Scenic Products, Model Shows, and Bases Shop Talk: Episode 138

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

Well, mojovia, welcome to episode 138 of Plastic Model Mojo and brought to you live from Soggy Bottom Kentucky.

God yes.

Kentucky, dave, how you doing.

I'm doing good. Everything is damp, that's an understatement.

Yeah Well, we're not alone tonight. We got Mr Jeff Groves, the inch-high guy, in the third chair, jeff, how you doing tonight? Hey, I'm good, mike. Hi, got Mr Jeff Groves, the inch high guy, in the third chair, jeff, how?

you doing tonight? Hey, I'm good Mike, Hi Dave, Hi everybody out in Mojovia, I'm still keeping the head above water here in the mighty state of Indiana.

Well, how's things where you are? Is it wet up there too?

It has been wet for the last couple of days. The mighty White River has jumped its banks, but we aren't underwater yet, so we're still doing okay. Hopefully you live on a hill Above the water level in the river, that's for sure.

Well, good, well, we're going to start with you, jeff. What's been up in your model sphere of late?

Well, my model sphere of late just today was pretty darn enjoyable Went to the. Ipms Roscoe Turner show in Indianapolis.

You're killing me dude.

Well, you know, if that big red patch of radar wasn't sitting on you this morning, it would have been great to have you guys up there.

Well, I was out from the beginning, but I was sad to hear that Dave had to bail. But go ahead. I interrupt.

No, no, that's great. It was every bit of a good show. As you remember from ever being there, they had 120 vendor tables. I never did get an entry count, but I would put it a little north of 600 models on the table. Yeah, they have a good policy. It's $10 to get in the door and as many models as you want to bring with you. The guy in line ahead of me had 18.

Well, I mean, you have, I brought five. I only brought five. Okay, Well, that's not bad either. It's more than I've ever brought to a model show.

It was a good time.

Four years work for me. Well good. I'm glad you had a good time. Was the crowd good, despite the weather? I don't know how the weather up toward Indianapolis has been, I would imagine not a whole lot different.

Looking in the parking lot I thought, oh man, there's been a lot of guys that are held up, but they all showed up. Yeah, and it filled up. It filled up, nice. There were three estates in the vendor room where guys were liquidating from modelers we've lost.

One of those was our special agent 003, Brandon Jacobs.

Okay, texas.

Yeah, from Texas. He and a friend went up and bought a 1700 kit collection.

They were there, I'm telling you. They were blowing them out. They were trying to not go home with piles of stuff and it showed.

Speaking of that, did you buy some stuff? You sent me some pictures.

Oh, dave, I tell you I was a bad boy. I've been feeling guilty because the Spru brothers had a pretty good discount. I think it was 30% off if you bought over a certain limit. So of course I got to that limit and got my 30% off and I thought, okay, I'm done buying and that that lasted until this show.

Oh, for a minute you had me thinking they were at the show.

Oh, no, no, no, that was a mail order thing. But they had a lot of fine mold kits that you rarely find, let alone find on sale, and they had marked them down. But I sent Dave a box of 72nd scale mostly Japanese stuff. That was $10 a kit and it was stuff you don't see all the time.

Now there was 148 scale kit in there. What the heck was wrong with that?

Well, you just can't filter them all out. You know, it's just that kind of thing. And then at the end of it I was walking through and a vendor had $10 on a bunch of Dragon Armor for $10 each and they said everything on the table's half off and I thought, oh man.

Everett McCallum would have been going hog wild.

Yeah, so I wound up with probably a dozen kits altogether and I didn't need them. Let me put it that way.

Man, there were a couple of those in that box. You sent me that I would have been fighting you for.

Well, I thought if you wanted them I could have picked you up. I picked up a couple out of that box for me and if you need that, kate, I've got eight of them on my shelf right now.

I've got more Kates than I know what to do with. But there was that inline nose, judy. Oh yeah, those are tough to come by.

There were lots of just everywhere you looked was a good deal and the vendors were willing to deal and they did stick around. You know a lot of shows when lunch hits they start packing up and most of these guys I'd say 80% of them stayed after lunch and right to the end.

Well, we will talk about that later in our shop talk because that's a subject of discussion and concern.

Yes, absolutely.

So one more question, Jeff, regarding the Roscoe Turner show. Did it rain while you were there? Yes, absolutely so. One more question, Jeff, regarding the Roscoe Turner show.

Did it rain while you were there? Yes, yes, it came and went, and then by the time we left it got pretty heavy. So the drive home was pretty heavy. But I only live an hour from there, so an hour that's not too much.

Always thought when we were there in the new place out there in Lebanon actually, that if it rained hard it'd almost be deafening inside those pole barns.

It wasn't terrible, but yeah, I know what you mean.

They had no way to record when it's fallen on that pole barn like that.

No, you would have had trouble recording definitely.

Dave, what's up in your model sphere?

My model sphere is disappointing because I was all set to grab Skippy and to go up to the show. I got a last minute reprieve where I could run up. Everything was hitting on all cylinders and then yesterday they were predicting bad weather hitting Louisville around three o'clock in the morning, so it looked like it was going to be the worst was going to be over by. You know, 6 am about the time I'd be getting up and getting ready and all that stuff. And then it just kept hovering and hovering and the bad stuff was always just to the west and north of us and basically I got a hold of Skippy about 630. And I'm like dude, I don't think with the amount of water and everything else, nobody else's home. I got a bail and so I texted with Skippy and then I texted Inch to let him know I was looking. There were a lot of guys I was looking forward to seeing, including Brandon and Agent 001.

And it just really disappointing, really disappointing, stacked on top of the fact that I've been a bachelor for the last four days and I was planning on getting a lot of modeling done, but then my dog ate my internet, which screwed up my work, messed up my work from home situation. And when I say the dog ate my internet, I mean my dog. One of my dogs went outside. The cable that runs into the house that brings the internet into the house had fallen down close to the ground and he decided it was a chew toy and so it killed. Wednesday night it killed my internet and I didn't get it restored till Friday. Just one thing after another. So I did not get nearly as much modeling done as I planned to. So I'm still coming off the high of HeritageCon, but I'm a sad puppy as far as the amount of modeling I've gotten done and that I missed the indie show. But on the plus side I do have a Jeff Groves-inspired batch build going on and that's moving along really well. We'll talk about that later.

Mike, how about you? Well, it's been an interesting week. A couple of weeks I've been well. Of course we got back from HeritageCon. We're about what are we a week or two weeks past that?

now.

Two weeks past. I'm losing track of time.

It's crazy weather. I thought today was Sunday.

Well, we've picked up Kit Mask as a sponsor.

Yes.

And that'll roll out starting in May. But we're doing some behind-the-scenes stuff that's really fun with Janelle and Kevin, yes, and really looking forward to launching that and helping them support their business while they help us support the podcast. So that's taken up a little time, yeah, other than that, not a lot. I mean that's been most of my modeling, or modeling adjacent podcast, adjacent kind of stuff.

Well, your work has been busy too, yeah.

I've been busy at work, but that's okay, it's good. It's good to be busy at work. Yes, busy enough, busy enough. Well, I mean, that's pretty much my model sphere. I'm just trying to get all that going and thinking ahead a little bit for our scheduling and getting our guests into April and May lined up, and we've got some good stuff coming folks, so stay tuned well, we are recording an episode, and that means modeling fluid.

And why don't we start off with jeff? Because I know this is kind of special modeling fluid for him yeah, well, every modeling fluid special, isn't it to? Some degree to true enough.

so True enough Some more than others, some more than others.

So what do you got?

I'm going to see if I can do the Kentucky Dave's signature bottle open here.

Okay.

Did it come through? Yeah, there we go. I am having a Blue Moon Belgian White Great choice. Yeah, Probably one of my favorite beers, if not the favorite First beer I've had in several months. I've been fighting some health issues so I've had to lay off the beer on the recommendation of my physician, and he did say I could cheat once in a while so this is my cheat beer, all right.

Well, thanks for cheating with us, yeah.

What about you, Mike?

What do you got? I've got a little bullet, kentucky bourbon, whiskey, nice. I've abstained pretty much. Well, not quite since HeritageCon we had one last episode, but since last episode I've not had much of anything. And I went and got this Thursday night and actually went for Russell's tenure and they didn't have it again and I told the clerk about that.

You've made it too popular.

I guess I have.

You personally have made that a popular one.

Folks are catching on.

That's right.

I went for the economy and I picked up the bullet. Folks know. Folks know what I think about that.

Oh yeah, what about you, Dave? Well, I think I've done this one once before. I've actually got a cocktail tonight.

I have a Lime, rickey. Ah, you have done that.

That was a long time ago A long time ago A Lime Rickey at least. The way you get a bunch of variations is gin, tanqueray, in this case Limeade, or Italian Lime Soda, which you can get at Trader Joe's, a little sweet lime concentrated, sweet lime juice and simple syrup over ice. It's kind of a cousin of a Tom Collins. If you like a Tom Collins which is lemon-based, you'll like a Lime Ricky which is lime-based. So I already know I'm going to like this by the end of the show, but we'll wrap it up at the end.

We got to get you up to a Hendrick or a botanist or something.

Well, I like it. I'll tell you, I like aviation Jim, but my wife is a Tanqueray fan. That's the Jim, so you know.

That's the gin. Beam of gin.

Exactly.

That is exactly what it is. Well, I don't know, that might be Beefeater, might be the gin beam of gin.

Yeah, this might be Tanqueray's one step up.

Sorry, steve. You said Well, we've got some listener mail, dave, not a Steve. You stood Well, we've got some listener mail, dave. Not a lot, disappointingly. Folks need to step it up. That's what they need to do.

Yep. Email us in. Let us know what you like, what you don't like. Submit wheel questions. Submit topics. Keep it coming because, as Mike has said, that's the most enjoyable part of the show for us.

It is, and a lot of these are announcements. Okay, which I guess is okay. Yeah, absolutely There'll be one at the end. That's not, which is kind of cool, but we'll go from there. First up, our friend Kristen Gurney, with Bases by Bill. They've got a new product announcement and some of our listeners might have heard about this on the Plastic Posse podcast because Christian was a guest on there very, very recently, like earlier this week. Yes, they've got a new line of bases that actually inset their carrier deck textured panels into a hardwood or decorative wood base. Yes, it makes for a really nice display.

Plus, they're adding new textured bases, concrete, and, I think, one or two other ones that he was talking about. One of the things I like about bases by Bill is they are so innovative. They sit there and they think and they go. Oh well, this would be good, and you're just amazed that nobody else has thought of it.

No, that would be very versatile. I think that's a good idea to dress those bases up.

Yep Really makes it sharp, I agree.

Yeah, I agree.

So folks check out Bases by Bill and see what they got going on with these new inset carrier deck bases. Well, our friend Michaelael poland down in knoxville I can't believe this has been a year already because brandon was at. Brandon jacob was at roscoe turner show at his big, big pile of kit collection. Yeah, by happenstance he happened to be at the knoxville smoky mountain model con last year when I took a detour on a trip down to see my folks with my youngest son, we dodged into Knoxville and took in about an hour of the show last year and they were part of the model show spotlight last year for this show.

So it's coming up again, man, saturday May 31st from 9 to 4 at the gym at the Knoxville Catholic High School. This is a new high school. This was a really really cool venue, really nice venue, and unfortunately this year I'm going to be away that weekend so I'm not gonna be able to to go again. I'd like to because it looked like a great show, but they've adding a few more vendor tables and I don't know. They just want to want us to help promote it. So we're going to do that because they supported the show in the past and we wish them all the success.

It's a great show and I just want you to know Agent 003 is everywhere. You never know where or when you're going to run into Brandon Jacobs. He's everywhere.

Well, I hope that Mrs 003 didn't say, yeah, you can buy those, you're just not coming home. They're all gone.

Hey, Brandon, I'd be interested to know if she even knew about it.

Well, and then finally, dave, from the email side of things, back from a long hiatus, is Michael Karnalka from New York City. Oh good, I want Michael's question. Well, Michael wants to know have we ever sought out or hoped that there was a model kit of a car that you or your parents once owned, or a plane that you flew on, et cetera? He has AMT's 76 AMC Gremlin that his dad drove for longer than he should have.

Oh God.

Which was about 20 minutes. Yes, during the late 70s, early 80s. He has no immediate desire to construct it, but one day, one day, he's going to do this. So, jeff, is there anything like that that you can think of?

The only things with cars are. I've occasionally thought they would make a good gift for somebody. If you know, one of your buddies really, really, really got into one of his cars. You know that kind of thing, but not not for me. I mean, a car to me is is a utilitarian thing, you know point A to point B.

Yeah, um. Now if was like you and had a model railroading past, I might be inspired to build one of my houses back on a hill somewhere. You know something like that, a piece of scenery that you know this was the house I grew up in Interesting. The thing about that stuff, though, is you will know that once you get to measuring out your house, you know that thing turns into a monster as a model. You don't think of it as that big, but you put it on a layout or something, and it takes up a lot of space. What about you?

Dave, well, both I've done both I think you've got one. Yeah Right, I've got a 94 Supra and I've got to me a kit of it. I built it once and I want to build it again. In addition, do either of you remember an airline called Piedmont?

Yes, absolutely.

Based in Charlotte, flew all over my part of the country when I was growing up. Now this is sometime between 1964 and 1970. So this is all before airline deregulation and all of that. Piedmont was a small regional airline that covered the Carolinas, kentucky, tennessee, virginia, etc. And we were living in Richmond, virginia, at the time. But both my mother and father grew up here in Louisville and both of our families were here, both of their parents were here, and I distinctly remember flying on Piedmont on a Fokker F-27, which, if you've ever seen it, is a high-wing twin-turbo prop aircraft which there's a kit of which I have, and this is the way airlines were in the old regulated days. The flight went from Richmond to Norfolk to maybe Charlottesville, virginia. Then it went into the Tri-Cities in Tennessee Yep, that's my home airport, yeah. Then it went into, I think, nashville, lexington and Louisville.

Is this a general comment or a Dave's? This is what happened to Dave comment.

No, this is the flight that I took. It was like riding on a Greyhound bus that flew because it stopped in every little airport.

When did they deregulate? Because everything ever flew on Piedmont went to Charlotte. It's like flying Delta to Atlanta.

Right. Well, they deregulated airlines, thanks to Herb Kelleher and Southwest Airlines. The deregulation started after the Supreme Court case in 75 or 76.

And deregulation Almost 10 years before I'm talking about.

Right Deregulation really kicked in with the Reagan administration in the early 80s.

Were there any chickens or livestock on your flight at all?

But it really was that. It was that vibe. If somebody had come on with a couple of chickens it would in no way have been unusual. Literally it was like it was flying on a bus with wings. Today you wouldn't find. You might find a direct Louisville-Richmond flight on some smaller airline. I mean, this stopped in every small town between Richmond and Louisville. It was amazing and I remember the flight and what I particularly remember was flying into Tri-City Airport in Tennessee because, of course, on its wing to make the approach for or at least it seemed that way to somebody who was seven or eight years old. But because of that, believe it or not, I remember that flight as if it occurred yesterday. Oh yeah, and I really one day want to do that kit in Piedmont markings. Can you get them? I'm sure somebody makes Piedmont markings for that.

Yeah, I flew that same airframe from Tri-Cities to Atlanta when I went to Europe.

Oh, did you? Yeah, yeah, that was not a comfortable airplane.

It wasn't bad. It's better than what we flew back. Well, I've got one too Okay and the kit is out. There-ish sort of Folks coming through the back catalog know my Volvo proclivities and I've owned V70 XCs which were the first cross-country Volvo wagons in the late 90s and up to 2000,. 98, 99, 2000. And these cars were based on Volvo's P80 platform which started about 90, I don't know four or five or six, with the 850 wagons which to me actually kits an 850 wagon.

Yeah.

So the it's almost there, but things like the front grille and the XC70s had a little bit taller wheelbase and the roof rack was different and the grille was different. I would like to do one of those.

I wonder if somebody makes a resin conversion body for that kit.

Well, I've looked. I've looked for STL files to make the conversion. There's just nothing out there. The Tamiya 850 wagon kit is kind of hard to find and there it's like it's a. It's a curbside kit, which means there's not a lot to it. Right, right, a hundred, a hundred bucks, wow, wow. So yeah, I don't want it that bad. That'll buy a couple of armor kits that I'd probably rather build. So interesting question. It was yeah.

So thank you, mr Karnaca, we appreciate it.

And welcome back. Well, Dave, what's going on on the direct message from Facebook?

Well, I've got several. Number one you mentioned Christian Gurney. Well, christian and Bill actually went down to the Roscoe Turner Show, not to vend but to participate, and Christian DMed me to tell me that Bill took several models down there and won several awards. Not good for him. Oh, congratulations, congratulations, bill of Bases by Bill. Congratulations, bill of Bases by Bill. Bob Bayer, the voice of Bob. You know, we talked last episode about dropping parts and finding parts and parts getting caught in your clothes and all, and Bob had an interesting suggestion, which is modeling in shorts.

Which is just one step removed from modeling in your underwear, which is just what?

never mind, now, we're not going to go there I'd have so much stuff super glued to my legs, it would not be funny that was my thought too.

Either that or I would drop an exacto and catch myself in the in the artery that runs down the inner thigh. That would be bad. Fellow club member and listener, lee Fogle sent Mike and I a really, really, really nice gift. He sent us each a whiskey tumbler that was engraved as if it was a modeling fluid prescription. And they're really nice, they're really classy. He sent one to Mike and one to me, and I know Mike has already broken his in. He posted that on the dojo.

I'm drinking out of it right now, in fact.

Are you really? You'll have to take a picture of that and post that on the dojo. I'll need to put it back up, lee, thank you. That was a very kind gesture. He appreciates the podcast and that's why he did it, and I can't tell you how much we appreciate that level of support. To let us know how much you enjoy it.

Well, it's interesting because the line on this glass for the dose is if you assume no ice, it's a three-finger pour yes, yeah, I don't want to do too many of those.

That's a full boat prescription.

That'll cure what ails you.

Yes.

Except the headache.

One of the things I did miss by not going to Indy was seeing our special agent 001. Michael Rasky. Michael Rasky, who had offered to pick up he has in the past picked up from Patties of Jamaica some Jamaican beef patties that Mike and I both just absolutely love and he had offered again since he had heard I was coming up, and thank gosh, I didn't tell him to get them because it turns out I would be having to make a special trip up there to get them.

Because, those things are good, man, and we got to get back to Roscoe Turner. We got to do it.

We do. Unfortunately, it's really close to HeritageCon.

Yes, it is.

Well, this time wasn't terribly close.

No, we could have done it, like I said, if it was not for a freak lot of really bad weather.

I had other things to do today, I know, yes, the weather got you and hopefully next year won't be that way.

Right. Finally, ethan Idenmill DM'd us about two matters. One in regard to we were talking about tweezers and all, and he was talking about the God Hand tweezers. Now, god Hand is a company out of Japan that makes really high-end tools, out of Japan that makes really high-end tools, and I swear by their God Hand Nippers or guillotine cutters, hand cutters, and, frankly, it is my single favorite modeling tool and the one I would not do without. He has their tweezers and, as you would expect, their quality is just really, really great. So he recommends those if you need a really fine set of tweezers. He also said on a recent flight, he tried peanut butter whiskey. Oh no, and he liked it. So peanut butter whiskey is apparently never going away and we will constantly be hearing about it, which, frankly, is endlessly entertaining to me, because none of that was in any way, shape or form, planned. It was a happy accident, and I have heard about it ever since incident and I have heard about it ever since.

Well, you have a happy and in that it stimulated a whole lot of listener reaction and feedback. The stuff itself was undrinkable, but that's that's neither here nor there well, but that's.

I think dave morris has it right, though we need to move on yeah yeah, right all right.

Well, that's all there is from the, from the dms folks.

We appreciate the email. A little light this month so I hope you guys are busy. Maybe be less busy in the coming month. If you're less busy in the coming month, you can send us an email at plastic model mojo at gmailcom. That's the email side of things. Or you can direct message through facebook or you can use the feedback web link in the show notes of this and every episode. So we've got like three avenues of contact for for listener mail now and we really love this segment. It's a little light this month, unfortunately, but that's the way it goes sometimes, Dave.

Yeah.

Hopefully we'll make up for it in the coming coming month or so.

Folks, when you're done listening to this episode, if you have not already done so, please go and rate the episode on whatever podcast app you're listening to. Also, please recommend us to your friends. The best way for us to continue to gain new listeners and we are continuing to gain new listeners is for you to tell a friend who doesn't listen to podcasts or doesn't listen to this podcast. Recommend us, help them if they need help, to show them how to begin. And we continue to grow, and you all are the reason why.

Well, in addition to rating us through your podcast app, we have a new way to do that as well. Not just an email link, we have a ratings web link. You can also find the show notes to this episode and every episode. You can use that link to leave a review and rate us one through five stars. We appreciate five stars, we appreciate a text review of the podcast, and all that helps us achieve the things that Dave just mentioned. Once you've rated the podcast, please check out the other podcasts out in the model sphere, and you can do so by going to wwwmodelpodcastcom. It's model podcast plural. It's a consortium website set up with the help of Stuart Clark from the Scale Model Podcast up in Canada. He's aggregated all the banner links to all the podcasts in the model sphere, so you've got a one-stop shop there to go check out all the other great content in the model sphere. We've also got a lot of blog and YouTube friends. We've got Model Airplane Maker, mr Chris Wallace, a great YouTube channel, a great blog, mostly 48-scale aircraft. Go check that out.

Yeah, he just dropped a new video Evan McCallum Panzermeister36.

If you want to know about weathering and building armor, that's going to be a good place for you to go. And the occasional HO scale railroad car as well. Happy birthday, evan. It's Evan's birthday. Happy birthday, evan. In addition to that, you can check out SpruPi with Fred Stephen Lee A great blog, long and short form content, 70 second scale centric and a little model railroad stuff there as well. Steve's always got something good going on, so please check that out. And we got Dr Paul Budzik Scale Model Workshop. Always some good philosophy, always some good build content with what Paul's doing. You can find that at Patreon and on YouTube, so please check out Paul's Scale Model Workshop. And finally, jeff, we're going to let you talk about the Inch. I Got blog and what's going on. What's up over there?

Well, I had a milestone. A couple of weeks ago I got my one millionth blog visit. Took six years to get there. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I finally crossed the one million visits.

That's pretty good. So what have you recently been featuring?

Well, I had one this week that got a lot of attention. I was a little surprised. I did it as kind of a research post for somebody that asked a specific question. But I started researching the markings for the Japanese carrier aircraft that raided Pearl Harbor and how to decipher those Right and I thought that was a little more well-known than it turned out it was, and I got a lot of really positive feedback and a lot of interest for that post.

What's nice is you're right, that information's out there, but, to be honest with you, it's scattered around. And what you did was you very nicely summarized in a very short blog post everything you need to know to do any particular aircraft off any particular carrier, and at least what the you know tail codes and such should be for it.

Yeah, the Japanese had a system that was pretty straightforward once you have it explained what it consisted of, but they had markings that identified the carrier division, that the aircraft was assigned to the individual carrier, and it's one of those things that's right there in front of your face. Once you know what's going on, you can see it and you can look at that plane and say, yeah, that's from the Akagi or Zuakaku or I'll get it out eventually any of those, and it generated a lot of interest. So that was what was on the blog this week. That kind of resonated.

Well, that's great. Where can folks find your blog again?

Inch High Guy at WordPress. Yep, just Inch High Guy at WordPress.

Yep, just Google Inch, high Guy, and you will find it immediately. Yeah.

And we'll link it.

Yes. Finally, if you are not a member of your national IPMS organization, please join the national organizations. Do a lot for modelers in their countries, much of it invisible to the naked eye, and it's all volunteer modelers who are giving up part of their modeling time to try and make modeling better. Also, if you are a armor modeler or post-1900 figures modeler, amps, the Armor Modeling Preservation Society, is a great organization. Mike and I have been attending since almost the beginning, with some big gaps in there. We were able to attend last year at their national and we've already got plans to attend the national this year. Highly recommend it and great group of guys. So join the organization if you have any interest in that.

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

Well, folks, it's Shop Talk time again, and it's nice to have you, Jeff, in the third chair.

Well, thanks for having me.

Well, you're welcome. We've got some topics here and looking forward to this because I know, especially since you've just been to a show, we've got some stuff to talk about that coming up, but lots of good stuff here, so we'll get rolling here in just a second. Well, the first topic I want to get in on and I'm sure Dave does too oh yes, Some recent stuff that went down Modern weathering and scenery products and our experiences with those and kind of what we think of them at a high level, even a detailed level, I don't care. There's a lot of this stuff out there. Some of it's really good, Some of it's really good, Some of it is maybe not. And have we used it? Have we not used it? Let's just talk about it. So who are we starting with? Dave?

Well, let me start way back in the olden times, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, roamed the earth and any groundwork was done with cellulose clay and static grass and that's basically all there was in the world and dirt from your yard and dirt from your yard and maybe some roots repurposed as trees and there was dioramas were not nearly as popular as they are now. Groundwork bases were not nearly as popular and a big part of that probably had to do with how difficult it was to pull off, because if you wanted to do groundwork, you really were doing a lot of it with stuff that was repurposed for making that groundwork. Now, as I've said, we live in the golden age of modeling and that includes diorama products. There are all sorts of products to replicate any particular type of soil or groundwork or stones and instead of just static grass, there are these scenery products with pre-done tufts, scenery products with pre-done tufts, with flowers, with all pre-made, so that you can generate a really, really nice groundwork scene with much, much less effort, maybe a little more expense, because you have to buy all these products.

Now I recently, with the Moosaroo, had some experience for the first time with a couple of them, with a couple of the AK Groundwork products and I will tell you they are really, really good products. They work as advertised up to a point. It takes some experimentation, just like anything else in modeling does, but they do work as they're advertised to work, other than the drying times that they tell you on the products. At least in the experience with both the beach sand and the transparent water that I utilized and then, talking to John Bonanni, he had a similar experience with their resin water product the drying times are massively longer than what they say on the jars. They say 18 to 24 hours and I put on thin layers of both the beach product and the transparent water. The transparent water took a full six or seven days to dry completely. Wow.

Now, when it did, it dried completely clear, just as advertised. It works just as advertised. You can build it up in layers, you can make waves, there's all sorts of things you can do with it, but do not believe that you're going to be able to do it as quickly as the product says. I think that's probably true for a lot of these things is. They tell you on the instructions what they believe, but you've got to experiment and see what actually works, and you know these groundwork products are going to make you get better quicker, but it's not going to make you night shift, overnight. You still have to spend the time.

Jeff, you use any of this stuff, either weathering or any of these effects.

I do some weathering stuff. I don't get into the specific products as much. It's like the old saw about the paint. Everybody's got a paint line. It seems like everybody's got mud and everybody's got rust and everybody's got a jar of stuff they swept up off their garage floor. I don't know where they're getting this stuff, but everybody will sell you jar after jar of this stuff. I don't use a lot of it. I mean, dave was going back into the prehistoric times and I'll go back to the neopaleolithic.

When I was in middle school my school library got the old model railroader magazine. Yeah, and I'm sure everybody mike you probably still have them all. But I went to the school library and I'd read those things cover to cover and one of the staples in there was the Woodland Scenics product line which is still out there and still available and you can get their layout box which has enough different foams and foliage and grass products and earth products and stuff to do. I think it's a four by eight sheet of plywood for a layout and I've got one of those boxes and I will never run out of that stuff. So if I want a tree, I'll I'll do the trick of strands of wires and make my tree and and beef it up a little bit and put the the leaf foam on that and the grass and that is perfectly convincing in 72nd scale for just about any scene you want to do as far as ground work for armor or base for an aircraft or that kind of thing.

Outside of that I weather with some very basic products. I use oils, I use the Tamiya Paneline colors I've got some of those. I've got some AK mud effects for dirtying up tracks and that sort of thing. And I have some cheap dollar store mascara pens and eyeliners and stuff and that is really great for making rust streaks or oil streaks or that kind of thing. And if you're doing it over a gloss base and you mess up, you get some mineral spirit and you can thin it out and you can draw the streak out or you can erase it entirely with any of those products. So they're very forgiving and you can perfect your techniques a little bit with that kind of thing. You can also use it to shade panels. I've seen no need to get yet another paint drawer full of once a month use kind of material.

Now with those Tamiya panel liners, do you use them straight from the bottle or do you dilute them at all?

I shake them up good and then I let them sit a little bit, so they're kind of self-diluting. And then, when you get down to where the brush just hardly won't reach anymore, you've got a very thick mixture and you can thin it. At that point you have to make sure that you're not using a very aggressive thinner on that, or you'll just wipe your paint back off again. Exactly. Yeah, it's something to watch. I've made that mistake more than once.

We all go through negative modeling. If you don't go through negative modeling, you're not modeling enough.

Yeah, and learning how to correct your negative modeling. The guys that throw their model away when they screw it up never get to the decal stage, so they never get to learn the joys of decaling. But, you've and my my philosophy is you've almost got to finish a model once you've started it with very rare exceptions or use it as a learning experience of nothing else.

Right, I agree.

What about you?

Mike, I've not used a lot of the scenery products, but I got into the MIG ammo. I think they're the splatter effects which are essentially really heavily pigmented enamel paints and I really like using them and I think they're like you said you've got an undercoat gloss or satin of some kind and you're using these enamel products and mineral spirits on top of that, so they're very forgiving. Where these things drive me nuts and part of it's the product and, admittedly, part of it is the rate at which I complete models.

I know where you're going.

These things just dry up in those little plastic jars faster than anything I've ever experienced. I've got 40-year-old Pactra and 40-year-old Humble paint in my collection of materials that is as good as the day it was made and they're metal tens or they're little glass bottles or plastic bottles with good lids on them, hard plastic bottles, but these things in their polyethylene or polypropylene bottles with their little snap ring caps on them and stuff. Once you open those things you got maybe six months on some of those before it's just this rock hard and maybe you can reconstitute it with mineral spirits. I don't know. I think probably at some point you could, you could do that. But once, once you go down that road, it's never going to be the same as it was designed. You know, right came, came out of the bottle, right, it's going to be something thinner or thicker than that, depending on how much you dilute it. That's kind of been my peeve with some of those things is that their shelf life is just non-existent.

Right, and I've heard some of the same thing regarding some of the scenery products, some of the different types of mud or whatever, from the different manufacturers, and I'm not singling anyone out that once you open them, that they don't, they don't stay in the same state for very long. So it's either a use it or lose it. Proposition.

Now, some of that stuff I'm sure you could open up and, you know, spritz some water in there or whatever and humidify it Right. But you know who wants, who wants to manage to manage their stock, their paint and finish stock. I mean, really it's hard enough to manage your kit collection and your current projects.

Yeah.

I don't think that's a route most folks want to take and admittedly, again, that's, you know, some of the problem is my pace. So, realizing that, I would recommend not buying that stuff on a whim Right that you might you, you, you might use it.

Right. Buy it only when you have a project and you are at the phase where you need that product.

Yeah, or very near the, the, the finished phase, where you're going to use it. So you know I'm working on this KV-85. We'll get into it a little bit later but you know I don't know that any of the stuff I've got for these MIG splashes products are going to be any good to use. If I want to use that kind of stuff, I'm going to go buy them again, which is a little disappointing, but you know I could always build faster.

Yes, you, it's a little disappointing, but I could always build faster. Yes, you can talk to Jeff about that after the show.

He can explain to you how that works. Well, it is frustrating, though, and if you do anything to alter that at all, you risk opening a pencil eraser the next time it's going to be one gelled mass down there and totally unusable.

Well, that's true as well. That's why I never pour thin paint back into the bottle.

Yeah, no, never. You just don't know what's going to.

Well, I know what's going to happen. It's not going to be good.

The one exception I have found to that, mike, is if you're using Mr Color and you use nothing but Mr Color, thinner.

Yes.

Yeah.

That stuff seems to last in its thin state for six, eight months.

That's the only brand of paint, the only paint line I've ever personally used and admittedly I haven't used them all, but that's the only one that I get to see the bottom of that bottle clear at the end of that bottle. I've used every drop out of that I can get out of it and I think the trick is the unicorn tears. You just always thin with that and if you have mixed just that and nothing else in there, you can put it back in that bottle and it doesn't affect it in any negative way at all.

It just once thinned, it stays thinned without having any negative effects, as opposed to enamel paint. Once you thin it, it stays thinned without having any negative effects, as opposed to enamel paint. Once you thin it either turns it into jelly or you get a rock, a separation with a rock hard bottom. So yeah, no, I completely endorse that.

In the old testers model master line. I don't know what it was, but they do something in their blue pigment specifically. If you open that bottle and got any on the lip where the threads are and tighten it back down again, you need channel locks to open that thing again. If you can open that bottle ever again, it is super glue. For some reason it glues that sucker shut.

I cracked a couple of bottles trying to open them with channel locks. Yes, so for me my bench, I'm not like deeply invested in any of this stuff. I'd be curious what our listeners have done and what your experiences are. Honestly, I'm a little reluctant to to get deeply invested. I think the the better approach is to get it when you know you're going to use it. Yeah, yeah.

I would agree.

Unless you have a planned experiment that you're going to use it before then, which I've done. I did that quite a bit with one of my little Airfix Bofors and Morris truck we keep talking about. That won't go away. I spent a lot of time developing the scenery formulation for that little base. I put it on but you know I'm not so sure that was bought product anyway, I think I came up with all that on my own.

Well, and that is one thing I would urge you Again, don't buy the product till right before you need it, because you never know how quickly it's going to go bad. You never know how quickly it's going to go bad. But additionally, before you actually use it. If this is the first time you have used that product, experiment, I mean I'll go back to what Steve tells us all the time. He spends 50% of his time experimenting before doing something to make sure that he knows how to do it when he does it for the actual modeling application. So I would urge you, if you're going to use one of these products you've never used before, experiment with it when you get it.

Well at risk of a tangent here, when you get it Well at risk of a tangent here. Jeff, do you experiment much. You build a lot.

I have some test panels from some old kits that are misshapen, let's put it that way, that were never quite right, and I will test my paints and that sort of thing on it. My build rate is such that I kind of am in the groove because I've just airbrushed last month to do the last group and that sort of thing. The one time where I really felt it is when I did the Akitsushima the sea plane tender that I did. I really got out of practice because that build drug out so long. It was kind of novel to airbrush again and I did have to learn how to tune up the airbrush and tune up the paint mixture and tune up the pressures and all that. So yeah, if I see the skills waning in anything, I always have a test panel before I do an airbrush session to dial in that particular color, the temperature of the house that day, the paint mixture, all the things that the guys that have formulas will tell you to do. I find it so subjective I have to do it each time to dial that airbrush in. So I test in that situation. If I'm doing a new scenery product in particular, I will do a small one-by-one panel or something like that. But most of this stuff I pretty much know how it's going to behave. I use the Mr Color paint. I know how they're going to react to things. I use Mr Surfacer primer. I know how that's going to react. So that stuff's all in my relatively recent experience and I don't have to experiment Now.

I do want to do some water effects. I've got a couple things coming up that projects in the back of my mind that I really want to get good at and that I will probably do half a dozen different variations. I've got a transparent color that I want to put on some A5M clods they had this clear golden varnish on the dash fours in that series and I have got, I think, three different products that I bought this week to test on test panels to see which one gives me that golden sheen that I'm looking for. So if it's something I've never done before no experience yeah I'll test that. If it's something that's very subjective, like getting your airbrush mixture just right for that little loofah squiggle or whatever, absolutely I will be hitting a test panel on that before I even get near my subject. But for the most part I'm in a pattern with products I'm used to using and I may not test everything every time.

Well, that makes perfect sense.

Yeah.

I think that's pretty much in line with his philosophy.

Lesson is build faster.

Well, there's no substitute for practice, Practice practice, practice, that is absolutely true.

Substitute for practice Practice, practice, practice. That is absolutely true.

Well, this one ought to be timely, and we've talked about this offline At least Dave and I have and I think you and Dave have Kind of the current state of model shows, particularly in the United States, because that's the ones we're familiar with and I think mostly our experience is in our region. Dave and I are going to some of the bigger shows with podcasts, but I'm not sure where we want to take this one other than Dave. I'll let you start off with this one.

This whole subject came about when Inch and I were at the show in Columbus and we were standing in the lobby of the show at about oh right after one o'clock. We had hit the vendor rooms, we had hit the model rooms. We'd had some really nice conversations with a couple of modelers in the model rooms prior to them closing it for judging in the model rooms, prior to them closing it for judging, and we went to lunch. We came back and it was just a little after one and the vendors were already starting to pack up. And Inch and I have both noticed that at a lot of shows now you're seeing vendors who'll get there right as the show opens at nine, but they're not going to hang around till three or four when the judging finishes and awards come, and it almost seems like they are leaving earlier and earlier. And, in addition, we were talking about these shows that have the model room closed for judging as opposed to open while judging is occurring and the different effects that it has, discussing having display-only tables and people having access to their models throughout the show. So if you were doing display-only and wanted to leave early you know 2 o'clock or whatever that you could go in, get your stuff, have access to it, and that might encourage more participation and that might encourage more participation.

So Inch and I had just a really great conversation at Columbus, just 15 or 20 minutes, on this subject year. We have seen more and more shows going to an open judging system with gold, silver and bronze, with no categories really and no limits on the awards that are given and the pluses and minuses of that as well. So basically I wanted to open it up to a discussion of all of those topics. Let's start with vendors Now. It's interesting that you noted, jeff, that at Indianapolis you didn't see quite as many vendors leaving quite as early.

Yeah, and that was noteworthy because it was an exception. You generally do see that, and at this show maybe it was a rain, I don't know.

I was wondering if, maybe, if it was the rain.

Yeah, and it may have been that there were, like I said, there were three guys there with estates and they had four or five tables each and they were full of models and those guys probably didn't want to take that stuff home. So they're trying to move as much of that as they can, but I would say probably at the indie show at least 80% of the vendors hung in there until the end of judging, and that's an exception anymore.

That is. That really is Because at Columbus they were streaming out by 115, 120. You know, and a related thing is, you know, a number of years ago we had the individual or company that was coming in and buying all of the kits on some vendors' tables early.

Yes, yes, they would clean the vendor's room out for you before 10 o'clock.

And luckily, because that particular person stopped doing that for whatever reason, and nobody else seems to have taken that up, that problem seems to have gone away.

Everett, the attorney.

I'm not going to say things that will get us in trouble.

If you read the vendor's I don't know the vendor's statement from the indie show, it said that they will enforce not selling your tables before noon and if you did sell your tables, you would not be welcome back to any more of their shows.

As a vendor, yeah, and that's about the only sanction, that, because a show can't prevent a willing buyer and a willing seller from making that transaction whenever they want. So, yeah, that is really all they can do is say if you do that you're not going to be welcome back, we're not going to sell you tables in the future now?

do they have the same, the same situation for folks who just didn't sell out but just pack up and leave when they feel like it? Not to my knowledge.

No, you're. You're free to pack up and leave whenever you want. Now, obviously that kind of makes the guys who put on the show unhappy if their vendors are leaving early.

It should Right, especially during the judging time, especially if you have closed judging Exactly. We'll get that in a minute. But you know, in my military collecting hobby I haven't in the last couple of years but I've been a frequent attender, or almost perennial attender, to the Ohio Valley Military Society Show of Shows. It's in Louisville, kentucky. It's a huge military show. The vendor tables, it's you, you know, it's north of a thousand, it's a a big, big show, right, yeah, and this, the vendor tables sell out every year and there's a waiting list and their method of enforcement is if you pack up and leave before 3 pm on saturday now the show is vendor set up on Wednesday and there's some haggling, buying and trading with the OVMS, membership life members et cetera, on Wednesday, A little bit, not much. And then Thursday, thursday morning is the show but the general public doesn't get in until I want to say Friday morning, I don't know if that's right or not and then there's Saturday and then there's Sunday. Sunday is kind of the last vestiges of folks who have a lot of tables, who want to take their time to pack out and get out of there on their own schedule. But the table sellout if you pack up and leave before 3 pm on Saturday, because they've advertised this show nationwide that it's going to be open during these hours Right Now. This is a lot bigger thing than the IPMS Invitational, but I think some of this could still be put into play.

What I'm getting at is, if you don't honor that agreement, the tables sell out every year. There's a waiting list. Every year you lose your automatic renewal privilege for the next year. If you leave before three o'clock, you go, you go the back of the line. Wow, you may. You may or may not get a table. Yeah, you know, because they don't want the the negative impact on the society of folks coming in who are not necessarily members or members can only come for one day. Coming in there on saturday and you know 25, 30, 40, 50% of the tables have already packed up and left Right. It's not a good look. So I understand what Roscoe Turner is doing there. I just wonder if it how it spills over into folks just packing up and leaving when they want.

Yeah Well, we've seen something similar. I've seen this at several shows, where you will get a member of the public, usually a mother, and she has three small boys in tow and she shows up to the show after lunch at one o'clock. Now we all have in our flyers and everything said that the show is from nine to four, right to four, right, Yep, I mean, that's the typical hours. If you look at any of these flyers they'll say nine to four or nine to three or something like that. The mother with the kids that shows up at one o'clock. What has she got? She sees the vendors packing up in a closed model floor.

Yeah.

Where's the show? Which brings us to the next part of this is the closed model floor.

Yeah, I understand why it's done. You know people talk about how people never change their minds, that once you have a belief, it's always a belief. I'm coming to change my mind on a number of things. Oh well, I'm not going to go full Jim Bates and say that we ought to eliminate contests and just do display-only shows. I do think emphasizing display over competition would probably be a good thing. I don't want to eliminate the competition.

People like it, people enjoy doing it, but I think there is growing room for people who not least I mean just the crowds themselves are a problem. But then you have the problem of the guy who wants to hover around while you judge his model and then wants to take issue with whatever criticism was made of it. And so I understand why closed judging has been done, but I do think it has to die. I really think that, to combat both vendors leaving early and the problem Inch talks about, about people coming later and then not really having access to the show I think that the judges are going to have to simply sack up and understand we're going to judge with people around us and we're just simply going to have to deal with it.

Slash, ignore it. We went to HeritageCon. Heritagecon, not only were the tables not sealed off during judging, the crowds were enormous, enormous to the point where it was hard to get down the aisles at times, until later in the afternoon. But they managed to get their judging done with the crowds there and they seem to have no problem doing it.

So I am more we had at least a handful of friends who were judging yes, who offered no complaints about the crowd encouraging on what they're trying to do Exactly. So the existence theorem is there that that will work, and if somebody says it's not, it's just not true.

Right. Well, and, like I said, I understand why it was done, because you have the occasional pain in the butt person who hovers while you judge their stuff.

Now at HeritageCon. It worked in Canada and Canadians are well known to be at least 20% less pains in the butts than Americans, so that may have been a fact.

Well, but there are a fair number of Americans at HeritageCon.

The handful of friends were almost universally Americans.

Americans, that's true. Maybe my thesis is void.

I don't know if it's void, but it's subject to challenge. There you go.

And, like I said, I think that we can't make life miserable for everybody to deal with the people who are being to fight the judges because he didn't get his little piece of plastic, you know, or plaque or whatever. It's not worth making everybody else's experience worse to deal with that person.

The first lesson of going to a model contest is the contest. Judging is subjective.

Exactly. Well, that's a whole nother thing that people don't want to deal with.

I have personally taken models to shows that have not placed in the category and the next show have gotten one of the higher awards for the show with that same model, doing nothing to it in the interim. It's just the competition was better at the first one, or the judge saw a flaw at the first one that the guys at the second didn't, and you got to take the highs with the lows.

Exactly, exactly. And I think also that, if you to segue into what Mike and I have been talking about with the judging system, well, hang on.

I wanted to make one more point. Go ahead. Maybe you remember but it was pre-Plastic Model Mojo, but it was at a Cincinnati show, we were both at that somebody was trying to influence the judges from outside the closed barrier of the model room. Yes, so it doesn't necessarily work that way. Yes absolutely true. If you got one, if you got that guy at your show, he's going to be a pain in the ass, no matter what. Closing the model area is not going to isolate you from the duress of folks who want to make sure.

You know he painted the dials on his Focke-Wulf 190 or whatever, Whatever brother sure you know he painted the dials on his Focke-Wulf 190 or whatever.

But I do want to segue into the judging system issue one, two, three versus an open system, because I do think that an open system lends itself a little more to judging, with the model room being open because of the fact that judging can begin as soon as models hit the table, that judging teams can be out there as models are being placed out earlier.

And it has a dual effect.

One, a lot of judging can take place before the crowds get there, so you don't have quite the concern about hoverers.

But also because a lot of stuff gets judged before the end of entry, you can actually hold entry open later, which may give more people an incentive to come to your show if they think that they can make it and make it and get their model entered before registration closes. And in addition, it helps on the other end in that your judging is done quicker because you've already judged 90% of the stuff on the table, or 75% or whatever percentage, pick your number You've judged that percentage of the stuff on the table before registration closed. So instead of doing a promising awards at 3.30 and not starting them till 4 and not getting them done till 4.30,. You can wrap up judging by 2.30, actually get the awards started at 3 and people can be out the door by 3.30. And you know again, if you make your show more accessible by holding registration open earlier and finishing judging and awards earlier, that expands the circle of miles that people can travel to your show and still get the maximum level of enjoyment out of it.

I'd agree with that.

So, and I don't, I'll be honest with you, I have no particular preference of one, two, three over open, as far as I don't really care what judging system is used. I mean, they're both, they're all subjective and they each have their pluses and minuses. But you know, I do think Mike and I are seeing I think Mike would agree a general trend toward open system shows I don't know what it is.

I don't know if there are more of these shows that existed that we've been just lucking into when we do the model show spotlights. That's possible. It is possible. I don't know that I believe it. Or are more folks converting this? We've been in the podcast. Now we're in our fifth season, so a lot of this could have come about in the time we've been doing the podcast.

I'm trying to think if anybody in Region 4 does an open system.

Well, I know Pittsburgh does, they have forever.

Okay.

Louisville used to, but does not anymore.

Well, that's an interesting thing to explore.

What do you think, Jeff? Do you have a preference?

I've never been judged or participated in an open system venue. That's why I'm trying to rack my brain. If I've ever actually seen it in practice, I think that the judges, the people in charge of judging, should probably have final say. If there is such a prevalence of people interfering in whatever way, then I think they need to be shielded from that while they're trying to look at the models. Definitely. The downside, of course, is you are basically in one sense ending the display half of the show at noon, because you never get that back. Once they announce awards, everybody floods a room and the models go back in the cases and the parking lot empties. Likewise at noon, the vendors area. Fortunately at Roscoe Turner it didn't, but often it starts shutting down right around lunch sometime as well, and I was wondering if there might be room, and Dave kind of hit on this.

The European shows have a whole other hall full of special interest groups. They're either modelers with shared interests that converge on the show and they're all interested in Japanese aviation. So you get guys from four different clubs that show up and they all have one big long table and they bring all their Japanese subjects or whatever. Or you know Stoogs and now you have a table full of Stoogs and there's three guys back there talking Stoogs. And now you have a table full of Stoogs and there's three guys back there talking Stoogs all day and you know that's the Evan McCallum table and everybody hangs out there. But if there's anything at all that could you know, cause, let's face it, after one o'clock, maybe two, even if the vendors are there, you've seen, you've been through the vendors room three or four times the model room's still closed. You're kind of hanging out and there's a lot of people staring at their phone or talking amongst themselves or whatever.

I went to the show with Michael Smith, a good friend of mine from Muncie. He's the curator for the Academy of Model Aeronautics Museum, which is an RC aircraft mainly organization, and he asked me. He said who would I talk to to get some tables for an informational display about RC modeling? And I thought you know, there's something to take up some of that time and give some interesting content for people while they're waiting for the judging to be over and while the vendors are packing up and all that. So there's a whole other opportunity of special interest groups or somebody you know giving seminars or putting on displays of some kind. I don't know, you'd need more room for that, so there's a problem there you'd need more room for that.

So there's a problem there, and that is another thing that has gone away from. Back in the 80s and 90s, when you attended a model show, there was almost always at an invitational clearly at a regional, which back then was a two-day affair but even at many invitationals there was one or more seminars that were put on on different subjects, everything from painting figures or armor, weathering techniques or whatever the anatomy of the tiger tank or whatever it happened to be. Now, keep in mind I think a lot of that disappeared because of YouTube. That it used to be. The only modeling tips you could get were from pre-internet days, were for members of your own club, what you read in magazines. And then when you went to a modeling show in another city, sitting in on the presentation that was given, almost no matter what it was, even if it wasn't particularly the thing that was of interest to you, because those were the only channels to learn new stuff, where now you could go on YouTube and start watching modeling videos and never stop for the rest of your life.

How do we know that, Dave?

Yeah, I'm guilty of that and, believe me, you're not the only person to point that out, and, believe me, you're not the only person to point that out. But I do think that doesn't mean that having a presentation at a show, having some sort of live presentation, isn't still a valuable thing to do, because the one thing that you don't get with the Internet and YouTube is interaction.

Yeah.

So if somebody's putting a presentation on and they say, well, I do this this way, you have the opportunity to say why, or have you tried this, or does this work better than doing that? You have the interactiveness which isn't available from just a pure YouTube presentation. Now there are some live streams that actually do that, even in modeling, but I don't think that. I think we've given up the presentation at the model show too easily and I would like to see it come back.

Well, I want to go back and talk about the display only a little bit. Okay, I think it's great and, dave, you mentioned Jim's show and his philosophy on that, which is it's all cool. Whether we agree with it entirely or not, this is Mike's opinion. This Tiger Meat thing they've started at Madison. That's going to carry on now, right, and well, it's going to be at Hampton and it's going to be. Hopefully we'll keep carrying on Fort Wayne and whatever's next after that. Honestly, it's good. I don't debate that, but the consternation around having to provide essentially a second venue, right Right, to do this is unnecessary. Yes, completely agree. If a contestant wanted to say this is for display only, not to be judged, all you need is a different colored piece of paper under that model on the regular contest table that the judges would simply just pass it by.

Instead of an entry form, which is white with all of the writing on it, you just have a green piece of paper with no writing on it or anything that sits under that model, and the judges know. Display only. Yeah, display only, it doesn't have to say anything.

Yeah, and you know, admittedly that works until they're inundated with display onlys, right, and then you have a different problem. But but in the current, the current flavor of things, I think that works. I, I completely, and you don't. You don't need this, because the the, the beef that a lot of folks have with this is that they're relegated to this obscure corner of the show space that nobody's going to. Maybe the lighting's not as good or it's not getting the traffic. Yeah, and those are legitimate beefs.

Yep, no, I completely agree, and I haven't been to a national yet where the tables were so utterly full that you couldn't have had display models on there because you were completely out of room. Now they came a little close in San Marcos, but even then there was space on the tables for display-only models.

Madison could have easily absorbed what was in the breakout area for Tiger Meat in the main contest room.

Exactly, and I think it would have been better. I mean not that they didn't have a beautiful. Frankly, the area where the display models were which looked out onto the lake was just. It was tons more, tons more attractive and well, it had a lot more natural light.

but exactly, but were folks going through there at the same rate? They're going through the model room? Probably not. I think that's the differentiator there, and I right, and I think what I suggest is one possible solution to fix that and not have to oh God, we have to have this other area with all these extra tables for this. No, you don't, no, you don't, you just put them with everything else, just put them on the table. And you have an indicator as to what they are.

Anything that brings more models enhances the show.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I would love to see you guys do a great job. At Louisville you allow sweeps, which I know some people just hate the idea of one guy killing a category, but that encourages everybody to bring multiples in that category.

Yeah.

And you get more models on the table. And you know Roscoe Turner had a flat fee. It was 10 bucks to get in as many models as you wanted to bring and, like I said, the guy ahead of me brought 18. So you got to see 18 models from just that one guy and you want as much of that as you can. You want your model count to be up. In my opinion, you want to go to a show with 900 models on the table show with 900 models on the table.

Yeah Well, and, by the way, taking that back to an open system, if you go to an open system as opposed to a 1-2-3, you don't have to worry about sweeps versus no sweeps, right Because each model is being judged on its own, and if Steve Hustad's supermodeler shows up with models in the category that you normally enter, you don't have to worry about whether it's a we're having sweeps or no sweeps.

Well, if Steve Hustad shows up.

That solves your display-only problem right there, because everybody else is display-only at that point yeah well, but you know I do is that is something to consider. I I would encourage everybody who's putting on a model show. There tends to be a situation where, once you start running a successful model show and doing it year after year, you don't ever think about changing it because it's working and the attitude becomes it's working, why mess with it? I would encourage every club out there who is in that situation. When you come to do your next model show, put everything on the table. Ask yourself, how are we going to handle vendors? Ask yourself, are we going to close off the model room during judging? Ask yourself do we want to go to an open system versus one, two, three, two, three? Ask all of those questions, keeping in mind. You want to make the model show as pleasant and fulfilling an experience for your customers as possible, and so any change you can make to make their experience better's something you should consider.

And I would include in that not only customers, as the modelers, us guys that always go to the shows, but, like I said earlier, the mother that's bringing four potential new modelers to see the model show for the first time and shows up at one o'clock, yep, and what is her experience and what is the experience of those four kids? Yep, you know a closed model room and vendors pushing carts out.

Yep, anything you can do to avoid that.

Yeah, and we have all said that the model shows there till four.

Well, we're going to get some feedback on that topic, for sure.

Oh yes, Well good, that's what we want. Healthy discussion Discussion is good.

That's right.

Well, our third topic tonight comes from Steve Anderson's A Guided Journal for Modelers, and it's our thoughts on bases and it's pretty open-ended. So we can talk about anything about bases that we want to talk about. So, Dave, I'm going to start with you.

Oh well, let me, let me give you the one golden rule If it's not a really well done base, don't put it on a base. Okay, a a crappy base distracts from a model and I know numerous examples that I could cite of really, really nicely done models where the modeler mounted it on a piece of foam core some last minute, half, whatever, ass yeah, I didn't want to say it Display, and it actually detracts from the model. If you're not going to do a really well done base, don't put a base down at all. Put the model on the table.

Now, if you're going to put a model on a base, make sure it's a well-done base. And you've got two choices. You've got a terrain-style base where you know the aircraft is sitting on a runway or a dirt revetment or whatever. Or you have the display base that is not attempting to replicate any natural terrain features but is simply a well-done, well-polished, evenly finished, complementary, colored display base so that the model sitting on it is enhanced by the finished, the completedness of the base, just raising it up, making it easier to handle if the model is attached to the base. So those are Dave's two laws. Jeff, do you put you, don't put most of your models on a base.

I, by the time I'm done with whatever batch I'm working on, I've got the next batch is knocking at the door. I kind of want to get on to the next one. A lot of times I do like bases. I like the looks of them, I like the ability to put a figure on the base to give the whole model scale. What I see it shows. That, I think, is the biggest problem with bases is you have a tendency for people to put whatever subject they're putting there and then they want to fill every square inch of the rest of that base with something a discarded helmet, a discarded weapon, a motorcycle, another vehicle and you get these unrealistic prime targets for your artillery support or whatever. To take out eight tanks at once because they're parked next to each other. You know that sort of thing Particularly.

You have that where somebody is doing a diorama, so they're doing a base with a purpose, and what many modelers tend to do is they want to just keep piling more and more stuff on that base. You know, more and more visual interest. Well, you know, let's put a helmet here, let's put a bucket there, a bucket there, and at some point you reach not only diminishing returns but you actually ease over into. Every additional added item detracts from the model which is supposed to be the main subject of the diorama.

Yeah Well, the scene should be, I think, a lot of times inspired by a picture, or at least typical of the pictures that you're seeing to be put back in. Or you may see a mechanic working on something on top of a barrel, but you don't see three Corsairs stacked next to each other and a tow truck and a tank and scattered weapons laying around in the dirt and that sort of thing. But you can see that at a show.

Not to name check Mr Hustad again, which we're going to have to start paying him royalties if we continue to reference him. He works from photographs and I think one of the reasons he does that is specifically to avoid the problem you're talking about, because he's working from a specific reproducing, a specific photograph. He knows, naturally, he's not going to have that problem. Now, I don't think you have to always work from a photograph, but you ought to at least familiarize yourself with a lot of photographs of your particular main subject to understand what the environment around them looks like.

Yeah, and what you're modeling should be typical of what you're seeing in the average photograph in my mind.

Right yeah.

Not the outlier, not the outlier Right Right.

Exactly, exactly.

Dave, we talk bases amongst our chat group with our Canadian modeler friends. Yes, and we've had this conversation a lot.

Endlessly on car rides. For some reason, when we're traveling to a show, this one always comes up.

So I'll get the big one out of the way, the easy one out of the way first. It's the elephant on a postage stamp. Yes, you don't see this much with aircraft as you do with armor Right.

Yes, you don't see this much with aircraft as you do with armor Right, With an armor subject.

If you have running gear hanging off the edges of the base, your base is too small.

Well now keep in mind what was it. Shep Payne always emphasized people not making the base so much larger than the subject, Right, and I think people took that advice and ran with it, maybe a little too far.

I mean, if the track run up to the drive struggle or the idler is hanging off the base and the fenders are hanging off a little, or the gun barrels hanging off the edge, that's usually okay, right, that's the edge of where you ought to be. Usually okay, right, that's the edge of where you ought to be. But when you've got the first road wheel stations or the last road wheel station hanging into space yeah, this is my opinion it does not look good. You've got an elephant on a thimble.

Right.

That's the best analogy I can think of An elephant in a little ballerina tutu standing on one toe on a thimble. It's like Dumbo right, Right. It just doesn't work. It doesn't work.

Now and I do think Chep Payne was right you don't want to go to the other extreme where you see, these people have a model that's maybe eight inches by eight inches and they put it on a base that's 16 inches by 16 inches. So you've got the model in the middle or somewhere around there, but a whole lot of empty space.

That's the opposite problem, that creates the exact same problem, and I will grant that I think aircraft models are at a disadvantage here, because to get the entire airplane on the base you're already too big.

Well, you should look at the footprint of the wheels. The wheel footprint should fit neatly on the base and the base should act as a frame.

Yeah, that's where I was going. That's that that should establish. If it's not a diorama, if it's just a scenic base, that's kind of where you want to be. Yep, if it's, if it's wingtip to wingtip and and spinner to tail, it's all on the base. Man, that's a lot of base.

I see nothing wrong with the wings overhanging the edge of the base, as long as all the wheels are there and you know, put your chocks on and put your pilot standing in front of it, and it's a nice looking display.

Almost every time, Right and well and keep in mind keep in mind the subject. If you've got a 72nd scale single engine fighter, you can do a base that's wingtip to wingtip and nose to tail or not exactly nose to tail, but firewall to tail and it'll look perfectly fine. If you've got a four-engine bomber or a 32nd-scale jet fighter, if you do a base that encompasses the entire physicality of the aircraft, it's just going to get too honking big, too quick.

Yeah, the base can detract from the whole display.

Yes, that's my point. You mentioned that you don't do many bases because by the time you get done with the model you're on to the next one and you're already tired of it. I think that is the major contributor to bad bases out there. Oh, I think you're right. People finish the model and they are tired of it, but they feel like they've got to do a base and so they don't put the effort that's needed to make it a good base and just make it a good base and just make it slap something together. And to me this is an argument for non-terrain bases.

For a lot of aircraft models you can have a standard. If you build 72nd scale aircraft, you can have 72nd scale single engine aircraft. You can have a standard base. This is the Jeff Groves standard base and you can have four or five of those. And then whenever you go to any show, you can put whatever model you've recently finished on that base and that base is already a nice display style. It's not terrain style but a display style base that presents your model well. Then when you're done at that contest, you put the models away, you put the bases away and you'll reuse those bases for the next time with whatever new you finish.

Well, and I will submit that what you and Mike were discussing at the beginning of this episode with the bases by Bill and their trim thing, they have done that for you. I've got two of the Japanese carrier bases sitting on my desk as we speak. They're the six-inch footprint and they happen to be Japanese bases. Any Japanese carrier aircraft can fit on that base and look perfectly at home right out of the box.

And you are exactly correct. That's one of the reasons. I think that what they're doing with that inset now is fantastic. It will allow you, with almost no effort, to have a polished presentation that will make your model look better and more visually interesting. But the one thing that it really does is it doesn't detract from the model. And that's the worst thing that you can commit.

You put one flight crew member standing in front of it with his hand on the prop and it's polished. It's done.

Yeah, and I'm like you I like having a single figure for scale if I could only paint figures better yeah, you and me, but you and me both on this same vein, one thing that's been a I don't know if I call it a peeve or not, but it's just something I wish I would see less of. There's some folks out there who build some amazing models and they build a lot of models, so typically the model itself is not based. So at home they have a display or shelves or whatever full of a lot of singular models that are not on a base, but when they go to the show they have a base they put the model on. That's a crappy base and that model base is not to the same caliber that the model has been built to. Yep, absolutely, and kudos to the judging teams who can look past that. I could not, yeah.

They're supposed to. Technically they're supposed to. They're not supposed to judge the base.

If you got a base that's got unpainted static grass on it and that's your airfield base for your entry, you could do better. Yes, your model is way better than that into two or three really well done scenic bases that have some bare patches, some bare earth or some wheel chocks or something.

Yeah.

That you can put any model on and have it look as good as the model you put on it Right, would just go a whole lot further to furthering your, your entire presentation at a show.

Right, you've put so much effort into the model, why hurt the visual appearance you want? To make it attractive to the eye.

It looks better.

Right.

That's the whole point of it. You've got this base. You've put 35, 40, maybe an hour into Right, and this plane you've got 108 hours in. It's not a big. It's that big a stretch to put consummate time into the base. It's just not Right.

And you don't have to do that every time. Again, if you have a standard base, either a presentation style or a terrain style, you only have to have a few of those Right, exactly, so you don't have to for every model you finish. Unlike Jeff Groves finishes a batch build of eight models, he doesn't have to do eight new bases.

Unless he takes them all to the same show.

Yeah, well, that's true, that's true.

Yeah, you're going to allow sweeps, I'm going to need at least three for each category. Right there you go To have a shot at the sweep I don't know if you do or not. Yeah, and then you don't place with any of them, so you're 0 for 3.

So I just think bases it's like this constant thing. It shows the ones that are too big, the ones that are way too small and the ones that detract from the subject that they're presenting.

A. We want your input on this subject. You do what you do with bases. Take some pictures of just the bases and put them on the dojo to let us see what you all are doing and what you think about what we've talked about.

Bases by Bill is back with quality display bases that enhance any model, from US and Japanese wooden carrier decks to custom-sized cherry hardwood bases. Bases by Bill display bases are available for any type of model and for any size. Oh, and have you heard? Bases by Bill is now a US reseller for one-man army high-definition paint masks. These masks bring amazing detail to your model, even maintenance stencils. They have to be seen to be believed, and all one-man army products include free shipping. Check basesbybillcom to see the products. Bases by bill for all your model display.

Well, guys, this is the Benchtop Halftime Report. I hope we've all been building something.

I think we have. I think we have. Yes, we have.

We're going to start with Jeff. Jeff. What's the current batch build? What's the current Inch High Guy blog post build going on right now?

Well, as my typical style, I have managed to fill the bench from one end to the other. I've got eight japanese, mostly naval subjects on the bench. I've got a comparison build of three clods of fujimi, who who out fine molds and no, no, uh, clear prop is the newest oh, that's right.

Clear prop fujimi and aoshima nichimo, nichimo, that's right nichimo.

When was the last time you heard that word nichimo in the 80s? Yeah, they're. They're all a5m4s, right, right, the Nichimo. I did this intentionally. The Nichimo kit was released in 1964.

Yeah.

The Fujimi was 91 and Clear Prop was 2022, something.

It's a very recent kit, yeah.

To me it was interesting to compare how things have evolved during that period. I mean, the Nichimo kit is almost as old as I am and I was shocked when I got to looking at that thing. It has got recessed panel lines and recessed rivets in 1964.

I was going to say for the time it was very advanced. It was not your typical 1964 Frog or Airfix kit.

Yeah, now it's not finessed. It doesn't have a cockpit, the engine looks like a washer that you put your dishwasher together with or something like that. A lot of the details are kind of improvised and I don't know if they just didn't have good references then or not. It's not nearly as finessed as the later ones, but I was surprised at what was there. As far as surface detail goes, the Fujimi kit from 91 goes together very well. It's still a quality kit. The ClearProp, of course, is just incredible. It's one of the state-of-the-art kits. It's got PE, it's got masks. Surface detail is just incredible. It's one of the state-of-the-art kits. It's got PE, it's got masks. Surface detail is just exquisite. The fit is some of the best fit I've ever seen on a kit. But it's interesting to compare those three.

Although the downside of the ClearProp kit is the cost.

The cost and the complexity. There are more parts in the cockpit of the ClearProp kit than the entire box of the other two.

Wow so mildly enjoyment for the dollar.

Well, that's one way to look at it. I think there's a balance between ease of build, buildability and detail Ease of build, buildability and detail. And I think you can go too far with the detail at times, especially when you start getting into PE switches and levers in your cockpit that you'll never see again, and you know there's more of them in my carpet than are in that cockpit. I'll tell you that.

I hear you.

Yeah, I've also got two roof zero float Float Planes on the bench. They're the Hasegawa kit. Hasegawa makes a great kit, everything you'd expect. Those are coming along. I've got two Fujimi Jills from the 1980s and you guys were talking about the Albatross kits in your last episode. I have two of those kits, both of which were Shelf of Doom kits at one time or another. I have no idea how old the oldest one is.

What I do remember distinctly is I broke the canopy on it and had no way to fix or replace that, so it was back in the box, foul up, I scratch. Built a cockpit and I managed to get it the wrong size and not quite accurate. I was going off some three view well, some perspective views in McKesh's Japanese cockpit or Japanese aircraft interiors and I could not wrap my head around what I was seeing. You don't see the whole thing at once, but he's got it from both sides. And then you've got some pictures and I could not reconcile the differences there and I made a dog's dinner out of that and got frustrated. So it had to go away for a while. But I've ripped that cockpit out, built another one. I'm back on the road again with that At the last minute.

I added just one more, as I tend to do, and it's the Japanese copy of the Kellett Autogyro. Yes, the Kyuba Kyaba. I'm not sure how they pronounced it, but it's an interesting kit. It's a fine molds kit, an interesting subject. It was actually used by the Japanese Army as an artillery spotter and it flew off a Japanese Army aircraft carrier in the anti-submarine role.

Can you explain to me why the Japanese Army has an aircraft carrier and is doing anti-submarine work?

Well, it's kind of the situation the US found itself in at the beginning of the war, the situation the US found itself in at the beginning of the war. The submarine problem had gotten to the point where it was so out of hand that anything that could carry anti-submarine ordnance or serve in an observation role was being pressed into service. I mean, we did the same thing with the B-18 and various other obsolete types, and if you're in a non-challenged aerial environment you can get away with obsolete types looking for submarines.

Well, and I was surprised at how many of those were built and used by the Japanese. I thought it was very, very niche and there were a lot more of those built than I had thought.

Yeah, and the Japanese Army had developed a landing ship that's very akin to the LHAs and LHDs of today. They had a floodable well deck. They had a roll-off ramp that could be lowered down onto a pier. The floodable well deck could hold, I think, 22 of the 14-meter Daihatsu landing craft.

Yep.

And it was made for amphibious assault. Meter Daihatsu landing craft. Yeah, and it was made for amphibious assault and the aircraft deck was an afterthought and very useful for light aircraft and the autogyros to conduct the anti-submarine mission off of. So it was basically a landing ship. Now most references will categorize it as an aircraft carrier, as an escort carrier of some type, but it was actually originally intended as a landing ship and had a well deck in it. So that's my bench.

By the way, we do need somebody to do a new Judy series.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

So, Mike, how about you.

I've been working on a couple of things. Man, the little flak panzer, yep, I've reprinted the fenders for that. I've got them on. I've got them. I've got the whole thing primed again. The lower basic hull assembly has been primed again. I'm a prince for the the fenders. I got some mold lines.

I'm trying to go back and use a lot of dilute, mr surfacer 1500 yeah to to kind of mitigate some of that, and I'm only on my second application of that. It's working out pretty well. We'll see if I can fill up the defects, how much detail I have left. That'll be the challenge. I think it's going to work out though. On the KV-85, it's all the just detail work. I've been working on the whole front, the glacis and the front fenders. I've got the front fender supports installed. I've been working on the whole front, the glacis and the front fenders. I've got the front fender supports installed. I've got a bunch of weld seam work I've done on the bracketing for the front fender supports. It's just going to be a progression, working from the nose of the tank all the way to the back to add all this stuff.

Tj Howler was giving me some grief about not having it done for amps. It's not going to be done for amps and this is why it's just all this tedium to get through this thing that you know it's a typical project of my past, if that makes sense to you, dave. It's a lot of work and it's just going to have to take my time and work my way through it, but it's going to be the model I want in the end. You know, amps 2025, be damned, it's just going to. It's going to get done when it gets done.

But it will be there for amps 2026.

I'm not going to say that.

Oh yeah, you're good, you're building faster. No, you are going to build faster.

You're going to build faster, you've finished one this year already, maybe I am I don't know.

You're going to get some stuff done faster, so am I. That's part of how we get better, maybe.

Yeah, that's my bench top. What's yours doing, dave?

Well, mine is filled with a trio of F8Fs that are all together it's a mini inch high build. Trying to get at least two of these done for the nationals, for our group display, the September's group display. The kits are together. Now doing some, I'm going back. I told Mike I was going super old school. I was going back with some light gray enamel and doing some dry brushing which I know, which I haven't done in years just to try and pop a little.

So you can't see anything in this cockpit and once I put the canopy on you really won't be able to see anything on it. But I wanted to do something to pop it a little bit. So I've started dry brushing the cockpit areas on. Put my kit masks, f8f kit masks on Thank you, kevin, for getting me those at HeritageCon and then the sucker will be ready to paint. I did get my bottle of Mr Color Glossy Blue in the mail today and so the project's moving along really well. And I will say so the project's moving along really well. And I will say Inch is correct when he talks about batch building really adding efficiency. Now you have to be organized.

No, back up, Hang on. You said your bottle of glossy blue.

Yes, One single bottle should paint all three of these oh yeah, easily, yeah, yeah.

No, it won't. Yeah, it will.

Yeah, yeah, easily.

Yeah, yeah, no, I won't.

Yeah, I will, yeah, sure will.

Yeah, sure will Jeff. Yes, for you it would, yeah, hey.

I guess it depends on how much of it you're planning on wearing before the end of your airbrush.

We'll see.

We'll see.

We had this conversation earlier this week. That's the one thing I don't like about Mr Keller is the sample size bottle Size bottle they sell everything in.

I do wish that they were.

Tamiya. I like the big fat Tamiya bottles, but those are hard to find too.

Yes, I know they're just going away from so F8Fs moving along Inch. I really appreciate all the input you've given me and you are correct regarding the efficiencies, but the key is you have to be organized.

Yeah, that is the key, but I am so proud of you for doing a batch build.

Well, we'll see. That's my first one. You'll get hooked and these kits are perfect for that Not for anybody to think that I've forgotten are perfect for that. Not for anybody to think that I've forgotten. The SAM is back on the bench and I have started doing the tube oil treatment to the underside. I had already completed it on the top side when I had stopped to work on the Moosaroo. I'm hoping by the end of April that the SAM is done, but it's really close and that's what my bench looks like.

Classic Model Mojo is brought to you by Squadron. Head on over to squadroncom for the latest in kits and accessories, all at a great price and with great service. Are you a modeler on the go? Check out the Squadron mobile app for your Apple or Android device for easy shopping from just about anywhere. Squadron adding to the stash since 1968.

So, guys, the pace of new kits has slowed down. We're not, you know, the first three months of the year you get all of these releases announced. And, man, it was a fire hose this year, but it slowed down, but there are still new kits being announced. So, mike, do you have some faves and yawns? We'll rotate around between the three of us.

You start I got one fave Okay, because again it's been light, yeah Well, my first fave comes from Gecko Models and surprisingly it's not a Vietnam War subject this time. They're coming up, coming out with a new British truck that's becoming real popular right now, one that IBG has not done yet. This is a Bedford OYD truck Three ton, four by two wood cargo body. It looks like a good, solid medium truck. It's going to be useful to a lot of people. Gecko, their parent or daughter is somebody Right? I can't remember who it is. Somebody will let us know. I want to say Bronco, but I can't remember who it is. Somebody will let us know. I want to say Bronco, but I don't know if that's true. Maybe If it is true, it's going to have a lot of parts. I know that. But it's a British soft skin three-ton truck. We're living in the best of times when you can get something like this right.

Yep, Then you get your 35th scale Princess Elizabeth figure and you can have her there working on the vehicle there.

you go who's?

next, I'll go next. I have three faves. My first fave is our good friends at SBS.

Yeah, in.

Hungary. From Hungary, they have announced a 72nd scale Supermarine S4, which was the Schneider Trophy aircraft predecessor to the very famous Supermarine S6, the one that finally clinched the Snyder Trophy. But SBS, without even seeing the kit, I can heartily recommend it because their stuff is just so good and I can't wait to see it. So good and I can't wait to see it, even if it's not a particular area of interest.

It's still going to be a great kit, jeff. Okay, I've got a few myself. My first one is in my cart at Hannan's. I had backordered it. It is the Micromir Caproni B-72 Type B, and I struggle to describe this accurately. It's like a wing section with two engines on two floats. It was a proposed design as a Italian torpedo boat. It was never meant to fly. It was a wing and ground effect aircraft, so you would effectively get I don't know a hundred knot speed boat. That was a torpedo bomber. I struggled to think how to paint this thing, but it is just so cool looking and it would give me a chance to practice some water effects as this thing is zipping along at whatever speed it can get up to on a flat sea it would be worthless in any kind of sea state, obviously.

But it is a unique aircraft or torpedo boat, depending on what you want to call it and it ticked a lot of boxes for me. Plus, it'll give me a chance to practice water effects. Mike, do you have another one?

Not other than noticing that Quintus Studios has entered the 3D print sphere. They've got a lot of machine guns, mostly 48 scale at this point, but machine guns and what else They've got a well, in 72nd scale they got a US Navy deck tractor.

Yeah, there you go. That could be useful that could be very useful.

So it's going to be interesting to see what they do. You know they've mostly been known for their 3D printed or 3D textured decals for cockpit interiors. So I would be real curious what this stuff's going to look like, because their cockpit stuff's been pretty dang good. So you know, hopefully it's going to be some good stuff. And you know these machine guns 48 scale are they going to get a 72nd? That'd be really interesting.

Yes, it would. Yeah Well, my next one is the company First to Fight. Oh, good company. The company First to Fight in 72nd scale has announced a French light tank, an AMR-35, which the French used, and I believe the Poles might have had a few, and it's your funky pre-war tankette type thing and I just love all those. I don't know why it's unreasonable, but I just absolutely love them first of fights released a lot of stuff.

Lately a lot of really obscure stuff yes, they have.

Well, what's their format? Is it injection molded, or is it?

yeah, they're they're injection molded. They're're somewhat simplified. Usually if a tank you get running gear that is already all molded as one piece.

Okay.

I like the subject. That's cool.

Jeff, you got another one.

Yep. On the topic of obscure subjects, rare Birds, models out of Estonia has a 3D print coming out and I'm going to butcher this name La Ticore La.

Ticore 631. Guess what was on my list. That was on your list.

Okay, yeah, absolutely. I'm going to wait and see if this turns out to be printed well, but it is a six engine flying boat. The French had one operational before the invasion. The Germans took it over. It was strafed into nonexistence. They built another one after the war, but by that time, of course, the commercial transatlantic six-engine flying boat market had died. This thing has a 188-foot wingspan, so that's two and a half feet in 72nd scale, roughly.

I have seen one of the not one of these kits. There was a vacuform of this aircraft and I saw it at a show once and it was one of the most impressive things I have.

In fact, it might have been indie a few years ago well, if these guys can pull this off, I I may have to spring for one of these because this thing is huge it is absolutely huge, and both the pre-war civilian scheme and the captured scheme are both cool.

I mean, yeah, that tickles all the right, but at the size of it I want to know how you do that in 3d print. Obviously I think they'll do it in sections, but they'd have I'm. I'm just not sure how you get a wing that big and that thin that doesn't have significant structural problems.

Yeah, you'd have a warpage issue with the resin, obviously, and a brittleness issue with anything that's 3D printed. I'd have to see if they could pull it off before I'd spring for it, but it's such an interesting subject.

You and me both. That was one of mine as well, so good on you.

Well what else you got, dave? Oh well, that was my last. One was the Latacor. By the way, did you know that Latacor still exists as a company and they don't make full airplanes but they make airplane parts for Boeing aircraft? And I only found that out recently when there was the subject of all of the foreign inputs into Boeing aircraft and Laticor, I think they made gear doors or actually fuselage doors for some of the Boeing aircraft, which was weird. So, Jeff, do you have another fave or a yawn?

I've got one of each, if you want them both.

I can do both. You give us both.

All right. The last fave I've got is the Edward MiG-21 is being re-released as a dual combo. It has the masks, it has the colored PE, it has a decal sheet with 10 different schemes 25 pounds, which is roughly $30 American, for two of these. Now, I've built the MIG-21, the Edward MIG-21 before and it is a beautiful kit. It falls together, yeah, and they are offering the decal sheet, the masks and the color PE all as part of that package for two kits for $30.

And try to beat that, and if I didn't have six unbuilt Edward MIG-21s, I'd be hopping on that big time.

Well, I'm going to pull the trigger on that again because it was such a wonderful experience to build the first two I built.

Dave will hop on it anyway.

I will too. Yes, Give us your yawn two I built.

Dave will hop on it anyway, I will too. Yes, give it. Give us your yawn. Okay, my yawn is a platz fa27. Now you might ask what an fa27 is, and being platz is a japanese manufacturer. You're not going to be surprised to learn that it is an anime type subject.

Yep and it's cool looking.

It is unusual and you get a keychain with this boxing and it is inspired by a five-episode anime called Battle Ferry Yukikaze and I did not make that up. Imperial Japanese Navy fans will know Yukikaze was the name of a destroyer that was supposed to be the luckiest ship in the IJN. It fought in every major battle and was never hit. The battle ferry thing I'm not quite sure what that's all about, but the premise is aliens are invading through some portal in Antarctica and everybody's going to fight the aliens. And this hero pilot and his AI, platts FA-27 are the stars of the show and they go fight the aliens. So I cringe whenever a manufacturer that is able to produce a quality kit such as Platts, they are every bit in the tamaya league, in my opinion. I've built their, their x47 ucast, which was the navy drone bomber that got phased out for reasons that still mystify me. But yeah, it was beautiful. It was a box shaker, beautiful aircraft, beautiful kit. I just don't get why they're doing something that's so fringe and it's obviously the Japanese market.

Yeah, I was going to say clearly home market. Yeah, yeah.

I don't have any more fans. We're done. This is a week month for at least 35th scale armor releases, so I'm not going to dog on anything, just to dog on it. All right, this is a weak month for at least 35th scale armor releases, so I'm not going to dog on anything, just to dog on it. All right, fair enough.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're almost at the end of the episode and I'm at the bottom of my modeling fluid, and the Limekey never disappoints. It's a very refreshing drink. It is particularly refreshing in the summer months while you're sitting out by the pool, you could drink those like you're drinking lemonade or limeade. It's just awesome. So no disappointments for me. Jeff, how was the beer?

The Blue Moon Belgian White is just exquisite. I have to really be careful with these. They are so good and it's very tempting to go to the fridge and get another one, but I'm going to limit myself to one. It is a smooth beer, very refreshing. I could have these for the rest of the evening and be quite content.

Mike, it's a bullet man, it's good.

Yeah, really, Is there anything more to say other than go get yourself a bottle? Now we're really at the end of the episode. I want to do shout outs If you've got a shout out to any person or group or anything, and I'll start. I want to do a shout out to the guys at Roscoe Turner. I'm glad you had an extremely successful show. Sorry, last minute I wasn't able to make it. Mike and I really want to get back to it. That show means a lot to us sentimentally because it's the first place we ever took Plastic Model Mojo and went and recorded and it's got a special place in our heart and I'm glad to see the show in the new venue continues to be nothing but a success. Jeff, do you have a shout out?

Well, I'll second the shout out to Roscoe Turner Always a great show and I want to shout out to you and Mike for putting on this show every other week. It's like having a couple of guys sitting in your modeling room with you as you're working at the bench and I've listened to everyone. It gets better and better. It continues to grow and you're providing a great service to the modeling community. So kudos to both of you.

Thank you very much.

Oh shucks, All right, Mike.

Well, guys, my final shout out of the night is to all those great folks out there who have chosen to contribute to plastic model mojo through their generosity. We really appreciate that. It really helps us bring the show to you, offsets a lot of our costs and it helps us move things forward with the work we're doing on the new website. So we really appreciate it. If you'd like to be like these folks, we've set up several ways that you can contribute to the show. We've got a Patreon link, a Buy Me a Coffee. You can contribute through PayPal. You can find the links to all those avenues of support in the show notes to this and every episode, and we appreciate it very, very much. Thank you.

Yes, you really have helped and we are in the midst of doing some upgrades and we would not be able to do those upgrades without your support.

Well, folks, we're at the end of this episode and, dave, as we always say, so many your support. Well, folks, we're at the end of this episode and, dave, as we always say, so many kits, so little time. Dave, jeff, thanks for joining us for this episode. It's been a pleasure having you here.

My pleasure, my pleasure Thoroughly enjoyable.

Sad we didn't get to meet you up at Indy, but I'm sure you had a good time.

Yes, yeah. Well, I hope we can all meet up together at the next one and definitely try to make Louisville this year, if nothing else.

Well, guys, we'll see you next time and maybe we'll see you at our show, jeff.

Absolutely All right, don't miss it.

Thanks for joining us, thanks for having me.