Mike999

Missing Link makes a nice up-top for the AMT '59 Imperial. Maybe others, I didn't check all his eBay listings. Here's a thread I posted about it, with a pic:

I've worked with both of the Tamiya epoxy putties, the "Surface Putty" and the "Quick Type." I really like the Quick Type, but have to be careful about mixing up too much. It starts setting up pretty quickly, and dries rock-hard in about 6 hrs. Here's an article about it. http://www.scalewarmachines.com/allcontent/tamiya-quick-type-putty

If you want to go more vintage, here's a real beauty. 1931 Model A tow truck for a Gilmore gas station. Gilmore of Los Angeles called itself "the world's most unusual oil company." The 2014 book about the company, "Roar With Gilmore," is a great read full of vintage photos in B&W and color. Looks like it's out of print right now, but definitely worth getting if you're "a sucker for old gas stations." https://www.roddersjournal.com/shop/roar-with-gilmore/

Maybe Tamiya AS-14 Olive Green. It comes in a spray can and doesn't have the brownish shading of Olive Drab. Listed as a USAF color. But I recently used it on a Marine Corps vehicle (they used to be painted "Forest Green," again more green than Army olive drab). Looking around military modeling sites should also give you some ideas. Missing-Lynk.com is a good site.

Last night it was 36 degrees here, with huge downpours of rain and thunderstorms. Not just-passing-thru storms, either. These were shake-the-house thunder and light-up-the-whole-sky lightning storms. And they went on nearly all night. Thunderstorms in FEBRUARY? That's extremely weird. We usually get those kind of storms in summer.

Great model build and a greater review of it (as usual). It reminds me a little of America's first jet, the Bell XP-59 Airacomet. Which I guess has the excuse that it WAS the first and jet designers were still trying to find their way. According to Wiki: "A handful of the first Airacomets had open-air flight observer stations (similar to those of biplanes) later cut into the nose." That's a terrifying thought. Bell was always coming up with...interesting designs. Like the XFM Airacuda "heavy fighter" shown below; 2 pusher engines with a pair of 37mm cannons and their gunners in front of those engines. There is a 1/72 scale kit of this thing from Valom. But it's a short-run kit, and even master modeler Steve Zaloga had some trouble getting it together. I have one and my skills should equal it in about 57 years.

Here's another Brat kit for $275.00. Famous Last Words in the listing: "This one is pretty hard to find and as far as I know, has never been reissued." The same seller has a 1/20 Lindberg "Jurassic Park" Ford Explorer for $95 and an AMT/ERTL '92 Camaro for $64.95. But there's an Italeri Ferrari 250 GTO kit for $41.00 + $9.95 shipping. And a Revell Cadillac Eldorado Brougham kit for the same price. Both of those kits seem harder to find these days than the Explorer or Camaro. The seller's listings also have some built kits but mostly general junk like dolls and games. Looks like this seller probably lucked into an estate sale full of models. https://www.ebay.com/itm/AMT-Matchbox-Subaru-Brat-Model-kit-sealed-NEW-original-Pick-Up-Truck-VERY-NICE/183686478627?hash=item2ac4913b23:g:tdcAAOSwqfpZ2png

You can even buy a 1/20 scale model of a plastic injection molding machine!

I did this one by sprinkling the embossing powder over thinned flat-black paint. It's a Maisto '55 Buick CHP car interior. A working car, so that's why the interior is a little grungy. I've bought the embossing powder at Hobby Lobby and Michael's. Recently at HL I found some in a turquoise color that should be great for Fifties and Sixties cars. Having said that, I sure like the big set of the stuff that Steven posted.

The kind of Survivor/Glue (and Dirt) Bombs I like to find. I found all 4 of these together at a flea market. Four 1960 AMT kits, with nearly all the custom parts and decals used (naturally!): Ford pickup with trailer, T-Bird, Corvair and Corvette. At first I thought the Ford pickup was missing the stock tail lights. But they're glued onto the trailer. All those parts in the trailer are stuff that just fell off the models, because the glue was so old. The Ford pickup had all the "service" parts loose in the bed: gas cans, tool box etc. None were glued down, which is very rare. I sold the '60 Corvette on eBay, just because I wasn't very interested in it. It had the clear hardtop glued firmly in place.

Here's a link to a 2014 build thread for the Chrysler Phaeton. In Casey's pic above, you can see that the chassis is molded in one piece and the springs etc. are all separate parts. Make sure the chassis isn't warped before you start building everything else, especially if you have one of the later re-issues. The later re-issues also have quite a bit of flash, at least mine do. The builder in the link complained about the fiddly working steering, something common to all the Gangbuster kits. These are not "quick-build" kits, but they can come out looking great.

For those who plan on building the Bussing 8000...I just found this article over at Curbside Classic. Lots of pix from a German vintage big-truck show in Oct. 2018. This should give you a few ideas! http://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/truck-show-classics-heavy-german-conventionals-autobahn-dinosaurs/#more-306707

You can! Sort of. I buy a lot of old kits at flea markets, yard sales etc. They often come with several bottles of 15-cent Pactra or Testors paint stuffed in the box. Sometimes along with a tube of vintage glue and paintbrushes. The paints tend to be basic colors like Flat Black, Flat White, Red, etc. Oh, and Silver. I must have 5 or 6 bottles of very old Silver paint. For fun, I've used some of that paint, both for brush painting and thru an airbrush. If the original owner put the cap on tight (or never opened it), it works like any other enamel paint. Just a little thicker, usually. If the paint has been opened, sometimes it's dried up hard as a rock and I toss it. Using that stuff takes me straight back to the days of building a kit in about 30 minutes, while parked in front of the TV.

I always do that when selling on eBay. Buyers often win multiple auctions, and in my listings, I tell them to either ask for a combined shipping total, or wait for my invoice with the total after the auction. But buyers often pay immediately, and get socked by eBay for shipping charges on every item. When I go to the Post Office and get the actual shipping cost, I refund any difference thru PayPal. As you mentioned, some of those "handling" charges eBay sellers tack onto the shipping are just ridiculous. However much I want a kit, I refuse to deal with greedheads who do that. I once did a trade with a guy on this board. He's on the West Coast, I'm on the East Coast. So both of us are at the furthest ends of the USPS route. Both of our kits were BIG, and nowadays USPS charges by size and weight. It was sort of funny: both of us paid exactly the same amount of shipping. $17.10, as I remember.

Understand the rating system, but not quite what I meant. I'm talking about the seller who's been on eBay, say, less than a year. But already has many, many positive feedbacks. Which I guess could be just evidence of hard work, but always looked a little suspicious to me. Especially if the seller is charging higher than normal prices, doesn't combine shipping, etc.

That's shill bidding, which is strictly forbidden. According to eBay policy: "If you think that another member is shill bidding, you don't need to report it to us. eBay has a number of systems in place to detect and monitor bidding patterns and practices. If we identify any malicious behavior, we'll take steps to prevent it." I've often wondered about Shill Feedback. Sometimes I see an eBay seller who's fairly new, but already has lots of 100% positive feedback. Since every feedback is tied to an actual item sold & delivered, I'm not exactly sure how a seller would pull that off. Not without hundreds of relatives or friends...or sock accounts...to buy stuff and give feedback. So I'm probably just being paranoid.

To be pedantic about it, as usual: the square-edged cross on German armor (and aircraft) was the Balkenkreuz. The Iron Cross is the German medal later made popular by surfers and Tom Daniel. You're right, the Germans in WWII rarely painted swastikas on tanks. They did use big swastika flags for air recognition, to make sure German vehicles didn't get attacked by their own Stukas. The pic below is a contrary example. This captured T-34 has the whole commander's hatch painted with a swastika. The painting is crudely done, probably by the crew in the field. After about mid-1943, as the tides of war shifted, that would have been too dangerous. By then, that swastika would most likely draw the attention of a Russian IL-2 Sturmovik. Or "flying tank."

Great job! The camouflage looks like the type that might be used for winter exercises in places like Norway, where US forces often deployed for joint maneuvers. When I was in the Marine Corps long ago, the Goat was still in service. We sometimes saw them running around Camp Pendleton. On-topic for a car forum! The Gama Goat was originally powered by a Corvair air-cooled engine. But the weight of the vehicle kept going up. By the time it went in service, the 'Vair engine was severely stressed and often overheated. The designers switched to a 3-cylinder Detroit Diesel engine. It was mounted right behind the driver and LOUD, so hearing protection was mandatory. And while the Goat was technically amphibious, that feature required special training for the drivers. Otherwise it could turn into a submarine.

I sure remember that. When eBay was still fairly new, I used to list kits for friends. In exchange for a percentage of their gross sales (before eBay fees etc.), I did all the work. Back then, you had to provide your own photo-hosting and it was generally a lot harder to sell than it is now. One day I went in a small toy/hobby store. The owner had heard I sold on eBay and asked me to sell some kits for him. Naturally, these were all the loser kits that had been gathering dust forever on his shelves. He insisted that the Starting Bid for each one had to be his full retail price. I tried explaining that would never work. For one thing, the Starting Fees alone would eat him alive. For another, the buyer had to pay shipping, which made his kits even more expensive. And since most of the kits he wanted to list were already on eBay at low starting prices, buyers had plenty of choices that worked against him. He didn't want to hear any of that, and in the end I didn't even try selling his kits. But I see that his pricing strategy of Wishful Thinking is still alive and well on eBay to this very day.

Just to confuse us, AMT used the "Connoisseur Classics" name twice. Something to be aware of when shopping for old kits. You're right, the older CC issues from the '70's (red car on box) did not have the Gangbuster parts. The later issue in 1987-ish (tan car on box) did have those parts, but not the motorcycle. It has the figures, weapons, a safe with opening door, jewel box etc. Be warned that the Gangbuster parts are NOT mentioned anywhere on the box of that later re-issue. I've picked up several of those later kits just to get the Gangbuster parts. And the nice straight-8 Chrysler engine.

Same here, but I'm not that far away from you. 60s-70s earlier in the week, temp dropped and cloudy yesterday. Today is colder and darker. Went out to the store a little while ago and some rain mixed with sleet hit me as I came out. Expecting more of the same later.

Posting this in full size so you can appreciate the VAN-tastic 1970's goodness of these MPC kits. Geegaws galore. A sink! Pillows for the couch! A TV! Check out the cutaway drawing on the upper right side of the box-top. MPC released a baffling variety of Dodge vans back then, most with some variation of this basic interior. They all seemed to have those goofy "shingle" side panels on the interior. Or maybe those aren't shingles. Maybe that's sound insulation, and this was really meant to be a Serial-Killer Van in disguise...

I was just recently looking thru a "Boss Nova," the last re-issue of the '63 Chevy II wagon as a funny car. The following extras are still in that version: chrome tape recorder, fire extinguisher, helmet\face mask, oil and gas cans, torque wrench, tool box and parachute.

My extensive 30 seconds of research says there wouldn't be much difference between a Henderson and an Ace. Just enough to avoid copyright infringement. William Henderson sold his motorcycle company to Excelsior (Schwinn) and worked there until 1919, when he left and started Ace Motor Corporation. He was killed testing a new Ace motorcycle in 1922. Indian bought Ace in 1927 and named its 4-cylinder motorcycle the "Indian Ace." But that only lasted for one year, until Indian modified the design further and dropped the Ace name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Motor_Corporation

Seeing all that AMT stuff in Casey's post above jogged my memory. Some of the old AMT 3-in-1 kits included a TV set. If you have one of those TVs, look at it closely. You might see Alfred Hitchcock's profile on the screen. His "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" was a very popular TV show in the early Sixties, and I always thought it was neat that AMT paid homage to it.