1/72nd Armor with Steve Hustad: Episode 114

Welcome to Plastic Model Mojo, a podcast dedicated to scale modeling, as well as the news and events around the hobby. Let's join Mike and Kentucky Dave as they strive to be informative, entertaining and help you keep your modeling mojo alive.

Well, Mo Jovia, welcome to a belated episode 114. As was explained in the 12-minute model sphere, we slipped this one to the right a little bit, Dave.

Yes, we did Well. Amts was such an awesome experience and we got to talk to so many of our friends up there. We kind of had to get that out there.

We did. But that's a good segue into what else is up in your model sphere, dave.

Well, my model sphere if I survive spring colds which is what the doctor told me I had, although it felt a whole lot more like a flu or something, if I survived that my model sphere is rocking between HeritageCon and AMTS. Two great contests behind us, we've got Wonderfest and then the Nationals coming up and I'm trying to get things prepared for that, because, you know, get things prepared for that because you know there's coordination that needs to go on, both for trying to see people when they come in for Wonderfest here in Louisville and then, as people know, there's going to be a little bit of a road trip with Digger Dave from Louisville to Madison for the Nationals. So I'm trying to get all that coordinated. And, as you keep reminding me, you know we're under a hundred days, or 80 days until the national contest. So I need to get my butt in gear. We do need to get your butt in gear.

Dave.

Yes, I'm trying, man, and I got a. I got a model. You know, nothing, nothing, Nothing's worse than having to spend a week away from the bench because you're lying on the couch sick. The only positive from that is it was during the beginning of playoff hockey, so I at least was able to lay on the couch and watch something good while I was sick. But what's up with your model sphere?

Oh man, I really don't know.

Probably not a good sign.

Well, you know, like you just mentioned, heritagecon and Amps we had two great shows we attended. Not that far apart, I've certainly been motivated to do some work. Yeah, haven't been too successful, we've just been busy. Well, the week after Amps, my wife was actually out of the country on vacation, so I was dealing with the one child still left in the house. That ended up taking a lot of my time. It'd be like pushing nine o'clock before we'd finish up in the evenings and just wasn't getting much done. And now we're in the thick of birthday season on my side of the family.

Yes, and now we're in the thick of a birthday season on my side of the family, yes, speaking of which, tomorrow is the big day for you, right?

Yes, we're recording this on April 30th, so maybe to offer some offer some context, april 30th is my younger brother's birthday.

Oh, okay.

This is the day before mine, which he shares with David Goldfinch, uh-huh. And Terry Hill from our club. Yeah, my eldest son's was last week, april 24th, so we got a birthday on the 24th, we got one on the 30th, we got mine on the 1st. My dad's birthday is May 7th, uh-huh, and my mom's birthday is July 5th, so 7-5-5-7. And my mom's birthday is July 5th.

So seven, five, five seven seven Busy time.

Man, I've gotten a little done. We'll get into that, into the uh benchtop halftime report, but man, it's just been trying to kick all this stuff out. I got all this other stuff going on. It's like one arm, one arm paper hanger.

Yep, Amen, brother, Amen, that's.

Uh, you know there's a lot of good there there is, so maybe with a little lubrication I can make it through the episode.

Speaking of lubrication, I am assuming that you have a modeling fluid tonight.

I do.

I picked up a bottle of Old Forrester 1920 for the birthday season. Yeah, that's a way to celebrate your birthday.

Yeah, it's good, We'll touch on it at the end. What about you? Well?

I've got Dr Feelgood IPA from Stalwart Brewing Company out of someplace in Canada Carlton Place, ontario place in Canada, carlton Place, ontario and this beer was given to us up at Heritage Con by, I think it's. Bruce from the Hobby Center gave us this one, and so, having brought it all the way back from Canada, I wanted to give it a try. Oh my, oh my, that's going to be an interesting bud.

All right, folks, hang on, buckle up guys you gotta listen to it all if you want to hear what dave's got to say about that that's right well, I tell you I should have mentioned it in the 12 minute model sphere, but when, when we pushed that episode out and put put out the amp special, I got a little discombobulated man, because it wasn't a regular episode. So the edit protocol was a little different and I don't know whether I'm coming or going. So this is Lister Mail segment, dave, and we've got some. We haven't done it and we've pushed it out a little bit. Yes, we have. Well, let's get into it, dave, you got it. First up tonight is going to be Mark Dines. He missed us at HeritageCon. He was the one who was going to meet us and was going to bring us something and then ended up falling ill.

Yeah.

Right at the front end, like the day before.

Oh, nothing worse. You plan all year for a contest like HeritageCon to have something like that happen. It's awful.

Well, we can take a little bit of credit for his slow recovery. I think the recovery part, not the slow part.

Oh, okay.

He's been working his way through the back catalog. We really appreciate that a lot.

Yes, absolutely.

And I guess back in episode 50, we were commenting about women in the hobby. He has sent us a suggestion. We'll talk about that offline. But, mark, thank you for that and I hope you get well soon.

Absolutely.

Up next Dave is John Allen from Linton, Indiana. Okay, that's up near Terre Haute. Okay, I'm not familiar with that, but I'm familiar with Terre Haute, so that's up there. He says originally his seven-year-old daughter was hospitalized for emergency surgery for a little while. Uh-huh, well, that sucks. Sorry to hear that. Yes, for two weeks he was commuting almost two hours each way to the children's hospital and home because his wife was staying with her and he had to come back home and go to work every day. Yeah, that's, that's not a good thing to have to endure, but hopefully she's coming along. During the drive he had listened to our show and take his mind off things for a little while. You know, that's kind of like, uh, mark Doremus out in Seattle Same kind of comment. So she's doing much better now and is almost completely recovered, and you and I and Evan as well. He thanks us for keeping him company in the carter and all that.

Hey listen, nothing I like here and better than a modeler getting to take his mind off difficulties that he might he or she might be dealing with, off difficulties that he might he or she might be dealing with, and us being a very small part of that. That really that I couldn't be happier about that.

Well, good, he's got a show segment idea and we'll uh, we'll discuss that offline.

Right. Thank you for doing that, for for writing in and suggesting something.

I think I may have mentioned this the last time, but the email was still unchecked in the inbox. Dave Tony Radozovic from Horizon Hobbies would appreciate and we will certainly do it mentioning his new Atlas Agena kit.

Yes, we did actually mention that last episode because I went on at length about how, how, that is the first space shot that I actually remember as a child, and the docking and and the, the, what a big deal all of that was. So, yes, absolutely, I could not be happier to see that uh produced in 70 second scale as part of a, a real space series well, digger dave got his done.

If you go, yes, what's on, what's on your bench facebook page for the on the bench podcast, you can see what Dave did and I tell you. I go one further man, I think for injection, molded real space, horizon Models, is the high bar, I mean.

They are producing. Given the quality and the variety of kits they have, there's nobody else that's doing what they're doing. They're the leader in that segment of the hobby, in my opinion.

And when I crack those open, it's the decal sheet that really impresses me.

Yes, because they give you multiple different versions. Yes, because they give you multiple different versions. Yeah, but they're well done.

Yes, so keep it up, tony. Yes, got any suggestions for him? I don't know.

Well, I'm hoping he's just working his way through the program. We're going to get there eventually.

You're going to get that 70-second scale Saturn V.

Yeah, well, it's been done once before, why not? And what I'm looking forward to is the 72nd scale Starship that he's eventually going to get to.

Oh, up next from Charlotte, north Carolina. Voice of Bob Ah, bob Bear, he said our episode. It was the instructions. One had some timely information. He's got the Glenn Hoover book on the 48 scale pre 38 lightning, which is on his bench now. So, uh, pretty cool. The book is very well laid out, of course, and uh helps him make some decisions about add-ons and made him realize some of the PE for the cockpit that he will not be doing.

And made him realize some of the PE for the cockpit that he will not be doing Anytime somebody doesn't use PE an angel gets his wings.

That's pretty good, thank you. He says another item out of the instructions was a recommendation for using the VMS products for the photo etch and he's always just sanded and or annealed the stuff to get them ready for paint. Yeah, he picked up both the weathering carrier and the metal prep 4K and he recommends the carrier first, then coat with the metal prep Interesting I got to look into this I'm not familiar with the weathering carrier.

Yeah, me neither. So you're right, I'm going to need to look into that too and he's gonna do some testing after hearing your you. You talk about your experiences applying the stuff as our friend steve says, spend 50 of your modeling time testing and things go a whole lot better, he says thanks for helping him through the eclipse.

He decided to mow the lawn while listening to us during the eclipse, and that way he was sure to see light at the end. Oh, bob. He also comments that the next drop will be on National Garlic Day. But I think we screwed that up?

Yeah, I think we did.

John McAvoy yes, he's talked to us a lot.

You remember where he's from up in the northeast, up up in uh jim's territory, northwest, northwest, that's what.

Whatever turn around, if you're facing the wrong direction you think the direction you're facing is north, don't you? Because you did that on the way home from Anne's.

Yeah, whatever.

You almost had me going to St Louis.

There you go. That's okay, there are hobby shops there.

Well, he heard us talking about some T-34 kit that was coming out and he says he can't seem to find it anywhere on ScaleMates or Facebook. Was this a figment of his imagination? No, it was not. In fact there was a post on the Facebooks recently, this past week I think, because I linked it to our I don't know either the dojo or our little group chat we got going on. The company's called War Pig. Yes, that kit's got a lot of stuff. Some of it's a little gimmicky, like a recoiling. That's not much use, I don't think, in a 35th scale static model, but lots of other craziness in that kit and it's gonna have to be a wait and see.

I've got some uh serious skepticism about that yeah, but some serious curiosity as well finally, from the email side of things, from new york city, new York, michael Karnalka, yes, who if you've watched, the dojo has been building.

I'm really happy to see him post some of his build work.

Yeah, mike, keep posting the build stuff, man, we want to see what you got going on.

Exactly.

He wants to know what are some of our favorite box arts. Is there a particular one that you'd love to have enlarged and have a whole wall in your home or office decorated with it? He's partial to Tamiya Bradley with the ramp open showing the inside, okay, hasegawa, 48 scale kits have got a lot of cool stuff.

Oh yeah, a 48 scale F4 Phantom II Wild Weasel in Vietnam in particular. Okay, trying to think which one that is. Phantom 2 wild weasel in vietnam in particular. Okay, try to think which one that is. I don't know.

So box art, dave, god, this one could go. We could go long on this. Um, obviously this for pure nostalgia. Any of the roy cross stuff, just absolutely. It tickles all the right feels. Any of the 48 scale, the Hasegawa I think the guy's last name is K-O-G-E or K-O-G-A, it's the artist's name Just some of the most beautiful box art. There was beautiful box art. There was Just really almost photorealistic painting of the aircraft. Oh, the Ploesti Raider version of the B-24 from the old Revell kit. God, it was either Brewery Wagon or Hell's Wench down on the deck with the refineries in the background. God, that's a great question. Seriously, we could make a whole episode out of this because there's so much great yeah, there's so much great stuff.

Well, I'm going to double down. The Roy Cross, Just about all that stuff is fabulous and it certainly made me buy kits.

And to prove the fact that it was really great quality. The original artwork for those items are traded on the fine art market. Yes, I mean and demand fine art prices.

Yeah, I had a bit of naivety, thinking I was going to go search throughout one of those and buy it Dang man Didn't realize you'd have to sell your car. Exactly. But other than that, I think, thinking back to my childhood, it's a lot of the box art that was on, particularly the 32nd scale Revell kits. Yeah, that scale in particular, those box arts. Yeah, I bought a lot of those. You know, the Flying Tigers, p40, I think. What else? One of the Corsairs, right?

Yeah, that Corsair was a classic. Oh, and there's one more that we need to mention, and that would be Ron Volstad. I've actually met him in person once or twice.

Yeah, he used to be at AMPS.

Yeah, he used to come to AMPS on the regular. He did all of those dragon figure kit, box arts and a lot of the armor kit and a lot of the armor. And just first of all, he's a really nice human being but also a really, really talented artist and it was really cool to go to amps and see him doing the art on site and you could watch the process and all and how he came to the the figures and the poses and the uniforms and his stuff is really really good and uh, you know, it's out there, available. You, you can buy. It Doesn't demand Roy Cross prices but it is art, but those are out there and available and a really nice piece of art.

A funny aside with the Volstad dragon stuff. I remember when he was really ripping through those things there was a rumor that got concocted that, like on a tank kit, the knocked out vehicle in the background was going to be a future dragon release. Yeah, and it was kind of working for a while.

Yeah.

Just just because dragon was cranking out Right, so many kids. But then they've released one. I can't remember what it was. It had a French somewhat as 35 in the background and everybody got excited because of this. You know what was? Basically a conspiracy theory in terms of credibility.

Right Just because Volstead chose to use that in the background.

And everybody's getting all excited about the pending dragon Somois 35 that never came to fruition and to me it finally beat him to it. Which means it never was going to happen by. Dragon. Yeah Well, dave, that's it for the listener mail On the email side. What do you got?

I've got some on the DM side and I just want to select a few. One listener, bob Smith I don't know Bob's location, but they're the Chinese-built versions that have these really beautiful two-tone or three-tone blue and green scheme and he was looking for decals for that and I gave him some suggestions. He's not been having a lot of luck. So if anybody knows, in 48th or 72nd scale he didn't specify the scale of Bangladeshi J7 sheets drop a note in the dojo for Bob Smith. Also, bob asked a question that I want to answer here for everybody. He's got a couple items that he's never going to build, that he wants to sell, and he wanted to know if it was okay to post them on the dojo and the answer to that question is yes. Now, obviously we don't want the dojo to turn into a full-time scale model, graveyard or somebody's full-time hobby marketing site.

But if you're a dojo regular and a listener and you have a kit or kits that you have spared to your needs, it is absolutely okay to post them on the dojo to let people know and you know, once somebody's interested you can take it offline and DM direct to do the deal. But yes, it is absolutely okay to do that occasionally and the floodgate was open.

Yeah, well, I noticed I used the word occasionally Was Bob Smith in the superglue industry now.

I know I don't think it's the same Bob Smith had to ask yeah, I know Our friend Christian Gurney, bassist by Bill, has reached out. They are ramping back up bass production Now not so much specialty bass production but some standardized basses.

Yeah, some product.

Some product and he actually sent me to 72nd scale US World War II, pre-world War II aircraft carrier bases and these things are really impressive and I'm going to have a lot more to say on them once. I want to play around with them a little bit and take a look at some stuff, but just out of the package they'd be great to display your World War II US aircraft carrier aircraft on and I think there's some great potential to play around with them and do even more. And that's kind of what I want to play with. But I'm happy to see BBB Bases by Bill getting back into the product game and encourage everybody to take a look at what they've got, because they're starting to produce more and more regular uniform bases.

And now to try that out. You've got to build something.

Well, actually I've already got something built that I'm going to use as the display on it. But, yes, I'm also going to now have to. Well, no, actually I'll send one of them to you and you have to build the Flyhawk SPD. Okay, there you go, our the Flyhawk SBD. Okay, there you go.

Our listener, paul Pendleton Brown, from the UK. He's looking for a couple of two Bob's decal sheets. They're 48-217 and 48-18 Alkenberry Gooners, I think is the name or the names of the sheets and they're no longer in production. And this is kind of the flip side of Bob Smith's DM earlier. If you are looking for a particular item decal sheet, photo, etch sheet, resin conversion set, whatever and you know, we've got a lot of listeners and those listeners actually have stashes and many of those listeners are very generous and realistic about what they might actually end up building. So if there's something that you particularly are looking for that isn't in production anymore, that you can't find out there, but is something you need for a very current project, please feel free to post on the dojo and let all of the listeners know and ask them to spread the word to other places, and I guarantee you somebody's got it in their stash and they're probably willing to part with it, just simply because modelers are when it comes down to it. 95% of them are really it comes down to it and 95% of them are really really great people. And I can't tell you the number of times I've pulled something out of my stash to mail somebody who needs it and, by the same token, have had modelers do the same for me. And so it's the flip side of Bob Smith's question. The flip side of Bob Smith's question Please feel free to post things you're looking for on the dojo Is that it One more a new listener reaching out to us by the name of Nate Bott, b-o-t-t out of Midland Michigan.

We went by Mid of Michigan not too long ago, coming back over from HeritageCon, so we were at least in the area. He's listening to the podcast, enjoying it, and he wants to build a 72nd scale B-25. But he's not married to a particular kit or to a particular version and so, in the spirit of life, is too short to25s covered that Hasegawa has the later B-25s covered. Both of them are excellent kits so within a wide range he can build a lot of the B-25s and probably find a particular version if he was looking for one. If he's not married to a particular version, he can start with either of those kits and he's going to be happy with the buildability of the kit, and so that's all I've got from the DM side.

Well, folks, if you want to talk to the show, we'd certainly appreciate it. Again, this is said almost every episode. This is our favorite segment, at least my favorite segment. Yes, please write into the show. You can do so by sending an email to plasticmodelmojo at gmailcom or sending a direct message through the Facebook direct message system. Tell us what you think, ask a question, criticism, whatever. We'll talk about it and we love it.

Absolutely. As a regular PMM listener, I would hope that you've already gone to whatever podcasting app you use and rated the podcast and given it five stars. If you haven't done that, please do so Also. Please tell a friend about the podcast and given it five stars. If you haven't done that, please do so Also. Please tell a friend about the podcast. The best way for us to continue to grow is for people who listen currently to tell a friend who's not a podcast listener, maybe not even particularly technologically savvy. We know there are modelers out there like that. If you, as a listener, would sell us to one of your modeling buddies, we would appreciate it. It's the best way for us to continue to grow.

And once you've done that, please check out all the other podcasts out there in the model sphere. You can do so by going to wwwmodelpodcastcom. That's a consortium website set up with the help of Stuart Clark from the Scale Model Podcast up in Canada. If you go to modelpodcastcom you'll find banner links to all the podcasts out there in the model sphere who are participating in the spirit of cross-promotion with us, and this is a podcast. We've got a lot of content creating friends out there that are friends of the show. We've got Jim Bates, scale Canadian TV. He's got a YouTube channel you want to check out. Chris Wallace, model airplane maker. A great blog, a great YouTube channel up and coming, Great stuff there. Stephen Lee, who we finally met face to face at amps.

Yes, and met face-to-face at amps yes and that, and spent it. Spent a night in the hotel room telling stories and enjoying uh prime modeling fluid yeah, glad you qualified that.

Yeah, steven lee sprupe out with frets, a great blog, long and short form. You can keep up with all his builds uh, mostly in 72nd scale, and a lot of long form content on what's going on in the hobby and what he thinks about it. Yep, jeff Groves, the inch high guy, the inch high blog. Jeff's got a lot of great stuff going on on his blog. Again, it's all 72nd scale, batch builds, crazy projects. Check out what Jeff's doing and we're going to have him on the show real soon.

Yes, we are.

And finally Evan McCallum Panzermeister36, who's been kicking out the videos at a decent clip.

finally, yes, he has.

You know we need to get him on here again soon. Yes, we do.

Folks, check out all that great content or if you're in Canada IPMS Canada, or Mexico, ipms Mexico or whatever nation that you listen to us in. If you're not a member of your national IPMS organization, please join. It's a group of modeling societies that have banded together to try and make modeling better in their particular countries and throughout the world. In addition, if you are an armor modeler and are not a member of the Armor Modeling Preservation Society, amps, please consider joining AMPS. Great group of guys Listen. Had a whole lot of fun hanging out at their nationals. They've got a lot of regional contests coming up throughout the summer and fall and then, of course, next spring they've got a another national in pennsylvania and, uh, it's a good organization.

Consider joining plastic model mojo is now brought to you by Model Paint Solutions, your source for harder steam back airbrushes, david Union power tools and laboratory-grade mixing, measuring and storage tools for use with all your model paints, be they acrylic enamels or lacquers. Check them out at wwwmodelpaintsolutionscom dot com.

Well, dave, we caught up with Steve Husted at HeritageCon. He was our guest at the Airbnb for the evening, him and Mark Copeland yes, a great time. And after seeing what he brought to HeritageCon and talking to him a little bit later, we decided that maybe we'd turn a little bit and talk about his small scale, 72nd scale armor stuff.

Yes.

Because it ain't bad either.

It's not fair that he's talented as both an aircraft modeler and an armor modeler, but he's doing some really great things in 72nd scale armor, and 72nd scale armor is a really happening area right now, so it's a great time to sit down with Steve and talk about what's going on and just everything 72nd scale armor. Well, let's get into it.

Well, dave, we've got an old friend back. Yes, steve Hustad. How are you doing, steve?

I'm good. How are you guys tonight?

We're great, we just got back from AMPS. But we'll get into that maybe in a little bit, but we last saw you about what? Three weeks ago. Now Three weeks ago.

Yeah, three weeks Hamilton Ontario. It was a great time, great show, great venue.

Yeah, it was you kind of did. All right, I did Okay.

So, good. Okay, it was you know it was fun.

The best time is seeing you guys again and, you know, seeing a new venue and, uh, you know, seeing Harvey Lowe and some other meeting some new guys. It's that's the best part.

Absolutely.

We glad you and Mark bunked with us at the house.

we had there, yeah it was nice of Chris Wallace to set us up, and it was nice meeting him too, yeah he made a new friend.

So that's always great. Well, how was the trip to and from?

Well, two was a little dicey. We took off and it was starting to snow, of course, the day we left and and we got down through Wisconsin, uh, into lower Wisconsin, and made our traditional uh stop at the road dog and below it and I took a picture and mounted that on the on the dojo, got the snowy dog, and so so we uh got some food there and then went on to, uh, uh, michigan, up in Michigan, up in Farmington Hills, that we stayed there the first night. So we kind of killed the first two thirds of the trip on day one. So it made the next day a lot easier. But we were going to hit Michigan Toy Soldier the next morning, which we did and that was a lot of fun Dropped some money there and the weather was picking up at that point Hit a giant pothole in Michigan somewhere.

I just thought the models were all wrecked but they survived. And then, or worse yet, I thought we might have broken a strut or something, but it was okay there too. So, and we get into Hamilton and into the museum the day before and met you guys in the gift shop and then kind of wandered through the get a look at them, starting to set up tables and that was fun and got to look at a lot of the displays and great venue, a lot of nice aircraft in there and a lot of space. They wheeled out some aircrafts. They can set up the tables for the vendors in the contest and yeah, it was a great time. Then the Airbnb we had and it was nice meeting Chris Wallace and brought my 1970s Harvest Gold cooler with me so I had the traveling bar.

You brought more than that. I got to check something off of my bucket list at Hamilton Ontario. Got to check off the list. Have a martini made by Steve Hustad.

Okay. Well, it wasn't the ideal conditions because the ice was a little suspect and everything else was kind of off the cuff, but we worked out it worked great.

I had one each night. And, man, I'm telling you what and this is not blowing sunshine up your skirt you know how to make a martini, that's awesome.

Yeah, I've been doing it for decades. So we have our martini hour night, you know, every Friday, saturday and Sunday. And something we learned from my in-laws they kind of did that every night too, and it's a good way to sit down and keep connected with your wife and and just talk and drink and so forth.

She's a lot. She's a lot more forgiving after after after a few sips of a martini right, right, right.

Yeah, and she tolerates the hobby really well, so that's, I got nothing to complain about, listen hang on to that woman. Yeah, I've got nothing to complain about. Yeah, as she tells me all the time.

Yeah, she's right, absolutely.

Yeah, it's not a relationships podcast.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

And I think I heard you guys talking on what was it? The last episode, which actually the two of you that was fun to listen to, just the two of you. But you were talking about Hamilton and how the Airbnb being so close to the museum, which was we probably could have walked if we'd. If the weather was a little warmer. Yeah, it was a little colder and windy, but, yeah, the museum was probably, oh, maybe, a mile away at the most. Maybe, not even that, maybe like half a mile.

Maybe half a mile.

Yeah, and it was. Yeah, I was kind of worried. We got over there early on Sunday morning and there's this long line out the door and it was cold it was like 30 degrees I think that morning and there's people out there holding their models and they're freezing. We're kind of sitting in the car kind of watching them and thought, well, we'll just wait, wait. So we did, and finally the line abated and we got in there and it wasn't too bad.

The line abated and we got in there and it wasn't too bad. Well, we're going to have to have this isn't tonight's subject, but we're going to have to have a whole other discussion with you about how you transport your models, because I've got to tell you, it was an eye-opener to see what you do to transport your models. You it's it's a a mini model in and of itself, and so at some point in the future we're going to have to have an episode on that.

Okay, it's almost like you're an architect or something.

Yeah, it's almost like you're an architect or really familiar with foam core and stuff like that.

Oh yeah, I built actually two boxes just specifically for travel so I don't have to keep switching them out. So it works pretty well. And I double-decker them so you can have and building only 72nd scale. It makes it easy. You can get like five or six in a box.

See another advantage of 72nd scale.

Oh yeah, we're still working on Mike to get him into armor, but we'll talk about that later.

I've done a little bit of that scale, very little bit, no pun intended.

Well, 76 is close, right, Well 76 is close right.

That's kind of the old scale, back before it really took root. But yeah, back the Airfix and the old Matchbox and those initial small armor scales were kind of that odd scale. Of course the kits were terrible back then too.

But yeah, but Mike builds them for nostalgia, not for, not for the quality of the kit.

Okay, I was kind of hoping we'd see your Paul at at heritage con, but that didn't make the that didn't make it and it's not been touched since we got back either.

So, um, I got to get up my nerve and get cracking on it. I know it's not true. I did touch up the underside where I had to refill the wing root.

But yeah, well, I heard you. I heard a seam popped or something and you had to address that so, yeah, I had to fix that.

So it's ready for the green again. So keep your fingers crossed. Maybe we'll see it for nats. I don't know.

I don't make no promises a little negative modeling then.

So that's right. Okay. Well, on the topic of small-scale armor, which is going to be our topic tonight yeah, you know, we just got back from AMPS this week and two things on the topic of it being an all-armor show.

Yep, okay, absolutely.

And the other observation is the best of show is 48 scale, so I don't.

Well, that's encouraging.

Clearly not a bias there anymore. If there ever was one, Well, that's encouraging.

Clearly not a bias there anymore, if there ever was one? Well, yeah, I think there is. Well, it's like the small-scale armor is kind of like the Rodney Dangerfield of armor modeling. You know, it doesn't get any respect, it doesn't get any respect.

Yes, but I will tell you, the 72nd-scale armor that was present at AMPS was of very high quality. I mean, the people who are building it and entering it are really, really good at what they're doing doing. It's just not compared as a ratio of 35th to 72nd in armor at amps there's much more parity between, or much closer to parity between, 35th scale armor and 72nd scale armor at the IPMS nationals.

Yeah, but you thought it was underrepresented though.

Yes, it was In quantity, not in quality.

Okay.

Again, the quality was just blow your mind. Good, okay.

Well, steve, you're primarily known for aircraft modeling. Can you give us a little view as to what got you going down the 72nd scale armor route? Because we've seen a couple of your little vignettes and dioramas of the same caliber as your aircraft models. But what got you going that way?

I started the armor modeling right at well, it was about maybe late 90s, like 98, 99, and I was noticing that there really wasn't much in the way of small scale armor that you'd see at contests and what was there wasn't very good and it just wasn't represented very well. And I thought, well, here's an opportunity, and it's a good opportunity to try something different and kind of expand your skills, learn some different techniques. And so I bought some books from guys that are probably primarily 35th scale guys, like some of the stars of armor modeling, like Rick Lawler and Sam Dwyer, adam Wilder and Andy Goldman and Miguel Jimenez and those kinds of guys. So I thought, well, maybe we can translate this to 72nd scale and and the same thing with, uh, aircraft.

I think when you take something that people aren't expecting much of and you do something with it, I think it's it makes a greater impact. And so I thought, well, let's give it a try and it just I was getting bored at the time. At the time I was kind of at the end of my 135th scale World War I figures and dioramas stage, so I was kind of going into, wanted to do something different and kind of expand the skill set and recently it made me think about something our co-friend Paul Gloucester mentioned is that he was reading a book called.

Range by David Epstein and it's how generalists triumph in a specialized world, and the way Paul described it is trying a lot of different things or a lot of different genres can really expand your horizons and expand your skills, and a lot of those skills become cross-adaptable to what you were modeling before and what you're modeling now and, as a matter of fact, we've got Paul coming up on an upcoming episode on that very subject.

Yeah, I asked him about that because I think I think maybe I'd been subconsciously maybe doing that theory from that point on, cause I was kind of going from area of modeling to area of modeling to area of modeling and trying to do things differently and see what could be done with them. That's kind of got me into small scale armor. So I started doing. I started with just with tigers. I thought, well, stick to tigers and I don't have to get a a big library and you know the decals and all the aftermarket. Well, that soon expanded to tigers and I don't have to get a a big library and you know the decals and all the aftermarket. Well, that soon expanded to tigers and panthers, which, oh my, yes, right, which then expanded the tigers and panthers and mark fort. So you know. So pretty soon everything was getting out of control again and I was the enthusiasm was growing so I could post on the dojo a selection of those uh that I did later on the facebook page. But, yeah, definitely so.

Yeah, so started with tigers and and got into there and I was uh, researching um books by guys like alex clark. You've heard of him, he's a big second skill guy and and does tremendous work. So I picked up some of his books and studied what he was doing. And Steve Zaloga.

He used to do a lot of 72nd armor and then trying to translate a lot of the 35th scale skills down to 72nd. And that's a little difficult because things have to be simplified a little bit. But if you approach it with the same kind of thought process that is done in 35th, if you approach it with the same kind of thought process that is done in 35th, I think it can be done. The big thing, just like with 72nd scale aircraft, I think the big thing is when you're painting, to work with contrasts, because you need to emphasize things a little more and scale finesse is a big thing. So any out-of-scale thicknesses or edges need to be dealt with and if all those are addressed then I think you can make something pretty impressive. So that's kind of how I got started on it.

Well, on that topic of scale fidelity on average, I guess would be kind of the way to frame it Do you find there's more opportunity or more things to address, more opportunity for modeling enjoyment, as we like to joke Do you think there's more opportunity or more things to fix on a scale, typical scale armor kit in terms of scale fidelity?

Oh, yes, yeah, definitely, yeah, definitely, and it's getting. The gap is closing now. But I remember the first ones back in 98 99, when I started building and we had airfix and matchbox and fujimi and those are 76 scale. And then we had some by hasagawa and it um, italy and heller, but that was about it back in the late 90s and they were all terrible. They all had rubber band tracks and you'd wrap the track around the bogey wheels and if it didn't break off the idler wheel or the drive wheel, you know it would just come loose later.

And then we had kind of the mid-era, like the 2000s, 2010s, with Revell, dragon, zvezda and Trumpeter, which things started to get a lot better, a lot better. And I think I think in recent years, like the last four years maybe, we've started to get uh kits from vespid models, border models, ibg, flyhawk and mini art in 72nd scale, which I think are starting to approach the quality that armor models are used to in quarter scale and 35th scale. Um, it was. It was almost more satisfying to take one of those old pieces of crap and make it look good, but this is easier and then you can concentrate on other areas. But Vespid models, boy, that's good stuff.

Yeah, I just wait for the. You know they did the T-34-85 recently and I am hoping that they're going to do the entire T-34 series.

Oh, I just say, we're yeah.

Yeah, because that just presents them so much opportunity.

Yeah, they started with the, I think. Well, the Panthers are one of their first ones, right, and they did the G. And then they haven't gone back and done an AD yet, but they've done a lot of variants of the G kit. We'll see, but I hope they do.

Of the 72nd scale armor. That you've done, but what I've seen of it? You always place it in a diorama or a vignette. In other words, not just a tank or not just a tank on a base.

Tank on a plank.

Yeah, a tank on a plank. That's like plane on a pole tank on a plank.

I didn't make that up.

Someone else came up with that, someone else. I still love it. I'm gonna yeah, I'm going to steal it, even if you didn't originate it yeah, early on, that's something else I wanted to do is with everyone.

I wanted to put it on a small base like, um, maybe you know, four by two and a half inches or something, and I wanted to landscape that base and I wanted to include at least one figure with the tank to kind of give it some scale and some some personality and uh, and then putting it on the base it kind of animates it, because I think a base, even in a contest or something, they're not supposed to be judging the bases, but I think it just sets it off so nicely it has a subconscious effect.

No, no matter what I think it must, yeah, and because it does on me when I look at it and I got to believe it does on others too. But so it was kind of. Two decisions I made right from the start was to put them on a landscape base and to add at least one figure to them, and then each one becomes almost like a little vignette almost, and and it just is a lot more interesting. And I I'd had a lot of diorama experience with groundwork and other stuff with the 35th scale world war one stuff I had been doing prior to that. So it was kind of a natural extension.

And you start studying these other modelers, the guys that primarily work in 35th scale, and, like I say, I try to adapt some of those techniques down to 72nd, like watching Night Shift and how he does chipping on a 35th scale tank and then trying to scale that down to 72nd. And you have to simplify things a little bit. Or, whereas things like the washes and more of the, the simpler techniques are entirely adaptable, but some of the others you really have to kind of pay attention that you don't overdo it, because you have a lot smaller area to work in in each area. But but when it's done. You know, I think I like the looks of it better, but I still think nowadays that it still doesn't maybe get the respect it deserves and people kind of look at it from a distance and kind of move on to the bigger scale stuff.

But I think maybe that's changing a little bit, because now you have four or five manufacturers and you name them who have become serious about putting out quality 72nd scale armor kits and I think that ends up with people producing better work and that work therefore gets more recognition and more respect. Now you're very famous for the aircraft dioramas you do, and you do them from photographs, and I know you've done at least one armor vignette from a photograph or inspired by a photograph, do you?

do all of yours that way, or just occasionally, um, usually just the diorama ones the okay, there's a king tiger, I did, where it's some gis that are standing on top of the captured king tiger and the local belgian women are bringing out some food for them. And of course they've got the mon the mama's on right next to him make sure the GIs don't get out of, get out of control. So, and that was kind of a fun one. I did that. And the uh.

Another one was, uh, when I brought to the nationals last year it's a, it was done from a photograph, but uh, it's, it's a Panther, that uh that some GIs are looking over. In the spring of 45, right after the Ardennes campaigns, it was an abandon on kind of a snowy hillside with some pine trees. So it gives you the opportunity to build some trees and play with some snow and get some figures on there. And then the one I did recently is the one I think I brought to Hamilton, which is the two camels you I brought to hamilton, which is the, the with the two camels, but that's done by a photograph also yeah and I built that one alongside a revel tiger, one which was um an early one.

so I built the two side by side, got some color information from evan mccollum so he helped me a lot with that. So I built those two side by side and I corrected the Revell kit and pretty much built the Vespid kit as is, except added some more detail to it. But you can really see the generational change between the Revell to the Vespid and it's like the Revell kit had all the tools molded onto the upper hull.

Right.

And I like to have my tools separate, so instead I was looking at the. There's a book by Alex Clark Modeling the Tiger Tank in the 172nd Scale.

And I had it in my library.

Yeah, so I pulled it out and I was looking at it and he built the same kit. Yeah, so I pulled it out and I was looking at it and he built the same kit. And what he did? He just chopped off the forward upper hull and replaced it with 40,000 sheets Tyrene. And then, because that was easier than grinding off the tools and then repairing the surface, so I thought, well, I did that, so I did that and it was easier, so you can pick up these little techniques.

And uh, and then the whole, uh, the storage bin on the backside of the turret needed reshaping because it was a very early version and the Revell kit, even though it was supposed to be the earliest version, had the wrong one, cause they're, I'm sure, trying to, you know, extend it to mid production tigers and the rest of it later. So he made a lot of corrections with the Revell kit and that was the standalone one I did in the same scheme but with a different number. The one on the diorama was number 111, and then I did one. I made the other one, 112, like it's part of the same unit, but so it was a standalone one.

But and then the two camels on it were 3d printed from cmk and I was able to modify the one, the two, two were in. Two of the camels were in the photograph and I modified the one, so I had to have the the neck looking in different, you know, to match the photo and animate the legs, so they didn't look the same. And then the uh, the Arab, the Bedouin next to him, the guy that was uh kind of meeting up with this, uh, this tiger group, so that's kind of the whole scene of the photograph.

Now the camels. You told us where they came from. Most of the figures you've been on here and you've talked about for your aircraft, dioramas, using prize modifying priser figures. Is that what you're doing mostly with your 72nd scale armor as well?

yeah, it is. Um, actually, on the revel, when I used two orion figures which I usually don't do there they came out with two sets of german tankers and the only problem is they're in soft plastic. So they're really. But the detail on these is much better than the typical orion kit. So I I used two of those on the revel, one for the standalone, just a little vignette, and uh, but I I cut the heads off and ground out the necks and then replaced the heads with priser heads, because they're a lot better. And it's so hard cleaning up soft plastic too, because it just doesn't sand and it doesn't cut well. And so I had an idea I wired a needle to the end of it, heated it up, and you can use a hot needle to kind of blend over and get rid of the mold lines and things like that.

That's a great idea. I never would have thought of that.

And that worked.

Those figures. Yeah, they often have horrible mold seams on them and a lot of times they have a lot of offset problems on them too.

Yeah, these Orion figures are pretty good otherwise. But I had to get rid of those mold lines and the heads weren't acceptable because the mold line would go right through the face and there wasn't any way to clean it up, even with the soldering iron. So I used a priser for that. So, but I usually use priser pieces because the styrene is so much easier to modify. I did buy a bunch of the I think pieces because the styrene is so much easier to modify. I did buy a bunch of the um I think. After we did our figures uh episode I did pick up a lot of uh 3d printed resin figures from minorias.

They're all in greece yeah and they're quite nice, very, very nice figures, but they're very difficult to modify because the uh, the resin that's used is very hard and brittle and when you start sawing or cutting, things just kind of break apart, gotcha.

So you, can use them in the poses that they're in. But if you try and modify them because you like to give a lot of, one of the things that is really noticeable in what you do is your figures have a lot of life to them and I think that comes from you taking what are stock stiff poses and modifying them to give them a more natural look.

Yeah, some Preiser does a really good job with anatomy. So you're already halfway there, and so you just have to cut them up and pose them to match the photographs. And so you cut out, you know, use a rod stock and you cut little discs out and you use those as splices and wedges and you can bend them at the waist or the knees and get them. Bend them to your will, so to speak. But one thing Menorius or I'm not even sure if I'm pronouncing that right, but Menorius, the Greek company did. Their figures are beautiful, and what they've started to do is or at least I bought a couple sets is they have just headsets that they've done with different expressions in the facial, kind of like Hornet.

Exactly, but they've only which with different expressions in the facial, kind of like Hornet Exactly.

But they've only got one or two of them, but they're. They're very good. So I got a couple of those and I placed an order with Hannitz recently. I can't remember what the company is, let's see. I got the receipt here, but yeah, I'm not sure it's a 3d printed one 72nd scale pairs of hands. So I ordered three sets of those because they're just hands.

Right Again, just like Hornet.

Right. So you can kind of take a priser arm and you can cut off the hand and you can hollow out the sleeve and you can insert a new hand. That's much better made and that's pretty well. And I always replace the heads on the figures too with usually with priser heads. But you can grind out, drill a hole in the neck and then take the priser head after you clean it up and add a piece of a rod to the bottom plastic rod and then you can mount it on a toothpick for painting and that also, when you put the figure on the base later, you put it on without the head. This is a figure you've already modified to match the photo and then you can later after all, the figures are on, they're all headless and then you can start putting the heads on so that they interact with each other the way they should. So they're always looking at each other.

I'm sorry. I just got a great mental picture of one of your dioramas with all these headless.

I've got pictures of this.

I'll post something on the dojo Post those on the dojo, because just the mental image of that makes me laugh.

Oh it does. It's kind of strange looking until everybody's whole. Yeah, I'll put a post on the dojo. I've got some photos I took during the construction of the Revell and the Vespid models, tiger I, along with the camels and the diorama. I'll put that up there. That's got photos of them, kind of headless, in progress. That's got photos of them kind of headless in progress.

Now, do you go back and forth aircraft armor, aircraft armor, or do you have two projects going simultaneously? How does that muse strike you?

I usually go back and forth. Right now I'm doing a pair of Ka-46 Dynas. Prior to that I'd finished the pair of Tigers, the one with the diorama and the other one just the standalone vignette, right. So, and then you know, so you kind of go back and forth and I'll do German, japanese aircraft and then I'll do a diorama, a crashed or a Luftwaffe aircraft diorama, and then go back to tanks and maybe throw in a, a couple world war one aircraft and there's two.

so so, yeah, that you only scratch, built from a funky set of plans and and seven known photographs or whatever it was well nine known photographs. Oh, I'm sorry, that makes all the difference in the world.

Well, you mentioned the Molodon tools and having to fix that on the Tiger tanks. What are some other things you commonly run into with small scale armor? What are your favorite remedies there?

Yeah, the other problem is usually tow cables and other smaller cables that usually are often on the early Tiger kits or early armor kits of any type were usually molded on top of the hull. At least they got away from that in later years, but the ones that were included were usually way too thick branded steel cable and then you can anneal it in the hot flame and you can bend it and I cut off the end parts from the kit and I can put those on and so you can kind of bend those into place and replace the kit parts with those. And on the Tiger kits and Mike, you pointed this out on the Vespid one was missing the thin cable on side which the Tiger often had or always had, and that was very thin. So I replaced that with 10,000 solder wire and then you just have to do the connection points which came with a part. I used an old part photo etch set for the like the big tool clamps and that kind of thing.

So that raises another question Photo etch. Do you use a lot of photo etch? Well, I mean, now we're starting to see more photo etch for 72nd scale. Do you use a lot of photo etch on your 72nd scale builds?

I do for certain things like like on the tigers's kind of a protective thin sheet metal cover over the exhaust in the back of the tank. Yeah, and those varied a lot from the earliest ones to the latest ones, but those are really almost impossible to create out of plastic, no matter how you thin it down. So again, part was good for that and you could get an extra set just for those. And then the Vespid kit came with the Photo Etch for the engine deck grills, which is really helpful, and Part provided that on a Photo Etch set for the Revell kit. And those are things you really can't get away from. Photo etch for is those the grills, I think. Even in 35th scale I think that's almost an exclusive photo etch item, isn't it Mike?

Yeah, usually I want to ask Part is a is a Polish company that it's kind of not as prolific as the ABER stuff. Yeah, and where are you getting that? Typically, usually I would remind straight from JDR. Yeah.

It's oh, in Poland. Yeah, you get it. I've got it from there and I used to be able to get it from uh role models. They used to carry it before they sold out to somebody else, cause a friend of mine own role models John role else, because a friend of mine own roll models john roll and he used to. He used to to feed my addiction. So but yeah, it's in parts not easy to get. Now you can still get it from jdar, I think. But most of these I had sitting in the kit box for years and and you can get the um you mentioned the, the gun barrels like from abar or Armor Scale makes them for 72nd. They're quite nice with the muzzle brakes, so I use a lot of those too. I've bought a lot of those things.

Do you usually replace the barrels with a metal barrel, just like most 30—well heck, a lot of 35th scale kits now come with a metal barrel.

Yeah, it's like the Vespid models ones do too, now come with a metal metal barrel. But yeah, it's like the vespid models ones do too. They come with the metal ones. I think border does and flyhawk does now the 72nd right. But if it doesn't, if I can't get one, then I'll. You can usually find one for any tiger or any panther in 72nd scale from from abar or armor scale. So I'll usually go with that and if I don't have one, I'll just, uh, just use the plastic one and and just try and refine it as best I can.

But uh, yeah, photo etch is pretty necessary. I think the smaller scales you go, the more important it is, um, to get that uh scale finish and those sharp edges and and that uh, just the kind of look you're that you want to go for. But I'm still the um, of course, with every, every type of model you build, whether it's an aircraft or a piece of armor or whatever it's, there's always one part you don't really don't care for, and I don't care for, like you know, the dozens of different bogey wheels you have to cut out and sand down and mount up and paint and then paint the tires around, and so that that gets a little tedious sometimes. Cut out and sand down and mount up and paint and then paint the tires around. So that gets a little tedious sometimes. And on these two Tigers they both had Lincoln length tracks and they both worked pretty well. But boy to clean up all those pieces.

And then took a cue from Alex Clark's book too and I drilled out the guide pin on all the track links. So because it was, uh, because they're supposed to be hollowed out in the middle. So I said, well, I'll try that, and it's, you can't see half of them, but the half you can see. It's, it's kind of neat. So I did that. But uh, one thing I noticed um, the Revell length and length tracks, they fit pretty well. But, and the Vespid ones, they looked the best, they were the best detailed. But where the male and female ends fit together I had to widen the female end to get the male in there. So that was a little challenging. But they look good when they're in.

Well, I was going to ask you if you use almost always the kit tracks or if there are any aftermarket.

I mean, you know, in 35th scale there's nobody, or very few people seem to use the kit tracks on any, any kit they get yeah, I think in 35th don't you have like fruel model and there's some uh injection tracks that are pretty good and well, now it's all 3d print, I mean 18,000 different 3D printed prints Evan's done a series on 3D printed tracks and they're just insane.

Yeah, we don't quite have that luxury yet, but there is another company called Grigoryov I think it's called and they're doing some resin replacement tracks for 72nd scale armor and I haven't ordered any of their items yet, but I think I will, just to try them. I think it's G-R-I-G-O-V-O-V, Maybe it's Russian or I don't know.

No, they're Bulgarian, they're Bulgarian. Oh Bulgarian. Okay, eastern Europe, they're Bulgarian, they're Bulgarian.

Oh, bulgarian, okay, Eastern, europe.

And so you want me to be the guinea pig, Because I've got some 72nd scale tracks I'm going to order from too.

Oh sure, Let me know, maybe you need two needs to talk and place a joint order.

Yeah, maybe so we could, but it'd be nice to know if it wasn't going to work out with one set instead of 12, or something.

Well, that's true, yeah, but there's more and more aftermarket for a 72nd coming out now too, so that's kind of nice. But 35th scale is where the action is with that for the most part. But there's got to still be a challenge, right.

I think so, dave doesn't. Yeah, no, I don't want any challenges.

I want my kits to fall together.

Well, here's one that might actually entice Evan. I know he's into StuG 3s, right.

Right.

And MiniArt has come out. They're starting to do 72nd scale armor, and they've come out with some Stug III kits, an early and a mid, and maybe they'll do a late now too. I've picked up both of them and they're very nice, very nice kits.

Evan and I have a bet slash, challenge, slash, whatever going where, if I build a 72nd scale Stug, he'll build a 72nd scale aircraft. So my target is to pick up one of those mini craft 72nd scale Stugs which was a mini art or mini art, I meant, and, uh, uh, unfortunately I was looking at amps and didn't see one, because that was one kit that I would have actually bought had I found it.

Okay, yeah, I've seen them only through Hannetts right now. They have them for a pretty good price, so you can get the 72nd scale hands there too, if you want.

Yes. While I'm at it, 72nd scale hands. Yeah, I'll just practice painting hands, just hands.

You sounded like Rain man there for a bit. Just hands just hands, just hands, that's right.

Now have you resorted to 72nd scale aftermarket decal sheets for your 72nd scale tanks?

For the most part. Yeah, I have a lot of the old archer dry transfers yep and of course I think he's stopped production of those now, so I've I've got quite a collection of those um pending house uh has come out with some wet transfers that are pretty nice, and actually tech mod has produced some very nice sheets. The the two North African Tigers I just finished were done with Tecmod decals and they went down beautifully.

I was going to ask you. I've got some Tecmod aircraft decals and here we are another thing out of Poland and I've never used them.

So I was interested to know what the quality was yeah, and and even when I did icm's uh do 17z a few years ago and they come with tech mod decals and I I tried most of them on the kit and they worked gorgeous, I mean just beautiful. They're thin. You have to kind of pay attention when you're taking them off the backings. They don't flip over on themselves.

Right.

Because you know what a nightmare that can be, oh gosh, yes. So just lay them down in a puddle of Solvacept or something. But boy, they're thin, they're well-printed, they're opaque and they snuggle down beautifully and even the clear parts, the clear film areas. They just work really really well have you?

have you tried any 72nd scale armor decals that you haven't found to be very good?

uh yeah, the the ones that came in the older kits, the revel kits, those didn't work really well. They're kind of thick and they're kind of mapped. I think they're kind of stiff so they don't really snuggle down. You can dump a lot of to me a Mark Fit Strong on them and they'll just, you know, curse at you.

They'll flip you off.

That's right so. So then you end up, you know, taking the needle nose pliers and you know tweezers and pulling them off and going through my ring binders looking for something else suitable that'll work instead, you know so.

Gotcha.

So but yeah, and there's other companies like Black Dog. They've they do some 35th skill stuff but they also do some resin, resin things for 72nd, like a lot of stowage type items like bundles and backpads. There's a company called Mars, I think, that does things like tools of all kinds of different types. You can usually find them in railroad shops. Here in St Paul there's a hobby shop called Scale Model Supplies and we affectionately refer to it as the dungeon because it's in the basement under what used to be an auto parts store. But the thing is vast with like only two exits in this huge area. It's got to be a fire trap but it's been there forever. But half of the stuff they have is railroad stuff and if you kind of go and Mike probably knows this you go through a lot of railroad orientedoriented detail parts and you can find quite a bit to use in 72nd scale armor for that kind of thing too. And the scale may be a little different, you know, but it works. You can find a lot of things that are adapted.

Yeah, it may be all right, I know the little Airfix Morris tractor I built. The kit doesn't have window glass or windshield wipers. Well, window glass is easy, but the windshield wipers are.

Ho scale diesel locomotive windshield wipers, yeah, and you can find, you know, things like a lot of different tools, a lot of strange things like even like brooms and sledgehammers and oh yeah, pickaxes and all that kind of thing that can be useful and uh, so yeah, those uh railroad uh areas and of course, this particular hobby shop has all the usual groundwork supplies.

It's got a full thing of ak uh, diorama stuff and mig ammo stuff and it's just uh, you can spend a lot of money down there lastly or not lastly, but next painting when you've painted 72nd scale armor, do you find that it's basically very similar to painting 72nd scale aircraft, or do you find that you have to do stuff that's radically different than what you would do?

yeah, I find it easier actually, as mike knows, you know, with, with aircraft and a lot of I hear a lot of read a lot of other people online, um, that are armor modelers that build aircraft. They say, well, I have to have to build and then paint the cockpit and then put the fuselage together. And then I have to, you know, build and paint the wheel wells and then mask those and then build and paint the airframe. And it's like you, you build paint, build paint, build paint.

Whereas with armor, um, so much of it you can assemble ahead of time and then just more or less paint it all at once and then when you're doing the detail painting afterward picking out details and such um, that's where you delineate, you know, the tools from the hull and all the rest of it. But it's, it's like you can, you can build it all together and then paint it all together and then attack each of the details individually with a brush. Often, and I've, I've found that's uh, um, a little bit easier and and and more fun in some ways. But the armor, uh, I've learned so much uh from building armor models that I've then gone back and applied to the aircraft models, um, especially the weathering techniques and you know, watching, like Martin Kovac, uncle Night Shift and a lot of those techniques he uses you can. You can apply to aircraft in certain areas, like where the maintenance crews are on the wings or Well, I was going to say your, your Betty that you had at Hamilton.

Yeah.

Has a lot of weathering that you can see the the armor heritage of it.

Exactly, yeah, and that's. I learned a lot of armor. A lot of those armor techniques were used on that, betty, and especially with oil paints oil paints and washes and pin washes and, and you know, picking out details individually after the fact and working. I'd have to credit Barry Numerick for part of that kit too, because with his uh, recommendation of riveting, you know cause that helps kind of pop things out too.

So oh yeah.

But yeah, the armor modeling that's, and that's like Paul Gloucester mentioned it's. It's nice when you can have, uh, several different areas of modeling interest and then you can rapidly see which, which uh skills in one area are perfectly adaptable to another and maybe which aren't. So you can start to adapt some aircraft modeling precision to an armor model and you can start adapting some armor model weathering techniques to an aircraft and it's a lot of fun to go back and forth like that. It's just pick up new skills that way.

What's your wishlist of subjects that aren't out there or that you haven't gotten to yet?

Um well, I did pick up the uh, the Stug threes and I'll I'll do those in honor of Evan, since that's his favorite.

Right, if you have any questions, ask Evan.

Ask Kevin. And, like I say, I remember I was going to restrict myself to only tigers at one time, and then tigers and panthers, and then tigers and panthers and Mark fours, and now I'm doing Stug threes, and now it's. And I did a rodent opal blitz truck in a muddy Russian field with weather, white, winter, whitewash camel being pushed out of the mud by several soldiers. You know so you get off in all these different directions too.

So is there something that you, besides the stud that you want to build Um?

well, not, I've got the, uh, I've, I've. I've got a lot of ideas for further King tigers, which, of course. Flyhawk now comes out with some really gorgeous King Tigers. Yes, and Yogg Tigers. I'm hoping they might do that. Yogg Tiger is one of my favorites and they used to manufacture those things with a built-in demolition charge, just because they knew they'd break down and they knew they have to blow them up somewhere.

So but as a crew member. I'm not sure I would find comfort in that.

No, but I guess that's the way it worked, and and uh, but I've built. I built the old uh. What was the? I built the old Fujimi Yacht Tiger and I built the old uh Eshi Yacht Tiger and the built the old Eshi Yacht Tiger.

The tracks on those are great.

Oh God, oh my God, and the Dragon one, and that's the one I just finished, about two years ago I guess, and that came with rubber band tracks too. So you have to manipulate those things and get them together and find a glue that'll work, and it's hard to get them to sag properly, and you know.

So a good Yogg tiger would be nice if one of these modern companies like Vespid or I've got to think Vespid, that's got to be on Vespid short list, given what they've produced so far. Or flyhawk, or flyhawk or both.

We'll take both, oh just uh, off the armor for a bit and what? What you'd like to see done? You know how great the ibgs fw 190d kits are oh gosh, yes well, I went, I sent an email to ibg with just a few suggestions about what I'd like to see them to do and I got back and he says they have a TA-152 series planned for 2025.

Oh, that's fantastic.

So anyway.

Because I've got the old Aoshima and the old Dragon kids.

Yeah.

Both of which have their challenges.

Right. Dragon kids yeah, both of which have their challenges right. Yeah, the dragon is pretty accurate and pretty detailed, but it's a tough build and the yoshima has wheel wells that are about a 16th inch deep and it's if and it doesn't have the cutouts for the engine. But anyway, we're getting off the armor track that's okay so a yog tiger is? Yeah, I'd like to see a yog tiger, that would be nice. Maybe Flyhawk, since they got the chassis for the King Tiger already under their belt.

Yeah, like Dave said, I would think that would be on their short list.

Yeah, given what they've produced so far.

Squeeze a little bit more out of that tooling.

Yeah exactly.

Now, Mike, I did save the picture that you sent me once about a 70-second skill diorama you were thinking of doing.

Oh yeah, that's why I've got to order this stuff from OKB Grigov. Okay, they make some. Well, the issue is, one of the tanks is a Tiger. That's the easy one to do now that we've got these great kids from Vespin and.

Flyhawk, that's a pretty early Tiger.

It is and it's. So is the one in the photograph.

Okay.

Yeah, so it has the five flare cleaners on it.

Yeah, it can go to early mid, kind of yeah, yeah, so it'll work.

But the knocked out abandoned tank it's passing is a KV-1S.

Oh, and Is there any decent kit of that?

The only KV1S in a kit, top to bottom, is one of the UM kits.

Ooh.

Okay, it's pretty rough.

Yes.

I thought maybe PST might have done one of those.

That's what I was thinking it might have been PST, but that's not a chance.

Maybe a PST, but I think or a UM yeah. Those might be about the same yeah.

Those two did a lot of Soviet subjects, so yes, the turret is workable because there's not much to it. I think you can get a good model out of it doing a little work. But the road wheels aren't very good. The tracks are terrible. It's got all the classic shortcomings. It's a double whammy One it's 72nd scale and two it's from Eastern Europe. So you've got all the old short run problems, the really thick parts and thick sprue gates and some clunky details. So I think what I'm going to do is Got all the molded on tools to rate of it, probably, probably, uh, I'm probably going to get one of the trumpeter KV ones and convert the hall, the hall, to a KV one S hall, Cause it's such a better kit.

It's such a better kit and I can get the right wheels from grigov. I can get the right tracks from grigov. I can get a gun barrel from grigov, okay, so you can pretty much fix it. It's just a matter of doing it and it's called modeling fun.

That's right and per your suggestion I've.

You know I'm become your competition on the, the prize or figure hunt good, good, I haven't been looking for a while.

I got such a stock now.

I haven't looked for a while, but well, a listener sent me a almost complete set of I can't remember what their lift off a ground crew and and pilots okay, that's one of their early sets.

The best ones are the the ones that are like the 501, 504, 508 kits, which are the numbers, which are the separate torsos, separate arms, yeah, separate heads, separate everything and I've got one of those too.

It's, it's a uh like a squad of marching germans okay, yeah, that's useful I'm reluctant to dig into that one, though, till I get another, another one, because those look great marching past that new Flyhawk.

BT-7. Well, try the Minarius 3D printed figures too. They're very nice figures. They're just not easily adaptable. But if you use them as is, they're very nice. Their anatomy is correct, the poses are good and the details excellent.

So a lot to see what they've got, because, yeah, the there are a few standing figures in the photograph and you know those don't seem like they'd be too much trouble. Uh, the, the main figures in the photograph who are looking back toward the camera are uh in the ditch in front of the, the soviet tank is a german mortar crew on the move taking a rest. You know they've got the disassembled mortar um being carried by various people. You know one guy's got the barrel carrier on his lap, the other has the base plate strapped to his back.

Um looks like, yeah, it's a cool scene, it's got yeah it's got the, it's got the resting soldiers and it's got the other ones going by, and it's kind of a nice juxtaposition.

There's a fun job humping across Russia with a mortar base plate strapped to your back, hopefully.

got in a truck when they had to go.

Yeah, I don't think so, but that's a lot to carry.

That's not. That's not small and it's not not light.

Sounds like misery.

So I don't know, and I've, you know, I've collected a few other nostalgia type type kits as well. So, okay, those are. Those are a little different, though I don't. Those are like seeing what I can get out of what's there and not do not do too much. Uh, add the things that are glaring omissions, but not really getting too much to the scale fidelity of the other stuff.

Okay, yeah, going for the prize or figures if you. They're difficult to find, but I've someone told me that that uh prize here is going to be gearing up to. It's like they haven't been producing these figure sets for years and all of a sudden someone says they're going to start redoing. Well, that was me, it was you.

Yeah, because I'd written them yet again to try to figure out what was going on.

Okay, and what did they tell you?

Well, their product catalog, if you include all the scales, is immense. It is, and they just cycle through this stuff.

Yeah, so it sounds like maybe they're going to cycle through the stuff we want finally. Well, I hope so.

Yeah, and another issue once you get into the prize or figures and you're looking at them for armor or aircraft or whatever you're using them for, they make some really intriguing sets in 187th scale.

Yeah, yeah, which is a bummer right. Yeah, it's. Yeah, that's a little small. Yeah, when we, you know, we talk about 176th and 172, we can almost make those two work together in a lot of ways. But 187th, that's just too small.

It's too small, yeah, but 187, that's just too small. It's too small, yeah. For example, in what most people know as HO scale, they have two sets and they're kind of opposite to each other. You have a set that's many figures I think it's over a dozen of marching Russian POWs, and then there'll be a handful of their German handlers, and then there's the opposite, for later in the war there's a big column of German figures with their Soviet handlers, but they're the wrong scale.

Yeah, yeah, I've seen those too, and the ones in the scale we want. You can find them on eBay. But the people that post them on eBay, they know what they're worth. They know what they got. Yeah, they're up for like $150 for each small set and I can't believe anybody's actually paying that. But who knows?

Well, we like seeing your armor vignettes at HeritageCon, because we hadn't seen them before. Oh, okay, we've seen them in photos, but not in real life.

Not well, right, not in person, well, I'll put a couple posts up on the dojo and I'll do one with the construction of the two recent tigers and the camel diorama Okay. And I'll follow that up with another one, just with kind of a selection of 72nd scale armor as kind of a follow-up to our episode.

Well, that would be fantastic. We'll do that Well. On the subject of shows like.

HeritageCon follow up to our episode. So well, that would be fantastic. We'll do that Well. On the subject of shows like HeritageCon, I guess our next opportunity to see you is going to be in Madison.

Yeah, that's coming up fast too, isn't it? That's it is. What is it? Mid-april now, so three months away.

Yeah, less than a hundred days.

Yeah, yeah, that's going to be fun. It was, uh, it was really fun. Um, uh, mark Copeland and I went to the uh Mad City Modelers annual show that they hold in early March every year, and they held it this year at the Monona Terrace, where the nationals are going to be, and I posted some up on the dojo there that yeah yeah, kind of a flavor of what the venue is like.

And it's a beautiful venue and it's going to be like on three floors but they're just kind of stacked up and each floor has a wide view of the lake as you get off and they're all connected by escalators. So they have the I think jeff hern said the the vendors are going to be on the lowest level and the mid-level is going to have what they call Telford in the UK. It's going to be the display and SIG area which is kind of between the walkway and the outside window wall which is very large That'll be fun to see how that goes over this year wall which is a very large That'll be fun to see how that goes over this year. And then upstairs on the third level is two contest rooms separated by a wide hallway, and each contest room I would say is at least three quarters the size of the one contest room in San Marcos, so we shouldn't have narrow aisleways.

No, it should be plenty of room and lots of table space. So the only tricky part in this is getting downtown, because Madison, the capital, is right there between Lake Monona and Lake Mendota and it's on an isthmus between the lakes, and so is the convention center right on the lake Lake Monona, and the Capitol is only like three blocks away. There's the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, which is on the Capitol Square, which is about three blocks away. But getting into the hotel or into the convention center, there's a big ramp there that stretches out along the backside of the convention center. When you get up near the Capitol Square, a lot of the streets are one way and there aren't many of them, so you have to, kind of, if you miss a turn, you're going around again for a while. So but once again, and it's a beautiful facility, it's very big and it's going to be a lot of fun, so I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm looking forward to it as well.

Are we going to see something new in 72nd Scale Armor at Nats?

I'll probably bring the two I brought to Heritage Con. I'll probably bring there and I'll bring the Ghost Bomber of Cambridge diorama. I'll bring the Ghost Bomber of Cambridge diorama and they talked me into doing a seminar this year on 72nd scale aircraft dioramas.

So I'll be doing that.

Oh, that would be fantastic.

I'll be there with a basket of rotten fruit.

Okay, Well, you and Mark, yeah. So yeah, that's going to be on late Friday morning. I think we're doing that one.

We'll be up there by then.

Okay, out of the hope Recovered. Yeah, yeah, really looking forward to it. There's nothing better than getting together with friends and looking at models.

Well, I'm looking forward to another Steve Hustad martini at some point during that convention. No, we'll fix that convention.

No, we'll fix you up.

Well, Steve, thanks for joining us again.

Always a pleasure and look forward to seeing you and hanging out with you again in Madison, yeah it was a great seeing you guys at heritage con and and a lot of fun there and it's always it's always fun being on the show.

So and we've got to figure out a way to get to mmsi this year. Yeah, that'd be great that's a.

That's a wonderful show and we loved it. When we went, yeah, saw some of the um. I think scott gentry was there, I think last year, and talked to him for a while and a real nice guy looked at his work. Well, he's a.

He's a good modeler too, so yeah that's uh, but his, his work stood out and so, yeah, I see a lot of people there that are just a lot of fun to talk to and the people that put on the show are so nice and they do such a good job of it and the work quality is just always fun to look at.

All right, Steve, until next time.

Okay, great talking to you guys and we'll catch you in July All right sir.

Steve is just a font of information. He is. I don't know that we'll ever ever pull it all out of him, but it's sure fun trying.

Absolutely. And the 72nd scale armor he brought to Heritage Con was amazing to see. I mean, there are 35th scale dioramas that aren't that good and when you look at them and then you get lost in them and then you realize oh, that's 72nd scale, it's just.

Postage stamp.

I know it's just amazing and I can't wait to see him and Mark at the Nationals in Madison. I can't wait to sit and talk with him in the hotel room about all of the really great 72nd scale armor at the Nationals this year.

Dave, we get to talk about what we've been building. Now it's the Benchtop Halftime Report which is brought to us by Squadron. Squadron has been added to the stash since 1968, dave, folks need to check out squadroncom and, if you're on the go, check out the mobile app for both Apple and Android products.

The new mobile app is a dangerous, dangerous thing. It is so good, so easy to use and you know, yeah, that'll put a dent in things. But, yeah, happy to see Squadron with the resurgence that they've been experiencing. It was good to see them at AMPS. They're going to be at Wonderfest, is my understanding, and, of course, the Nationals, so really looking forward to that.

Well, I'm looking forward to hearing what's on your bench, Dave.

Well, you know, if I could get healthy, if I wasn't sick, I'd be getting a lot more done. But there is forward movement on the bench. My BT-7, the Flyhawk kit, 70-second scale. I've got one complete run of the length and length track done on one side of the model. Now I need to flip it over and do the other. Well, how'd that go?

This is my first experience with length and length track. Try saying that three times fast Rubber, baby, bubby, bumper. Yeah, exactly, I've got to say the experience was not bad. Now I have not tried to pull it off the kit yet because, again, what I did was temporarily mount the wheels, then do the length and length track and then the idea is to be able to remove it as a unit for painting, weathering, painting etc. And then reattach it at the end. So phase one is complete. I have been able to actually complete a set, or at least one run, of link and length track, and it wasn't, I mean, it was delicate and you had to take your time with it, but it was not awful, it was not undoable. And now I think Fly Hawk did a really nice job and I followed their instructions to the letter as far as how to assemble those tracks. But I've got to say my first experience very positive and again compliments to Flyhawk on very clear instructions.

Well, those tracks, especially the single length, got to be tiny. They can't be any wider than like four millimeters.

Yeah, I don't even think they're that wide.

Maybe three.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's good on you, man. I look forward to seeing this.

Yeah, Now I've got to flip it over and do the other run and did an impeller for the A7M2 that I'm building, Cleaned that up and installed it in the cowling of the fine molds kit and now I've been working on the spinner and prop, which the spinner is painted and done. The prop has painted the yellow tips and masked them and now I have to paint the prop. What's lovingly referred to as prop color In the Mr Color range there there is actually japanese propeller color?

okay, that's right, is a is a color number 131. Ask me how I know right which is propeller color? It's that like chocolate brown, yeah, classic rusty chocolate brown color. And so I've got the yellow painted, I've got the tips, tip, stripes, mask and I'm going to hit it with that prop color and then that part will be. I'll put the shaft on it, get it seated to test it to make sure everything's good, and then that goes in a little plastic baggie in the model box while I work on the rest of the kit.

Well, did the 3D printed part work out.

Yes, very, very well, To the point where you sent me some extras and I'm going to send a couple of those to modeling friends for their purposes, should they ever build this particular aircraft.

I mean they came off nice, off the printer, but you know we could have made a measurement error somewhere along the way it really looks good and really enhances the look of the model, because that impeller really is an important piece of that engine, just like the same you know again the same thing on the Focke-Wulf 190. If you don't have that impeller, there it stands out Well good. That was the whole idea yes.

Yep, and you knocked it out beautifully, so it looks great. But uh, enough about my bench. I know you've been making a little modeling progress, even if it isn't as much as what you wanted to do no, like the e16 has just been on standby.

I just haven't got got to yet. No real reason. It's the new thing I'm doing, right, yeah, so I want to be of full mind and have no time constraints when I go start painting the green on it.

Yeah, I understand exactly what you're talking about.

That opportunity has not presented itself yet. I might have to call in sick one day to make that happen, but I have been working on the base for the KV-85.

That's gone pretty well. I really like the way that's coming out.

So what I've done since we talked about this last time, which has been a month now, I guess I've got the rail line all ballasted and because it slopes off on either side of the the roadbed pretty severely, I kind of had to build it up. I probably had four different, four different sessions of putting ballast on there. You know, I did the main horizontal the thing sitting flat on the table got that all set, then I tipped it up 45 degrees one way and did the graded embankment on one side, and then I did embankment on one side, then I did that again on the other side, then I had to go back in and fill around on the ends where it's cut off at the diorama edges. So probably I think, four sessions I got it all done.

And how did you secure the ballast?

Well, I used an entire bottle of VMS ballast freeze Gotcha. In fact, I used a whole bottle of that and then had to go back for my touch-ups and use that formula I mixed up and talked about in a prior episode. What was it? It was Vallejo matte varnish and Vallejo flow improver.

Right.

Which worked really similar to the VMS stuff once I got it mixed up. But anyway I got it all glued down. It's set up nice. I was pleased with that. And then I'd done that experiment with the, trying to shift the color. The ballast I bought was close to what I wanted but, like I mentioned before, it had a lot of reds in it, like a lot of some jasper in the mix, and there's a few clear quartz stones in there as well. But those are easy. You can see those and pick those out, but the red is just there's too much of it in there to pull out. Pick those out, but the the red is just there's too much of it in there to pull out. So I'd done this experiment with all these washes and settled in on something. It was a really a vallejo brown acrylic wash is what it was. So at least for this project it has redeemed itself. I've used about two-thirds of the bottle who says acrylic washes are never useful?

well, I did, until I did this yep, I mean, everything has its never.

Never say never I guess that's what you're getting at. Uh, and that's certainly true, it's it worked out pretty good. The stuff has a surface tension that's low enough that you know you got your ballast all set already and and it it flows right in. I was able to flow it all in between the ties of the rail tracks and not get it on the plastic parts. Uh, had a lot of control and once it was dry, yeah, it's pretty satisfied with what I got.

So not only did it shift the color, actually kind of muted the colors, it kind of unified the, the variation it's. There's still a lot of variation, but it's not quite as stark as it was right out of the bag gotcha, uh, so it looks a little better. So I've got a lot more to do. I think the next phase is putting in some. You know we have overgrown grass encroaching on the on the tracks because it's an abandoned line right and maybe some, I don't know, fall leaf, debris and stuff kind of blown up against some of the rails. Maybe it's kind of look, I'm going for kind of kind of a lot of layers to bring it all together right uh, but in the, in the interim, I'm I'm started posing the suspension for the KV-85.

Now it's got a set of Tankraft KV-JS tracks on it and individual 3D printed links, and then I've got the lower hull done. I can't progress on the model until I get this part done, because I found the spot on the diorama that I want the tank, and right now it's sitting there and there's, like hat makers pins holding it where it's supposed to be. And I've gone in and I've I've started cutting the torsion bars. So this kit was made with allegedly working torsion bar suspension, right, right, but they're plastic and they're fragile, and so what I'm doing is I'm getting it where I want it and then I'm. I'm doing is I'm getting it where I want it and then I'm I'm going to cut two or three or four, get those where I want them and cement those in place and just work my way down the length of the vehicle and then, when it comes off the diorama base, all the torsion bars will be rigid set.

Gotcha.

So then I have to go back and figure out how I'm going to get the model in the exact same spot it was in when I set the torsion bars.

Not going to underestimate that task, that doesn't seem like it would be too difficult, but you're right not to underestimate it, right.

Other than that, man, I'll get out that 3D printed flak panzer thing I've got, yeah, and I'll chip away at it. I've added some rolled armored texture on the thick plates on the glacis and the lower glacis and started cleaning up some of the suspension parts to start working through the assembly on that. But you know that's kind of a sidebar, I'm not doing much on that. But mostly I got to get this KV-85 suspension set and then the next step on it is to work through the torch cuts on the top edge of the side, hull armor, the hull side. So that's what's happening next.

That's just going to be time consuming. That shouldn't be particularly difficult. It should just be time consuming.

No, and I've got it mostly roughed in. I've just got to go back and add the texture now. Yeah, time consuming. At some point I hope to get to the E16 and start painting it green. I hear you I'm making no promises, but boy, it'd be nice to have that thing done in June.

Yes, it would.

Or July. Or early July? Yes, have it done before July 1st? Yes, that would be ideal. So that's what's up on my bench. Man, you got anything else?

Nope, that's it. Well, mike, it's been a while since we've looked out over the new release landscape. Have you looked and found some faves and yawns?

I have man, and I tell you, for 35th scale, which I'm primarily going to focus on, there's been a lot since the last time we had this segment. Yes, there's been a ton and I tell you, I think, my biggest one, my biggest fave, okay, start off my biggest fave. Okay, start off with a fave Is Dynamo Models, out of France is releasing a new tool version of the little French. What is it? 25 millimeter anti-tank gun, yes, yeah.

There's the old Heller kit that's been out there forever and see, I really wanted to build that gun and I have looked at that, I've got one of the Heller kits.

Yeah, it's not much there.

Every nine months or so I'll pull it out of the box and stare at it and then I'll shove it back in the box at it, and then I'll shove it back in the box, just because I mean that was what that kit had to have been kitted in the late sixties or early seventies.

Yeah probably, maybe mid seventies at the at the latest, at the latest, but yeah, it's, uh, it's interesting. I you know this kit. I look forward to the release. Dynamo models. French 25 millimeter uh SA 34 type two anti-tank gun.

And I agree with you. And you know what's amazing to me, that gun was really ubiquitous in the early war. I mean, the French used it, the Poles used it. Uh, it was used by the French in Norway. The Greeks may have even had some of those things. I mean that gun was a really widely sold anti-tank gun before World War II. So I'm amazed it's taken this long for a kit to a kit to come out a new kit.

You know there's a there a a modeler in in Canada, thomas Morgan. He was, he's been on, he's on all the old forums track link in particular, I believe or missing links. He basically rebuilt the Heller kit.

And that's what it would require.

Did a phenomenal kit, and that's what it would require. Did a phenomenal job. There's some obscure aftermarket for the kit. Yeah, I don't remember if he used it or not, but this is definitely one that was worthy of a redo. It's kind of a mixed media. It's plastic. There's some 3D printed stuff. I don't know what else, but looking forward to it I am too. What's your first one, man?

Well, my first one is a general one. Our friends over at Gitmasks. Jim saw them recently at the IPMS Seattle show and picked up several of their items. Oh good, they are just announcing new releases left and right, very useful ones, national markings, code letters, just all sorts of stuff, and just the volume of production of new items is pretty freaking amazing. So hats off to our friends at Kit Masks. I'm happy to see that range continue to expand.

I could do a yawn next.

Go ahead, do a yawn, do a fave, do whatever.

So we got Dragon kicking off all their stuff again, right, right, re-releasing I mean scores of kits every month really Seems like that. Dragon kicking off all their stuff again, right, right, re-releasing I mean scores of kits every month really Seems like 20, 25 maybe. And then in that mix of things they are releasing is all their Tiger tanks, right, probably in response to TACOM and their new line of Tiger tanks. And they released the first big box of three kits. And now they've released big box number two, right, with three more kits, believe it or not. Now this company has been around a little while they make some some other cold war era things, company called Tiger models.

Yeah.

Guess what they're releasing, Dave.

I'm betting Tiger. Yeah, guess what they're releasing, dave, I'm betting Tiger Time.

Yeah, they're releasing an early production Tiger One.

Yeah, At some point the market is saturated.

Yeah, I think that was on Tuesday. Yeah, yeah, what else you got. Yeah, yeah, what else you got.

Well, another fave, or kind of fave, or maybe fave Quintus Studios is, like our friends at Kitmask, just announcing release after release after release. I know a number of people who've used these things, who've raved about them. You at Amps picked up a set of their decals for the Gas 5 truck CIS 5. Cis 5. Sorry, gas, this, whatever, it's all Russian and they look great. Now I'll be interested to hear from you I mean, I've talked to other modelers who've used them, but I'll be thrilled to live along with your experience of using these things and how they come out looking, because at least on the sheet they look really, really good. They probably are. And they're just releasing stuff left and right in all scales, just I mean just like kit masks, just an amazing volume of new releases. And I think you and I discussed they're in Kazakhstan now.

Yeah, at least they're getting distributed out of there. I don't Right. There may be some shell game going on there.

Right, but of course, obviously they were previously located inside of Russia, which, post-2022, made for some challenges, and they apparently have. Whether it's a workaround or whether they have actually moved their business, who's to say but they've done something to clear up that problem. So, mike, do you have a fave or a yawn? I got a couple more faves. Good, I've got two more faves, so let's go.

The first one is going to be actually Inside the Armor 3. Mr Medding's latest incarnation of Inside the Armor, you know he's abandoned the print media thing for reasons he's he's specified and he's jumped on the 3d design and print bandwagon and I, and I must and I must say he's, he's come up the learning curve pretty darn quick yes, he is the stuff.

He's producing, some aircraft stuff as well as some armor stuff, and man at least the CAD renders that he has shown, and he's shown a few 3D printed completed pieces as well. The quality is as good as anything out there.

Well, he's got some things for the Churchills. That's what's caught my eye. I don't know a lot about the Churchill, honestly. Right, the one I want to build is the Dieppe version. I have the AFV Club kit for that one. I can't remember which mark it actually is off the top of my head, mark two or three, cause I've got it. I think it's a three, but maybe it's a two, maybe the aircraft guys got it right, I don't know, but anyway, there's, there's a, there's a, two or three things here that that really interests me the, the exhaust system and the intake grills in particular. Uh, I'm sure he'll set me straight in dm here after this episode drops, but looking pretty good and and for for a guy who's a commensurate scratch builder. Um, that's probably played into his adoption of cad. Uh, in fact, we've talked about a little bit offline. If you approach it that way, it's a, it's. It's not as difficult maybe for somebody like that, who's somebody who's not done anything and just jumping into it, the ability to.

If you're a scratch builder, the ability to visualize an object as a bunch of pieces that's exactly it has to contribute to being able to then translate that into CAD.

Exactly, this is a rectangle, but this corner is chopped off and that's just the way you work through the CAD and, looking forward to seeing what he's got to say to me about some of these things, I'm probably going to pick up a few items from him. What do you got next?

Well, it's rare here on Plastic Model Mojo. But I'm going to throw out some 48th scale love. Trumpeter has announced a 48th scale fairy battle with the World War II set particularly the UK Commonwealth guys. But the battle was more widely used than that. The Belgians had them, the Greeks had them, assuming Trumpeter and you always have to caveat it because Trumpeter has a way of messing things up spectacularly from time to time so, assuming they do a really good job on this, it could be a wildly popular kit for them. And what else is in 48 scale? That thing's going to be big. I mean, the battle is a fairly large aircraft, so in 48 scale that's going to be big. I hope they do it great. I hope that they really are popular so that Trumpeter then scales it down to 72nd scale, because if Airfix isn't going to do it, somebody needs to do it. You got another one. I got one more fave.

Dave, I've got one more fave too, and it's kind of a preliminary.

Okay, well, kind of like my trumpeter, it was a preliminary fave, well, MiniArt has released some early M3 Stuarts.

Yes, and they look really brilliant. Yes, they do. But the welded turrets don't interest me that much. But if they, if they keep going down this line and they do a you know, the more rounded turret, the later ones, and if they do one in like operation torch markings, or if they do one in red army markings, I'm buying one of these.

And oh, you got to think that they're going to. There's no logical reason not to.

Exactly. So we'll see what happens. It's probably a little ways out because they're still working through the, the angular turret, the early ones. But you know, I tell you what, if you wanted to do a tank with an interior, this one is sized about right for cutting your teeth into that.

I think, if you open everything up, if you open the turret, top hatches and both of the front flap whatever you want to call those things, hatches, flaps, whatever you could see a fair amount of that interior. Yeah, on this vehicle you want to talk about something to cross the streams and talk about what's going on in science fiction and fantasy and all these guys' lighting models you could light the interior of that tank really easily and really make it look good. I mean, that almost is crying out for that.

I think generally you're right.

I don't know how easy that would be. That's a great question, but I'm sure our space and science fiction modelers will tell us that it's really really easy.

Well, the hard part is the interior lights on these things were if they had, them were really tiny. Yes, so I don't know how you work that, but I don't know with the, with the stuff that they've got out there now.

They've got super tiny lights that are super bright it's a possibility, man, but that's my last one, man. I think, uh, that that one's got. They've got my attention with that kit. I wish they'd start burning through the 76 millimeter gun T-34s. Well, don't get to it all. That seems like compared to an M3 Stuart, I don't know. That's a tough call, man. There's a big pile of money on the table for them to start doing the 76 millimeter T-34s. I really think there is.

I agree.

But I'll take a Stewart.

You'll take either. I've got one last fave because I can't get away without doing something. 72nd scale specific Edward, as you know, have released a series of numeric-approved 109s that are just flat-out amazing kits. If you run into Barry Numeric and you start talking to him about them, he'll probably never stop. They're that good. They've just announced a double kit of the late 109Gs the G6 and G14 as a combo kit with new parts for, of course, the G14. And if you are a 109 fanatic and there are a lot of them out there, that's why companies keep releasing 109 kits that double kit is going to be a winner. I can absolutely feel it. So do you have any more faves or a final yawn? I do not, do you? Okay, I don't, we're done. We're done with that. Done with that, mike. Here we are at the end of the episode and I am almost done with my Dr Feelgood IPA. Who are you going to call Dr Feelgood? 6.8 alcohol by volume. No crap, man, it's not bad, it's pretty good man, it's not bad.

It's pretty good, though that's on the stiff side. The thing that hit me right away was it's very malt forward.

It's like a brown ale. Really, I'm confused. It's an IPA, right.

Right, it's an IPA. Right, right, it's an IPA. That's what confused me when I took the first sip too. Really, the hoppiness while it's there is not the thing you noticed, or at least not the thing that I noticed right away. What I noticed was the maltiness. But it's got some vanilla. It's not bad. It's just not what I was expecting when I took that first sip and that kind of gave me maybe a false impression. Definitely it's good. It's a heavier beer. I think this isn't something you'd be drinking out by the pool in the summer, but I can see how Canadians on a cold winter night around a fire watching the hockey playoffs. I could see how Dr Feelgood IPA would be just what they were looking for. So I already know that that prohibition style has not disappointed you. No, it hasn't.

And I tell you, after many months of drinking the Russell's Reserve 10-year and a couple of bottles of the Pursuit, the Pursuit bourbon and an occasional bullet man, this stuff is well, it's north of 100 proof. That's part of the issue. Right, that's part of the issue.

Yes, that's right, it'll hit you like a sledgehammer.

It's a little hot on the front end, but I probably sung that song before Right. It's got a really dark color to it. It's a really brown, dark amber. It's got a really oaky flavor to it. It's really really good once you get past the heat, yeah.

So now we took that to the dojo in, I think, las ve Vegas and it was very popular in Las Vegas at the dojo, even despite the fact that it was on the high side ABV-wise.

Yeah, it's a little hot, but a few sips in you get over that. Then you can really enjoy it and it's really good. It's worth the money.

Mike, we are now truly at the end of the episode. Do you have any shout outs?

I do. You know it's the commensurate shout out to all the folks who have supported plastic model mojo either through PayPal or Patreon or buy me a coffee, or however. Michael Poland down in Knoxville is the latest Patreon patron. We appreciate that. If you'd like to be like Michael and contribute to Plastic Model Mojo, you can do so by checking out the show notes for this episode. If you go to the show notes at wwwplasticmodelmojocom and select this episode, you'll find links to all the avenues to support the show. We've got Patreon, paypal, buy Me a Coffee and there's also the Plastic Model Mojo merchandise store, and anything folks are willing to do is appreciated. It goes a long way to helping us improve the show. Keep the show moving forward. We just want to say thank you for everything that everyone has ever done along those regards.

Yes, thank you very much. I want to second that Mike and I have in 2024, committed to doing upgrades to the show. Some of it you'll see, Some of it you won't. It will be seamless to you. You'll see, some of it you won't will be seamless to you. But none of that would be possible without the support of the listeners. We appreciate it. You don't know how much we appreciate it and again I want to thank you as well. In addition, I would like to shout out our friends at Bases by Bill. Christian was very kind in sending me those two small 72nd scale US aircraft carrier bases. They are massively impressive and I want to play around with them. I've got more to look at on them. I'm happy to see Bases by Bill getting back into the base portion of the game, even if it's not as much in the custom side as it is in producing set items of inventory, and I can't wait to see those guys at Madison.

Well, dave, I want to shout out dojo contributor Dalton Lott. Now, dalton's a young man down in Georgia, I believe, yes, and he went to the open house at the National Armor and Cavalry Collection. That happened, I guess was the past weekend.

Yep, and you and I have to get down there.

We do, and he posted about 80 pictures and I just want to say, dalton, I appreciate that we didn't get to make it down there, but we hope to make it down there before the end of the year. And thank you, thank you for posting all those pictures. That was a really good thing.

Yeah, and as a general rule, if you go to something like that or a model show or whatever, please post to the dojo. We can't be everywhere as much as we'd like to be. The dojo is growing and we've got a lot of listeners who are members and it's great for you to share your experience with the other dojo members. So thank you, dalton. Anything else, dave?

That's it. Well, we're at the very, very end now, man, I know, and as we always say, so many kids, so little time, dave, and here's to a good May.

You got it.