Tom Geiger

I love that little Chevelle police car. I got mine built up as you see it at a show. It comes out each year with my wife's Christmas Village. You have to learn to ignore scale when dealing with Christmas Village!

Guys, none of this is new at all. In fact we are living in the most enlightened times, under the very best of conditions. Back in the good ole days, Americans poisoned Americans chasing the all mighty dollar. Milk was handled under such unsanitary conditions, taken from sick cows, watered down and cut with chalk dust to extend it, and laced with disease. Children were getting sick and dying from milk, and this was before 1900. Patent medicine aka snake oil, had no regulation at all and could claim anything the maker wanted. Some of it was downright poison. But it was sold to an unknowing public. Both the USDA and FDA were founded because of widespread abuse and corruption in manufacturing and sale of internally taken goods. Thankfully we have very stringent laws about our drug and food supplies today.

Wow those hinges look great. Then I started to read this thread and just looked with amazement at what we take for granted today... Jim from the USA pulls out a German sourced kit. Paul from the UK offers a suggestion of sourcing some parts from Japan. Comments come in from New Zealand, Canada and three different US states at opposite ends of the country. If 25 years ago you told us that we'd be building models this way in the future we wouldn't have believed it! Six countries mentioned, representing what, 4 continents, and all within 7 hours!

This was my first experiment using an old built up chassis. This is the AMT '71 Duster chassis, under a '63 Valiant, which you know is basically the same car / same wheelbase as your Barracuda. Here it is cut, note that if you plan the cuts right, the remaining ends butt up against each other requiring no putty, sanding or other fitment work. You can see the line if you follow where I cut back the wheel wells for my stock car build. Here it is from the top. I basically pinned it together inside the rails using brass rod. And don't forget the engine bay. There are a few differences in shapes from the '71 Duster to your 1:1 '66 Barracuda. You should see them easily, if they're important to you. Other than an owner, nobody else would notice! BTW, I had a '65 Barracuda for 35 years!

Put it on Craigs List or eBay. Last engine/tranny I had I was all set to scrap and I figured what the heck, I'd try a free "Buy It Now" ad on eBay. I took a few photos, and posted it for $499. Just make sure you post that you won't ship, local pickup only. The next day I got an email entitled "You Made A Sale." Easiest $500 I ever made.

So sorry to hear Kerry! My condolences. I lost my father 14 years ago to cancer, way too early since he was only 64. It seems like yesterday, and yes I still miss him every day.

Congrats Dave! She must be a model car groupie!

I believe that's the reason we have astroturf in Giants Stadium... Rumor is that Jimmy Hoffa wasn't good fertilizer!

That was a running joke about the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. They had all the gravel around abbutments painted green.

I liked it before, but couldn't put my finger on what was off... turns out it was the roof. The new roofline looks much better, no longer an ice cream truck look!

Very nice work Pete! Reworking a diecast into a model is really getting back to the roots of this hobby. In the beginning there were promotional models. Guys like Art Anderson grabbed onto those and created models. The manufacturers took note and packaged said promos in pieces as kits. Thus the industry and the hobby was born! If there's no kit of a beloved subject, there's no reason at all not to buy the diecast and rework it to your desire. I've seen some truly amazing works of art done that way!

Probably! Here on the east coast, my employer is strategically between Port NY/NJ and Philadelphia, both ship points. Going back 15 years ago we had issues with our two facilities with highway frontage. Very sophisticated thieves would pull into the lot with a roll off truck and back up to a specific car with no hesitation. No doubt they had planned it. Load up and off they went. They were so conspicious that company security didn't even question them. In fact at one of the facilities, a Vice President's brand new company Lexus (he picked it up that day!) was taken and security guards even blocked traffic for the truck. One of my friends lost a year old Nissan Pathfinder and there were a bunch of other SUVs and cars taken. One was an IROC Camaro. Police said that these cars were probably unloaded from the truck, right into a container on another truck locally so they weren't seen riding down the highway. The cars always disappeared in sets, never one at a time. Cops figured they were headed to South America where certain cars and SUVs were worth many times the US price. A while back there was one of those 60 Minutes type shows features on US cars stolen and shipped abroad. They visited used car lots in China and Poland and ran VINs and half the cars on the lots were stolen. Then they went to Belize, saying SUVs were being stolen in Southern California and driven through Mexico, and many of the trucks still had their stolen US plates on them. It's big business.

Sandpaper! I don't believe this has been addressed. You can buy sandpaper, at Walmart or Home Depot. I like the 3M brand, the cheaper stuff is poorly done. I cut mine up into little 1" x 1" squares on a cutting board. In this cabinet I have grits all the way up to 600. I hardly ever use the 80 or 120 grit, the 220 and 320 I use for rough putty work. The Japanese kits you may be building will require less clean up than most older US kits.

Agreed! Owen, going the auto paint route opens up a whole world of colors. I use Duplicolor primers exclusively on my models. They dry very flat to the body and don't obscure detail. They are essential if using auto paint, since they seal in and protect the surface of your model. Straight auto paint without primer will react with the plastic and ruin your model. Most of us learned that one the hard way! Also going this way, you can look up paint codes for recent cars, and may be able to match them exactly. And you can hold off on using your compressor, these spray cans work very well on models, and produce very nice finishes. Most colors you will need to clear coat for the shiny finish. If you don't have a local hobby shop but have a Michaels or Hobby Lobby nearby, you can get a lot of supplies and models there. Each of these stores issues a weekly coupon for 40% off a single non-sale item, so you can save some money as well. Michaels sells a glue called Zap-A-Gap that I use for most of my work. It's a CA glue, but much thicker than the basic kind (which runs like water!) so you can get a little on a toothpick to apply. It's not in their model section, rather in their craft glue aisle.

I think what we're saying here is that we automatically assume that we will do that favor build to our personal standard. At the same time, the person requesting the model has never been exposed to that level of standard. All he wants is a reasonable replica of his car. How many times have we heard, "This is exactly like my old Chevy, only my Chevy was red... the interior was black.... and it had four doors!" In most cases the person would be happy with a reasonably built box stock model painted in the appropriate colors. Or even a diecast... this thread just reminded me of a story. A couple of years ago a secretary at work asked me to find / build a 1968 or 1969 GTO like the one her husband once had for his Christmas present. Always a sucker to help a woman who wants to give her signifacant other a worthwhile car gift, I quickly found that there was a decent $20 diecast of the car, AND it was in the right colors. She had a photo of the car, so I copied the license plate in the Acme Platemaker, added them to the car with some MCG photo etched frames. I bought a $10 Revell(?) display case. The whole thing was $30. On Christmas Day my cell phone rang and it was this lady. She was all apologies about calling me on Christmas, but her husband (who I never met) just had to speak with me. This guy was gushing with thanks and happiness. He was very, very pleased with this diecast. And rather than feeling disturbed on Christmas, his call made my whole day!

I have a dedicated model room, but my wife constantly drops off piles of stuff there. As she 'cleans' the house, she never resolves items, she just creates piles of them and puts them in my model room, often on my chair or bench. Piles can contain things that have no connection to me, like sales flyers and junk mail. So when I decide to work on a model, I have to first remove this stuff!

The one thing these articles never mention is if the owner of the cars in question ever accepted an insurance settlement on the stolen vehicle. If so, they have no interest in the vehicle, it would belong to the insurance company. And as far as the 'statute of limitations', that only affects the ability to prosecute the original thief if they are found. In the case of the Barracuda, no doubt long gone. But if the owner of said car still had their valid title, proving ownership of that asset, I believe a court would return it to them. It would be easier if the car was considered a drag car and changed hands over the years without a title. Otherwise it may be hard to prove that the title currently on the car is ficticious. Never mind the original article's mention that the owner was storing the car in an open apartment building parking lot. Not the best of storage for such a classis in Canadian weather, and a sure target for any scum that drove by. He would have been better off renting a garage to keep the car. He no doubt knows that now. And if I was him, I'd be watching antique car dealer ads in Japan, Australia and the like since the car was closest to western ports. It may show up there with a laundered title.

Whoa! I love that '60 Chevy more door! Set up some build threads and get moving on those cars!

eBay will allow you to set up a search agent. So put in " Modelismo Leonardo" and you'll get an email anytime something by this manufacturer gets listed. I use their search agents all the time, always having several searches active for different collectibles. eBay is so dynamic that it will show up eventually!

Sad fact is that classic car theft usually an organized thing. Cars are either chopped up quick or driven into an ocean container for export to a country where it won't even be suspected as stolen.

That's why I can't collect promos. I understand their significance, but I always see cool things to do to them! That's why I only buy busted ones of cars I wouldn't be able to get easily (or at all!) with kits. An example is that I have several different years of Excel / Johan Rambler wagon promos. All busted up just enough that no promo collector is crying, and anything I do to them is an improvement. I do want to see them as painted and detailed models!

This just reminded me of a story. A long time ago a friend of mine asked how many hours I had in a specific model. I told him probably 50 hours. His response was astonishment, saying that he redid his whole kitchen in 50 hours! That statement haunted me for a long time. To think about the time I spent on a little model truck could have produced those big result like a new kitchen! Then I thought a bit more and came to the realization that the time I spent on my model was down time, time I was to spend relaxing and enjoying myself. So those hours shouldn't be counted! So to this day, I put as much time as I need into every build, but refuse to ever add up the hours!

No town official would be stupid enough to issue tickets for not watering your lawn during a water emergency. That would be the lead item on the 6pm news! It's a declared state of emergency so the low water supply can be used for drinking, the public good and um, fighting fires. The same officials who would issue the first ticket, usually are the ones who will write the ticket for watering your lawn during a water emergency.

Much of Wally's clientele doesn't read all that well.

I have thought about doing that! Those Hot Wheel VWs became my racing team because they dropped like rocks. Short and heavy!