Tom Geiger

Good luck with your surgery Gary! It's amazing what they can do today. You'll be fine and much better than new in the end!

Very nice work. Especially on opening up the doors and trunk.

I went into Michaels this past week with both a 50% and a 40% off coupon. I don't really need any more kits, but I look anyway. I could use a second '50 Olds but they didn't have any. All the kits marked "Clearance" on the shelf were cleaned out so someone around here is buying models. When that happens I buy one supply item like a bottle of Zap-a-gap glue or this week, Testors Dullcote at half price. I saw a lady buying a $50 cutting board for scrap booking, so I gave her the 40% off coupon. She was very happy. Kinda made my day to do that.

Hi Craig- I'm not sure what year Chevy II you are speaking about. If it's a '62 era, let me know the source, since that would be a car my buddy drove in our youth! You also didn't say just how stock you wanted the car to be. As far as bench seats, they are few and far between since the kit makers put buckets into any car they could. Here's how I've coped. Exhibit A is the bench that comes in the Revell '66 Chevelle wagon kit. I changed the upholstery pattern, added the head rests and cut the folding bench split into it. This one is going into a Volare. It may be a bit wide for your Nova. A few other sources. Older AMT '57 Ford has a bench seat. Most pickup kits. I've used benches from the AMT '50 Chevy and the 55-57 Chevys and the AMT '53 Ford. The Dodge vans from the 70s-80s have some neat diamond pleat benches that were for the back of the van, but I fit one perfectly as the front seat in a '50 Ford pickup. Also check out the rear seats in many kits. I've added sides / backs to a few to use as bench seats in different applications. Good luck!

I am working on a Heller Citroen truck and the three pedals are the size of fleas. To show you where they go, there is a little circle on the floor board, but you're pretty much standing these on end. I needed a more definite mount, so I drilled three holes in the floor board. I got two of these glued in place (and neatly too!) and the third one did that 'plink!' off into hyperspace. I didn't even go searching. I decided to make a more traditional gas pedal out of black plastic and glued it in place. I'm sure the lost one will now show up! My work bench disorganization monster has absorbed the same model's dashboard. I know I painted it but I can't find it. That's why I have two of the same kit open! I grabbed the part from the second kit, primed and painted it last night. When and if that lost piece shows up, it goes into the second box.

Your reaction to what you see is natural. Of course you want it! But don't let it overwhelm you. As the others above stated, modeling skills are developed one step at a time. First you start out with just making a box stock kit look respectable. Next one you add a little detail, kit bash it a bit and the progression goes on from there. But understand that while it's great to look and admire, you may never catch up with some of these guys! Watch what the guys on the board do. Especially the step by step posts where you see exactly how they did something or how something went together. Suddenly it's no longer a mystery, but makes perfect sense and you can do it too! You can progress at your own speed or not at all. You will eventually decide just how much you are willing to invest, both in terms of buying tools and materials as well as your own investment in time and developing new skills. For instance, a long time ago I decided that I wasn't going to buy a lathe. It just didn't interest me. If I wanted to learn those skills I would have gone that way as a trade. Still, I develop and hone my skills all the time. This past year I've learned to make my own decals and do a bit more scratch building. It always starts with, "I bet I can...'' and the next thing you know you are doing it. Most recently I scratch built the entire interior of a camper. Is it perfect? No. Is it cool and am I happy I did it? Yup!

I just read the entire thread and enjoyed seeing the design change and take shape. Lots of fun! And now you have a great back drop to photograph your models.

Dave, I don't see the model manufacturers coming to our rescue with a tree of distributors and coils. The aftermarket, scratch building and parts kits and bags are your friend. My favorite distributors are the Model Cars and Replicas of MD ones that are cast predrilled. They come several in a bag for around $5 so they're not all that expensive. As you mentioned, you can also scratch build the parts. Since I build a lot of cars with 4 and 6 cylinder engines, and most of the aftermarket distributors are for eights, I've been making my own from Evergreen tube and wire. I also seldom pass up cheap parts kits, which are the source of well, parts! About a year ago I bought a huge bag of plastic junk at a show, and filled my parts drawers with all kinds of things that will come in handy someday. Like today, I was working on my '28 Citroen truck and noted that the kit had a little bump on the rear door for the tail light. I have a whole little drawer full of red lenses from years of parts collecting. I found one that was ideal. Here's my Citroen 4 cylinder engine. I made the distributor from Evergreen tube and the coil came from my parts drawer marked "Engine accessories".

Sorry to hear about your flood! I also learned the hard way about putting things directly on the floor. Then I kept my eye out for discarded pallets and cut them to the size I needed to keep stuff a few inches off the floor in the garage and basement.

Two bucks? That's the original price from 1960! Nice work on those! I once was at a hobby shop and the owner had me follow him through the back room. I spied a stack of 5 Johan '62 Studebaker convertibles on a shelf. I stopped and asked about them. The owner said that was old stuff nobody wanted, so I asked how much. He thought for a minute and said, "Give me $20 for the stack." I quickly reached for my wallet! And that was a double what you just paid! LOL

In real life that body would probably collapse without the support of the wood, but hey, it makes one great model! Very cool! And as I said on the Spotlight board, you need a skeleton standing next to it!

Very nice! Great work! And as far as the scooter, I would not want to be the one who had to lift it onto the roof!

It wasn't that "Revell did no like the wheels the car used", it was that at a last minute product review to approve the box art, they noticed that the wire wheels on the actual car weren't in the kit. Not wanting to upset customers, they decided to change the box to reflect the chrome reverse wheels that actually were in the kit. Never mind that they didn't have the decals to duplicate the box car either!

Back when Lindberg was releasing that 1/20 stuff, they were sending them out to shows to use as door prizes, no doubt to get folks to see them. They were hard to even give away, always the last picks. I remember winning a few, and I eventually brought them to my show to give away.

I used to love those Mini Lindys when I was a kid. I was a big Matchbox and Hot Wheel guy and they had different vehicles that added to my collection. And since I used to take apart my diecast to paint and detail them, they were ideal since they came as a kit! I collect those 1/32s. Again, LIndberg picked subjects that we didn't see in 1/25. Some of the subjects are mentioned above, I also have the Ford Granada. Some of these bring real money on eBay! I think if the tooling still existed we would have seen them already. In fact, back in the 1990s I remember seeing a couple of them as dollar cars in the supermarket. I bought the Gremlin, a Corvette and a Thunderbird at that time. Remember, the last management at Lindberg filled a warehouse with everything they had. I think that's all the old tools that exist.

Chevy looks good Ron! I like the color and the contrast with the red chassis. I have that same can of thinner on my bench too!

NIcely done! I have a few of those tucked away. I almost bought a 1:1 once, a long time ago. It was black with a white roof and a bit weathered, just like I like 'em. It had a big oil stain under it and the owner said the hood cable was broke so he couldn't open the hood. That led me to believe he was hiding something so I passed. As life goes, someone who lived a block away from me bought it, so I saw it parked there for a couple of years!

Foggy memory cars are easier to build! Until they're done and the car owner recalls, "I just remembered, it had a red interior."

Wow JIm! Looks like the original owner lived in three feet of salt water!

Great job Rich. It was fun watching you build it. I love modeling as a spectator sport! Can't wait to see you cut the side windows out on the '57 Ford!

Irfanview is great software and it's free. I use it often. But for scaling down photos for models, I like to do it in Word because I can fill up a whole page with the image. It's great to set it up for decal that way.

1) 1965-6 Barracudas 2) Split window VW in 1/24 scale (never done!) 3) 1960s Dodge pickup

Ah, but a very nice utopian shoe, Mike! I don't know why I immediately thought about this stalled build. Ancient Elkie from a junker, two sets of custom rear treatments from the old Riv kit, white piece is Deora, while the topper is Fireball 500.

Wow! From Dave and Art's posts it looks like things are moving right along. Considering that when they unveiled their intent in Toledo, we all figured the model would be a year out. I'll be buying a bunch of 'em... in fact, no need to sell single kits, just package them as 6 packs!

Good point Bill! That doubles the weight of my shelf! Actually there is a '58 Chevy pickup advertised locally here that I keep trying not to go see... I've always liked the '55-57 era pickups, especially since there is a kit. So I go one year newer.