Tom Geiger

Not what I got today, but what I got at NNL East last Saturday! Good Friend Pat Redmond knows my affection for old customs done in their time period and gave me this as a gift. I truly appreciate Pat's thinking of me! I got the Jimmy Flintstone HHR panel van body to do something commercially with. I got to meet Paul Styron aka- fatkid who came up from Florida for the show. He gave me one of his pre-wired 8 cylinder distributors with fantastic plug boots on both ends! Thanks Paul. Otherwise I was too busy at the show to do much shopping. I had my hand on a kit twice when my walkie talkie squawked and I went to handle something. When I went back, either I couldn't find it, or someone else bought it! Then again, I have waaaay tooo much stuff already!

Okay! I've got my popcorn and beer and I'm ready to learn and be entertained! Let the rust begin!

Hey everyone, the NNL East 2014 website is up and running! Please check out our website for information on our 2014 show. The site also has the results for NNL East shows 2003-2013 and links to our annual photo site with over 1,000 photos per year from the show! Check us out at:http://www.nnleast.com

Harry, this is good. I have a few suggestions. Per Jon Cole's suggestion, maybe merge the Modeling Q&A and the Tips, Tricks and Tutorials sections. This works since when people ask a question, the responses pretty much become tips and tricks. I'd put the General / OT topic up in the General section. Believe me, people only scroll down until they think they've found the right category. The OT stuff will wind up back in the Model Talk section. Personally, I like the OT stuff on the board. As someone who knows a good number of folks for many years via boards and email and many, many of them in person, I like knowing what's going on in their lives. On another board I frequent, one Aussie member regularly posts what it's like to live on a farm in a small town in Australia. That's fascinating stuff. And once folks see people here as humans, the stupidity on the board goes down! I like the Introduce Yourself topic. Other boards have this and people coming on board look for it. It's just a good community thing. And one final thing. Having a topic "Read The Rules" as the first thing people see is a bit uninviting. Can we rename this "How To Use This Board" or something a bit more helpful and inviting? As I've suggested in the past, we need a tutorial about how the IP Board software works. I'm very computer literate and it took me a while to figure it all out. I'm sure other people have just walked away. Thanks for having this conversation.

Richard, I love your new grill treatment. I know design is important to you and you tried several things until something looked exactly right to you. That's design and craftsmanship!

Your model looks great. I was looking at this kit on Hobby Link Japan the other day. My uncle and his sons, my cousins are very into the hybrid thing. My uncle has a hybrid Camry and a Prius. Son number one has a hybrid Highlander and traded his Prius in on a Nissan Leaf. Son number two has two Prius. I've driven his Leaf and it's quite different a feel than a normal car. I used to have an electric Cushman at my work and it felt sorta like driving that. And they haven't had a dimes worth of trouble with any of the Toyota hybrids and several of them are up over 100,000 miles. And yes I was planning on building the Prius kit as a taxi. That is such a common sight in the USA as we struggle to clean the air in our larger cities.

Another tip is that once you are able to cut the windows to your satisfaction, you can affix them to the model with two sided craft tape available at Michaels. It was less than $5 for the roll. I've been using my roll for a year now so it's a real good investment.

Here's good friend Jean-Jacques with his Best Theme Award and the first NNL East Long Distance Award in recognition of his travel all the way from France!

Very sorry to hear this! Ray was a good guy and a vendor at NNL East for many years. The last time I saw Ray was a few years ago when he came to the show as a spectator, but not empty handed. He gave us several resin kits to give away as prizes. Our sincere condolences to Ruth and the rest of Ray's family.

But I like politics!

went to the wrecker to get a hubcap for my sisters beater focus...... they didnt have one....But I came home with this.... Nice save! And that's why I can't go to the junk yard. Something is likely to follow me home.

That is the fun part. People who have hobbies are smart, creative and interesting folks. They have to understand things around them, and dig into learning deep into subjects just out of their natural curiosity. They spend time studying, learning and creating things. That's why we stand apart from the herd that is satisfied with a life of watching TV.

Chris Moore from HInsdale, New Hampshire built the '41 Plymouth sedan delivery.

It's a funny thing. One of my favorite shows lately is Bar Rescue, a reality show where bar expert John Taffer goes in and tries to save a failing business. In one episode the bar owner is yelling at the customers for talking too loud and they leave. He says he doesn't need customers like those! And then the camera scans around the empty bar. Moral of the story is that you don't chase away the customers. At NNL East this past weekend, someone pointed out to me that a small diorama was on the race car table. I looked and it had two race cars in it., so the fit was close enough. The show is non-competitive so I told the complainer that there was nothing to gain by grabbing some guy and ticking him off by moving his model. When people asked me where to put their model and it came down to a judgement call I told them to put it where it would make them happy. We could have spent the yelling at people and moving around models. But there was no profit to be gained and we'd just be upsetting the customers. Absolutely totally contrary to our goal of providing a great day for everyone. Each and every year we make improvements to our show by listening to the suggestions of our customers. Last year someone said it would be nice if we had directions from the hotel to the show hall. This year a stack of them was on the hotel main desk. Last year a vendor complained that he didn't get goodies like the attendees. This year the same goodies went into every vendor pack. This year we had several young guys ask for a Tuner Class, next year there will be one. The whole idea is that we focus on what's important.. making our customers happy. And some folks wonder why we are successful.

I think you did too good a job on the back of the cab to call it a doodlebug! I'm thinking more like putting four snow tires on it, converting it to right hand drive and building an outback cruiser!

I think I just outsourced my model building

I don't have time to build models anymore! My new main hobby is "Throwing A Model Show" Believe me, it's taken on a life of it's own!

The mentioned Replicas and Miniatures interior door handles. I don't think they're a good choice here... Actual '41 Plymouth door handle. 1936 Ford door handle I checked the Owencraft site (below) and the one handle they didn't have an active photo on was the 1936-7 Ford door handle. I think this one would work on the Plymouth. http://www.owencraft.com/handle.html

A 1982 Cavalier - This kit is actually pretty well done and was fun to build. 1962 Studebaker Lark 1960 Ford Falcon Ranchero

No, no, no... you've completely voided the warranty on that kit!

Nice work Al. I like those old 'birds, especially the suicide rear doors!

Antiques ( a lot of the furniture in my house is family heirloom or purchased antiques) My grandmother's 1930 Hope Chest sits at the foot of our bed. My great grandmother's dresser. There is now a period wood framed mirror over it now. My antique rocking horse with real fur. Stamps (specifically early 20th century stamps, postmarked envelopes and old postcards) I like to find neat one of a kind things like this Leap Year Cover. Mailed Feb 28th, received Feb 29th 1908. Charles M. Schultz actually signed this one for me.

Well the dust has finally settled in my house! All the show goodies are put away for another year and the website has been updated. Go to www.nnleast.com to see the results of this year’s show and the NNL East 2014 website is up and running. Many thanks to everyone who made NNL East a resounding success! We couldn’t do it without all the enthusiastic support we get every year. We have the awesome ability to throw a little party each year and 1200 of our closest friends come to see us. That just blows my mind each and every time. It’s a load of fun to see everyone. I’m amazed at how many people I know in the hobby. And it’s fun to meet some new folks, many of which I’ve already met on-line in person. Every year something amazing happens. This year when we found we wouldn’t have a restaurant for our Friday evening get together, Tri-State decided to fund a free barbecue for our traveling friends. The most touching moment for me was when someone pointed out a basket full of cash on the buffet table. Everyone decided to chip in! I was nearly in tears that people were that appreciative of our efforts. And we couldn’t do it without the amazing crew at the Tri-State Scale Model Car Club. Somehow our motley group of 15 or so that attend a meeting morphs into a show team of over 30 great folks who absolutely get what we are doing and what we are about. They proudly and efficiently make it the best day of the hobby each and every year. There isn’t a person in our club who doesn’t work the show, in fact folks who can’t attend our meeting, or have moved far away all show up on this special day. I can’t thank them all enough. Again, I’m very proud to be a part of Team Tri-State. Thank you to all of them for making us look good.

I love those old LTD boats. I went car shopping with my grandfather in 1970 and he bought a new gold LTD sedan. That was the first of many gold LTDs, as he'd replace the car every 5 years. The 1970 was replaced with a 1975 that got totalled, but there were several cars through the 1980s, ending with his final car a brown 1990 Crown Victoria. Irony was that I was present for both the first and last LTD purchase, but none of the ones in the middle. He gave a few of them to my father over the years, so he too became an LTD guy. That last 1990 was given to him when my grandfather stopped driving in his 80s. My dad died young in his 60s and the Vic was sitting in his driveway, so I started driving it, thinking I'd keep it for a year. I wound up driving it for over 8 years and 200,000 miles.

I need to say that this beautiful car won the Web Theme - Revell 1950 Oldsmobile Kit award at NNL East this past Saturday! Paul is such a humble guy he didn't even mention it!