Mike999

Nice work! You've given me some ideas about using Alclad. Somebody mentioned the Howard Hughes recon plane. That was the XF-11. ANIGRAND makes a 1/72 resin kit of it. Link to their site below. Now who wants to build that one in a diorama with 2 wrecked houses in Beverly Hills? http://www.anigrand.com/AA2041_XF-11.htm

I could have sworn there was a thread somewhere on this board showing a parts breakout of the "new" 40 Ford Coupe. Sorry, could not find it. Somebody else probably will if it exists. I did find a thread on the 1983 reissue. Also found a thread saying there are no Baby Moon hubcaps in this re-issue. The wheel options are stock, Keystone 5-spoke mags or Toronado wheel covers. Kit has the same 2 engine options going back to its 1960 release - stock flathead or blown Buick nailhead. If you get the new flat "Art Box" release, pay attention to the stickers on the boxtop. There are 2 different color versions - one is molded in WHITE and the other in ORANGE.

Just saw these on eBay. I sure wish they were in a bigger scale (both are 1/72):

Along with buying sandpaper in bulk - I like to collect the foam rubber used as packing material in all sorts of products, and make my own sanding pads. Cut the foam rubber to whatever size you need. Then cut sandpaper to match. Use rubber cement or wood glue, something strong, and glue the sandpaper to the foam rubber. Voila - instant sanding pads, cheap and custom-made to your own individual needs. I like to cut some of the foam rubber into wedge shapes, for getting into tight spaces. Got some of these I made and have used for a long time. Like others, I've had good luck with the Krylon large, economy-size spray cans. Their "Satin Black" is great - between a flat and semi-gloss black. If you're doing a black interior, that stuff sprayed on some panels gives a nice color variation, and avoids the dead solid flat-black "monotone cave" look. I also like the Krylon Maxx Flat and Gloss Clear. It does take some care to use. If applied too heavily, it will act just like Testors Gloss/Dullcote, and "frost" the finish. But when I take my time and apply very light coats it works well.

While we're waiting for the OP to return, here are a couple of amazing ambulance conversions to this kit - one as a 2-door panel-truck type, and the other with a totally scratchbuilt rear ambulance body. Inserting this as a link keeps inserting the whole page here, so remove the space after "topic:" http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/ 27331-124-merc-g-wagon-ambulances/ Also be advised that ESCI released 2 different versions of the G-Wagen kit. Both have been re-issued by Revell. The "Rally" version back doors are vertically split "barn doors." The Fire Dept. (Feurwehr) version has a horizontally split tailgate/rear window. It also comes with a portable water pump which is a good start for some super-detailing.

Lifecolor and several other companies, like Vallejo and Andrea, make whole sets of just black paint. I like Lifecolor set #CS-27 (available from HobbyLinc in Atlanta). It's a set of 6 black acrylic paints: UA731 Dirty Black, UA732 Vulcanized Rubber, UA733 Tire Black, UA734 Worn Black, UA735 Deep Cockpit and UA736 Burned Black.

Same here. On job/vacation travels over the years, I picked up a few 1/43 metal Moskvitch, Volga, ZIL, etc. cars. I especially like the station wagon versions in Aeroflot and Russian/East German police markings. Would love to see some of those in bigger scale. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for any plastic kit maker to launch the "1/24 Cold War Series." Imagine a Wartburg customizing kit... Reji-Model in the Czech Republic does some incredible (and expensive) resin kits of modern Skoda etc. rally cars. They come with photo-etched metal parts and great decals. Here's a pic of one I grabbed at random, a Skoda Octavia.

Here you go. Pic of the JO-HAN '58 Cad, randomly grabbed from the net. Like the JO-HAN '59 Cad, the '58 is a 4-door Fleetwood Sixty Special, which makes it even more interesting. As Mr. Baron says above, all these JO-HANs look to be a "box scale," maybe slightly smaller than 1/25.

Along with parts storage, I keep some empty kit boxes to use as dust covers for recently painted projects. Since I build a little of everything, having different sized boxes comes in handy. Even a 1/72 scale plane needs a pretty big "drying box," once the wings are attached. Whatever I'm working on - car body, airplane, figure, etc. - I come up with some kind of "handle" to keep my fat fingers off it. After painting, I carefully lower it into the empty box by the "handle." Then put the box lid on to keep dust away until it's dry.

Whoops! Sorry, won't let that name mistake happen again. Now I can feel stupid x2. Which happens pretty often. I know a modeler who wanted to use the ARII kit's chassis/engine under a resin copy of the old JO-HAN '58 Cadillac 4-door. He loved the ordinary '58 Cad and was hoping to cut open the JO-HAN hood and have engine detail etc. That guy was a great builder but he finally gave up on the whole idea. There were just too many problems hacking up and matching the parts of the 2 kits. Though now that I've said that, somebody in here has probably done it and will produce amazing photos of the results.

Thanks, Stan. 31002 is exactly the kit I built. I remembered the top as vac-formed but it's obviously molded in styrene. And the plot thickens! HobbyLink Japan sells the molded-in-pink version with a release date of Oct. 2010 and a kit number of "ARI91241." I'd think the "AR" prefix meant "ARII." But the manufacturer is listed as Microace: https://hlj.com/product/ARI91241

Charles Manson's Evil Plans Involved A Crazy Dune Buggy Battalion "...Manson's own command dune buggy was even more insane, covered in furs, with an integrated sword scabbard, machine gun mount, and a winch, which Manson imagined employing in a laughably cartoon-like scenario: 'On the buggy's front was a winch that Manson envisioned using to evade police, apparently in Helter Skelter. He would fling the winch's rope up into a tree and then winch himself up out of sight as pursuing officers would drive haplessly by.' " http://jalopnik.com/charles-mansons-evil-plans-involved-a-crazy-dune-buggy-485497751

Built the top-up convertible as a junker many years ago and still have some pieces of it. If you want one of these, be aware it was originally issued by ARII in 3 different versions: top-down convertible with boot; top-up convertible with vacu-formed ragtop (which looks pretty good); hardtop, but the hardtop is a separate piece and takes some work to integrate with the body. I recall a hardtop build article from MANY years ago, probably in The Other Magazine. It came out great but was built by a very good modeler. All 3 original ARII versions show up pretty often on eBay. Be patient and you can probably find one at a decent price. As mentioned earlier, avoid the LEE version where the chassis was reworked for motorizing. For anyone who cares, along with the clunkiness etc. mentioned earlier, the kit has 2 minor errors easily verified by Mr. Google: 1. The kit has 9 chrome "hashmarks" on the lower body panels, in front of the rear wheel well. The real car has 10 of those hashmarks. 2. On the interior driver's side, the main power window switch is in the wrong place. The kit has it on the door panel. On the real car, it's mounted on the "dogleg" part of the dashboard. Weird, because on the ARII kit, the box sides had detail photos of the real car...showing that power window switch!

Well, it is a "car..." The kind of weird stuff I like to find on eBay. Saw it 2 weeks ago but it ended before I could make a bid. Seller re-listed at a lower price, and I got it. New York City Horse Car from 1832. Running from Prince St. to 14th St. on the New York & Harlem Railroad. Nicely pre-painted body and horses, clear plastic display cover. Cobblestone base with 2 gas lamps. No figures, but it claims to be "1/30 scale." The same scale as the old HISTOREX figures, and I have a bunch of HISTOREX figures and spare parts. So maybe I can cobble up a driver and some passengers.

Don't ignore foreign kits when looking for neat accessories. e.g., this AOSHIMA 1/24 scale Subaru Sambar High Roof 4WD Microvan. It comes with all the stuff on the box art - set of SCUBA gear, a surfboard and a rubber raft in a roof rack. It also contains some great van interior parts, like a TV set and stove. This is a "kei" van, so it is tiny, even in 1/24 scale. I found one fairly cheap on eBay.

Here's a page full of great ideas for using Future/Pledge, from Matt Swan. Using a tip from that page, I recently clear-coated a body (over decals) with the following ratio. I used an Aztek airbrush and it came out looking good: 70% Future, 30% isopropyl alcohol and a smidgen of Tamiya Flat Base, to cut the gloss. The alcohol was 91% isopropyl, BTW. I sprayed over Testor's rattlecan Gloss White, on an Aoshima body. Another great tip for side-marker lights etc.: mix the Future with Tamiya clear color paints, like red and green. THE COMPLETE FUTURE by Matt Swan http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html

Wheeler Dealers sure does find some interesting cars. I just saw the episode with the Noble M12 GTO, a car I'd never heard of. Only 100 built, powered by a heavily modified Ford Mondeo engine with twin Garrett turbochargers. WD is just about my favorite car show, along with the original Top Gear. Mike and Edd are likable guys, and Edd's an amazing mechanic. He can explain complicated stuff so even a dummy like me understands it. A really refreshing change from all those car shows featuring egomaniacs, car-butchers and "will they finish?!?" fake drama. Noble M12 GTO: http://media.caranddriver.com/images/05q1/267354/noble-m12-gto-3r-photo-9138-s-429x262.jpg

Thanks for the responses. Looks like each Michael's store decides independently what it will put on clearance. Hobby Lobby seems to do it the other way. I always see the same kits in the clearance aisles at the 2 HL stores in this area. Though I noticed a weird thing with the AMT 53 Studebaker - it was clearance priced at $15.59, except I found one in the Clearance aisle for $14.99. I also remembered another clearance kit at this Michael's store for $14.99 - the Ohio George/MALCO Mustang Gasser.

Casino/hotel mogul Bill Harrah had a 1977 Jeep Wagoneer with a V-12 engine from a Ferrari 365 GTC/4. And it was mated to the Jeep's 4-wheel-drive running gear so Mr. Harrah could travel in the snow. Fast! (Photos at link.) Wish I could find a picture of Harrah's famous early-Sixties Pontiac Bonneville station wagon. It had a 421 race-prepped engine and 4-speed transmission, bucket seats and console. Also aluminum front fenders/hood from a Pontiac drag car. Dual gas tanks were installed for long-distance, high-speed travel. On those long stretches of Western highway, Mr. Harrah liked to sucker young hot rodders into passing the old geezer driving the Pontiac wagon... http://www.speedhunters.com/2012/08/silver_state_motoring_history/

Stopped at the Michael's today in Anderson, SC. They had the following car kits on clearance at $14.99. Normal price was $27.99. There may be a couple more I forgot. The AMT-R2 '66 Ford was NOT on clearance, neither were most of the other car kits: AMT-Round 2 Petty Dodge Dart Modified Sportsman AMT-Round 2 '60 Falcon Ranchero (1/25 "Ohio George") Lindberg Little Red Wagon MPC-Round 2 '75 Dodge Dart Sport Also stopped by Ollie's. The big scale model sale seems to be almost done. This store still had a few Lindberg "Color Me Gone" '64 Dodges, 1 Lindberg 1/20 Surf Buggy, Revell Impala Police snaps, and a ton of military/aircraft/Hawk Weird-Ohs kits. Didn't see anything new, or any signs of re-stocking the existing car kits.

Sorry, nothing that new! I think the newest item in the whole bunch is the body of an AMT 62 Impala convert. I spent a couple hours in front of the TV, sorting and bagging all those interior parts. Speaking of the original AMT 62 Chevy - just for fun, I took some parts from the newer 62 Chevy, released in the 1990s, and they seem to fit almost perfectly! The hood, grille, rear bumper, windshield. Even the chassis looks like it will fit without much trouble. I thought that was interesting.

You'll probably like it. It also has an opening trunk with a spare tire. Some people have taken the photo-etch grille and used it on the REVELL '57 2-door sedan kit. Apparently it just drops right in. I just recently picked up the latest Cindy Lewis re-issue of this one. When that kit was first released some years ago, I remember reading that the Kats at AMT/ERTL expected it to banish forever all memories of their first '57 Chevy kit, circa 1962. Which is pretty funny, since they've re-issued that original ancient kit several times since. I guess the new '57 didn't sell as well as expected. But I'll leave it to those with insider information to tell us about that.

Still looking for a method in Ollie's madness, but I should probably just give up on that. Back to Ollie's in Anderson, SC last Sunday. One thing I noticed - a bunch of model kits were stacked near the Books section, not on the end-cap with the rest of the kits. Though all of these were the old "Rube Goldberg" Weird-Oh kits - "Painless Tooth Puller" etc. Wondered if these were worth getting as parts kits, decided not. I did find a "Torture Wheel" to go along with the Iron Maiden I already have. They still had a lot of Lindberg "Color Me Gone" Dodges, and had put out a fresh batch of Revell Impala Police Cars (Snap-Kit but a good one). Couple of weeks ago they only had 3 Impalas, which I bought. Also had quite a few 2011 Camaro convertibles. All the PL Tommy Grove Mustangs seemed to be gone, along with the Lindberg Little Red Wagons and Dodge L700s - both the single truck kit and the combo kit with trailer and '40 Ford.

Description of Solomon Young, grandfather of President Harry S Truman: "Skeptical of preachers or anyone who made too much show of religion, he liked to say that whenever he heard a man praying loudly, his first instinct was to go home and lock the smokehouse." (From "Truman" by David McCullough)

Flea Market Day, and I scored a big, cheap box of junk. Read 'em and weep...just like that poor Monogram Indy Racer mechanic, mourning the remains of a PMC '59 Ranchero (along with the loss of his right hand in a pit accident). This builder must have loved '58 Buicks. He had 3 of them, 2 hardtops and a convert. One hardtop still has all its trim, and only suffered some customizing with wood putty. Which fortunately tends to dry up with age. The other 2 Buicks have all the trim removed except for the 1 side spear. The '59 Edsel also has most of its trim intact, except for the EDSEL and CORSAIR badges. Which are available on a photo-etched metal sheet. Lurking in the back is a '58-'60 Lincoln Continental body, and an original AMT '59 Chevy convert with most of its trim/badges. The rest of the big junk box was full of mostly interior parts and random junk. And a Monogram Green Hornet decal sheet! The AMT "Pro Shop" '58 Edsel and REVELL '48 Ford Woody were only $5 each, so I couldn't turn them down.