Tom Geiger

Back when I first went to GSL in 2000, the big event was a forum with the entire old staff from Revell talking about the good ole days. When it came to the question and answer session, I stood up and told them how many times I tried to assemble that kit as a kid. It just felt good.

I'm surprised that Heller hadn't done a DS in 1/24 scale. They did so in large scale. From the description of the new Heller, anything is possible!

I saw a Craigs List ad like this once!

I agree. My own interests and model building subjects are a bit outside the norm for a lot of the modeling community. I get a lack of comments on some boards, while a photo of an unpainted / unmodified muscle car body sitting on top of Pegasis wheels will get a flurry of positive comments. If it ain't a muscle car or drag car, a lot of the great unwashed just aren't interested. But if I find myself on the millionaire show next week and the answer is "Rocket Bunny" I am golden!

Sounds like perfect building weather... unless you paint outside. Here near Philly we are expecting 2-6" and one of the reports said that if the storm turned we'd get near nothing. So we prepared anyway. I went out and bought a weekend's worth of groceries and gas for the snow blower. So we'll see.

So far I've used an original curbside chassis under all my Rancheros! That one had the engine molded in, but most important, had a single exhaust system on it. The later kits had dual exhausts molded in.

Hi Richard, in the USA we call that a "Roll Top Desk". It's a classic design probably going back to the 1700s but always reproduced and available. I had one for many years. I like the way you've organized yourself, and can work in the family space. I'm way too messy! My model room has a wood floor and when I search for lost bits, I'm amazed at how much has come off the bench such as whittled plastic bits, small lengths of wire, paper etc. And I tend to have a lot of parts boxes open, kit boxes everywhere! I do agree that I wouldn't want to work in a shed, that's not even in the house so it seems too distant for me. I don't even want my bench in the basement, since that's pretty distant too. You could always put your son's bed in the living room and move the desk up to his room? I laugh but I know people in this hobby selfish enough to do that!

and this begs for the question... how at risk is all the tooling owned by the model companies that is now in China? Are they also at the whim of that faulty government?

I lose track. I believe most kits were just issued, and am surprised when I discover they've been out 10 years. I am not one to run out to a hobby shop and buy a kit on the first day of sale for some enormous bounty. Heck, I'm not going to dive into building it anyway and I don't get that excited over things in my old age. I'll just look around until I see the kits I want at a club meeting or show, then I'll buy them. I was surprised that one of the kits I recently mentioned as new was indeed a 2012 issue!

No, the convertible and hardtop tools were the same unit. The hardtops were run first, and the convertibles were the mid year releases. Ever notice that the interiors in old hardtop kits are convertible interiors?

I had posted a teaser on my 2013 model thread, here's what's on the bench right now. This is a replica of a van a buddy-0-mine drove back in the summer of 1978 when we delivered pizzas in Holmdel, NJ for Luigi's Pizza. Most famous customer? Bruce! He lived on Holmdel Road at the time. Anyway, this project is older than dirt, from back when Jimmy first poured this body. I did the paint job and put all the parts in the box. There were a few things that stumped me at the time, back before PCs and home printers. Now those things are just a piece of cake! We are officially up on wheels for the first time. The chassis is complete, wheels and tires are glued in place. Note that the truck was brush painted so the jagged lines etc are intentional. One dirty white wall, a loner from the bottom of my tire box. It's randomly placed, I had all four tires face down on the bench and just put them on as they were sitting. One of the things that kept this one in the box back before we had computers and such was the graphic Don had painted himself. Of course this one is printed from an Internet image of the original, modified and reduced to fit. I didn't want to mess with masking off the entire truck, so I painted some clear decal stock silver, then printed the image on clear. So it's two decals, kinda Cady decal style. And in this picture you can see how my printer is screwing up right now. At least you can't see it by eye on the truck because it's a small decal. As I worked I remembered more about the truck, and that it was an old Bell Telephone van. So I stopped production to run out and get some Testors Olive Drab. I masked off the truck and shot the inside of the shell. Then I did the extra pieces like door panels. Then I worked on the interior a bit. This is just mocked up, but I did the seat weathering and added belts. Carpet is an adhesive sheet. I honestly don't remember what color carpet he had in it, but I had red and needed to get some colors into the truck. And I don't remember the exact decor, but I had these saved with the project (from an old BMG Record Club flyer) so I just had to use them! And yes, the real truck looked just like this. Letters will be done with Alclad. The project is at the point that I can't stop thinking about it, so I will be back at it tomorrow!

I did just get my Citroen 2CV van kit and now this one!?! I seriously need one. I remember that these were all over the place when I was a kid in Europe.

Nice work John.. here's hoping we see each other again this coming year (at that silly little model show).

Bingo! All of these are winners! And I haven't gotten a Merc woody or Slingster in my hands just yet. A while back I had bought the Tony Nancy dragster duo kit and the Fiat Double Dragster kit at the same time, at a club meeting. I got home that night and decided to check them out... man, between those two kits you could build a ton of neat stuff. I couldn't sleep that night just thinking of the possibilities. Add the Slingster into that parts box and man, we could have some serious fun here! The good part is that we have great new kits from RM & Moebius and Round 2 modified reissues. We are headed for a new high in the hobby as more and more of us reach retirement age and have more time to devote to leisure activities like our hobbies. Good things to come!

Very cool builds! And I like your thoughts on your progress.

Eric, what Don means is that the kit is now in general distribution. Any kits you saw available earlier were part of the early release program that R/M's parent company gives to direct sale hobby shops that subscribe to the full line of product. Now it will be available at shops that buy through distributors and other vendors who don't buy the full RM line.

Ah, but how accurate is the inventory? There have been several times when they thought they had something, only to find it was a different kit when they pulled the tooling out. I've been told there is stuff that you can't tell exactly what it is until they run a test shot. There are inserts that went to multiple kits that past owners weren't astute enough of the product to know what went with what. And as I said above, Round 2 will go to greater lengths, and a larger outlay of cash, to restore old tools and recreate the missing bits. It's been said that kits typically are missing the tire molds, clear glass and red glass molds since these are run separate from the main tool that produces the kit. There is an investment to complete those kits, and we're more likely to see them than ever before.

Thanks guys! I try not to produce cookie cutter models. And I have fun, which is what it's really all about. Bruce- Yes that is the Flintstone A100. This one was bought when the body first came out. I got the paint on it and it went in a box. It's getting done this time. I spent the day working on it. It's a replica of a vehicle that a buddy-o-mine had in the late 1970s. As I build I am remembering more details about the real truck, which has added to the bench time, but making it all that more exciting to see appearing in front of my eyes! Ron - Glad to hear that you are looking at old classic builds. I think I've started a trend. Still we can't save them all. I still hear and see the demise of great old builds at the hands of numpties on a regular basis!

My year was pretty simple. Four completed builds and two Olde Kustom restorations. Doesn't sound like much, but it's probably my banner year. First off the bench was the Studebaker Miss Deal funny car that I did as part of the 24 Hour Build that Gary Kulchock and friends host every year. It was fun and very interesting to participate. '34 Ford Rat Rod was to be finished over the Christmas break, but it had too much work left on it to finish in time. I also didn't want to push it since I was having fun, and I added a lot of detail that wasn't part of the plan. It finally rolled off the bench in March. And the Olde Kustom Kollection benefitted a bit this year. I restored this '49 Ford that was built back in the day from an original release. The toughest part was that the original builder didn't put the glass in it. We'll never know why, but I have three cars from this same guy, and none of them have glass! It was welded together too well to pry apart, so I fished glass into it. Kinda like that ship in a bottle thing! Another Old Kustom is this original '57 Ford that Dave Burket handed me one day. The suspension was totally wiped off it and it had no hood. It was easy to redo the chassis with fresh parts from a recent release, as it was to replace the glue stained glass with new. Then it sat on the bench with a new hood on the roof since I couldn't match the light blue paint. One day I got inspiration, and did this two tone by masking off the top end, so I could paint the hood to match. The Rusty Corvette! This one was on my Bucket List of something I wanted to do someday. So I knocked it out for the MidAtlantic NNL Corvette theme... sorta. It was there on the table and looked complete if you didn't go under the hood. I finished it in early December just to get it off the bench. This one is fun due to the looks (and sometimes odd condescending comments!) it gets. My new Bucket List item (IF I win the lottery!) is to do this in 1:1 scale and take it to car shows... just to tick people off. And my favorite build of the year! It's a 1929 Ford Roadster Pickup that was an old junker built up I got who knows where a very long time ago. I pulled it out one day and just started cutting. It's the only project I worked on start to finish without a pause. It represents the car I'd like to have in 1:1 for cruisin'. Hey, we have to have dreams! The irony is that I own all kinds of rare and valuable models... and what do I enjoy building? A $5 junker! I'm like the kids who get a nice present and play with the box. And I haven't included this year's Christmas break build.. an A100 van since I doubt I will finish it today... maybe on New Years day to be the first build of 2014. That would be starting out the year right! Later on I will post the parade of all the models I started or worked on but didn't finish.. Hint - It's a much longer parade! Now I must get upstairs to work on the A100 a bit! Maybe just a teaser pic..

Maybe we'll get enough snow Thursday / Friday to finally try out my 3 year old NOS snow blower! I missed the blizzard of '67, I was living in sunny Izmir, Turkey back then. Of course the army made up for that by sending us to Pirmasens, Germany where our favorite winter pastime was digging for cars. And to those of you in Florida and Arizona (you know who you are!) who keep chiming in on the winter threads... I hope a lizard bites ya or something!

Wonderful job! It's too bad about that windshield. Perhaps someone has one in their parts box? Is the piece the entire windshield and front side glass? Or is all that glass several pieces? The reason I'm asking, is that possibly someone could vacuform the piece for you.

Very nice! That kit is also great to build, pretty much falls together. I built one with my daughter many years ago to match my 1:1 Geo Tracker.

I love seeing the Euro subjects! Especially the light commercial subjects -- Transit van and Land Rover. I also like the Suzuki. I rented one of those in Aruba, which convinced me to buy a new Geo Tracker (Vitara) convertible upon my return home. That was 1991 and I still have it.

To answer your questions, the answer is YES. There are trademark and copyright violations in every one of your examples. The question is if the owners of those originals choose to legally challenge and shut down those making repro Lionel parts and model car kit parts. In most cases it's just not worth the effort since most of the model car aftermarket are small producers. But as you said, I wouldn't want to have my full time livelihood invested in this kind of business. While it's working fine for most of them now, every so often there's a situation with a copyright owner. And yea, that would just be my luck!

The statement that the tooling has long been bought and paid for is inaccurate. Tom Lowe and Round 2 just bought the companies and the tooling with today's dollars. So they have a new investment in that old tooling and a real reason to work it to make it pay off. It would be silly to own all of it, and pay storage fees etc to maintain it, only to let it sit and go and issue all new kits. We also don't know what we still haven't seen from that tooling stash. I'll bet there's still some stuff that's mismarked or sitting in the wrong tool. Has everything that's viable been done? Yes in the eyes of Tomica and the prior owner. They didn't know this market and made minimal investment. Dave Burket made more investment in the tooling than those owners and spent money to tool up parts that brought us some of the Model King kits. Now Tom Lowe is plenty market savvy and knows the subjects. He's most likely to invest the most into tools that will turn a profit. Time will tell.