Tom Geiger

Hi Bill- So sorry to hear about your dad. I have lost both of my parents, and am now going through the process again with my in-laws. It's emotionally draining, so I certainly understand how you feel. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to immerse yourself back into life and things you like to do. It can make things seem normal again. Glad to see you back on the board and building. I hope to see you at events this spring! Best holidays to you!

Sorry to hear that Al! I regret to inform you that our club insurance doesn't cover that! But you can sue... eXacto, Revell and the chair manufacturer... Here's an old draftsman's trick. We would add these little masking tape wings to our tools to keep them from rolling off the drafting board. I still do it today with my knives. Photo is my favorite knife... the cushioned kind! I haven't stabbed myself significantly, but I do roll my chair over the parts that I dropped!

Get one and build it! Then you can display a 1960 and a 1961 Ranchero side by side. My 1960 built using an original 1960 grill and bumper from a broken Falcon promo And my 1961 police car. Yes, they do sit side by side on my shelf!

These! I just ordered and received both from an eBay Store. The Trabant is different from the earlier ROG release because the older one was a curbsider, while this one has the punky little engine. The Citroen is a really nice kit, very well done. The parts all look great, only that they give you the options of having the doors (both side and rear) open or closed. We'll have to figure out how to hinge them. The silly part is that the Japanese put British commercial logos on it AND left hand drive. I did check eBay of Great Britain and saw that there actually were RHD 2CVs, so Tamiya should have given us either option like they've done on a lot of kits.

Neat project Ron. I do like those vehicles with real life connections. It makes them special. Will you be changing the engine to a small block with auto trans? I have two of those to do myself in replicating our family 1970 and 1971 Chevys!

Yes, the Alclad chrome in a spray can is great. I spray it on model parts all the time for good results. I first prime my parts with Duplicolor gray primer, then Duplicolor gloss black. After that dries, I spray on the Alclad. Others like to use Tamiya Gloss Black under it.

I used to car pool with a very nice Indian fellow. He loved Christmas. He liked all the lights and decorations, and that everyone was nice to one another. While the religious aspect of the holiday wasn't in his faith, he enjoyed the season. He even decorated his house and had a Christmas tree. And they had a big family get together on Christmas since everyone was off from work.

I have a woodgrain tutorial that was done by Irvin Arter some time ago. I found it easy and I've gotten great results. Two examples are below. I have it in PDF so I can't post it, but I'd be happy to email anyone a copy. Just email me at my address down below.

It is fun Joe! There are those who take themselves a bit too seriously, and feel the need to scold me as if I've recently fallen off the turnip truck (and for the record, I don't think I've ever seen a turnip truck). When they do, I just flip the back of the model up at them....

Those two trucks are just the tip of the iceberg at that site! Lots of neat old trucks!

To do the work you describe, I generally use an eXacto Number 11 blade. I just put it in the hole and spin it around. Most recently I had to make the holes in the center of wheel backs larger to fit onto new axles. That work is pretty much by feel, than drill bit size, so the blade works fine for me.

What is this "Film"?? Very cool diorama. At one point I thought about doing one of these myself, but you know the procrastination thing! Glad you did it. And BTW, Photomat never had a bathroom! They always made a deal with a store in the shopping center so their employees could use their restroom. Yea, I knew a girl who worked there once and asked!

I got some new stuff, no pictures needed since you all know what this stuff looks like... Last night I went to the Jersey Shore Model Car Club's Christmas Party. I bought the new Revell 'cuda, a Moebius Chrysler and an extra Revell '50 Olds to go under the resin wagon body I got recently. A decent night. On the way home it was misty and I realized how bad the wipers were on the wife's car. So I went on a shopping spree today. I got wiper blades for both her Breeze and the Caravan. I also bought plugs for the Breeze and a new battery for my Geo Tracker. While at Pep Boys I bought 2 cans of Duplicolor primer using my $10 rewards check. Then I went to Home Depot and bought two new clamp on lights for the model room.

Tell me about it! My sister and I always get each other cheap but interesting stuff for Christmas. I got her a 1963 board game Po-Ke-No that she recently was talking about, a game my parents had when we was kiddos. So I found a perfect mint condition one on eBay... and how does the numpty ship it? He took a piece of cardboard and folded it in half, and taped the edges. Opened it and the entire box was split in the corners and ruined! So I email the dolt and his reply is, "So what? You can still play the game!" I just filed a Paypal claim on it. Nasty feedback is coming!

Your post doesn't give your location, but here in Eastern PA it's like 60 degrees outside today. And it's supposed to stay this way for a few days. So go ahead and paint!

Ha! I'm not the only crazy on the board!

Thanks guys. I'll rust up those front wheels, and we need at least one thin white wall. I was thinking this might be fun to do on a 1:1 Corvette. Ah, if I had the money I think I'd do it just to see the reactions!

I got a new digital camera! My old camera died an unfortunate accidental death last weekend. According to my daughter who found it in the snow, I may have also run it over! Anyways.. it was an old Canon Powershot A540, which was a 6 megapixel camera. I checked into them on eBay and found I could get a used one to replace it for $25 or so. Sending a camera like that in for repair is like bringing a gold fish to the vet. Ain't happening. Then I saw I could get the new Powershot A2500, a 16 megapixel camera, for $79 with free shipping. I left it on the screen overnight to think about it. Then in the morning, I saw eBay sent me an email with a 10% off coupon, bringing it down to $71. I could have bought the same camera for $10 cheaper from the same vendor, but for the extra $10, I got the accessory pack that includes a carrying case, a 16GB memory card, an extra battery, a table top tripod and a lens cleaning kit. I ordered it around noon on Wednesday and the package showed up about 2pm yesterday! That's like 26hr service right to my door! I like the new camera already. It's half the size of the old one and has cool features. For instance, I took test shots of models in low light, and it automatically brightened them up. It also senses what you are taking pictures of and automatically uses the macro lens. I can't tell you how many times I got halfway through a photo session (or model show) to realize I forgot to hit that button! And the way my life goes... no sooner did I get the camera, then I see my ancient cell phone is in the process of dying. I have a big black blank spot on my screen that looks like a bullet hole. So I guess I'll be picking up a new phone this week too.

Those ovals were in use back when I lived in Germany 1969-73. I remember the older style ones that were metal and clamped to a VW bumper. They included one in the Revell Beetle kit I just bought. Later on many of them were vinyl stickers. We had US military license plates, which were US sized plates that were green with silver lettering. And we had a USA sticker on the back of the car as well. Later on, those plates were made plainer, white with black letters like most Euro plates of that era to stand out less once Americans became terror targets. The political climate got bad when we were there. Remember the 1972 Olympic terrorists. And there was a terrorist group that was doing bombings on American bases while we were still there. I do believe they were used because as said above, most Euro plates were white with black letters, and none of them had country designations on them. Here's a pair of American military personnel owned Opels. Note the USA oval on the back. Maybe you can make out the plates. They said USA on the top and were green with silver lettering. I'm sure I still have a pair buried here somewhere! And yes, the white lettering on the windshield... we used to have drag races on the Post airstrip!

I actually built this for the MidAtlantic NNL Corvette theme this past spring. It was a one week mad dash to get it onto the show table, and it wasn't finished, just pieced together and as long as nobody picked it up we were fine It had been sitting in the upper left corner of my bench since the show. The engine was never assembled, and nothing... not interior to body or body to chassis were glued. Just press fit and easy to fall apart. So in my mad end of year sweep, I figured I could finish it up in a day... so here it is. This one may be a Christmas card someday! No worries it has snow tires. Earlier photos of the interior. Drivers seat got split in two places. The interior was made suitably messy. The tool box and Dunkin' Donuts old style box were sitting on my shelf for years so I thought I'd just go and use them. I wanted to add visual interest in the view through the big back window. Nothing was done under the hood for the show, that was all done this week. The headers were awful and upon installing them, I realized it would be difficult to impossible to add plug wires. Since this model is pretty much a spot gag that has already sailed, I opted for simple and left out the wires. That's a first for me in a long time. I must be getting mellow in my old age. And I figured the clean and new under the hood look was sorta rat rod like someone pulled it out of the swamp and installed new everything to get 'er going. And here it is in all it's rusty glory. Have to admit you've never seen one before. Yea, those headers stunk. But the jumbled look kinda works for this build. I did put new mags on the front, but I'm not sure I like them. What do you think? Leave them as if they were added with the engine, or rust 'em up? and a chassis shot. Look at that shiny new engine. Again, those headers stink! The big secret is that one of them is actually two parts with a missing section in the middle that isn't visible on the build. I always said I wanted to do a Rusty Corvette someday, so I can scratch it off the bucket list.

I've been using the scale heater hoses for boots. They come in black and red. I cut a ton of them in one sitting and keep them in my 50 drawer unit. When I need to wire an engine, I spill the drawer on my bench and pick out 9 that are approx. the same length.

I take pictures in snow when the occasion arises, which isn't that often. It mostly melted today. And I do it for warm climate guys like you Chris! Thanks for the nice comments guys!

The flat rate boxes are only a good deal if you are mailing something small but heavy. I have a whole selection of priority mail boxes that they delivered to my door.

A new digital camera! My old one got ruined recently and I found a good deal on eBay. I hesitated and left it up on the screen over night and yesterday morning, eBay sent me a 10% off coupon. That was a sign, so I hit that "Buy It Now" button. And the really cool part? I ordered it yesterday and it arrived today! Talk about fast!

I don't believe Cash For Clunkers hurt the used car market much. Most of the cars that got traded in were at the end of their useful life anyway. A buddy-0-mine traded in an old Jeep wagon with 250,000 miles on it and got a new Honda Civic. I was interested so I toured a bunch of local car dealers on Sunday (when they were closed) to look at the CFC trade ins. You could spot them easy because the dealers pretty much kept them all together at the back of their lot. What a bunch of loser cars. Mostly beat to death SUVs like old Explorers and tons of rotting mini vans. On one lot I saw a Caddy Catera that I thought was very nice until I walked around it and saw that the entire passenger side was wiped out. No doubt totaled. And those were troublesome cars that deserved to die! I just checked out the Philly Craigs List and there are plenty of decent cheap cars out there if you care to spend the time to seek them out.