
Mike999
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Right next door to you in SC. My Mom had that same problem a couple of years ago, with a bathroom that was added to her house in the 1970s. She called a local contractor & family friend who started digging...and found that the original contractor had never connected the lines from the new bathroom to the septic tank! That was amazing. For 40 yrs. the line had just drained into the ground, not into the tank. That bathroom didn't get used much except when I was visiting, so nobody noticed in all that time. But in 2015 I moved back here from Calif. and stayed with Mom while I looked for a house. Took a shower every morning. One day I saw "black water" backing up thru the shower drain... I'm irked by contractors in general down here. I even wrote a letter to the local paper complaining about it, which they published. I wrote that all the local contractors must be rich, because they never return phone calls and often won't even bother to answer their phones. Even contractors who advertise in the local paper and the internet won't get back to you. Incredibly frustrating. Recently I badly needed my gutters cleaned. In the recent heavy rains I had water overflowing them in several places. I don't mind doing that work myself. But I live alone and don't like walking on the roof with nobody else around. At least need somebody watching to call 9-1-1 in case I slip. I'm friends with a couple of E.R. nurses and doctors. They tell me that, by far, the number-one injury they see is people falling off roofs. That includes clumsy old geezers like me, and professional contractors. After getting the runaround and no return phone calls from several gutter contractors, I found ONE who grudgingly agreed to do the work. Quoted me a price of $200 and said he would "get back" to me, since he was real busy at the time. Of course, he never did get back to me and still hasn't. Last Sat., when the rain let up for a few days, I finally drafted the 15-yr-old son of some family friends. The kid is raising money for college and does all kinds of handyman work, including gutters. I helped and his Mom stood guard to make the 9-11 call if necessary. We had the job done real quick. It has rained heavily for the past few days and the gutters are working great, no over-spillage. His Mom complained that I paid him too much. No I didn't! And I plan to use him again in a few months, when the gutters need cleaning again.
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Takom is doing a Hagglunds BV-206 in 1/35 scale, complete with a full interior. That's one I really never expected to see in plastic, even though it's a widely-used vehicle all over the world. The U.S. Army used it as the SUSV (Small Unit Support Vehicle), and so did the Marine Corps. Firing Line did a resin BV-206 a few years ago, which was nice. Except for the individual track links, which for some insane reason they did in photo-etched metal. I have that resin kit, and may have to dump it on eBay now and get the Takom kit.
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Same here. I recently picked up the Airfix 1/48 Gloster Meteor F8 on sale and it looks really great. Complete with removable engine covers and engines. Speaking of sales, I don't want to start another thread so I'll just drop this here: Hobbylinc.com is having its usual weekly sale. Lots of aircraft, armor and aftermarket stuff. But I thought this board might be interested in these. (I have no connection to HobbyLinc, other than being a customer): AMT #AMT756 2012 Corvette Coupe $9.05 Revell-Monogram #RMX851972 Ford Expedition Police SNAP $9.05 Revell-Monogram #RMX854922 Ed Roth "Tweedy Pie" $16.82 Diopark #DIO35018 German Civilian Car w/living supplies $27.73 - this one is the wrong scale, in 1/35. ONE-THIRTY-FIFTH. But it's a model of a 4-door Mercedes W123, and all 4 doors and the trunk open. Original retail on this one was $50-60 or even more, so that's a great price. It comes with a roof rack and a good selection of "living supplies" including suitcases and duffel bags.
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Interesting. I stopped at the Hobby Lobby today in Anderson, SC. None of those kits were in yet. But the big sale is DEFINITELY over. All the kits that were marked down to $7.99, like the '76 Torino and '57 Ford, are back up to the regular prices. Also hit an Ollie's. It still had quite a few kits: Danica Patrick Fords, Lindberg Dodge L-700s (chrome tanker and car hauler with '40 Ford) and Bugatti. The pre-painted '14 Mustang. And the usual clutter of Lindberg pirate ships, aircraft and Kettenkrads.
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What Are You Building Today?
Mike999 replied to oldcarfan's topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
What I've been building for the past 2 centuries, or at least it feels that way. The Italeri 1/24 scale Armed Pickup, better known as a Toyota BJ-44 Land Cruiser. Building it as used by the Amal militia in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war(s). Here's a quick, lousy pic of the progress so far. Getting close to the end...I hope... -
Here's a 2-part article about building the Heller Paris Bus, from Scale Model International magazine, December 1983 and January 1984 issues. For all the great detail Heller put into this kit, they left out the fuel tank. Maybe Heller thought nobody would look underneath once the kit was built... https://public.fotki.com/modeltrucks25thscale/model_magazine_articles/scale_models_intern/smi_1983_12_december/sm_1983_12_december_01.html https://public.fotki.com/modeltrucks25thscale/model_magazine_articles/scale_models_intern/smi_1984_01_januari/
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The 1/32 '40 Ford sedan should have some crossover appeal to military builders. There's still a serious lack of American WWII staff car and civilian kits. ICM has done just about every possible German WWII staff car, plus Joe Stalin's Packard, in 1/35 scale. But no Fords, Plymouths etc. The AMT All-Stars kit is a 2-dr. where most staff cars were 4-dr. But it's still good conversion fodder for...something. Like this '38 or '39 Ford sedan, converted to a truck. Photographed in Indonesia, 1946:
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A kit? I've never seen before ....
Mike999 replied to Dale Gribble's topic in Car Kit News & Reviews
Definitely from 1980, since it was a tie-in to the movie "Used Cars." The kit tie-in sure didn't help sell movie tickets. "Used Cars" bombed at the box office, despite being executive-produced by Steven Spielberg. And written by a couple of guys who would go on to many bigger things, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. Wiki guesses one reason it bombed was the black humor. Which is probably why I have a copy and still watch it every now and then. Since this was the "Malaise Era" for cars, here in 2018 it's pretty funny when Kurt Russell & Co. hack into Jimmy Carter's presidential address and run a commercial for their used-car lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Used_Cars -
Porsche Outlaws & Hot Rods
Mike999 replied to afx's topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
Matt Hummel's barn-find 356. It was literally parked in a barn for a couple of decades. When dragged out it barely ran, the electrical system had major gremlins and the interior was (and is) pretty much shot. Hummel bought it from a one-line, no-photos Craigslist ad for $6,000. He didn't want to restore this car, he wanted to drive it hard just like people did when these cars were new and tearing up the rally courses. To get it running...Porsche purists will hate this part...he dropped in the engine from a 912. The car was featured in Roadkill magazine a while back. A search for "matt hummel Porsche 356" will turn up lots more photos and internet articles about it. -
eBay part seller now gone
Mike999 replied to slusher's topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
Apparently not just a vacation His eBay "About" page says "Last Visited 5-18-2018 01:01:17 PM." His Feedback Profile now says "Not a registered user." -
Thanks for the correction. SKIF is another Ukrainian model maker with some weird quirks (and bad box art). Their kits contained so much mold release liquid, sometimes puddles of the stuff would be lying in the inner plastic bag. Years ago, military modelers got excited when SKIF announced a new T-55 tank kit with full interior and engine detail. Not so exciting when the kit came out. It was cartoonishly misproportioned and just didn't look right. Which is pretty amazing, since the T-55 was built in the Ukraine and good source material should have been close at hand. Other companies have done better 1/35 kits of almost everything SKIF ever released. Except the BTR-152 series, and somebody will probably tackle that one soon.
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Me either. Maybe if they throw in an enhanced decal sheet with lots of vintage service-station markings and such. Licensing fees might kill that. But the last 2 Lindberg versions had some nice vintage Sinclair and Red Crown decals, so maybe. I wish they'd really go vintage and do some Gilmore decals. Gilmore was an oil company that people actually liked. For those unfamiliar with this kit...you do NOT want the earlier version, shown below with the red stripe on the box. The box screams "Molded in Hi-Gloss Plastic." It sure is, it's molded in a really ugly, hard-to-cover screaming bright yellow. You want the one Robert mentioned, the last version sold at Hobby Lobby and molded in white. As he mentioned, I think HL's full price on that one was about $15.99, so it was a real steal with the coupon.
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Good job and looks like a fun project! Best movie dialogue ever about Hollywood was in the 1980 horror movie "The Howling." A young cop and an old cop are driving down Hollywood Blvd. in their LAPD cruiser. The young cop looks at all the people on the street and asks: "Where do they come from? Where are they going?" Old cop replies: "I don't know where they come from. But they've got to where they're going." (The script was written by John Sayles, who also wrote/directed "Eight Men Out" and many other good movies.) I was living in Hollywood around that time. On Carlton Way, between Hollywood & Sunset Blvds. and right off of Western Ave. Hollywood is one of the most fun places in the world to visit and hang out. But living there was a real PITA. Especially in summer, when hordes of tourists, transients, wanna-be movie stars and just general weirdos pour in. You learned pretty quickly not to ever leave anything visible in your car. And if you had an older car without a hood lock, you had to buy a heavy chain and padlock for the hood. If not your battery would be stolen. Our apartment building had that happen continuously, and it had "secure" underground parking. Obviously not secure enough...
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Porsche Outlaws & Hot Rods
Mike999 replied to afx's topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
Chris Banning's "King of the Hill" '73 Porsche Carrera 911 RSR. Banning took about 2 years to build it (and a trip to the Porsche factory in Germany). Its sole purpose in life was winning races on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. Your eyes aren't playing tricks, the top is chopped. It's also acid-dipped and stitch-welded with a full roll cage and Lexan windows. The car still existed a few years ago and Banning intended to put it back on the road. Weird coincidence, but I just posted this link yesterday in the "Trading" forum here. It's 348 pages of photos and info about Porsches and other cars that raced Mulholland. The very first page shows the RSR parked in Banning's living room in 1978. He had no garage then, and put it in the living room to hide it from police helicopters. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/323773-what-happened-mulholland-king-hill-rsr.html -
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Or some of their 1/35 military kits, and those of their Eastern European neighbors. For years military modelers needed a kit of the UAZ-469, the standard modern "jeep" of the Warsaw Pact used by everybody. A short-run kit was finally released...or escaped...around 1999. I think it originated with some obscure Russian outfit. The Polish company Military Wheels finally got the molds, and at least issued the kit with useful instructions. Some versions had ugly 1-piece plastic wheels and tires, but Military Wheels eventually upgraded it with separate rubber tires. This kit was so bad that I'm pretty sure Eduard never did a photo-etch set for it. And Eduard did PE sets for everything. As military kit expert Cookie Sewell wrote in reviewing this beastie: "The body proper consists of 9 parts and a separate chassis...This type of construction usually speaks to alignment and fit problems, so be prepared." That was an understatement. He didn't mention the massive amounts of flash. A 9-piece body on a tiny 1/35 scale vehicle? That makes the Revell multi-piece bodies look like a breeze. If you want a kit of this vehicle, get the Trumpeter UAZ-469 that was released not long ago. Also submitting it for consideration in the "Ugly Box Art" Oscar category. Though the burning house in the background adds a little atmosphere.
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I suspect the Revell '76 Torino box was an homage - or something - to the box art for the Aurora Jaguar XKE from 1963. "Hanging out with jet fighters." Revell-o-gram reissued the Jag with that original artwork back in the 1990s, along with the Aston-Martin DB-4, Maserati 3500 GT and the Ford LeMans GT. As a trained artist on a modeling forum pointed out, that Aurora art has its own problems with proportion etc. He noted that the crewman climbing the ladder would be about 10 feet tall.
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Stopped in Hobby Lobby to pick up a 24x36 frame for my new "Bullitt" poster. Frames were 50% off this weekend, so that saved me 10 bucks. That left a 40% coupon burning a hole in my cellphone. So I picked up the last AMT "75th Anniversary" White Freightliner SD/DD kit they had on the shelf. I don't build many trucks but that's a really nice one, especially with all the options and extras.
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This thread forced me to go looking at pix of the traffic jams around Woodstock in August 1969. Checking for "Flower Power" cars! I liked this pic: lots of VW Bugs, a couple of VW buses in the background. On the right, looks like somebody kidnapped the family 4-door sedan. What really caught my eye was the guy in the C2 Vette convertible.
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Just FYI, at the local Flea Market this Wednesday, a seller had an original ERTL John Deere 4430 still shrink-wrapped. He was asking $75 but seemed willing to negotiate. Thought about it for a minute just because I really like those original ERTL farm tractor kits. But I have the later AMT reissue of the 4430, which will suit me if I decide to build it.
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AMT '66 Olds 442 W30, hardtop and convertible. With a few EDITS after jogging my memory by looking at the kits & searching... This nice kit was molded in the 1990s, with a detailed multi-part chassis that can be used under many older, undetailed GM A-body car kits. The convertible has an air-conditioning compressor and belts, and a 4-barrel carb. The hardtop is a non-A/C car with 3x2-barrel carbs. The convertible also has a choice of up-top or boot, more parts that might be used on older kits missing an up-top. The up-top is very well done. The only gripe I've heard about the body is the hardtop side trim. It's only correct for either a car with a vinyl roof, or a two-tone car with the top painted. The second-generation hardtop kit has that car on the box art - a two-tone blue 442 with the top painted white. That was a rare combination but was available from the factory. If you want to build a W30 hardtop, avoid the first-generation hardtop kits with the red car on the box, Kit #6268. The front bumper has the parking lights in the wrong place. On W30 cars the parking lights were moved inboard, to clear the air scoops mounted behind the bumper. Non-W30 cars had the parking lights at the corners. (Of course, if you need a non-W30 bumper for a project, you might want to pick up one of those.) AMT corrected that mistake in the second-gen release with the blue and white hardtop on the box (Kit #689). The boxtop of Kit #6268 also shows a red 442 hardtop with the regular side trim, but the actual kit body has the same side trim as Kit #689. These are easy to find and cheap. At the big Ollie's sale in August 2016, the corrected hardtop kit #689 went for $7.99. A check of eBay "Completed Items" shows that a bunch of hardtops and convertibles have recently sold for $10 to $20 and sometimes even less.
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Military Iveco Stralis Hi-Way?
Mike999 replied to Oldmopars's topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
Now just find some Swiss license plates! The Swiss armed forces ordered a bunch of Iveco Stralis trucks in May 2017. And yep, they're painted OD green: https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/mil-log/switzerland-orders-military-trucks-iveco-dv/ -
Fully detailed Airfix James Bond Aston Martin DB-5
Mike999 replied to Dann Tier's topic in WIP: Model Cars
Go back one page, I posted some info about that from Dave Worrall's book "The Most Famous Car in the World." Aston loaned the producers a real DB-5, not a mocked-up DB-4. The loaner was one of the first DB-5's built. The movie producers borrowed a second Aston for chase scenes etc., and IIRC 2 more silver DB-5s to make appearances at movie theaters around the world. Aston eventually got all the loaners back and sold them as regular used cars. Which seems pretty amazing.- 152 replies
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Flea Market Day! Found a big stack of plastic nostalgia. One vendor was selling off his grandfather's model collection. The Aurora 1/32 scale Show Trailer is mint. Ditto for the Revell Ford Auto Transporter, which is still sealed/bagged inside. The Revell MG and Monogram "Forty-Niner" Model T hot rod have minor paint/assembly by an adult. Easily fixed with a chemical bath. The Revell Global Van Lines truck is missing its tires and wheels. I'll try to check back with the seller next week and find them, he had many boxes full of random parts. I also picked up 3 Auto Transporter and 2 Global Van Lines truck boxes that are stuffed with parts. Again, no wheels/tires. One of the neatest things about the Global Van Lines truck is the "Furniture Load" mentioned on the box-top: a couch, 2 chairs, table, refrigerator with separate door...and a grand piano! If anybody needs parts for the Revell Auto Transporter or Global Van Lines kits and wants to trade, message me and I may have the parts (except wheels/tires). I know I have multiple frames, body parts, ramps for the car-hauler trailer, decal sheets for both trucks...and furniture!
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