1. Cars
My 1968 Ford Mustang is a work in progress and can be seen at local shows/cruises in my area. Soon I'll be replacing the inner sheet metal around the battery area. Now that robotics is over with and I can start devoting time to it. I also plan on detailing the engine compartment more. I'm also documenting and taking digital photos of everything I do with this car since I hope to create a website devoted to it that can also help others doing similar work to thier vehicles. Since I don't know how to create a website yet it's on the back burner for now.
I also tinker with my spare car, a 1987 Chevrolet Caprice Classic Estate wagon. My main goal is to keep it from the crusher or becoming a demo derby car. The car is in decent condition and is fully loaded (it even has the fake woodgrain
) and I'm hoping that someday when most of the full size wagons have joined the salvage yard in the sky it will be worth something. My father keeps saying he wishes he had kept all the cars he had when he was younger!
2.Model trains
I have a 13' by 8' HO layout in my basement. I've been working on this for 8 years now. It can currently run 5 trains at once. All the mountains and hills are plaster of paris. Here's a tip: when mixing plaster substitute some of the water with white vinegar. This will retard the drying time and allow you to work with the plaster longer.
I had a N scale layout many years ago but took it down but I saved all the trains and buildings. I prefer the larger HO and O since it's easier to work on.
I also have had O scale since I was little. I don't have a permanent layout for them so they only get set up for X-mas. The O scale is a mix of Lionel from the 50's until today with some MTH and Williams pieces too. These are a lot more expensive so I only add a few pieces a year. Of course it helps that my father works at a hobby store so I can get discounts and is the reason I have the interest in all these trains to begin with. This is more of a winter hobby when it's too cold to work on the cars and the Mustang is off the road until the spring.
3. Radios and phonograph
I also collected old radios from the 30's and 40's for some time but my interest isn't there as it used to be. I redid several of them including reveneering the cases and replacing the tubes and rewiring them. They were all AM and shortwave. I still have 3 of them and I still turn them on occasionally.
There's also the biggest unfinished project I have, a 1927 RCA victrola. There's no electric in it. It has the crank on the side and the horn to amplify the sound of the 78's it plays. I totally dismantled it and reveneered the case, repaired all the other wood on it, stripped it, sanded it, then stained it and thats as far as I ever got with the case. I also polished most of the hardware and located replacements for anything broken or missing. After working on it for a few months I got tired of it and lost interest..........6 years ago. To this day it sits covered up and protected in the corner of the workshop. All the guts including the turntable, crank, springs and other hardware are in a box on a shelf.