Tom Geiger

Friggin snow! My consulting gig got cancelled for today. No show, no dough! It's sleeting here, and getting worse as it goes. When I got up at 5am, it was all rain with an occasional ice crystal, but now the tops of the cars are covered. It's colder than they predicted last night and now that everything is wet I fear it will all be freezing solid. News flash- it's done sleeting and has turned to snow, already covering my deck and the skylight in my kitchen. Oh well, I guess I'll hit the model room. It's warm and dry there.

Nothing great right here near Exton, Pennsylvania. We have a Hobbytown that is more of a toy store than a hobby shop. That's why I was considering opening a hobby shop here. Back when I lived in New Jersey there were three shops within a quick drive. The Hobby Shop in Aberdeen was the closest and okay if you needed to swing by to get glue, putty or the very basics of model paint. Hobbymasters in Red Bank was a step up, but catered mainly to military subjects, which is the passion of the owner. Avenel Hobbies in Woodbridge is the best for car modelers. The owner is one of us and has the most extensive car/truck inventory I've seen. Picture an aisle about 50 feet long, both sides floor to ceiling. And he stocks the better supplies like BMF, specialty glues and Tamiya products.

My father in law was one of those guys! His take was that the speed limit was 55 and if he was doing that, nobody should be passing him. So he'd sit in the left lane and people would honk and curse at him. NJ is one of those states where everyone goes as fast as they can. I used to have a neighbor who was a state trooper patrolling the Garden State Parkway. He told me that during rush hour they didn't like to pull over cars because the sight of a pull over slowed down traffic due to rubber necking. He said as long as traffic was flowing, they'd leave it be. The cars they would pull over are those guys who would weave in and out and cause issues because they were unsafe. I drove the parkway for years. Commuters pretty much have it down. It's a finely choreographed ballet where the entire flow will be going at 75, then stop dead without incident, and a few minutes later it's back at 75... that was after my father in law retired of course!

Apparently so!

And now for something pretty cool. If you read above, the van is from my memory of the summer of 1977. Of course as a car guy you notice these things and they stay with you. But you don't think the general public does, nor would they remember something like this after all these years. On Facebook I belong to a group for people who grew up in my town. So I thought I'd post the pictures and see if anyone remembered... And it took less than a half hour for someone to correctly identify the van! This was on Friday evening, and it is still going. Later in the thread someone mentioned that Don had indeed retired and where he is now living. I'm hoping that someone connects him with the thread. It would be cool to hear his reaction.

I used to car pool with a guy who had two daughters under 6. He'd ask me if it got easier. I told him, "There are always issues, they just change. Wait until they're out there at night driving cars!" And I've survived all of that. My daughters are now 25 and 30 and on their own. Still when they call with a problem, they're still your little girl and you'd do anything for them!

Newer promos can be different. For instance the Geo Storm promo is heat fused together and a real pain in the tail to get apart. You need to grind down the fused points until the parts are released.

You didn't euthanize it, you MURDERED IT! Bet it felt good though! Me? I just silently whimper to myself and walk away from the model. And after a suitable mourning period I forgive it, strip it, and start over. New Ball!

I had looked it up. Federal minimum wage was set at $1.15 an hour in 1961 and raised to $1.25 in Sept '64. It was $2.30 in 1977. See the chart: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

Hey Tony, everything looks real nice. I even like the way you built it up just like a real garage would be done. At first I was wondering why you didn't have a fire extinguisher, then I saw one over near the stove. You've done everything else so well, I thought you'd want to know that you have the extinguisher in the worst place, right where the most likely source of ignition! You would have trouble getting it in case of a fire. The fire code says it should be right next to the exit door. That way you are running away from the fire. Technically if this was a business you'd need two extinguishers, one chemical and one water. Just for the record.

The price of paint is relative. In another thread someone pointed out the 98 cent sticker on a 1964 issue kit. I let them know the minimum wage back then was $1.05 so that kit represented about an hour's work. I like to use automotive paint and I don't like to use an air brush, but like to spray everything. So I buy mainly spray cans, mostly Duplicolor with a wee bit of Testors and Tamiya. One thing I always do is put the date on each can so I know how old they are. There are paints I blow through on a regular basis like Testor Flat Black and DullCote, and Duplicolor primer gray.

We are getting some seriously cool kits. In this climate, you never know what you'll see next. Let's go for a Citroen Diane! And where the heck is my 1/24 scale Morris Traveler?? The hobby is getting more and more fun!

Tim, thanks for opening up this topic once again. There are so many misconceptions out there. I get phone calls and emails from folks inquiring about (or complaining about!) the various shows that call themselves NNLs around the country. Some folks think that we're all aligned, or at worst, that we are a company that runs model shows. We at Tri-State Scale Model Car Club / NNL East take the concept seriously and do all we can to spread the word. When John Slivoski passed and I became president of our club, my first thought was that we make sure that our show correctly portrayed what NNL stands for. So we loaded up a van and took many of our members out to Toledo so that they could see the original show for themselves. It was quite a trip! At NNL East everything we do is done to further the cause. Every thing we add or change goes through the funnel of "What would John do?" and "Is this in the spirit of NNL?" We have some very philosophical meetings! We want to be an asset to the hobby and help move it forward. Several years ago we stopped reporting our attendance and number of models on the tables because we didn't feel it was in the spirit of what we were trying to do. It wasn't about getting bigger, it was about making the show, and the NNL experience better every year. In fact, growing the show beyond our numbers would detract from the intimacy we were striving to maintain. So we focus on making the show better. We noticed that our ratio of attendees to model exhibitors was lower than we'd like it. After all, part of NNL is sharing your work with our peers. We saw that many good builders weren't bringing models with them! So we now offer a cool NNL East logo premium only to those who register models, first hoping to get our ratios of displayers up, but also to give everyone something neat to take home! We established a Friday night event at the host hotel restaurant where there aren't any models at all. It's about the people and catching up with friends you see once a year. Many people say this is as important as the show itself. At this year's show, we will distribute NNL East name tags. Historically many people have brought their own, but this year we will start handing them out, hoping it results in more people recognizing each other and creating more face to face friendships among guys who may know each other on-line. We also have redesigned the placard (we call it the parking space) that is displayed with each model. This year onward it will not only display the builder's name, but their home town and an optional space for their cell phone number so folks who want to meet them during the show can ring them up. Nothing bothers me more than after the show hearing, "I was hoping to meet Joe X but couldn't find him." so we've addressed this as best we can. The whole idea of NNL is meeting your peers and sharing ideas and the fellowship of the hobby, without the distraction of competing for awards. It's a laid back atmosphere where everyone wins. As we age, many modelers don't have a local club, but we all are in touch electronically via message boards and emails. We know many people we haven't met face to face, but consider good friends. The NNLs should be that place where we meet face to face annually to share everything good about the hobby!

depends on how well they're glued down. Easiest course of action is to find a spot that won't show on the finished model and try to insert an exacto blade in the seam. If you can work it in there, try to wiggle it and see if you can pop off the head. And when doing any action of force, be careful, especially protect your eyes behind glasses, preferably safety glasses in case you shatter the blade and part of it goes flying.

When I first moved to PA about 3 years ago I found Ollies because they were blowing out Lindberg kits. I went and didn't find any kits I needed but they had the Duplicolor large can Truck Colors paint for a dollar a can! So I bought every can I deemed useful... EVERY can of black, flat black, white, clear, primer... etc. And then every can in any color I could possibly think I would use someday. I think it came to 30 cans. I did go through all the primer, but I still have an ample inventory of everything else. I can only figure that this was the last blow out of that Duplicolor line since it's no longer available in stores nor at Ollies. Last I checked all the had was Duplicolor temporary spray paint for painting up cars for graduations and sports events. I like to use automotive paints, mainly Duplicolor on my models. Pep Boys has coupons all the time for $5 off a $25 order, and equal discounts on greater purchases at increments. So occasionally I'll stock up and use the coupon. Also when you belong to their rewards program, every so often you get a dividend of $10 or so that instantly gets converted into paint. I do buy a few Testors cans, mainly flat black and dullcote. I just discovered that I like the Wet Coat lacquers too. They have those at Michaels and I'll use the 40% and occasional 50% off coupon on those. I usually only need one can at a time, so it works for me.

Cool! Enjoy the show!

Some winter shots in my back yard for folks who have never seen snow.... When someone says to me, "And if you believe that, I have a bridge I want to sell you..." I respond, "No thanks I already own one." The brook that runs down the middle of my back yard (which is why I own a bridge) Ted out near the pool. This is why my pool temperature indicator said 4 degrees last week. We're not going swimming for a long while! And the view from the model room upstairs. Yea, summer would be nice about now!

The kit was from Lindberg. It was available a long time ago first as a red passenger van, and a second issue as a police van. The second issue was molded in white so I'd buy that one if I had a choice since I had problems with the red plastic bleeding color through my paint. It probably hasn't been issued in maybe 10 years. You can find copies of this kit on eBay or at shows. It's not expensive.

Some of my magazines do come that way. Vintage Truck Magazine does. I just got three different Hemmings magazines without plastic covers and they all look fine. And I see that my wife just got a Kohls store flyer in a plastic bag so it can't be all that expensive to do so. The question isn't the cost of the plastic bag, but if the publisher has the equipment to bag the magazines. That would be the big cost. Buying and installing that piece could be too much for a small publisher.

Which reminds me of a little story... One day St Peter was bored and decided that he'd let everyone who approached into Heaven if they had a good "Bad Day" story. The first guy came along and he asked the question, "How was your day"? The guy answered, "I had a bad day! I knew my wife was cheating on me so I came home early and rushed in to find her naked in bed by herself. So I looked around, and there I see the guy out on the balcony, hiding by hanging off the edge by his hands. So I jump up and down on his fingers until he falls the six stories and lands softly in the bushes below. There's this guy just looking up at me! So that got me sooo mad that I looked for the biggest thing I could find, the refrigerator, and I pushed it over the balcony and it landed squarely on the guy, killing him. I was so worked up and upset that I had a heart attack and died on the spot!" St Peter said, "That was a bad day, come on into Heaven." It wasn't long before a second guy approached the Gates of Heaven. St Peter asked him the same question and he responded, "Yes, I had a very bad day. Here I was doing my exercises up on my seventh floor balcony, bouncing on my mini trampoline and I bounced too high and went right over the edge. I was fortunate to be able to grab onto the edge of the balcony below me. I saw a guy approaching me and thought I was saved, but the idiot started jumping up and down on my fingers for no reason at all until I fell. I landed safely in the bushes below and while I was catching my breath, this animal throws a refrigerator at me and I'm instantly killed!" St Peter agrees that he had a really, really bad day and let him into Heaven. Soon a third guy is limping towards the Pearly Gates and St Peter asks him the question... The guy answers, "I did have a very, very bad day. Picture this, here I am hiding naked in this refrigerator...."

Cool! Drop me an email. I'd love to hear first hand reports.

Looks great John! Per your comment on making the BMF edges of the window trim stand out, I found if I went two layers thick on one of the matching edges, maybe on the side pieces, the edge becomes more visible. Hope to see you in April!

Did anyone else notice the 1/23 American Bantam early WWII Jeep? That's the original! Man is that cool or what?

An update and she's done! Okay, you've seen this one before. I missed the New Year's deadline but kept on plugging away, and I finished all those final details last evening. This is an ancient build that I started back when Jimmy Flintstone first released this resin van body. It has sat for eons, and finally got finished as part of the Amnesty Program! It is a replica of a van a co-worker drove back in the summer of '77 when I delivered pizzas. It's one of those things that when you see a vehicle, a specific one you knew came to mind. Whenever I see an A100 van, I think of this one! The finish is exactly what it was, Don had riveted metal over the rust, and we all took turns between deliveries brush painting the unique color scheme. The match lines between colors were hand done, so they're not perfect here either. I made the tear drop windows on my Mattel Vac-u-form. Don had removed two letters in DODGE to rename the van DOG. I did some tribute plates on the NJ 1977 plate format standing for DON M and 77 is Summer of 1977. I'm working from memory so I have no idea what the actual tag was. I had saved all the Dead graphics from when I started the van. Those were in a flyer for BMG Record Club, back before we had the Internet or color printers to do our work. So I made sure I used all those ancient logos. The bumpers were my stumbling block. They are made from coffee stirrer wood, but I needed to get the stain to be lighter and get the new decals to stick to the wood. Here's probably rear bumper 12, which I decided was 'good enough'. The interior is olive green to show it's phone van heritage. Carpet is Ken's Fuzzy Carpet self adhesive sheet. Worked well. Originally I wasn't going to do any detail in the back, but the build got the best of me so I kept going. I don't remember what was in the back in the actual van, so I improvised. You can't photograph it, but a viewer can be pleasantly surprised if they take the time to look in the back windows. The chassis was a challenge since I insisted on putting the proper slant six in there, although the engine can only be seen from down under. It's the correct yellow for the Dodge truck version. I thought about just putting the kit V8 in, but I'm glad I did the detail. I see in the photo (part of why I take photos) that I have to glue the gas tank back in. Otherwise, I'm very pleased to see this old memory sitting in front of me in 3D. I'm happy to have completed another Amnesty Build. Some of the work was done near 20 years ago and I may have been able to do it better today, but it is all it needs to be. The owner was a guy named Don who was a school teacher who delivered pizza as a summer job. Irony was that I was 18 when I knew him, and later on he was one of my daughter's teachers. I'd love to find him to show him the model. Maybe someday!

There is no way that magazines leave a publisher pre-destroyed! The USPS rules for magazine rate is that they are presorted. So they leave the publisher in bales. In the old days they may have been tied, but today most of the bales are shrink wrapped. They are marked with symbols that tell the postal folks how far down they are sorted. The most complete sort is that the street address is the same. A magazine like Business Week may have enough subscribers inside a single company to go this way. The next sort down is that all 7 digits of the zip code are the same. Large circulation magazines like People no doubt have enough subscribers in a single zip code to send a bale all the way. That bale wouldn't be separated until it reached the final post office. So that bail probably doesn't see any machine sorting. The next sort up is "3". That means the first three digits of the zip code are the same, and that goes to the regional sorting center, where the bale is cut open and the magazines are then sorted to go to the post offices within that region. This is the level where magazines go into the sorting system and could get damaged by automated equipment. Next up is State, which a small circulation publication like Model Cars may only have 25 subscribers in Idaho, so that goes to the state, and then it's broken down at that point. And smaller states like Alaska, the magazines may enter the mail stream as individual magazines from Denver. So magazines have different lengths of opportunity to get damaged by USPS sorting equipment. And of course it depends on how the letter carrier handles the mail. Some will fold magazines in half to fit in a box or slot. Some may even read magazines during their lunch break, so if you get a magazine with food stains and crumbs in it, the publisher did not ship it that way! The other things that comes into play would be the quality of the paper and how it behaves in the sorting machines. I don't think Model Cars is on any worse paper that any other magazine. So it's not the publisher! It's the postal service.