Plastic Model Mojo Episode 133: Primers w/ Dr. Strangebrush (John Miller)

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.

All right, Mojovia, it's time for episode 133. Dave, how are you doing?

I'm doing good. I'm doing good. The snow is going away, the temperatures are well above freezing and the days are getting longer. All of that is good. Well, not only that, but I went and got my real ID driver's license so that I can get into Canada for HeritageCon this year. Well, that's a good idea. A little less modeling that I'd like, but we'll get into that at the Benchtop Halftime Report. But getting some modeling-related equipment, I'm getting some modeling reading done, just tons of interaction with listeners and friends, and I'm a little bit sad that the pro football season is going to be ending soon. That's one less distraction. Yeah, yeah, true, true enough, but I enjoy it. That's. That's probably the sport I enjoy the most, and so I'm going to be going to be sad to see it go. But all in all, I'm jazzed, and we've got a heck of a few months coming up in front of us, and if it all falls into place, I'm jazzed for it. I can't wait. How about your model sphere?

Man, I'm just navigating life.

Yeah, you certainly have had your share.

I'm telling you, I'm just looking for holes I can plug with hobby stuff. When I can find one, there ain't many right now, yeah.

Your life got incredibly full, incredibly quickly.

Incredibly inconveniently.

Yes, Well, in the scheme of things could have been tons worse it could have been.

It could have been.

Yes.

But we'll get through it one way or the other.

Yeah, but you've got a model done for the year. You're already chalking up one for 2025. You're making progress on other stuff. We'll talk about that in the Benchtop Halftime Report. But you know there's a lot positive for you.

There is, I think, one thing we've been struggling with at least I have for the last couple three months even is what we can actually get done content-wise for the show versus what we want to get done. Yes, I think we got lucky a couple of months and we're able to get a lot more out than we normally do. And yeah, now that's kind of I don't know. It's kind of gone the other way. We'll see see where it goes. But this isn't exactly the episode format we wanted to have for this episode. We'd hope to drop a short and then have a real have a feature episode. But uh, we'll get to more about that in a minute. But uh, other than that man, we're super close on getting phase one launched on the website of the final payment's been made to our design team and we're talking about all the dns stuff we got to do to move over to the new, the new host and kind of get away from the buzzsprout plastic model mojo page.

So yeah, well, that back end man, that's all the, that's all the pain in the butt stuff you know we're about a month behind, but but soon and we'll get there.

You know we're getting there. It's definitely happening, just yeah well, our design teams. This is side hustle work for them. They work for another firm full-time, so I understand. Plus, you know, helps on the cash flow when it takes a little longer.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right. So that's what I got going on, man.

Well, good, since we're recording, I'm assuming you also have a modeling fluid.

I do. I went and got some more Russell's tenure after life happened fast last week. You needed it right, I won't say I needed it, I just, yeah, I wanted it.

You wanted it. Okay, well, that's good.

I need to take it down a notch.

Yeah, well, and that's what modeling fluid is for. Not only does it help your modeling, it makes life a little better, in moderation, that's true. What do you got? Well, normally I try not to repeat modeling fluids. I do a lot of beers and I'm trying to try new things, a because I always like trying new stuff, but also to give the listeners kind of a wider picture out there, what's out there and what I found and what I like. But tonight is an actual repeat of one I've done before. It is and you'll remember this, from Oklahoma City in 2003 at the Nats. This is Ace Pear Cider that I first drank when you and I were sitting in Brew Works just down from the IPMS National Convention.

That was a long time ago.

That was a long time ago and it's one of my favorites to this day. It's one of my favorites and the reason I have some is my lovely older daughter. She came over with her significant other to watch the football playoffs tonight and they were kind enough to go and pick up a six-pack of Ace Pear Cider. So I know I'm going to like this.

It's going to be a good episode, all right. Well, the mailbag's not disappointing. Good Kind of back to our normal flow, because we stacked up a bunch there last time yes. First up, our good friend from Bases, by Bill Christian Gurney, sent in. Folks may have already seen this out on the interwebs and the Facebooks, but they've got a new challenge. Coin display stand.

Yes, which.

I thought was brilliant. So all these folks picking up these challenge coins et cetera. Now you got something you can stand them on. So check out basisbybillcom, see what that's got going on.

Yeah, I've got to pick one of those up, because I've got a bunch of poker chips and challenge coins.

Yeah, exactly that I need to display somehow so if you're picking some of those up, good on you. Now you got a cool way to display them along with your models and not just have them all laying laying down horizontal. Yep, pretty cool idea it is. Uh, lee edmonds, he writes in again. We've heard from Lee quite a bit, but not in a little while, and he's trying to tackle his stash. He says he completed 36 models last year and only bought 22.

Dave, that's a salute I mean A if you can finish 36, that's awesome. And the fact that you limited yourself to less models than you built, that's also great. I have neither of those skills. I admire them greatly, congratulations.

But he says the math shows it's still going to take 150 years to get to next grade yeah well. Hey, man eat right yeah that's right. Another thing, as you've seen in the past year demonstrated is the truism that if you want an injection molded kit to be produced, start working on a more difficult vacuform or resin kit.

Yep, that's called throwing yourself on a model for your fellow modelers.

He finished last year a Dujun resin, a Marcel Beeson MB411.

Okay.

No clue.

I know what it is.

Well, he says there are only three of these aircraft ever made and he reckoned there'd never be a plastic kit of it. Well, there is, of course, and an Anagran resin North American F-108. Oh, okay, apparently that's in plastic now too.

Yeah.

So if there's a kit you want to see manufactured and he happens to have the impossible resin or vacuform, let him know and he'll get started on it for you.

Well, our friend Steve Hustad is doing the same thing for 72nd scale modelers. He's currently working on a Heinkel 219 Night Fighter from the very awful Dragon Kit and he sent pictures. And gosh, it's every bit as bad as people have said. So I'm counting on the fact that as soon as he finishes this model, somebody will be announcing a brand new tool HE219. Thanks, steve.

Now is that a crappy anomalous kit even for Dragon, because it seems like it or is it just a really old one?

no dragon in the 90s released a bunch of german aircraft the 219, the 234, the 335 and they were all all well okay. The the detail molding on them is pretty darn good. The fit is just unbelievably bad, and some of the pictures in fact he may have posted because I asked him to, he may have posted a picture of the assembly of the tail unit fitting to the fuselage. I mean, it's as bad as any 60s Lindbergh kid out there. Oh man, I am counting on the fact that now that he's done this, we're going to get a brand new tool 219, which we need.

Well, and he's built that big matchbox float plane too, right?19, which we need.

Well, and he's built that big matchbox float plane too right.

Yes, that's right. He's jumping on a lot of swords, that's right. Well, up next is Ken Schaefer from Stratford, connecticut, and he's a returnee to the hobby after a 35 to 40-year hiatus.

Welcome back.

His daughter bought him a Tamita 48 Corsair oh good choice. And he's finally got around to building it after hanging onto it about a year, and he's picked up the 48 Zero to compliment it Also a good choice.

Says he's cannonballing into the pool of his youth by building some of these kits and he's liking the podcast. He started down all the internet YouTube, facebook group rabbit holes to learn stuff and, to make a long story short, he's been going through the back catalog and some of our guests have some information where he'd like to stop and take notes or whatever, and it makes it hard to listen to a podcast when you're doing that all the time.

So, he was asking if there were any transcripts available for for the episodes, and this is good for everybody. So I answered him directly. But you know, folks, we start doing transcription for the podcast about. Oh, I'd have to look and see, but sometime last year summer, maybe on top of my head. So if you start at the episodes and work your way back, you should be able to see the ones that have not just a show notes but transcripts, and the function we're using does a pretty good job. They get a little wonky sometimes, but in general I think they're they're adequate for most people's use.

Yeah, we don't go in and clean them up or do anything like that.

No, because we don't need another job. I don't need another job and it's getting better. Yes, that's going to be something that's going to continue forward. You're going to see the transcription, the chapter markers, that sort of thing. So, yes, that sort of thing. So yes, sorta, we have transcripts for the better part of the last year or so year, eight months, six months maybe, and it's going to be something that we continue doing, going forward, so you should be able to find that. Yeah, that's a good question, a practical one. Don Gilman from down in Texas, way, yeah, I assume he was at the Museum of the American GI at Winter Blitz yesterday. I would hope so. Looked like that went off well.

Yeah.

We're getting pictures on the dojo Brandon.

Yes, come on, brandon.

Been seeing a few somewhere else. Gonna make me mad. No, just kidding. We want to see them, though. Don's mentioned my kidney stone. He says some women have said they are as bad as childbirth. Well, we'll have to take their word for it on that. But yeah, that wasn't fun and hopefully I'm over that, at least in the near term yeah he's got a show idea.

We'll take that under advisement, don. I think it's a pretty good idea. I just got to figure out how I'd want to do it and where we slot it in. That's right. I'm getting kind of busy.

I know.

Well, thank you for the concern and thank you for the suggestion. Don Charles Reishardt has mentioned the WZ-34 armored car from the 3D Print Company. Yeah, last episode, and he had actually built and completed this little Serdy kit from Poland. Yeah, and he sent a couple of pictures. You should put them on the dojo, charles. Not a bad completion of that little crappy monster.

Yeah, I was going to say, if he got it finished, that alone is something that maybe he did that and that's how we got this new one. Maybe, maybe he threw himself on on that kit just for us.

Well, folks may have seen on the dojo that the new one has arrived. Hope to get into letting folks know what that's all about here soon. Yeah, kit Hedley. No geography for kit and I'll just mention it right now. Folks, please send us your geography. We'd like to know where you're from, just name and city or name and country, that's all we need, just to know where we got folks listening to us from and we appreciate that. Kit says we're the only reason he knows what these are and the these is kilometer post markers. He sent a couple of photos from Germany or somewhere, some old roadside kilometer markers, boundary markers, that sort of thing. So yeah, they're everywhere.

They are Particularly back. I mean now, of course, you drive along the interstates and there's a mile marker every tenth mile or tenth of a mile, depending if you're in the urban area or out in more rural. But yeah, no back when things were much more undeveloped. Those were vital and lots of countries had them.

Up next is Will Woods, and Will enjoyed episode 132, and he's ordered a copy of Steve Anderson's journal. Yes, and Will says it's been an important part of his modeling and he started out with, just you know, like a Costco journal. Yeah, and he continues to use that. But earlier this year he discovered the Modeler's Journal Modelers with two L's. They're out of the UK, an Essential Companion for Every Work bench by Matt from model minutes, and I went and checked these out. He's got three. Now Steve's is a little different. Steve's is a guided journal. It provides you with a, a question to form the nexus for your, for your journaling, for that particular journal entry you're doing, for your right, and and these are a little different these are for keeping track of your kits and stash and your accessories, and the other one is kind of slated for keeping track of a project as you work through it. Gotcha, I'll put a link to these in the show notes. They look useful as well, but they're a little different than Steve's.

Right.

They're not guided journals, they're more kind of blank do-it-your-way kind of journals. And he also keeps a binder full of the box tops for every model he completes.

I know a lot of people who do that. I know a lot of people who frame the box art.

I cut the box art off the E16 and put it up on the top shelf of my workbench.

Good for you.

Glad to get through that one. Yeah, on the top shelf of my workbench. Good for you. Glad to get through that one. Yeah, and from IPMS Hamilton, duncan Young. We'll be up there shortly. I don't think you're on copy. Maybe you are. No, I don't think you are. I need to send this to you. It's got the Moose Root Cup 6 criteria for completion.

Yep.

And some modeling, registration and museum ticket pre-purchase information for the upcoming Heritage Con. So I've reached out to Duncan and hopefully going to get the Hamilton crew on here in the near future to let them make this spiel. But I will put all this information also in the show notes and folks ought to really consider going.

Oh absolutely, absolutely. It's just fantastic.

There are still sponsorship opportunities and raffle donations that can be made and contributed to the vendor. Tables are sold out 120 tables in less than six hours and he's always appreciating the promotion, so we're going to help him with that. I hear we got some digs again.

Yep, yes, we do. Thanks to Mr Chris Wallace, model airplane maker. I was talking to him Saturday night and he's got us even closer to the museum, which I didn't think was possible.

Well, like we joked last episode, it'd have to be at the front end of that same little development, because there's nothing else any closer unless you got an RV in the museum parking lot. That's God's honest truth, folks. We were close as we could get.

Maybe we ought to do that one year Rent a big RV.

They don't have hookups man.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, it could be bad, Cousin Eddie.

Couldn't be more surprised if I woke up with my head sewed to the carpet.

Steve Berktole from Covina, california, and he was listening to us talk about the ejection seat handles and he mentioned, like I did to you, the Edward Brasson handles, the pre-painted ones. And I think the discussion is 48s and smaller. Those are probably fine.

Oh yeah.

But you get larger than that. And you mentioned that these things are actually spiral striped, they're not just concentric rings.

They are a single cord, In other words it is not two different colored cords wrapped together, but it appears to be that way because the yellow stripes, the handles, are black with yellow stripes. But the yellow stripes aren't just simple stripes down vertically down the ejection handles, they're actually spiral along the cord so that it looks like a black and a yellow cord twisted together. So a yellow stripe and yes, for 48th and 72nd scale, it is probably these aftermarket ones with the simple stripes on them. Even if you open the cockpit canopy, that's good enough, unless that just simply bothers you too much. But when you get in a larger scale it becomes much more noticeable.

All right, that's all I've got from the email side of things, dave.

Okay, all right, that's all I've got from the email side of things, dave. Okay, we've got a number of Facebook interactions and I want to bring a few to people's attentions. One we got a ton after our last episode of DMs about Steve Anderson's journal. Where can I get it, where can I pick it up, and all of that, and we put links in the show notes and it's also available on Amazon, and so we had quite a number of inquiries in regard to that. So we answered all of those.

Just in addition to all of that, there are a couple of DMs I want to mention. One is that Warren Dickinson, our friend from southern Kentucky, has recently posted in fact today, on the Dojo, at my request, a book review of a recent modeling or aircraft history history-related book. And that's something I want to encourage all the Dojovians to do Not only give us build construction posts, finished build posts, contest shots, contest reports, but if you read modeling-related material, post a book report, just a simple book review, to let others know, hey, I got this, I found it really helpful, or I got this and it really isn't as useful as I thought it would be, and just give us the basics. Doesn't have to be big, doesn't have to be fancy, but just a place to let the fellow Dojovians know what's out there, because I get X amount of time modeling, but a lot of my model sphere time is reading, model-related reading, so I've got a limited amount of time for that.

And if you're out there and you post and let me know, or let all of the people in the dojo know this is a good book, or steer away from this one, both of those help. So thanks to Warren for doing that. And please, if you finish a book or if you pick up a modeling tool or a new type of paint which I'm sure Mike's going to post about sometime you post that stuff, because that's all. It's not direct modeling but it's model related and it is helpful to the whole community. So please do. Next, we've got Jason Michael Campbell down in Knoxville, tennessee.

Yeah, our Gundam, guy.

Yeah, and he wanted to let us know he had ordered off the Dojo merch store a hoodie and a t-shirt merch store, a hoodie and a t-shirt, and he got the hoodie right away, but he's still waiting on the t-shirt and it's been about a month or two. So we'll have to look into that as much as we can from our end. I know that Mike had one order go astray. It wasn't the manufacturer's problem, it was a shipping problem that occurred up in Chicago. So I appreciate him telling us Any of you't great or I didn't get that. Please let us know any of that and we'll do what we can to at least assist you in finding out.

Yeah, I don't know what all we can do on that end. I'll look into it.

Yeah, they're third parties, so there's not much we can do any more than the actual purchaser. Not much we can do any more than the actual purchaser, but it's at least good for us to know. Finally, tony Jacob had reached out and he was taught. You know how. We were talking about decaling and using something to either roll water out from under a decal or pull up excess water, and we talked about not wanting to use a Q-tip because they sometimes shed hair. And he was talking about he uses the specific Tamiya Q-tips, the cotton buds that come in different sizes, that Tamiya sells and those are very tightly wrapped and they don't shed because they are so tightly wrapped compared to a normal Q-tip. And that's what he uses to either wick off excess moisture or to roll moisture out from under a decal. And he just wanted to share that was something that he used and it works really well for him.

All right. Well, we got a lot of decaling tips out of that segment.

Yes, yes, we did. It was amazing.

Anything else.

That's it.

Well, folks, we appreciate all the mail and DMs. If you want to write to us at the show, you can send us an email at plasticmodelmojo at gmailcom, or send us a Facebook message using the direct messaging system with Facebook and let us know your geography. That makes it more fun for us. Yes, it does.

We love this segment, so keep it coming, folks. I'd just like to thank everybody who has gone to the podcast app they use and rated the podcast. We've gotten a lot of very good ratings. It's really helped us with the algorithm very good ratings. It's really helped us with the algorithm and we thank you for that. Also, if you have a modeling friend who doesn't currently listen to the podcast maybe they don't listen to podcasts at all would you please recommend us and please, if necessary, show them how to download and listen to the podcast? The best way for us to find new listeners is for current listeners to recommend us.

And once you've done that, please check out the other podcasts out in the model sphere. You can do that by going to wwwmodelpodcastcom. That's model podcast plural. It's a consortium website set up with the help of Stuart Clark at the scale model podcast up in Canada, and Stu's aggregated all the banner links and created this website, so you got a one-stop shop to go find all the other podcasts and then you can subscribe to them from there if you like. We've also got a lot of blog and YouTube friends Evan McCallum, mrpanzermeister36, a great YouTube channel. You're going to want to get in on that if you like. Weathering armor.

He's got a new one coming up in just a week or so.

The Inch High blog, mr Jeff Groves all things 72nd scale. He's always cracking out something and always fun to see what he's got going on.

Absolutely.

Stephen Lee Spruipi with Fretz, also 72nd scale centric, but a lot of long and short form blog. Yeah, jim Bates had mentioned he hadn't put much long form up of late and I was just curious if Steve had a comment about that or what we might expect from him in the future. So I'm always looking, but anxious to get it when it shows up. And model airplane maker Chris Wallace, our host up in Canada, has cranked out his 2025 wishlist of recent and he's got a good blog and a good YouTube channel as well.

Yes, he does.

So folks want to check that out, and you're also going to want to check out the Scale Model Workshop over on Patreon, dr Paul Budzik, and get in on that action as well.

So plenty out there to keep you busy when you're not modeling or when you are, say, IPMS Canada, IPMS Mexico or your national IPMS organization. I would consider it a personal favor if you would join the IPMS national organizations, for the different countries do a lot to promote modeling inside their countries and promote relationships among the modeling groups in different countries, and they're great organizations and well worth the small membership fee. Also, if you're an armor modeler or post-1900 figures modeler, consider joining the Armor Modeling Preservation Society, AMPS. It's a great bunch of modelers dedicated to the art of armor modeling and you will find no more talented group of armor modelers anywhere than inside of AMPS. So I highly, highly recommend it.

Well, Dave, let's have a word from our sponsor.

Plastic Model Mojo is brought to you by Model Paint Solutions, your source for harder and steam-backed 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.

Well, folks, as luck would have it, our special segment tonight is Model Paint Solutions, dr Strangebrush. Dr John Miller and I'd mentioned earlier that we had originally thought we would do a short, a special and then put out a shop talk for episode 133. But we got John's schedule and ended up going just north of an hour with him and that's about I don't know 35 minutes longer than I thought we were going to go. But it was all good and we just turned this into a Dr Strangebrush episode.

Yep.

Well, dave, we got a new year and I think, to get the engine primed, we're going to talk about primers tonight.

Yes, well, nobody better to do that with than Dr Strangebrush himself, John Miller.

John, how you doing tonight.

Yowza, yowza, yowza, guys, I'm doing all, right, I'm doing all right, you sound like you got a lot of energy for the new year, man.

Well, I just started my first tumbler of bullets, so give me a 30 minutes.

You got it, it'd be lethargic. Yeah, be a little more relaxed. You'll go to sleep this time.

I'm hopeful that 2025 is going to be a good year. That's what I'm hopeful for. So enough said I. I agree.

I hope I've got the bad part behind me.

Yeah, I hear you, I hear you.

Yes, it can only get better from here, mike. Well, john, when we finish a model, or some of us shoot a little primer along the way, where do we want to start this?

So, as usual, I give a fair amount of thought to these, to these things, and I've been, I've been jotting down notes on my uh, my legal yellow pad here for for a couple of days and I I'd like to think that I've at least hit the high points, and with a couple of caveats along the way. But why don't we just call it a primer on primers and dive right in? So let's assume you're getting ready to prime the model that you, that your masterpiece. So I'm going to assume that before you actually began building the model, you did a little bit of degreasing. Some guys don't, you don't necessarily have to, but before I actually build the kit, as I've discussed before, I will soak it for about, oh, an hour and a half, two hours in a one-to-one solution of denatured alcohol and Windex. And I've had guys say, yeah, well, I build, you know, tamiya kits and they hardly need that at all. And you're absolutely right, they don't. You're absolutely right. One of the reasons I recommend the DA with Windex and remember that's denatured alcohol for cleaning glass.

Right, it doesn't have petroleum Exactly.

If it says for fuel, run away. But if it says for cleaning glass, you're good.

And the place to get that is a paint store.

Yeah, they don't sell it at Home Depot or Lowe's anymore.

No, they don't.

Yeah, you can still get it at Sherwin-Williams, which is where I get mine.

Mine too yeah.

And the same yeah.

So yeah, so anyway, I recommend using the DA and the Windex. It is a very strong solution. Recommend using the DA and the Windex. It is a very strong solution but it will work for, obviously, your brand new Tamiya kits which don't have that much of an issue with mold release. But also in case you're doing something from Eastern Europe, let's say you got a 25-year-old special hobby kit that's been sitting around in the box for a whole bunch of time letting that mold release just suck into the plastic. It's for those folks that if you use the denatured alcohol in the Windex, you stand a good chance of getting most of that mold release off the plastic before you even start building the model.

Now do you?

actually scrub it like with a toothbrush or anything, or do you just soak it, pull it out and let it air?

dry. You know it's funny. I'm actually going to put my neck on the block and say that many years ago I did this with a kid. It was an older special hobby kit and after a couple of minutes in the denatured alcohol and Windex I felt the plastic and I could still feel it was a little smooth. So I got about a two-inch wide paintbrush, the kind you'd use for your house, and I just kind of brush the sprue very lightly just to break the surface tension of what's on the surface of the plastic. And that does seem to help. I don't scrub it, I don't rub it or anything like that, I just kind of brush it down with a two-inch paintbrush, let that sit for about an hour, hour and a half, and then I wash the sprues in as warm a water as my hands can stand. Obviously the warmer the better, not so much so that you're going to warp the plastic, but a nice warm rinse. And then I just set them aside to dry. At that point you've gotten most of the mold release off and you can start building the kit without worrying about that.

Now, right before I prime, because of all the finger oil that has been transferred to the model in the process of building it. I'll wipe the kit down with straight denatured alcohol on a chem wipe wipe and we talked about chem wipes before. They're laboratory-grade, lint-free tissues that I used for years to clean the lenses of high-end microscopes and similar laboratory gear. They're really handy to have on a paint bench, though for a whole bunch of jobs. So I will take a wet chem wipe with DA, I'll wipe the plastic down and then at this point I have to decide if I'm sitting there, you know my bench working on something on whether I'm going to prime this kit using a lacquer or an enamel based primer or I'm going to prime it with an acrylic.

I am interested to hear this if I'm going to go with an acrylic which I've done for years and years and I've tried a fair number of them I will take the time to grab myself a piece of micro mesh usually 6,000 to 8,000 micro mesh and I'll micro mesh the entire surface of the model down as best I can and just roughen it up a little bit, not roughen it up to the point that you can actually see the scratches through the primer coat after you shoot.

Which is why I say go to six or 8,000 micro mesh and use it with cold soapy water, which also decreases scratching. But if your aim is to prime your kit in an acrylic primer, you want to give that acrylic primer, which doesn't have the same bite as does a lacquer primer, give it as much surface area to bite into on the surface of the model as you can. So if you just prep that surface with a little bit of micro mesh, roughing it up a little bit, you'll find that most acrylic primers adhere way better than just too smooth plastic primers adhere way better than just too smooth plastic.

So you say you have used a number of acrylics over a number of years. What is your current go-to acrylic?

primer. I actually like Mission. Okay, I think the star of the show, the whole Mission brand, is the primers. I think they make some of the best acrylic primers going.

Now. No acrylic primer in my hands. No acrylic primer is as easy to use as its lacquer counterpart. Lacquers are just easier to use, at least in my experience. So in order to get Mission to behave the way I want it to, I will usually dilute it one-to-one with its thinner, but I'll also throw in Liquitex Flow Aid to about 5% or 10% by volume. That helps immensely with the surface tension of the paint, with the leveling action of the paint once you shoot it. So my go-to now is Mission.

Now, prior to Mission, my go-to was the old Vallejo white surface primer, which was the white polyurethane and that works beautifully. So if you guys can you know, if you guys out there have a bottle of you know Vallejo surface primer or white primer, I would add again Liquitex Flow Aid, 5% or 10% by volume to that neat right out of the bottle and then shoot it straight and it works beautifully. So I used the Vallejo primer for, I'd say, the better part of eight or ten years before I switched over to Mission and I've also given Stynal Res a try and we're going to get to Stynal Res here in a minute, but that's a good question. Right now my go-to is Mission Okay Okay. So this might surprise you, though. Let me back up one more. So the last thing I do before I actually shoot my primer, after I degrease with DA, is I'll take again another chem wipe, but I'll make sure this chem wipe is dry and I'll give the service of the model a pretty aggressive buffing with a dry chem wipe. It's surprising how smoother, how more smooth the plastic feels after you buff it with a chem wipe.

In addition to that, as we've discussed before, chem wipes are treated to remove static electricity when you use them dry. This is part of the reason that they can be used to clean microscope objectives and not get static electricity on the objective, which would give you dust, which would give you visual contamination. So that's a good idea. If you are in a cold environment and you've been running the heater at 11 for the last two months, it's a pretty good bet that you've got some static electricity issues. And in Omaha, when I first dealt with this, I found that in the winters I found that buffing the kit down with a dry chem wipe before I went to shoot my primer. It just went on a little easier, just flowed a little better.

So the last thing I do after the dry chem wipe is set the kit down and get ready for my primer. Before we do that, let's take a little digression and not go right to talking about shooting a primer with an airbrush, but instead let's talk about shooting primer right out of an aerosol can, and a lot of guys do this and they have beautiful results with it. I have to admit I haven't been a big aerosol can guy. Off and on I've used them. Most recently I took on a commission job to paint a couple of 1, 24th scale car bodies. I don't know if you guys know this, I didn't know this. There are guys out there that turn those 124 scale car models into slot cars.

Yeah, I do think I did know that.

Yeah, I can't wait to go see that. Apparently there's a track somewhere you know in the greater Seattle area that I'm going to go take a look at that. That just sounds like a blast. But a gentleman who isn't handy with an airbrush but is into this hobby approached me and I got to thinking about how I wanted to do these cars and I gave actually a couple of primer cans or different aerosol can primers a try and I was really pleased with the results. So let's dive into that real quick before we get to airbrushing the results. So let's dive into that real quick before we get to airbrushing. Mr Hobby. Mr Surfacer comes in 1,200 and 1,500. Comes in white and black. This is some really good stuff. In fact we're going to come back to Mr Surfacer out of the bottle, not the can, as pretty much in my book, my go-to lacquer primer for practically everything. But out of a can, pardon me.

Same here.

Yeah, it's good stuff. But out of a can you can get the 1000, 1200, the 1500 in white or black. It works beautifully, as does Tamiya Surface Primer and you can get that fine and you can get that in much like the Mr Hobby, mr Surfacer white, gray and black. With both of those, mr Hobby Surfacer or the Tamiya Surface Primer, it helps to take the can and warm it in hot water. Now don't get it too hot, for obvious reasons. But I, yeah, I had second thoughts before I put that in. I decided I'd figure guys are smart enough to know not to go too hot.

Warm water.

Warm water and it's surprising how much it helps the paint move and flow and level once you get it on the kit if it's warm. So I'll set up a pan of water underneath the tap, let it get nice and warm, immerse the can in that for five, ten minutes and then shoot it. The other thing that's really good to do is practice. I find using an aerosol can to shoot primer a little challenging because it's one of those deals that one more pass and you've put too much on Right. So it really helps to maybe get the feel for the working distance from the can to the model, as well as just how much volume you're putting out on a sheet of styrene or, even better, a paint mule until you get the hang of it. But got really good results with those. In fact I'm going to jump ahead of myself here real quick and tell you that one of those car bodies I shot with a Tamiya white surface primer. I did a very, very quick buff out with 8,000th micro mesh and a dry chem wipe. It was velvety smooth. And then right on top of that white smooth finish I shot Tamiya clear pearl coat. Ah, and it came out like white pearl and it looked beautiful without actually having to shoot white paint because the white primer was, you know, perfectly fine, right, yeah, so now if, if, if you don't want to use the Mr Surfacer or the Tamiya surface primer, or, let's say you, you live in a place where they're not necessarily easy to get. I spoke with Eric Christensen Eric the Tank man Christensen, the president of our local IPMS club, good friend of mine and a really, really accomplished armor modeler, and for years he has used Krylon ColorMax paint plus primer in an aerosol can. He can get it from, uh, fred meyer apparently, and, I assume, some other hardware stores, but he's shot black because he's an armor guy. But he shot this paint for years and he gets really nice. Uh, leveling the stuff loses so much volume as as it dries, that you know little puddles here and there just kind of disappear. It's a real handy way if you're an armor guy and you just want to get that thing black and get to painting Krylon ColorMax Paint Plus Primer. I've played with it a little bit myself and it does work exceedingly well, let's see. So okay, now let's say you have opted to not go with an aerosol can primer, but you're actually going to use your airbrush.

For those who want to read a bit more into this, if you go to Model Paint Solutions on the homepage, there is the first row of articles. Are you know the tips and tricks articles on airbrushing? Check out Tips and Tricks Volume 3, which is entitled Matching the Tip Size, the Pressure and the Dilution to the Job, and there I kind of touch in more detail on what we're going to be talking about right here. But if you're going to be airbrushing your primer, the first thing you want to think about is how am I going to configure my airbrush to deliver this primer? And one of the things you should think about there is the tip size that you're using. This is one job that is shooting primers and clear coats for that matter that I have become a firm believer in using a larger tip than I would normally use for general work or most certainly for fine line work.

Now, when you say larger tip, are you talking like 0.4?

Yes, I mean right on the nose. Yes, that's exactly right, and I'm going to give you some ranges here of tips that would be appropriate, roughly speaking, for the scale model that you're working on. But real quick, why do I prefer the larger tip? When you're shooting a primer as well as a clear coat, the idea is you want to get enough paint or primer on the model so that the primer has enough volume so that it can level and it can be a nice smooth finish. Therefore, when it dries and using a larger tip just allows you to deliver more volume in a shorter period of time than if you were trying to just, let's say, shoot primer on a 124 scale airplane with a 0.15 millimeter tip, it'd take you all day and the surface would be less than ideal Because it'd be very sampling.

Yeah, and that very sampling. Yeah, and that's the real. That's the main reason because you remember, for each size tip you kind of have a window there of lever pull where you get the best atomization of the paint. If you pull that lever past 70, 80 percent throw, take a look, do this on a piece of paper and prove it to yourself. Once you get, you know, into 70 or 80% lever, throw on practically any size tip you're using, you'll start seeing stipple, little dots of unatomized paint start appearing on the periphery of the line that you're shooting. That's because the nozzle has been pushed past its optimal window. So if you go back to the guy you know trying to shoot a 124th scale airplane with a 0.15 millimeter tip, when he goes to do his little mini wet coat, what he's doing is shooting stipple and unatomized paint all over his finish, versus if he was doing the same primer job and instead using for that size model a 0.5, 0.45, 0.6 millimeter tip. So then when he goes to deliver his wet coat he's going to have a large volume of paint not stipple, that's nice and atomized paint that's coming out of that brush and giving you enough paint primer to level and give you a nice, you know, smooth finish when it's done. So that's the reason I'd like to switch to a larger tip for primers and clear coats.

And just to give you some ranges here in my experience, if I'm working with 1.144 to 1.72, let's say it's a small to medium size model I'll be looking at a 0.2 or 0.3 millimeter tip somewhere in there. If it's a large 72nd or 148th or 135th, at that point again, very large range of models there. I mean you can have a 170 second scale b29 and a 148 scale p26p shooter, right, right, but so big range there. But general, when you get up to large 72nd, 48th, 35th, I start looking for my 0.4 tip, my 0.45 tip. If you were using other brushes besides harder, steam back 0.5, 0.52 tip somewhere in there is where you want to be Large kits, let's say the 116th scale or large 1-30-second scale Lancasters and something like that. You want to start thinking about 0.5, 0.6 millimeter on the tip in order to get a nice smooth finish when you're done shooting. Now, as far as pressure goes, for primers I shoot a little higher than I do for general work and most certainly for fine line. Look at about 15 to 18 PSI for shooting.

Right, because you're just moving volume. Exactly, you're moving a much greater volume of paint and you want enough pressure.

So you're getting good atomization too. Gotcha, because to lower pressure, you get that stipple building up on each side of the line and that's just going to add to the texture of the finish. Now, there's always an exception. That's the rule in life. I've found there's usually an exception to things, and one exception to this is stinal res, which does not like anything but about 35, 40 PSI, yeah. So if you're into shooting stinal res, you're going to have to jack your pressure up a little bit. Likewise, stynal Res prefers a larger tip. It's one of those primers. It's a bit finicky in that regard. So at least 0.35, 0.4, 0.45 is where you want to be if you're going to be shooting Stynal Res, and at about 35 PSI. We'll come back and touch on that in a little bit there.

And then one last thing I'm kind of doing make them you know this is my pitch for use a larger tip when you shoot your primer coat and a lot of guys go, yeah, but there's so much paint, it's just so much paint comes out. Well, spend a little time on a sheet of styrene and learn to calibrate your finger, to use less lever throw, I mean, instead of pulling the thing back to a third. You know, learn to pull it back one twentieth Just barely pull that lever back and even with a 0.4 or 0.45 millimeter tip, you can manage a two, three, four millimeter wide line if you use just a very little bit of lever throw. So don't be afraid to go into those larger tips because you're afraid of flooding the model. Just spend a little time on a paint mule or a piece of styrene and calibrate your finger and you'd be surprised how easy it is to do.

Yeah, so with that, we're zipping through this, guys. That's great. So with that, now that you've configured the brush and you've decided what you're going to shoot, let's talk about acrylic versus lacquer primers. There are so many options these days with regards to paints and primers. In fact, I know you guys watch this because you guys watch the industry carefully. It seems as though everybody and his brother is coming out with a new paint right now.

It's been that way for four years.

Yeah, like four years, Mike and I, every time we're like, okay, this has to be the last one, no, but there can't be another. And then you know, you go to the Nationals and ICM announces a new paint line Squadron just released announced a paint line. Now that's one they acquired. They acquired Steel Colors, but yeah, it just it's. You can't, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a new paint company.

Well, and then you know some of the newer, particularly Spanish, players in the market keep changing their lines and redoing them.

Yes, oh, don't go there.

I won't. That's as far as I'll go.

Don't go there and now you've done that.

God help the retailers.

Yeah, you've done that, you've opened the door and I'm going to walk through on that one because I got a bone to pick. Walk through on that one because I I got a, I got a bone to pick. Um, I put up every ak real color myself when I launched that brand on model paint solutions. Every single paint requires its own dedicated url yeah and when they revamped the paint they made sure that even on colors where they could have carried the old catalog numbers over they didn't. They gave every color a new catalog number.

And pity all of those hobby shops, brick and mortars, that bought a paint rack for the AK, real colors in the Tamiya-style bottles or Mr Color-style bottles, and now all of a sudden they're getting the dropper-style bottles that don't fit that rack.

Yeah, I'm that guy. Yeah, I'm that guy.

It baffles me because it's the same paint.

Worse than that, if you're trying to run a website, all of those URLs for the old paint have to come down.

Yeah.

And new URLs have to be launched, and that's a huge amount of work, not to mention the fact that now you've got a bunch of dead URLs that are going to have to be ligated which is what I call it on the site to make sure that your Google ranking doesn't suffer. So it was really I'm just going to be blunt a harebrained idea to do that, and the bummer is as we've talked before. It really is. In my experience, one of the best paints that you can use is AK.

Real Colors oh, I like it, Everybody does the current project I'm working on, AK Real Colors actually the new dropper bottles, but it's the same paint and it's great.

It is, it is. I've been swearing by it for years. So anyway, now that I got that chip off my shoulder, sorry. So now I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry, more fumes. So if you're in an apartment or you have a significant other that has sensitivities to strong fumes, maybe you know lacquers aren't going to be the best for you. You want to go with the acrylics, which don't smell anywhere near as bad as the lacquers do.

Dry time Acrylics have surprisingly fast dry times. In fact, most of the acrylic primers that you can get out there you can dry with a hairdryer and in fact I did that with both Vallejo primer and the Mission primer, which is pretty handy. Versus lacquers Some of those lacquer slash enamel primers they take a while to dry, especially if you want them to cure, so you don't get that tacky finger feeling when you touch the kit. So you're looking at, you know, 24, 36 hours sometimes, to make sure you have complete drying of those Leveling there. For me, as the guy that loves shooting an airbrush, there is the huge difference between lacquers, enamels and acrylics. Lacquers and enamels want to level. They're just a leveling kind of chemistry. They hit the plastic, they move, they level better than acrylics Acrylics in many ways. You kind of have to trick them into leveling. They don't level as well. It takes an investment of time to kind of get the trick down in my hands before I could get them to shoot as well as lacquers my hands before I could get them to shoot as well as lacquers Finish.

Usually the lacquer slash enamel primer is going to give you a hardier finish. That's just the way it is, in large part because the lacquer thinner in the paint cuts through any of the residual finger oil on the plastic, unlike an acrylic thinner, which is going to be water alcohol based, it's not going to cut through finger oil as well as a lacquer will. So right off the bat it's going to cut through any residual oil better. It's also going to etch into the plastic better than will a more weak acrylic primer. So in general painting with broad strokes here lacquer primers have a hardier finish than do acrylic primers. So there's ups and there's downsides to each one.

Now, with regards to the acrylic primers and just a quick rundown, you know what are some of the primers that are out there right now that people have options on Lifecolor, vallejo, mission, stynal, 3g, ammo, oneshot, proacryl. Even MicroMark makes an acrylic primer and because of that, like we were saying earlier, because with so many paint brands that are coming out on the market right now, it's kind of hard these days to come up with a one-size-fits-all approach to diluting and spraying acrylic primers, especially when you get into primers like the 3G primer or the ammo one-shot primer. That said, I do have some general guidelines for shooting more of the let's call it more of the well-known or more of the more common acrylic primers out there, in particular talking about Vallejo, life Color and Mission. Most of those acrylic primers, as do almost all acrylic primers and paints, benefit from the addition of 5% to 10% flow aid. Again, acrylic primers dry fast and they tend to dry on the tip and give you goobers. So if you throw in some flow enhancer and or retarder, that can go a long way to taming your acrylic primer. Now for most of the more common ones Vallejo, mission and Lifecolor.

I've had very good results with Liquitex Flow Aid. And just be mindful, you can get Liquitex products at like Joann's and Michael's and hobby stores. Just be mindful, when you buy it, to read the label very closely, because they don't mark the different kinds of Liquitex very differently. They're all black label with little white letters. So you don't want flow or retarder medium, you want Liquitex Flow-Aid or Liquitex Slow-Dry, which is their retarder. That works really well, as I said for the primary acrylic primers that are out there. That said, Vallejo MIG. They make their own flow enhancers and retarders and I have tried some of them and they work comparably to Liquitex. So if you have access to those at your hobby shop, pick those up. Those work perfectly fine. In addition, you can usually use them at about the same percent volume or you know percent retarder, which would be five to 10% in your final mix. So adding a flow retarder or flow excuse me, a drying retarder or a flow enhancer will go a long way to kind of taming the acrylic primer lie in there, which can be difficult due to the fast dry times. So, that said, let's now segue into how you actually spray the primer onto the kit, into how you actually spray the primer onto the kit.

I find in my hands acrylics are a bit more tricky to get onto the model and with the finish that you want than our lacquers. And what I like to do when I shoot most acrylic primers is I will shoot a dry coat and then I'll follow that up very quickly with a wet coat. Now a dry coat is where you're holding the brush a little farther from the model. You have adjusted the lever so that you have a nice cone of paint that's hitting the model, but it's hitting the model already somewhat dry. You can tell if you've shot a dry coat if you look at the surface of the model. Where the dry coat is hitting there should be no shine. If it's shiny, you've stumbled into a wet coat, you're putting the paint on too wet. So a dry coat really isn't shiny, kind of hits the model. It's also called a tacky coat. I kind of go with dry coat, but dry and tacky, you know. I think it conveys what we're trying to go for here.

So you shoot your dry coat first and then you cycle back onto that portion of the kit and you shoot a wet coat on top of your dry coat. Now the wet coat. When you shoot that, your brush will be held closer to the model than in the dry coat. Your lever will be pulled back a little more to give you more volume of paint coming out. The rate at which you move the brush while you're painting will be faster because you're putting more paint out than it was when you were shooting the dry coat. And, most importantly, when you're shooting a wet coat, if you're bouncing light off of that portion of the model where the paint is hitting the surface, that area will be shiny because the paint will be hitting the model wet.

Now, one of the reasons I like to shoot a dry coat preparatory to a wet coat when I'm shooting acrylic primers is that dry coat kind of acts as a catch for the wet coat that's going to come on top of it. And with some acrylic primers, depending on your luck, if you go straight to a wet coat without a preparatory dry coat, the paint will actually bead up. Not good. Very quick way to ruin your finish is to get beading. So anyway, dry coat followed by wet coat.

When I explain this, either on the podcast with you guys or even in the shop, the first question most guys have is well, how long between the two? Should I wait 10 minutes? No, no, no, no. You're not going to wait any more than 45 seconds to a minute between shooting the dry and the wet coats. You shoot the dry coat and you wait just long enough for the residual thinner to burn off. If you will leaving just this dry, tacky coat of paint, then you go back and shoot your wet coat on top of that dry coat. 45 seconds to a minute between the two Make sense. Okay, any questions?

No, I don't think so Okay cool.

I guess you guys knew all of this.

Well, let's face it, we've talked to you before and not necessarily recorded on air, but yes, you've given us many of these pieces of advice in person and in our private conversation. So let's put it this way you haven't shocked us yet Okay, I'm trying not to.

The shock comes at the end, okay, okay. So a couple of exceptions to shooting acrylic primers as a dry followed by a wet coat. Again, as we were speaking earlier, stynal Res shoot that at about 35 PSI with a 0.4 tip. You shoot that directly as a wet coat. It does not like being shot first as a dry coat. That's just Stynal Res. It's very peculiar that way. Likewise, mission. If properly diluted and treated with flow, a flow enhancer, you shoot that as overlapping wet coats and you get beautiful results with both of those wet coats and you get beautiful results with both of those. You know if, if you, once you get the once you get the trick.

Now, lacquer primers now there's, there's there's not good selection of lacquer primers are out there. And let's go back to the old Alclad 2 primer which I'm guessing a bunch of folks use. I use that for years and I still use it sometimes. That's a very good lacquer based primer. You can shoot it pretty much straight, neat, right out of the bottle. I found that if you take the old Alclad 2 primer this is the stuff with the micro filler you can add Mr Color Leveling Thinner to that to about 10% by volume to the Alclad and it will shoot with a slightly finer, smoother finish for you. So usually when I shoot Alclad I'll spike it with a little bit of leveling thinner. Likewise, ak now has two lacquer-based primers with micro filler and this handles very similar in my hands to the way Alclad with filler handles. Just for a second. Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt.

Just for a second. Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt. Just for a second. Yeah, explain what you mean by micro filler and what that is supposed to accomplish. On the model.

That's a really good question. If you have very, very, very fine scratches the kind of scratches that you get if maybe you push down too hard with six or 800 grit sandpaper really fine scratches a lot of those scratches can be filled in by overshooting them with a coat of primer that has micro filler or filler in it, and that's what the filler does. It's there to basically take up space and fill in those, those tiny scratches. You have to be careful there, though, because if the scratches are too deep or too intense, you're not going to cover them.

Right.

Right. So now, definitely better than shooting I mean especially for for styrene you're definitely probably going to get a smoother finish if you're shooting a filler that excuse me, shooting a primer that does have a little bit of filler in it. I prefer that to shooting, just, you know, a lacquer paint as a primer coat, because you just don't get as smooth a finish. So the filler does, you know, does function to give you a nice smooth, satiny finish when it's done. Now, both the Ocklite and the AK, the lacquer primers, they come in white, black and gray, handy, and we're going to cycle back and talk about how, if you want, you can nudge those colors white, black or gray colors, white, black or gray, either way.

Let's say you're shooting a gray primer and you want that to be lighter or darker than what it is right in the bottle there. You can nudge those by adding paint to the primer and take them either way. You want whiter or darker, and we'll get into that in a couple of minutes here. But let's get to. I kind of took a vote amongst the modelers that I know in my modeling club, my modeling circle, and it was almost universal. Most of the folks that are building models in my area they are using Mr Hobby, mr Surfacer as their primer, and this is not the stuff in the aerosol can. This is the stuff in the bottle that they mix with leveling thinner and then shoot onto the model.

That's what I do. That is what I do too.

Yep, that's what I do, that's pretty much my go-to, and I started that oh gosh, I don't know eight years ago, no, nine years ago, probably more, and this, for me, is the best way to go. Now, mr Hobby, mr Surfacer, we're talking about the stuff in the little glass jars. It comes in 500, 1,000, and 1,500. The one I prefer. Now let me back up for a second. If you've not used Mr Surfacer, it is a gray liquid primer. The lower the number, the more coarse the filler material is. So if you have large, let's say one, two, three millimeter holes in the surface that you want to fill, you're going to go with 500. Micro-scratches in the paint that you just want to fill in, you're going to go with 1500. So you can match the coarseness of the fill with what you're trying to cover up or what you're trying to blend. That said, for me I actually prefer the Mr Surfacer 1000 to mix with Leveling Thinner preparatory to shooting it through an airbrush, and I usually mix that at about 30% by volume. So three parts Mr Surfacer 1000 to seven parts leveling thinner, and I'll apply that as a very well, since it's lacquer, you can go right to a wet coat because it's in leveling thinner and it's lacquer and it'll level beautifully and give you a really nice finish. You can also apply it as a light dry coat, then follow up with a wet coat. Either application technique works well with that After that's dried, depending on how smooth the finish is. You can also take after that with Micro, micro mesh, six or 8,000 grit preparatory to your paint.

And also, let's back up for a second. Let's say you're a car guy and you're doing a car model that where in where on the plastic is is actually in pretty good shape. You don't have a lot of pitting or roughness to the surface. It's pretty much just as smooth as you can get it right as it is. If that's the case, but you still want to shoot a primer coat on it, take your Mr Surfacer 1000 and cut it from 30% to 15% in leveling thinner to 15% in leveling thinner, and what you'll find. I just shot this about a month ago, maybe a little longer, and if you mix up about 15% Mr Surfacer in leveling thinner, you get this very, very, very smooth surface. I mean it just has less filler in it, so it's just going to have less texture. So you can again if you have a model that doesn't have a lot of blemishes and it's darn near ready to go, you know, right into paint because it's so smooth, but you do want to get a primer coat on it. Cut your Mr Surfacer down a little bit and you will get an even finer finish when it's dry.

Okay, now from there. Let's talk about for a minute what I'm calling specialty primers. Let's talk about for a minute what I'm calling specialty primers. So let's say that you're going for a polished metal finish. Let's say you're going for polished aluminum or you're going for chrome.

Either one of those final finishes, as you guys both know, require a gloss black base underneath the metallic metallic. And you know, as just an aside, I know a lot of guys that when they're shooting let's say they're going for polished aluminum they will shoot their gloss black coat and they will put a huge amount of time into buffing that black coat out into a gloss finish prior to shooting their metallic paint on top of it. You can do that. I actually prefer, when possible, to do that work with an airbrush and not a buffing hand. So when I shoot my black base, I try to shoot it and get it as glassy and shiny as I can right out of the airbrush so I don't have to do any buffing, and if you kind of think ahead, you can actually get that done and kind of cut your buffing time down. So, that said, if I want to shoot an acrylic gloss primer coat in preparation for a subsequent metallic coat Mission Black excuse me, mission Gloss Black Base for Chrome, I think it's called, but it's in the Mission line. It's very thin, it goes on beautifully. It gives you a very, very gloss, shiny black finish. That's pretty much my go-to for an acrylic gloss black primer.

If I'm not shooting that, I will go with the old Alclad gloss black once again with 10% leveling thinner added to it. The one that works best in my hands, however, is the AK Extreme gloss black. That stuff is pretty amazing. I just shot that about two months ago for a project and I tried to improve on it by assessing how various concentrations of a leveling thinner made that extreme gloss black go on, and what I found was that's one paint that likes to be just left alone. Shoot it neat, don't add any leveling thinner or any. Yeah, it kind of surprised me. That stuff's really good. I actually like it more than the old Alclad Lacquer Black. You have to give it about two days for it to dry entirely, you know completely. Once it's dry, it's rock hard and it is very, very shiny. So if you're looking for the shiniest lacquer black primer coat that you can get, my recommendation is going to be using the extreme gloss black. That's about as good as you can get in my hands. And lastly, that one.

Is that one part of their extreme metal?

it is, it's part of the extreme, extreme metal.

That's what it's formulated for, then?

Yeah, it is. You can shoot Alclad on top of it. I have and it worked beautifully. It's just a very, very hardy gloss black. When it's dry it's just one of the hardiest paints I've ever seen. So they got the formulation right on that one.

So one last specialty primer that I ran into a couple of years ago is actually using back to the AK Extreme Metallics, actually using AK Extreme Aluminum as a primer coat. And I stumbled on this when I was doing the Edward 148 scale ME-109 G6 Night Fighter and I did a plane flown by Kurt Gabler Red 8. And it's a distinctive 109 because it seems as though his ground crew spent a lot of time removing most of the paint from the fuselage. So it was essentially a natural metal 109 fuselage with some accounts of painted wings with some accounts painted wings. And since I was going for that scheme, I went right to with no black base or no primer coat whatsoever. I went right to shooting the entire model with AK Extreme Aluminum that was diluted, about 70% paint and 10 or 20% extreme metallic thinner, aka extreme thinner. That worked absolutely beautifully and I wrote about it in detail in an article that's on the site For the folks listening at home if you want to try toL-E-R-S Red 8. You should very quickly find, at least in the first couple of results there, the article on Model Paint Solutions where I go into more detail on this.

It worked absolutely beautifully and it served as a really good undercoating for the subsequent acrylic color coats that I shot on top of it and it. I was really impressed with how nice the paint looked on this. And just to back up a little bit, one of the reasons that when I shoot extreme aluminum as a primer coat I will use the AK Extreme thinner to dilute it about, you know, 30%, 20 to 30%. I do that use the Extreme thinner because when I use the aluminum as a primer coat I want to get as much etching of that paint into the plastic as I can and the Extreme Thinner kind of helps with that. It gives you a really hardy finish once it's dry.

If I were shooting it on top of a pre-primed surface I'd probably switch from AK Extreme to Leveling Thinner because it might give you a slightly smoother finish. But it's something that came up with Steve Hustad in an article that he put recently on Model Paint about his beautiful Edward 72nd scale ME109G10s, which are just unreal? Yes they are. Have you ever met that man face to face?

Many times, many times. In fact four times last year alone.

Yeah, he's become a regular in our show entourage.

That's awesome. I've had so many good conversations with him on the phone and so many hilarious email exchanges, but unfortunately I never met the man face-to-face. Here's the real question I have for you have you ever seen him cut his finger or in any way injure himself? No, because I'm wondering if he bleeds green.

Yeah, I'm telling you, I keep asking to see a copy of the contract where he sold his soul. That level of talent is. It's so unfair.

Yeah, it is.

It's so unfair.

Terribly unfair.

He needs to share some of that because he's got too much of it. Yeah yeah, I don't fawn normally over builders like that, but I got to tell you. Every time this guy sends me a picture of his most recent model, it outdoes the one he did before and it makes me feel like I'm playing with Legos.

Yeah, yeah, I got you there as a matter of fact, when he was doing those G10s. He was sending me, texting me pictures all during the build. And I'm telling you what he and Barry Numerick both have been very impressed by those new Edward 109 kits and I've got to tell you that that's got me curious to break one of those out.

Yeah, I've got the kits, like I'm sure many people do, in the stash and I've fawned over them, but they're absolutely beautiful. But you know not to keep going about Steve here. But while we're on the subject, did you happen to see the piece he did on his Betty the Betty.

Bomber. Oh, I've seen that thing in person.

It's, just it's unreal, it's otherworldly. Which is why I say again if he cuts himself, he's going to bleed green.

Yeah.

Something like that, something like that. Anyway, I just have to say publicly I am always elated when I get to put a Steve Hustad article up on Model Paint Solutions, because not only are they just visually stunning, but I always learn something every time I read his articles. Yep, absolutely. And lament the fact that I don't live in Minnesota so I can go over to his house and pay him for modeling services. Yeah, so anyway, he brought up to me, as well as another very good modeler I think you both know, tim Too, tall Nelson.

Oh God yes, or as he prefers to be called, tim Right.

Height, just the Right Height Nelson.

Yeah yeah, tim's a great guy and he's an excellent modeler and he and Steve both pointed out an issue with shooting extreme metallics that I'd like to, even though it's off our primer thing here I'd like to address real quick. I couldn't get it to repeat the way they did until I kind of played with the paint and then it did exactly what they say, which is, even after the paint is dry it tends to react with the adhesive on masking tape and it doesn't pull off. It doesn't chip off, but when you pull the tape off it changes the texture and therefore the sheen of the underlying paint and you can see where the tape was. So I went to the Secret Underground Model Paint Solutions Research Paint Laboratory and played around with some concoctions and came up with a really easy fix for that. And it simply add a little gloss to the metallic when you mix it up and it works beautifully. And I actually, you know, added, you know I had two strips of sheet styrene and one was shot with my normal mixture of for AK talix and the other was shot with that mixture plus five percent by volume AK gloss added to it. I let them both dry overnight. I embossed a piece of Tamiya tape on top with a burnishing tool, let it sit for about 12 hours and then pulled the tape off with a burnishing tool. Let it sit for about 12 hours and then pulled the tape off and you can't see where the tape was on the surface that had gloss in it, but you can see where the tape was on the other one. So yeah, so let me give them the formula for that real quick is roughly 70% metallic, whether whatever it is, you know, aluminum, dark aluminum, white aluminum, 70% metallic, about 20-25%, thinner, leveling thinner or AK Extreme, and then the balance 5-10%. However, you're mixing it with just gloss, ak Gloss, and it works beautiful and it makes it a paint that withstands masking tape much, much better. So a little bit of a tangent there, but anyway.

Lastly, last kind of thing here is talking about the color of the primer to use on on your masterpiece. So, being an aircraft guy, I kind of cut my teeth on using white or very light gray primers for most aircraft builds. I'm not one that uses a lot of black primer on an aircraft build, although you can if you're going to be doing marbling on top of it. That's a great color to start with Most of the time for me aircraft and car models. I go with white or light gray, armor models, I think, or models that have very busy surfaces, as does an armor model.

I think those kits really lean themselves to shooting with a black primer, and particularly because of course you're going to get that shadow effect in all the little nooks and crannies that are now painted black before you shoot your tan or your green or whatever on top of it. But the other thing to think about is perhaps, depending on the color that you're going for, you can oftentimes make do if you have a nice smooth primer coat. You can make do with that primer coat as your primary color. And again on the site I did this thing, my, I can't even pronounce it anymore. It's a russian twin boom, a high altitude spy plane. Um, uh, models of it makes, the makes, the kit. It's on my, my chef, my chef m1.

Yeah, yeah, gosh, I can't think of it.

I should have that on top of my head A Mayashev, mayashev M1. Yeah, yeah, gosh, can't think of it.

I should have that on top of my head.

Yeah, I should.

Anyway, nonetheless, I built one of these for the museum display years back and the article is on model paint solutions and what I found was it was basically a white and gray airframe and I simply painted the model white and gray primer and it looked beautiful. I shot it in white, I taped it off, I shot it in gray. No, no, no, you know color coats required. So there's one option for you know, if you can make the primer coat color work, you may not need to actually have to shoot a paint on top of it. Color work, you may not need to actually have to shoot a paint on top of it. And to that end, let's say again you're going to be shooting a gray primer and the color that you want is a slightly lighter color of gray. Well, if you're shooting acrylic primers like Vallejo primer, you can add Vallejo paint to Vallejo primer and tweak that darker or lighter to the shade that you want. Likewise, you can add Mission Paint to Mission Primer. Here's one that's handy for those folks again, using Stynal Res, you can take Vallejo paint and add to Stynal Res white primer and change that color as well. If you're preferring to use lacquer primers like Alclad 2 or AK, both of those primers can be tweaked color-wise by adding AK Real Colors paints or the Tamiya lacquer line to both of those primers Really good for changing those colors as well.

And lastly, back to Mr Surfacer 1000, which seems to be everybody's go-to primer. I'm in the process right now of doing a project for the museum, which is, I think I'm going to take Mr Surfacer 1000 and tweak it a little bit by adding a little bit of AK paint to that primer and get it into a darker gray that I need for this project and use that as my final coat. Don't really have to shoot any paint on top of it because it'll be exactly the color I'm looking for. So anyway, in summary, there are times, especially if you're working in the white gray, black scale, that you can tweak the color hue of your primer to get where you need to be without coming on top of it with a color code. And with that I open the floor to any questions I think you've covered it pretty extensively.

I've, I've, I do too. I I never fail when you just thought you were talking about Steve earlier and learning from H interaction with him. I never come away from one of these things without having learned one or two new tricks that I have to write down because I don't want to forget them and my mind is getting a little older but tricks that I want to try the next time. And so I've got a couple of projects I'm finishing up now, but the next time I prime I'm going to try a couple of those tricks.

Awesome. Thank you for that, dave. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you, yeah.

Well, what's been going on at Model Paint Solutions?

Well, we got some new stuff to put up on the site. I now have the new Dispay electric sanders, the reciprocating sanders.

We've had several listeners get those over the holidays and are liking that thing.

I kind of fell for it hook line and sinker. Now I had the. I had the david union reciprocating sander on the site a few years back. They came, became difficult to get and I kind of gave up on them. I tried the this, this new one by dispe, and I was really impressed with it. It's small, it's light, it's rechargeable. There's no cord. That's always in your way. But the big difference for me between the David Union is the tips that they give you, these black nylon tips they give you. You know that you put your sandpaper on. They provide tips in the kit that are round, that are semi-round, that are, you know, 90 degree angles. Those kind of special, you know shaped tips are really handy for, for sanding and buffing jobs. And the David, the David Union stuff just did not have the same, the same selection of tips. So anyway, I really liked those. Those are going up on the site. I've got them in stock. They should be up in the next couple of days. The big thing for me, as I'm sure a lot of folks know out there is Harder.

Steam Deck has launched basically a new line of airbrushes, starting with the Ultra 2024, the Evolution and the Infinity 2024. And I have to say I've been an Evolution guy for as long as the brush has been out. I actually prefer the Evolution over the Infinity. It just fits my hand better. And I was dubious when I heard about all these claims that the new Evolution was this monumental step forward, and I was really pleased to see, when I got one in my hands, that indeed it really is. They did a really good job when they redesigned or re-engineered the evolution.

The lever in particular is an entirely new design. There is no play whatsoever in that lever. The moment you pull the lever back, the needle comes back. I'd heard people complain about how much play there was in the old Infinity lever and it never, ever bothered me. And it wasn't until I tried the new Evolution with this tighter lever that I realized. You know what? There was a little play in that lever that I never really noticed before. So, first off, the lever is newly designed. The air valve is designed for better airflow. The needle chuck has been designed so you don't ding the tip of the needle as readily when you slip the needle in.

In addition to that, hs came out with two new size tips a 0.28 and a 0.45. Again, I was dubious and then I put the 0.28 in my brush and that's the tip that stayed in my brush ever since I put it in there. That is a really handy size tip. It provides surprisingly fine lines but it's big enough that when you have to do a little mini you know wet coat it can handle it Very nice size tip. The Evolution excuse me, the Infinity as well as folks know that was released a couple of months ago. It has the same redesign lever as the Evolution, so there's no play Definitely an improvement over the older Infinity. The new Infinity is also coming out with two new size tips a 0.21 and, I think, a 0.41. For me, just to speak bluntly, I was not entirely pleased to hear that the Infinity can only use those two size tips.

I think one of the real utilities to harder Steenbeck brushes is that with one airbrush you can use a full range of different size tips. The good news there is that the new Evolution 2024 was designed such that you can use all of the old harder Steenbeck tips on the new Evolution 2024. So you can put the 0.15, the 0.2, the 0.4, the new 0.28, the new 0.45, or a 0.6 on the Evolution. One airbrush, that many tips. That, in my book, makes it one of the most utilitarian brushes that I have ever seen, and that's before you get to just what a quality design the thing is and how well they did on the redesign.

So, and once again, I'm not going to make some folks at Harder Steamback happy with me, but I also think that there might be some guys out there that you know think they want to get into an ultra because you know they're, they're, they're a newbie to the sport and you know think they want to get into an ultra because you know they're, they're a newbie to the sport and you know this is a brush made for newbies. My suggestion to you is that unless you just have no mechanical ability whatsoever and you're you're deathly afraid of airbrushing, you might be better served by getting an evolution, better served by getting an evolution. I have sent multiple ultras out and I find that for folks who are again with no real ability and no experience, this might be the perfect brush for them. It definitely works for the younger crowd. I've got multiple kids that have ultras and they're very happy with them and it's a good brush for if you're learning the very basics, but if you're even slightly past that.

I strongly suggest you think about picking up the new Evolution 2024. That is a brush that you can both learn on and you can't outgrow it, because it's just too good a brush to outgrow. So, anyway, the new thing for me is the new Evolution 2024. Great brush. I will be coming out with another article on it in the next month or two and you know, if anybody has any questions on that, send me an email or we can arrange a chat. I'll be glad to talk to you about it. You guys still there, yeah.

You cut out for just a second.

You're talking about arranging a chat.

Yeah.

Why don't you repeat that part?

Okay. So if anybody's interested in that, you know, feel free to send me an email and I'll get right back to you on that. If, like a lot of guys do, you know, I prefer having a quick chat by phone versus spending an hour hunting and packing having a quick chat by phone versus spending an hour hunting and packing. So if anybody has questions about the new Evo or what airbrush would be best for them at this stage, send me an email. We'll set up a time to have a phone chat and we'll talk it out. I do that two or three times a day and that's kind of the highlight of my day is talking to other modelers, so give me a call.

And then, before we let you go, john, you also wanted to mention the old bubbles in the cup problem you seem to have a rash of lately.

Yeah, so thanks for reminding me on that, mike. So, yeah, time for the Model Paint Solutions public service announcement. I've been hit by a lot of guys lately sending me emails giving me a call about bubbles in the paint cup, and this is a very common problem, in particular for the folks out there that are shooting harder Steinbeck brushes or Iwata brushes or Hansa brushes or Procon brushes All of these brushes are prone to this issue of developing bubbles in the paint cup. The bummer is for a lot of guys. They'll look at the bubbles coming out of the paint cup and they'll think, aha, there is a clog somewhere between the air valve.

Guilty as charged.

And the nozzle, and they'll break the brush apart. They'll clean it right, they'll put it back together. And here's the bad part. This is how fate messes with us sometimes. And when they put the brush back together, they'll simply screw the parts back together tighter than they did before and the bubbles will go away. And then they will attribute that to well, there must've been a tiny little piece of goober that I didn't see, that I got out of there and that's why it's working now. And that's actually not it. What actually happened was you. When you put it back together, you tighten the air cap appropriately and the bubbles go away.

Yeah, so when you have bubbles in the paint cup, this, this, with with the following but hs hansa awada, pro Pache. What that means is that you have a leak of air right at the nozzle. Now, with Harder Steenbeck, you can have a leak at the back of the nozzle where you have the little white Teflon seal, or you can have a leak coming out of the air cap where you have the black O-ring. Now, both of those parts, as you guys know, are available through Harder Steam Bank. You get three seals per bag. They're like $4. Every once in a while it's a good idea to change those seals out in order to keep this from happening. If you do get bubbles in the paint cup, however, the first thing to do is to remove the tailpiece from the brush, loosen the needle lock nut, pull the needle back a centimeter, half an inch or so, so you don't crash the needle into the nozzle when you reach down and tighten the air cap. That's where the leak is occurring. So once you get a good tightening on the air cap and if it's an HS brush you're looking at hoping to get that air cap to turn between a quarter and a third of a turn. That will usually lock everything in place and the bubbles will go away.

Now, that said, some folks whether they have tender hands, not a lot of hand strength, or they have a brush that has some wear and tear on the threads sometimes it's difficult to get enough torque pounds onto that tiny air cap to get it to seal, and for that I strongly recommend anybody go in this situation, go to Amazon and search for soft jawed pliers, and what you'll find is a selection of pliers, all of which have these Teflon inserts that cover the metal jaws so they don't mar metal surfaces. I have a couple of pairs of these in my shop. These pliers are real handy for getting that last little tighten on the air cap so you can get those bubbles to go away. If you're running an Awada which has a different air cap design, in that situation you've got the tiny little wrench and the tiny little nozzle. In that case you're going to pop that air cap off and grab your wrench and try to get another.

You know eighth of a turn, because those threads are so fine. Try to get an eighth of a turn on that little nozzle. Reassemble the brush, the bubbles should go away. Fine, try to get an eighth of a turn on that little nozzle. Reassemble the brush, the bubbles should go away.

It's amazing how many guys have spent how many hours cleaning their brushes for this, for the reason I'm laughing is that this exact thing happened to me like three or four years ago and and I spent a whole day tearing down a brush, cleaning it, putting it back together. Why are there bubbles? What the clearly I'm not. And I finally gave up and contacted john and john said just tighten the cap. A little bubbles went away. You feel kind of dumb.

I had one of my oldest customers call me about, send me an email about two weeks ago with this problem, and I sent him a long email back and he just couldn't get the air cap tight enough and he kept sending me. You know, no, I did that, it's tight and we just went back for three or four emails and finally sent him. I called him actually and, as I sometimes do, and as soon as he answered the phone I said, yeah, this is John from the model paint solutions airbrush crisis line. I'm here to talk you down, it's okay. I'm here to talk you down, it's okay, and in live time, talk with him on the phone.

I said, hey, do you have a pair of soft jawed pliers? And he says, yeah, I do, let me go get them real quick. He went and got them and after he pulled the needle back and, you know, get a little, got a little good torque on the air cap. It worked perfectly the very first time he tried it and he just died laughing and he's like, oh yeah, the hours I've spent cleaning this brush.

And I said, I know, I know, I'm there because it's it's so counterintuitive, you of these that well, not a whole bunch, but there are air galleys inside the brush, yeah.

So the air goes a whole bunch of crazy places, you know, not just a straight line from the air valve to the air cap. So anyway, that is the public service announcement. Remember bubbles in the air cup, excuse me, bubbles in the paint cup. Take a step back, pull the needle back, tighten the air cup. And the excuse me, bubbles in the paint cup. Take a step back, pull the needle back, tighten the air cap.

You should be good, you will be and if you're not the hardest game, bet guys real quick, and if you're not, then you have to think about getting a getting a hold of a bag of the teflon nozzle seals. And those seals pop right off with your fingernail or an exacto blade. The new seal pops on with a friction fit. So change those white Teflon seals out on the back of the nozzle and at the same time go ahead and change out the black O-ring under the air cap. Change both those out at the same time. Retighten the air cap. Bubbles will go away bubbles will go away.

As always, John, super informative.

Love to get together and chat To figure out what the next one's going to be.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking.

I've got some ideas, all right, send them to us.

Send us a couple of emails Sounds good, john, thanks again.

Thank you very much, John. You have a good evening you too.

Well, Dave, I hope people get in the show notes so they don't have to take notes during all that.

That's one of those things that, like you said, we contemplated just having a short conversation and it just expanded, expanded and I mean it was great. I enjoyed every bit of it and, like I have said, every time we talked to Dr Miller I learned new stuff, and that was no exception. So I hope everybody else enjoyed it as much as I did. So I hope everybody else enjoyed it as much as I did.

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Yes, absolutely.

Dave, I hope you've gotten to the bench a little more than you did during the dark times. What is up on Dave's bench?

I have Not as much as I'd want. Still, the past week to 10 days I've done a little work on the salmon. To be frank, it's so super close. I mean I am getting to the place you did where you made the rush to the finish with the pawl. But most of my effort has been put into the Moosaroo because there's a time limit on that and this kit has had some challenges to it and, like all models, when you're building it in retrospect you do it differently next time In retrospect, you do it differently next time. But it's moving along. But time is short and I have to get it done. I have to get moving and so I am focused on that. I've got time in. I got some time in. A lot of it is very, very tedious small detail sanding, I mean, you know, with water and very fine sandpaper, sanding very, very small areas. But it's going to get there. I promise it's going to get there.

You've got to find your cadence because if you do, you could have two done by Mark.

Yes, I could, that is impossible. I could have two up at Mark. Yes, I could, that is impossible. I could have two up at Heritage Con. We'll see. But I have gotten to the bench more, and that's good. Not as much as I want. Not back to full-time, or full-time for me, normal time, just simply because work post-New Year's and then post-Martin Luther King Day it always just picks up, and so the practice has been very busy and that's kept me from doing more. But I am getting stuff done, I'm enjoying it, my mojo is pretty high and I've been inspired by my fellow podcaster who actually finished a model One we've been talking about for a number of years.

Yeah, too long. Well, it is done. The E16 is done, done, done. Despite the warts, I'm extremely pleased with it and I appreciate all the kind words folks had about it. On the dojo, I really do. I like it a lot. Yeah, I don't know if I was done last time.

Yeah, or was it just really close? Well, as long as you've been doing it, you're allowed to take two victory laps if you need to. So if you were done the last time, you can be done again this time.

Well, I think last time I had to put the catapult on the base and then the plane on the catapult. Right, we're there now. The plane's still not permanently attached and I don't know if I even will.

Right, it's just well, transport wise it probably will be easier. It will, and it's.

It's pretty stable, even when it's on there unfastened. So, yeah, we may have to take our chances on that, sure. Of late, though, I've been back on the kv-85. I've been working on little stuff about the hull, side bulges and then the front fenders and the driver's visor, just kind of getting into the zen of all that because, uh, that one's more of a traditional project for me.

Yeah.

More my flavor and I don't know it's. It's just going to go and go and be done when it's done. So no projections, I'm just gonna keep chipping away at it.

Yeah, and you were playing around with some paint too, weren't you yeah?

Squadron sent us a sample of scale colors. Squadron sent us a sample of scale colors. This was Jeff Hearn's paint line. I guess he's been assimilated into Squadron and they have picked up this paint line and he's going to be a remote employee and work on that kind of thing. But I haven't done a lot with it yet. But watch the dojo, I have used it. I got to go back and make some notes and think about a couple things. Well, it looked really interesting. I have used it. I got to go back and make some notes and think about a couple of things, but uh, well, it looked really interesting what you you were.

you were using it on a T 34 turret paint mule, weren't you?

Yeah, I stripped the old paint mule, cause it had Henamaru on it for decal tests. So I stripped it back down past the primer and reprimed it and I tried to think of something I could do with the colors that he sent and I did some undercoating and pre-shading and that sort of thing and then they top coated it and we'll get to that at a different time. The only other thing I've been working on just a little bit of dabbling going on with the Flak Panzer 38D. Nothing worth mentioning really.

Just I don't know. I just been working on the KV and basking in my completion of the 16.

You deserve it. Anything else on the bench? That's it.

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Mike. They've been announcing new kits hot and heavy. We've got this is kind of the season We've got Airfix's range release. We've got IBG teasing a new kit for Nuremberg. You know some other companies announcing releases. So what have your faves and yawns been lately?

Probably the most interesting one, and I don't know if it's sleepies details or slipies detail, s-l-y-p-i details, and they've got some hungarian subjects in 35th skill that are really interesting. Now these are 3d print models, I'm almost certain.

Yeah, they have a hungarian model 29, 80 millimeter bofors anti-aircraft gun which looks awesome yeah, it kind of looks like a, like a german 88 or a or a soviet 85 kind of that size gun, and they've also got an ammo set and an ammo case on for it, really so so you could have something pretty impressive there if you wanted to. Yeah, that was interesting. You know, we've got, we've got some hungarian armor and plastic right, 35th scale, but this is, and I've got a. I've got a ukrainian made kit 20 millimeter, bofors, hungarian right, but this is. This was new to me and look pretty cool.

Well, good.

You got one.

Well, my first one's going to be out of the Airfix range. Announcement.

They announced unsurprising not really surprising, given the late model B-24 that they came out with in the last year or so. In the last year or so they've announced a B24D the early model, the Plo SD Raider model, b24d in 72nd scale and the B24 late model kit that they've already released is really good, so I've got to think that the kit that we're going to get with the G model is going to be just as good. I can't wait. Now we've got an excellent B24D from Hasegawa, so you know this was not the most desperately needed item, but I'm not going to turn down a new tool B24D.

Well, how many do you have in your stash from some other brand?

I have four Academy and six Hasegawa. Oh man, I know, I know, don't go there, I won't. So what's next for you?

A company called 3D Wild is Okay Is doing the Hunley. That's on my list In several scales, including 72nd scale, so I figured you would like it.

Yes.

Now a historical note. They listed it as CSS Hunley. Yeah, it was never CSS Hunley, right? It was an Army concern, right? Not a Confederate Navy concern. But that's neither here nor there. So I don't know if this one's going to be post-discovery or pre.

Well, I would assume this is post-discovery. See, there were a number of Hunley kits before the Hunley had been found and some assumptions in those models had been made based on drawings and all.

Models had been made based on drawings and all some of which turned out to be incorrect when they found the actual ship, which has been excavated and is now in Charleston undergoing preservation. Yeah, I've been to the display. They've got there. You can't see much of the submarine, but they've got the other artifacts. I guess the biggest thing post-discovery is that all the external rivets were ground flat.

Yes.

And other than that, I don't know that.

Well, the spar location, the spar torpedo location, whether it was on the top or on the bottom, had been a matter of speculation If it came off the bottom of the nose or the top of the nose. Well, that question's now been solved. So I'm assuming this kit will take advantage of all of the knowledge that we have now that the ship's actually been recovered. What you got next? Well, that was one that I had, but another one that I had, that's a fave, and this one, I'm thinking of you. Naomega has announced, in 72nd scale, a cam ship hurricane catapult section.

I think they're the same people who make the one for the walrus in 48th scale.

They may, I do not know. Now, this is for those who don't know. There was a brief time where what they did to combat German raiding aircraft raiding into the Atlantic, they basically took a hurricane and mounted it on a catapult on a freighter and if an enemy aircraft was spotted, then the hurricane was launched to fight off the attacking German aircraft and then, if you were close enough to shore, the hurricane would try and fly back. But in many cases the pilot, once they'd done their job, would simply ditch alongside and hope to be picked up. And I think and Jim will have to correct me, I think a number of these conversions were actually done in Canada.

So they've actually got a catapult section for one of these cam ship catapults in 72nd scale and we've got a couple of really good hurricane kits that would be pretty easy to convert to a cam ship hurricat. We need the whole catapult. Yeah, well, it says catapult section, so I'm assuming it's not the whole catapult but the rest of the catapult. It looks to me ought to be fairly easy to reproduce. They've given you the. They're giving you all the tough stuff.

Okay, well, maybe I need to look at it a little harder. Yep, yep, I thought it was going to be just like the Walrus one, which is this stubby little section, right? I thought it was going to be just like the Walrus one, which is this stubby little section, right? You know, I wouldn't want to do it that way, but it's a decent display for the model.

Oh, it would be a great way to display a Hurrican.

My next one's not terribly exciting MiniArt is about to rip through a series of RSO tractors in 35th scale.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I don't know if it's going to be how much better, if any, than the Dragon ones. I bet the instructions are better.

Well, that's damning with faint praise.

I don't know, that's not a particular vehicle that I've been highly interested in, with one exception being the one they took the cab down and put the. Pac-40 on Right. That's one I've always wanted to model and I know dragon kitted it and I never did pick it up. So I probably end up giving it to skip and getting this one instead.

So that's, that's my next one've got one more, and this one is courtesy of Jim Bates, who knows me and my interests very well. There is a company out of Norway called Vingtor Decals and they have announced a brand new sheet for RAF aircraft in the Norwegian campaign of 1940, basically just up my alley and it is decals for Gloucester Gladiators of 263 Squadron and Hawker Hurricane Mark 1s of 46 Squadron. And yeah, jim knows me well. This is a must-have and I'll be getting this one I don't know exactly when, but soon. So do you have any others?

No just sort of Okay, you mentioned Nuremberg, that's kicking off here this week.

Yes.

We know there's an ICM 72nd scale release and our friends have been speculating around what that might be. Ibg, ibg, that's right, ibg is going to be releasing, so we've been speculating a little bit about that. Yes, be curious to see who's correct, or maybe everybody's wrong, I don't know. But generally, the 35th scale plastic reveals and all the published 2025 catalogs from the folks who have published new catalogs so far this year have been kind of weak in my opinion. I'm hoping for a Nuremberg surprise in 35th scale. I don't know if we'll get it. Yeah, I don't know. A lot of the Asian companies don't typically announce at that show.

I don't know if we'll get it, because I don't know a lot of the Asian companies don't typically announce that. That show Right. And then one more thing. You know we kind of mined through skill mates to find some of this stuff. 35th scales, this 3D print is just becoming white noise.

It just there's so much. It's a fire.

I don't, I don't, can't keep up. Who made this? Who made what? Whose is better, better?

who's it's right?

I don't know yep, no, I'm trying not to tune it out, right, it is just. It is a fire hose and it's I mean. I got back into the hobby. I knew literally every kit that, in 72nd scale, had been made, and just because there were so few manufacturers, so few kits, you know, and I even knew most of the aftermarket. It's, you know, and I even knew most of the aftermarket, but now it is literally a fire hose, especially with 3D printing. The variety of stuff that's being announced and the frequency with which it's being announced, it's just flat out amazing.

It is, and I guess the solutions in the statement, scalemates at least there you can filter and keep up with stuff based on the subject. So it's just a lot of it. I'm kind of gobsmacked by how much of it there is and it just keeps coming and coming and coming. So I guess that's where I am with that. So folks keep doing it. I'm not saying don't make stuff but old Mike here can't keep up.

Well, and that emphasizes something I mentioned earlier when you come across something, particularly when you get your hands on something, please post on the dojo and let us know hey, especially in regard to the 3D stuff, because the quality of 3D stuff ranges so widely that it's really good to let your fellow modelers know. Hey, I ordered this, this is what I got. It's great or it's not great? Help a fellow modeler out, let everybody know. Well, mike, we are at the end of the episode and since we both had these fluids before, I suspect neither one of us is disappointed.

No, and I had this one last episode. So, folks, sorry about that, Not sorry, but you know I will. Uh, I will make a vow to have something different next feature episode. How about that?

There, there you go, there you go.

You got to do it as well.

Oh, I usually do. This is an exception for me.

Ace's Parasider and the Russell's Reserve 10-year, both good.

Both recommended.

Mojo House favorites.

Yes, absolutely so recommended, and we'll both have something new and different next time. Both have something new and different next time. Now we truly are at the end of the episode. Do you have any shout outs?

I have one shout out, and it is the obligatory Thank you for all the folks who've contributed to plastic model mojo through their generosity. I keep talking about this new website. It is coming, I promise, and then we're going to be diving rapidly into the development of phase two, which will hopefully allow us to bring you some more content visual content, folks. We really appreciate it. We've set up several channels where you can do that. You can subscribe at Patreon, you can contribute through PayPal, buy me a coffee or the merchandise store. We really appreciate it. It's been a big, big help getting us to where we want to be this year and I want to thank each and every one of you for contributing to the show.

Absolutely, and I would second that we would not have been able to do what we've done so far without listener support. It's really gratifying to both Mike and I that people care that much and please, if you feel moved to contribute, please do. We certainly can use it. The only other shout out I'd like to make is to Mr Chris Wallace, model airplane maker, for making the arrangements for our stay at HeritageCon. Thank you, chris. We can't wait to see you and I swear I'll have some hot sauce with me when we show up. Well, dave, that's it. Yes, it is Another one in the books, as we always say so many kids, so little time.

Dave, take it easy, man, and figure out the schedule for February. Yes, we do.