Mike999

Heads up! Christmas is coming. If you like the P-39, you might want to put this book on your Hint List. I'm reading it right now: "Cobra!: The Bell Aircraft Corporation 1934-1946" Over 400 pages (and over 4 pounds!) about the history of Bell Aircraft. Along with everything you ever wanted to know about the P-39 and P-63, it Includes detailed histories of the YFM-1 Airacuda and XFL Airabonita programs. The YFM-1 was the twin-engine heavy fighter with pusher props...and a gunner in the front of each engine nacelle with a 37mm cannon. The Airabonita was the navalized P-39 tail-dragger, that never really got off the ground. (Sorry...) The book settles a lot of conspiracy theories about the P-39. Especially the removal of the turbosupercharger that relegated the aircraft to mostly low-altitude service. It turns out that neither Bell Aircraft nor the Army Air Corps really wanted the turbocharger. It required special air and oil coolers that hung off the side of the original P-39 design, adding weight, drag and complex ducting. Engineers warned them that its removal would seriously degrade high-altitude performance, but they thought the trade-off was worth it. Company president Larry Bell wrote that removing the turbocharger "solved a million problems" with the P-39. https://www.amazon.com/Cobra-Aircraft-Corporation-1934-1946-Schiffer/dp/0887409113

Hang on! The Supernatural Impala seems to be getting back into the HL supply chain recently. I found ONE at my closest HL back in August. That HL is in a very small town. Then the kit disappeared from all 3 HL's in my area, until the end of October. Two of the closest stores are well-stocked with it now. Haven't had a chance to hit the third store yet. The kit I've still never seen, at any of the 3 HL's closest to me, is the '60 Chevy pick-up with go-kart.

Another interesting subject. And good example of making a silk purse...or at least a cotton purse...out of a sow's ear. One of my favorite Luft '46 subjects is the Arado E.555, also known as the "Amerikabomber" or "New York bomber." The thing looks like a big bird of prey out of a science fiction movie. Or maybe a subject for Luft 2046. Revell did a nice 1/72 kit of it. The pic below is the Revell box art, with the E.555 cruising over Manhattan. It would be fun to build a diorama of it crashed in Central Park.

Back in the 1990's, I went to a model contest where a builder brought a six-foot-tall Godzilla figure. IIRC, only a few of them were made by some garage kit company in Japan. It was soft vinyl, like the old 1/6 scale Screamin' figures. He had a lot of trouble getting it thru the doors of the show, since the tail was in scale with the rest of the figure and took up a LOT of room. Searched for that model and couldn't find it. But in 2016, BANDAI made a 6 foot/4-inch Godzilla in its "Human Size Figure" line. It was the same size as the Godzilla suit used in the 1991 movie "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah." Yours for only $43,500! https://soranews24.com/2016/10/25/massive-godzilla-figure-stands-more-than-six-feet-tall-costs-more-than-40000-dollars/

Not much of a big-truck guy, but I really want this one. My Dad was a construction foreman who put me to work with him in summers. I scraped many a shovel full of concrete out of those discharge chutes. eBay's old kit dealers will be on suicide watch. Way back in the 1980s, I remember seeing this kit going for $100 or more at swap meets.

Good work, considering what you started with. Reminds of the "leather jacket just like Gen. Patton's" that I once ordered from a Chinese seller. It looked nothing like the photos, wasn't leather and was more a shirt than a jacket. It wasn't an XL size either. It did fit my Mom, who is tiny, so I gave it to her. She uses it for yard work.

Stopped by the Hobby Lobby in Easley, SC today. It had 2 kits I've never seen in the store closest to me: the Revell 1/24 '76 Chevy pickup and the '70 Firebird (Trans Am, even if it doesn't say so on the box). Like my closest store, this one had also restocked the "Art Box" AMT '59 El Camino. People have been asking about that kit around here recently, and talking about finding one on eBay. The retail HL price is $32.95 but the 40% off brings it down to $19.77. A hard price to beat, especially with the cost of eBay shipping.

Interesting. Today I stopped at the Ollie's in Easley, SC. Didn't see any Hurst-Olds, but they might have been buried. Plenty of International semi trucks, Diamond Reos, Kenworths, plated trailers, Gremlins, '06 Camaros, '62 T-Birds and some others. I grabbed a Diamond Reo, International semi and a '62 T-Bird because it's such a Ford parts gold-mine. Those were priced at $19.99 for the big trucks and $9.99 for the T-Bird, for a total of about $50. The magic Ollie's coupon brought that down to $33. Also dropped by the Hobby Connection, the only thing resembling a real hobby shop that I know in the Upstate. It had the Revell Cadillac Lowrider for $24.99 and I grabbed it. Those kits are going for outrageous prices on eBay.

Not a typo! Before the more famous Chevy model was born, the Monte Carlo was a 1961 Pontiac concept car; a very neat 2-seater roadster based on Tempest underpinnings. Instead of being destroyed, like most concept cars, it became the personal ride of GM's Ed Cole and his son. https://barnfinds.com/1961-pontiac-monte-carlo-concept-car/?fbclid=IwAR1zgy82Jw-_HZobeeYkaAzvMFCZHAO6mxAgl1f11Qp6AAq3BProf4CT6s0

A correction to this, maybe?

Just jump in and do it! At least I didn't have to paint any skin with this one... Thanks for the comments, everybody. Much appreciated.

LOL! That's why I mock clueless eBay model sellers as "Anteek & Junque Dealers." Or "wanna-be American Pickers." When I see a high-priced listing for a common kit, glue-bombed and looking like it was hand-painted by a 5-yr old, the first thing I do is check the seller's other items. Usually they only have 1 or 2 scale models listed. Their other items are the rest of the off-topic junk they found at the same yard sale as the models. Couple of years ago, I saw an eBay seller listing a bunch of old Modelhaus kits. He turned out to live not far from me. He had done his research and knew what the Modelhaus kits were worth. (Drat!) But he didn't ask outrageous prices, either. He got the stuff from an elderly man who, sadly, had to go into an assisted-living facility. That man had collected for many years and had a garage full of model cars and related stuff. The eBay seller bought it all from a Craigslist ad. (Drat again!) That original owner liked to build police cars. I got a resin 4-door '68 Plymouth Belvedere (Adam-12!). Plus a few more kits, and a big plastic tub full of aftermarket police and other accessories: roof lights, decals, PPP wheels etc.

For those who get Turner Classic Movies, it recently showed the original 1954 Big Guy movie, "Gojira." Since this is Halloween Month, TCM might show it again. Keep watching the skies! Well, the satellites... Once TCM had a Godzilla-Fest, and showed both "Gojira" and "Godzilla," the same movie with Raymond Burr edited into it for American audiences. That one also set the precedent for the really bad English dubbing known and loved by non-Japanese Godzilla fans.

The Moebius/Polar Lights Grim Reaper in 1/8 scale. The master was sculpted by the awesome Jeff Yagher, who also acts in horror movies. I wanted to finish this one in time for Halloween, and did for once. It didn't end up on the Shelf Of Shame! The kit's an easy build and brought back pleasant memories of gluing together Aurora monster kits while watching "Shock Theatre." You only have to watch out for a few pitfalls: The skull wouldn't fit into the hood until I trimmed down the 2 big mounting pins on back of the skull. The sleeves are 2 parts and leave a big seam INSIDE the sleeve. I filled those with Perfect Plastic Putty and used sanding sticks until they were smooth. The kit doesn't have a nameplate, but it has space for one. Red Planet makes a nice resin nameplate for $5.95. I just made my own, using Plastruct letters. The Reaper was base-painted with Wal-Mart Color Place Flat Black, one of the flattest and blackest black paints I've ever seen. (And not available for quite a while now.) The folds and creases were highlighted by dry-brushing with various oil paints. The kit has a plastic rope belt, but I didn't like it and replaced the belt with candle-wicking material. The instructions showed the hourglass painted wood. I painted it Brass instead, adding a leather strap and small rivet on top. I also filled the bottom of the hourglass with real sand. NOT a good idea. The hourglass is clear plastic and brittle, and I nearly destroyed it. The grass and ground clutter are a mix of static grasses, oregano and basil. The dead bushes are twigs from the yard, and the leaves are pieces of real leaves. Look closely in front of the tombstone on the left, and you'll see that somebody dropped their CD of a certain Blue Oyster Cult album. Maybe it annoyed Ol' Bone-head...

I tried to read the book and couldn't finish it, which is unusual for me. Reading it was sort of like sitting in an airplane on a long flight, with the old guy in the seat beside you yammering non-stop. It probably didn't help when I read something from one of The Irishman's accomplices: "The only thing Frank Sheeran ever killed was a bottle of wine." Still, movies are sometimes better than the book and I'll give it a shot, one of these days.

But Hubley only did the '62 Ford station wagon, not the 4-door sedan. For '60 and '61 they did both. My parents and my best friend's family both owned '62 Galaxie 500 4-doors, and I'd sure like to have one. For years I assumed Hubley did a '62 Ford sedan. Somebody on this board corrected me about that.

In November 2017, I bought a Jo-Han '60 Plymouth "Police" wagon for $43.00. On eBay. With free shipping. I keep Excel spreadsheets of all my model buys. I just checked the "125_resin" spreadsheet. Way back in September 2003, also on eBay, I bought a Modelhaus '62 Chrysler wagon (the full kit, complete with whitewall tires) for $50.00. It's still unbuilt and maybe I should put it in a bank safety deposit box. I feel as rich as Scrooge McDuck! ?

Suddenly it really is 1960! The seller at the flea market thought these were promos. He lowered his price once I convinced him they're not, since they are unwarped. Both are kits put together and painted long ago by a careful builder. You can see that both have the usual "Jo-Han Sag" in the rear, caused by the lowering blocks coming unglued. Easily fixed. Other than that both are complete and in good shape.

Certainly true in WWII armor modeling. Especially German armor, where Der Experten will clobber you for getting the number of screws wrong underneath the Panzer XVII Wunder-Blitzen (only 1 prototype built). But "customizing" is getting more popular in armor modeling, especially with modern subjects from more recent wars. Toyota pickup trucks with ZSU-23 guns in the bed, bigger trucks with Katyusha rocket launchers mounted on them, etc. And a personal fave I intend to build some day, this weirdo from the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990's: a T-55 tank chassis with the turret from a WWII-vintage M18 Hellcat. I have a couple of books about improvised armor of the Yugo Wars with some amazing photos: an armor-plated VW Beetle, heavy rubber sheets from factory conveyor belts hanging off of tanks as supplemental armor, etc.

Sorry, I goofed! Didn't look closely enough at the little pictures on the box side. This kit is the B-25J with 2 different glass noses: a standard version with 1 machine gun, or the glass-nosed version with 5 machine guns mounted in front. All those guns sticking out fooled me into thinking it was a solid nose. Just looked again with my reading glasses on...? Both aircraft are from the 345th Bomb Group "Air Apaches."

Christmas in October! Stopped by the closest Hobby Lobby today and it had re-stocked, just in time for the 40% off sale. I scored... 1. '67 Chevy Impala 4-door "Supernatural." I got one at this store months ago and it hasn't been on the shelves since. 2. '59 El Camino "Art Box." Haven't seen that one on the HL shelves in a while, either. A great kit and a great parts source for updating the chassis of an original AMT/SMP'60 Elky, among other things. The chassis is pretty well-detailed for a 1964 release, including steerable front wheels, and stuff like 4 coil springs and a separate rear sway bar. 3. OFF TOPIC! The Monogram (now Revell) 1/48 scale B-25. This kit takes me back to the 1970's and Shep Paine's diorama inserts, which got many of us started building dioramas. The latest Revell version has all the parts in the box to build a glass-nosed or gun-nosed version.

Maybe not a trend so much as modelers branching out to other subjects, which some of us have always done. Many years ago I decided I didn't want to build 1/35 scale military stuff anymore. Then along came Francois Verlinden with his detail sets, resin figures, books etc. And I got sucked right back into that side of the hobby, along with cars and the occasional aircraft. And other stuff! A car build "stalled" recently and until it un-stalls, I decided to build something completely different. Since it's Halloween Month, I went for the 1/8 scale Moebius Grim Reaper. It's in the same style as the Aurora monster kits of the Sixties that I always loved building while watching "Shock Theatre." It was a blast to build/paint and just fell together, even though I added a few personal mods. It's 95% done and I hope to post it soon. Before October 31!

The 1987-ish release of that Packard Speedster Phaeton was molded in a very nice, glossy maroon. I have that version. When those kits were done, Monogram paid a lot of attention to its molds. Some of those classic car kits looked great with just polishing the plastic, no paint. I won a ribbon at a contest once by doing exactly that, with the 1930 Packard boat-tail roadster. It was molded in orangish plastic for the body with dark brown fenders. IIRC, on the body I only painted the top boot, seats and spare tire covers.

The Hobby Lobby 40% off on all kits sale is back again this week (10/18 thru 10/25). I got the flyer in an e-mail this morning. A few days ago, a Hobby Lobby employee told me that she thought they would be doing this kit sale every other week until Christmas. Looks like she was right.

Does your Pontiac look sort of like this one? This is a resin re-pop of the Banthrico promo, I think. Got it years ago in a big lot of resin bodies. I have no idea who cast it.