Mike999

Good advice to check the armor/military boards. Especially articles by Mig Jimenez, who came up with many weathering tricks and products currently in use. I have one of his books on the workbench now, and here's one way he does mud spatter. He warns us to practice before doing this on an actual project, and be very careful : use a stiff brush and dip it in dirt-colored paint. Then using only the air from your airbrush, no paint, hold the paintbrush near the model and blast air from the airbrush through it. Done right, that gives a very realistic mud spatter. Some of the cars in your photos seem to show a combination of dirt spatter and paint actually chipped off, from flying gravel/rocks on the track. Chipping is another topic often covered on military boards and you'll find many different ways to do it. One way is the salt technique, if you want a heavily chipped area. Or you can do it with a small, sharp brush dipped in a primer-colored paint, doing each "chip" by hand. Here's a Mazda Cosmo I recently built. These cars ran in the 84-hour Tour de Marathon at Nurburgring, so they were beat to death by the end of the race. Photos of the real cars show that they had a heavy layer of asphalt "grunge" around the rocker panels, and I tried to duplicate that.

A 1957 Chevy Bel Air, red with a white roof and looking bone-stock, right down to the hubcaps. In the parking lot of Wal-Mart.

I remember going into a Los Angeles toy store MANY years ago, that had the 1/25 scale ERTL plastic kits marked way down for clearance - farm tractors, Scouts, semis, farm equipment etc. I've often regretted not buying every single one. But I remember at model swap meets for quite a few years, those kits usually went cheap. Especially oddballs like the Bicentennial farm tractor. Flea Market Day today, and I must be getting old or something. I saw for sale, but didn't buy, a Round 2 '65 Lincoln, '70 Impala and an original AMT '66 Nova. All were shrink-wrapped. But I already have those kits and am really trying to cut down on buying more. Another seller had a big box full of very old 1/72 scale aircraft kits. Somebody must have loved the obscure Martin Baltimore bomber, because several of those were in the box. Including Baltimore kits from Special Hobby, FROG, the Novo re-issue of the FROG kit, etc. I have the Eastern Express Baltimore, which is just the old FROG kit in a new box.

There was also a pretty good TV movie made about it in 2003: "44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-out." I lived in N. Hollywood for several years and know that neighborhood. But on the day of the shoot-out in 1997, I was on a business trip in Asia. Turned on the TV in the hotel room in Taipei, and there was the old neighborhood with bullets flying all over it. Quite a shock. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/44_Minutes:_The_North_Hollywood_Shoot-Out

And if you didn't add an external oil pump, look at the bottom right of this pic. The knurled brass cap with "Ford" script on it is the oil filler cap. For anyone wanting to super-detail an ICM Model T, this is a stock 1913 engine. It shows lots of details like the 2 nuts holding the valve-cover panels, bolts on the oil pan, the fan belt and the carb at bottom left. ICM provides those "T" bolts holding the exhaust manifold as 4 separate (and tiny!) parts.

I finally gave up on Hobby Lobby and ordered that Porsche Tractor from an on-line vendor. Along with the Round 2 '60 Chevy Pickup/Go-Kart, another Italeri 1/24 scale Guard Rail and Road Section, and a Round 2 '29 Ford "Mod Rod" that was on sale for $20.42.

My Mom still has an old CRT TV in her bedroom, and a newish flat-screen in her den. She has Direct-TV, delivered via a satellite dish. She sometimes has the problems you described on both TVs, especially during heavy rainstorms, snow, etc. I have ATT U-Verse, delivered via cable, no dish. My cable comes from a local distribution box, then underground to my house. Sometimes the picture suddenly pixillates and the sound goes in and out. Other times I suddenly lose pic and sound, and get a screen full of "snow." These are always temporary problems with the cable signal, not the TV. So as everybody else says, the culprit is most likely the cable company, not the TV itself. The cable company should have instructions for doing a "soft re-boot" of the cable box on its website, and that may help too, if the problem persists.

This might give you some ideas. Here's a link to a photo collection of a RAJO-equipped Model T Speedster tricked out for touring. This is a 1918 Model T chassis with a 1912 Speedster body. The link also has some history of RAJO equipment. I was researching T speed equipment while building the ICM 1913 Model Speedster. Hop-up equipment for that year is easy: there ain't none. Looks like the first T speed equipment didn't appear until 1917 or so: "About 1917, Craig-Hunt sold a 16-valve single overhead cam Ford racing head nearly identical to that of the 1912 Peugeot (DOHC) Grand Prix racing engine. Crude in the beginning, later versions of the Craig-Hunt head used an enclosed bevel gear and shaft setup to drive the cam, and a cross flow design with four ports on each side with two plugs per cylinder...Craig-Hunt cross-flow 16-valve single overhead cam heads (the first overhead valve heads built for the Ford motors) were built for racing only and not for touring cars or trucks. Not surprising when you consider that each of the four valves per cylinder in early heads were advertised as 1½” in diameter (1 5/16” in later heads). Price in 1918 was $85." https://dyler.com/cars/6736/ford-model-t-rajo-speedster-cabriolet-roadster-1918-multicolor-for-sale

For the lettering: it might be even easier to use Plastruct letters. They come in many different sizes, from barely visible to BIG. I recently used some tiny Plastruct letters to make the "B," "C," and "R" letters on a 1/24 scale Model T brake, clutch and reverse pedals.

It is a shame. Maisto did a die-cast 1903 Harley in 1/24 scale. I think it's long out of production, but they're on eBay pretty often for about $10 bucks.

That's a rare kit you have there. The 1/24 ESCI Land Rover with the soft top is the only one never re-issued by Italeri (yet). The other 2 were the "Paratrooper" military version with no top and the "African Safari" version with the hard top. Just a couple of years ago, Italeri upgraded its ancient 1/35 scale military Land Rover kit with some new parts: a different hard top, police lights/decals to build a Spanish "Guardia Civil" version, and even options for left or right hand steering. I keep hoping they will do that with the 1/24 kits. Italeri did upgrade their 1/24 Jeep and (ex-ESCI) Toyota BJ-44 kits with a new .50 caliber machine gun but that was quite a few years ago and the BJ-44 is Unobtainium now. A straight re-issue of their BJ-44 "Savannah Master" kit would also be great. It had a roof rack full of nice accessories: jerry cans, wooden crates, 2 spare tires and some tarps.

Nobody seems to know the status of the Monogram Land Rover. Link below to Chuck Most's great 2015 article about the kit. Some trivia: years ago on the internet, a guy posted that he had worked on the real Land Rover Monogram measured for that kit. He said it lived in Burbank, CA. He knew it was that Land Rover because the real vehicle had a U.S. spec carburetor, and so did the kit. The bad news, I guess, is that this can't be the Monogram kit. The Monogram kit was a short wheelbase 2-door Land Rover. All of Revell's descriptions/photos say the new one is a long wheelbase 4-door. The good news is that it isn't 1/35 scale, which is what I suspected at first. Assuming the Revell photos and descriptions are right, of course... http://chuckmost.wixsite.com/madhouse-miniatures/single-post/2015/04/07/The-Sad-and-Sordid-tale-of-Monograms-Land-Rover

No photos of the actual kit yet that I could find. The ONLY pic I've seen is the one of the real Land Rover with the roof rack. Several non-US vendors have it available for pre-order. But only one vendor, Spot Model, is showing a release date: October 14, 2019 https://www.spotmodel.com/product_info.php?products_id=52324&language=en

Great job on that monster! At a flea market, I recently found a 1975 copy of "Scale Modeler" magazine. It had a review of that 1/16 scale Ace kit. The kit was brand-new then, and in an ENTEX box, along with the other 3 vintage bike kits you mentioned. Don't anybody bother trying to find an original ENTEX kit, hoping it will be easier to build. The builder of that kit back in 1975 also had a lot of problems getting it together. The Ace story went the other way. William Henderson developed the 4-cylinder engine and started Henderson Motorcycle. He sold that company to Excelsior (a division of Schwinn). He didn't get along with his new bosses, and left in 1919 to start Ace Motor Corporation. Henderson was killed testing a new motorcycle in 1922. Ace was eventually sold to Indian Motorcycle, which wanted its 4-cylinder engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Motor_Corporation

I watched it and didn't know anything about it, either. It was sort of a remake of the 1953 French movie "The Wages of Fear" with Yves Montand. That one was about truckers transporting dynamite. TCM shows it every now and then, so keep an eye out. It was neat seeing Merry Anders (and her '57 Ford convertible!) in that movie. I used to see her at work almost every day. She was in quite a few movies during the 1950s/60s, and the 1960's version of "Dragnet" with Jack Webb and Harry Morgan. After a couple of bad years when she made very little money acting, with kids to raise, she went to work for an aerospace company. The movie on before "Violent Road" was pretty good, too. "Red Hot Tires" from 1935, with Lyle Talbot and Mary Astor. Lots of vintage stock footage of 1930's Midget and open-wheel racing action, including some incredible wrecks. Some of it was filmed at Legion Ascot Speedway near downtown Los Angeles, which only operated from 1924 to 1936.

Another unusual 1/32 scale PYRO kit we'll never see again: the '34 Plymouth 4-door sedan. Military modelers hoarded these PYRO oddballs for WWII conversions and wrecks in dioramas. That was historically correct. The German army "requisitioned" every vehicle in Europe that would roll, especially leading up to the invasion of Russia. Somewhere around here, I have a picture of a '30s 4-door Plymouth in Russia that the Germans converted into a radio car, with a big "clothesline" rail antenna mounted on the roof. They also hacked up American sedans and converted them into troop carriers. Those were literally throwaway vehicles, driven until they died, then abandoned.

I found a post on Reddit asking about the BL-9 from a couple of weeks ago. Was that you? It only got one reply. That reply said the BL-9 was only mounted in one tank for experimental purposes. When fired, the gun was so powerful it cracked the tank's gun mantlet. So the Russians dropped the idea. I do a lot of military modeling and couldn't find a 1/35 scale BL-9 anywhere. Good luck!

Two more pre-WWII French aircraft for the pile. The Bloch 174 and Potez 631 light bombers. Both made by Heller, of course, who did a lot of French aircraft kits no other company would have released. Many Heller kits were re-issued by SMER. They're not hard to find and usually pretty cheap, even on eBay. Both of these are still shrink-wrapped, with their original $15 price stickers. I saw them as a lot on eBay, with just a few minutes left to go and no bids. The minimum bid was $7.00 for both, and that's what I bid. Nobody sniped me, so I got these for $3.50 each plus shipping.

I just found this huge collection of Jeep photos. Thought anyone building the 1/24 Italeri, AMT "Hogan" Jeep kit etc. might be interested. https://riverpinesjeeps.tumblr.com/ While many pix are WWII vintage, there are also some interesting later photos. Like the Kern County Rescue Squad Jeep from the 1960s, and Steve McQueen out in the dirt with his toy. Also some photos of scrapyards and post-war government surplus sales, with Jeeps as far as the eye can see. And some modified Jeeps, like the stretched Shore Patrol versions used by the Navy. Here's one photo. This is a building roof made entirely from Jeep hoods. According to the caption, it was just recently discovered in Germany.

All three of those have been in my local Hobby Lobby for quite a while. The Duster and Chevelle for a couple of months, and the '55 Chevy showed up about a month ago. This store is in a small town and takes forever to get new kits in stock. Some of the kits people in here are getting, like the Revell Porsche Tractor, still haven't shown up yet.

Since this turned into a Weird Subjects thread, sort of, I wondered if anyone else has seen the kits from Arsenal Model Group (AMG) and its offshoot Dora Wings. They're in the Ukraine and do some odd aircraft, armor and watercraft subjects, like a 1/35 scale Russian Armed Speedboat from WW2. A couple of photos are below. The Dora Wings branch does a whole series of 1/48 scale Bell P-63 KingCobras, including the ultra-rare T-P63-E two-seat trainer. (Only 2 built.) These kits have nothing to do with the old 1/48 P-63s from MPM, Hi-Tech and Fonderie Miniatures. They are short-run kits but very well done, with photo-etched parts, canopy masks and big decal sheets. The P-63E kit includes decals for 6 different aircraft, including 2 from the post-war Honduran air force and a civil racing KingCobra. I ordered my P-63C and some other kits from "aceUA" on eBay. Like many Ukrainian vendors, they flatten the kit boxes to save money on shipping. So you get a big brown shipping box crammed full of sealed parts bags and the flattened boxes. You have to figure out where everything goes, which is not too hard.

Even more of the stock version should still exist as the ex-MPC '32 Chevy Cabriolet. I think it was last issued as the AMT-ERTL "Connoisseur Classics" version, back around 1987. I found the "Gangbusters" version of the Panel Truck/Cabriolet at a flea market a few months ago. That was one of my Grail kits. A few parts are glued together, mostly wheels/chassis. But everything is there, including the very hard-to-find divider panel for the paddy wagon version, the machine gun and other Gangbuster parts.

Does anybody know why the Beverly Hillbillies truck can't be re-issued? If it's a licensing problem, seems like Round 2 could dodge that by just dropping the name of the TV show. Call it a "Vintage Olds" or "Okie Moving Truck." Or have the molds been damaged or lost? That last AMT/ERTL re-issue, shown above, was in 2004. So 15 years ago. And it sure seemed to be popular. Many people automatically bought 2 of them, to build the TV version and Granny's hot rod.

Yes, at least one more! The 1/32 scale '81 Malibu Police Car...which meant military modelers (or anybody) could build the legendary "IraqiBu." In 1981, Saddam Hussein's govt. ordered 25,000 specially-built Malibus from GM-Canada, to be used as taxicabs in Iraq. Their equipment included the 3.8 liter V6 engine, hooked to a floor-mounted Saginaw 3-speed manual transmission. They also had air conditioning, AM-FM stereo radios with cassette decks, a heavy-duty cooling package and stout tweed upholstery. After 12,500 IraqiBus were delivered, Iraq suddenly cancelled the contract. Depending on who you believe, either because Iraqi drivers had trouble with those manual shifters, or because Saddam had trouble with money due to the Iran-Iraq War. GM-Canada sold the other half of the order in Canada at knockdown prices.

Here's the Airfix 1/32 scale Lotus Cortina. They also did a Ford Zodiac in the same series. Back in Feb., a mint, bagged Cortina kit sold on eBay for $69.03 with 12 bids, plus $12 shipping from the UK.