Mike999

Another new 1/24 scale Master Box set. "Bob & Sally, the Happy Couple." This one shows the parts layout etc. Got a diorama idea for this couple - anybody know where I can find a 1/24 scale great white shark?

Yep, Jimmy Flintstone did that body, according to my handy spread-sheet. You know you have Too Much Stuff when you have to keep track of it with spread-sheets...

Here's a photo stolen from eBay that shows all the parts. The 2 side enclosures are at the far left. The tailgate and 4 posts are at bottom center. The roof extension is on the right side of the photo, just under the body and on the same sprue as the tonneau cover:

Not that I'm trying to tempt you or anything. But several ARII "Tojos" are on eBay right now for less than US $20, including shipping. Yes, of course I weakened and bought one...

I have no idea if ARII's kit of the Nakajima Ki-44 Shoki 'Tojo' is any good. But if I ever see one loitering around a kit show at a low enough price, I think I'll buy it just for the box art. The Tojo seems to have "kill marks," those golden wings on the fuselage. And its intended target, those B-29's passing overhead, is a nice touch.

I don't know if AMT changed the mold, but I was impressed by the hardtop in the Prestige kit. It has a very tiny cut-out that drops exactly over the raised body trim line on the center of the rear deck. You almost need a magnifier to see that cut-out, but it's definitely there. Unfortunately my top had a little flash right at the "B" pillar but it wasn't too hard to remove. Snake: "Fixed hardtop" was poor wording on my part, I know it was removable. But in the model(s) I'm thinking of building, it would be "fixed" all the time. It was definitely possible to leave the soft top folded and put the hardtop on. I've seen quite a few of those Vettes at car shows. And places like the Pomona Swap Meet, where they were usually for sale. People in colder climates would leave the folded soft top in place and just put the hardtop on for the winter. One guy on the Corvette Forum said he and his wife used to do that every year, on their C2. The hardtop weighed about 50 pounds, so it wasn't that big of a job for 2 people.

I do that too. Some of the MasterBox 1/35 scale figures "don't quite match the kit parts," either. Though I have to say, their best efforts come close to the sharpness and detail of resin figures, at a much lower price. They've recently started a 1/35 scale "Indian Wars" series that looks good, and really fills a gap in 1/35 plastic figures. In the bigger 1/24 scale they usually do even better. Here's an assembled 1/24 Pinup Girl. I'm impressed by the details like fingernails, teeth, the knee/ankle joints etc. And the anatomy, of course...

Hobby Lobby, Anderson SC, update from yesterday, Fri. 8/25/17: The Round 2 65 Pontiac Grand Prix, 70 Bonneville convertible and Barris Surf Woody were marked down to $17.99. I looked pretty closely and didn't see any other markdowns. Some kits others have mentioned, like the Revell 57 Ford Wagon and R2 60 Corvette, were still at full price. Seems weird, but maybe that's up to the individual store and not a corporate policy. Michaels - the selection of car kits get worse every time I go in there. Only a few car kits at the end of the model aisle, just piled/thrown haphazardly into the racks. Nothing discounted or on clearance. Not even the 58 Plymouth "Christine" kit with the shrink-wrap removed and the box-top off. Ollies - still had a few Lindberg 64 Dodge Mavericks and a couple of other car kits. Plenty of Lindberg ships and ancient aircraft kits.

No, you're absolutely right, as shown by the Corvette Forum. Several people there have owned hardtop-only C2 convertibles. Somebody went and dug out the info from the Corvette Black Book. The "soft top delete" was RPO #C07 (Regular Production Order) . The Auxiliary Hardtop was a $236.75 option, but free if you didn't get a soft top. More were built that way than I would have thought: 63 had 1,099 hardtop only 64 had 1,220 hardtop only 65 had 1,277 hardtop only 66 had 1,303 hardtop only 67 had 895 hardtop only I got started down this rabbit hole because I'm thinking about building the AMT Prestige '63 convertible with a fixed hardtop. Maybe as one similar to that 64 up there, only with A/C. Or as a "weekend warrior" racer with an owner who didn't care about putting the top down. https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c1-and-c2-corvettes/2456059-soft-top-delete.html

Just saw these, cruising around the Internet. The 3-figure set is still listed as Pre-Order, so not quite out yet. The other 3 figures are showing as already in stock at Freetime Hobbies, at $9.95 each: Claire the redhead...Jackie with the Porsche...and Sloan "Vegas-Baby:"

As somebody else pointed out once in another thread: that Revell Snapper Coupe is optioned as a very rare 63 Corvette. It has air-conditioning vents under the dashboard, and a PowerGlide shifter (with no reverse lockout tabs). Here's another rare one I saw at the 2013 NNL in Chatsworth, CA. This 64 Corvette convertible was ordered new by a woman who worked as an engineer at Hughes Aircraft in Los Angeles. It has the 300-hp engine, PowerGlide automatic and PosiTraction. Power windows, steering and brakes but no A/C. On the window sticker, notice the Auxiliary Hardtop was no cost. She ordered it WITHOUT the soft top, and I guess they applied credit for that to the aux hardtop. I looked inside, sure enough the car didn't have the soft top. So I guess she kept the aux. hardtop on all year round. In L.A.? Amazing!

That 61 Ranchero/sedan delivery looks nice and smooth and somebody put a lot of work into it. I have a semi-gluebomb 61 Ranchero, with all the original parts, instructions and box. Just a note for those who have never seen one - the Sedan Delivery option is not one piece. It's about 9 separate parts: 2 side enclosure pieces, upper tailgate & window, 4 posts to hold up the SD roof, and the big roof piece itself, extending from the back of the original cab to the tailgate. All those parts can leave some pretty big seams/gaps, especially between the original cab and the SD roof. Unless you do a lot of careful filling and sanding, like that one in the photo.

That's a great "history!" Congratulations! Now start her off gently by giving her a couple of Snap-Kits for your first-month anniversary, instead of useless flowers or something...:-) I got the big display case home yesterday. That Thrift Store was a class act. Called and told them I was coming to pick it up, after drafting a friend with a pickup truck. (I bribed him with a free lunch.) When we walked in the door, the woman in charge said "We got it all ready for you." They sure did! Display case was sitting on a hand-truck, right at the front door. The glass shelves were removed and neatly wrapped in old towels and newspapers. We just had to back the truck up to the door and put the display case in it. One problem - a couple of the glass clips/retainers need replacing, being broken and cracked. Probably just from old age, they're plastic. A trip to Lowes should fix that. Everything else seems OK, like the lights etc.

You're right. I have a couple of those on the shelf and forgot about them myself. Duh! I've seen them built into a killer street rod. Here's the box art for that last issue of the "Lieferwagen:"

Somebody in here told me not to bother with a base coat when using Molotow pens. That seems to be true. I recently used one to chrome some headlight buckets, then some exhaust tips on a different kit. I base-coated the headlights with Tamiya Gloss Black acrylic, over grey plastic. With the exhaust tips I didn't bother. Just used the pen directly on white plastic. I can't see any difference in the two.

Can't think of any more in plastic, except the one oddball described below. But yes, many in resin. I have an old '49 Ford SD resin body for the AMT kit, and a '53 Ford "Mainliner" that fits the Lindberg kit. Not quite an SD, but one of the weirdest resin kits I have is a '58 Imperial 2-door station wagon. Oddball: the ESCI/Italeri/Revell 1/24 Mercedes 230-G off-road vehicle. Not kitted as a panel truck/sedan delivery, but you can turn it into one easily with a little sheet plastic and putty. Mercedes sold that version. They were used by the German army and others as an ambulance and general-purpose vehicle. ESCI made it with 2 different tailgate treatments. The Rally version has vertically split "barn door" rear doors. The Fire Dept. (Feuerwehr) version has horizontally-split tailgate/window doors, like a station wagon. It also comes with a generator, roof lights and other fire equipment. Italeri has re-issued the Rally version and Revell-Germany re-popped the Feuerwehr kit.

Found nothing at the flea market today. But I hit some thrift stores after the flea market, and found a great display case. About 6 feet tall, several glass shelves, lighting etc. It cost $32. Now I'm trying to figure out where to put it, and how to get it home. It sure won't fit in my car, even with the top down. I'll either borrow my Mom's small SUV or hit up one of my friends with a pickup truck.

I did a quick eBay check. An Entex 76 Mustang sold for about $40 recently, with 8 bids. They don't seem to come up very often. And...the real Honus Wagner was on TV just last night! Along with his famous baseball card. The latest episode of "American Greed" on CNBC covered fraud in the collectibles market. Specifically the collapse of the Mastro auction/collectibles company in 2009. What a story! Shill bidding, bid-rigging and apparently outright theft in some cases. It's probably not a good idea to commit fraud when one of your customers is a lawyer who sees it nearly every day. Also a lawyer who has defended John Gotti Jr. and drug lord "El Chapo" Guzman. If you have CNBC, it re-runs "American Greed" all the time. The title of this episode was "Fraud Collectors." Here's the preview: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/08/15/next-on--american-greed-fraud-collectors.html

The 61 Cadillac is probably a Palmer. They did a lot of stuff in goofy "in-between" scales. If I'm remembering right, they used a generic chassis and made many different bodies fit it. And I sure do like that Nash Metropolitan!

Here Peta Wilson! The movie is just great fun and I've seen it several times. Based on the comic...er, graphic novels by Alan Moore. No *SPOILERS* but the League is a collection of Victorian fiction heroes come to life: Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery), Captain Nemo, Dorian Gray, Dr. Jekyll, Tom Sawyer, the Invisible Man etc. Peta Wilson plays the widow of Jonathan Harker from "Dracula." So yes, she really sucks. But in a good way, unless you're a bad guy. I love that movie, never mind if the interior scale of the "Nautilus" means it would be about the size of Manhattan. Or that Nemo's car, above, couldn't go ripping thru the streets of Venice because that city doesn't have streets big enough to drive on and cars are strictly forbidden. (I've been there and hope to go back someday.)

Some TKM kits did have interiors, mostly the convertibles. One of their best kits, keeping in mind we're talking about TKM, is the '41 Cadillac convertible. IIRC, it even got a pretty good review in The Other Model Car Magazine, many years ago. I think their 61 Corvair van and 48 DeSoto wagon had interior parts too. I happened to have pix of the TKM '48 Cadillac 4-door on this PC. The roof slant is not camera distortion, or your eyes playing tricks - the driver's side of the roof is considerably higher than the passenger side. That should make for an interesting job of filling and sanding:

What a blast from the past! I have a few TKM corpses...er, bodies/kits lying around. Watch out for those chassis plates, with special bonus feature: tetanus! Off and on for several years, I've been working on the TKM '41 Packard Clipper. Want to build it as a WWII military staff car, as used by Eisenhower, MacArthur and others. That eliminates the hassle of chroming that massive grille, since staff cars were painted solid Olive Drab, including all the chrome. So far I've cleaned up the body and ground off the rear fender skirts, since very few staff cars kept those. Discovered that the chassis from a Moebius '53 Hudson is practically a drop-fit, as far as wheelbase. The big holdup is figuring out how to do a semi-accurate interior. Maybe it will end up as burnt-out staff car...

I've seen a few model clearance sales in Michael's, but not very many. Usually the sale only applies to a few kits, and you have to watch closely for them - the discounted kits have a special colored price tag or a "Clearance" sticker on them. I've also seen "(x)% off on all model kits" sales, very rarely. When Michael's does that, there are signs announcing it in the model aisle.

The Michael's e-mail for the weekend sale just came in. If you need brushes or oil paints for weathering, all that stuff is 40% off thru tomorrow, Sat. 8/19/17. For diorama builders, picture frames and shadow-boxes are also on sale. Fortunately I live near a bunch of big thrift stores, which takes care of my diorama-base needs. I especially like to find finished decoupage plaques, since they are already stained and sealed. In the thrift stores, those usually go for about $1.00 or less.

Now that you mention it, I haven't seen the GMC version for a while. Looks like none have sold on eBay in the last month. I think that's how far a "Completed Items" search goes back. I bought 1 each of the Chevy, GMC and Chevy "Field Liner" versions years ago, too. For those who've never seen it - the "Field Liner" version of the Chevy van has a roof rack for carrying a bicycle and 2 different-sized Thune rooftop carriers. Fujimi put those accessories into several other kits as well. They're pretty neat and come complete with manufacturer's decals. The bike has photo-etched metal wheels: