Mike999

Don't get me started! In movies and music videos, poor old Circus Liquors has been situated (and robbed) all over Los Angeles County. From South Central to probably Lancaster and Palmdale. For non-residents, It's actually located on boring old Burbank Blvd. in North Hollywood. For several years I lived pretty close to it:

Here's a weird little quirk with the decals in that kit. Hasegawa provided a nice pair of houndstooth-checked decals for the seats...but they're too small! They should cover the seat from top to bottom, and come up way short. Hasegawa fixed this problem in the Police version of the Cosmo. (Also a nice kit, which includes stock bumpers and police lights/sirens for 2 different Japanese cop cars.) The seat decals in that kit are the right size. I have one of these Nurburgring racing versions mostly done. Your build may inspire me to actually finish it.

I've run into that too. Here's one reason things went screwy, from the linked article below: "For years, FedEx and UPS did not charge dimensional weight, which meant that packages, regardless of size, were only billed based on the actual weight..." And beware! On Jan. 2 2017, the USPS dimensional factor for calculating prices changed yet again. This is a great article explaining how it works: http://www.efulfillmentservice.com/2014/09/new-fedex-ups-dimensional-weight-rules/

Since 1999 here with very few problems, too. One of the funniest, many years ago, was winning an old Peerless 1/35 scale Dodge Ambulance, advertised as "complete in original box." Yeah, it was complete...except for the entire chassis and running gear! Seller refunded my money and told me to keep the incomplete kit. I still have it. Someday I might mate that Peerless ambulance body to the newer AFV Club/Skybow Dodge chassis. That did teach me a lesson I still use today. Before bidding, I often scan all of a seller's listings. I want to know if they're a "model person" or an "estate sale ghoul Amateur Picker" type person. Listings of all model-related stuff tells me I'm dealing with a Model Person, who generally know their stuff. If they have a lot of non-model listings, they're probably Amateur Pickers and I'll ask detailed questions before bidding. Those people usually don't know much about models. I always LMAO at listings for "rare 1963 promo," when I'm looking at a 1963 glue-bomb with 6 inches of paint and all the custom parts and decals used.

Same here, on the opposite coast (South Carolina). And if they are selling just model kits/diecasts, they probably have "eBay Fever" and it's very hard to deal with them. I have several big flea markets near me. All have a mix of "permanent" sellers with the same space every week, and "one-day" sellers who just get a random table for the day. At one flea market, a permanent seller has a big banner on his space advertising "collectibles" - always a bad sign. Every week he has the same huge pile of NASCAR kits and die-casts that everybody else is trying to dump for about $1 each. But his are priced at or above the original price. I know anybody can ask whatever they want, but that just doesn't make much sense. My best flea-market find so far was 4 built AMT kits, all from 1960 - Ford truck & trailer, Corvair, T-Bird and Corvette. All 4 have "custom" parts glued on and most of the decals used. (The glue is so old, a lot of the custom parts are falling off.) But no paint, and all trim and emblems are intact. That's the kind of find that keeps me going back to flea markets. And even if I "miss" for the day, I still get some good exercise...

Something similar happened to me recently on a Buy It Now. But the high shipping charge was displayed on the page. I messaged the seller and asked. Turned out to be an honest mistake and he fixed it. Hope yours turns out the same. eBay success story just last night: seller was offering an out-of-production and hard to find 1/48 scale helicopter kit - the Special Hobby Sikorsky R4, with resin and photo-etch parts. (The first US Army helicopter in combat - a couple of those flimsy canvas-covered things were used for scouting at Okinawa in 1945.) Some eBay sellers ask up to $80, average price is about $30-$40. This seller was asking $20 Or Best Offer, plus reasonable shipping. I made an offer of $15, expecting him to counter-offer or refuse. But he accepted.

True, but just as a heads-up: I ordered some Tamiya 2-part epoxy putty from Lucky Model a few months ago. Lucky is in Hong Kong and due to the shipping rules for hazardous material, the putty could only be shipped via Surface Mail, not Air. So it took a couple of weeks to arrive. Which was OK, I had a couple of kits and some other stuff in the same order. Tamiya makes several different kinds of 2-part epoxy putty. I really like the Quick-Drying, which lives up to its name.

Almost a ghost! For years on the Internet, I saw this story repeated: the old ESCI 1/24 Ford Transit Van had been commissioned for promotional reasons by Ford Motor Co. After the first run of the kit in the 1980s, Ford insisted that the molds be destroyed. IOW, a story similar to the AMT 1911 Chevy, though that one was certainly true. ITALERI recently re-issued the Transit, so I'm glad the Internet version was false.

A favorite (military) parts story: a few years ago, TAKOM released its fantastic kits of the Mark IV World War I tank. But the tracks... According to Terry Ashley at Perth Military Modeling Society: each individual track link was made up of FIVE (5) separate parts. The kit required 92 track links on each side, for a sub-total of 460 parts per side, or 920 (NINE HUNDRED AND TWENTY!!!) parts just for the 2 track runs. Even TAKOM realized this was insane, and simplified the tracks in later WWI tank kits. The new tracks were one-piece links that clicked together and looked just as good as the multi-piece tracks. TAKOM also cleverly sold those simplified tracks as aftermarket items.

In case somebody runs into this one on eBay: many years ago, I had a resin '59 Country Sedan that was mastered from the PMC promo. This was in the early 90s, and the seller went by the name "California Cars" or something similar. Somebody in here probably remembers him. The light-brown resin body was pretty nice and included an unchromed grille and bumpers. It fit the Revell 59 Skyliner fairly well. But at some point, I got tired of fiddling with it and traded it off, along with the Revell donor kit.

Yikes indeed! That's weird. I've been to 2 Hobby Lobbys in Upstate SC just recently. One had the 1/32 Ranchero marked down for Clearance to $9.99. Regular price was $14.99. (Neither store had the Mustang fastback yet.) If the 1/32 Mustang was $14 WITH the coupon, I wonder if that's a massive R2 price hike. Or maybe a glitch at the store.

I thought I had killed the Carpet Gremlins by getting a house with a concrete floor in the basement. Warning: the Gremlins always adapt to a new environment. Resistance is futile. Now parts hit the concrete floor and bounce into the darkest, most inaccessible corner under the workbench. Where I STILL have to crawl around looking for them, after sweeping everything out with a broom. That happened yesterday while I was applying oil paint to the head of a 1/16 scale figure. Had drilled a hole in the neck and firmly super-glued the head to a large bent paper-clip. Well, not that firmly, I guess. Since the head popped right off the paper clip and rolled into some other dimension for about 20 minutes, until I finally found it.

That does sound like Dennis Doty's 2 books. Volume 1 was "Model Car Building - Getting Started." Volume 2 was "Model Car Building - Advanced Techniques." The covers on Amazon might not match your memories, but the books have probably been re-issued several times. I had them long ago and got rid of them. IIRC, one of the "Advanced Techniques" was using thread as spark-plug wires. Which was already way out of date when I had those books, in the late 1980s or early 90s. https://www.amazon.com/Model-Car-Building-Getting-Started/dp/0830693858 https://www.amazon.com/Model-Car-Building-Advanced-Techniques/dp/0830693955

I got them from Freetime Hobbies in Blue Ridge, GA. Freetime did not have the set of 3 girls, but does have them as individual kits. So that's the way I ordered them. They're $7.95 each, which is a very good price. HobbyLinc has 2 of them, but Wrench-Girl is out of stock. MegaHobby has Tire-Girl, but Wrench-Girl and Smoking-Girl are out of stock. Let's see if the result of a Freetime search will post here...ON EDIT - yep, it works for me. Good luck! http://freetimehobbies.com/searchresults/?search_query=masterbox+pinup&Search=

Sounds like MasterBox Pinup Series I. A search on that will bring up lots of info and photos. Three 1/24 scale female figures (and a dog!) in the set. The figures are also sold individually. They've been mentioned on these boards before. I ordered a set from an online vendor, the detail is incredible:

Many companies make chains intended for 1/35 scale kits, including Trumpeter, Verlinden (photo-etched chains) and others. But since "chains is chains," they might work on 1/25 scale depending on the size you need. These Trumpeter chains look really good:

Thanks, I always enjoy seeing what Hobby Lobby is doing in other parts of the country. I went to Hobby Lobby the same day you did, Thursday 2/16, in Anderson, SC. That store had 1 Heavy Chevy left, NOT marked down. I only saw one kit on clearance - the AMT '66 Ford Galaxie. The store had a pair of those - one sitting on the kit aisle, the other opened, re-sealed and in the Clearance aisle on the other side of the store. Both were marked down to $16.99. The re-sealed one felt sort of light, like it might be missing parts, so I passed. On-topic: after many years of good service, my old Aztek A470 airbrush finally croaked. I had taken it apart and fixed it several times over the years. I really like that airbrush for general use and have another one for super-fine work (SOTAR 20/20). Michael's had the A470 in stock and I got it with a 40% off coupon. Still expensive, but probably cheaper than buying it online and paying shipping.

Look for some very old TAMIYA 1/25 figures. These were made back in the 1970s to go with the TAMIYA 1/25 tank kits. An eBay search showed none selling recently, but I have seen them on eBay from time to time. TAMIYA did these figures in both metal and plastic. A pic of a metal figure is shown below. The plastic and metal figures are identical except for the kit number (and material, obviously!). The plastic 1/25 German figures I have are numbered as follows: PF0001 German MG-34 Machine Gunner; PF0003 German Wehrmacht Squad Leader; PF0004 German Artillery Officer. The German helmets are separate parts in these figure kits. So no need to hack out a face. Another idea: find the figure sprue from the old TAMIYA 1/25 Tiger tank. It has a set of 4 German officers (scaled up from 1/35 figures) with 2 loose German helmets.

Thanks! Memory Fail as usual. I have 2 open Range Rover kits with the resin LHD dashboards. The HiLux is still shrink-wrapped. For anyone else who runs into one at a swap meet etc.: Boxtop info: Aoshima "Toyota HiLux Surf Down." Kit #021163, or #15 in the "Exciting Tuning Vehicle (ETV)" series), whatever that is It has a clear sticker on the boxtop with the following info: "01393 - '92 US Toyota 4Runner - includes left-hand instrument panel - SATCO 319-634-3999" From the "includes left-hand IP" sticker, I just assumed that was a resin dashboard. But your post indicates that it's plastic. That's good news.

"Resin lump" is exactly right. I have a Toyota 4Runner and a Range Rover with American SATCO resin LHD dashboards. They're pretty awful. But their tires were very good. At the KCI swap meet in Buena Park CA a few years ago, one vendor had a bunch of different 1/25 aftermarket stuff they were dumping cheap. Got a few sets of SATCO red-line/blue-line tires and several different sets of off-road tires. Also a couple of Ross Gibson resin engines. All for a lot less $$$ than the current arm-and-a-leg eBay prices.

On eBay, I've ordered from Tokyo-Hobby several times. They have great prices and ship quickly. If you're looking for an older or discontinued Japanese kit, they might have it. I ordered a couple of Aoshima kits from Tokyo-Hobby that nobody else seemed to have. Lucky Model is also great to deal with. Haven't dealt with Hobby Link Japan in a while, but never had a problem with them when I did.

As a benchmark - full retail price of the re-issued Ford Transit Van is $37.99, according to a couple of on-line vendors. So I'd expect most of their kits to be in that general range. If you don't know this, some Italeri re-issue boxes say "Upgraded Molds." That just means they threw in a couple of new parts. In the 1/24 Willys Jeep and Toyota Land Cruiser, it meant a new .50 caliber machine gun and mount. So don't expect a whole new body casting or anything if the box says "Upgraded Molds." Snake45 said: "Dunno about their cars, but their most recent reissue of the ex-ESCI, ex-AMT AD-4 Skyraider had a jaw-dropping price. And not in a good way." Last year's Italeri re-issue of the old 1/72 AMT B-52 retailed at $72.99. Though that is a BIG model. I just hope Italeri learned to protect the tiny cockpit glass. Some friends worked in hobby shops around Los Angeles when that kit was first issued in 1994. They had many irate customers complaining - the cockpit glass was just tossed into the box with all the other heavy plastic parts, which shattered the clear parts beyond repair.

Thanks all, for the info on the Renault wheels. I bookmarked that Renaissance page. There is an Ebbro Renault in the stash, so I might try casting a set of wheels from those. The kit's too expensive to rob it just for the wheels. Here's hoping Italeri has all the old ESCI molds in good shape, like the Mercedes 450SLC rally cars and 190 police car. They have released a couple of ex-ESCI Range/Land Rovers and an armed version of the Toyota Land Cruiser, so maybe. Sort of interesting also that Italeri re-issued the rally version of the Mercedes G-Wagen with "barn doors" in the back, while Revell-Germany re-issued the Firefighting version with the horizontal tailgate/liftgate back doors.

Don't know if this might be cheaper or not. But the old ESCI R5 Police Car seems to have a Gordini-Alpine lurking in the box. It has the special wheels, complete with the tiny Alpine "A" on the tiny hubcaps. It also has the "hemi" engine (with sparkplugs on top of the cylinder head, not entering thru the side.) I found all this out when I went researching the Police Car. They used the standard steel wheels. And those are 3-bolt Renault wheels, so it isn't easy to find a replacement in the ol' parts box. Think I have a solution by patching in the outer rim of some Subaru steel wheels and leaving the 3 lug part alone. At least the Subaru wheels have 6 cooling slots, like the Renault standard wheels.

The older AOSHIMA Subaru Sambar kit includes some really nice beach accessories, including spear-gun, SCUBA tank, rubber raft, small surf board, roof rack, etc. These goodies come in at least 2 versions of the kit: the brown one shown below, and the red-and-white Aoshima #04685 Subaru Sambar Post Office Car. These are perfect for a lifeguard vehicle: