NWSM Meeting last night

So, we had our monthly NWSM (NorthWest Scale Modeler's) club meeting last night. Some background on the group is called for, I think...

NWSM is a group of modelers who meet monthly at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA. We meet the first Thursday of every month (oddly enough, this is when the Museum has free admission) from 7pm til 9pm, in a classroom in the Red Barn. The group is completely informal - we have no officers, no dues, no organization past asking and volunteering, and we host no contests. In exchange for getting a meeting room once a month, we put on a big model display at the Museum in February every year. The last display was two weekends ago, and was a big hit, as usual.

Anyway, our meetings are a social event - we talk and go over things the club wants to do, our relationship with the Museum (stronger than ever), and do some show and tell. We have themes for our meetings every month - this month, it was "Something Green". If you're going to be around in April, the theme is "April Fools" - bring a foolish model, or something you were a fool to buy/build/bring.

We also do Six Questions, a quick trivia thing where The Guy Who Talks The Most (TGWTTM for short, and the only official position in the club) comes up with some trivia questions of interest to the group. This month, I did a series of war/military movies - I gave them the war, the year the movie was made, and the stars, and asked for the movie. The one that stumped everyone until I started rattling off the plot was "A Separate Peace".

If you find yourself in Seattle one month and notice it's the first Thursday, come down to the Museum and partake in the festivities - just ask at the desk where the model club is meeting, and they'll point you to the northwest corner of the Red Barn...

My Workshop

So, before I go much further, I guess it behooves me to describe, and maybe drop a photo or two of, my workshop.

I live in a third-floor condo with a ground-floor two car garage - the workshop is in half the garage. When I was a kid, my dad had a garage workshop, and having the workshop anyplace else doesn't feel right. Of course, my dad also had a Playboy calendat on the wall, but since the wife doesn't like Playboy, I settle for old pinup art calendars...

The workbench is really cheap and easy to build, and suits me well. I have two "Wal-Mart special" particle board bookcases we were going to throw away on either end. Between them, resting on the next-to-top shelf, is a hollow-core door, also that was going to be pitched. The door is wider than the bookcase shelves can accomodate, so a slot for the bookcase side panels was cut in the door so it would slip into place. Across the top of the bookcases is another piece of particle board, supported in the center, acting as a top shelf for supporting an architects lamp and holding various stuff. Under it are where my lazy susan's full of paint, brushes, plastic organizers full of stuff, and other tools go. The hollow-core door is stiff, hard, and very light, and the doorknob hole is convenient for running electrical wires through to the rotary tool mounted on the front.

The workbench is rather high, so I have a barstool to sit at when I want to, but I can stand and work as well. To rest my feet, I keep some empty milk cartons turn upside down under the stool and bench. There's also a space heater under it for when it gets cold.

I also have a home-made spray booth - one sheet of 1/2" plywood cut into a 2'x2'x3' box with the front corners knocked out. It's supported by some 1"x2" pine boards with a lower shelf stiffening the legs, and stands a total of about 6' high. My dad and I built it a few years ago, but I still haven't installed the exhaust fan, so right now, it's just a big overspray catcher - with a flourescent light and lazy susan in it... :-)

My airbrushes include a Thayer and Chandler Omni 3000 with some T&C Vega tipsets (they work in the Omni), and an Aztec dual-action (old, but functional). The T&C is my enamel\lacquer airbrush, while the Aztec only gets acrylics through it. Since I do most of my work in enamels and lacquers, the Aztec is mostly unused. For brush painting, I've got a collection of brushes, most of them bought from the local art supply house, but some from local beauty supply shops as well.

I've got shelves put up around the garage to hold my unbuilts - I'm still a bay at this, as I only have about 150 unbuilt kits stored there (I know people with 400-600 easy, and one guy who claims to have 3000 unbuilts). Next to the workbench on the left is a plant stand that is acting as a magazine rack, along with some empty milk-cartons for storage.

Oh, there are woodworking tools (drill press, router, table saw), toolchest, a fridge (to hold beer and other sundries) and a stereo (to listen to while I work) down there too. Sometimes there's a car, but mostly it's just me, the motorcycle (Harley Davidson FXDWG, thankyouverymuch), and the models.

And that's the end of the self-gratifying description - pics will be posted as soon as I find some.

What's on the Workbench

Figured it would be a good idea to list the stuff I'm currently working on as well - if you've got experience with any of these kits, ping me with thoughts. If you're thinking about doing one of these kits, ping me for my thoughts. I'll braindump my thoughts as I move forward.

• 1/72nd Fokker DR-1: Hawkeye (Fort Duchesne) resin kit.
• 1/50th Fokker DR-1: Smer (old Aurora mold).
• 1/12th Yamaha YZF-500: Tamiya
• 1/25th '53 Ford Victoria: Lindberg
• 1/35th Bradley CFV: Tamiya Japan
• 1/72nd(?) F-105 Starfighter: AMT
• 1/72nd EA-6B Prowler: Hasegawa
• 1/16th Manfred Baron von Richtofen: Edouard
• 1/35th Bathing Girl: Unknown resin kit
• 1/72th WWI German Flight crew: Verlinden(?) resin kit

Some of them I've been working on for a while (the F-105 and the EA-6B, for example). Others are figures to paint (Richtofen, the Bathing Girl, and the flight crew), so I just prime them in the workshop and paint in the dining room (I like artist oil paints for figures). Some are currently in progress and moving forward (both DR-1's, the Bradley, and the Vic), and some I got disgusted with (the YZF-500) and just put aside until I could figure out what to do.

Mr. Hobby products

A friend of mine in IPMS Seattle turned me on to Mr. Surfacer, from Mr. Hobby. Mr. Hobby is a Japanese company making some really good products targetted for modellers. Mr. Surfacer is like a very thick primer, or maybe a very thin filler putty - it goes on with a brush and fills holes, pits, joints, even ejector pin marks, and leaves a very smooth finish when dry and sanded. It comes in a few different flavors - 500 is very thick good for filling big gaps; 1000 is thinner and good for smaller gaps and surfaces, and 1200 (or is it 1500?) is like a brushable, self-levelling sandable scratch-filling primer. Good stuff, IMHO...

I also got some Mr. Masking Sol Neo, a masking medium also from Mr. Hobby. I've used Micro Mask along with soem other liquid masks, and they all seem to suffer from one of two problems - they're either a pain in the ass to lay down, or a pain in the ass to get back up. Mr. Masking Sol Neo is neither - it lays down very nice and smooth like a well mixed enamel paint without globbing or pulling. Once dry, you can roll the edge up with your fingertip (not fingernail, fingertip - light pressure and the edge comes right up), grab it with tweezers, and off it comes. My one complaint - the integrated brush in the bottle cap is way too big for any fine work, so I needed to know what dissolved this stuff so I could use a regular brush. A Japanese friend at work translated the back of the bottle for me:

How to use

• This product does not affect by the paint product
• Paint this product where you want to mask by using the brush which is
  attached in the cap of this product.
• The place you put this product will be dried in approximately 20-30 minutes.
  The surface will become semitransparent when dried.
• Remove the semitransparent portion after your painted portion is completely
  dried.

This product is water-soluble product. You can thin this product with water
as well as you can use water to clean up your brush.

According to him, the bottom portion of the bottle labelling is the safety warning, same as in the U.S. (don't eat, not for internal use, flush well with water and call a doctor if it gets in your eye, etc).

Good stuff from Mr. Hobby...