Posts Tagged ‘1966’

Editor’s Note: Recently I was talking on another forum about my ongoing 1:25 Batcave diorama project and the person had not seen or heard of it before. I realized that the original blog articles had crashed when I took down the Scooter’s Custom Works website. (That website will be back up soon, by the way.) Even though that website content is gone, I found access in to the original Batcave blog articles and so I’m reposting them here, chronologically at PMB! Hopefully this will kick me into gear and my son Alex and I will get back on finishing the diorama up soon. The following post is from August, 2005.

For years, I had mused about creating a full-on, Batcave diorama in my favorite scale – 1:25. It seemed like  a great idea to house some of the many models I had created and also for a fun, large-scale project all  its own. I had been inspired by my friend Mike Stutelberg, whose own Batcave diorama is nothing short of breathtaking. It always seemed like a huge project and so years later, I still had not started it. Then, in 2004 a few things happened to kick-start my gumption. 1. My (then) 4 year old son had acquired a model railroading video that he watched over and over again, as 4 year olds do. And I watched it with him and soaked up some great fabrication tips. 2. Over the Christmas break, I noticed an eBay auction offering a custom 1:25 Atomic Pile model.

I thought it looked great and was amazed to see the Atomic Pile modeled in 1:25 scale and actually ON eBay for sale! I won the auction and when the model arrived I was amazed by the build-quality: Welded metal struts, cast resin panels, multi-media textures – it was very well done. I then realized that here was my answer. This was how the diorama model could get built – by supplementing our own work with pieces by other craftsmen. It would still be a huge, time-consuming folly, but it just might work!

I decided that I wanted to get an Atomic Pile model that was NOT anchored to a smaller cave setting like this one was, so I contacted the builder, Jim Graham and asked him to make me another one.

The new Atomic Pile would be freestanding and able to be utilized in my larger planned cave diorama. Now, how to house it, and what it would actually entail were the next questions I had to tackle.

Luckily, having a 4-year old telling you that anything, no matter how ambitious, is just what has to happen – is all you need to shame you into taking any project on.

And so, a Batcave – That’s it. It’s an omen. We shall model – a Batcave!

Through an arrangement with Replicarz, PMB! is happy to offer a sale on brand new, case fresh Elite Batcycles MIB. The Batcycles will ship direct to you from the distributor, so if you’re ordering any other stuff from us, the shipping costs and  time will be separate. This is a limited time offer that will only be around until their stock runs out!

$39.00*

A bunch of these have been seen on the bay and elsewhere recently being offered from China. Could it be some early factory sneaks? Looks pretty good. Not perfect, and certainly not “elite” but a bit better than the 1:50 for sure. Looks like a small version of the 1:18 complete with all its errors. And hey – still missing the upper bat-ray stripes!  So the questions are – is this really a production Mattel 1/43? Or another odd Asian resin knock-off  like the GADM/Corgi  hybrid that’s been out for a while?  I have one coming in shortly so I’ll let you know when I get it.

I know it’s been a while since an update. We’ve been really busy and this isn’t our career or main business. Just wanted to let everyone who ordered the Detect-A-Scopes that we FINALLY got in our D-Scope bases from China this week. they are going out to Insane Detailing this weekend and should ship out shortly.  We also received in our exact reproductions of the Mattel Elite Batphone (the one that is correctly sized) and they are professionally cast in red and pre-painted. We also have some bigger news coming later in the month. So thanks for the patience, and keep the faith!