Tom Geiger

I have one of those old AutoWorld panel cutters that I got back in the day. Pretty much just a cheap soldering iron with an exacto blade in it. Forget the drawing they had of someone perfectly opening a door with one. Like Harry said, it pretty much melted a scale foot pathway through your model! Not good for anything.

Do we get to pick out the free kit you send, or is it just a random choice?

Welcome Jim. Let me warn you that you've made a dangerous decision to get back into modeling. From now on it's all you will be able to think of! We've got you and won't let go!

That would be the one!

I like your rear bumper treatment. As you can see I did something a bit different with mine!

You mentioned earlier that this was just a roller without a real chassis (but a fiberglass gas tank visible from the rear) or drivetrain. I wonder if someone could come up with a chassis shot of what would have been under it. I'm thinking it probably looked like a trailer chassis with a straight axle in the back, maybe a pivotal front end to steer it . You've gone so far with this, that having the chassis correct, especially since nobody really has seen a real one, would be the crowning achievement!

Neil, it's a great truck and most important is that YOU are happy with it. It's your truck! If you are happy with it as a curbside, that's cool too. Other wise I have some parts kits open of this truck and would be happy to send you an unbuilt engine, and even some bumpers if you'd like. PM me. I do like your truck. It has a unique look to it.

Just let them be. For the next 30 years they'll be talking about the day the tornado blew through!

that reminds me of a situation I saw in a club many years ago. There was a guy who was buying sealed $100+ desirable kits from a local dealer. He'd show up at the next meeting with that model built, totally glue bombed. The guy built like an 8 year old without supervision, and saw no problem with it. Guys in the club pleaded with the dealer not to sell him any more kits!

There's a lot of interesting weird history. For instance in the early 1950s Volkswagen built a plant in South Brunswick, New Jersey to manufacture Beetles. Through some changes in currency, it was then preferred to build them in Germany and import them, so they sold the plant to Studebaker who wanted an East Coast assembly plant. Enter the Korean War and Studebaker built war materials there, but never did get to auto production at the site. The building still exists and manufactures electrical cable. In other news the old Ford plant on Route 1 in New Brunswick that last manufactured Escorts and Ranger pickups was demolished and a shopping center is now there. And the GM plant on Route 1-9 in Elizabeth, NJ is long gone, again demolished. There was also an airport across the highway where we used to see the FUJI Film blimp tethered. That's gone and now a shopping center.

A few thoughts... First, I like your seat cover that follows through on the ranch theme. This is one of my favorite old kits so I always love to see one done! On the grill, yes that grill was available in 1953, but the kit has the high end grill with the little bumps. You can make it a standard grill by cutting those off. I did on my build, then painted mine since it was painted on the truck I was replicated. The grill is fine on your truck. As far as the weathering, I do see the brush strokes as others have mentioned. The good part about weathering is that it is forgiving and can be updated even on a finished model. I'd sand it with 400-600 grit carefully to take down the brush strokes, then add some more weathering with a small tight sponge. That will give you the non directional look. Also note that trucks and cars weather from the top down, so a top surface will show more sun wear (especially from a dry state!) than the sides. Sometimes I'll go dullcote on the top and semi gloss on the sides to replicate that.

A few years back I took my Geo Tracker in for exhaust. It needed a front pipe so the tech needed to loosen up my alternator to get down onto the manifold. A couple of days later I noticed my power steering was kinda fading in and out, so I thought the belt might need tightening. That's when I found the alternator was just sitting there suspended by it's pully. It wasn't tightened to the engine at all! Don't know how it drove that way for a few days!

and on a serious note, as you pull apart a glue bomb, note that there are assemblies that are just fine glued the way they are. For instance, there's no profit in pulling engine halves apart. You also have to look at the potential to damage parts vs just working around the preglued parts. I had a 1960 Falcon body where the glass was glued in so solid that I would break something if I removed it. The builder didn't get any glue on the windows so I just masked them off as I built. Also, depending on the model you are redoing, a rare annual may share parts with a later year car that is still in production. I have a 1969 Chevy that I will be restoring with parts from the 1970 Chevy kit which is still plentiful and cheap. In this case, it's just easier to start with a clean new chassis than deal with the gluey mess of the original one. And there may be parts like chrome body trim that's easier to leave on and paint or BMF later. I just did that on a '57 Ford old custom I was restoring. The chrome dual headlights were stuck on good, so I left them and foiled them after paint. If you need advise on a specific model, just ask the board. Someone here will know.

Yea Kevin, I have trouble taking advice from the guy in the picture! You too Rich, if you leave that picture up too long people will think you really look like that!

I had never seen a stink bug until I moved to PA. Then they moved east and I saw them in NJ too. They were all over the place here 3 years ago but rarely seen this year. They are a fairly decent size, about the size of a finger nail, but have a knack of getting into the house. You find them on the wall in the dead of winter. Who knows where they were hiding until then. And I find dead ones in weird places, like in a closed model box, desk drawer, behind glass in my model display case... Since I don't want to smash one, nor set it free to multiply, I flush them down the toilet. They wound up in this area when furniture started to be imported from Viet Nam and Laos. They hitched rides in packaging, and since they seem good at sitting still or hiding for long periods of time, they wound up here. I understand that back home they are used in food as a spice.

These were around NJ this summer, but only in certain areas. My bro-in-law had a graduation party for my niece. As I drove my aging Dodge Caravan towards their house, I thought I heard a sucking sound, as if I had a vacuum leak. As I got closer to their house it got louder and all I could think was I'd get there and wouldn't be stranded. I pulled up outside their house and went to open my hood. My nephew ran out and told me it wasn't my car, but the Cicadas! Sure enough, once I turned the car off, the sound was overwhelming. It sounded like an enormous gas leak. So bad that they had the party inside the house with all the windows closed! Man those cicadas were loud.

Ya know, with all the petty BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH that people whine about, this is real life important! Cheers for your friend!

The little star indicates a thread that you have participated in. A thread you have read will appear non-bold if nothing new has been added. Once someone posts a new entry, it gets bolded again. There is no way I know of to differentiate between a thread you've read or a new one. I'd love a button "new today" which would show you threads started in the last 24 hours. Another good sort is to go to the top right of the page and click on your user name. A menu will come up, and select "My Content". All the threads that you have responded to will appear. Once you get this, look at the menu to the left side of the page. You can select "only topics", which will give you just topics that you started.

At our NJ house its crickets! They are all over the yard, just move a trash pail and they all run for cover. In fact, I took a bunch of boxes from the garage there back to PA and crickets were chirping all the way home. My daughters are dead afraid of crickets who they call "black monsters". Never mind that I'll pick one up in my hand and toss it back outside, or in the toilet, depending on my mood. And all chaos breaks loose if one gets in the house. So I catch pretty bad grief over the 'monsters'.

And the Auburn car front clip was sold to Corbett who used it on light trucks. The school bus on the TV show "The Waltons" was a Corbett. Jeff Harper of Mass did a Corbett truck model.

Congrats Jim... and you're spending the money on a Baja bug? You are crazy!

The AMT Dodge van kit is like that. unless you cut the engine cover out of the interior, all you're seeing is what shows from underneath. The big secret is that my little pickup has no top end on the engine. I decided to save the chrome valve covers and air cleaner for my parts box. Now if I did want to go over the top, I'd open the doors on a Dodge van and make the engine cover removable. That would be pretty cool since I once had a 1:1 and did a tune up on it sitting in the front seats (with the doors closed) during a snow storm.

AOL articles usually read like they were written by a summer intern with a one hour deadline!

The current trend in the automobile business of new players, consolidation, buy outs and mergers are nothing new. They're as old as the industry itself. Many of the early companies were intermingled and did business with each other. Early cars were pretty much like component stereo systems. Makers were pretty much assemblers of parts they bought from others. For instance, early Fords had chassis and rear ends bought from the Dodge Brothers. A lot of the early orphan cars used engines made by Continental and others. The article also had an error regarding the end of electric cars. They were originally a big seller for women and others who didn't or couldn't crank a gas engine to start it. It was a big task, and people broke their arms on the kickback if they weren't careful. The starter made gas engines work for everyone, thus the electrics fell from fancy. The histories and family trees of the industry are pretty interesting.

Take the velvet and give it a coat of 50% white glue / 50% water on the back. No more unraveling. That also works with ribbon to cut it into seat belts.