Tom Geiger

This is worse than the hurricane in the NJ / NY area due to the loss of life. But I will agree with the above statement because the hurricane affected towns in NJ near and dear to my heart. The destruction is worse in real life because you are right in the middle of it. When I went to Union Beach and saw the first several blocks closest to the bay were literally gone, my heart just pounded the entire time I was there. The worse part was seeing personal belongings in the debris, like kids toys and simple things like VCR tapes you know were in someones living room that no longer is there. That kinda personalizes it from being just piles of wood to the homes of people being destroyed.

That is a pretty cool little Honda! We cranky old guys need to broaden our horizons a bit. At least encourage the kids to participate, even if the subject matter isn't our very favorite. A story... right before NNL East a fellow emailed us asking if we could have a tuner class. I emailed back that we didn't and it was too late to consider anything for this year. Then I met the group of very nice young guys at the show. We talked a bit and I remembered that when we did a Tuner theme, and when we did the modern muscle theme, it was pretty well received. Well, there will be a Tuner class at NNL East starting next year. How can we expect young folks to join in on our hobby if we don't invite them in and accommodate their likes?

Glad to see you got your bike back! Just be glad it was an idiot who wanted to go riding instead of someone who would have stripped it for parts!

Which was probably their undoing!

Okay, here's a thread that will let people know each other just a bit better. No model content at all! List TWO interesting facts about yourself. Doesn't have to be profound, just something that you find interesting! I'll go first: 1. I was an army brat. I grew up in places like Izmir, Turkey (1966-68) and Pirmasens, Germany (1969-73). It affects my likes and who I am. For instance since I was outside the USA for much of my youth, I don't have any connection to American sports like baseball and football. I also have a fondness for odd foreign cars! 2. I am not affected by poison ivy. I can touch the stuff all day long without ill effects.

I dunno Harry! Maybe this?

The cannon looks like a kit you could con your mother into buying for you "I need it for a school project!"

Hi Pete! Miss Deal was an interesting build. For the 24 Hour build, I thought I'd find a kit that I always wanted to build and had multiples of, so I wouldn't fear messing one up. I also needed a kit simple enough to finish in the allowed time. Per the rules, it had to be a full detail kit, so no curbside snappers! The kit itself was typical Revell of the era. Lots of mold lines and ejector pin marks. Assemblies were unnecessarily complicated, like the engine being many pieces that went together poorly. The directions also were sketchy, leaving some of the build to interpretation. No wonder kids gave up on these in the 1960s! I'm an adult with an engineering background and I wound up doing some steps twice. If I did another one of these, I wouldn't use the kit engine. The 24 Hour build did teach me to build faster when necessary. And instead of throw away results, I actually like the car! Finished car below.

Same thing happened with my '73 Barracuda. This was back in the late 1980s. I had sold it to a friend of mine and he never paid me in full. He drove it for about a year, then dropped it back off at my house in lieu of the debt. So I sold it to a young guy and his mother. The kid was in a votech mechanics class and said he'd restore the car during the program. That never happened. About a year later my buddy gets a ticket in the mail for abandoning a vehicle. So we called Bayonne, NJ town and found that we could have the car back IF we plead guilty to abandoning the car and paid the towing and storage costs. So we went to look at the car... totally trashed. The costs would have been over $1000 and not worth it for what was left of the car. And my buddy didn't want to plead guilty to anything. So we went to court to fight the charge. Fortunate for us, I'm pretty methodical when I sell a car. The kid was 17 so I made his mother sign a sales receipt I wrote out that had both our names and addresses on it. The car got flat bedded from my house and I took parting shots of the car being loaded up. That included shots of the company name and location on the truck doors. Before court started we saw the prosecutor and produced our evidence. He said he was happy we had all that because he sees many people who he felt were innocent but had no paperwork to prove they didn't abandon the vehicle themselves. He told us to sit in the front row and when my friend got called during roll call, he would dismiss the case.

a friend of my wife's family lived on a 3 acre property with a small house and a barn. In the barn was an early 1960s Mercedes 190 SL. It was a car that her brother in law drove in his younger days and was saving for his son. Tragically the son was killed in a bicycle accident and the owner died in his 50s. That left the car in the barn. Our friend's father died leaving her the property. She lived there for years and every time my wife saw her, she reminded her that I was interested in the car in the barn. Well, she eventually sold the property and the car was gone. I saw her and asked, she had GIVEN IT AWAY to someone she worked with. I pointed this out to my wife the other evening as I was watching Chasing Classic Cars and one sold for $200,000!

I know I have a '50 Chevy panel van, I think it's from R&R. Back when All American was in business they did a '54 pickup. Put those two together..

and don't count on the cops to help you either! When I was renovating a house for my daughters to live in, the central air conditioning unit was stolen off the back of the house. We knew one of the workers did it. He had threatened to do it. We had a neighbor as a witness. Air tight case? Even the cops thought so. They called him up and asked him to come in for questioning. He refused. The cops told me they couldn't go get him because he lived an hour away. They said if he had voluntarily came in, they would have arrested him. But they wouldn't go get him. That cost me $2500.

Yes. He is fine. Right after NNL East he went down to a friends house and then to Florida for a family vacation. He should be back soon.

I like the way you managed to make that awful grill look legit!

Hey you asked for criticisms so I want to make a suggestion. On your next build, work on your body prep a bit more. Note in the above photo there are some prominent mold lines on the nose. See the ridges below the headlights and next to them adjacent to the hood. Those needed to be sanded off. Other than that, you did a first rate job on one of my favorite kits. I especially like your door handles.

Do you have any photos of the Duesy from those days? A lot of the big old classic cars saw use as work trucks once they were older and on the back row on used car lots. After all, they were huge and built on truck like frames. As someone said above, 'drove like a dump truck'. These cars became tow trucks too.

Welcome Jonas. Where in Germany are you from? I lived in Pirmasens when I was young.

Hmmm... all I can remember is "much, much better than new"!

welcome from another PA guy! Look forward to seeing your builds. Tom G

Okay, someone said it should be a woody and a pickup... 1931 Citroen Normande from Heller. Actually a pretty decent kit. Body sits on the AMT 34 ford chassis like it was made for it!

Yup. I have a pink Cord downstairs that I got in a lot of 1930s classic models.

No, not yet. I have the kit, just wondered if it could be done easily. I had a '68 4 door sedan for a day or two... Back around 1978 I rented an apartment on a property that had a barn and horses. Next to the barn was this Datsun, which was slowly melting into the scenery. I asked and the owner said a previous tenant had left it there because it didn't run. The title was in the glove box, so he told me I could have it if I could get it to run. I spent an evening or two and next thing you know I'm driving around the property. It was something silly like a fuel filter and battery. I get home from work the next day and the Datsun isn't there. I ask and the landlord tells me he sold it to the mailman. I have a fit on him, not that I really wanted the Datsun, just the false promise. He winds up paying me half what he got, minus the new battery I had just put in it!

Here's a photo of a 34 or 34 Woody from meeting pictures of the Detroit club. Body looks like it might be resin. Windows seem the right shape. Sorry I don't know more..

Neat little tuner. Has anyone been able to return those wheel wells back to stock?

The good doctor posted some yesterday. So he's alive and kickin'.