Tom Geiger

It would be cool if all the 1/32s were there. I've collected a bunch of them. I have the Ford Granada and Cordoba too. I remember the last hurrah for these maybe 20 years ago I found a few in the grocery store. I bought the 77 T-Bird, a Corvette and a Gremlin for $1 each. The Gremlin I got was missing the grill and someone in my club wanted it to make a race car so I gave it away. I still have the Corvette. I don't know if any others were issued at that time, I bought one each of the ones the store had.

John Hanley's primary business wasn't model cars but plastic parts for the auto industry. The "Plastic Products" company at that address probably is his old company. Legend was that in later years Johan wasn't a full time concern. When ever production was needed, John would move employees from his main business over to the Johan building to crank out a run. That also explains the inconsistent and sometimes odd colors of the plastics used. The issue with Johan kits as far back as the USA Oldies series, a lot of the cars issued were incomplete and mismatched between car, interior and dashboard. Someone said the wrong engine was in the AMX and we know that the Scrambler was really a '66 American. So they were piecing stuff together that far back. Aside from the other kits we feel the tooling exists for, there's reasonable expectations that Okey also had molds for the '31 Caddy and '34 Mercedes, at least to make one version of each car. There were several versions of each car, (Phaeton, Cabrolet and Brougham limo on the Caddy and open and coupe on the Mercedes) but I remember on Okey's first sales list he showed a one of each car being tooled as Rat Rods. Another comment on the tools is that the Chrysler Turbine car that Okey pressed was the promo so we know that one exists. I believe the full detail kit was a second tool and we do not know the fate.

When I've gotten an email about tracking I've clicked and looked just out of curiosity. It is interesting to see the path a package takes. What doesn't seem logical is actually darn logical to carrier. In many cases that location is a hub where they have huge resources to take in all their packages from across the country. Let's say that FedEx takes all the packages from across the country and ships them to their main terminal in Memphis. So that's one plane load from Los Angeles of packages going everywhere instead of separately routing say the 50 packages each that would be going to individual states. Once at Memphis, they have enough volume to send all the package from across the country that are going to Los Angeles and fill up a plane. So instead of 50 planes leaving and coming back to LA from different hubs, it's only one. This is a rather simplified explanation, but that's basically how it works. I once toured the FedEx Ground location in Edison, NJ and it's amazing to see the volumes and the automation that handles it. As far as my own packages, my life is so busy that they're all here before I realize. I often will get a package in the mail box and have to open it to remember what was coming. In fact we use the garage and back door daily, so packages have sat by my front door a couple days before we noticed them. Thankfully my entry way is covered and not visible from the street.

I did remove the soft center of the roof tonight. I don't think I'm going for a chop. I took a lot out of the body and I still want the car to be drivable.. plus, the body section worked and I know I'd screw up the chop

That is over the top! It was fun watching the build.

Okey Spaulding does sell at shows as Johan. Part of what he bought was a couple of tools, along with a vast hoard of parts and misc for many other kits. The stuff he sells at shows today is either kits pieced together from that parts hoard or just the parts themselves.

Okay it's sectioned not chopped. When I did the other '34 sedan that I just finished, I took very little out of the body section. I took it out between the two body bands but not the cowl, so the side windows were full but the windshield got a chop. This one is chopped below the two body bands and I took out twice as much plastic... Just to see what it would look like. The blue tape shows how much is coming out. I usually do my cutting with my little battery powered drill. You can see the perforations for the first cut here OOPS! Buncha parts! The band on the right is the section of about 6" in scale. The section on my other car is about 3" scale And here we are glued back together. As I said above, I cut with my small drill, creating tight perforations. Then I score it from the back and it just comes apart like ripping two stamps apart. I clean up the edges, but they actually work well for gluing with Zap-A-Gap and creates a lot of room to bite. Note that I had to cut a small slice out of the door to move it back so the front door line would match. Now we play with putty and shoot some primer to see how we did... A tutorial on this board showed me a neat way to Z a chassis so that's the next step. While I kept the last one at a standard height but sectioned over the rails, this one may go real low! Comments?

Back when Lindberg was doing the 1/20 scale kits, they sent model shows cases of them to use as door prizes. We couldn't even give them away. They were always the last kits chosen as prizes.

The model companies know about the aftermarket. In fact a lot of the people actually know each other. I do remember that AMT once used a Modelhaus kit as box art.

I know we all grumble at the differences in scale on the Maisto line, but they're pretty much building them to fit in the box. Someone associated with them posted on one of the boards that the scales didn't hurt their sales. No doubt because they're looking at the casual diecast car buyer, not us scale bigots! I know I shy away from buying stuff that's available in plastic or is odd scaled.

Very nice work on both the convertible and the 4 door sedan. This subject is one of the most requested new kits... maybe we'll get one sooner or later!

Because it was some poor kid's Christmas present! Probably from a well meaning aunt or the school dollar gift exchange! I have a Revell SS United States kit with a Christmas sticker on it.

I guess I didn't need to answer the above question. Thanks for jumping in guys, you were right on! I am not pessimistic about the overall deal. Tom Lowe is a pretty smart guy so we know he must have gotten a good deal. We've been talking about the Lindberg cars, and there may be more there in other areas that interested him. For instance he's always been big in the TV and Movie / Monster markets, which I believe are larger than our market. There may be some original tooling there. While I would assume that the last blast was everything that was viable to mold, there may be tools that are damaged or incomplete, that Round 2 would be able to restore or reverse engineer the missing trees. Overall, I'm optimistic for our hobby. I remember back maybe ten years ago when everyone thought the sky was falling... and look at all the neat stuff that's happened since!

Looks Great Kenn! To look at it finished, you wouldn't imagine all the work that's underneath! Thanks for taking us along for the build. Very entertaining and educational.

They had a cool history. We wondered where "Pyro Park" was in Union, NJ since that's not far from where our club meets. Our member from Union, Dave Wood figured out the factory must have been knocked down some time ago. There is a new Home Depot there now. Right off of Route 22.

Ya never know what will happen next! This is a good thing for the hobby. It puts more old tools in the hands of people who respect it and know how to use it. Good for Round 2! As far as the mythical warehouse fire, I don't believe it. That's just Ollie's back story to make the inventory sound more exciting and protect future retail sales for Lindberg / Hawk by calling the kits damaged goods being sold at a discount. Note that their story said the warehouse was in California, while the company manufacturing operation was in Michigan. Also note that it would be suspicious none of the desirable kits made it to Ollies. I believe they had just built up too much inventory that didn't sell and they had to liquidate it. Unfortunate that the quantities they dumped will satisfy market demand for some of those kits for a very long time! The fact that they had issued a lot of old obscure kits with no rhyme or reason leads me to believe that's all the tooling that's currently viable. We can wish for reissues of the cool old 1/32 70s cars and the Mini Lindys, but we'll just have to wait and see. And I don't think we need those old rubber band powered Bonneville cars, they were a drug on the market last time around.

You can say that again Dave!

Some more details... Here's a shot of the engine before it was installed. The coil wire juts off into space here! Interiors get lost after you assemble a sedan so here's a shot of the detail. The seats are covered with Taco Bell napkins. I did a tutorial on this site showing the steps. I wanted the carpet to be different so I printed out a Victorian style carpet from a doll house miniatures site in 1/24 scale and glued it in place. Seat belts are just ribbon with the buckles cut off a pair of those awful plastic kit ones. I needed to thin them down a bit more than I did. Door handles are resin from Norman Veber. Stick shift is a pin painted as a 6 ball instead of an 8 ball because it's got a six! The dashboard was cut down from the AMT '53 Studebaker kit. I added paper gauges and put clear on top of them. You can see the 6 Ball in this photo. The steering wheel came from the parts box, I needed a small one to fit! So that's the build. I'm pretty pleased with the way it came out. Hope you enjoyed looking at it.

This model is over five years old, back when I decided to see what would happen if I sectioned 6 scale inches out of the body. Then I decided it would be neat to use an unexpected engine, so the Plymouth flathead six from the '41 Plymouth kit was built up. Wheels and tires were picked out, then the project died. The model sat way too high and I couldn't figure out how to get it down. I picked it up this past December, when I usually finish an old project over the holiday season. I immediately saw my issue. I had taken the height out of the body, but not the interior. So I spliced it up and got it where it should be. Then the height was just where I wanted it and I was excited to finish it. I didn't make my January 1 deadline, but kept at it, especially as I added more detail and got things right (at least for me!). She's been finished about two weeks now. Headlights came out of the old Barris Ice Cream Truck. The directionals on top are little self adhesive jewels from Michaels. Horns are from the 1950 Ford pickup. Front wheels and tires are from the kit. The six inch section was taken out right at that body line above the door handle. That left the side and rear windows full size, but reduced the windshield down like a chop. The rear wheels and tires are from the old MPC '28 LIncoln Gangbusters kit. I had an old glue bomb. Tail lights were roof lights from a big rig. I added '59 Caddy tail lights to it. I pinned the tail lights in place. The rear carrier came from the parts box but I think it was an old Johan item. The rim of it was chrome. It is sitting on the kit provided spare mount and has the actual spare tire inside it. It can be seen from behind. I had to whittle the tire down to fit it in there. The decal on the back was made on my printer. It's a bit fuzzy here but it says "For All You Know, I Might Be Dead". The graphic is an old 1920s comic postcard in my collection that I reduced. It's actually very sharp in person. And since I can't go to GSL in Salt Lake this year, I added a Utah plate. The paint job is one of my typical old and worn ones that is expected of me. It started out with Duplicolor red primer. Then I did gray primer on top, another coat of the red and then Cardinal Red paint. It was then wet sanded to reveal the layers and then a Testors Dullcote was applied. Then I did my strategic rust with my technique of Dullcote and chalk dust. I added strategic rust holes on the body and a body patch right before the back wheel. The single exhaust with a brass horn end comes out on the right side only. The cowl vent was opened and glued in place. People had told me that the kit body roof was too square so I tried to round it off a bit. Probably still not perfect, but good enuf!

Finally done! I'm posting in Under Glass next!

I am not a fan of the Tamiya black. I get much better results from Duplicolor.

Here's the canopy delivery. I hadn't taken mine out of the box either.

This from the guy who built that GMC van? A little grinding, a bit of Evergreen and you're on your way...

Very nice build.

The original Hess trucks are worth money and the later are not, pretty much the same way other collectibles went. Back in the day, nobody saved them, they were just toys for kids. Later on, everyone thought they were funding college from the profits of the trucks they were buying! Hess headquarters is a tall building right on Route 1 in Woodbridge, NJ. So there were a lot of their stations around my home in NJ. Hess traditionally puts the trucks on sale at their gas stations the Friday after Thanksgiving. They usually park a tractor trailer or two full of trucks behind the station. Early that morning, there would be a line around the block to buy them. Of course that was once I was an adult and those trucks aren't worth much since they distributed so many and so many people kept them mint in the box, hoping for future profits. My Uncle Dan bought us the originals when they were new. I'm 54 and I remember having the early Mack tanker with the working lights. Of course long gone. He died at 93 two years ago and I helped clean out his house. He was a car guy and a bit of a depression era hoarder so I found some interesting things in his house, especially in the basement. And the whole time I had my eye out for mint in the box Hess trucks! Never found any!