Tom Geiger

Nope, but I did knock over a full beer into a newly finished interior tub!

Happy Father's Day to all (especially Chris on his first one!) I had a good Fathers Day weekend. Both my daughters came to PA from NJ and we just hung out and cooked barbecue over and over, a little different each time! We had some standard burgers, steaks and dogs, but I had a large family pack of fresh wings that we cooked three different times in three different ways. Interesting and all was good. And I tried a new rub and way of cooking ribs. They brought me a big gift basket that had my favorite gummi worms, 2 cans of my favorite nuts, 2 ties, a new bathing suit and water gun (since we have a pool), two Fridays gift certificates, a beer t-shirt and a veggie cooker for the grill. I guess they know me. Everything was just great and we all enjoyed ourselves!

That was the day you figured out... lacquer thinner.. vodka.... same thing!

Hey Jim, everyone has issues with family. Back in the day I'd always offer to help my father in law. He was a nice man, eventually handicapped and in a wheel chair and I'd do anything for him. I didn't have my brother in laws trying to do the work because none of them are handy enough to do a project. There would be jobs I'd offer to do, I'd show up on Saturday with the tools and material to find out he hired a professional during the week. He'd say he didn't want to bother me, but I think he was just impatient and wanted it done that day. It would tick me off to no end because he'd spend money he didn't have and get crummy results. Like the 'professional' who wallpapered a room for him and didn't match the pattern anywhere! Argh! So who knows... maybe you do so much for your inlaws since you are close, your mother in law felt that one of the others could pitch in this time. Or the guy said he didn't have time, then his wife leaned on him that he was going to do this for her father! In the end, if these folks were friends you may never call them again. But they are family and you'll be knowing them a long time, so you just got to forget it to get along!

Everything said about judging in this thread is pretty much valid. The big problem overall is that we don't have an international or national oversight for judging standards and qualifying judges. So every show does it their way, from struggling to have the best most knowledgeable judges who strive to get it right, down to shows where the awards are won by their club members or judging is done by unqualified people who just 'pick their favorites'. I've seen shows that didn't have judges up front and were frantically chasing participants to help judge. Not a model for fairness and consistency! Back when competing was important to me in the 1980s, I noticed that I was competing against the same people in the shows I attended. The very same models would place in a different order at the different shows. I'd win first, second and third against the same vehicles. I got to thinking we might just put them all in a paper sack and pull them out in random order for the awards. Then as times change, tastes and attitudes do also. I built the below '59 Chevy convertible back when this kit first came out in the mid 1980s as part of my club's same kit contest. Junkers hadn't come of age just yet. I built the car to compete in the Factory Stock class. I made sure everything on the car was from the factory, just worn past the end of it's life. I even made sure the hubcap in the trunk was stock for that car. Well the 1980s wasn't ready for this car and it never placed at a show! Most shows would pull it out of the class and put it in the Misc class to compete with motorcycles and tanks. I'd argue my point and read their own rules to them., Then they'd say something like, "Well what we really meant was..." So I put the car on my shelf and forgot about it. Ten years later a buddy and I were going up to Masscar. He asked what I was bringing and I told him I didn't have anything recent to compete with. He reminded me of the old Chevy on my shelf and suggested I just bring it along to participate. I agreed and was surprised when it won Best Interior. The next show it won Best Chevrolet and it placed at every show after that even winning Best Replica Stock at Mama's! I guess the car came of age ten years later! On the other hand the 'Cutting Edge' advances every year. The vehicles I won with in the 1980s are no longer competitive in today's contests. And I'm fine with that. Today I build to satisfy the voices in my head. If I can get that image in my mind out in 3D on the bench in front of me, I'm a happy camper!

I think we've all done the wrong color paint thing. I remember picking up flat black instead of clear. Not great results! It's all in how we recover and how we prevent a relapse. For instance, one of the things I noticed was that the can of Duplicolor primer got lost amongst my cans.. so now I wrap a piece of blue masking tape around the can. Now it stands out. To keep myself from picking up the wrong color, I have trained myself to put the can I'm using in the spray booth with what I just freshly sprayed. So now I can just grab the can in the booth for a second coat. You can train yourself! For instance, I need to wear sun glasses to drive during the day. If I don't the glare instantly gives me a headache. So I trained myself 30 years ago to take off the glasses and put them on the lower dashboard before I get out of a car. It took a while to remember to do it, but now I don't even think about it. Automatic reflex. And believe me there's lots of stupid things I still do!

and the good part was there was no 1:1 to compare it to. No roof that was 1/2 an inch off!

Well put! With 20/20 hindsight we forget all the hassles and issues, and remember the good stuff! Back in that era, I was responsible for buying cars and trucks for my company. Literally when I took delivery of a new executive car, I'd drive it for a week or two to shake it out before handing it over to the intended recipient. I had a brand new Buick drop a tranny on the NJ Turnpike and other crazy stories. The company let executives pick out their car, or I'd help them with suggestions. We had a VP whose personal car was an AMC Matador 2 door and he wanted a Honda Accord. Most of us thought he was crazy until we took delivery of the Honda and it had no defects whatsoever. We never had a problem with that one, or the '78 Toyota wagon I drove as my company car.

Wow Jonathan! After all that ribbing, they actually let you have some!

Nice start and good background story. Something tells me that car died a painful death! Back when I was in high school, I started to drive in the fall of 1975. There were a lot of parents cars, full size wagons, in the lot. Some kids were lucky if their parents had a decent car they could pass off as their own. Most of us had ten year old cars, I drove a '66 Valiant, my friend Mark had his sister's old '62 Chevy II and Greg had a '70 Maverick that his father got a deal on because it was dented all the way around. We had spent the summer fixing it with bondo so now it was a patchwork of primer spots. Then there were the motor heads who had bought or built cool cars. There was a beat up '55 Chevy convertible, a '70 Mustang and a superb '56 Chevy 2 dr hardtop. A few kids were lucky to have wealth and had brand new cars. One was a new 340 Duster owned by a really nerdy guy. And there was a girl whose father was a Chevy dealer and drove a new Corvette to school on dealer plate.

Here's a pair of the Gunze version, these are curbside without engines. Short coming of this kit was that it didn't have interior door panels. They're flat so I made a pair. Mine is the red one, white one is by my friend Tim. And to illustrate just how small this car really is!

Hawk also did some larger generic cars... seems like they weren't big on paying royalties! These are more in the realm of 1/24 scale. I have all of these and had thought about doing a detailed version on a Continental chassis.

And another interesting fact.. the passenger side door is longer than the drivers side door. That was to assist rear seat passengers getting in and out on the preferred side for safety.

The kit in question is the old 1978 AMC Pacer that was made by MPC. There were two versions of this kit, the early version 1976-77 era car with the low hood, and the one we are getting here, the '78 with the taller hood that was modified to accept a V8. As with all old tools, they exist as the last version that was issued. A few things... I'd rather have the earlier low hood. I think it's a better looking car. And that would be the version necessary to do the Wayne's World car. With Tom Lowe being into the TV and movie memorabilia market, I'm surprised that the car wasn't done with the tie-in. The movie is quite a cult classic and more relevant than the Beverly Hills Cop car. Maybe we'll see it as the next issue. Moving forward, MPC had the AMC 6 in the kit. In '78 they modified the hood to the V8 version, but didn't change the engine in the kit. I'm pleased to get the AMC 6 engines, but I'd swap in a V8 from maybe the Matador kit into the Pacer. The original kit came with two of the Suburbanite snow tires, and it would be cool if they put those in there again. The other Pacer kit was the wagon version done by AMT. I like that a whole lot. The last version of that was as a custom van, so the tooling might not be up to a stock reissue. Time will tell. As far as the Pacer, AMC originally designed the car to be sold with a Rotary engine. The engine source (help me here) never delivered, so they went with their standard engine offerings. It was a revolutionary design at the time. AMC had the smallest design budget in the industry, but managed to do a heck of a lot with their limited resources. And they had the guts to bring out a whole string of very interesting cars like the Gremlin, Hornet, Matador and the Sportabout. Later on the 4x4 versions of these cars were cool as heck and unique in the industry at the time. Note that when you are a small manufacturer, you don't need to appeal to everyone. Building a car that maybe 10% of the consumer market would want to buy can be quite a success and keep your small factory going full tilt. And that was the case with AMC. They didn't appeal to everyone, but those AMC guys were very loyal and vocal! Now if the Pacer had been sold with the rotary engine, the popularity and it's position in the collector car market could be quite different today. And I've always maintained that if it had been sold as a Chevy or Ford, it would be considered a classic today. Still, there is a very loyal cult following on these cars. A member of one of my model clubs has a Pacer wagon today. In short, (yea I can be short!) I'm pleased to see the car come back. I'm sure the resin casters will be offering up the earlier version of the hood. Buy at least one of these, hopefully several. That will be a vote to Round 2 to keep digging in the 70s vault to bring back some more of the cool old kits!

The last three guys who called my models diecast are buried under my trailer! And there's room for plenty more under there!

For the most part the demo derbies near me mainly used full size cars. There was never a shortage of beat to death LTDs, Impalas, Caddys, Lincolns and full size Mopars. I never paid for a car, someone always was willing to donate one to me just to see or know it was destroyed. You really didn't want to go out there in anything smaller. Cars as large as Dusters or Novas were small in the demo. At Wall Stadium the cars battled in a field designated by telephone poles laid around the perimeter, so there were no straight aways where you could get up speed. All the hits were done at a fairly low speed, and a hit between two cars of the same size just gave you a jolt you were prepared for. When a Lincoln hit a Nova, the Nova would spin around, and that's the kinda action where you could get hurt, sprain your neck or back. The smallest car I ever used was a 1973 Cougar. It didn't run well so it didn't last long. It was a donation and a hard luck car for the owner. So he was glad to see it destroyed. I did pull off all the usable trim etc, and it went to a Cougar guy. I did see a lot of interesting cars destroyed. This was back in the early 1980s and I remember a '56 Plymouth, a low mile '60 Dodge and a '65 Thunderbird just off the top of my head. I have a ton of pictures in albums that I should scan and post on my Fotki page. The usual story with these was that the guy had the car and had tried to sell it for a long time with no takers. So it eventually wound up at the demo. I know how that goes, I had a '63 Studebaker project car that I tried to sell for a year. In the end, I wound up parting it out for 3 times what I couldn't sell the whole car for! Here's the Cougar pre-battle. The KILL RUSSIA was the week that the Russians had shot down a Korean airliner that had strayed into their airspace. The Cougar didn't run well at all and in the perfect location. Sideways, right in front of the stands. We got the People's Choice award. I have all the parts in the box to build this one someday.

That is looking wicked Blair! I wouldn't spend any time making the cab tilt, I think it's just perfect with the hood open. The engine is very visible and cool in it's own right!

That looks great Richard! Guys, as Richard said, this is a simple piece. Once you've got the eye, you can break an item like this down to shapes and make it out of Evergreen sheet or basswood very easily. You can even start out with a small plastic box shape you find in your parts box! It is very fulfilling to be able to sit down and produce something like this start to finish in one sitting. A good way to get past modelers block!

There were two different resin casters who did the sedan delivery. FIrst there was one done by Mini Exotics back before the last round of reissues. It included the chassis and interior and mine still has the $50 price tag on it. Then we have the Jimmy Flintstone version which is pretty common and easy to get. I've compared the two and both have a different shaped rear to the roof. I'm not sure which is right. I believe Ron Cash did the 2 door wagon. Now with this kit coming back, maybe someone will do more resin for it? Maybe 2 and 4 door wagons?

I dunno guys, I can't see worrying about going cheap on an $8 product that you get at least two cars out of. That's $4 a model for BMF. It's easy to use and I enjoy doing it. Mess up a strip of it and you can just peel it off and put down a new one. Probably the best thing in modeling! So now we have our dollar roll of cheap aluminum foil. You then need to spend $4 on a tiny bottle of MicroScale Foil Adhesive. And I can't see this as being enjoyable. How careful do you need to be with this glue? Does it clean up if you get it on the body? If you mess up and pull the foil off, do you then have to clean the body? Or are you just screwed? I've never tried it, so I don't know. But, I can surely invest $8 in my hobby to get perfect results.

I got mine at a model show but your hobby shop should be able to order it for you if they don't stock it. Stevens International, the wholesaler that a lot of shops get their supplies from does stock it. Retail is $15.

It won't be long before we see someone on the board doing that. Or adding a full detail chassis from another Jeep model under this body. Me? I don't care either way. I'm currently building a 2010 Mustang convertible. Others are making it full detail, I'm find having it as a curbsider.

Yes. A lot of guys use these and craft paints they get at Michaels for interiors and such

That's exactly what I use. I don't remember the last time I had to buy them! As an added bonus, once glued, my stuff never ever comes apart. Here's a pair of mirrors that are pinned in place. You can see the straight pin on the passenger side mirror in the interior. I usually leave the item on the full pin while handling and painting. I cut it short right before I put it in permanently. Mirrors like these get glued on the inside of the body so there is no chance of making a glue mess on the paint job. Funny thing, I never glued the mirrors on this truck. They are still pinned in place on the finished model.

Here's an alternative for you... as I build I usually cut the mounting nibs off parts, flatten out the mounting surfaces and set them up to asssemble by pinning together. I use a drill bit that is tight on the pins so that I can assemble it and take it apart again. Joe Cavorley used to build this way and showed me how to do it.