I was at the North Conway Wal-Mart and decided to check out the die cast cars in the toy dept and too my amazement I found these HO scale (1:87) autos and vans, two of the vans were singles and the classics and a van were in a set, I got all of them for under $20.00 what a deal…and they are all metal with closed bottoms (not hollow shells like most HO cars).
Some close ups.
And if that didn’t make my day I wandered into a Walden Book store and bought my very first issue of Model rail Roader…WOWEEE what a great magazine, I will be subscribing to it yearly now, this months has some very cool articles and one on weathering that I found out standing.
I had a great day off with the wife in search of HO goodies and I hope that my mentioning the two stores above is not advertising, I just wanted to give HO modelers a heads up on a good buy.
My Wally World has tons of HO scale cars in stock right now. Sometimes they have John Deere tractors and Norscot CAT construction equipement in 1/87 too. Hot Wheels and NASCAR 1/87 also. A couple of those you got look like they might be 1/64 scale.
(no, that’s not advertising[;)]) Have you gone back to their arts and craft section yet? Paint, brushes, glue, wood, plaster. All kinds of good stuff!
I have seen those myself; I am slightly dissapointed that the manufacturer mixed eras. (ie a 1950s car with a 1990s car) but at least they are cheaper and more readily available.
WalMart, Hobby Lobby and other stores in the arts and crafts area have carried good acrylic paints and brushes for years and depending on the store many cars in 1/87 and 1/64 scale and farm implements.
I work at a John Deere dealership in New Mexico and considerable effort has been put into Athearn and Ertl to manufacture good replicas of JD, Cat and other big names in vehicles of many types. 1/64th scale is perhaps known as the “farm scale” for many replica vehicles and implements are in this scale and in some cases made up immense farm scenes in the hobby, without the trains being included, but then a diorama is one’s own choice as to the content.
Craft paints are nothing more than acrlyic paints originally meant for and still used to coat ceramic products, I have discovered that by using a hand-held hair dryer set on LOW heat, the coats of apint on any model can be set permanently and this takes only a few seconds with the model, whatever the type. These craft paints match every color scheme, military or RR and with slight adjustments in the colors can be blended to represent any nation’s camo or RR color. Additionally, these paints when mixed with BLUE windshield wiper fluid, straight from the bottle will easily airbrush at about 50/50 mix and about 20 psi. The results are quite amazing and some of the basic colors are available in Gloss, this is good for aircraft and some RR equipment, possibly armor as some like the shinney new look.
Well try them out, and remember that only you are your own toughest judge.
Walmart has been selling them for several years. I have been buying them 5 or 6 in a pack for around $7.50. The singles are about $1.69. They also came out with several cars with campers pulling behind them.
Like said in another post. I’m somewhat dissapointed that they mix era’s from 50’s to 90’s. My fix for this is to have a “Vintage Iron Car Sales” lot with the older cars to be sold.
