Mike999

Here's an old thread from 2018 about that very kit you're building, with some history on 1/16 bike kits. AFAIK that Honda was always a Lindberg kit, not related to PYRO or Airfix. Airfix did a 1/16 Honda 450, BSA C15, BMW R69 and the Unobtainium, the Ariel Arrow. Pyro did a bunch of Yamahas and Harleys in 1/16 that have never been reissued, probably due to licensing costs. They also did some neat 1/16 scale scooters, a Lambretta and a Vespa.

Sounds like the Hobby Heaven version, released back in the 1990s. HH did several private-issue kits in plain white boxes. The AMT '63 Chevy Impala was another one.

As a warning, maybe: one of the weirdest chrome hassles I had recently was with the Round 2 AMT 907/12 1/25 "TeeVee Dune Buggy." The chrome plating was thick and obscured detail, especially on the engine parts. I did my usual de-chroming trick: put the chrome parts in a ZipLoc bag, sprayed them with a heavy coat of Easy-Off from the yellow can, and let them sit for 24 hours. The next day all the chrome was gone, leaving a powdery white residue, as usual. I scrubbed off the residue with an old toothbrush, dipped in 91% isopropyl alcohol. The residue disappeared... ...for a couple of hours. Then it came back. I scrubbed with alcohol again, residue went away. Then came back again. I finally painted over the parts, which seemed to work. But I wonder if, after a while, the residue will "ghost" again and show up thru the paint. Some of the unused chrome parts are still showing the white residue. This is the first time I've ever seen that happen. The Easy-Off/alcohol procedure has always worked to get rid of the chrome and any residue. If it happens again, maybe I'll overspray the parts with Dullcote while the residue is gone, and see if that helps.

Great work! Especially the dogs and figures. That Land Rover kit has been around since the 1970's. Originally from Italeri, but it has also been released in a Revell box. Just a couple of years ago, Italeri finally upgraded it with some new parts: a hardtop and 2 dashboards for left or right hand steering. They also added decals to build a vehicle of the Spanish Guardia Civil.

I stopped by the closest HL yesterday. That store is in a very small South Carolina town and takes forever to get new kits. I always check the "Clearance" section first, no kits there. But they had ONE...count'em, ONE...Supernatural '67 Chevy 4-door left on the shelf. I grabbed it and used the magic coupon on my phone, so it cost $19.07. Maybe they had more in the back, or maybe the kits arrived late last week and sold very quickly. They weren't there last Wed. when I checked.

I was just checking out the HobbyLinc Specials and Clearance sections. Saw the kits below that may interest some people. I have no connection to HobbyLinc, except as a customer. To see the Specials/Clearance items: (1) Click the link below. (2) Click "Models" on the menu near the top of the page. (3) From the dropdown menu, click either "Specials" or "Clearance." http://www.hobbylinc.com/ AMT 65 Pontiac GTO (the new release hardtop/ragtop kit) $27.99 Galaxie 47 Chevy Aerosedan $37.79 Lindberg Dodge L700 Tractor with Shell Tanker $26.69 MPC Jeep Commando Mount'N Goat $22.39 MPC Tiger Shark $11.99 Revell 66 GTO $18.29 Revell Porsche Diesel Jr. 108 Farm Tractor $14.09 And for the fans of Big Stuff: Revell-Germany 1/16 Porsche 928 $42.99

Same basic kit, with minor differences like the driving lights. ESCI also did a stock version they called a Mercedes 500SLC but it's the same too. I just checked eBay and nobody has parted out one of those kits lately. Here's a 2017 thread about the kits:

I've had one of those in the stash for years. The painting scares me. It has to be very precise to match up with the decals (which are great, made by Cartograf). Now that I think about it, the decals scare me too... And...FINALLY!!! My closest Hobby Lobby got the "Supernatural" '67 Chevy 4-door. They had ONE left on the shelf. So I'm guessing it came in last week and a lot of people bought them over the weekend. The check-out woman was almost as happy as me. "That's so COOL! I didn't know we had that!" She said her young nephew and his Dad just started building model cars together. That was nice to hear.

As somebody who hangs around military modeling sites, and buys 1/35 scale kits but seldom builds them, I'm fully qualified to criticize your work. ? Just kidding, it looks great so far. I hope Rye Field takes the next logical step and releases a Typ 87 Kommandeurwagen: the Beetle body mounted on a 4-wheel drive Schwimmwagen drive train. It had wider fenders for its big Kronprinz all-terrain tires. Sort of a WWII German version of a Baja Bug. Back in the 1990s CMK released a whole line of 1/35 scale WWII VW variants. They called one a Type 87 but it didn't have the wider fenders. One was the ambulance with a box body. Though if your wounds didn't kill you, riding in that box over the VW engine would have probably finished you off. None of these kits had engines or much interior detail, unlike the RFM kit. But CMK cleverly sold engines and interiors as separate resin upgrades. The most interesting CMK kit was the Type 230 VW, powered by a gas generator. It included new resin parts, even the mods under the chassis, and a photo-etched metal roof rack for the spare tire. If I go completely insane, I might try using those parts on the RFM kit.

A book about the famous car collector and casino owner Bill Harrah talked about him trying to order a Hemi Plymouth station wagon in 1966. Chrysler asked why he even wanted such a thing. Harrah replied that he often transported large sums of cash between his casinos in Reno, Tahoe and Vegas. He wanted to move that cash quickly, in a plain-Jane car that blended in with everything else on the road. Harrah was already famous for his earlier station wagon: a Pontiac with a 421 Tri-Power engine, 4-speed and an upscale Grand Prix interior with bucket seats and console. On long, straight stretches of desert highway, he loved surprising hot rodders in that car. They couldn't believe their doors were blown off by some old geezer driving a Pontiac wagon. Chrysler hemmed and hawed about the Hemi wagon, and finally said they might consider making one. But first they would have to do an engineering study to make sure the wagon could handle the Hemi power. They estimated the study would cost $10,000. In 1966 money. Harrah counter-offered: sell him a Hemi crate engine and a '66 Plymouth wagon, and he would do the engine swap in his own garage. That garage had a whole crew of master mechanics who maintained Harrah's huge classic car collection. In the end, that's how he got his Hemi station wagon.

Yep, some of those old houses were huge and rambling. Most were originally private mansions, built before all the rich people moved from downtown L.A. to Pasadena. ? Then they got turned into boarding houses. Many Bunker Hill residents were retirees from city or county government, and the courts, which were all in the same neighborhood. For $10 a week back in the 1950's, they got a room with a sink and hot plate, and a shared bathroom down the hall. I lived in L.A. for many years, but the old Bunker Hill was long gone by the time I got there. I learned a lot about it from this great book.

Good question. The Novas were their best car kit, IMO. The ragtop kit even has separate, chromed ashtrays for the rear armrests. The Falcons come in second, for that weird chassis/engine and silly goofs like the 2 fuel filler caps on the Ranchero. The less said about their Monte Carlo and Pontiacs the better, IMO again. But even those kits have their fans, and a straight re-issue of the car kits should be a no-brainer and a big money maker. A couple of months ago I put a Trumpeter Nova hardtop on eBay. It sold very quickly, just a few hours after the listing started. The "Buy It Now" price was $99.99, plus shipping. They have sold for even more. An auction for a hardtop last week brought 13 bids and a final price of $132.50. But a Nova ragtop recently sold for $49.00 "Buy It Now." Forget it, Jake, it's eBay-Town...

Sorry to hear that. Losing a job is always rough. I went thru it in Los Angeles in 2013, when my whole department was suddenly laid off with no warning. I was very lucky that I had just hit the age for early retirement and a pension. Overall, the CA unemployment system worked very well, once I got thru the initial application process. Your company should help you with that. After you're in the system, your unemployment payments can go directly into your bank account.

More weirdness in the mail today. This time in 1/35 scale and German WWII. Meet the Salvenmaschinenkanone (SMK) 18 - Typ 2, from Das Werk models. The SMK-18 mounted eight 20mm cannon, designed to fire simultaneously thru a (huge) common bolt. The idea was the same as modern close-in weapons systems like the Phalanx: throw an enormous amount of metal at incoming targets. The Germans never worked out the bugs of firing all 8 guns at the same time, and only 2 of these were ever built, maybe. Not much is known about these little monsters. The kit shows paint jobs for 2 guns, one at the Rheinmetall factory test range in 1939 and another from an unknown unit in Berlin, 1945. Das Werk is a fairly new company doing some standard stuff like German tank kits. And other oddball subjects, like a Wurzburg radar site.

Here's a real blast from the past! Back in the 1970s, Airfix made a whole line of these 54mm (1/32 scale) figures. They were sold in hanging blister packs for $1 each. These figures were little jewels. Every piece of equipment was separate and nicely detailed. The figures had optional arms and sometimes other parts, to build different poses. Airfix even included a sheet of thin plastic, for making the belts and straps. That wasn't such a great idea. The plastic was way too thick and stiff. But Airfix did provide a handy template for cutting the length of each belt and strap. Most builders used the template and made the straps from paper. Or as I did here, with textured tape. Next time I'll use paper, and add one thing that's missing: buckles. Each figure came with a small plastic base, and the name of the figure INSIDE the base, for some weird reason. I hacked the base apart to make the nameplate you see on the figure's base. The base itself is from a DML 1/16 scale figure. The series included figures from the English Civil War, American Revolution, Waterloo...and this guy, a French Foreign Legionnaire from 1908. He looks tired and mad. I'd be tired and mad too, if I was lugging all that stuff thru the Moroccan desert...

Thanks. That's very interesting, especially the call-out of the GM brands and the upgrades. Speculation Intensifies...

It's in the always popular 1/19 scale. ? But you get an official Joe Friday badge in the box, so there's that. The first link below is a Worthpoint listing that shows the parts layout. The second link is a Mat Irvine article at Scale Model News, where he compares it to the Revell '57 Ford police car kit. Jack Webb trivia: he grew up dirt-poor in the old Bunker Hill district of Los Angeles. Raised by his mother and grandmother after his father ditched the family. The developers flattened Bunker Hill and "gentrified" that whole area in the 1960s. You can see the original Bunker Hill in many old movies on TCM. Especially "Kiss Me Deadly" from 1955, which also stars a '54 Corvette and a bunch of vintage British sports cars. Also Cloris Leachman in her very first movie part. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vtg-1955-dragnet-joe-friday-police-252389651 https://www.scalemodelnews.com/2014/08/dragnet-style-law-enforcer-from-times.html

Went to Hobby Lobby, still no '67 Chevy 4-door. I did pick up a set of Metalizer paint: Testors Model Master "Fantasy War Figure Colors." These are lacquer paints. I'm not sure how much longer they will be around, so I'm hoarding. The set is a bottle of lacquer thinner and 5 paints: Flat Brass, Flat Aluminum, Flat Steel, Flat Gun Metal, and Flat Burnt Iron. Full retail price is $24.99. I used the handy 40% off coupon on my phone, so it was $15.89.

Thanks for the comments and help. You're right, all '59 El Caminos originally had the low-line Bel Air style interior. Most of the ones still running have been over-restored with Impala seats, door panels, steering wheels etc. Even some aftermarket companies only sell the fancier Impala interior parts for '59 El Caminos. Photos of original interiors are very hard to find. For anyone else building a stock '59 Elky, here's an unrestored original. It's in Norway, of all places. This one has power windows, which seems kind of unusual.

That sounds as bad as "Desert Car Kings," which was usually awful. The yard full of old iron was a lot more interesting than any of the idiots in the show. They "restored" a '62 Ford once by stuffing the interior of a '64 Ford into it. They also pulled the original 292 ci 2V engine, went to their pile of rusty junk and found a "HOTTER!!!" 352 ci 2V engine to bolt in. There wasn't that much difference in the 2 engines, but they destroyed the originality of the '62. When "restoring" a '65 Barracuda, they did an obvious set-up by repeating, over and over, that the big rear window was super rare Unobtainium and everybody should be careful because a replacement cost megabucks. Of course they knocked it off their flimsy stand and shattered it. Then with incredible luck, found another one! People on real Mopar restoration sites were LTAO at that. They said the Barracuda rear window is not that hard to find and not that expensive. IIRC, one commenter said he had 3 of the back windows in his wrecking yard.

Interior & trim work continued on the "Flea Market Special," a beater AMT '59 El Camino with beater camper. One thing I learned from websites about the real cars: the stock '59 Elky interior didn't have carpet. It had a black vinyl floor mat with flecks that matched the interior. Interiors were only available in gray, green, or blue. According to one site: "Unfortunately, moisture could become trapped beneath these mats, causing floor pans to rust as the years went by." So my Elky's floor will be bare and rusty. That meant I had to grind/sand off the floor mat texture in the kit. Interior parts, carefully shaved/harvested from an AMT '62 Chevy: fresh air vents (in the kick panels), window cranks/door handles and arm rests. In the kit, these are all molded in and "flat." Boring. The '62 Chevy items are 3D and will look much better. I also ground off the molded-in brake and clutch pedals, replaced with some from the parts box. The '62 Chevy donated its parking brake pedal, with rework. The Elky kit doesn't have any detail for the radio or the heater controls. Also boring. Cut out/sanded down the heater control panel from...yep, the '62 Chevy. Hogged out the radio and left a hole. I'll stuff an aftermarket stereo in there, and add speakers on the panel behind the seats. All common "shade-tree mods" to these cars, once they hit their third or fourth owners. Just for fun, I cut out the ashtray door. I might run a coiled power cord from the cigar lighter socket in the ash tray, hooked to a cell phone or something. The kit comes with a custom console. Modified that to look like a home-made console caddy, that I can fill with random junk. Trim: I did the chrome, and the '59 Elky had a lot of it! Even though I removed a couple of side pieces and drilled holes where the trim clips would have been. The car is a rusty, faded beater, so I thought BMF might be too shiny. Did the chrome with a silver Sharpie, and hit a few random places with Molotow, for some variety.

Incoming! Weird and ugly, so I had to have it. The TP-63 two-seater version of the P-63 Kingcobra. Bell Aircraft built 2 of these. To make room for the rear observer's seat, the radio equipment was moved up to the weapons bay in the nose. These were only used post-war for testing, so no armament was needed. Dora Wings 1/48 scale kit with decals for both versions Bell produced, civilian registrations NX41963 and NX41964. The kit has photo-etched parts and paint masks in the box. Dora also makes a 1/72 version, for you non-geezers who still have good eyesight.

FWIW, here's a review of the trailer posted on eBay: "Terribly made. Lots of trimming and sanding. The clear box lid doesn’t fit over the sides. Sides are longer than the top. 1/25 scale model car won’t fit inside anyway. Will work as a flat trailer but not as a case." https://www.ebay.com/itm/MPC-Super-Trailer-Clear-Display-Case-1-25-scale-model-kit-new-909-/193583784989 I grabbed those trailers when I could find them cheap, mostly for the accessories and hinged storage box. Figured if I ever built one as a trailer, I would paint it anyway and not leave it clear. Clear plastic is always...problematic.

Great work! And a good reminder that not too long ago, we HAD to look for 1/25-ish figures in dollar stores etc. There just weren't very many, especially females. Tamiya's old "Campus Friends" and a couple of Japanese sets with "trophy girls," and that was about it. Master Box from the Ukraine is working to fix that. Their "Short Stop Pin Up Girls" series has some 1/24 scale women who will not only hang around your garage, but pitch in and help. These figures are very well detailed, right down to fingernails and dimples in their knees.

In the little bottles, Testors also has (had?) several flat metallic colors: Flat Steel, Flat Brass etc. Useful when you want a metallic color without the shininess. Not metallic, but their "Rubber" paint came in the little bottles too. It's a very dark brown, nearly black, that really looks like old, worn rubber. I use that stuff a lot. Hobby Lobby sells a boxed set of metallic paints, intended for painting armored knights and other figures. Because my brain is failing, I can't remember who makes it.