Working through a problem

This is a test to see if I can get through a blogger issue....

The Puyallup Did Me...

And it was a doozy...

Actually, it wasn't that bad.  I had four models in the static model contest at the Puyallup State Fair - an AMT 1/6th scale vinyl model of Mr. Spock, the 1/35th Trumpter MiL-8H Hip chopper, a Revell AG 1/72nd Sea Vixen with a custom paint job, and 1/24th Revell 1957 Chevy Bel Air.  I didn't expect the Bel Air to win anything - I didn't do a good job with it, really.  However, I wasn't prepared for the what else I saw...

You see, last weekend I was talking with a friend who had entered the contest in Puyallup a number of times - 10-15 years worth of entries.  He had some horror stories - first, almost all of his models came back broken in one way or another.  Second, the model that won the Best of Show award was always, always, always either a train or the biggest model there, regardless of the fact that his models are award winners in other judged contests.

Therefore, I was somewhat surprised to see a 1st place ribbon on the MiL-8H, a 2nd place for the Sea Vixen, and a Craftsmanship award for Spock - interesting.  I was not surprised to see that my MiL-8H was broken - the port side forward antenna was gone.  However, I was surprised to see that was the only damage visible.  One other positive and pleasant surpsie was that my Little Brother also won a 1st and 2nd for a Panzer tank and a stegosaurus, both by Tamiya.

On another note, while I was there, I asked about dropping off some flyers foe NWSM and IPMS Seattle, and was told both are welcome.  The lady I spoke with told me they were very interested in having more entries in their contest - my replay was simply that I knew a lot of reasons why there were less.  She followed up, and I told her:

1. A month-long transfer of models with numerous people handling them is absolutely unacceptable to most modellers.
2. The judging criteria was not well known, well publicized, or (it seemed to me) well applied.
3. There were only eight categories for adults and the same eight for juniors.

She took that feedback well, and also took my name and phone number, so we'll see if it comes to anything.  I told this to the folks at IPMS Seattle, to a rather cool reception - I may be in this alone, but here are my ideas about how to fix it:

1. Bring the models in one day, have them judged that same day, and placed in the display case by the modeler.  If I kne wmy model was where I put it and would be there for three weeks without being touched, I'd rest much easier leaving a delicate model there.
2. Use well defined and publicized judging criteria, preferably inline with the IPMS USA criteria.
3. Increase the number of categories.

Like I said, we'll see how this works - I'll report here as I learn more.

Wings of Peace

A web group some friends of mine belong to now has a new member - me!.  I just joined Wings of Peace, a group of modelers dedicated to between-the-wars aircraft in civilian markings (i.e. no warplanes in military markings).  It's a fairly active group - time will tell how valuable my membership is.

 

Want to join?  Wings of Peace is not just a website, it's also a Yahoo group - sign up for Yahoo, and you can join the group itself.

Do the Puyallup - before it does you...

There's a local state fair around here called the Puyallup State Fair, or the Puyallup for short.  Amongst the normal state fair fodder of cow, goat, sheep, and other livestock competitions are some handicraft competitions, including models, both static and operating...

So, I headed down there this weekend with my Little Brother to enter some models.  The main draw for this entry was that you could win money - nominally $5 for a 1st place finish, but up to $100 for a Grand Master award.  There are downsides, though...

As I said, I dropped off my models (four of them, to be exact) this weekend.  I won't be able to retrieve them until the end of September when the Fair closes.  In the meantime, one of three judges (or possibly three of three, plus a helper or two) will not only be judging the models via criteria unknown to me, they will be handling, moving, and most likely breaking my model.  Contrast this with the IPMS Seattle contests, which occur in a single day, and where models are handled only by the modeler, with the rare exception when tables have to be split and the modeler cannot be found.  However, in that case, we're all modeler's, and know how to handle, move, and carefully reposition models without damaging them.

Which models did I enter?  A vinyl figure of Mr. Spock (tough to break, although the hands are a bit fragile); a customized Sea Vixen (nose gear a bit fragile), a '57 Chevy (break it - I don't care), and my Mi-8 Hip H helicopter (which I expect to come back missing pieces).

I also found out this weekend that I'm not the first IPMS'er to enter - a friend has entered for years, and always wound up with broken models, missing parts, and never a Grand Master prize.  We'll see what happens to me this year...

Building a '53 Ford Victoria Custom

This article will appear in the IPMS Seattle newsletter in September - I've already gone past the end of the article in actual work, so I wanted to get it out - part two will be out sometime next month...

Preamble... and Ramble...

Once upon a time, oh, about four years ago, our own Tim Nelson came to us and asked if anyone would be interested in building some replica models for something called the Champlin Collection. Being a young, idealistic boy of 35, I signed up to help the effort, looking forward to the challenge of building as close a replica of a real airplane that I could. Two years later, a jaded, cynical, prematurely-aged grump of 37 delivered his model to the Museum of Flight, where it sits today, treated like that gawd-awful lamp your great-aunt gave you for Christmas - stored out of sight 99.9% of the time and only shown the light of day when she visits. During the building process, my comments and pointed critiques (some call it whining, a label I steadfastly deny) prompted the following reply from Mr. Nelson:

You know, nothing takes the joy out of modeling like building on a deadline for someone else.

While I appreciated this wisdom at the time, and have oft repeated it, I obviously have more belly than experience under my belt, and it appears I use my head to hold more hair than memories. Were it otherwise, I never would have taken on my latest project - building a replica of another vehicle at the request of another person. This time, however, there would be no time limit, and even less reference material to draw upon. Plus, I get to write (and get to read) a few newsletter articles - what a bargain!

You see, the story begins, as I remember it, sometime last winter, when a gentleman who lived (note the past tense) in my condo noticed my garage door open (which it usually is when I’m working on a project). Not being a builder himself, he asked me if I’d like to build a model for him of a car he used to own. He even had the kit to start with, and was willing to pay me for my time. Knowing there is no way he could pay me a reasonable rate for the hours I’d put into the project, I told him (and here’s where I wish I had double-jointed knees to kick myself with) I would do it for nothing. And so began another journey...

The Real Introduction

The subject: A custom 1953 Ford Victoria.
The kit: Lindberg’s 1/24^th scale ‘53 Ford Victoria (how lucky was that?)
The challenge: Build it to represent an actual car owned by my friend in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s.

The Build - Begin with the Power Plant

The engine was fairly easily done - this was my first flathead engine, so some placement of parts was off from my beloved (and more familiar) muscle car era (distributor in front on top of the pulleys? Two coolant feed and return hoses? Oil filter on the wrong side? What the...?)

I added a turned aluminum distributor and plug wires, and thanks to the weird distributor placement on flatheads, had to find a creative place to run the wires (instead of down from the plugs and above the headers, I had to run them up from the plugs and over the heads). Masking tape pulley belts lent some interest and accuracy to the final engine bay, as did black washes and dry brushing of the metalizer steel engine (I had no references for actual engine color). More on references later.

The Build - Body like a Brick...

All the time I was working on the engine, I was working on the body as well. Here’s where the real customization work began. My friend’s car had very little ornamentation on the exterior - no rear wheel well covers, no hood ornament, different bumpers, bullet tail lamps, and the piece-de-resistance (emphasis on “resistance”, synonymous with “trepidation”, “caution”, and “abject irrational gibbering fear”), a custom bird-cage grill. This was going to be a challenge... I love challenges! At least, that’s what I told myself when I wasn’t trying to convince myself this is fun...

Filling the extra body holes was easily done with gap-filling CA, and the entire body was covered with Mr. Surfacer 500 and sanded to remove high-spots. I’m beginning to love Mr. Surfacer - the 500 brand fills divots and heavy scratches with ease, while the 1000 is a good brushable filler for general work. It makes a great guide coat for sanding work before primer and sealer, and best of all, I don’t need to break out the airbrush for it - brilliant! Too bad I had to have a Japanese friend of mine translate the instructions on the bottle to see how to clean it off my brushes...

The Build - Paint

Anyway, once I was satisfied with the rough body work, I started reading an article in Scale Auto Enthusiast (I’m sure you military modelers have heard of it, maybe even seen it once or twice) by Mark Gustavson on how he gets his gorgeous finishes, and decided to follow his formula, which is based on using real automotive paint products. So, article in hand, I proceeded to apply multiple automotive primer coats, which were sanded in between with 3M auto body sandpaper in between (starting with 600 grit and working up to 1500 grit for the final primer coats). The final coat before real color was an automotive sealer, which isolated the primer from the later color coats. The quart can I bought cost me around $30 from Wesco, and will probably go bad on the shelf before I can use it all (in other words, if you want some, just ask).

I ordered paint from Model Car World to match the color my friend reported was on his car. MCW’s paints are real automotive lacquers bottled for modeler’s - to put it another way, I can go on the Internet, find an exact color match for a given manufacturer’s paint, and pay a premium for a two ounce bottle. The alternative is to go to Wesco, have the guy behind the counter find me an exact color match (using my Internet references), and buy a quart for $30+. The trade-off is cheaper by the quart v. not having twenty opened quarts of auto paint aging on my shelves - not sure what I'll do yet.

Despite the premium price, I did learn a few things about using auto paints.

1. My cheap lacquer thinner won’t touch it - I had to use acetone to clean it out of my airbrush (note to self: get real lacquer thinner next time you’re at Wesco).
2. Auto lacquer dries quick and hard, which is good - no more polishing through color coats. The caveat to fast drying is leads directly to point number…
3. Because it dries so fast, I can’t spray it like normal model lacquers or thinned enamels. Auto paint is formulated to spray on 1:1 autos through HVLP (high velocity, low pressure) guns at 45-50 PSI. While spraying through an airbrush at 15 PSI is a valid scale reduction, the paint itself hasn’t been scale reduced. This leads to orange peel, frustration, and heartbreak (no word on teen pregnancy or stunted growth) – in other words, I’ve got to turn up the pressure and lay it on thicker on the later coats.

The Build - The Big Mistake™

Two color coats, one intermediate sanding with 1500 paper, and two more color coats later, I was happy with my progress, despite the air pressure problems. My happiness, however, like a bug flying across the highway at windshield level, was short-lived, for it was then, and only then, that I notice my first Big Mistake™

On the rear of the body, below the trunk lid, there are some mounting holes - I’m not sure what they’re for. Problem is, my reference photos show nothing mounted there, and no holes in the body where these holes are. I did mention this was after my first four color coats, right?

After sanding the area around the holes to remove most of the paint, I filled the holes with styrene rod and cemented them in place with liquid cement. I then clipped them as flush with the body as possible, and proceeded on a multi-step clean-up process involving sandpaper, sanding sticks, the chisel ends of files, and some Mr. Surfacer to make the bare spots as smooth as possible. I’m still not done, but it’s better than having holes.

The Build - Chassis, Bling, and the Little Mistake

In meantime, I got to work on the chassis. I managed to scratch-build some coil-over shocks for the front suspension - this was as useful as detailing the backside of a instrument panel, as the shocks are buried between the frame and the control arms. I also began scratch-building rear leaf springs to replace the poorly detailed kit pieces. And then, like a woman in an old country song who smells an odd perfume on her man’s shirt collar, joy left me again as I noticed my first Little Mistake (used with permission).

Part of the front chassis is actually a front body panel (it sits below the grill and above the front bumper), and needs to be painted with the body color. Why is that a mistake? Because the chassis is currently painted flat black – all the way around. Why is that a Little mistake? Because I can fix it with masking tape and paint. This is when joy bought my story that it was my aunt’s perfume, decided I was worth a second chance, and maybe we could be in a southern rock song instead...

The front and rear bumpers in the kit have pusher bars on them - unfortunately, the reference car’s bumpers did not, which meant I had to remove them from the otherwise correctly shaped kit parts. However, it’s never that easy, is it?

The degree of difficulty on this maneuver is that the kit bumpers are molded hollow in back - simply cutting the pusher bars portions off would have left each bumper in three separate pieces. Using resourcefulness only a modeler could draw forth and appreciate (because it was completely lost on my wife and daughter), and which I didn’t know I had, I filled the hollow area behind each pusher bar with gap-filling CA and set it with CA kicker. This provided enough support to allow me to cut the pusher bars off, grind the stubs down with my rotary tool, and sand the area smooth. Some Mr. Surfacer and a coat of primer later, and I had a bumper ready for gloss black, which will be covered with Alclad II Chrome (just for the bling, baby!) before the bumpers get installed.

The Build - Itchy and Scratchbuild

The toughest part of the build to date has been the front grill. I’ve seen nothing like it in any kit, so set down to do my first bit of major (or minor, depending on if John Alcorn’s reading this article) scratch-building (OK, it was my second, but the first time I was following along with an FSM article, so it doesn’t really count). My biggest problem was how to build it so it looked like a kit piece rather than a grade school art project.

The grill, when viewed from the top, follows the angle of the hood, so I roughed that angle onto a small piece of wood to act as a jig. Stock styrene rod of roughly the correct diameter was gently heated over a match and quickly bent to the correct angle - six pieces would be needed for this grill (I counted them on the reference photo - and people scoff at the New Math. Pshaw!) Each bent piece was laid into the wood jig, with another smaller piece of the same diameter rod in between each to act as a spacer. Once in place, some masking tape held it all together and tight while I glued in smaller diameter styrene rod in the center and midway on each side. Once the glue set, the spacers were extricated from the jig, the tape was removed, and the grill was halfway done. The kit grill was molded with a surround in place which I could use, so I cut the kit grill away from the surround, drilled some small holes, and mounted the new grill in its place. A little sanding and primer, and it too will be ready for gloss black and Alclad II Chrome.

The Build - References? We don’ need no stinkin’ references!

I’ve mentioned references once or twice in this article. My references are more than just my friend telling me, “I had this ‘53 Vic painted red - can you build it?” I’ve actually got six pictures of this car in various poses and angles. Before you get excited, let me explain further - I’ve got six black and white photos from six 3x3 40+ year old faded color photos, photocopied on a single sheet of 8.5x11” paper. I’ve seen the color versions once, but I can do little but confirm their existence - I have no access to them now. The one shot I don’t have is a good interior shot of the dash - I’ll have to contact my friend for more info before I get to work on it.

Epilogue

Luckily, the rest of the build should be much easier, and you’ll hear about that in future articles on this build-up. Coming up - the rest of the body paint, interior (I’ve got real color references for that - it’s white with black piping and grey carpet! No, really!), finish the chassis, control panels, wheels, and final assembly. Stay tuned, but don’t hold your breath - of all the things I’m famous for, building fast and writing regularly ain’t two of them...

A Paradigm Shift

It has been ages since I last posted - I wanted to keep this blog up to date on a more regular basis, but alas, I'm not that good.  However, I recently downloaded, and am using, Windows Live Writer Beta, so hopefully I can keep all my blogs together in one place.

In any case, I've made a paradigm shift in my modelling choices: I am no longer modelling military subjects.  With some notable exceptions, I will only model civilian subjects from now on.

Why?  Well, quite frankly, there are very few militaries in the world today which I can support - I certainly don't support U.S. military policy, and my own study of history leads me to believe I would not have supported it after 1861.  Building military models at the very least shows support of the builders of military weaponry and the countries who buy, build, and use them, and I can't in good conscience continue to show that level of support.

One key point: I make no judgements on the choices of other modelers.  I make my own principled decisions, and respect the principled decisions of others.  I still appreciate good military models, but will not build them myself.

How did I do this?  Simple: I traded 99% my miltary models (except those I could use for civilian purposes such as rescue vehicles) to another modeler for a table-top planer/jointer.  The bulk of my collection is now automobiles, motorcycles, a few civilian aircraft, and some fantasy and sci-fi pieces.

The notable exceptions mentioned above?  Some military aircraft I've already started, some military figures I want to paint, and two F-111's my wife appreciates that I said I'd build for her.

Anyway, there it is - there are also some new links.  One club I'm in, the Northwest Scale Modelers, have a new Yahoo group setup - check it out for some highlights of past meetings, our email threads, and other good info.  I've also got a review of the MiL-8H by Trumpeter on Internet Modeler you can read.

I don't blog nearly enough...

Certainly not enough to support three blogs. I suppose I could explain it away by saying I'm too busy building models to blog, but that's not the case either. I'm actually a TV addict - a selective addict, to be sure, but an addict nonetheless. IN any case, here's a rundown of what's been happening.

I've been working on a 1953 Ford Victoria, the 1/24th Lingbergh kit, as a project request from a man who used to live in my condo. He had the car when he was a kid, and wanted a model of it as he owned it. The problem here is two-fold - first, he did some modifications to to the car (more later) which I'll have to duplicate. Second, part of those modifications included a custom paint job - nothing special, but I do have to mix paint colors.

I went to Model Car World Auto Finishes to get my paints - the best match I found was '57 or '58 Chevy Torch Red. You get a lot of paint for any order - two full ounces, I believe, in large jars that fit normal airbrush siphon caps. The paints are lacquer based, but my lacquer thinner wouldn't clean it - I had to use acetone. I'm sure if I used auto lacquer thinner, I wouldn't have this problem. The paint also needs to go on heavy and fast - spraying it like a model paint will result in a pebbly finish. 15 minute flash time between coats works well, and once dry, this stuff is hard as a rock.

Obviously, I've used it already - emptied one bottle already, working on the second. Then i notice a problem - I forgot to fill two small locator holes in the rear of the body. Some sanding and filling with styrene rod filled the holes, but now I need to reprepr and repaint those areas before I can lightly sand the dust bunnies and put on the final coats. The hood looks nice, though...

The modifications done to the real car are minor - removal of bumper guards, some chrome elements, and adding bullet taillights (stolen from the AMT '56 Victoria kit) - with one notable exception. The front grill is completely different - the stock grill was replaced with a bird-cage style grill. Since I couldn't find on, I had to make it - finished that yesterday. Styrene rod was heated gently and bent over a nail to get the righ angle. Six of these rods were lined up on a jig - basically a piece of wood with a notch cut out of it at the right angle. They were taped down to the jig with more rod between them as spacers. Then some smalle rrod was used to join them in the middle and the halfway to ends as indicated in the reference photos. I cut away the grill from the top grill frame on the stock piece, drilled a few holes to locate the joining rods in the top frame, and glued it in place. The results - not a bad likeness. The bottom of the new grill kicks out a bit from vertical, but the tension once it's in place will be helpful and bring it back into line.

I had one other small problem so far - the front end of the frame part is actually part of the front of the car. Seems the front bumper rests under it, and the grill on top. This means it will have to painted the body color as well, instead of the flat black it currently is. No worries - some masking and paint will help it. While I was working on the frame, I also replaced the coil-over shock pieces (which look horrible) with some real springs (twisted pair wire wrapped around some sprue, and the sprue doubled as the shock). Too bad you won't be able to see them once the car is done - they're snadwiched between the frame and the front axle supports, almost completely hidden. Oh well...

The flathead engine is done pretty much stock, with the exception of a turned aluminum distributor, electrical wiring, and replacing the stock belts with painted masking tape. The effect will be nice.

Anyway, I'm on my way - some touch up, a few more coats of paint, and I'll be ready to jump on the interior.

One other thing I've done is cull my collection of military models. I just can't justify doing weapons of war when I don't (and haven't) agreed with U.S. military policy since about 1861. So, I'm working on strictly civilian subjects. Oh, when I say "cull my collection", I mean I pulled all my military stuff (well, most of it - there are a few pieces that I've either started, promised to people, or can convert to civilian or rescue subjects) and traded it to a friend for a jointer/planer. The hardest part? I love some of those planes and at least one of the models was expensive and hard to part with - the price of principles. Ah well...

IPMS Seattle Spring Show 2006

Well, this past weekend was the IPMS Seattle Spring Show 2006 at the Renton Community Center. What a blast...

We had more models this year, more people, more activity around our vendors, gave away more awards, had a bigger raffle table, and generally had a better and smoother run show than other years. I managed to walk away with six new boxes of plastic, a second, a third, and an honorable mention, all for an outlay of around $40. What a way to spend the day.

One big change we saw this year was the introduction of National-style Out of Box (OOB) awards. The best OOB model in any category was awarded a special OOB ribbon, on top of any other ribbons or awards they may have won. There were some teething pains, but those should be worked out by next year.

We had some new problems this year - parking was a big issue. The RCC scheduled three big things the same day, so while we were concerned with a fight for chairs, we ignored the fact that there was no parking left by 10:30am. We're working to fix that next year, including some sort of offsite parking/shuttle service.

If you find yourself in Seattle around this time next year, stop by for IPMS Seattle Spring Show 2007, Saturday, April 21, 2007, at the Renton Community Center. Visit the IPMS Seattle Home Page for more info, as well as pics from this year's show.

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...

Opening remarks

My third, and hopefully last, blog to be added to Blogger. Here I'll try to recount some of my trials and tribulations with my major hobby - building scale models. Some background...

I started modelling as a kid with my dad in his garage workshop. He had a big bench and worked on some custom cars - I had a little desk and did some woodworking as well as some models there. Parent's divorced, I moved away - modelling took a tumble. I was in D&D for a while, so I learned how to paint lead miniatures with acrylics, but other than that, I did very little modelling.

Then I get married and have a child (OK, I adopted her, but she's still mine). She wants a model of a Firebird, so we get it and start building, and bug is back. I reconcile with my dad (long story), he comes out and sets me up with some tools and magazines. We move to Seattle, I get involved with IPMS Seattle, and the bug was fully embedded in my brain. After eight years of doing more advanced modelling, I've learned a lot, spent a lot, and have much more to learn than I have to teach.

So, I'll be posting some notes on my feelings about modelling, the projects I'm working on, stuff with the clubs I'm involved with, and anything else that's related to this great hobby.