Tom Geiger

I'm in pretty good shape at 55 (with a lot of miles on me!) but I can feel the affects of old age coming on. I have the start of arthritis in my left hand, two of my fingers click at the joint and need a bit of coaxing, but overall I cannot complain. A suggestion for those seeking some stability, I know painters who use a bean bag (or a bag of M&Ms) on their desk to steady the holding hand. The bag contours itself to your hand giving you a steady hold. Try it. It's no secret that this hobby attracts people with disabilities. It's perfect for those with leg mobility issues and a lot of time on their hands. Long ago at NNL East we discovered that our clientele way out numbered the provided Handicap spaces at our hall. So we bought an additional 10 Handicap signs and posts and added additional spots. Over the years we've had the obnoxious ignore or outright knock over the sign to park, which is the reason we only have 8 of the signs remaining. But I think we'll buy a new stock for next show and provide an additional 20 spaces!

Here, slightly west of Philly, we have "ovals". These look like pizza, but I'm told it's more of a stromboli / calzone that they didn't bother to fold over and left open face. It's oval in shape like a football, but still cut into slices. It's a personal pizza size and you can order a mess of usual and odd things on it. You have to specify if you want pizza sauce or cheese on it. I guess technically they haven't broken any pizza laws. My wife usually orders the cheese steak oval, with sauce on the side. Pretty good... being my wife she only eats about half of it, so I eat the other half after my meal. Kinda why I married her!

I have to agree with Roger here! It's been said that kids today don't build anything with their hands. The fact that Lego is in an amazing renaissance right now blows that theory to hell. And Roger has shown that kids have the interest and ability to stick to things through completion if they are properly motivated. My daughters are now 26 and 30, but again of the generation that we said didn't do anything with their hands. They each had a successful go at building a model with dad, models that are proudly displayed in my case today. And to this day they are avid crafters. They love to build stuff, paint things and put their personal touch on gifts. Michaels, JC Moore, JoAnnes and Hobby Lobby wouldn't exist today if nobody was using their hands. And Lego is probably more popular today than when we were kids, certainly more interesting and varied! I see that Walmart has nearly a full aisle devoted to Lego. Then I went into a small toy store that was nearly all Lego. I asked the owner how he managed to survive and he said that in Legoworld, he concentrated on the high end tough to find stuff you don't find in the box stores. He found a niche so Lego folks are sophisticated and know that product as well as we know the model lines! Revell's attempt at bringing in young modelers should be commended. They have the baby boomer end rather well covered with kits of subjects we all love. And now they're covering the other end of the spectrum. A big part of why there are no young model car builders is exposure and availability. We found models everywhere as kids. Heck, I'd go grocery shopping with my mother because they had models displayed down the center of the freezer cases and I'd always manage to finagle one for the trip. So if Revell is successful in getting these beginner kits in the stores where they'll be seen, kids will buy them and when they want to step up, they'll find the hobby shops just as Lego folks have found that one niche Lego store!

Agreed with most of the sentiments posted above! I got back into this hobby some 25 years ago to work on my model car bucket list from when I was a kid. Once I went to a show and joined a club I was hooked. I discovered that my fellow club members were all better builders than I, but they were all eager to help the new guy. I soon found the answers to a lot of things I was struggling with, those things that made my models suck! And I found that a lot of it wasn't sheer talent that I didn't have, but just tips and tricks that I hadn't discovered yet. Soon my model building exceeded what I originally thought capable, and I achieved those childhood dreams of winning awards at model shows. Since then, the cutting edge has moved ever so far forward! I don't believe I can compete with the big dogs anymore. And ya know, I don't want to. I found a comfortable niche for my building in weathered and light commercial vehicles, and have honed my skills and presentation to the point that I'm happy with. Not first place winners, but nice shelf models that get my idea across. I decided early on that I wasn't going to buy a lathe or use an airbrush. It just doesn't interest me and doesn't look fun. At least for me. So today I build to get the images out of my head and into the 3D world, to satisfy myself and the small band of crazies I call my friends. It's more about having fun and relaxing than hitting that cutting edge. There will always be that guy who is doing something way beyond your talents or maybe just beyond your interest. And it will only get worse with 3D printing technologies. So just have fun. Today I go to shows to have fun, look at the models, buy a few things, see my friends and have a good lunch. I'm especially good at lunch!

I too had issues with IE and am now using Chrome to read this board

I'm spending the weekend at Fell's Point, a waterfront tourist area in Baltimore. I was at Max's Taphouse http://www.maxs.com/ that has 140 rotating drafts, 5 hand pumped cask ales and over 1200 bottles. And for lunch I had: MAX’S TATER BOWL Crunchy Tater Tots smothered in our own pulled pork BBQ Topped with melted cheddar jack cheese, a heathy dose of sour cream and bacon...Just what the doctor ordered...Or maybe not Amazing!

Talk about low hanging fruit... a new tool 55-56-57 Thunderbird would be a great new kit! They could easily get all three years done, and a lot of racing versions!

We once had a fancy family affair with the best prime rib! Some old Irish relatives needed theirs well done and then covered it with Ketchup! Yuk!

Very nice work as usual Manny! I started building junkers back in the early 1990s with a Monogram 1959 Caddy convertible as part of a club 'same car' project. I brought it to a contest and the organizers made me put it on the "Misc" table. I was standing back watching people look at it and as two guys were looking at it one said, "Somebody ruined a perfectly good model for that." That became an inside joke in my club for years! But beaters and junkers hadn't come of age just yet.

I wasn't in the hobby when these were new. I've only seen them in secondary markets like eBay and at shows. I assumed these were off shore releases of Revell kits

Yes. It's good to plan ahead. My wife knows who to talk to about disposing of my unbuilt collection. And she knows which two of my favorite builds will go to the International Model Car Builder's Museum. I also told her to take all my unfinished projects off the shelves over my bench and give them to my club to distribute. Maybe the guys will finish them in my memory! The tough part is that the moment your passing goes through the community (which takes minutes these days with the Internet), some scum will be showing up at your door to bother your family about buying your stuff. And don't think this will be the top dollar guy. I know of this happening in several situations! So best to be prepared. Every time I go to a show and see a big box of built ups for $5 each, I worry that those will be my cars someday!

There was the time I was transporting my '32 Vicky across the model room, holding it securely by the roof edges. All of a sudden I hear a 'CRACK' and I realize all I'm holding it the body! The rest of it had tumbled down to the carpet. The good part was that no painted parts broke. It pretty much just unassembled itself. So I took the opportunity to get some good interior shots and such since the model was built before digital cameras. I was upset so I did let it languish in a box for ten years or more. I just couldn't look at it, and thought the damage was much worse than it actually was. I also thought I'd be doing some upgrades when I repaired it. Then I posted some old photos of it on the boards with the story and guys encouraged me just to put it back together. So I did and it wasn't that bad a deal. A week of careful evenings and we're back on the shelf...

Thanks Dan! And about electricity... NNL East doesn't allow any power to dioramas. And as you know, for every rule there was an incident, actually two that scared the heck out of me. The first one was a guy who had a diorama that made smoke. When asked he said it wasn't really smoke. But soon enough there was a haze up high in the gym, enough that the fire marshal would have had a fit on us, so I shut him down. And he argued with us! Said we were ruining his chances of winning Best in Show. Hint- When you are relying on a gimmick, you aren't gonna win anyway. The second incident was a large car dealership that was very nice and had lights throughout. The guy had his own base and when I saw him he had set this thing up in the middle of an aisle and ran a heavy electric cord right where people were walking. So where we had a regulation size aisle, now people needed to squeeze past him. The scary part was when I just happened to duck down and look under it. All the wires were just twisted together with all the copper exposed. A fire waiting to happen. And we shut him down. When I'm responsible for the safety of 1200 people, I really don't give a darn about your diorama!

I guess you heard the black helicopter hovering over your house?

Good to see you start another model Adam! You are right, there are 50 shades of gray! Seriously, back when my daughter wanted to build a model of my Geo Tracker, the closest we had was a Suzuki Samurai kit, so we decided to build it to match my Tracker's colors. My interior is gray and that's when we noticed the same thing. Lots of different shades, textures and degrees of flat to shiny. The tough part is that when you try to replicate it sometimes you don't even see the difference in scale. On my Dodge Caravan taxi, I have my 1996 Grand Caravan for reference and of course that interior is gray. The seats are distinct. They are light gray vinyl with dark gray inserts. I bought several to many cans of grays to replicate this. I carefully chose the lightest and the darkest and painfully masked off the seats. Guess what? You cannot even notice it in the interior bucket!

Fabrizio jarred an old memory with that last post! Back when I was 11 or 12 I was allowed to build models in my grandparents' basement. And being a kid I did so on the floor. My grandfather was mowing his little backyard with his electric lawn mower. He didn't look when he tossed his extension wire into the basement... dead center on my brand new '71 Cougar that I was painting. He smashed the body, and pretty quickly took me to Two Guys to get another one. They didn't have another Cougar so I got something else. Move forward 30 years and I'm in charge of selling the house after my grandfather died. I'm cleaning out the basement and what do I spy on the floor? A blue spray paint outline of that Cougar body on the floor!

It's unfortunate, but Danbury won't be doing any more vehicles. The very last design exercise was on the Hollingsworth 1957 Nomad. The owner of new replica gave them complete access to the car, and they got as far as producing one prototype. Rick Hanmore told me they gave it to the car's owner in the end. Sad since I really wanted one of those!

Be very careful with bats, it can be a serious thing. They carry critters with them and disease in their excrement. And bats are like roaches, if you see 2 you may have 100s. A few years ago friends of ours started itching and it was determined that they had bed bugs. They were into every carpet, bed, couch etc in their house. So in the course of exterminating (and throwing out all their carpet and much of their furniture), the exterminator discovered that they had bats in a sealed off area of their attic. The bats hadn't got into their house, but their bugs etc had. Upon opening up that area, there were literally 100s of bats and the whole place had a liberal coating of bat poop, which is where the bugs breed and live. The clean up was bio-hazard and required men in white suits. All the attic insulation had to be removed as well as their bedroom ceiling since the sheet rock was saturated from above. Several thousand dollars spent. They had never even thought they had bats. Living adjacent to woods they'd see them flying around but never saw them get near the house. The space they got in was minuscule. They found a tiny hole between the siding and soffit. .It all traced back to a neighbor who had a bat house on a tall pole at the back of their property. It fell down during a storm and the bats found a new home... in my friends attic. So be careful. It may be worth getting an exterminator experience in bats to look around.

Also if you are intending to take this diorama to shows, be aware that show tables are either 6 or 8 feet long, by 30 inches deep. If you are planning on a very large one, it's best to plan on making legs for it. People have also done smart things like making the diorama in several sections that lock together with the seams being hidden by being along a building or curb line. Plan ahead! Be sure of a few things... first as Howard mentioned, that it will fit in the vehicle you are intending on transporting it in, and second that you can actually get it out of the place you've built it. I know of one guy who built a diorama in his basement only to learn it was too big to go up the stairs! Logistics folks! And most important, bigger isn't better. Some of the coolest dioramas are pretty small. Plan ahead as to what your story is, and the size of the space you actually need to get that across. Huge dioramas often have no focus. There once was a guy who thought 'bigger was better' and he built a diorama of a car show in a park. The center of this was a full size scale tennis court that took up a lot of space and added nothing automotive to the story at all. And since he had the car show on grass on one side of this, and a large parking lot on the other side, he was really reaching to fill all that space. He didn't have enough well built models so he added warped promos and diecast cars. And he filled the area with unrealistic "Homie" style figures, as well as using a lot of oversize doll house accessories. Don't do that! It is also necessary to contact the show team ahead of time to advise them that you are bringing a large diorama so they can plan for it. Manny Solano, who posts on this board, has brought his huge, very well done, junkyard to NNL East several times. He always emails me weeks in advance. He has his own table base, so we have the details of where it will sit, and plans to get him in early and help him with the volume he brings! In comparision we once had a guy show up around 11am, once all the show tables were heavily populated with a large diorama, who just screamed blood murder at us and couldn't understand why we wouldn't clear off a whole table for him at that late hour. Be smart!

Very cool model... you put the F-U-N in FUNERAL!

A wee bit-0-progress... with the warm weather my attention has gone outdoors, getting everything ready for summer! The tough part is that we are already booked for every weekend in June. So it's tough even getting that stuff done. So I haven't been to the bench much at all. With a request from the board as to how to do sheepskin seat covers, I realized I hadn't taken and shared any photos since the Chevette's interior was completed! The interior was black with those cheap fake sheepskin seat covers that was all the rage in the 1980s. The black vinyl seats were all split at the seams under those, seats were sooo crummy back then. Oh, a funny side story.... my Geo Storm also came with those covers and we just assumed that the seats were damaged and never looked underneath. My daughter damaged the drivers seat, so I took off the cover to see the seats were perfect! Off they came. And I have no idea what happened to the top of the dash. This was a light green promo so maybe they had some odd clear coat on it to get that alligator look with Duplicolor primer gray and gloss black. The body top surfaces also have very fine cracks all over too, and that's just Tamiya green directly over the kit green plastic. Go figger. I put the flocking on heavy to look like the sheepskin, over Duplicolor gray primer. Then I sprayed it with hair spray to keep the fibers from flying. I hate seeing models with those darn fibers all stuck with static on the kit glass! I had sprayed the interior bucket and rear seat Duplicolor gloss black which pretty much replicated vinyl. I used Testors Dullcote on the carpets as an experiment. And just for fun.. a bowling bag from the Johan '59 Rambler wagon luggage set. I thought I could pass it off as a book bag but no it's a friggin bowling bag. I made the decal for my sister in law's school, and painted the bag in school colors. Just something to add interest when someone looks in the back glass! The car has it's faults, but it's a curbsider that I'm planning on giving away so I'll press onward. The headliner is done complete with a rear view mirror and sun visors. All that needs to be done is final assembly, then pop on the mirror and antenna! Next time you see it, it should be done.

Gray flocking over white glue. The seats were painted with light gray primer first. The flocking was put on lumpy, by putting on two layers. Then in the end I sprayed them with hair spray to keep the flock from flying. I hate when I see models with flocking fibers stuck to window glass via static electricity. The seat covers were done to replicate those cheap fake sheepskin covers that were all the rage in the 1980s. The car is my sister in law's Chevette that had those awful covers over seats with split seams. Upholstery was so crummy back then. Hope this is what you are looking for!

Welcome Jake! This is a fun place.

As long as the second announcement isn't, "Okay then... can anyone on board fly a plane on X-Box?"

"What's that gnawing sound out in the driveway Ward?" "Don't worry June, that's just our new 1960 Plymouth rusting." There's a new nostalgic tv show channel here in Philly. I've been taping the Beav' and some of the old cop shows.