Tom Geiger

I've gone as far as to open the glove box, but I glued the door in the open position.

My Geo Tracker had one of those. When I had the exhaust system done, the guy must've unbolted the a/c compressor to get at it and never bolted it back. Soon after my belt started to squeal and when I looked I saw the entire thing was held in place by the weight of that compressor just hanging on the pulley!

Best to you my friend! Of course we are interested in what our friends on the boards are going through. If it was just about the little plastic cars I'd have lost interest a long time ago.

I envy the guys who had older brothers or fathers that were into models. Aside from the post I put on this thread about my earliest recollection of models, my first brush with models was in 1967. My father was a Studebaker guy and wanted an Avanti so he bought a model kit instead. He never did build it, but it served as a pattern to build my Cub Scout Pinewood Derby car. We painted it yellow and black, which was my favorite color scheme after watching the movie "The Yellow Rolls Royce". It was number 61 and I still have the 2nd place trophy. The car is long gone. I used that number on all my race cars after that. I have no idea what my dad did with the model. The year I got into models was 1968 and my dad was away in Korea with the US Army that year. So I did it on my own gumption with my own skills. Upon his return we moved to Germany and his involvement was basically telling me that "if you put that much work into your school work you'd have straight As!" Later on when I was an adult and showed him my two trucks centerfold article in Car Modeler Magazine he smiled and said, "I didn't know you were going to get this good at it. I would have encouraged you!"

I understand your point. I always feel much more confident trying things on a build if I have a backup kit. This past year I dumped 6 opened kits of the 1950 Ford pickup into a big tub. Since then I've done some interesting work and conversions on that kit. If I destroy a part, oh well! I just dig into the tub and find another.

Darren, that 411 is very cool. They did sell those here in the USA but I haven't seen one in years. Yours would turn a few heads here, especially with the RHD. I have a friend near London who is a Harley fanatic. I constantly kid him, asking if his Harley is RHD!

Your post reminded me of an old built up I had once... the builder had carefully and perfectly painted all the ejector pin marks on the chassis silver!

I do as Rob does, only I've done it with the back side of an exacto number 11 blade. I'll use a straight edge, in my case I have an old metal jig saw blade that I've covered three sides in masking tape leaving the back side of it (note that I've covered the blade edge). I just carefully score the line over and over without any real pressure until it comes free. Finish the edge as mentioned above. I do this a lot since I don't like looking at my interiors through plastic, and I like the windows open so I can reach inside if needed. There's nothing more frustrating than having a finished model with sealed windows with a shifter floating around inside! Also, once you've opened up the window, you can give your model a bit of character by having side glass rolled up to a random point. See below photo.

The EXP was a bit useless. Basically an Escort without a back seat. It may have done better if it was a convertible, but that was done as the Aussie built Capri. Later on Ford got it better as the Escort ZX2. It was a sporty looking 2 door Escort with a back seat.

It was AMTs solution on how to get three kits out of one tool. Seems they got the stock Nova, the Ventura and the Nova funny car. Great solution for the times when most of their clientele were kids. Note that MPC did the same thing with the Multi Maverick to give the two different wheelbases. Criticizing it is like putting a 1970 Nova next to a 2013 Impala. The new car is so much more sophisticated there's no comparison. Likewise, our hobby, tooling technology and the detail level and accuracy of kits has grown. We should be happy with that!

I believe someone like RMR would jump at casting this bed. I don't know when AMT will be releasing it again, but your bed would also work on the original issue kits as well. The only wrinkle is what may be coming in the Mobius kits. Would they be doing this bed?

That was the 70s! And ya know, nobody complained! As a kid one of my favorite kits was the Scat City Funny Car. 1970 Dodge Super Bee. The very same stock body AMT put on the stock / drag kit that's still being released today.

That looks great! I can't tell you how many times I saw a car like that in the junkyard only to see it was hit hard somewhere and not cost effective to restore. One time I was in a junkyard, came around a corner and saw my own 1970 Impala coupe. I recognized it right away due to a small dent in the hood and missing bit out of the plastic filler in front of the bumper. As I moved around to the drivers side, I saw it really didn't have one! Completely wiped out. Later on I saw the guy I sold it to and he told me he hit an ice patch on the highway and rode the divider until he could stop. Poor car.

Very cool work Rich! Now on to the Plymouth and Oldsmobile?

Ed, yes I have one and just haven't gotten around to doing something with it yet. When I bought it there was a shelf full of them. If I had known they'd be scarce I would've bought them all.

I think that six is the same one that's in the Pacer kit. And didn't someone say the Pacer was coming back?

Interesting! Nobody we know... which is a good thing. I hope the sold a lot of kits and got more people involved in the hobby. The contest was for Revell's other 99% of customers, not us ringers!

Craig, my sincere condolences to you and your family. I know this is the most difficult time, but be strong and do what Lisa would want you to do.

There was one done in 1/20 scale as the Ironsides van. There was also the below diecast in 1/24 scale...

Amen! I've always liked the Sportabout since the days when they were new and my buddy worked at the AMC dealer. He did dealer prep and occasionally I'd get to drive some of the cars. When I started out in real estate I almost bought a used one, but I wasn't too keen on the dark green color. While I thought about it, my old company boss gave me a '73 Buick Electra 225 4 door hardtop, I will definitely need one of those in resin!

Yes, you will find uses for various ones. Even a stiffer brush may become a duster to get dirt out of corners of a model! I keep my building brushes separate from my weathering brushes. Even though they all started out as the same brushes, I clipped the end off the weathering ones so I can keep track.

It depends on how it is on the real vehicle. For instance, I'll always dab lug nuts with color, but if bolts were painted along with an assembly, I'll leave them the same color as that assembly. On occasion when weathering a chassis, I'll dab a little rust on a random one or two.

I remember back in the day when these were new. I was at a Chevy dealer and walked up to a sedate looking silver Monza Town Coupe. Then I saw the stick shift and the window sticker referencing the V8... oooh! That might've been fun!

I buy most of my books on Half.com. The sellers there have beat each other to death so you can find most titles for about a dollar plus $3.99 shipping. So I get most of my books for $5

Very nice build! I believe the kit's engine bay is rather sparse, looks like you detailed it up nicely! Back in the day I was looking for a 4x4. I wasn't sure what I wanted, old, new, American or foreign but I had the bug. One of the vehicles I saw was a black Scout of this era with a white top and white scallops on the doors. It was interesting, the price was right, but it had a huge oil stain under it and the hood didn't open. The owner said it was 'stuck' but I read that as he didn't want me to see what mess may lie under it. So I passed. Eventually I took a trip to Aruba and rented a Suzuki, so I bought a new 1991 Geo Tracker convertible that I still own today. So I can't say I regret my purchase. But someone living a block from me bought that Scout so I had to look at it for years. And yes, there was a big oil stain where it was usually parked.