Mike999

Many of the 1/24 cars will test your masking skills. Heller often molds the side windows as part of the inner door panels. The Hispano-Suiza K4 has a divider between the driver/passenger compartments that is one big clear piece. But it does have very nice detail molded in, for storage cabinets etc. The K4 interior side panels are also clear, and one panel has a built-in clock with readable numbers and hands. That tickled me. An old saying about Heller - they never use 1 part where they can use 5 parts. But that also means they're nicely detailed. Just take your time and study the instructions carefully before gluing anything. Those Renault 4CV's have full engine detail (in the rear) and an opening front trunk. The Paris police version ("Pie") has a different body with cut-down doors, a wooden bench seat and a police radio. So it's not just a "decal job" off of the stock 4CV. It's great to see some real oldies like the Citroen C4 Fourgonette (delivery van) again. Even if it does drive down the eBay price of my originals. Old-timers may remember that those originals were released in a couple of different versions with beautiful decals. One for a Borden's milk delivery truck, and another for Waterman fountain pens.

A few years ago, one of the car-porn TV channels ran a show about the 6 Shelby Daytona Coupes. A guy interviewed on the show worked for Shelby, IIRC, and had a chance to buy a Daytona coupe for something like $4000. He was young and broke, and asked his father for a loan. His Dad said the same thing - it was just "an old race car" and would never be worth anything.

I'd never seen it before either, and don't have much interest in these kind of kits. Rick Polizzi's "Classic Plastic" book estimated its value at $60 boxed, but that book was published in 1996. So it has probably increased. None have come up on eBay for a while, though there are plenty of the identical Drag Nuts (re-issued around 1995). The box was pretty beat up and looked a little water-damaged. No instructions. Partial painting and maybe some gluing, though I didn't look really close. I'd rather save my money for some old AMT or Jo-Han kits.

Here's a pic of 4 different conversions Dodge offered on the A100 van, one being a TV service truck. Not an Econoline, I know, but thought it might help a little. I was thinking of doing an A100 TV repair truck. All the conversions have one thing in common: the tool/storage box mounted behind the passenger seat.

Like everything in life, the Find-My-Phone app can have unintended consequences... "The husband of an alleged cheating wife said he used the “Find My iPhone” app on his phone while looking for a gadget his son misplaced, but along with finding the item, he found his wife in bed with another man. New York Post reports that Sean Donis, 37, located his son’s iPad while using the app, which led him to a master bedroom in Rockland County, New York, home, where he found his naked wife in bed with the owner of the home, his former boss." http://www.crimeonline.com/2017/09/05/husband-catches-wife-cheating-via-phone-app-and-now-faces-charges-of-unlawful-surveillance/

Great work on that oldie, especially the chrome! Now imagine you're at a yard sale or thrift store and come across one of these for a dollar or two...

I DID NOT get this thing today, but saw it at the Flea Market this morning. Where sub-freezing temps made sure I didn't stick around very long. Brrr! Seeing this on a vendor table gave me a chance to delve into some kit history, which I always enjoy. This is the Revell "Korporal Amerika & Road Freak" kit, part of their "Freaky Riders" series released around 1970-71. If it looks familiar, it should. This is the old Ed Roth "Drag Nut" kit with a new name, like the 3 other "Freaky Riders" kits: "Heavy Head" (Mr. Gasser), "Shift Kicker" (Mother's Worry) and "Sleazy Rider" (Brother Rat Fink). IOW, these are Ed Roth kits with no mention of Ed Roth on the boxes or anywhere else. Revell also released them in Mexico (Lodela) and Japan, with the names changed to fit the local language/culture. This Korporal Amerika kit at the flea market was partly painted. The vendor was asking $40 for it.

That wouldn't surprise me. Literal "badge engineering!" But I looked up a couple of Pontiac restorers online and there were some differences when RTS was first introduced in 1974: stiffer front/rear springs, heavy-duty shocks, different front/rear anti-roll bars and firmer suspension bushings. And the GR-70-15 radial tires, of course.

But can you do that with both weapons at the same time? :-) About 100 years ago, I was a Marine Corps drill instructor at MCRD San Diego. The only thing that ever really scared me in that job was taking recruits to the Camp Pendleton pistol range. The M1911 .45s used for training were very old, so they frequently jammed or malfunctioned. If that happened, we told the recruits: "Keep the weapon pointed down-range at all times and raise your other hand." A few geniuses couldn't manage that. They would swing the .45 around and point it directly at our heads. Or jam the barrel into their crotch while furiously trying to work the slide. There's a legend that when Camp Pendleton built a new pistol range, one of the very first rounds ever fired went thru a recruit's foot. That was completely believable. Now about that box art...when did JB get that sporty red stripe painted on his Aston? Why is he blazing away with a pistol when both machine guns are firing? And those machine guns are in the wrong place, in the grille instead of the parking lights. The helicopter seems to have an "M" painted on its nose - is Bond's boss pitching in to help, or just observing a field training exercise? Questions, questions...

Great job on that gorgeous old boat! And for your next project...how about a '58 Imperial 2-door station wagon? The pic below is about the only information I can find on this car, but it looks like at least one was actually built. Somebody made a 1/25 scale resin body/interior of it to fit the AMT chassis - I found one at a kit swap meet back in 2012.

Great work, especially on that Revell kit! I couldn't even get that one built bone-stock. Years ago, Collector Car magazine ran an article on a '56 Cadillac wagon (IIRC) that was custom-built for the actor Burt Lancaster. I went looking and couldn't find it, but I found this beauty. Two of these '56 Caddy wagons, with clear Plexiglas roof panels, were built for the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. They hauled guests from the airport up to the resort. (Just like The Overlook Hotel in "The Shining!") Rumor says Harley Earl himself was involved in designing/building them. This one was on eBay in 2015, with a starting bid of $175K. http://gmauthority.com/blog/2015/04/the-1956-cadillac-wagon-un-woody-marries-utility-and-rarity-ebay-find/

Now here's a great automotive alibi! From the local newspaper, an incident that happened here Friday night... "Bright told police she noticed that the truck was not operating correctly after turning...(she) stopped the truck and discovered that her husband was under the vehicle..." "Discovered" her husband? She had dragged him under the truck for more than a quarter-mile. Mrs. Not-So-Bright, 22, and her husband, 25, had been in an argument so loud and long that it got neighbors out of their houses. Some of those neighbors saw her run over him and called 911.

(grumpy old man rant) That's one reason I NEVER respond to on-line begging asking me to "review my recent purchase" or anything similar. I assume my review will be used to gin up some meaningless rating or popularity contest. That begging has gotten absolutely relentless in the past few years. If I bought a roll of toilet paper from Amazon or eBay, I'm pretty sure they would start bugging me with demands for a review. For example...name omitted in case any lawyers are reading...one Humongous Satellite TV company is currently running endless TV ads. Claims they've been rated the best by their customers for 27 years in a row or something. But I know several people who use that company because they have no other choice. They call it many things, but "the best" is not one of them. So all you marketeers out there: If you DON'T hear from me, consider me happy with the purchase. That's your review. If I'm unhappy you'll definitely hear from me. And not in any way you'll want to use in your advertising (/grumpy old man rant)

I've also found that to be true, having some art-store oil paints and quite a few of the Abteilung oils. Because it's clumpy, the art-store Raw/Burnt Umber makes great 1/25 scale (heavy) grease. I'm also curious about those AK True Metal oils, since I know nothing about them. I recently got the Lifecolor "Guns & Weapons" acrylic paint set, but haven't had a chance to try them yet. They come with 3 "reflecting" metal colors, plus a special Reflecting Agent. (And 2 shades of wood for painting stocks etc.) I've had fun using the Lifecolor "Rubber" acrylic paint set (basically 6 different shades of black).

Check out this super detailed Rommel's Rod. Using rear suspension parts from a TAMIYA 1/35 scale 8-ton German half-track...which fit perfectly! http://www.showrods.com/gallery_pages/rommel_super.html

For a great "simple family car:" several companies made resin parts to convert the Revell '55 and '56 Chevies into 4-door 150 series sedans. Some are just the body, some have the body and corrected 4-door interior door panels, etc. At least one trans-kit for the Revell '56 Chevy had the body, interior panels, and a non-split 4-door front seat. I have that one but don't know who made it. It's very well done, a nice clean casting. Bought it at a kit swap meet. The Los Angeles Police Department used '56 Chevy 4-door 150 sedans, which is what I want to do with it. Not sure if any of these bodies/transkits are currently available, but they sometimes show up on eBay.

For "Two Lane Blacktop" fans, here are some photos of the '55 Chevy camera car being restored in 2001. If you get the Criterion Collection DVD release of the movie, it has a special feature about the restoration, "Performance and Image," that includes many of these pix. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/twolaneblacktop/restoration-photos-of-the-two-lane-blacktop-39-55--t26.html

Before leaving CA in 2015, I often saw Mike from Best Models at kit swap meets/contests. Nice guy and always had his family with him. At one show I bought his 1950 Olds station wagon resin body. He explained to me in detail all the parts he had to modify/create to get the master looking right. That was pretty amazing. When it comes to his bodies, he is a Perfectionist with a capital "P." Now everybody can stop looking for that unobtainium resin copy of the PALMER Rampside kit. Only 1000 of those were made, some years ago, by a company called corvairmodels.com. They were sold on eBay and I have one. It's a direct copy of the undersized PALMER plastic kit, with all its problems. You're much better off spending your money on the Best Models body.

Snowed like crazy here (Upstate SC), starting early in the A.M. Was still snowing until about an hour ago. Temp is supposed to drop even more tonight, so the roads are going to be very bad. Listening to an Atlanta radio station, several 1-85 exits were blocked because of wrecks.

Some people have had a lot of trouble, using that trick of BB's in acrylic paint. Over time they can rust and do other weird things. Here's a thread about it from the FSM forums: http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/tools_techniques_and_reference_materials/f/18/t/70618.aspx Just as a fun experiment, I recently painted a body Metallic Blue with a custom mix of Testors Dark Blue and Silver, thinned with Testors Enamel Thinner and shot thru an airbrush. Both bottles of paint had a price of 35 cents on the caps, so they were OLD. I often buy kits at flea markets, and they often have old bottles of Testors paint in the box. I just wanted to see if I could get away with it. It turned out pretty well, and I hope to finish the build soon. Around 2025, maybe...

The Jaguar had to have a trunk to make the joke work. :-P Not a joke... “I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.” Carl Sagan in one of my favorite books, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark ." He wrote that book in 1996.

That story had a lot of weirdness in it, I could only hit the highlights. It was covered extensively by local media in Florida and the national press. Just do a search on "Teresa Sievers murder." I learn all kinds of useful stuff from the true-crime shows, and a lot of it could have come from The Onion. For example, on a recent "Snapped" episode, I learned that you should make sure nobody is watching when you toss your spouse's dismembered torso into a Dumpster at 5 AM. That was Valerie Pape of Scottsdale, AZ. Who sort of stood out, even at 5 AM. She was wearing designer clothes and high heels, and hauled the torso out of the...er...trunk of her Jaguar.

James F. Welles, PhD, has written 2 very entertaining books on that subject: "The Story of Stupidity: A History of Western Idiocy from the Days of Greece to the Moment You Saw This Book" and "Understanding Stupidity." Reviewing "The Story of Stupidity" on Amazon, one reader wrote that the book "leaves one astounded that the human race remains at the top of the food chain." https://www.amazon.com/Story-Stupidity-History-Western-Present/dp/0961772913 https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Stupidity-James-F-Welles/dp/0961772905 And I didn't know Wal-Mart sold lock picks either.

Along with all the other good ideas in here: when an electronic device in your house fails, take it apart. You'll usually find several different gauges of wire inside and other useful stuff. My mother's old answering machine recently died and gave up some different sized wires, plus 2 small LED display screens that could be used as large-screen TVs in a 1/25 scale limousine or van.

Amazing story of stupidity recently covered on the ID Channel. Two criminal masterminds rented a car in Missouri, for a trip to Florida where they would commit a murder for hire. So sitting in MO, they entered the victim's FL street address into the rental car GPS. Sure enough, the GPS took them right to her door. They checked out the house, then drove to the nearest Wal-Mart. Where they bought "flushable wet wipes, 30 gallon trash bags, a lock pick set, black shoes, water shoes and black towels." They bought all that stuff in full view of the store security cameras, not bothering with caps or any other disguises. They went to the beach for a while to catch some rays, then broke into the victim's home, waited for her to return, and beat her to death with a hammer. After the killing, they programmed the return trip to MO into the GPS. Then they returned the rental car...with all the GPS data intact. The real punch line: one of the killers was known locally as a computer whiz and IT specialist. But I guess he never learned how a GPS works. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/docs-husband-plotted-murder-of-florida-doctor-killed-with-hammer/