Tom Geiger

Note that if you are making big stacks or piles of 2x4s etc, only the top ones you really see need to be spot on. For instance if you were making a big pile, you could put a big block of wood in the middle and just nice 2x4s around the 3 sides of it. You could even just have ends as the front.

Yipee! You finished it in plenty of time for NNL East. As a beater fan, I've been watching this one take shape and I look forward to seeing it in person.

I agree with Craig. I lived in Germany from 1969-72. By the time you mailed a VW to the US, there was no point in trying to market the low end cars here. The German Mark was gaining on the US dollar and over that time period the Mark went from 4 to a dollar to less than 2 to a dollar. So the low end cars couldn't compete in the US market. And as a US military dependent living in Germany, everything doubled in price to us. That put the typical Revell of Germany kit over $10 in the local hobby shop while stateside, kits were still $2.50!

I need to build a replica of my 1:1 Geo Tracker. I bought this new in 1991 and it hasn't failed me yet! I have the Suzuki kit as a start, but you'd be amazed at how many body differences there are between the two. I've had this pair in my work pile for ever! It's the old Lindberg Trail Blazer. I was building the left one onto the Hogan's Jeep chassis and the right one on the stock chassis for comparison. Yes, this was a real car. The AMT - top. This is a snapper that is pretty primitive. This is just a stock kit photo of how I acquired one of them. I have a second one that I have an entire new interior mocked up into and have it scoped out for the Jeepster chassis. And of course I have plans for a few of the Hogan's Heros Jeeps.

Lookin' good! I tried throwing the JC Whitney catalog at my car but it kept bouncing off!

Art wrote: "I don't remember when the last time was that I stopped into a hobby shop anywhere and actually found somebody who really knew much about the plastic kits on their shelves." Many years ago I was at the local hobby shop on a busy Saturday morning right before Christmas. This is a fairly large store that tries to touch on the basics for a lot of different hobbies and has a lot of craft items as well. And of course a large RC department at the back of the store manned by typical young RC geeks. Other than that, and the older couple who own the place (they're like retailers instead of hobbyists) the store is manned by young girls. So I'm at the model car shelves and a lady asks one of the young girl sales clerks for a Porsche. She timidly scans the shelves and tells the lady they don't have any. I look and there's a nice Tamiya Porsche 911 staring at me. So I jump in and hand it to the lady. She tells me her son is into Porsches and she thought it would be good to have him build a model. She doesn't flinch at the $40 kit price, so I walk her over to the paint and glue rack and start handing her paints and things her son will need. She's happy and spends something like $80. The sales girl walks off in a huff. A guy with his kid asks me about kits that his young son could build. I'm helping him when I notice the sales girl return with the owner (that's the guy who's talking to OUR customers). I keep talking and sell the guy a snap kit and some supplies. The owner looks at me and asks me if I want a job! We chat a bit and I politely decline since I have a good 9-5 job and didn't want to give up my weekends.But it was fun helping people.

I collect old Valiant kits and can say that the plastic was harder and thicker than modern kits. It will also shatter if you try to bend to break on a scribed line. I have a small battery power drill I use to work on models. No problem on modern kits, but on the old Valiant kit, the plastic would melt and clog up the drill bit. I learned to seriously respect the builders who cut these up and customized them using knives and razor blades back in the day!

Very nice finish and a great model! I believe you got that from Terry Jessee.

The reason why Round 2 put the question out on Facebook is to get the perspective of the average person. It's useless for them to ask here on the dedicated modeler boards because we are too sophisticated and too close to the issue. And we only represent a small fraction of their overall market. That's why we see a lot of '32 Fords and Ferarris. The general public who couldn't identify a '50 Oldsmobile, will buy those over and over. And don't write off Facebook. If you ignore the people who post photos of their lunch and every trivial detail of their lives, the site has amazing power that can be used for your benefit. I got lured into joining because I local band had the "Visit our Facebook Page" on their card. Within a half hour, I had a contact from someone I knew in high school. That led to being linked to over 50 people I graduated with in 1976 including some old friends I lost contact with many years ago. And we've gotten together in person for three reunions so far. There's also groups for just about anything you can think of. I belong to groups that post historic photos of my town and places I once lived. I grew up in the military and there are three groups for people who once lived on the US Army post in Pirmasens, Germany. This post has been abandoned by the US and turned into German civilian use. I saw tons of photos of both what it looked like back when I lived there in 1969-72 (my father was a career officer) and today. I saw a lot of pictures of the street I lived on which was Army quarters for families, but no photo of my old house. So I posted on one group asking if anyone was still in Pirmasens and if they could drive by and take a picture for me. Within an hour two people had volunteered. By the next day I had a video someone took in 2010 driving down the street and photos a German fellow ran over and took for me... of the current building where my house once stood! Turns out that it got knocked down and there are two houses where it stood. Not the outcome I wanted, but the answer! And through these groups I'm in touch with five kids I went to junior high with back then! It's great to know how they all turned out and where they are today. We've shared memories that have filled in blanks in my own memory and I've enjoyed this a great deal. And the 24 Hour Build this past weekend was done on Facebook. There are a lot of modelers and modeling groups there too!

I love the Deora. My first sight of it was as the Hot Wheels car when I was a kid. Once I found out it was a slant six car, I was hooked and it's always been one of my favorite show cars. See the project below. These are the Baby Moons that came in the Deora kit. Note that it's a full chrome wheel. Pretty cool though, that's why I used them on this truck. Note that in each kit I have at least one of them has either a sink mark or chrome issues. Back before the Lindberg '64 Plymouth and Dodge came out with a nice slant six in them, the Deora kit was the only current kit that had a slant six! So I bought a dozen of them from Hobby Heaven to use the sixes in my Mopar builds. That led to expendable kits and this project: Here's an album of Deora reference photos that friends shared with me. If you want to build a correct version of the car, here's a good start. http://public.fotki.com/ModelCitizen/11_car_reference_library/the_deora!/

Love the groceries. Those are the little items that turn out to be a lotta fun to make and really set the model off!

Looks like you made the roof issue go away! I had the same problem when I turned the Dodge van into a pickup. The cab and the back end roofs were at totally different heights.

I agree Mike. I learned a few things for next year. Pick a good quality relatively simple kit that goes together well. Keep it simple, build it pretty much box stock!

Both! The computer keeps us connected and interested in building. In fact last night about 50 modelers participated in The 24 Hour Build from across the country. We kept in touch on a Facebook page and posted progress into our Fotki albums. It was fun having some to chat with at 2am and knowing that there were other crazies building along with you all night long!

And here's where we were by 5 am. This being a quick project gave me license to make snap decisions. Paint colors? Just because I had them! That's the metallic green I used on my new Camaro. Also that's about the same green my father had on his '54 Studebaker. Endurance... the day from noon onward went quickly. Every time I looked up another hour had passed. I was getting tired around dinner time and broke for tacos and a beer. I went back upstairs after an hour and the evening again went quick. Once I started to see real progress... like finished sub-assemblies. I got new energy. But by 5am there was no further good to be done. Everything I touched upset something that wasn't quite dry yet. As tired as I was I started fumbling parts and dropped the finished body, breaking both A pillars. So I gave in and went to bed at 6:30. I never did muster up the energy to get it finished. It's essentially a car at this point, still needing to assemble some minor stuff like steering gear and other chassis details. I got back up at 10am and was so tired I felt like I had a hang over. So I ate breakfast, checked the boards for the other builder's progress and laid down from 1-4 pm. That got me feeling normal again! So as soon as I can muster up the energy, I'll finish 'er off. I wanted to add some rust to the body corners etc as is my trademark. It was fun pushing the limits and getting about a month's work done in 18 hours! I'll post in this thread when I get back to it this week.

I have been watching the 24 Hour Build for years and this year I was in a position of being able to dedicate a weekend so I went for it. This goes from noon on Saturday until noon on Sunday so you have the rest of Sunday to re-cooperate! I decided to give the old Revell Miss Deal Funny Car a go since I know guys who base a lot of their drag builds off this chassis. Plus it looked like a fairly simple build.... wrong! It's from that Revell era of over complicated kits with poor molding, poorly fitting parts and vague instructions. I started at noon, but I had taken all the parts off the trees on Friday and cleaned up the mold lines etc a bit. I stripped the bad chrome off a lot of the parts. I started to get frustrated that several hours into the project, I still didn't have anything assembled. By 2 am I had the chassis pretty much done and on wheels. I had spent way too much time doing this two tone on the chassis, carefully masking off the gray frame with BMF. Next quick build I won't do that! When time is short, simple is better! Another 2 am photo. Roof was masked off for the two tone. I planned it all out with Duplicolor because it dried very quick. I managed to do this body with primer red, then primer gray and then color coats over that all within a few hours. Part of the deal was working smart. I had two of the kit open and while the chassis was drying, I was mocking up the roll cage on the second kit's chassis. I also was mocking up the second kit's body onto my near finished chassis while the paint on my project's body dried. If a part in my main kit sucked, I just tossed it and grabbed one from the second kit. I had a mishap with the rear axle while painting. The toothpick I had in one axle end to hold it up wouldn't come out and I wound up breaking that axle shaft side. So out came the second kit's axle. I also had some supply issues. My Alclad spray can ran dry as I was touching up the chrome front suspension. I grabbed for my Metalizer Aluminum and it was empty too! I had the engine painted red and I used a red prewired distributer with blue wires... why? Because that was the one I had! Next post down will be 5am.

My yard, Exton, PA earlier today. Not much more outside now. It seems to have stopped.

I spoke too soon! Yes we did get that snow... and who came trudging up to the door? The mail man. That's unusual since our mailbox is down at the curb. And he had a Priority Mail box with this Citroen truck in it! I ripped it right open and already have all the parts off the trees and prepped. I feel like an excited 12 year old. Haven't gotten to a kit that quick in years! Yipee!

I think both a '68 and '69 full size Chevy are due and doable by AMT. They already have the '65-67 in their tools so following along would be natural and would fly off the shelves! Same with a '67 Ford. since they've got the kits on either side of it!

Frickin Snow! At least we don't have to go anywhere.

Here's a few photos I had in my file that may help you with the c pillar and rear window shape. I saved these because I thought the roof rack option was interesting for a light commercial / beater build. Great project! I love the old Valiants.

Funny. The car I used as an example for the valve stem also has photo etched wheel weights on it. I suggested the stem because I saw from the photos that you already had black ignition wire and it was an easy fix. I wasn't sending you out for the aftermarket weights!

I've been seeking them out a long time! I've got enough of a reputation that friends spot them for me at shows, email me eBay auctions and actually give 'em to me. I guess I'm seen as a safe depository for these!

Since I got some nice feedback on my posting of the ancient Rancheros, here's a follow up. I was going to put a bunch of old Valiants in one post, but then got to looking at the pictures I have of this one and wanted to share all the aspects... Here's one of my favorite Valiant customs! The original builder used custom parts from the Ranchero kit as well as wood grained cardboard to make the pickup box. Full fabric interior too! Body and paint work leaves a bit to be desired though! Still a very cool piece and a high light in my old custom collection.

That's why I take a ton of pictures as I build. I see more defects in pictures (especially once published on the boards) than I see in person!