Harry P.

Because of their high level of detail. But mostly because they aren't being made anymore. That means there are only so many unbuilt, complete Pocher kits still in existence, and that number of unbuilt, complete kits keeps shrinking, driving up prices. However many are still left is all there will ever be. And some modelers (like me) are willing to spend some hefty $$$ to get an unbuilt, complete Pocher kit, inaccurate or not.

I assume you're talking about Pocher. There was a major fire at the Pocher factory/plant in Turin (Torino in Italian), Italy, in 1972 that destroyed the factory and much of the tooling. Pocher was subsequently bought out by Italian model train manufacturer Rivarossi of Como, Italy, but Rivarossi went bankrupt sometime in the 1990s and the Pocher line of kits was a victim of that bankruptcy. So the reason Pocher went out of business had nothing to do with their kits accuracy (or lack of), but parent company Rivarossi going bankrupt. BTW... British hobby company Hornby has brought the Pocher name back, and has released an all-new tool, 1/8 scale Lamborghini Aventador kit. Hopefully there will be more kits to follow.

Here's a part that Model Motorcars doesn't offer, but should. The shift gate. Pocher doesn't include it, so I scratchbuilt it. I took some sheet styrene, the thickness of which matched the thickness of the slots I wanted. There are seven layers laminated together here, with the shift pattern formed by leaving the appropriate gaps to form the slots. Then I used a Dremel sanding drum and hand sanding with a sanding stick to form it into the half-round shape needed. A little more fine tuning by sanding, then gloss black and finally "chromed" with Spaz Stix. BTW... on this car reverse is left and up, 1-2-3-4 are to the right of reverse.

"I can tell you all I know, the where to go, the what to do. You can try to run, but you can't hide from what's inside of you." –Any Major Dude. One of their very best.

Don't like any of those. Especially not FM.

"Any Major Dude" is one of Steely Dan's very best songs, IMO. My favorite SD songs (in no particular order)... Any Major Dude Rikki, Don't Lose That Number Reelin' In The Years Dirty Work Pretzel Logic Do It Again My Old School

Assuming that you actually had your models insured in the first place. Not many people do.

Well obviously we can't use everything. But if you submit material to us, odds are it will get into the magazine. Remember... we are the magazine for car modelers... by car modelers. Literally. Our content is based on people who submit material to us. We don't have people "on staff," we rely on you guys for the magazine's content. We are always happy to feature the work of people who have never been in a magazine before.

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, right?

You mean Greg. Two G Gregg is fearless leader...

But if what they're saying about you bothers you... why would you want to read it?

Well, I for one am not having that problem. I dunno. I'm not a techie, I don't really know why some are having this problem and not others. But Dave will figure it out.

Yes, I know about his resin stuff. In fact, he was even going to send me a resin body, too! But when he asked me if I ever build 1/25, I said no... but geez, the guy was going to send me the stainless mesh and a resin body! Send him a PM and ask.

If the problem was on this end, why do most people not have this problem, only a relative handful? If the problem were global on this end, wouldn't everyone be having the same problem?

Congrats, Blair. But why not submit some of your work to us?

You do know you have the option of putting anyone you want on "ignore," right?

Have you checked your notification settings here? Is the box to allow email notifications checked?

He's very good about answering his PMs.

The other day, forum member Greg Wann PM'd me and asked for my home address... he said he had a surprise to send me. Well, to be honest, I don't know Greg, never have had any communication with him via PM before, so I was curious about this "surprise" he wanted to send me. It turns out that what he sent me was a fairly large roll of some very fine stainless steel mesh... perfect for grille mesh on the types of models I usually build. Greg sent me this completely unsolicited, just out of the blue, because he figured I could use it. So a big thank you to Greg for being so thoughtful. Yeah, we have a few troublemakers here who stir the pot from time to time and keep me busy cleaning up messes... but we also have members like Greg... a lot of them. Guys like Greg Wann are what make this place worth hanging out at.

This car had floorboards made of actual wooden boards. The Pocher piece has a pretty decent woodgrain pattern embossed on the underside of the floorboard, but I covered up the battery box because I don't intend to bother with working lights on this model, and I cut away a depression in the floorboard that was meant to house the rear fold-out auxiliary jump seats' hinges. Cutting away that depression left me with a big hole in the floor that would have to be filled. Both that hole and the battery box hole are covered on the top side with my ribbed styrene sheet "rubber" floor, but the patches were still visible from below. So since I had to cover up those two floor patches with something anyway, I figured what looks more like real wood than real wood? I used 1/16 balsa that I cut into "boards" or planks and covered the surface. Those strips in back where there is no balsa are areas where the tops of the frame rails are flat and come in contact with the floorboard. I wanted to keep those areas bare plastic so that when I attach the floorboard to the frame, I can use not only the kit's nuts and bolts, but also some glue in that area. I want as solid a connection between chassis and floorboard as possible. Ultimately all the surfaces you see here will be painted black, and with the chassis in place it'll be virtually impossible to tell that those floorboards are real wood... but like I said, I had to cover the patched floor with something anyway... so why not real wood?

It's a problem with Outlook email, not this site. That email server seems to think our notification emails are spam, so that's where they go... the spam folder.

Same way you contact anyone else. Send him a PM.

And here is the firewall, almost finished. Still need to add the linkages that control the starter carburetor and the radiator shutters. I scratchbuilt a new steering column plate, the kit piece is way wrong. I also added a scratchbuilt fuel filter and several other doodads and valves and solenoids and general "stuff," based on photo references. The fuel filter could be mounted on either the left or right side of the firewall (my reference photos show it done both ways). In this case, the filter would have been a really tight squeeze on the left side, I think the magneto would have interfered with it, so I moved it to the right side where there is a lot more open space. BTW... that vertical cylinder is the oil tank for the "automatic" chassis lubrication system. All you had to do was press a small foot pedal to send oil out to various points on the chassis. And that other large black gizmo is actually the fuel pump. RR called it an "autovac." It had a large outer tank (the part you see) and a smaller inner tank with a piston/float mechanism inside. That inner tank sucked the gas from the main gas tank by creating vacuum. Then the gas was transferred via an internal valve to the outer tank, and from there to the carb. I added a scratchbuilt drain valve at the bottom, the two fuel line fittings at the top, and the fitting at the bottom for the fuel line that runs to the fuel filter, and ultimately to the carb. I also added a scratchbuilt bracket for the radiator support rod at top center (the kit had the support rod going into a hole in the firewall, which is wrong). And I added flanges along the edges of the firewall where the bonnet rub strips will go.

Here is that shroud attached to the cowl. This will eventually all be painted body color: As you can see, I've cut away the windshield header and added length to the "A" pillars. To my eye the kit windshield looks chopped (not sure if it is, but is sure looked like it). I didn't like the "mail slot" look of the windshield as is, so I will "unchop" it to a more normal looking height.

And here is the shroud part, with incorrect areas filled in. I also had to redo the top arced section to match the contour of the cowl. If you build this kit out of the box, there winds up being a huge gap between the shroud and the cowl, which is wrong. There should be no gap at all, since this piece is actually part of the cowl sheetmetal...