Mike999

Thanks for that link. I bookmarked it and some other links in that thread. I'll need all the help I can get!

This monster came Saturday. The Trumpeter 1/35 scale Maus with full interior. Got it for half-price from Freetime Hobbies, with free shipping. The free shipping is a good idea with this kit: the box measures 24" L x 14" H x over 4" deep and weighs several pounds. It includes a small reference book with color photos of the real Maus. Even though it has a full interior, Trumpeter didn't make any of the engine-deck covers etc. removable. They're all molded in place. Bummer. All that detail and no way to see it, unless you go the "cutaway" route, I guess. The aftermarket will probably fix that. On the Armorama site, a very detail-oriented modeler is fixing all of Trumpeter's errors and omissions. A weird one is a rack of batteries, sitting in the place where ammo bins should go.

I remember her and would love to hear from her again. She was an awesome builder who did a lot of Mustangs. But she also took on the super-human task of superdetailing a TKM Resins kit. IIRC, it was a 1974 Mercury Marquis Brougham "Hawaii 5-0" car. She hacked that thing completely apart and basically rebuilt the entire body. I think she had a blog for a while and I saw it there. Not sure if she ever finished that Merc, but it was an incredible build.

Good write-up on what sounds like a tough project. Fortunately I don't have any interest in tackling that one. While on your site, I stumbled across the article on the 1/43 scale Lada Niva. That brought back memories. When I lived in Egypt from 2005-09, those were a common sight. The Niva was very popular as a military staff car. They were painted a light tan, though I don't know if they were an official govt. contract or if Egypt just bought a bunch of them from Russia. As always, Rank Has Its Privileges. One General was chauffeured around in an '80s Jeep Cherokee. It was black, always spotless, and had curtains in the rear doors. Four-door Lada sedans were still very popular as Egyptian taxicabs back then. I lived in Alexandria, right on the sea, so most of the poor Ladas were rusting and falling apart as you looked at them. Most were equipped with a huge, cast-iron taxi meter under the dashboard. The meters had Cyrillic writing on them, but none of them had worked since approximately the Brezhnev years.

Checked my closest Wal-Mart today. No kits anywhere. I asked an employee in the Toy section about them, and she looked at me like I was speaking Urdu.

Same here. I've been selling on eBay since about 1999 and usually wouldn't even consider dumping Ollies/HL kits on there. It costs too much in time and aggravation. Every item I put on eBay has to be described, photographed, packed, weighed, measured and hauled to the Post Office. I buy those cheap kits because I don't already have them or for parts. The last Ollie's sale around here had a stack of the AMT/ERTL '66 Olds 442 hardtop. A great parts source, and even better, it was the corrected hardtop kit with the W-30 air scoops in the right place. I wish they'd had some of the '66 442 convertibles. That kit has a nice air conditioning setup that the hardtop didn't.

I went to Hobby Lobby today. In the model kit aisle, an older guy (like me) walked up and asked if I built models. Yep! He said, "I've got a bunch of old model car kits I'd like to get rid of. I'll never have time to build them and most are still factory-sealed. Got some AMT, Monogram, Revell. T-Birds, Buicks, Fords, all kinds of cars..." Of course I immediately thought: HOLY GRAIL!!! A barn find, stacks of early-60s AMT 3-in-1 kits, maybe some Revell '62 Chryslers, Monogram 6-in-1 Model A's...no telling what he might have...!!! Then he said: "These are all NASCAR kits." From the 1980s-90s, he went on to say. Well shoot. That dream didn't last long. I suggested he try the local Wednesday flea market. But he'll have a LOT of competition there.

You'll have to be early and get there quick with that truck. Or maybe bribe an employee for a heads-up on the sale. (Just kidding.) In the old threads about Hobby Lobby and Ollie's kit sales, you'll read about people grabbing carts full of the discounted kits. They mark the prices back up and flog them on eBay or at flea markets. After every HL/Ollie's kit sale around here, I see those kits at local flea markets. At the same time, a flood of the same kits show up on eBay. These sellers are never "model people" like us. They're wanna-be American Pickers. I like to call them Ye Olde Anteek & Junque dealers. Flea market kit prices are usually about $15, or half the retail price but twice what the seller paid for them. I almost felt sorry for one flea-market seller who kept showing up for weeks, with a table full of Lindberg ships, aircraft etc. straight from Ollie's. No, I didn't really feel a bit sorry for him. As economists might say, the Invisible Hand of the (Scale Model) Market was just slapping him upside the head.

Flea Market Day. The only plastic kits for sale were glue-bombs or unwanted. But I did find a Danbury Mint '48 Chrysler Town & Country, still in the box with the paperwork and reasonably priced. A few years ago I found one of those at the same flea market. It was unboxed and suffering from the dreaded "die-cast rash" on the upper surfaces. I bought it just for parts, like the nice separate door/window handles. (Pic stolen from the internet, the one I got today is identical.)

Stopped in the closest Hobby Lobby today and didn't see any new car kits. I was hoping for another '60 Chevy truck myself. This store did have the Atlantis re-pop of the old Revell "Everything Is Go" Mercury Capsule & Atlas Booster set. And another old/new space kit I couldn't resist, the Monogram 1/48 scale "First Lunar Landing" kit. Complete with moon diorama base and 2 astronaut figures! Dragon also does a 1/48 lunar lander, but I like the older kit for the nostalgia. And the price, with the HL 40% off coupon.

Wow. Thanks for the warning. Never had that happen yet, and I've bought quite a bit of stuff from them. Another online vendor (HobbyLinc) once sent me a set of 3 paints that was missing 2 of the bottles. They sent a replacement set out and didn't ask for a return.

That's in the original AMT '57 Chevy Bel Air kit, first released back around 1962. And re-released umpteen times, most recently as "Pepper Shaker" (again!). The box calls the engine a 409.

Freetime Hobbies is having a couple of combined sales. One is their Moving Sale, another is Black Friday weekend. They have some pretty good prices on car kits. A few are listed below, and the link will take you directly to the 1/25-24 cars page. Along with the kits, they have a bunch of Studio 27 decals and some aftermarket stuff. Lots of military and aircraft kits are also on sale. You might want to keep your eye on Freetime, they will probably be clearing out more items and putting them on sale before they move. Some car and truck kits: AMT Lowboy Drop Deck Trailer $24.99 Aoshima MGB, 1968 and 1974 kits $22.99 Aoshima Lamborghini Huracan Perfomante $24.99 Hasegawa 1966 Chevy Impala With Girl Figure $33.99 Italeri US Wrecker Truck $59.99 Revell 1969 Ford Boss 302 Mustang $16.99 Revell 1970 Pontiac Firebird $16.99 Revell 1970 Plymouth AAR 'Cuda Model Kit $17.99 Revell 1976 Chevy Sport Stepside Pickup 4X4 $19.99 Revell Porsche Diesel Junior 108 Tractor $12.99 Salvinos 1/24 NASCAR kits = $24 to $29 https://freetimehobbies.com/moving-sale/?goal=0_5c19b4e6bd-62b8c1f887-162803701&mc_cid=62b8c1f887&mc_eid=53730ba4da&_bc_fsnf=1&sort=newest&Section=Cars&Scale=1%2F24+%26+1%2F25&page=1

My 2 Land Rovers arrived today, from shop4megastore in the UK. Ordered them on 11/14, so 11/27 is not bad for (FREE!) shipping to the US. Due to rough handling, I guess, the corners of both boxes were crushed pretty badly. Since the bodies are right at the end of the box, I opened them up to make sure they were OK. Both bodies were fine.

The 1/24 Huey was last issued in 2014, so you should be able to find one pretty easily. Latest box art shown below. This kit dates way back to 1969, when it was "The Phantom Chopper" with a clear plastic fuselage. The only other 1/24 scale helicopter I know is a Hughes 500 from the Korean company IDEA. That's a really simplified, toy-like kit. But it might work as a trailer load, especially if you draped enough tarps in/over it. EDIT: I goofed above, in calling this a "UH-1D." It's an early (short fuselage) UH-1B, which is right for a gunship. The U.S. Army never used the UH-1D as a gunship. Only scale model companies and Francis Ford Coppola did. ?

At least one builder did that, with the old Monogram/Revell 1/24 scale UH-1D. He put it on a flatbed trailer behind a 1/24 scale semi truck. I saw it at a contest years ago. It looked great. The helicopter was heavily weathered, with damage and missing parts. Like it had crashed and was being recovered. In 1/24 scale, the whole project was HUGE. That thing took up about half the contest table. I've thought about doing the same, but using the 1/32 Huey and a 1/32 tractor-trailer.

This is the 1/35 scale MIG Productions "Burnt Out Modern Car." But you might get some ideas from studying it. The kit comes with a nifty template for forming the bare seat springs and frames.

Very true. After seeing "FvF," I went back and re-read "Go Like Hell." Just finished it last night. Covering the whole story would have required a mini-series, not one movie. Which would be OK with me but probably not with the movie-makers. My favorite comment on movie historical accuracy, seen somewhere on the internet: "Yes, we could have all historical movies written by somebody like Henry Steele Commager. But then nobody would go see the movies." Two other (off-topic) historical movies I've enjoyed recently, and both of them either barely got released or didn't: "Current Wars" - the story of the battle to electrify America, between Edison's direct current and Westinghouse/Tesla's alternating current. Made in 2016 but it got caught up in the Harvey Weinstein studio hassles and shelved for a couple of years. "City of Lies" with Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker: apparently released only in Italy, due to some legal weirdness. Covers the 1990s Rampart Scandal in the Los Angeles Police Department, including the still unsolved murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. Depp is great as real-life detective Russell Poole, trying to make sense of a huge and ever more complex case.

I saw Mike at the NNL show in Chatsworth, CA, right after he released that Olds wagon in May 2014. I was buying the Olds kit, and Mike explained how he created the master for the wagon. It was mind-boggling. He's a real perfectionist, and pointed out a couple of kit parts he modified until they looked exactly right. Wish I could remember what those parts were. But they had nothing to do with a '50 Olds. He and his family used to hit all the model shows in the Los Angeles area. They were really nice people and I always enjoyed visiting with them. He had a young daughter who was already building models, and already doing incredible paint jobs. That was probably genetic...

The extremely rare kit of the Taylor Aerocar had Bob Cummings on the box. His TV show ran from 1955-59. Link to a Mat Irvine article about the car and the kit, which was produced by Gladen Enterprises of Bay City, Michigan. https://www.scalemodelnews.com/2018/10/collectible-42-part-flying-automobile.html

Flea Market Day. No kits today, but one seller had a bunch of these neat Hallmark "kiddie car" Christmas tree ornaments, cheap. They appear to be about 1/24-1/25 scale. Thought they would look good in the back of a pick-up truck or in a diorama. I might even try some weathering on them.

These are fun kits! When I stripped the chrome from the exhaust, somehow I managed to break/lose half of it. So I fabricated a vertical exhaust, from a 1/35 scale tank muffler, an HO scale locomotive "chimney" and some perforated metal for a shield.

The fe-mail carrier dropped off 2 late arrivals yesterday afternoon: 1/24 scale Aoshima '74 MGB and the ICM 1910 Paris Taxi. I ordered these from a big U.S. online vendor back in Sept. Both were showing as "In Stock." But by the time the vendor confirmed my order, both were out of stock and back-ordered. It took 2 months, but they did get here in the end.

I'd like to see the Euro Revell reissue some of those old "Classics" kits. Especially the M-B 300 SLR Uhlenhaut coupe. According to Scalemates it was re-issued in 2011-12. But it's very hard to find, even on eBay.