Tom Geiger

Does that say "Not Machinable" on the torn part? Guess they needed to shove it through to make sure!

Finally got to fire up the new snow blower! Put gas in it and hit the electric starter. Great fun.. That's me out there in the Tundra, about half way down the sidewalk. My wife took a few photos from the warmth and safety of the house. I have about the same distance result as the time I asked her to take pictures of me hand feeding iguanas in St Thomas! It was fun, in fact I plowed the sidewalk the length of the street. Kinda payback since someone else did the same the last storm.

and there goes the theory that kids are all on computers and don't build with their hands! Lego seems to be very popular. I noticed that Walmart has almost a whole toy aisle devoted just to them. Then as I was investigating my idea of opening a hobby shop, I came across a toy store, about the size of a shop I'd want to open, that was doing well pretty much devoted to Lego! The owner told me that he competes with big box stores by having deeper stock and the hard to get items. Now if we could only get some of these kids from Lego to come over to model cars.

I had a 1989 Crown Vic that my grandfather bought new. I put a bit over 200,000 on it and gave it to my bro-in-law when I found a 1999 Breeze with 30,000 miles on it cheap. He drove the Vic for a year and passed it on to a buddy. He lost track of it, but it may still be out there. Another bro-in-law of mine does airport runs on weekends for a limo service. He told me that the Vic / Towncar fleet has an average of 500,000 on them.

Don't worry guys, it's a plastic interior! Actually I took these photos back in 2006 and recently found them. So I've been saving them for a rainy... snowy day!

Remember it was a different market back in the day.... the main customers were kids and we didn't know any better. How far do you think a kit manufacturer would get putting stock bodies in funny car kits today? Funny thing. The target audience back then was the very same people who are in the manufacturers target audience today. Only we growed up against our will and we're a cranky lot!

It doesn't matter where they ship it from, if the vendor has a physical presence in your state, you pay sales tax. Like others said, we will eventually pay sales tax on Internet sales. Large vendors will set themselves up for it, but if small vendors like eBay sellers get stuck collecting sales tax for all the states, it will no doubt become something that Paypal will manage for you. And of course, charge you a percentage for it! Brett is right. States seeking to collect sales tax from out of state purchases you made call it "Use Tax". You are supposed to declare that as part of your annual state income tax return. For instance, I live in PA (6%) about a half hour from DE (0%) so people do run to Delaware to save the sales tax. You know you have hit the border on Route 202 because on the PA side it's pretty much woods, and then you hit some major shopping areas right over the border. So one could save $60 on a $1000 purchase. And I'll bet very few would declare that on their tax return. In a split state situation if I lived in NJ (7%) and bought something in PA (6%), you are legally supposed to declare the extra 1% owed to NJ. Cars are another story. Sales tax is collected by DMV upon titling a vehicle. For instance, my daughter from NJ bought her Fiat 500 here in PA because dealers are few. The dealer wrote up it up as an out of state sale, and put a PA temp tag on the back. He gave my daughter all the paperwork to bring to DMV in NJ. He wrote the deal to include the NJ (7%) and gave her a dealership check made payable to NJ DMV to pay the sales tax. So it didn't matter at all that she bought the car in PA (6%), she paid her home state tax upon titling and plating the vehicle. There can be differences even inside of states. For instance, NJ has state economic development zones where they charge half sales tax to bring business into those areas. So if you want to go into Perth Amboy, Camden, Newark or other areas designated so, the sales tax is only 3.5% there vs 7% elsewhere in the state. NJ doesn't charge sales tax on 'necessities' like supermarket food or clothing. NY does (NY doesn't tax clothing under $110) so there are large malls at the border towns. Tax rates in NY state vary by area, but average 8% with NYC at 8.875%. NJ has a zone right at the foot of the Verrazano Bridge in Elizabeth, NJ near Newark airport. They built a huge IKEA there and the lot was always full of NY license plates. One time the NY tax folks came over and put warnings on all the NY cars in the lot. NJ chased them away as being out of their jurisdiction and it became a big deal that made it on the news. Other taxes can vary as well. NJ has one of the lowest gasoline taxes. When I worked in Pearl River, NY a normal activity over lunchtime for NYers was 'going to Jersey for gas'. They could literally save 50 cents a gallon.

I love that kit! Here's two of mine. The orange one is finished, built when the kit first came out.

Price is right, wrong end of the country! I always was leery about that big sliding glass door on the back. Wondered how that would flex etc while driving. Apparently works okay.

The wood looks good! Looks like you took to it real well.

Out of the park! I'm studying your chassis since I've been struggling with a Z on a '32 chassis this past week.

Cool. I recently bought an old F&F resin '56 Chevy 4 door sedan body and was thinking of doing mine as a US Army staff car. I already have a pair of taxis in the works, Dodge Caravan and '62 Valiant.

I've never seen that one before, but it appears that there are tops that allow for a 4 - 6 or 8 cylinder. Still with all those time little parts I think it's way overkill.

Bingo! I have my Dodge A100 resin van on the bench and creating suitable wood bumpers (anyone want a dozen rejects?) has me frustrated. So it will sit a bit and I'm working on a '32 Ford sedan delivery in the meantime. I usually have 3-4 things on the bench. When I go upstairs, sometimes I have a specific mission in mind, other times I just look at the bench until something grabs my attention. Then I work on that one for awhile, whether it's for a task, an evening or until I finish it. And another reason stuff gets shelved is that it gets pushed back on the bench to build something with a deadline. Maybe it's a theme model for a club build for the next meeting, or for a show theme. Or this week it will be for the 24 Hour Build. Yea, I will clear off the bench so I can build without distraction!

Agreed. Buying online is quick and easy. Right before Christmas I broke my digital camera. I went right to eBay and instantly found the latest model of our camera, and determined the lowest price. I hit that Buy It Now button around noon on a Monday. The package was delivered around 11am the next day. Can't beat it.

I'd rather have snow!

They had to be done that way because they are a single tool. So they get produced in even quantities. Model King was offered these first, but Dave turned it down because of this reason. Selling them as singles would have left a lot of an unpopular one on the shelves. Some dealers broke them up and you see singles on eBay.

This is absolutely the right place to ask! Just fire away and the brain trust here will tell you exactly what you need to know! For instance, if you want a '66 Mustang, the kit you purchased is the correct one to buy. BUT, if you want a great chassis under it, get a '67 Mustang kit and transplant that chassis under your '66. The difference is that the '66 kit was originally tooled up when the car was new, so it has the old style chassis with very limited detail. The '67 kit was tooled in the not too distant past (last 15 years) so the same manufacturer went to more detail that builders required at that time. And that's still a valid chassis that a lot of us use under many different Mustang kits.

I keep my models in old china cabinets. I have two right now, one I got free, the second one from a used furniture shop for $100.

This is Ted. He's a cockapoo and 14 years old. Here we are in the pool. He will run around the perimeter hoping to get pulled onto a float. And just in case you are asking yourself where you saw Ted before... here he is on the Model King release of the '79 Ford pickup box. I built this model for Dave for the box, and he had Doug Whyte put Ted in the truck! This was the art proof photo.

Cool build on the wrecker. Of all the hundreds of Ranchero builds I've seen, none was quite like yours!

A photo of mine late in life. I held onto it until about five years ago. It had been in garaged storage, but when my father died I had to bring it to my house so it sat outside a bit. When I moved I had way too many cars, and since I hadn't restored it, I gave it to a guy who wanted to build a drag car from it. Haven't heard from him since, I'll have to see if I can contact him and see what he did.

I was always a car guy so I just had to get my driving permit right on my birthday! Back then in NJ they scheduled your road test for your license for 6-8 weeks out from there. I passed the test so I had my license on the very first day possible. My father always warned me that I wouldn't be driving unless I had saved enough money to buy a car and insure it. Back then I had a lawn route in the summer, fairly organized, I bought a riding mower and had a kid working for me doing the edges with a push mower. We did over 20 lawns a week, so I always had money. I was good with cash, so I saved a great deal of it and never worked during the school year. So when the big day came, my father asked that big question... and yes, I had much more than I ever would need. He said, "Good, here's the keys to the Valiant." and gave me a car and put me right on his insurance policy. He said he just wanted me to know what it was like to earn something, and to save the money for college. A good life lesson I later did to my eldest! So my car in high school (I graduated in 1976) was a 1966 Valiant V100 2 door sedan. Slant six, automatic. I had it painted that Ford Granada silver and blacked out the grill. It did look sharp! And yes in school there were guys with muscle cars, and two motor heads who built '55 and '56 Chevys. There was one girl whose father owned a Chevy dealer and she drove a new Corvette on dealer tag.

I think that is the plan!