Mike999

That one's a success if you got it together! And that's a nice clean build. "Ill-fitting little nightmare" applied to most RPM kits I tackled. For a long time they were the only game in town for a WWI Renault FT-17 tank in 1/35 scale. Some resin detail/conversion sets for that one practically re-built the whole kit. The RPM kits have thankfully been retired by the excellent MENG FT-17's. Some of those have full interior and engine detail, and offer a choice between riveted or welded turrets plus other options. The hand-painted camo is probably about right for a paint job applied in the field, with brooms and big paintbrushes. The only other thing I'd do is give it a dark wash, to pop out the detail on all those bolts and hinges. But sometimes getting a kit built and painted is enough of a struggle.

Great job! Your wood decal came out great. It really looks like highly varnished wood. We don't get many small boat kits here in the USA, either.

And not just on eBay. I saw the racing version for sale on Saturday 2/17/2018, at the big kit swap meet in Salisbury, NC. It was still shrink-wrapped and the price tag on it was $100.

At a local flea market recently, a vendor had 2 promos for sale: AMT '60 Ford, in a nice white-over-blue factory paint job, and a white Jo-Han '58 Cadillac. They were filthy, cracked/broken, missing wheels/other parts, and warped. The poor '60 Ford looked like a banana. I was checking them out, trying to decide if they were worth haggling over just for the remaining chrome and interior parts. The vendor said: "Real promos! $50 each! They go for over $75 on eBay!" Uhhh...not in that condition, they don't. At that starting price, I wasn't even willing to try and haggle with him. You can also find a lot of UN-real promos on eBay: glue-bomb kits with all the custom parts and decals stuck on them, advertised as "promos." That usually seems to be done out of ignorance more than dishonesty. Vendors who don't know much about models probably take a quick look thru eBay Completed Items, see something that looks sort of like their kit, and think: "Promo! Ka-Ching!" Here's an early AMT Falcon chassis with the writing on it mentioned earlier. The same chassis with advertising was used for the promos and kits. I think AMT only did that in 1962, but I'm not sure:

Same here. It's fun trying to get some variations on that drab and boring "Black Hole" look that a black interior can sometimes have. Here's one paint set I have that helps, the Lifecolor "Black Rubber Shades & Co." These range from a blue-grayish-black (Vulcanized Rubber) to a very dark flat black (Deep Cockpit). These are acrylics. Straight from the bottle they're thick, but they thin down well and work great with either brush-painting or airbrushing.

Here's a link to a website that covers radio systems used by the California Highway Patrol from 1938 to the present. Lots of photos useful for detailing any police cars. Also interesting info and trivia, like a photo of the CHP experimenting with Dash-Cams in the late 1930s, and a '53 Chevy equipped with radar. http://www.wb6nvh.com/CHP/CHP1.htm

In the same antique-car vein (and nearly the same scale): this kit seems pretty obscure, even though it was only released in 2014. The Mach-2 1/35 scale 1914 Renault "Taxi to the Marne." Replica of the Paris taxis used to carry French soldiers to the battle front in WWI. Mach-2 is a French company, most famous for kitting obscure aircraft in 1/72 scale. All their kits are limited-run plastic, and according to the internet, can be...challenging to build. AFAIK, this was the first specific kit of the taxi. Though for many years, military modelers have been converting Airfix and Pyro 1/32 scale Renault kits into the Marne Taxi. Photo of a built kit from Scale Model News. And yes, the kit does include that mile-marker stone in the photo.

Some inspiration for those who want to use the station wagon option. I posted elsewhere about the custom-built Cadillac station wagons used by the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. The cars hauled guests and their luggage in from the airport. These wagons were called "Broadmoor Skyviews" for the Plexiglas panels in the roof. Here's a Hemmings article about the 1959 Broadmoor Skyview. It was built on a Sayers & Scovill hearse body, with further mods by Hess & Eisenhardt. Now if I can just find enough luggage in my Gimcrack Stash... https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2017/03/07/a-room-with-a-view-1959-cadillac-broadmoor-skyview/

Looks good. Don't think I'd have the nerve to try that little thing in 1/72. I have the Hobby Boss 1/35 scale V-100 kit, which looks hard enough. When I worked in Saudi Arabia, I often saw the later V-150 version of that vehicle. The Saudi National Guard used them.

Those Panhards are interesting. Here's a link showing all 3 built up. The page says "There are only this 3 kits in this series." Looking around the net, it seems they were also released by a company named Holland Model Kits. http://members.ziggo.nl/dwijsman/Invoegen/europeinsert.htm

Wow! $565, plus $24 shipping from Italy. And it got 29 bids. I'm older than dirt, but I don't think I've ever seen that Harley drag bike before. Thanks.

At the swap meet in Salisbury, NC on Saturday 2/17, I came across some resin bodies by a company I'd never heard of, Fast Trax Resins. They are in Troutman, NC and their boxes show a website address that does not work, so I posted their Facebook page below. These are some of the sharpest, thinnest and cleanest resin bodies I've ever seen. This '61 Falcon comes with vac-formed glass, bumpers and red taillights (but no chrome). Sorry for the big photos, but I wanted to show the detail. Notice inside the body, you can still see the flashed-over holes to mount mirrors, antennas etc. from the original AMT kit. Plus the small pins where the interior mounts! The vendor at the swap meet said Fast Trax uses "pressure resin molding." Two of the photos show the Fast Trax body mocked up with original AMT Falcon interior, chassis and glass. As you can see, everything is a drop-fit and it's almost ready to drive away! https://www.facebook.com/fast.trax.71/

My haul from the big Salisbury, NC swap meet yesterday. Finally got the stuff inventoried and listed in the spread sheets... Entex 1/16 scale '37 Packard Formal Sedan, still shrink-wrapped AMT '62 Lincoln convertible, unbuilt in original box; small tire mark on the hood, easily fixed. Otherwise mint, with uncut decals etc. AMT- ERTL Fireball 500, cheap and mostly wanted for parts and the small trailer. Bandit Resins Chevy 250 6-cylinder engine and '75-76 Ford pickup grille Monogram '32 Ford roadster "Drag Strip Hot Rod" - SSP reissue of the '50s kit with the 2-piece body, driver figure and Mercury flathead. Nostalgia! Revell '32 Ford Roadster "Classic Cruisers," 1/25 scale. Revell '56 Chevy Del Ray 2-dr sedan; original with purple/white car on box Revell '90 Mustang LX, with CHP parts: missed them at the big Ollie's sale... Fast Trax resin conversions, '61 Falcon 2-dr and '71 Trans Am: I'll try to take some photos and write these up for the Resin thread. They are VERY well done, almost as thin as styrene and needing very little cleanup. The underside of the Falcon body even has the depressions from the original kit, that were drilled out for mirrors, antennas etc. AND the 2 small pins that hold the interior in place! I tested an original AMT Falcon interior and chassis and they fit perfectly. Did the same with the Trans Am, which is made to fit the 1/25 MPC kits. Both kits come with clear red tail-lights, and the Falcon has vac-formed glass. The Trans Am includes a new hood, shaker scoop/base, grilles, rear bumper etc. No plated parts, though. A bunch of other gewgaws and gimcracks: complete 4-wheel trailer in a bag, from one of the Revell dirt-bike combo kits, I think; a little box stuffed full of MPC Jeepster parts, including the half-hardtop and a complete raised soft top (but no snow plow); some old AMT stuffed animals, concrete blocks and other neat junk.

Round 2 would make a lot of people happy if they re-issued the Racer's Wedge along with the other half of that Model King kit - the big Open Road camper. Based on eBay/aftermarket prices, they are hard to find. I went to that big kit swap meet in Salisbury, NC yesterday. Lots of vendors, but I don't remember seeing a single one of those kits. I bought several when they came out from Model King, because I'd been trying to find that camper for years. Just checked eBay. A Racer's Wedge/Open Road Camper is up now, open but sealed inside. The auction has 7 days to run, so I guess it just went up this morning. It already has 7 bids and is up to $35.00.

Probably not, but luggage and some other neat stuff might. We know the molds still exist for the "Gangbusters" '28 Lincoln and '32 Chrysler, they've been re-issued. Those things were full of goodies - wooden crates (great for vintage trucks); clear bottles with label decals; weapons and figures. The Chrysler had a safe with opening door. With a little work, that could be turned into a van refrigerator, a vintage TV set, etc. We haven't seen the "Gangbusters" '27 Lincoln roadster for many years. But it had a working golf-bag door on the passenger side, complete with a golf bag and 5 individual golf clubs. It also included a rare female "gun moll" figure. On edit: American here and I also got the 404 Error repeatedly yesterday.

Luggage, definitely! As part of the...(drumroll, please)...Gimcrack Parts Pack! Snow skis and rack from the MPC '60 Vette. Some suitcases/luggage, and the big trunk rack from the '64 Lincoln. Stuffed animals, bongo drums, tape decks, TV sets...all those nifty vintage accessories that made old 3-in-1 kits so much fun. As somebody else said, the "Car Show Accessories" from the 1989 Customizing Series is already a Parts Pack unto itself. Fujimi has done this for a long time. They have an accessory set with a teddy bear, cigarette pack/lighter, other neat stuff and a Japanese vending machine. They do another set of (Japanese) police car accessories, with helmets, billy clubs etc. And they sell their snow skis and small surfboards in another pack, shown below:

Back in the 1980s, Revell-Germany did a Mercedes 200TD as a pretty neat German fire chief's car. Aoshima later re-boxed it as a civilian 230TE, and it has also appeared in a Revell-Germany box as a basic 230TE. Any version of it is VERY hard to find these days.

(I tried to post this many times and kept getting a 404 Error. Seems to work now...) Did great at this show today, and it was a blast meeting VW93! This was about a 4-hour drive for me but absolutely worth it. Will inventory my haul tomorrow. But I got some things I've been trying to find forever, at less than eBay prices with no shipping to pay. If you're looking for parts, this is really a great show. Some vendors have every part neatly organized and bagged, down to tail-lights and bumpers. Others just bring in boxes full of random part-built kits, glue-bombs and such. Since I wanted to be at the show bright & early, I drove up last night and got a hotel room. For anyone else thinking of doing that next year, there's a Holiday Inn Express and a Marriott Courtyard right off of Interstate-85, at the first Salisbury exit (Innes St.). It's a five-minute drive from there to the Civic Center, where the show is held.

True. In North Hollywood during the 1980s, I lived near the storage lot of a company that provided TV/movie cars. They always had a bunch of those 77-78 "Pl-odges" sitting around. TV is still not too picky. On the ID Channel recently, I saw a true-crime story that was set in Illinois, IIRC. But the cop cars had the very distinctive LAPD door markings (the city seal of Los Angeles). So I guess they shot that scene in L.A. and rented the cars locally. For those 77-78 Pl-odges, there was one other big difference. The Calif. Highway Patrol only painted the roof and front doors white. LAPD painted the roof and all 4 doors white.

I always get confused over who used what, and have to go ask Mr. Internet. (Even though I lived in SoCal at the time and saw these cars all over the place.) The California Highway Patrol used 77-78 Dodge Monacos. The LAPD used the nearly-identical Plymouth Fury. There have been a couple of threads on this board about the Yodel 1/24 Monaco/Fury kits where this was discussed. Along with replacement 3D-printed grilles and other fun stuff. Here's one thread:

I sure wish they would provide some more "normal" wheels/tires too. But that probably won't happen. Long as I'm dreaming, I wish they'd provide an extra decal sheet and some optional roof lights. That Monaco was a very popular cop car. But R2 probably plans to sell a ton of these "as is," to police car AND Batman fans. So I'm expecting the usual straight re-issue with nothing changed but the price. Speaking of that...I just checked these on eBay. The RARE! COLLECTIBLE BATMAN MOVIE!! goons are up to their usual tricks with the high asking prices. But checking "Completed Items," most of these kits seem to go for $20-30, and some have free shipping. With current new-kit prices being $29.99 at Hobby Lobby, you might find this one cheaper on eBay than in the stores.

Scotch-Brite pads have a couple of other modeling uses: 1. In the Other Model Car Magazine this month, there's a tip about using them as masks to get random rust patches on a weathered paint job. Slice off a very thin piece of the Scotch-Brite pad, hold it up or attach it to the model and shoot rust-colored paint thru it. Haven't tried it yet, but plan to soon. 2. Here's a weird trick that worked so well it surprised me. I have a beater '78 Trans Am project going. I had the AMT "Pro Shop" version bought cheap at a flea market. It's pre-painted glossy black with all the gold pin-striping already in place. So I wanted to dull down the black paint but leave most of the fancy gold decals alone. Carefully rubbing the finish with a fine Scotch-Brite pad did exactly that. Now the paint looks nearly flat black but the gold decals are still there. I did "chip" some of the gold intentionally; all that took was bearing down harder with the Scotch-Brite pad.

Zombie thread resurrected! Don't shoot it in the head, I like it! I think most old-timers know about this gobbling turkey. But newbies may not, and I'm pretty sure a re-issue of this thing is STILL lurking out there in an ITALERI box. The REVELL 1/12 scale Ferrari 275 GTB, with box art showing the real car. But what's inside the box looks nothing much like that. It looks more like the RENWAL box art, which is where it originally came from. The horror...the horror... I just re-read this whole thread because it was fun. On the first page, way back in 2013, Skip talked about fistfights and near-riots breaking out at Toys R Us over Hot Wheels cars. That reminded me of the Beanie Baby craziness. When I lived in Los Angeles, there was a PlayCo toy store near me (a chain long since gone out of business). PlayCo had a great scale model section and often discounted kits. During the 1990s, I would NEVER go there on a Saturday morning. That's when the Beanie Baby Zombies attacked. The store was full of yelling, pushing people and you had to stand in long lines to pay. According to this article in Fortune, at one point 10% of all eBay sales were Beanie Babies. Then the market crashed... http://fortune.com/2015/03/11/beanie-babies-failure-lessons/

A 007 diorama? I've always wanted to build a diorama of the 007 Aston-Martin under construction at "Q" branch: .303 machine guns on the workbench for the fenders; trunk open with the oil/smoke tank being installed, etc. Maybe even a figure of Mr. Q himself... Aoshima did a special "Goldfinger" edition of its 1/24 Aston-Martin DB-5. It comes with figures of Bond and Oddjob, plus the famous attaché case and AR-7 rifle. The figures are in a separate box inside the kit box, with a black base. They are pretty nicely done. (Bad) pix below. The kit also has all the 007 doodads: bulletproof shield for the trunk, extending tire-slashers, revolving license plates, etc. It is a curbside kit with no engine. Back in 1992, Dave Worrall wrote a great book about the 007 Aston, "The Most Famous Car in the World." Along with lots of fascinating trivia, it included rare studio photos of the Aston being modified for its role in "Goldfinger." I was lucky enough to make some work trips to Japan in the 1990s and found a copy of that book in a Tokyo hobby shop, along with the very rare 34-page paperback supplement for it. It's Unobtainium these days and should be re-printed.

Maybe somebody should start a "Trading Post" thread for Hobby Lobby trades. Could be that some people bought multiples of the same kits because they were so cheap. They might be willing to let 1 go, in trade for something they didn't find. We did this a few months ago after an Ollie's sale and it went pretty well. I probably wouldn't be participating, since I only found 2 discounted kits at HL (AMT '51 Chevy convert and MPC '75 Vette for $7.50 each).