Tom Geiger

I buy new kits that I'm interested in, not everything that comes out. I did get the '50 Olds, '57 Ford, Mustang Coupe and the Mobius cars. I am anxiously awaiting the '70 Barracuda and Ford pickups! I don't buy a lot of the reissues because I no doubt already have the older issues of the same kit. For instance I didn't buy any Opel GTs because I already have two of the original issue.

The Volare is an interesting kit. I've had a build going on forever. To answer your questions... The car has a unique torsion bar set up in the front, so there is no drop in chassis. On mine, I just cut out the molded in drive shaft and am making the best of it. You can add front end parts to get rid of those wheel mounting points. Under the hood, the big issue for me is that there is no detail on the top of the firewall. On the 1:1 there is a big air intake, vent etc there. So I added it. There are other parts to fill up the bay, such as the air conditioning system in the AMT '71 Duster kit. Heck, you may even prefer that kit's engine bay. Other issues with the kit are that the detail on the door panels is much too light. I added Evergreen strips, a arm rest carved from a tooth pick and resin window cranks to make it acceptable. I also believe the car doesn't come with pedals, which are also easily added. Here's a link to my build album. You can see what I did with the interior and there are some 1:1 engine bay shots for research. http://public.fotki.com/ModelCitizen/model_cars/my_model_cars/primer_projects/volare-messenger-car/

Cool build! Don't feel bad, my '65 Chevy pickup build was on the bench over 10 years!

For that very reason I don't brush paint anything. I don't use an air brush either, everything I do comes from spray cans. Whether you use Testors, Tamiya or Duplicolor auto paints, just take all those small parts, and mount them up for a quick spray. I like to use Styrofoam (from packaging) as bases, and I'll mount small parts onto toothpicks, or even lay down a loop of masking tape and lay the parts on it. No more brush strokes!

The Roth Surfite came with at least three decent surf boards.

At least he could've shut the trunks and hoods!

I got a job interview! Interesting consulting gig at a company I already worked for 15 years earlier in my career. Everything they need me to do, I did there. In fact I designed and built the office I got interviewed in. Fingers crossed.

Well, that's what we all do. I'm no different. And the RC people tend to buy their big ticket items online and hit the hobby shop for small parts and repairs too.

That looks pretty cool!

The Hobbytown USA stores are franchises and the individual stores carry what they want. I asked the owner of the local one here in West Chester, PA about carrying Tamiya paints and his response was, "We get a lot of people asking about those." Well, duh then!

and that's the problem in a nutshell. A hobby shop cannot survive on 2% of your business, on the low profit margin on paint.

I tend to comment when someone posts a build in progress and there is something they can fix as they build. I try to phrase it more as 'here's something that will help your model' rather than 'you are wrong'.

You can steal a complete dual exhaust set up from another kit. Sometimes you'll need to bend it a bit to make it fit. You can bend it with a little heat. Also I will cut the pipes and mufflers apart, drill a small hole in each and insert a small length of straight pin into it so I can roll and adjust the parts just like you would installing a real exhaust system. Once you've got everything lined up, you can add a dab of glue to hold it all in place. The pin technique of assembly. Here's an exhaust pipe that's pinned together. There is a short length of cut straight pin between the pipes and muffler. And here it is assembled on the model. You'll see that I wound up modifying and adding to the front pipe to clear suspension components. You can see how I pinned it to the chassis, and sharp eyes will see it took me two tries!

I remember when my family was young, I spent a lot of time with the kids, driving car pools to activities and other parenting. Now my kids are grown and we haven't hit the grand child stage yet. In fact, my kids even live in another state so it's just the wife and I (and Ted the dog) here in PA. I have been out of work this year and spend most of my workday looking for work and networking. I've found that if I knock off a bit before dinner and get an hour at the bench, that has become my sanity. It's something I can do that I can control the results, so it helps me feel productive. I've actually gotten more done this year than any in recent memory. I don't like to work when it's nice out and daylight. I'd rather be out working in the yard or doing an outdoor activity, like trying to get my money's worth out of my pool. So during the summer modeling is only done in the evening. A few things I'd recommend... schedule time. I know a guy who is a morning person who gets ready for work and then hits the bench for an hour before leaving the house. You could also do that in the evening. When your wife tunes into "The Bachelor" or "Dancing With The Stars", that's an hour or two of bench time! I've found that even in the evenings where I'm tired and just want to sit, if I go upstairs to my bench and just start touching things, I get interested and the next thing I know I'm working on something and no longer feeling bushed! That bit of focus leaves me refreshed and feeling good! But as a friend and I agreed, we can't work right up to bedtime! When I work in the evening, I need to walk away from the bench and go watch the news to decompress. Otherwise I'm too excited to sleep!

I've got my share of car books and magazines, but I also have thousands of car brochures. I collected these with a passion for at least 10 years. I have a good representation of just about everything American back to the early stuff. My Plymouth collection is near complete. I have also collected tons of International stuff, the odder the car the more likely I am to have it. And I have a big hoard of US manufacturers in other countries, especially South America, South Africa and Australia. I have slowed down to stopped adding to this collection because I always saw it as my car reference collection. Today my first stop to find info is the Internet so I seldom access the stuff any more. And I found that car brochures weren't always the best source for accurate info. Sometimes they took artistic license, like a page showing all the engines, but each one painted a different color... ask me why I have a Jeep V6 engine in gold paint!

They seem to be doing well in China. 100 Million Chinamen can be all wrong! Then again they don't speak English so the Buick Eyesore would probably sell too!

I was just making a funny since I did the rusty Corvette. It does freak out people though!

I'd look at diecast to see how they did it. Much simpler than looking at a 1:1. The Ford would have a top pin and one at the mid belt line. I don't think it had anything at the bottom. So you need to clean out the track at the top to allow for a small pin to slide in it. You can hold that in place by pushing upward when you add the center piece. Look for that hinge track at the center. Cut a slot there and insert a small nail or large pin from behind, it would glue into the back of the door, with the head being on the inside of the body. Now the big question... would the slider on a 1:1 Ford actually clear that rear fender flair?

I like it. I once cut the head off an HO scale man to make a skull. I felt so bad for him I never used it!

Neat work Al. I had a '70 coupe like that back in the day. Mine was triple gold 350 coupe. I sold it because I couldn't afford to put gas in it.. back when gas was 50 cents a gallon!

Cool. I need to make me one of those! That looks like the tired old trailer my buddy and I used to borrow to do the demo derby back in the 1980s.

Okay that's scary! Too bad it's not rusty!

Nice job Manny. I love the interior work!

Ah, close but no cigar! Here's the wheels that came with the AMT / Model King release of the '79 Ford pickup. Right number of slots, right shape of slots, wrong shape of wheel! I'll keep looking.

You are an artist! The graffiti is perfect!