Mike999

Flea market day. Found a cheap AMT/ERTL #6123 '69 Firebird. It has the OHC 6 in it and some other useful parts. Had one in the past but sold it. Won't make that mistake with this one!

I noticed the same thing about the 1927/XR-6 double kit at shows, going back many years. A lot of those hot-rodded Slant-6 engines were missing too. IMO, the XR-6 wasn't too popular because it went full-bore on the short-lived "asymmetrical" styling trend of the early Sixties. Though I personally think it was a great-looking hot rod and would like to have it back. At least we still have the "Police" version of the '27, last released about 10 years ago and the only issue with the neat side-curtains. It has some of the vintage speed equipment, complete with an exhaust cut-out tube for the headers, IIRC. It also has great vintage police gear - helmets, sawed-off shotgun, chrome flashlight, etc. A little research shows that the Police '27 in the kit was highly optioned for a cop car, or even for a "mainstreamer" 1927 T Phaeton. It has a lot of items that were extra-cost options in 1927 - bumpers, chrome radiator shell, wind-wings, wire wheels, etc. Confusing things even more, some items were standard on the 1927 closed Fords but optional at extra cost on the Phaetons and other open cars. e.g., the standard wheels on open cars were wooden artillery wheels painted black, like the wheels in the AMT 23/25 T kits. You could get those wheels finished in natural wood in 1927, but it cost extra.

Slander only applies to false spoken, not written, statements. Just saying...

The Sony Movie Channel is showing some great drive-in movies from the 1970s right now, including "The Pom-Pom Girls." That one ends with a fatal drag race between a ratty '55 Chevy and a very young Robert Carradine in a '64 Ford. Also showing is "The Van" (1977). The human star is Stuart Goetz, most famous for the "Brady Bunch" episode where Marcia gets whacked in the nose with a football. And "The Van" was one of Danny DeVito's first movies; he's in it for about 5 minutes total. But the REAL star is the 1977 Dodge B200 Tradesman van named "Straight Arrow." It was customized by Barris and has all the stuff inside it that made the 1970s fun - a waterbed! 8-Track! Mirrored ceiling! A big round picture window on the driver's side! And SHAG CARPET EVERYWHERE! (The movie is crammed full of other stuff that made the 70s fun: sex, drugs and rock...well, scratch that. No rock and roll, but we do get Sammy Johns singing "Chevy Van" a bajillion times on the soundtrack.) I'm surprised MPC didn't release a model kit as a movie tie-in. With its Screaming-Yellow-Zonker paint and blinding graphics, "Straight Arrow" would have been a serious competitor for "Gold Dust" or some of MPC's other Wretched-Excess 1970s van kits. One movie scene is a tour of a van show at Malibu where we get to see lots of other cool '70's vans. And the movie ends with a completely unrealistic van drag race. Anyway, lots of fun and worth looking up: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075378/

I made several biz trips to Taiwan back in the 1990s and got to see the IDF in person. There are some good reasons why it looks like the offspring of an F-16 and F-18. Back in the early 1980s the USA banned the sale of F-16s to Taiwan, due to pressure from The Other China. However, there was no ban on "technical assistance," so General Dynamics, Lockheed, and other American contractors provided a lot of input on the IDF. I worked for a large aerospace company involved in that project and some others in Taiwan. The AIDC, which builds the IDF, has a big factory in the city of Taichung. That city's airport is dual-purpose, civil and military. So while waiting to take off from Taichung on a commercial flight, it's not unusual to see an IDF or other military aircraft cross the flight line right in front of your plane. Taiwan built another IDF, at least as a prototype, and I used to have a 1/72 kit of that one but sold it on eBay long ago. It had a more squarish canopy but was the same twin-engine configuration.

Anderson, SC, today 10/5/2016 - almost no car kits available, mostlythe LINDBERG '71 Mustang (ex-Palmer). None of the good stuff others have found, like the 66 Olds or Dodge trucks. Lots of old LINDBERG 1/48 aircraft. And a couple of the old AMT 1/48 aircraft, like the F9F Panther. If you don't have Ollie's in your area, check their website. Looks they are on a massive expansion, with several new stores opening around the country.

Thanks for the heads-up. If you think you are seeing double/going crazy while watching "Indianapolis Speedway" (1939), you've probably seen the first version of it, "The Crowd Roars" with James Cagney, made in 1932. "Speedway" not only re-cycled the script, sometimes with word-for-word dialogue - it also used racing/crash footage from the 1932 movie. It even re-cycled actors! Regis Toomey and Frank McHugh play the same characters in "Indianapolis Speedway" that they played in "The Crowd Roars." See, not much has changed in Hollywood since 1932...

That Slant-6 is great. I found a complete ENTEX 1/5 scale Wankel Rotary engine at a flea market not long ago for $5. But the Slant-6 is way cooler! And today was flea market day, haul shown below. The only un-mint kit in the stack is the 58 Edsel, which has the chassis/floor painted flat black but no gluing. No big deal. The AMT Chevy Cameo is the first issue, with the weird slanted-down side-window mistake. I have the "fixed" version, and I can use this one with a resin Chevy panel truck body. The 69 GTX ragtop is still shrink-wrapped. The Piranha was on Super-Clearance at Hobby Lobby for $13.67. I hadn't planned to get that kit, just not very interested. But at that price I figured it's worth getting just for the parts.

No, he does that fairly often. Generally to prove some kind of point, I guess, when he's throwing a temper tantrum about "stupid eBay buyers." For some reason, he seems to think insulting potential customers is a good business plan. But to be fair, he also insults "stupid eBay sellers" - that means anybody who sells cheaper than he does. A few months ago, he listed a set of four 1/25 scale tires for $10,000. Not a typo, that's Ten Thousand Dollars. Search these boards for "eBay" or his user name and you'll see other examples of him doing this, posted by various people.

Never had a bad check from an eBay deal. The worst problem I ever had with that was pre-eBay. Not going to give the guy's name, but I learned (too late!) that he was notorious for shady dealing, especially around Chicago and the Midwest. I used to sell a few kits in the classified pages of That Other Magazine, and also in the rec.models.scale Usenet group. (For younger readers, Usenet is what we had before the Web really got going.) Anyway, the guy called me up wanting to buy several hundred dollars worth of kits. Said he would send a money order, but sent a check. It bounced. So did the next check he sent. And the next. By that time he was dodging my phone calls. He finally answered one and I told him my next call would be to the Fraud Division of his local police department. He finally coughed up the money, but it dragged on for months and was really aggravating. I posted about him in rec.models.scale and got a lot of responses. One guy worked in a hobby shop (yes, this was a LONG time ago). He knew the guy, and said he was telling kit distributors that he owned a shop. But he was actually buying kits wholesale from the distributor, then selling them out of the trunk of his car. He had burned several other people the same way he did me with the rubber checks, too. I'm glad those kind of shenanigans are a lot harder to pull on eBay.

Good to hear. I've been on eBay since 1999 with very few problems myself. When I put up my first sales, there was no PayPal or any other online payment system. Everything had to be done by Money Order or check. And believe me, that really made you appreciate the term "snail mail." Most eBay sellers, including me, insisted on Money Order only. But there were always a few wise guys who sent checks. So we sellers had to wait 10 days for the check to clear before shipping the kits. Then PayPal started up, and eBay quickly created its own competing payment system, Billpoint. That was a massive flop; sellers moving into online payments preferred PayPal by a huge margin. So eBay finally gave up and bought PayPal in the early 2000s. I've sold quite a few kits to professional kit dealers. No complaints there either. I have never done "Buy It Now," so the dealers compete in auctions against everybody else. The ones I've dealt with are very aggressive bidders - which of course I like when I'm the seller!

Thanks for the warning. Somebody is recycling an old email scam. I got that one a few years ago from a friend who's email had been hacked. Here are a couple of other oldies that are making the rounds again: 1. Dropbox re-direct: a trusted friend sent me a link to his photos on Dropbox. While trying to go there, I was re-directed and my anti-virus started screaming - they were trying to download malware to my PC. Solution: If you're going to Dropbox, hover your mouse over the link and make sure it says "dropbox.com" only. That's the legit address. 2. Cellphone, Wangiri scam - this one dates back to the 1990s but has been updated for cellphones. Wangiri is Japanese for "1 ring and cut," which is exactly how it works. Your cellphone rings once and you see a "Missed Call." You call the number back without thinking, and hear someone saying you won a prize or claiming to be an old friend. Their goal is simply to keep you on the line as long as possible - you're connected to a premium overseas phone line, running up very expensive charges by the minute. But you won't know that until you get next month's massive cellphone bill. Solution: watch out for Missed Calls from international numbers. An international number will display the prefix "+xx" before the number on your phone. For example "+81" is Japan, where many of these scam calls originate.

Well, when you've listed the same parts and kits at the same price for 2 to 3 years without a sale, I'd suggest you may be asking a tad more than the market will currently bear. Especially if I search a specific kit, see you trying to sell one for $179, and also see a fairly famous old-kit dealer asking less than half that price. But as I've said before, everyone has a right to ask whatever price they want. But on the other hand, I always have the right to...

So like many of you, I picked up the re-issue MPC '79 Trans-Am. And when I got it home and started checking the fit, sorta wished I had put it back down in the store. But it was discounted and I figured I could do something with it. Like maybe an abandoned junker or base-Firebird parts car. Went looking for inspiration on the Web and found this great collection of pages, "Hoghead's Firebird and Trans Am Parts." Model builders should find 2 of the archives really helpful, the "Killed Trans Am Page" and "Island of Misfit Trans Ams." http://www.firebirdtransamparts.com/ All cars on the "Killed" page have fitting nicknames, like "Esprit de Corpse" and "Rainman," a Trans-Am abandoned with the T-tops left off. And my favorite, "Possum." A Trans Am with a whole possum family living in its trunk:

I had a great eBay experience just last week. I always set my page view to "Ending Soonest" and check eBay while doing other stuff. I'd been looking for the old REVELL #1430 '56 Ford pickup truck and motorcycle cop. Wanted it to use in a 1/48 scale aircraft diorama. One popped up, but ending too fast for me to bid - in something like 15 seconds. Nobody had bid on it in a week, and the opening bid was only $4.99. The auction ended and I messaged the seller, asking if he would re-list. He messaged me that he was re-listing it immediately as a "Buy It Now" for $4.99. It came to me in the mail yesterday.

What? You don't want the privilege of paying $24.99 for this rare, vintage, original rear-view mirror from a rare, discontinued, vintage 2012 re-issue? Of a kit that every other eBay seller is discounting to $9.99 and still can't sell? You miserable ingrate! I work SO HARD to take photos and write eBay listings and buy parts cheap on eBay so I can turn around and mark them up 2,000% and immediately resell them. What have you got against capitalism anyway, bud? Are you one of them Commies or something? Russell's suggestion is about the only one that I've found to work. Here's an old thread on this subject that you might find entertaining, with some ideas for blocking annoying parts-sellers:

Thanks! Will try to check my local Ollie's this weekend. Looks like the LINDBERG 1/32 1915 Model T Coupelet is lurking in that flyer. That's a nice little kit, with pretty good engine and chassis detail for being in the "wrong scale." Diorama idea: this year is the centennial of the US Army's 1916 "Punitive Expedition" against Pancho Villa. That expedition marked the first widespread use of automobiles by the Army, and that Model T's model year of 1915 is perfect. It's also sort-of perfect because many of the units chasing Villa were from the Arizona, New Mexico and Texas National Guard. Their officers most likely used some of their own private vehicles in the Expedition - the National Guard at that time was still more like a state militia than today's uniform, federalized Guard. It would be nice to have a kit, in any scale, of the most common car used in the Punitive Expedition, the Dodge touring car. Gen. "Black Jack" Pershing and 1/Lt. George Patton both used Dodges in the Punitive Expedition. Pancho Villa was so impressed by their performance that he bought his own 1919 Dodge touring. He was riding in that Dodge when he was shot to death in 1923.

That Normatt Winnebago is a VERY good find! I thought I had found one at the Flea Market today. But looking closer, it was a larger-sized toy. Drat! A few months ago I did find a Hess Training Van at that flea market, missing the folding door on the right. Slim pickings at the Flea Market today. I did get this Sun Star 1/18 scale 1957 Facel Vega HK500, because it was cheap and it's such a cool car:

That may be something weird about HobbyLinc. I noticed the same thing recently on a 1/35 kit, the MENG ZSU-23-4 Shilka. Showing the exact same box art, the kit number was showing as "TS-023" for one listing, but "TS-23" on the other. And one was priced higher than the other. I thought it was strange, but it sounds like you've found something similar.

Floquil makes a product named "Easy Lift Off" for removing decals. But it will also remove paint if you use too much of it. I used to have some Floquil ELO, but haven't used it in years. I mostly do the "Apply tape over and yank it off" that Snake mentioned.

OK, I just went down to the basement and squeezed mine. No, the handle isn't soft. I wish it was too. The handle is covered in black plastic (?) and is nice and fat. Probably because of the battery, but a good side effect is that the wider size makes it fit better in my hand.

Several companies make "oil & grease stain" paints that really look good on an old engine. TESTORS has some in its CreateFX paint line. I have an older bottle from MIG Productions, which is now called Ammo Of MIG. I'm a cheap old geezer who usually likes to make my own oil/grease mixes from with thinned oil paints. But I have to admit, these pre-mixed stains look better than anything I have come up with. Another great "weathering color" for lots of stuff is TESTORS "Rubber." It comes in the small bottles and is sold at Hobby Lobby. This is a very dark brown, near-black, that looks great on old heater hoses, electrical wiring, etc.

Me, with the 40% off. Perfect timing, as I mentioned in another thread - at a flea market this morning, found a guy selling cheap 15-pack #11 X-Acto blades. Over in the Hobby Lobby Clearance aisle, found some nice scenic stuff for dioramas - scale earth and light green grass. The earth is fine enough that it might work as carpet/flocking. For me, that's half the fun of Hobby Lobby and Michael's- walking around looking at random stuff, and wondering how I can use it for modeling.

Went to a giant weekly flea market (the Jockey Lot in Anderson, SC, definitely worth a look if you're in the area). Saw some models but already had/didn't want any of them. I'm pretty sure most of the kits I saw came from the big Ollie's sale a few months ago (see below) - MONOGRAM '37 Ford, LINDBERG "Color Me Gone" Dodge, etc. But I raided Ollie's several times during that sale, and all the Flea Market kits were marked up higher than the Ollie's price. So no sale! One flea market vendor had a bunch of X-Acto stuff. For $2 each, I got 2 of the #11 blade refill packs with 15 blades per pack. Continuing on a theme - then went to Hobby Lobby and used the 40% off coupon for one of those neat X-Acto handles with the LED light. No new kits that I saw and none Clearanced. Same at Michael's. OLLIE'S ALERT: someone mentioned seeing more model car kits at Ollie's recently. The one in Anderson, SC didn't have any LINDBERG Dodge trucks. It did have a couple of LINDBERG Tenn. State Patrol snap-kits. And a whole bunch of the re-popped HAWK "Rube Goldberg" kits, Torture Wheels, Iron Maidens, etc. Also some of the old LINDBERG aircraft and the German armored car. Maybe they held back some of the stock from the Big Buyout for this year's Christmas season?

LMAO at that all-caps blast of text on the side of the box: BUILD THE SPORTY STOCK VERSION! MPC'S FAB VOLARE RULES THE ROAD WITH AUTHENTIC DETAIL AND FACTORY LETTERED TIRES! "Fab?" In 1980? Really? Why not "groovy Volare?" Yes, I did get one of these. And will probably build it as a boss rusted-out bomb. And thanks to Adam for another great review. I always look forward to the next one.