Tom Geiger

I'm assuming that you want to be able to vacuform the five individual lights. There are three unique shapes, so you'd need to create those as masters. Since they can start with a square or rectangular shape, I'd see if Evergreen has a piece that large (I doubt it) or I'd find some pieces thick enough to laminate to get the height. Then file and sand it down to the shape you need. The corner one will need to be done as two pieces, then joined in the corner. Otherwise go through your collection of kit lights and see if there are any the right size / shape that could be modified to work. I have an old Mattel Vacuform machine, and there is a place, Callori Modelworks that makes the sheets, complete with the little holes around the perimeter. That's what I use to make clear windshields, should work for your lights as well.

Until I moved, I'd get soliciting calls for my father, "May I speak to Arthur?" "No, HE'S DEAD." Stopped them every time! Funny thing is that my father never lived with me, I only handled his estate stuff from my address. Still I'd get a load of junk mail to him at my address. And when I moved from NJ to PA, I thought it would end. Nope, some did a change of address for him, so he's still with me in spirit.

Oh, them is fighting words! Like I said above, every BMF problem I hear about comes from people being cheap with the product. It's like doing wall to wall carpet, there will be a fair amount of waste. I was watching a show about hard wood floors and they quoted 1/3rd waste of product. Here's what I've seen... TRYING TO CUT A PIECE OF BMF TO MATCH THE SIZE YOU NEED... You will never get the size right. And you will never put it down right the first time. That leads to lifting it up and putting it down again, and touching glue that you will use. All problems. To do a piece like a length of side trim, cut a piece of BMF THREE times as wide as you need, and a bit longer than you need. The length must be long enough that when you touch the BMF on either end, the parts where you touched the glue with your fingers must get cut off as waste. The three times width assures that you will get it to cover the piece the first time you put it down. Never ever lift and replace. Which leads to these bits of info... NEVER USE A PIECE THAT YOU HAVE TOUCHED THE GLUE. Once you have gotten finger oils on the glue, it's waste. Cut that part off. NEVER LIFT AND PLACE AGAIN. Once you've put it down, it's down. When you lift and reposition, the glue won't have the original strength, and it's likely you've put wrinkles in the product that will be difficult to iron out. NEVER RETURN A PIECE TO THE BACKING SHEET. I've seen guys post that once they cut the overage from a piece on their model, they return it to the backing sheet to use again. Wrong! See the last two entries. It's already compromised, it will never work right in the future. SETTLING FOR BAD RESULTS. I've seen a lot of wrinkled BMF. Guys will say, "Well it was down and I didn't want to waste another piece." Guess what? The magic of BMF is that you get unlimited do overs! If a piece doesn't look right, take it off and use a new piece to try again. It's not wasted if it looks good. And a word about cutting... as is common knowledge, use a new number 11 blade. Some folks paint the sides of it black so you can see it against the foil. That's a good idea. I've done this with black Sharpie. And here's where people go wrong.. guys mar their paint, etc by using too much pressure on the knife. BMF is thin and cuts sooo easy! All you need to do is put the knife down close to the trim and trace your line like you are using a pencil. Just lightly trace along. That's enough to cut the foil, and not enough to destroy your finish! Concentrate on making your model look good, not how much product you will use. You will get good results and you will use less product as you get better.

After some of the things pictured in this thread, this one is down right normal!

Amen, most of the time when guys complain about BMF I can trace their problem back to being stingy with the materials. Figure it's $7 a sheet and you get roughly two cars out of it. And maybe 50% waste. And that's just life.

Dave, I believe the AARP contacted you rightly so. You may be 35, but you have a lotta miles on ya! My wife is 2.5 years older than me, so I got my AARP membership early. Haven't found much use for it since any discounts are the same as AAA and at least I get towing!

I once sold my 1960 Buick Electra 2 door hardtop for funds to restore my 1965 Barracuda. My daughter's college tuition was due.. and irony, it was the exact amount of cash I had! I guess I can't complain. It went to a good cause and was a good investment.

Nice work once again Al! See you in a few weeks!

When I go through my unfinished projects I've come to the conclusion that I've invested more hours in the models that aren't finished than those that are! Still, those are models that I developed skills on that went into models I actually finished. And any time spent at the bench is time well spent, nobody said you had to finish anything.

Joseph, this looks like a cool project. In order to get decals, you will need to take some good straight shots of each panel that you want to recreate. That would be a photo of the door, the quarter and the trunk lid. Once you have that, it becomes scaleable and someone can trace it for artwork.

It is a hobby and it's supposed to be fun, a passion, and a lift from everyday life. If it's not those things, there's no reason to do it. For my own work, when I get disinterested or ticked off at a build, I put it aside and work on something else. There are often three or more builds on my bench at various stages. When I'm not motivated but want to work, I'll go up to the bench and look them over. Soon I'm hacking on one of them. When I've had enough of everything, and the model room is a mess. I'll pack up everything and clean the room. Once the bench is back to new, I feel better. I keep all my unfinished projects (yea, like 30 or more) in boxes on the shelves directly above my bench. When all else fails, I'll just go through some of the boxes and grok the projects. Eventually something grabs my interest, whether it's a small step, or something that required a skill that I didn't have the last time. Next thing I know I'm working on something. There are times I'll work on something a day or a week, only to box it back up again. But it's one step closer to completion for the next time.

and OTB stands for On The Bench (and not off track betting in this instance!)

A while back my club did a snap kit build with a local youth group. We never paid attention to the snappers, but they sure opened our eyes! Revell did a very nice job on those. They're fun to build and detail out the body and interior. You get a nice shelf model. I did this one..

A Happy Thanksgiving to you too Rich, and everyone on the board!

Are the engine wires part of the kit? They look like it in your photo. I will be getting three of this kit... you know why! And I'm really happy Revell imported these in US boxes. Beats having to pay for the Revell of Germany release!

Very cool replica!

Back in that time period the German car dealers near US military posts were used to ordering US spec cars for servicemen. The deal was that if you bought a new or used German car and used it for 6 months, it entered the US duty free as your personal vehicle. So people would order new VWs, Porsches and Mercedes in their last year of that assignment. I was a kid, a military dependent in Germany during this time period. I got to go to the Mercedes factory with friends to take delivery of a new car. Military folks over a certain pay grade qualified to have Uncle pay to bring a car to Europe, and back home again. My father had always planned on buying a Mercedes, but never did, so we shipped our '66 Valiant back home again. There were others who bought non US importable German cars for fun, knowing they'd have to sell them when they left. The guy across the hall from us had a big Pontiac wagon for the family, but had a Fiat 500 and a German Capri over time. We had just the opposite, and a rare site in Germany.. a 1963 US spec Beetle that was bought and delivered in the US, but made it back to Germany with a serviceman. When he left, he left the car behind and I think my father was the third owner. We used it for an around town second car, and sold it again when we left in 1972.

George you have it backwards... here's a Swinger... And again for reference below is my Scamp...

Richard, I think all the signs look just fine! I especially like the standing man sign. That is pretty cool and is a keeper for sure. For the rectangular sign in the roof, this would be the spot where you put the garage name, something like "Abner's Garage" or other.. and the Disney Land diorama piece we spoke about... Here's a random piece. The front door to the post office. I like the half circle windows. This is plastic. As you can see the cardboard walls are poor and everything was assembled by those beige circle clips, visible everywhere. Here's the piece apart from the wall. It snaps out and has a front and back side. It kind of scales out... the door is 3 feet wide, which is right, but it's a bit shy of 6 feet tall. A door should be at least 7 feet tall. I can fix that by adding bottom corner blocks. And here it is as a back drop. I haven't dug too far into the box just yet, but I've seen some nice colonial windows in the box.

I am okay! I am okay! There are others crazier than me! LOL I'll bet a lot of guys show these thread to their wives..

I'm happy that our Eastern PA / NJ weather report is no snow. Just rain today and tomorrow, but should be clear and chilly for T-day. That works for me since we'll be travelling 2.5 hrs each way to dinner at my sister in laws house.

A bit of progress since our last photo set... we are not only up on wheels but we have a driving chassis. Engine is in place, front end is complete, rear is attached. All four tires touch the ground. Exhaust is in place and fits like I wanted it to. Yea, this is a truck I want to drive around so it has mufflers! Little widgets I added include a oil drain plug and you can't see it in this shot, but there is a master cylinder attached to the left frame rail. Interior is pretty much done. These are the parts box seats (I understand they were the custom seats in a 1962-3 Chevy kit) that I had originally done for my '34 Ford rod. They didn't get into that build so here they are. Seat belts are ribbon and the buckles are ones I cut off some of those plastic seat belts found in a lot of 1960s kits. Carpet is doll house carpet sheet that I tried to make look like it was just thrown in and not fitted. The door pulls were copied off photos of a real Model A pickup. Another interior view. Still need to add a gas pedal, shifter and some more schmutz to the floor. Side view mock up. Note that the body and windshield are just sitting for the picture. I chopped the windshield to get the car a bit lower. The exhaust is peaking out from under the side splash right in front of the rear tire. I'll have to brighten it up a bit so you see it. Dash is wood grained and has some photo etched gauges added. Rear view still needs to figure out the tail lights and license plate. I'm thinking it will be on a plate hanging below the tail gate and set in a little bit. Bed inside will be getting a piece of weathered plywood. I'm trying not to cut out the bottom and redo the planking. Still working on the front bits. I have a working bumper all made, but I have two front end themes. I made a track roadster nose but I'm not sure I like it. Or the traditional Model A grill. I'll have to figure that out soon because I'm nearly done. I can probably fiddle with it another evening or two with little details. It's been fun so far. Not bad for a old junky built up.

Yes! He's the old guy pushing reverse mortgages on aging seniors on TV!

Adam, you are right. The 1980s MPC kits of those small forgotten cars are actually really nice kits. I built the Cavalier and have all the others in my stash. You got me intrigued, so I went downstairs to my brochure collection (which is in boxes) and found that I had both a 1976 and 1980 Chevette brochure, but none between those dates. Ron Hamilton mentioned that he'd like to do a Chevette 4 door and I noticed that there is a 3" difference in the wheel base. Amazing that they'd do a complete new chassis etc for 3 friggin inches! Upon looking at the 1976 brochure, there was a bright green coupe that looked like my sister in laws car. Then I noticed I have a can of Tamiya paint in a close color... this is getting dangerous!

I've been organizing my junk lately. When I found I had a dozen Revell 50 Ford pickup kits, I took the 5 or so open ones and dumped them into a tub and marked it "1950 Ford PU Parts". I just did the same with the remains of 4 1970 Impala kits that I'm hoping to use the restore some from different years, but of that same structure. Just this past week I reduced my footprint by at least a dozen kit boxes, sorting things into parts boxes and such. Upon sorting the cases, I realized I had more than a necessary amount of many different kits. So I put them all out in a pile and came up with near 40 kits, mostly sealed that I just don't need. So they're up for trades, or I'll eventually put them on eBay or bring them to a club meeting. I've also been looking at all the supplies and aftermarket things that I was saving for a special project. Well, the time is now. For instance the Grand Canyon Camps logo on my new rat rod pickup was one of those things I had saved 3-5 years. So I used them.