Tom Geiger

I think it's easier to ask them to put the attachments and ejector pins on a part of the item that won't be visible. I believe we started to see that on the Japanese kits. Sprue attached to bumpers on the back side, wheels no longer attached by the chrome edge... we're seeing that on the newer kits.

Me too! I like the automotive sprays, they go down well, dry very quick and are very durable as you build the rest of the model and polish it. I have found that if I start with Duplicolor primer, it protects the body from hot paints, so I can paint with nearly any spray paint over that without fear. The problem with a lot of hardware store sprays will be drying time and then durability as you work the rest of the model. Now if we're talking about using cheap paint for the price differential, you pretty much get what you pay for. I do have the Walmart flat and satin black paints, which work pretty well. But the 99 cent color cans from the dollar store... well your models will look like you did so.

It can go either way, what ever you work out with the seller. Personally I like dealing in person off Craigs List since there have been some scammers there. I usually use it for larger items that I wouldn't want to ship. Last thing I sold there was a set of 4 bentwood chairs. People do read ads out of their own area and contact you to ship them stuff. I did so on some Studebaker parts I had listed a few years ago without any problems. CL is also a great place to get rid of free stuff. The garbage company here charges to take large items so it's easy enough to post an ad for a free non-running lawn mower. I gave away an old couch once, and my favorite was a nasty old wood swing set in my yard. Two guys showed up, disassembled it and took it away. Run a FREE ad and your phone will ring off the hook.

Another way... I've stripped the chrome, painted the black and then BMFed the chrome back on the rim

The main roads near me have a lot of stop and go traffic so I always browse the left shoulder and see what trash is up against the highway divider. The vast array of car parts amazes me, everything from bolts and brackets to whole grills and bumpers. And this is on car only roads do this stuff didn't fall off a truck

Very nice build on one of my favorite kits

Yea, pretty much used up one of my 9 lives on that episode!

Since we've graduated to stupid car tricks... When I was 17 my best friend was Gregg. He was one of those guys who didn't know squat about anything, but would tell you something with such confidence that you believed him. Gregg had bought a 1967 Mustang that had been sitting for a while. It needed a transmission and he got it for $100 or so. He needed to get it home, about 15 miles, and decided to tow it with his '66 Impala. Of course he has no proper gear to do so. He pulls a seat belt out of the car and bolts the two mounting ends together. he then wrapped one end around the Impala rear bumper and the other end around the Mustang front bumper. Then he simply buckled it. When I questioned this, he confidently told me that seat belts were made to withstand 5000 pounds of pressure. And I believed him. So the plan was that he'd tow the Mustang and I'd ride in it. I was the brakes. Anytime needed, he'd give me the "brake" signal out the drivers window. So we tried this on the development street going maybe 15mph. It worked. So we headed out onto the main road. Now I anticipated going maybe 15-20mph. With the seat belt length, I was so close to the Chevy I couldn't see the tail lights. Gregg gets going and starts going faster and faster and I'm getting nervous. A car pulls out ahead of him and I hit the brakes. That worked. Now he's getting more and more stupid confident. He hits 40-45mph and we're sailing. The Mustang didn't have a battery so I didn't have a horn to beep at him. So I'm trying to drag him down a bit with the brakes, which only had him trying to go faster. I'm in a panic and he thinks this is funny. We get up to the corner where we need to make a right turn in town. He signals for me to brake, but I've heated up the brakes so much from trying to slow him down, I don't have enough brake to slow this freight train down enough to make the turn. He does it anyway. There is a huge SNAP and the seat belt has broke. Now I'm sailing free from the Impala and I manage to steer the car through a pharmacy parking lot and I hit the curb at the end of it. Dragging the brakes all the way. As I hit the curb with a bang, a mouse nest that was in the sagging headliner drops down on me and baby mice scramble. What we didn't realize was there was a cop sitting on the corner who saw the whole thing. He comes up to the Mustang and sees me sitting there covered in mouse nest and just starts laughing. He yells at the two of us as to what idiots we were and called a tow truck (as Gregg should have done to begin with) to take the car the rest of the way home. No tickets, no accidents and no injuries or death. Amen.

I was a pretty cautious kid but I still dreamed up those crazy stunts. For those I had my stunt man, Jimmy McGuire. I'd be wondering if you could ride a tricycle down a flight of concrete steps, no problem to get Jimmy to try it! Then I'd watch him tumble end over end and the trike landing on his head! As he ran off all bloody and crying to his mother, I'd just stand there and think, "Hmmm, so that's what would happen."

Very nice Cruz! That does seem to be the 'IT ' color on that kit! I was planning on doing mine the same until I saw a few already. So I decide on lime green and I go to my club meeting and there's a lime one sitting on the table! So I'm still thinking about color. A question. I really don't like the diamond plate on the back, is that standard for this model Jeep? And has anyone sanded it clean without affecting the other molded in details?

Argh! I had the worst cold I've had in a long time last fall. Of course it hit hard the weekend before I had a job interview first thing Monday. So I went to the town on Sunday evening and stayed over in a hotel so I could get a bit more rest. Still I felt like crud. The funny part was that the folks I interviewed with also had colds so. I don't think it hurt my chances. In the end they never filled the job.

I remember reading that Plymouth handed out small metal replicas made on site at the 1939 Worlds Fair. That would qualify as a promo.

Cool Mark- I used to save the covers for restaurant butter patties because they had a neat honeycomb pattern on them. Too small for seats but I used them for vents and such. But here's my tip... old business cards... I have a box of an old card of mine that has a nice soft pattern on them....

Remember, their customers were kids (actually us when we were kids!). We didn't know any better and would have been happy to clumsily carve those doors out and hang them on tape! Then we could've used it to tow one of our replica stock car bodied funny cars!

But that's the truth of it. Local. Codes dictate number of parking spaces required and also the percentage of the lot that can be covered by impervious surface. Easy solution is to reduce standard 10x20 spaces for 8x18 ones. The other solution is parking undera building or parking garages.

All depends on the level of results you seek. I have Alclad in their spray can. I've sprayed a bit in a small cup and then just dabbed it onto a rough spot. It will work like that. But I've seldom seen perfect kit chrome. Parts have mold lines and other imperfections,and your detach point is never perfect. So it usually needs sanding which makes for a bigger mar to fix. So in my mind, once I'm pulling out the Alclad you might as well do the whole job right. I just stripped the bumpers for my Chevette for the same reasons.

Kinda funny, I was reading this thread and then went to read my email. Someone sent me a link to this site and this article about converting this bed... http://blog.modeljunkyard.com/2014/01/31/64-chevy-pickup-fleetside-revell-kit-2-bed-fenders/

Very cool start Blair! I'll be watching!

Very cool Al... bring both the truck and the Mercedes on Saturday... you are coming for your monthly dose of good fried chicken?

Welcome Chris! I'm 55 so you certainly fit right into the age demographic of the hobby! If you'd like to get a good overview of the hobby, my club runs NNL East, a good size show in New Jersey on April 26th. It would be well worth your trip from CT to see over 2000 models on display and two rooms of vendors, including the major manufacturers displays. WWW.NNLEAST.COM Click on this link to see!

Back in the day, I helped my wife's younger sister buy her first car. We looked at a lot of cars but the best value was a 1977 Chevette that was painted this bright lime green. I got to teach her to drive the clutch, but she took to it well and has bought manual cars for most of her life since. Over Christmas we got talking and the Chevette story came up. She spoke fondly of the little bugger that got her through college. So between this and Adam's recent Chevette build on the board, I got the bug to build it. And per Tom Petty: "Mary got a new car Mary got the one she was saving for Now everyone here is so charged Mary never looked so good before And we wanna go where she goes We wanna listen to her radio Can we ride? Mary, can we ride? Can we ride? Mary, can we ride?" I started with this 1978 version promo that I fished from the 'bay for $15 postpaid. At that price, and the relative abundance of them, I had no problem cracking it open for a project. And here we are today. Tamiya bright green right over the bare green plastic. I've never skipped the primer step, but it seems to have worked fine this time. I cleaned up some mold lines and scuffed it prior to a few coats of color. I did the side window surrounds with a black Sharpie, a bit hairy since there were few guide lines. Then I added the panel lines with acrylic black and did the BMF work. The emblems are dry brushed with Testors Metalizer Aluminum. Side lamps are BMF with orange and red Sharpie over them, with a black Sharpie surround that was drawn prior to trimming the foil. I was bummed to see that the actual tail light had three color lenses and a chrome surround, while the kit part was just clear red. After looking at it a while, I got the idea to just wrap the whole thing in BMF and used Sharpies and a white acrylic pen to add the colors. It worked wonderfully. I'm very pleased with the results so far. The above rear view is most representative of the actual color. I carved out the 1978 grill to match the 1977 one, and I soaked the bad chrome off the bumpers so I have some Alclad work to do. The chassis is done, just basic flat black with the front valance painted the body color. Interior is already painted black. Then I remembered that she had grey fake sheepskin seat covers on the front seats, so those will get flocked. Past that I have a set of New Jersey plates, and I'm going to create two stickers I remember on the car. A Snowbird decal on the drivers side rear window and a Ramapo College decal in the rear window. And that should bring that memory back to life in scale. PS - Yea Harry it will have mirrors. I stole them from a later model Chevette kit !

Oh cool! You're gonna work at Gas Monkey Garage East!

But I love ribs! Interesting that this AMT kit didn't have the correct roof detail. The MPC Dodge van kits accurately changed the roof ribs with every annual. I was amazed at how many different roof variations I found in my collection.

I got a few packs of the black last year at a show and it looked very thin to me because I was used to looking at their thicker colored wire. I believe their older black wire was thicker too. If you use the Replicas & Miniatures of MD predrilled distributer caps they are drilled for this thin wire.

And a very deep garage!