Tom Geiger

My model room was a bedroom so it has a hardwood floor. When I drop something I just get down at floor level and gather up the dust and such with an old business card. I eventually find everything although not when I want it. Tonight I'm missing a tail light bezel for my Dodge Caravan. It's a fairly large piece but I couldn't find it. But in the process I found a Model A door handle I lost last week... now that's a tiny bugger. It's like a chrome coated ant!

Charlie, I always wanted to do mine in the same colors as Alan's. Then I saw photos of a 1:1 done in pale yellow with a white top. I saved those pix and will eventually build one in that color scheme.

Wow! I didn't realize the Chopper III actually has three cutting arms. My Chopper II just has one. And I'm dangerous enough with one.

No, my built models are my babies and I love them all as they are. I do clean them up and repair as needed. As others said, looking at my older builds is like walking through the journey I've taken as a modeler, the progression of the learning curve. My pre-internet stuff has decals I made on a Xerox machine, one of my trucks actually has a license plate that was engraved by a jeweler friend of mine. Someone recently said I should update it to a printed plate done on the Acme site, no it's staying the way it always was! Also, I don't part with my builds either. I still have everything I've built as an adult. I don't understand how people sell or give them away. I do rebuild old stuff I've bought, and I especially like to restore old annuals and I'm known for restoring old customs done in the early 1960s.

Cool! Looks great so far. I've been itching to do one myself. The Chopper III is a good investment. I've had a Chopper II for many years, bought for the same reason. You'll really like it.

Here it is all fixed Steve!

Very nice! I like it right down to the exhaust soot on the back bumper. I also like your Integra build in the other thread. Great work on subjects we don't see a lot of on this board!

Very nice! That is the "IT" color scheme for 1960, that is the car in the brochure. And it's cool that you have history with the model. I too have one that I started way back in the early 1980s, in the same colors, hoping to duplicate the car in the brochure. I hadn't found the organized hobby back then, so I failed miserably, still relying on my youth earn skills. I had Testors Burgundy and hardware store white paint. The white went on well, but the Testors (with no prep or primer of course) went on poorly and bubbled in places. So I decided to have patience, and sanded those areas (with 120 grit no doubt) and resprayed. I did that a few times leaving me with too much paint. Still, when I went to brush on the Testors silver on the trim, I noticed for the first time that my sanding had destroyed the trim on the passenger side! That's where I gave up and put it back in the box.

I have 4 finished, and even if I finish the 3 still on my bench for a total of 7 builds, I'm still in the NEGATIVE! So much easier to buy 'em than to build 'em!

Shoveling it is! Once again we didn't get enough snow to fire up my 3 year old NOS snow blower!

Thanks Carl! It's down around 12-14 degrees this morning. After yesterday's snow the sun came out and the snow was melting. There is only one thing worse than the "S" word, it's the "I" word ICE. With the cold coming in overnight, everything is frozen, including our car doors. The doors on the Breeze were all frozen shut and of course, it's the last car in the driveway blocking everything else in. So I got out my trust B&D heat stripper and went at it. Anyone watch those Alaska shows like Yukon Men? Those guys would be outside in their shirt sleeves today. They go hunting when it's negative 40. I can't imagine what that would feel like. This is plenty too cold for me!

And for those of you in hotter climates who have forgotten what snow looks like... my backyard in Exton, PA this afternoon. Just a few shots out the back window..

I think the body is just fine, and you can replace the interior if you think it's too simple. This one is the back half of the AMT '66 T-Bird interior and has worked out pretty well. It has a console and I pinned the original Ranchero dashboard to it. I actually did it out of necessity. This was built from an old original before we got the reissue of the 1990s. I didn't have an interior for it. The dash has photo etched gauges because the ones on the original were melted with dope silver paint. Ah, making something from nothing.

So you made me go count 'em! I found the easiest way was to review my photo back up folder, where I have every photo I took this year in one place. That gives me 3 completed builds for the year, so far. That would be my '34 Ford rat rod, '53 Stude Miss Deal funny car and the Model A pickup rod I just finished. The Rusty Corvette had needed the engine completed and to be buttoned up. I did some work on it today and it should be finished tonight or tomorrow, giving me 4 completed builds. I do have 3 more that are so near done that I may pull them off by year's end. That would be the Heller Citroen Bordens milk truck, Dodge Caravan taxi and the Dodge van camper. Each have maybe a days work each, so that would give me 7 completed models. That would be my all time record! I also did two Olde Kustom restorations. There was a red '49 Ford and the two tone blue '57 Ford that were restored back to the way they looked when someone built them in the early 1960s. And in the negative column, I started more projects that aren't done. I started a '62 Valiant taxi, the Dodge Caravan CV commercial van (which was nearly done and went back for a paint strip!), a '62 Valiant station wagon, a Polystil metal old Mini Cooper that was an old builtup that I stripped, and the '51 Chevy Traveler camper. So that's another 5 still on the unfinished shelf. And I will work on the 1960 Plymouth airport limo as my Christmas Amnesty project. So it will either be the last finish of the year, or the first of 2014.

An old non-politically correct way to kill mice... they are attracted to anti-freeze. People have set a bucket with some in the bottom, and a little mouse ramp up the side. They'll jump in, and drown. One year at my first house, which had a detached garage, I had a plastic kitchen garbage pail without a lid. It was sitting next to an old tire. In spring I found a dozen dead mice in it, They all must've walked up the tire and jumped in.

Paint little smilie faces on them and make it look like you wanted them there! I've bought old built ups where the original builder carefully painted in every one of them! BTW, nice build and color. Lately I've been more into 33-34 Fords than '32s! I think there's probably more '32 street rods around than Henry built new! The '34 has nice lines and that art deco grill is very cool.

Yea, Revell could have tooled up 32 new kits for that money!

Richard, ignore the rusty Scout and look at the sign in the background. That would be cool hanging from your tire sign!

Interesting story, I used to stand behind that very same counter! Back around 1978, I worked in that same store that Kevin Smith later used for the movie "Clerks". Back then it was a Cumberland Farms store, and it's in Leonardo, NJ. Kevin is the local hero now, he grew up in Belford, NJ in the same neighborhood as my wife, only he's much younger than us. And he has always used a bunch of local scenes in his movies, and of course we all know exactly where they are!

Thanks for the visual Roger. I would have assumed that the Mustang chassis was the way to go. How about the Trumpeter Ranchero chassis? I haven't seen one so I don't know how nice it is, but if created properly, it would be the right chassis. The wagon / Ranchero may have had a different gas tank etc from the cars.

Reminds me of an incident many years ago. I mark off my model club meetings on my calendar. When I get a new one at the beginning of the year, I just go through the whole thing and mark off the 2nd Saturday and 3rd Friday, pretty much just "MTG" since I know what it means. The Tri-State club is the Saturday and the Jersey Shore club is the Friday evening. I had the calendar up on my office wall and one day a guy looked at it and remarked, "You only go to two meetings a month?" He then told me how often he went to AA meetings. I just let it go by. A tense moment for sure.

Well it's snowing right now in Eastern PA outside of Philly! We did get that 'dusting' on Sunday, enough that it was on national TV at the Eagles game. Today we already have as much as we did on Sunday, but it's still coming. My wife got ready for work and I told her not to go. She called and none of the bosses went in either! Maybe I will get to fire up my 3 yr old new NOS snow blower. I've never even put gas in it!

The kind of car people would kill to get here in the rust belt. You can fix nearly anything, but rust is for keeps!

Thanks Rob! Now here's the funny thing. I even posted on the boards asking which front treatment folks preferred... the tractor nose or the standard Model A grill. Folks chose the Model A piece, and I preferred it too, so I went with it. One of my thoughts was that I'd use both. I'd set it up so that either would mount on pins. Then I thought that wouldn't be realistic... so what do I see on eBay Motors? A car that had just that! It showed with the Model A grill on it and the track nose painted to match and sitting next to it!

Greg, do you know about The Big Sit? The local Philly club holds a meeting for car modelers at Mainline Hobbies in the Plymouth Meeting Mall on February 22nd. It's not a contest, just a get together that they've invited all modelers from the region. People display their work, no contest. It's usually well attended and fun.