Tom Geiger

Nice work on the Mustang! Check out the wheels in the above photo- Revell snap '63 Corvette convertible. Your spokes may be wider but same overall idea.

Looking at the pictures, I'd like to suggest that the door handles and side mirrors be pin mounted. I fear that if they were surface mounted, that the final assembler may get glue on the body and since this will be mailed around, they could come off the body. I usually drill a small hole in each piece and glue a straight pin into it. Then I drill a corresponding hole in the body. Most of mine are pretty much a press fit, with a dab of glue added on the inside of the body. Here's a photo as an example. It needs to be done before any paint. The mirrors are just press fitted here. Funny thing, on this one I never glued the mirrors in the end. Someone who is on the assembly list could do this, or if desired I volunteer to do this. I'd need the body, the door handles and the mirrors. I'd do a one week turn around. PM me if interested.

Todd McWilliams died on Sunday from AML Acute leukemia in New Jersey. I don't believe he posted on this board, but I'm posting this since many modelers knew Todd both on-line and in person. Todd had lived in Michigan, Florida, New Jersey and probably more states, all of which he was active in the hobby and the local clubs. He most recently was a member of the Jersey Shore Model Car Club. He will be missed.

No where near that decision. They have a few positions open and asked for me to forward my resume to them. The next move is theirs! They found me on LinkedIn. Operations like this are pretty interesting. A while back I toured the Fed Ex Ground facility in NJ. It was amazing to see the volume that was coming in. They were the receiving office for all the fulfillment companies in the area. They said they have drivers on the road that do hourly switch boxes 24/7 at places like Amazon and LL Bean. I watched as a 55 foot trailer from LL Bean was being emptied. Pictured this box loaded front to back to the roof with those tyvek packages, not in boxes or anything, just that kind of volume. And that was an hour's shipment! The trucks were unloaded by a single worker who loaded the packages on a telescoping conveyor belt that had lights on it. This thing followed the worker into the trailer by electric eye so nobody brought packages to the back of the truck, the conveyor went into it. I was there evaluating the conveyor system for my then employer.

That is fun! Cool model.

You are correct. In my comments I said in the future, large companies like Amazon would be on their own to collect sales tax for all states. It's coming! Anytime there is money to be had, they'll figure a way to tax us for it! And a funny thing... I'm looking for a new job and Amazon called me today to talk about being their regional facilities manager for Delaware!

I just remembered! I bought my Dodge Caravan from a woman. I was so impressed that a woman was selling cars that I never questioned it. Everything went well and on delivery she spent well over an hour going over every last feature on the Mark III high top van!

Do not use real salt! Salt will absorb any condensate in the air and make a mess over time. I have been to Bonneville and stood on the salt flat. It's very hard, I couldn't kick into it with my heel. It's also not slippery. It had a gritty surface like those non-slip stair treads in an industrial setting, or like walking on stucco. Every so often there would be a small hole in the surface, like a mole hole filled with water. There would also be puddles on the surface in some areas. That's because salt attracts moisture! Fine sandpaper painted off white (more antique white) would be decently realistic. Me on the salt. A surreal environment. Interesting that it was so vast and you couldn't judge distance since there was nothing to get coordination from. Those mountains never changed no matter how far we went out on the salt. They could have been 1/2 a mile away or 50 miles away. The surface up close. Note the small hole filled with water as described above. Surface was like stucco.

Rich- Do you have a Johan '59 Rambler wagon kit? If so, there's a cooler in it along with the luggage! A thought on the case of Mt Dew... I've learned to make diorama boxes solid, like glue the photo around a build up of Evergreen sheet or basswood. Otherwise it will sag and miss shape over time. Car looks good!

New Jersey calls it 'use tax' and expects you to self declare all sales due to them for anything you bought on-line from anywhere. There are probably a few Johnny Laws that actually declare something Eventually we'll probably see sales tax on internet sales. Larger companies like Amazon and Walmart will have to do the collections etc themselves. eBay will probably charge and pay the sales tax as a function of Paypal, and probably will add 1-2% to the bill for the service! There are great differences between the sales tax rates and programs between different states. It causes some interesting border town situations. For instance NJ sales tax is 7% but there is no tax on necessities like clothing and food. NY sales tax can be 8% or higher (NYC has it's own tax on top of state) and they charge tax on everything. So there are huge malls and food markets right over the NJ border where half the cars in the lot have NY plates on them. I now live in PA (6% tax) about a 1/2 hour from the Delaware border where there is no sales tax. So people tend to take the drive to buy bigger ticket items like TVs and snow blowers. Another fun one is the difference in fuel taxes between the states. NY has much higher tax than NJ. I used to work in Pearl River, NY which borders NJ. So one of the big lunchtime activities for NYers was 'driving to Jersey for gas'.

And you can't complain about that! Three years ago I moved to PA from NJ and bought a bigger house. Much more room for the 'stuff'!

I agree with Harry. I saw it in the theater when it first came out.

Great project Rich. They say that the old promos only warped until the plastic dried out completely, so yours shouldn't warp any further.

Mine either! Many years ago when we got our first PC, my wife wanted it out in our space so we could watch what our young daughters were up to. So we decided to put it in the dining room and I spent something like $500 for a cherry computer cabinet thingie that all folded up behind two doors so it would just look like furniture. Wrong! I don't think we ever shut the darn thing. And it didn't shut once we added a printer and scanner!

Thanks Chris! Did you wear your NNL East t-shirt to the show?

Yes. I've seen a Mustang II station wagon. It's also on that long list of projects I want to build someday

Congrats James! Much, much better than just getting a silly model!

Wow. Let us know what happens when you confront that shop! Back in the last century when I was young and using my '65 Barracuda for daily transport, I paid a local garage to replace my clutch. The next evening I had to drive to North Jersey to pick up my tear drop trailer. On the way up there on the Garden State Parkway at 60 mph, I noticed that when I hit a slight bump, the transmission would pop into neutral. I loaded up the trailer and headed home, and it got worse. I basically had to hold the shifter in 3rd all the way home. The next morning I crawl under the car and find that there isn't one single bolt holding in that transmission! The whole thing is held in place by the driveshaft! I call the garage and they tow it in. They said they checked it all over and fixed it. Well, all they did was add four bolts. The clutch always chattered after that and upon taking it apart myself later on I found the trans yoke was all chewed up and the clutch was warped and several clutch springs were broken.

I used to work in the Princeton, NJ area where they refused to allow hunts to thin the heard. Thus, there were deer everywhere and you'd see the night's carnage on your way to work every day. One night I left work as it was getting dark. As I drove through the country roads I did have one eye to the side of the road looking for deer. One jumped out in the road and I hit my brakes hard. Here I am sliding, with all four wheels locked and this deer is smack up alongside my door running to keep his footing with his face against the side window. A very hairy minute! Then he ran off into the woods unharmed and I checked my Geo Tracker which was also unharmed, save for deer spit on the window!

Yea, that's the one. You saved me from having to dig in my photo archive to post it!

I was watching a repeat of Fast and Loud, where Richard and Aaron were under a Fairmont on a lift and exclaimed that it was a Mustang underneath with a body that was drawn by a 7 year old! I thought that was funny. Why can't we say that a Pinto was built on a Mustang II chassis instead of the other way around??

I'm with Rich! I pretty much build in silence. I do have a small TV in the model room but I find that I zone out and don't even pay attention to it at all. I'm also not much into music in the car when I'm alone. I just use the time to meditate with my own thoughts.

Back when Okey tried to resurrect Johan he did a brochure that showed a bunch of kits that he never released. The ones I remember best were the 1930s Chrysler and Mercedes done as rat rods. I think someone posted a jpg of that flyer here once.

Yea! You paint just like I do. Everything mounted on toothpicks, stuck in Styrofoam and sprayed!

Early photo before weathering Current look after weathering Eric- Everything about your diorama is superb except that your air conditioner stands out. It just doesn't look right. I can see that you used the same screen that you used on the railing on it. Take a look at the pictures above for some ideas. The sides of this air conditioner are the side panels from either a Model A or T kit, that I cut to size. That gave me louvers. The front of the unit is a radiator from some unknown kit, cut to size also. I was just using the parts from old kits for the correct patterns. I hope this helps!