Tom Geiger

At the risk of being labeled again, I will post my latest acquisition. This is a Premier 1960 Valiant kit that a buddy-0-mine in Arizona picked up for me. I already had another two of these, so why did I need another.. well first was the $10 price. And second... It's molded in a swirl-a-delic plastic. The other two I have are molded in straight gray plastic. This one is different and cool. Does anyone do a photo etch kit for this one? and as far as Premier quality... look at these two sides, especially in the window area. Not even close. Where Johans were done from factory blueprints, Premiers were done from memory! And you guys have the nerve to complain about today's new models! So it's just another bit for the grand Valiant collection. Of course I'm not even going to attempt to build it.

A record that I'm very happy to let you have Harry!

Well we did it in Philadelphia today! We are number two! With the 4.5" recorded today, we slid into second place for the all time most snowfall. We've got 67.4" so far this year. Number one is the 2009-2010 season with 78.7" so we shouldn't beat that. And wouldn't ya know... in over 100 years of recorded snowfall, I've lived here for the two worst out of the four years I've been here!

Times two! You need to trim your BMF as if you were doing final BMF on the script. That's around all the edges cleanly. The concept of BMFing pre-paint and buffing through to it, is that your paint will fill in the spaces in the script letters. It will not hide the edges like you have on the body right now.

alls well that ends well! Glad to hear he was happy, which no doubt made your day!

A funny thing... White Castle didn't call them 'sliders', it was just slang that developed because they slid right through you (see above reference to bathroom tile). With the past ten years, they started calling them 'sliders' in their commercials. Then somehow tiny burgers became an appetizer item and a lot of chains / restaurants picked up on it. Something tells me that none of them understand the original intent of that term!

White Castle is a cultural / nostalgic thing. People go there because they did as a kid, or it reminds them of home. They are greasy little mutant burgers... ever notice that the entire restaurant is decorated in white bathroom tiles? Coincidence? I think not!

Nice work fer sure! I can only imagine how hot it was inside that puppy on the desert in North Africa!

Like I said earlier. If there was a profitable market a manufacturer will fill it. And nobody has stepped up to offer modern pickups. If Meng follows with more American late model trucks, it will be because their main Asian and European markets have responded positively. They aren't looking at the US market, as this is being handled by a distributor. That translates to low volume at higher prices. Not enough sales potential in that formula to make or break their project. Just what we're seeing. This is the equivalent of when Tamiya did the Jeep Grand Cherokee a while back. And that didn't set the US market on fire.

My wife comes from a long line of TV watchers. Nobody in her family has any hobbies and they thought it was odd that I did. The first time I showed her brother my model room, he exclaimed, "That's like WORK!" So you see the mind set. Since my kids are grown and we moved to PA one of the neighbors got my wife to take up scrap booking, which in her case is more like assembling photo albums. She enjoys it and best of all, she's busy doing that while I'm working on models.

It's like when I roll back from the bench in my chair and hear a crunch. Yea, I've run over essential parts with my bench chair. The hood doesn't look too bad. Most of the break is under the scoop. Walk away long enough to stop seeing red. Then take a deep breath, sit down and fix the sucker.

Right on Gary! Time for a little story. Back when I got into models as an adult, Ertl AMT had just come out with the '55 Chevy Cameo and the '66 Nova kits. We didn't have the Internet yet, but modelers complained a blue streak about these kits that AMT had put a ton of effort into. They were remarkable kits for their time. That Christmas (my girls were little then) my daughters got a small merry go round for their little dollies. It needed to be assembled and Dad got that task of course. Pulling it out of the box, it consisted in maybe a dozen injection molded parts on familiar trees. The parts had mold lines, ejector pin marks and a little flash. I then pulled out the instruction sheet and the art and procedure looked very familiar. I looked at the box and yes, it was an Ertl product. I quickly assembled it with out worrying about the mold marks, applied the stickers and handed it over to two very pleased little girls! Looking at the box, this little toy sold for about double what a kit did then. So I thought about it from a business stand point. Ertl could invest a small amount in tooling up these simple kids toys, which then were salable to the mass markets in Walmart, Toys R Us and other large retailers world wide. The products would be eagerly accepted by kids who would be very pleased with them. The return on investment would be phenomenal. On the other hand, Ertl could invest much more money on very detailed tooling of over 100 precision parts, that needed to correctly represent a car or truck down to the last detail, and must assemble easily and flawlessly. It could only be sold in limited retail establishments and the consumers who bought this product would scream and yell about the effort. They would never be happy. Return on investment? Maybe you could make a small profit. Which market would you serve?

Cool. Mark if you want to swing by and pick me up!

We did that a while ago. I found that I was owed money in the state of NJ. It just tells you that much, not how much money or from where. To claim it I had to fill out a form, have it notarized and mail it registered to the state office. That all cost me about $15. What was due me? $2.50 interest from an old bank account!

Drive via I-81 S and I-40 · 2,461 miles, 35 hours As fun as it sounds, the logistics prevent me from attending!

He said it's lasted so long because it sees limited use. I guess that means he lives in a low crime area. In Philadelphia they wear a mess of these out every 10 months or so!

Every day according to the Philadelphia evening news! David that's really cool work. In another thread where people were whining about the lack of new light commercial models, I listed a whole mess of recent diecast that I found easily on eBay. When I mention using diecast to a lot of guys, they'll say no they want a new kit instead. Same guy will say no to resin, he wants a company to spend $300,000 on tooling so he can fiddle with plastic. I think you've proved them wrong in both areas. A diecast with a resin bed... that's modern kit bashing!

The mailman delivered this one today. This is the Revell 2015 Auto Show Edition, only it's signed by the entire design team. Revell has sent this to NNL East to be raffled off to benefit the International Model Car Builder's Museum, to coincide with our 50th Anniversary of Mustang show theme. Many thanks to Ed Sexton and Revell for their thoughtful donation. And yes, you could be the lucky winner of this one of a kind beauty!

Friday: "Pay? You thought we were gonna pay you? We're all retired and just do this for fun." Just kidding John. This sounds seriously fun and a great place to work.

My irks of the week... TWO pain in the tail complaints about NNL East. Some clown sent me a very irate email that we ruined his life because NNL East is the same day as Carslile this year. He is going to tell all his friends never to come to our show again! Oh goodie. He also said that NNL East would FAIL because more people want to go to Carslile than a model car show! We moved the show back a week this year since we otherwise would collide with Easter. Many people travel long distances and travel home on Sunday. Never mind that our normal annual date collides with the Englishtown show, which is much closer. Such is the need to take a date that the hall has available. Either that or no show at all. I got a nasty phone call from someone upset that the Parsippany Holiday Inn doesn't offer a discount to NNL East attendees. Well we moved the show north FIVE FRIGGIN YEARS AGO. We have a host hotel near our new show site that we nearly fill. Everyone who stays there is helping defray the costs of our being able to offer a host hotel, and insures we can do so in the future. The old hotel, under the old manager, continued to offer our discount without our participation. This year the new manager called me and wanted me to sign a contract. Um, no. So excuse me that I wouldn't guarantee them 25 rooms on my personal credit card that has no benefit to me or NNL East, just so you can stay there working against us! I feel much better now!

That does suck, but I learned the hard way a long time ago not to bring anything good to work.

Looks great Rich, I'm sure your brother will love it! The only two negatives I can think of about this project are 1. You have to trust the post office. and 2. You won't get to see his face when he opens it! It is sooo much better to give a cool gift than to receive!

Hey Adam... I don't think you saw my Chevette build thread. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=86536&hl= I'm hoping to finish it up this weekend.

I have many active saved searches, most looking for very obscure items for my specialized stamp collection. I collect a single stamp from 1903-1909. When an item I need shows up it is unique and rare. Nothing in model cars compares. The irony is that the unique specialized items I see aren't expensive. I'll see something with a $10 start price. If I absolutely want it, I bid $100, which is in effect a BUY at any price bid. I usually win those for $20-50. I've never been pushed up to my max or outbid. When I'm looking for a specific model, I set a search. For instance I was looking for a Chevette. So I set the search for both the kit and promo categories. When a suitable target popped up in an email, I'd place a low bid in my sniper program. That way I'd be bidding six seconds before the auction's end so nobody could bid against my bid. If I win great, if I don't oh well. Another one will show up in another search within a week or two. With the Chevette search, I bought a kit (most sold in excess of $50, some up to $100) for $26. And I won a promo for $16. Many finished at prices much higher than I would pay. I was just patient. That's the strategy you need to play.

Ha! I had typed out a nice thoughtful reply last evening and now I see I failed to post it! I usually have 2-3 things out on the bench. And then there are the dozens of unfinished projects! (note- nobody has 50 works in progress, nobody's bench is that big. They may have 3 in progress and 47 unfinished idle projects!) I will stop working on a project when the deadline (like for a club contest) expires without finishing, when I get ticked off at the build, when I get to a mental roadblock and need to think about it, when I run past my current skill level, when I dread the next step, and even when things are going so well I'm sure I'll destroy it in the next step. Right now I have three things out on the bench. I get a bit done on each in a build session since I'm at that point of being able to do a little, then wait for it to dry. I am trying to finish up my lime green Chevette. Last session I got the Alclad on the bumpers and painted the grill. Next time I'll be flocking the seats in an attempt to make the fake lambs wool seat covers. I have my Amnesty Project Dodge A100 pickup. That one was sitting because the opening doors suck and I was pondering what to do with it next. I made a decision and carefully glued the finished doors in place. Next step is figuring out what to add to represent the external hinges. I pulled my Dodge van camper down from the shelf when I got the new '49 Mercury Woody kit and realized it had travel decals in it! I was planning on making some for this project but my printer wasn't working. So procrastination wins again! I put the decals onto the camper and they look as cool as I imagined. Next step on this one is to figure out how to fix the body and chassis so they will be able to be taken apart to view the interior. So it goes back to the sit and think stage. Next up will be the Dodge Caravans, the Taxi and the CV commercial van. The Taxi is sitting because I am procrastinating on cutting the masks for the rear glass. I just need to bear down and do it! The CV has been sitting because I'm pissed at it and needed a time out to see straight again. I was heavy handed on the clear coat and the drip turned yellow so I need to sand it back down to the color coat. I think I've calmed down enough to face it. And so goes my building!