blinking this little witch of a barmaid tells us that yes, the nachos are half price, but when you add beef to it they then charge full price. What? When my wife ordered the nachos, they asked beef or chicken? as if that was part of it. But now this person is telling me that we needed to specify NO MEAT to qualify for half price. I asked that since the wait staff knew we were ordering half price appetizers, and they knew it was our first time there, shouldn't they have advised us of the full price? Nope, we should've known. Not written anywhere, not communicated except on a final bill, but WE should've known. So she continues on to tell us that Thursday is $5 nacho day for Happy Hour. I tell her that the nachos are on the menu for $8.50 so if appetizers are half price, wouldn't they be $4.25 everyday? And what is the special? Upcharging the item by 75 cents? Apparently. So they're charging us the $5 nacho day special, PLUS a $5 upcharge for beef. So I ask for a manager. Another 20 something girl comes to see us. I explain it again, she starts to shake her head and I stare her down like a father to a little child and I tell her, "Fix it." She gulps and redoes our bill. Not a lot of money, just the principle of it. And we're not likely to go back there either.

I actually own the box art vehicle for one of the laster versions of the Deora kit. I got it at a GSL auction years ago. The cars on the boxes are heavily airbrushed. The box art vehicles are built without glass or lenses to avoid glare in pictures and to make the interior visible. The air brush artist draws them in. My car is quite different than how it looks on the box. They even changed the tone of the paint job.

Yea, but did they let you drive it? I've seen three since I saw my cousins car. One white and two black. My cousin's car is gold. I credit my spotting them with knowing what they are. I'm sure I saw some prior to this and they just blended into traffic.

Yes. Lindberg did both the Cordoba and matching Dodge Charger in their 1/32 scale line. These are two of the harder to find ones,

Ever notice that your McDonalds burger bears no resemblence at all to the one displayed on the menu?

Amen. Model builders are artists, thinkers and creators. People who would rather build their visions with their hands than sit and watch TV. I once had a guy ask me if I had any hobbies on a job interview. He seemed impressed with my answer. My career coach told me that employers will ask that question because they have found that people with hobbies are well rounded, make good decisions, and make better employees.

Well here's a sorta / kinda type of situation... I once had a '73 Barracuda. I sold it to a buddy-0-mine for $1500, who paid me $1000 and owed me $500. After pretty much trashing it, he offered it back to me in lieu of his owing me $500. I figured it would be better to have the car than to never see my $500, so I took it back with the intent of reselling it to get my money back. I never titled it in my name, agreeing to sell it on my friend's behalf. I sold the car to a minor who was in the auto shop program in high school and needed a class project. I think I got $1000 for it. I was smart enough to sign the title over to his mother, and to get her to sign a hand written bill of sale. Car was driven on a flat bed and left my house. A year or more goes by and my buddy gets a citation in the mail for abandoning a car. I called the court and got advise to appear in court and bring the proof of sale. No problem. They also told me that since the title was still in my friend's name, we also had the option of retrieving the car if we paid the fine and all the towing and storage charges. So we went for a look... man it was depressing. The car was nothing more than a shell, wrecked and stripped. All the glass broken out of it and the roof caved in from people jumping on it. Not a car we wanted back. So we were told to go to the courthouse and ask to see the prosecutor before the session. He was a nice guy who took copies of my sale paperwork, and said that he was glad we had it since he often had to prosecute owners who he believed that they sold the car, but had no proof. Then he was going to file the same charge against the kid's mother. So we sat in the front row of court, and when the judge called the case, the prosecutor stood up and said he declined to prosecute, and the case was dismissed. Be careful to get papers signed when you sell a car. Too many guys just take the cash and hand the buyer the signed undated title. It was evident that in our case that this kid was tear assing around town in this car, uninsured and with the title still in the previous owner's name. If he had gotten into an accident and people were hurt or killed, you know who would've been sued.

I hadn't seen this one in a while! `We are the Rodney Dangerfield of hobbies! When I've told people that I build models, the reactions have varied over the years. Some try to comprehend and ask if I mean radio control cars, or other motorized cars, which leaves me to explain it. I'll tell them that yes, I build the same model cars we did as kids, but now it's a very detailed adult driven hobbies with national shows and tons of high tech advances. When I show people some of my work, most are pretty well convinced that it's a respectable hobby.

And the beauty of those kits back then was that they were easy to build and looked great once done. An 11 year old could spend a few evenings painting parts and assembling them and get nice results. I remember my satisfaction upon finishing the Pie Wagon. I didn't paint the body, but detail painted everything else. I did paint the T'rantula, but we only had Christmas green spray paint so I used it. It still looked cool in a darker green, and the funny part is that I always picture that kit that way! But they are great memories and that's the attraction today!

Nice build! A buddy-0-mine had a '73 that he found on a used car lot with 50,000 miles on it. It was really strange because it was dark blue, but had a bright green interior in it. Not a repaint, someone must've ordered this odd looking car. He was determined to repaint the car in a color that would compliment the interior.. maybe green, white or tan.. but as most cars he owned suffered cruel premature deaths, so did this one. He had a short attention span and found another car that caught his eye, so he bought that. He never had any ambition to actually sell his cast off cars to recoop any money, he'd just call a junk yard to pick them up or otherwise give them away. So he gave this one to his brother, who immediately pulled the drivetrain to put in a Camaro.

If you want to get enlightened, go watch the cable show "How Things Are Made". The nugget manufacture isn't alone. That's the way hot dogs are made... as well as that sea food product sold as "Sea Legs" and other names that looks like a king crab leg.. as well as crab cakes... I watched the show about crab cakes.. they catch the crabs, scoop out the big chunk of meat, then throw the rest of the crab into a grinder. Add the grindings to flour and other seasoning ingredients, and you have crab cakes. That's right, intestines, brains, and even shell. And it's considered a regional delicacy!

Those old Tom Daniel kits are a lot of fun and really take you back to your youth! Back in the day I had the Tijuana Taxi, Garbage Truck, Pie Wagon and T'rantula. There were always Monogram ads for these in comic books, so I wanted the S'cool Bus, and Rommels Rod. I never found them back then. But I have managed to collect the whole set... you can thank me for the recent retooling of the Tijuana Taxi and Rommels Rod. I spent years piecing together originals. Right when I finished, bam! New kits coming out! Not a problem though, I'm glad to see them out again. Note that there are differences between the originals and the new versions. These are completely new toolings since the old tools no longer existed. They changed up some things, like items that were seperate are now molded in but they're still cool. One of the highlights of my modeling is that I got to meet Tom Daniel. He was at GSL one year, and I got to tell him how much I appreciated his work over beers. Now if the 11 year old kid back then knew I'd meet him someday, I would've freaked!

I don't have this kit so I haven't seen the tires. One fix would be to fill the tires with sand. An old demo derby trick was to fill the tires with wood chips, then screw them onto the wheels. No flat tires! I have the kit. It's just a repop of the original 1958 Fury promo. It's got scale issues, and it's Fury trim rather than the Belvedere trim on the AMT kit. And since the '58 promo didn't come with an interior, R&R gives you a '59 interior and dashboard, which is quite different! The car does have the Fury only bumpers, if someone wanted them for a project off the AMT car. I'm surprised nobody has corrected the AMT side trim and offered it as a resin casting. Personally, I never saw the issue until someone posted a photo of the car with the correct trim lines drawn in. An industry insider once told me that these glaring errors were a product of producing kits to a deadline for Walmart and other big box stores. The manufacturer knew about the error, but didn't have the time to go back for another test shot round to fix it. So a lot of stuff got put out that way... because you know, no manufacturer misses a Walmart deadline. That's instant death.

Back when the model car business revolved around annuals, they were always looking for mid year releases. Those were the days when you'd get the hardtop in the fall, and the convertible later at that mid year. A vendor had come into Revell trying to sell metal flake. Jim Keeler thought it would be cool to see how it would look suspended in clear plastic so he took some out to the plant and asked the workers to pop out some windows with the metal flakes suspended in the plastic. Thus those metal flake cars were born! I don't think they worked out all that well. You were supposed to paint the inside of the bodies like slot cars, so the metal flake would pop. Most of them I've seen got built without any paint, and all the glue used for assembly visible through the plastic. In those days the annual kit either was modified into the next years car or it was trash! Nobody had any foresight that there would be a market for older cars, nor did they think very far into the future. There was no collector market, they were in the toy business. So annuals would become chopped up funny cars the next year to pull some more value out of the obsolete mold. Models like Revell's VW bus became that awful custom... Bob Paeth admitted to being responsible for that one!

It seems the '71 and '72 are the hard to find models. I have a few '73s but only one '71 promo and just pieced together enough parts to build a '72 to complete my run of full size Chebbys. This is a very familar nose to me, especially in this color. In 1972 my father brought home a '71 Belair 4 door sedan in that same light green. This car was purchased from Hertz, it had been a car that was leased to a local utility company. Pretty much a stripper, with manual windows and door locks. At least it had air! This was our family car for many years. My father liked cars, and fiddling with them. Nobody ever thought that this one had a big Holley 4 barrel, some interesting tuning and dual exhausts on it. It was fun to borrow it and nail someone off the light.

The big question in my mind... does a hearse actually have a divider window? It's not like a taxi, the rider isn't going to attack the driver from behind! Or maybe..

And their evil cousins, the guys that don't stop at all on red, just charge through the red and make that right on two wheels! Don't worry Harry, I believe there is an even distribution. Probably more of them in the retirement belt... My favorite? Two old folks on line at McDonalds... they've been waiting 10 minutes... they finally get up to the order taker and the lady looks at the old guy and says, "Gee what do you want Walter? Should we get the red meat paste or the Chinese chicken?"

Okay guys... here's how to fix the AMT '58 Plymouth... First we find some accurate reference photos of a 1:1. There's the accurate stripe for our detailing... Don't like the roof on this kit? Just cut it off. Don't like the way the doors line up with the quarter panel? Cut it off. Oh, yes I'm improving this kit and building my accurate replica! (yes I know I'm building a '57 here)

Bingo! My nemesis as a kid! I was in love with the beach scene box art (still am!) so I'd buy that kit every year figuring I was a year older and surely up to building it this year. No such luck! Every time the guys on this board are screaming a bloody streak over a new release that would have totally amazed us back in the 1960s I think of these! Imagine if Palmer and Premier were still at it today? In my memory Palmers were sold in smaller places like corner candy stores and pharmacies, where you'd go to a hobby shop or big box store for your AMT / Revell etc kits. My grandmother would drag me to Bingo and would give me money to buy something to keep myself occupied from the little luncheonette on the corner. I was 10 years old and I KNEW! But heck it was her dollar and it kept me quiet for an hour. Note that they were never mentioned or reviewed in the model car magazines, so they were pretty much a toy joke back then. Today I actually buy Palmers, Pyros, Premiers and other odd brands, just to collect the box art for my shelf. Oh that box art held such great promise!

I curse the builder of my house! They made the 2 car garage exactly 20 feet deep. Heck, many garages are 24 feet deep so that you can have a work bench at the back. Considering that my garage is flat with the upstairs of my house, it may not be a bad idea to add a 6 foot addition to the front of it. Then two small cars would fit on each side. And no doubt a heck of a lot cheaper than building that extra 2 car garage out back! I was just on a Trabant site and saw several for sale in the USA... which got me thinking... and I wouldn't mind having an original Mini or Fiat 500....

Nick, I've worked in Fortune 100 pharmaceutical companies for the last 35 years. I can say that there are 5 people involved in Quality for every 1 person who actually touches product. It's seriously regulated and documented. The FDA does an amazing job of regulating and inspecting. The inspectors change for each site visit as their own internal self check. The European Union (EU) has their own organization that represents member countries. They visit US facilties regularly and are much tougher than our own FDA. Other countries have their own organizations and standards. I've recently seen Turkey and Brazil on our sites. Back when i worked on an actual production site, there were over 100 classes on my list of required courses. I was in training every week. As management, I had to take the overviews of every process and job. I gained serious respect for the folks who actually worked in production, the training they had and the stringent standards they worked to. Thankfully we have these oversight organizations. WIthout them it would be pure anarchy.

Ha! My Geo Tracker is 11 feet long. It takes up half of the length of my garage, which is 20 feet long... which gets me thinking... what collector car can I buy that's 9 feet long?

My Trabant 601 Universal came in the mail today.. no doubt yesterday. I have been anxiously awaiting it's arrival, and my wife checked the mail yesterday but only found bills and flyers. What I didn't realize is that the box was odd shape and wouldn't fit in the mailbox down by the curb, so USPS delivered it to my seldom used front door. I checked there on a hunch just now, and there was my kit! It's very nice and I may just open it up and build it, leap frogging the hundreds of projects in my queue. One nice detail is seperate shoulder belt parts. I struggle to add shoulder belts in my models and these would be great if someone cast them... hint, hint! I do have Revell of Germany's two prior Trabbie releases, the recent Limosine that this kit is based on, as well as two of the older curbside kits. For those shopping prices I paid $17.95 for this one. Now I will stalk eBay for the new Ebbo Renaults!