Talking Shop with Mike and Kentucky Dave: Episode 128

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

All right, Dave, you ready for 128?

I am indeed Could not be more ready.

I've been busy at work, man, I've been looking forward to this all day.

Yeah.

Well, my friend, what's up in your model sphere?

Well, my model sphere is riding high. I am jazzed. Things are moving along. I'm feeling good about the hobby. I'm feeling good about stuff that's been announced coming out in the future, feeling good about the progress I'm making. The only thing that worries me is the dark time ahead, that Thanksgiving to Christmas space, where I don't get nearly as much modeling done. I'm hoping that doesn't happen Now. I got a head start this past week. I got all of the Christmas crap out of the attic so that my wife, come day after Thanksgiving, my wife can start decorating for Christmas. So that means that the day after Thanksgiving I will probably have a little bit freer time than I usually do, hoping to devote a little bit of that to modeling. Been talking with a lot of the listeners interacting, had some really nice interactions which we'll get into later. It's just sometimes you get really jazzed in your modeling. I'm jazzed, we're good. So how about your?

model sphere. Well, it's a mixed bag, a little bit of bad, a little bit of good. We'll get the bad out of the way first.

I was going to say always start with that.

Dave and I would like to extend our condolences once again unfortunately for someone else this time to the family and friends and the modeling community for Matt Johnston.

Yes.

Young Matt passed away suddenly. It's been the last week, 10 days, I guess.

Yep.

Definitely a tragedy for all parties around him. He was a staple at all the big shows in the US. We see him at the Nats and at Amps and he attended all the podcast roundtables we ever cared to put on at these national conventions.

And a young man. Yeah, we're a hobby full of older men, so you expect to get the news that somebody in the hobby that you've known and is up there in years is gone. But this was just out of left field, out of the blue. A real shock.

Well, I'm going to steal a phrase I'm only going to steal it once from our friends D-Ran and the crew over at the Model Geeks podcast, and he always says be excellent to each other. And I would say that because you just never know, man, and things can go by too fast to have regrets and not be the best you can be man.

That's right, absolutely.

Well, on the flip side, you know what's all this talk about these projects, a new platform I've been running my mouth about now. Uh-oh, the curtain. Most of the year, right? I guess I can't remember when we started. No, we kind of this kind of got rolling back late spring, I guess, when I started talking about it.

Plastic Model Mojo will be launching a new website and hopefully phase one of this will be online and running before the end of the year. We've got a few things to polish up about it. Phase one will replace the current plasticmodelmojocom with a fresh look and some better functionality. It's going to let us divorce ourselves from the website that our pod host provides. Well, they're still going to be our pod host, but we got a fully integrated site coming that'll not have to have folks go there. There'll be a phase two and three. I'm going to keep those a little close to the vest here.

Some other things we may be doing or going to try to do, but for now, you're going to get a new website. It's going to be a whole lot better looking and a place where you can come listen to Plastic Model Mojo until phase two and three roll out. Again, it's going to be a replacement for the host provided website. So that's the front end, the foundation for what's to come. That's where we had to start to get this up and running. So please look for that. We'll let everybody know.

A it looks really cool because I've seen some previews. B pulling the curtain back a little bit further, just enough to let people. This isn't some home-built website or anything like that. We are actually introducing a professionally produced, hopefully professionally polished, fully functional Death Star.

That's right and hopefully by the end of the year. We're real close. We're real close. We got some things to give the designers back and they owe me a couple of things back. So when that launches you'll probably see some changes throughout the social media side of Plastic Model Mojo to kind of unify the look of the new thing. But again, hopefully by the end of the year and that's what we've been up to is a new website. So, big news there we go.

All right. Well, Mike, I think we should drink to the new website, and if you're going to do that, you should do it with a modeling fluid. Do you have a modeling fluid? I do.

Dave. All right, what do you got? I'm finishing off the Lukenbach Road Whiskey that was given to us by Don Gilman at the 2024 National Convention in Madison. Oh nice, so sipping on that a little bit. All right, we'll get to that at the end. What do you got?

Well, I've got another beer from one of my favorite breweries, new Belgium. This is the Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA. It's in their IPA line and it's just a different one of their IPAs, and so I've had it before, so I know I'm going to enjoy it. But we'll talk more about it at the end of the episode.

Well, while you're at the front end of that, let's get in this mailbag. That sounds like a thing. All right, folks, we got more than last time, which is good. It's coming back. We had a bunch of giveaway mail last time and folks have gotten that in and that's great. But first up tonight's larry donovan. He's from the twin cities area. I wonder if he knows hugh stad and mr copeland. Oh, I'm sure he might. Probably it's a big place, but it's not that big now. He had a, a concern and I'm gonna put this out there as apolitically as I can because we ain't got time for that Right. That's for other podcasts. Up or down, like it or hate it. There could be some potential tariffs on the horizon for the American consumer Right, and they could be anywhere from 10% to 60%, depending on what happens. And Larry was wondering what kind of impact this might have on our hobby. Well, it's a good question.

It is. Now, first of all, a disclaimer up front. I do a hobby to get away from everything in real life. There is nothing more that I hate than people injecting politics into the hobby. So none of this has anything to do with politics.

It's an economics question and my undergraduate degree is in poli sci with focus on economics, and it's possible, depending on what is implemented and when, that there could be some impact on our hobby, particularly from manufacturers based in the Far East, particularly China.

However, the lesson that we have historically from tariffs is that it's like trying to hold water in your hand, that it always leaks around.

So what you'll see is, if tariffs get too high on certain countries in the Far East, they will move their manufacturing to another country where the tariffs aren't being imposed as highly.

The prime example of this, although it wasn't exactly tariff-related, was when Tamiya moved a lot of their manufacturing to the Philippines, and to this day, many kits, many Tamiya kits, are actually produced in the Philippines, even though the molds come out of Japan. While it's a concern and while it might have some impact on prices in the short term, if they get implemented and keep in mind that's a big if A lot of times, these things are threatened simply to be used as a lever to get a better trade deal, to get advantages that don't result in tariffs. So, as far as modelers go, I think we've all got enough in our stash where a temporary price inflation probably isn't going to have the biggest effect on us, and so my attitude at this point is while, yes, it's possible that there could be an impact, I think that's low on my list of things I'm worried about, particularly in the hobby.

Well, I think, for me it's the, irrespective of how much it might be, 10, zero, 60%, whatever it's the broad brush application. I can just see a flow chart. Do we make model kits in America? Yes, so bam, the ones from China get a tariff, even though the ones that are made in the United States are typically like he mentions here, round three in Atlantis A lot of nostalgia kits, a lot of old tooling.

Yeah, Nostalgia kits, a lot of old tooling, yeah, and the stuff that we're getting from China. Those subjects are not getting made by US manufacturers and somebody, I think, probably thinks that maybe they would be if this other crap got too expensive. And I don't think they will, because a lot of that is up and gone now. And will it come back? It could, but will it Do? I think it will. No, I don't think it will. So I don't think it will, so I don't know. I think you're right and I hope you're right. I think that the impact here would be minimal.

Yeah Well, and then keep in mind with the internet and the ability to purchase globally, at least on an individual basis, the tariffs will have minimal impact, because if you go on eBay, china or many third-party sites, you'll be able to purchase the items at origin for their origin price and the tariff won't ever catch up with one individual kit or a small purchase from a Far East Asian hobby shop. So in the scheme of things, I'm not really worried about it. Again, we've gone through ebbs and flows, economic upturns and downturns, heck, I'll be honest with you. I'm a little more worried about the price of hydrocarbons, because obviously that's a big impact on hobby kits. So if it turns out that we see, due to political changes, an increase in production and a reduction in hydrocarbon cost, we may actually see kit prices drop, even in the face of a tariff. Now you're in unicorn land, man. Well, we'll see. We'll see what happens.

Because you know how it works. Yes, I know 25% tariff price go up. 25% Tariff goes away. Prices don't come back down.

Come back down yeah that is true. That is absolutely true.

Well, it's an interesting question. We're not economists, so We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. Hopefully it's a big nothing burger, but it could be. I'm not saying it's not going to be for sure. I'm not too worried about it because it's my stash size. Yeah.

Right.

If I was running an import business, yeah, yeah, then I might have more concern about it. Yeah, definitely have concern about it. Hopefully, those people are smart, and I know some of them are. Oh, I do too. They'll figure that out. Yep, up next, dave Paul Budzik.

Oh.

Well, I gave him a little ribbon about his drill video. Oh, did you when he was building his alignment fixture? For, I guess, what was it? The?

nose guns, for the nose guns on the.

M26, which was just awesome it was, but there are a couple of things going on here. One it was a close-up video, yep, and it was little tiny stuff, yep, so it all just looked huge, right, right. Well, when he goes to make the center drill, it kind of drifts down a little bit. It was all fun, he said he figured I'd spot that, but I didn't have to call him out on it, oh great.

Now he's not going to come back on the show.

Oh, he'll come back on the show. He said it's always good, always good to get a little jazz and from your friends, and I will. I will agree with that, cause I was getting a heap and helping a jazz and about my E16 project, all while we're in Chicago. Yes, from from two sides. So yep and yes.

From two sides.

Yep and it worked.

Yeah.

You're moving along.

We'll talk about that.

We will. So thanks, paul, keep it up. That project's looking pretty crazy, man, it's unbelievable. Rock Roszak Ah, the man. The man is just touching base and saying how much he enjoyed the reaction we got from the Aussies when they opened our 200th episode gift. Well, rock, it would have just been an idea had you not agreed to help us out. Or I could have traced one out of my old Combat Aircraft of the World book, like I used to in fourth grade, and then color it with magic markers.

I was going to say it would have looked like a fourth grader had done it.

It would not have had quite the impact.

I've DM'd Rock and I've told him that sometime in the future a Scooby Snack is headed his way for his help in that project, because literally, it could not have come off without your idea and without his execution.

Up next Mark Doremus. He's out there with Jim and the folks out on the West Coast. He sends a long one. Oh okay, he's been traveling again. It's been a tradition of his. In November, I guess he ends up in Asia. Where does he end up? He ends up in Thailand.

Right, he was in Vietnam last year, wasn't he? I think he ends up in Asia. Where does he end up? He ends up in Thailand. Right, he was in Vietnam last year, wasn't he? I think he was. He was in Vietnam last year. I actually remember that.

Well, mark has an international hobby shop, shout out.

Okay, those are always good.

Ended up at a hobby shop in each of the three cities he was staying in. In Singapore it was miniature hobby which is on the 14th floor of an office building, stacked floor to ceiling, with all kinds of kits of every genre and of all imagination. And he said the average-sized American with a backpack would have difficulty moving through this place because it's just narrow aisles and just packed, stacked floor to ceiling.

A lot of the Asian hobby shops are reported to be that way.

And he was enjoying a 40% discount at this shop, so he came up with an Academy F-35A. Great choice, let's see. The next one is a shop Actually it's a little kiosk called Yumiya in Pattaya, thailand I don't know if I say that right or not A tiny kiosk that sells what's inside a huge mall, and they sell Gundam. So he picked up a nice SD-grade Gundam kit while there, cool. And then in Bangkok, uncle Ye Hobby Shop.

Uncle Ye I love it.

Well, it's Y-A-E.

Yeah.

Now they've moved since his last time there in a bigger location and all sorts of aircraft, armor, some ships, everything from one 700 scale to one 16th scale, and he said he thinks you would think you've died and gone to heaven in their decal department.

Oh, I probably would have.

They have a wall filled with all kinds of locally produced decals. Many of them were for the Royal Thai Air Force he's killing me, yeah, I know. And he stocked up on plenty of tools and the PC brand acrylic lacquer paints, including their leveling thinner, and he walked out with an Oscar in 72nd scale from Fujimi. Oh, good choice, good choice, and a matching set of RTAF decals for it, nice.

Well, that brings back a memory, Mike, pre-internet. Do you remember whenever you would travel to a new city, the first thing you'd do in the hotel room is that you'd grab the phone book Just see if there was one. And go to the hobby section and see if there were hobby shops and where they were.

Yeah, and the phone book had a map key next to the listing. You have to turn to the back or front and they had the maps. You have to find the right map and then find the right intersection.

Yeah, yeah I remember all that, oh man.

It's a lot easier now.

But you know that is the fun thing. You know we've got the internet and you can reach out and find something all over the world. But there is something magical about going to a new town and exploring and stumbling on the local hobby shop. It just I mean, it's great.

It'd be fun to travel those places and check these places out, these hobby shops out, man, absolutely Well, the contributor of this week's, this episode's modeling fluid for me anyway is Don Gilman from Bryan, texas, yep, and he sent kind of a bullet list of stuff for the podcast and he's actually sent us a question that we're going to be addressing in the special segment tonight. So that's where one of our topics is going to come from. So, don, thanks for the modeling fluid and thanks for this list, and we're going to tackle one of these in our special segment tonight.

And thank you and that's a reminder, guys. Guys listen, mike and I love to get emails and DMs with suggestions for subjects, criticism, input, whatever you got, please let us know. We do this and we want you, the audience, to enjoy it. So if you've got suggestions for ways to make it better, we want to hear those.

And finally, dave, we got Warren Dickinson and he sent us a modeling fluid warning. Okay, I'm going to try this. I've never heard of this bourbon Linkinpinch, linkinpinch, huh, l-i-n-k-u-m-p-i-n-c-h. Never heard of it. Me either, and that's good. We need to keep it that way.

I take it this is not one we want to seek out.

My gosh, this stuff is hard. It's supposed to be a four-year-old bourbon, but I've had bourbon less than two years old. That was better than this. It's getting stored with the paint remover.

Oh, wow, yeah, well, that happens sometimes, it does. It's called a sink pour yeah, it's a sink pour yeah, and you hate to do it if you paid a lot of money for it.

Well, that's it from the email side of things. Dave, what's been going on on Facebook Messenger?

We've got a fair number of them off of Facebook Messenger. First is from Special Agent 003, who keeps being active as our special agent. He had noted that some Bob Letterman dioramas were being auctioned off.

Yeah, I saw that.

Apparently it's part of the estate, and so he just checked with me and wanted to let me know, and I suggested that he post it in the dojo, which he did. I mean, I remember Bob Letterman was a really nice guy. Got to meet him several times. Our club would take special trips to St Louis and we got to walk into his workshop, we got to walk into VLS. I mean he treated us very, very well. He was truly a gentleman and to get to see some of his while it was being produced was just flat out amazing, and so he'll be sorely missed. And yeah, his dioramas are works of art.

Some of the rare times when bigger is better.

Yes, absolutely, the man had a talent he did. By the way, brandon said thank you for the reminder short that we did, reminding people about the raffle, because that caused him to go ahead and enter it.

That did come across fairly recently.

Yes, it did. I got DM from the Quokka Paul Gloucester down under. He listened to our latest episode as he was returning from Scale ACT where he had run into Goldfinch Company and he confirms that he is coming to Hampton next year for the Nationals and he is bringing his wife's famous peanut butter cookies for you and I that we'll get at the Nationals and Dave Goldfinch raves about these cookies and I love a peanut butter cookie. I love it.

Bourbon not so much.

Yeah, you're right, peanut butter bourbon not so much, yeah, well, yeah, we're right, peanut butter bourbon not so much. Peanut butter cookie really good, so I can't wait for that. The next one is our friend, skippy Scott. King Scott has recently. He had an above ground pool in his backyard, surrounded by a deck that had fallen into disuse and finally got to the point where he had to tear it down. And luckily, with some help of some family members, he got the site graded and it's just right for him to put out there a modeling shed. So he's going to put a self-contained building out behind his house which is going to be his modeling shed.

It's the English way, right, exactly. Well, skippy's house, like a lot of English houses, doesn't have a basement, he's on a slab. But he's going to do that. He's going to put a shed out back. So if the listeners out there have suggestions for what he gets, for what he needs, to make sure he does do's and don'ts. If some of you have put up your own modeling sheds, send us photos, anything related to modeling shed culture. That may help Skippy, because he's got the site cleared and now he's starting to do his due diligence to figure out what he wants to do what he wants to put there. So let's help Skippy out, because he needs a spot where he can go out and model.

Well, he's going to need a subpanel with a couple, three circuits on it. Yeah, he's going to need some AC and some heat and a urinal.

Yep or a bucket, Although he can always go back into the house for that. Again. Suggestions on any of that stuff, particularly what kind of heating, what kind of air conditioning, whatever. If you've got suggestions, send them in. I will pass them all to.

Skippy, yeah, I bet somebody's done a freestanding before. Oh, I guarantee you, you could probably get rid of one. Get away with one of those like hotel type units. That's what we have out in our sunroom.

Oh really.

Yeah.

Yeah, all right. Next next listener was listening to our episodes and kept hearing us refer to Huntsville and he wanted to know which Huntsville. And it was Huntsville, alabama, of course. And turns out that's where he lives and that's his local club and he and you have something in common, and that is work in the aerospace industry. He's retired as an aerospace engineer, he's gotten numerous things out into the cosmos and he wanted to invite us and make sure that we made an attempt to get down to Huntsville next year. And I've told him that we would make our best effort to do so, because I've been to Huntsville many, many times before and I really enjoy it.

What are they Region 3?.

Region 3, directly below us.

Yeah, maybe we need to turn south this year and hit some of those shows instead of the ones up here.

I'm open for it. Hey, we did good this year and hit some of those shows instead of the ones up here. I'm open for it. Hey, we did good this year, we did, we did good this year. So maybe next year we'll look south and maybe do some of that stuff.

Got a DM from Keith's Hobby Page and I cannot remember Keith's actual name, it's just Keith's Hobby Page on Facebook and he DMed because he was looking for more information. He had found out that he had an uncle who was a B-24 pilot in the Pacific in World War II and so he knew the unit and he was looking for more information. And I hooked him up toward Jeff Groves in Chi-Guy and so he knew the unit and he was looking for more information. And I hooked him up toward Jeff Groves in Chi guy because Jeff's got a lot of information in that regard and can point him to other sources. But I also encouraged him. He had like a newspaper article and some photographs and I encouraged him to post those on the dojo and I put a comment on there and I'm not sure everybody saw the comment. I should have done it as a separate post.

Any of our listeners out there, if you have relatives that served your country in the military, particularly in combat World War II, korea, vietnam, whatever conflict and you have information, please post it. It is particularly if you've got pictures. But even if you've just got letters, articles, whatever, please post that to share it. One of the things about our hobby is we are preserving history, and one of the big things in preserving history is honoring the memories of those people who sacrificed their time, their youth, sometimes other things, as a way for us to remember and honor those individuals. Got any more their SBD engine for the Flyhawk kits, sent photographs of at least the test shot in a Flyhawk cow and he said they should be available any day now. So I haven't gone to SBS's site to look. In fact, that's one of the things I'll do when we're done recording this is, go to their website and take a look and see if they're available yet. But I definitely want to pick those up when they come out.

All done.

All done.

We want to have more of this. So folks write in please. You can email the show at plasticmodelmojo at gmailcom or you can send a Facebook direct message and I easily handle the email and Dave takes the DMs. But we want to hear from you and let us know what you're thinking, let us know what you'd like us to talk about and whatever. We love these conversations.

Absolutely. I'd like to thank all the listeners who have recommended us to their fellow modelers. We continue to gain listeners to their fellow modelers. We continue to gain listeners. One of the best ways for us to do that is for a current listener to tell a modeling friend who's not listening to this podcast or podcasts at all. Please continue to recommend us to your modeling friends. Please invite people to the dojo for your Facebook modeling friends and continue to rate us on whatever app that you listen to the podcast on. We appreciate all those.

Now, if you've done that, please check out our fellow podcasts out in the model sphere. You can do that by going to wwwmodelpodcastcom. That's modelpodcastpluralcom. It's a consortium website set up with the help of Stuart Clark from the Scale Model Podcast up in Canada, and Stuart's created this little website that puts up all the banner links for all the other podcasts in the model sphere and you can go there and just click away and listen to your heart's content. So please do that in the spirit of cross promotion between all these shows. In addition, we've got a lot of blog and youtube friends out in the model sphere. You already mentioned jeff groves for some information for somebody. But please check out the inch high guy blog and see all things. 72nd scale there. A model airplane maker, chris wallace channel Great blog. He's had some recent content as well. You're going to want to go check out.

Yes.

Stephen Lee SpruPieWithFrets Great long and short form blog. Always something going on there and always showing off his work, also primarily in 72nd scale as well. Yeah, panzermeister36 on YouTube, evan McCallum I think we talked about his German interiors last time, but if you're into armor weathering, he's not only doing the World War II stuff, he's been doing some modern subjects as well and the occasional rail car. So check out what Evan's got going on at Panzermeister36. And to Scale Canadian TV, jim Bates out in Seattle. Check out that YouTube channel, see what Jim's up to. And finally, scale Model Workshop from Paul Budzik, and you're going to want to go check that out on Patreon Scale Model Workshop. And, yeah, follow what he's got going on. It's certainly good stuff. It's amazing stuff.

It's next level engineering. If you are not a member of IPMS USA, ipms Canada, member of IPMS USA, ipms Canada, ipms Mexico or your national IPMS chapter, wherever you happen to live, please consider joining. These organizations are run by volunteers, men and women, who give up some of their modeling time to try and make your modeling experience better. If you are an armor modeler or a post-1900 figure modeler, take a look at joining the Armor Modeling Preservation Society, amps, a great group of guys who are devoted to the art of armor and post-1900 figures and dioramas and vignettes. Some of the work of some of those modelers is just mind-blowing. I encourage you to join if you have any interest in the area.

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, dave, we don't have a guest tonight, which means it's a Shop Talk episode, all right. So we got about three things here we want to get into, and I know the first two are yours, so let's you start out with the first one and go for it.

The first one kind of came about as I've been working on the SAM and I've finished well, I've pretty much finished airbrushing it. There will be some stuff down the road but I'm into decaling now. We'll get into that. In the benchtop halftime report, painting it, I used the airbrush that I tend to use the most, which is a Badger Velocity, and this is the airbrush that I use most. And now I've posted pictures on the dojo before. I famously have like five or six airbrushes currently and four of them that are on the Hydra that you helped me build, that I use semi-regularly, but the one I use by far the most often is that Badger, and I got into a discussion with Steve Husted and've bounced this off several people. I think that there is a value in having a main airbrush that you use 90 to 95% of the time. Now for clear coats and metals I use my Siphon Feed Badger 150, and I've got the harder and steamed back of course for really fine details. But for 90% or 95% of the airbrushing I use the Badger Velocity and I think there's a value into sticking to one airbrush, even if you could use multiple airbrushes, simply from the standpoint that you get to know the airbrush's, the level of pressure and the level of pull. You also know what paint thinner mixture works best in the brush. You also, over time, become more familiar with cleaning it and knowing where the boogers get caught and that you need to pay attention to when cleaning it. And I just think there's a value to having a main airbrush that you use for the vast majority of your airbrushing. I think it makes you a better airbrusher. I think you will get better results over time by doing that.

But I'd like to know what other people think, what other people have experienced. I know from talking to a couple of people that I've bounced this idea off of some really good modelers. Most of them do have a main airbrush that they use for the vast majority of their airbrushing, and some people are completely loyal to one airbrush for everything from gloss coats to metallics, to everything, and so now I think there's a little value for having multiple brushes for those specialty items. But I'd like to know what you think, mike, and I'd like to know what, particularly what you listeners have experienced. Do you have more than one airbrush? Do you use one airbrush? Are you faithful to one airbrush 95 percent of the time? What's your experience been?

well, I think for me it's. It's yes, and I I used a badger 150 for 20 something years and it was. I was mostly building armor and railroad stuff which is typically one color or has, more often than not, has broad swaths of different colored camouflage on it. Right, so it could do just about everything I needed it to do. It was robust utility to it, right as far as what all you can do with it, because, like that Badger 150, it can take a host of tips and needles that will get you most of what you're going to need, right. I think it has an advantage that it's gravity-fed instead of siphon-fed. I was glad to get that. I think that's an upgrade, so I like that part about it. But still, it's the airbrush I'm still using 95% of the time.

Okay.

Now I've got an Eclipse too, okay, now I've got an eclipse too, right, and I know you do, yeah, and you know it's. It's tough Cause, unless I think you're right, I think for the average modeler who's I don't even call I think my output's slow compared to the average modeler, but even even for somebody who's has, you know, finishes four or five, six, average modeler, but even even for somebody who's has, you know, finishes four, five, six a year, you're still not going to use that other airbrush enough to really get a good feel for it.

Yeah, and I do think there is actually a feel for it.

You actually do learn a feel oh you do, it becomes an extension of your hand almost. Yeah, I agree with that. Just the tactile feel of the thing, the ergonomics of how it fits your hand and and little things you do you don't realize to hold it easier or better or whatever. All that kind of stuff is a lot easier when you're only when you're picking up the same one every time. Now I think if you picked up two or three, a whole lot the muscle memory would get you back to the sweet spots for each of those as well. But for me personally, I don't airbrush enough to run up that skill curve for my alternate brush.

I agree completely, which is why you and I need to both build more and paint more.

I don't have enough time. Maybe I do. I just I don't have enough time, maybe I do. I don't feel like I have enough time to just burn a bench session with the. It's not the eclipse, it's the infinity, right, right, h&s infinity, the real fine one To monkey around with that thing and experience it a lot, because you can do a lot of stuff on. You know, just painting scrap card and index cards and all that. Oh yeah, oh listen. Scrap card and index cards and all that, oh yeah, oh listen. But till you really go to paint the model for one on on, like paint on paper just behaves differently than paint on plastic.

Yep, that's why. That's why you need a paint mule.

So, yeah, I agree, I think you're going to get you're going to tend to get better results sticking to one and and really wringing it out as far as the amount of hours you have on it, or minutes, minutes in my case yeah, well, yeah, agreed.

Well, let's face it. Any airbrush session is three to five minutes of painting and then 15 to 20 minutes of cleaning yeah, a lot of times it is.

Now I eventually did rebuild my 150 and it's kind of sitting there for the, the metallics or something like that, where I can just not have to worry about flex still being in the airbrush somewhere. That's not a huge problem, but I've had it have bad result on me before, so I can pull that one out at any time and fire it up and get right back at it. Maybe I forgot how to use it, I don't know. It'd be interesting See how it feels in my hand Now. I've been using this other one.

Yeah, yeah, you'll have to do that and report back to us.

I think something that it would be interesting to hear from is someone who cut their teeth on a big siphon, fed Pache airbrush and then go into something a little more contemporary, because that thing's like holding a banana in your hand. Yeah, it is. It's a huge train, something big like that. Yeah, folks, be curious what other folks are doing. I do need to get another mule and play around with these things. I don't think on my evolution, I'm even quite where I was with my badger yet, because I haven't used it all that much. Comparatively, yeah, I mean, it's like 20 something years compared to two or three. I don't think I need any more, though. No, no, absolutely not. Now this next one. I'm curious where you're going to go with this one. Okay, you called it. Don't pinch pennies. Throw away the disposables.

Right.

If I wanted to work a little more blue, it would be don't be a cheap lank Modelers. God love them. They'll spend $60 on a fret of photo etch but they will work a piece of sandpaper till it's dying day, I think. As modelers, I know this is me and I fight it, and I think it's a lot of modelers, because I've seen it with others. Don't pinch pennies when it comes to your modeling supplies, tools and disposables. When I do a modeling session and I've used my X-Acto for some cutting or for some scraping or for some whatever parts removal whatever, throw it away and put in a new blade. You may not think that you have reduced the blade much, but truly you have more than you know it, and blades are so cheap that get yourself a sharps box and, just after each modeling session, dump your blade in. In regard to sandpaper and sanding sticks, use them and use them well, but when they're worn out, throw them away. And before they're worn out, throw them away. Because if you wait till when they're worn out, you them away. Because if you wait till when they're worn out, you're spending time and energy using something that is not working as efficiently as it could and thus it's taking away from either your modeling efficiency or your modeling quality Paints.

How many times have you heard stories of modelers who open a jar of paint you know it's a half jar, okay, it was open three years ago for another project and it's been sitting in a drawer and you know it's a little iffy and instead of throwing it away and going and getting a new jar of paint, they try and revive it, they try and thin it, they try and bring it back to life and then they run it through the airbrush and it doesn't spray right, it's not any good, it clogs the airbrush and now you've achieved negative modeling. Now I remember when paint was 59, 69 cents a jar and it's not that anymore, but it's still cheap comparatively. Don't be cheap. If you got a half bottle of paint that's from three years ago and it looks kind of iffy, don't try and bring it back to life. Paintbrushes you use it, but the moment it loses the ability to keep point, demote it to either an airbrush that you use, putty, cut it down into a scrubbing brush, demote it down the line until you end up throwing it away. But don't you know you've worked really hard on this cockpit or this detail that you're painting. Don't, for want of a new brush that has a good point on it, use a brush that doesn't and end up making a mess. And I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Your famous discussion with John McIntyre about tweezers. Pay the money to get the good tweezers that actually close where the jaws actually close, as opposed to buying them at the flea market from that bin of tweezers that were made in China. No two of them have jaws that completely close in touch. It's just. It is worth spending the money Because, again, money in a lot of aspects money equals time, and the one thing that we don't have enough of in modeling is time. So if, by using a new blade or a new piece of sandpaper or new sanding stick or new paint, you to redo the job, you have gained more in time than the money was ever worth. So that's my sermon for today.

All right, Reverend Dave.

Yes, all right. Well, do you agree?

I do and guilty as charged on some things. You know we don't all have the same budget, so we'll throw that out there right now.

Right, I understand.

Maybe some people have to do a little of that or look for other alternatives. But one aspect of the sanding pads, the sanding sticks, I use those way too long. I use them so long that when I finally what's the one I use probably more than any of my dwindling stock of the flexi file ones, it's the orange one, right, medium, medium, fine, grit one.

Yeah.

I think it's 280 or 300. I use it quite a bit and you know, then on the tip they'll start losing their grit and you got gotta take some cutters and cut it back and cut, cut, cut, cut and you're finally out. It's just, it's too wide now I can't use it. And it's just, it's not. It's not working that great anyway. And then you break out that fresh one and you've gotten so used to using that for lack of better word that dull one, yep that you're you're amazed at what it does you're, you're amazed and you're like whoa, I better slow down because I wouldn't expect than that.

Yeah for sure. Paints yeah, I got a lot of paint like you, but not as much as you. I think it depends on what it is. I. I don't use them a lot, but I've got a just a ton of humbrol 10s I got a lot of it, and if it's unopened it's probably as good as pretty good it was as day it was made but if it doesn't have like a almost rubber like skin on the top of it, you can.

You can usually reconstitute it pretty well. But yeah, I've uh, I've thrown away a lot of paint in the last year I'm in the process you know I had reconstitute it pretty well, but uh yeah, I've, uh, I've thrown away a lot of paint in the last year. I'm in the process, you know.

I had some Tamiya labels. They didn't even have English on the on the label other than the color.

And uh, I guess, yeah, that's some old Tamiya paint from the eighties is when that was from and it from and it was, yeah, it just didn't need to be used and and I like keeping things fresh too I, I, I don't know what I change them every session, but I'm changing blades usually. I bet I change them just about every session at some point, whether I do it at the end of the session or or I get into the next session. It's like yeah, yeah, this has lost its point, which is usually why I get rid of them. In fact, I've kind of learned to recognize that kind of crunch sound when a blade loses its tip.

Yep, you're right, you can actually hear it.

And that's usually a sign to go change that right now, especially if you're like cutting decals or masking tape or something like that, because I remember that X-Acto ad. If you can't tell the difference between these two blades, maybe you're missing the point. Yep, that's kind of it in a nutshell oh man, that's a deep reach. That's an old ad. It's probably some of those 80s issues of fine scale I got laying around Probably. Well, they were certainly proponents of you buying their blades, so I get that oh probably.

Well, they were certainly proponents of you buying their blades, so I get that.

So, oh, and that is another thing when you buy exacto blades or scalpel blades, or yeah, or, scalpel blades.

a buy them in bulk and b buy good ones, because you can go on ebay, china, and you can buy an amazing number of blades for an amazingly low price and you will get exactly what you're paying for. You will get what was swept up off of the factory floor and God, there is a world of difference.

I'm trying to think of any other disposables I'm usually cycling through pretty regularly, pretty regularly.

I should cycle through paint brushes more than I do yeah, I do too, but mine are usually like you.

Like you said, they keep getting demoted and downgraded until they're gone. Yeah, until I stir paint with the back end of the handle and throw it in the garbage.

There you go that's.

That's the the last dying gasp of a paintbrush on my workbench.

Well, usually the last dying gasp is where I've cut the bristles down and I use it as a scrubber to remove super glue when I put debonder on, that's about the bottom, for me.

Paints and thinners and sanding stuff is the things I'm burning through pretty regularly and I'm pretty religious about keeping those fresh. Yeah, just because they work better and you get the result you're expecting from them.

Yep, and nothing's worse than negative modeling, and when you use dull, old or whatever, you increase the chance of negative modeling.

Are we done there? Done with that one? Well, our final topic of the night comes from Don Gilman of Bryan, texas, and I'm going to backtrack. There was a bullet point I should have mentioned in the Lister mail that I'm going to mention now. Okay, you want to issue a call out to all modelers in the central Texas area inviting them to look up Aggieland Modeling Club AMC on Facebook. They're still trying to get a critical mass of folks to participate and now that cooler weather is's approaching, he can host some build nights in his garage for a while. But until they have enough folks, they're not going to go. Kind of seeking a either a rented space or or whatever. So he says it's catch 22. So I think he means they need more space to grow, but they need to grow to be able to get more space, more space yep, and that is a challenge that every young or new modeling club has.

And, guys, every club, including the one I'm in, has gone through that and it's just a matter of finding a core group of interested modelers and getting together regularly and having a good atmosphere and that will attract others. Now I will tell you and we've had the huge advantage at Military Modelers Club of Louisville of having a really good hobby shop, and that really good hobby shop supports the club. And, boy, if you want to see a club grow, the support of a local shop is great. So if there is one in your area, contact them and see what kind of support you can get out of them.

Well, back to the topics at hand. Don says he hears a lot of folks talk about their spreadsheet inventories for decals, models and aftermarket, and he's wanting us to maybe take a deeper dive into discussing how we organize pretty much all the aspects of our hobby, whether it's our social media, the web stuff, blogs, podcast content. How are we doing that? Photographs, scans, pdfs, whatever.

I can sum that up in one word or one sentence. Not well enough.

He's got one use case for his construction log where he's got handwritten notes on the instructions, lots of pics including paint mixes. Where he's got handwritten notes on the instructions, lots of pics including paint mixes he's taken along the way and he'll prepare a photo construction summary with notes and he's using scale mace to curate all this stuff. Yes, that way it lets you share with everybody, mostly to show them what mistakes can be avoided and that sort of thing. So oh, that's a good question.

You know, that's a topic that I think we could do a whole episode on, because again, I'm no joke my answer is not well enough. In fact, the last two nights I've set up in my family room with my wife watching whatever program she wanted to watch I think it was the Voice one night where what I was doing is I had my laptop and I had my binders with all the decals in them and I was going through and I had gotten behind in updating my decal spreadsheet and so I was sitting there updating them and I've gotten through the first two binders full of decals and I've got eight, ten more to go. But one thing I have organized and I joked Steve Fustad sent me recently a photograph of his workshop and it is every bit as neat and clean and organized as you would expect it to be. Pictures of many really, really good modelers' workshops, and 90% of them are super neat and clean and organized.

The guys who produce lots of models and lots of good models seem to have in common organization, and that's something that I am sorely lacking, and so I'm trying to slowly but surely get better at that. Yeah, scalemates. I know Evan loves Scalemates and he uses it to keep track of his stash and all of his aftermarket. That applies to a particular model.

Well, I think I've really honestly not given a lot of thought to organizing this whole suite of things he's talking about here. Maybe I should, I don't know. He's kind of leaning toward OneNote, yeah, and you know, for me, like blogs and podcasts, things like that, just to keep up the subscriptions is kind of just go ahead and subscribe, but if you're looking at the nitty-gritty of what the content actually is, yeah, you're going to have to make some notes somewhere. Yep, really, I think for me, for a project, I think I'd want to start there.

I don't typically organize stuff outside of a current project. To much degree I do some, and it's primarily photographs. So you know I've talked ad nauseum about my love of German eBay and the snapshots that are always cycling through there to be bought or just right-clicked and thrown into a file, which is usually what I do, unless it's something really cool and I want to own it. I've got a lot of files. I have a reference photo kind of high level file folder on my computer, yeah, and then under that are vehicle types and I will copy those down and usually they go to the primary. Then every once in a while I'll go in there and I'll curate them into the to the respective folders they need to go into. You gotta be a little careful, because usually if you just right click you get the same stinking generic file name for everything right and there's probably a way around that that I could probably fix in five minutes if I knew how to do it.

But typically I'll rename them to something that's going to be meaningful to me, right? Because normally if they're coming off eBay or something, if you've downloaded a photo, it may have some random, freakishly long kind of file name attached to it. That's not very useful. So, yeah, that's what I do there. I've also gotten into making a lot of notes on my instruction sheet. The KV-85 I'm working on is a good example. I've got all kinds of red ink all over that thing. I'm curious. I'm going to have to go look and see what he's got going on on ScaleMates, because this is all again, some of the things he mentions. You know there's YouTube channels I subscribe to. What would I do if there was one in particular I know I want to come back to.

Yeah, I don't have a good way to do that right now, right, well and the thing is, of course, you can download the actual YouTube if you want to save. And I am old school, I grew up with MS-DOS and folders, and all of that makes sense to me, Whereas people who come into computers today they don't seem to care about where something is saved, Whereas I always want to know exactly where it is. So, and I'm like you, I've got, I've got a folder called modeling, a sub folder called research folders, and then below that I've got folders for every particular either vehicle type, aircraft type or area of interest Norway, Ploesti, Pearl Harbor, whatever and I save photographs and articles and everything. And you can even download a YouTube video and save it locally if you want to. And the nice thing is that, unlike years past, storage has gotten so cheap that storage isn't really an issue anymore. I mean, when you can buy two terabytes of space for $99, the concept of that much storage space you'd never fill it up.

Well, he mentions a lot of things here I've just never really considered to apply to my modeling For his digital assets. In OneNote he's using Google Lenses and he says that's basically putting a flatbed scanner in your pocket. I assume he means his phone, Right? And the other advantage to all these One applications is it's all replicated between your tablet, your phone, your laptop and your desktop. Yeah, so it's accessible all the time. Now I do do that a little bit. I've got some things that are on Google Drives that I can get to on my phone or at work every now and then if I need to access something like that. So I don't know, I'm probably behind the times as far as organization goes.

Yeah, I think I am too. I think that's probably true of me as well.

And in my modeling pace means I don't. I just don't have a lot accumulating at any given time. It's usually pretty focused Right right Now. I got I got lucky on the KV85. There's like 14 photographs that exist and things.

Well, and the funny thing is, you mentioned that, but the other day you messaged me because three new photographs appeared well, I just had 11 before that, so okay, I'm counting the new ones, okay isn't that weird that up until two a week ago you would have said there are 11 known photographs? Of these vehicles and then suddenly you're out on the internet and there are three new photographs Pretty cool.

Yeah, it is so, don. This is an interesting question. I'm just going to have to go see how some of this stuff could be applied to what I'm doing, if it would make sense for me to do some of this stuff.

Maybe we need to talk to Don. This might be an interesting subject to discuss further.

Well, it would. He may get an invitation, that's right. Well, dave, unless you've got another topic, you want to sneak in here.

Nope, I think we need to move on.

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.

Well, Dave, speaking of Squadron, we got a little help with a giveaway. Yes, we did. You ready to pull the trigger?

on this. I am ready for us to give away.

Well, dave, we've gotten a. I don't know what to expect. We've got, at least to me, an overwhelming response to this first ever giveaway we've ever done.

Yeah, I'm happy to see that. Listen, we had a great prize courtesy of Squadron and you know I'm happy to see our listeners getting an opportunity to basically win something like this.

I mean, it's a really big prize and I'm pleased that the number of people who chose to throw their hat in the ring Well, we owe Brandon a big thank you, and all the fine folks at Squadron for helping us out with this and for their generosity in providing the kit and I hope, hopefully, it will lead into this book launch and it'll all be.

I'll be awesome yep, and hopefully we'll get to do this again with brandon sometime I hope so.

If not, we'll figure out another way to do it. I think there's gonna be more of these going forward, regardless of the how they come about. But yeah, that'd be great too.

Yep, absolutely.

Well, dave, I didn't know what to expect and you know, we did something a little different. We opened it up to everyone, only only given our contributors a bump in the hat, given three entries versus one, if they'd contributed to the show over the well, since a plastic model mojo started, really, and the way that shook out was, dave, we had 122 total entrance.

Okay.

That ain't bad.

No, that's not bad at all.

These entrants spanned 11 countries, All right. Now we had, of course, a bunch of folks from the US. They were all from the lower 48. So we had nobody from Hawaii or no one from Alaska. Okay, Canada was well represented, and we had folks from British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia.

Well, you can always count on Canadians to come out for a chance to win free stuff.

And all our folks down the lower Pacific Rim showed up. We had quite a few from Australia and New Zealand Great and quite a few from the UK, including Wales. All right, thought that was interesting. Yeah, wasn't Tom Jones, though?

Okay, well, now that.

Ryan Reynolds owns a Welsh soccer team. You know, wales has gone global. At least they're partly Canadian. Now, yeah, that's right, partly.

Canadian now.

Yeah, that's right. We also had entrance from Sweden, the Netherlands, poland, germany, croatia, malta. That one was interesting, yes, and the Philippines.

By the way, Malta has a really good modeling scene. There are a lot.

Malta holds a great model contest every year on the island, and there's a dedicated group of Maltese modelers. Well, folks, it's time to pick a winner.

All right, and we had to have the house lifted off the foundation to lower in the Doofenshmirtz Incorporated Mojo Prize-inator. I can tell the children you raised, same kids I raised.

And we took all these fine folks who entered the contest and we signed them all a number and randomized all the information and we plugged it into the computer and now it's time to fire it up. Dave, Give it a whirl. All right, folks, here we go.

All right, great sound effect.

We have a winner, dave, and who is our winner? Mr Keith Witt from Brigham City, utah.

All right, mr Witt, congratulations. See, all it took was an email.

That's right Now. You're the proud owner, or will be soon, of a Hobby Boss B24J Liberator. All right, so hopefully it's in your wheelhouse and boss B24J Liberator.

All right.

So hopefully it's in your wheelhouse and it looked like a fine kit. It is, it is. Now I cut my teeth on the monogram B24J. It's the first model experience I ever had.

Wow.

And this kit looks like it's come a long way since then.

Absolutely.

Well, keith, we will get your shipping information off to Brandon Lowe at Squadron and he'll hustle that kit right out to you.

That's fantastic.

Well, that was a lot of fun, dave, so much fun. I think we're going to need to do it at least once more, and we'll do it a lot more. As much as we can do it, we'll do it, but we do have the next one on the horizon, folks. So if you saddled up for this one, you're going to want to hang around for the ride onto the next one. And what are we going to give away, dave?

I think we ought to give away an airbrush.

I think we should too. I think we're going to be giving away an airbrush. I think it will be an H&S model. I think it will be an H&S model. I think we're going to determine which one we want to give away first. We've got a couple we could give away, and that's all we're going to say about that yet, but I think we're going to try to do that sometime after the first of the year.

Yeah, Don't start sending your emails out. Wait for the official announcement. But just to tease it, we're going to be doing this again. Same rules If you're a Patreon supporter, you get three names in the hat, whereas just a regular listener you get one. And we're going to do it sometime after the first of the year. So keep listening, and when we make the announcement we'll have you send in the emails.

Well, let's clarify it's not just Patreon, it's contributors in general. Yes, I'm sorry, if you've contributed financially to Plastic Model Mojo at any of the avenues we have, you're going to get your name in the hat three times.

Yep.

Yep, and we'll provide all those details at the front end of the next giveaway. But until then, dave, let's thank Brandon Lowe again one more time and all the fine folks at Squadron, and we really appreciate him helping us make this happen.

Yep absolutely.

Well, once again, Dave, that was a lot of fun and we want to thank Brandon and the fine folks at Squadron for making that possible with us.

Yep, it's nice to A do something for the listeners, b do something particularly for the Patreons as well. It really it gives us a chance to do something for you all, because, whether you know it or not, you all do a whole lot for us and we really appreciate it.

Just like that B24 is going to land on someone's bench. Our own workshops, dave, have been getting some decent action the last couple weeks. Yes, they have. Well, why don't you start us off and let us know what your Benchtop Halftime Report is going to look like?

Well, I've got two projects, one of which I can talk about fulsomely and the other one I only can talk about obliquely. The SAM is well on the way to having the decals finished. I've got one or two more decals to apply. The decals have been a little bit of a challenge due to their age. Basically I'm working with 30-year-old decals and it took me a little bit to figure out how to work with them. But it's going well.

Decaling should be done very, very soon. At that point, very soon. At that point, once the decals are done, I will put on a matte or semi-matte finish and at that point I will start applying the skills we discussed with Steve Husted in the last episode to see what kind of weathering effects I can do. This was a little used aircraft, so the weathering's going to be subtle, but it's going to be there and I've enjoyed it. I've got to say, and seeing it this close to the finish line, it really gets my juices going, so I'm thrilled about that. And then I've got the Musaru, which I can't talk a lot about. I did post a photograph on the dojo of my podcast on the.

Moosaroo. I'm not sure it was as enlightening to people, but it's coming along. The things I can tell you it's coming along. I'm encouraged by where I am in the process. I have figured out what I'm going to do for the vignette part of the requirement and that is encouraging to me. I've got it in my head now I know what I want to do. I like the idea. And now again, there won't be any pictures on the dojo. I may give you all just a general, vague update like this, but I'm looking forward to Heritage Con next year because I want to finish a moose aroo on time not just finish it, but finish it on time, and I'm anxious to do that. I'm already looking forward to heritage con next year.

Well, I am too, and gotta have it done before heritage con yep, yep it's the deadlines before heritage con yes, it is what's anything new on the horizon?

well, once I get the sam done, then the I will pour on to the musaru. I will also go back and finish up the bt7, the little flyhawk kit. And then I've got a couple of projects on the horizon. The one that that really applies is the. I've got some hobby boss F8Fs that I have to build for the Septemberist group entry for Hampton next year, and that will be my first really batch build. I've been talking to Inch about that and he's given me some suggestions, so we'll see how that goes. How about you? What's your bench look like? It's been busy, man. I know you made progress in several fronts. I'm proud of you.

The E16 now is a full complement of Hinamaru, so I've got them all on. There's six of them Right, the bottom of the wings and the fuselage sides. Those were the tech mod decals. I got from inch and he warned me they're a little fragile, particularly the borderless ones that go on the undersides of the wings right. I think they're kind of only have one ink layer instead of two. They seemed a lot more fragile than the top side ones.

Yeah.

And then I also had to come back and I slit the decals along all the panel lines, for that last solvent application Got a little flaking there, so nothing terrible. But as a result I've spent a couple of evenings here of late doing some paint mix formulations to get a touch-up color, and that's gone pretty well. I've been through several quick formulations using basically just Vallejo flat red and their vermilion.

Yeah.

Getting real close to that Tecmod decal color. So I think a little just a couple of spots I'm going to hit with that and touch that up.

And once you apply a varnish over it, those touch-ups will disappear.

So, that said, it's time to move on to the tail codes. Oh, I'll mention something else. Yep, I had a big scrap of that pick-and-pull foam laying around. Yep, I think our Pelican case for the podcast roadshow stuff is giving up the ghost. I need to make a new custom insert for for that to carry our hardware around. But anyway, I've got some big chunks of this pick and pull that came from that. Using that stuff I found it really useful to to make a basically a stand or a fixture. I tore a slot down the middle, right in the middle of the thing, to slip the wing in.

And it just comes down and rests on the side of the thing to slip the wing in and it just comes down and rests on the side of the fuselage or one of the pontoons and it makes for a pretty stable. And I was actually going to mention you sent me a picture of what you had done and I looked at that and I went that's brilliant, because doing the ones on the sides are always the toughest and I always found myself leaning the model up against something and all. But I saw what you did and of course I've got a bunch of that packing foam myself and I've got these little containers holders and I just stuffed it full of that packing foam. There's a slit in it, I stuck the wing in it and, man, that was the perfect way to apply the decals on the sides of the aircraft.

I'll be using it some more because the next decals that go on are the tail codes, yep, which are six characters and a hyphen between the three Right. So I'm going to use my old science project poster lettering technique on that. I'm going to put the hyphen on first in the middle Right and then work, work back, work backwards to the first and then out toward the last. I really started doing that, I tell you, for decaling was lettering rib-sided hopper cars with the road name Clinchfield on it, because it's kind of long and it really helped to do it that way. I tell you, the pick and pull foam is a good, quick and dirty fixture, but I keep setting it on top of that build stand you know the jig Right and I keep trying to knock it off that thing. I need to be careful.

Yeah.

I keep trying to break the dang thing and it's aggravating because I'm fully vested at this point to get this thing done. Yeah, and aggravating because I'm fully vested at this point to get this thing done. It's easy to do. It's easy to do, especially the little pond spindly struts holding those pontoons out there. That's where that is. If I don't break it, hopefully I'll have the tail codes on it this weekend and then there'll be a couple of small things on the fuselage, but the pontoon stripes are the last thing to go on it. Looking forward to getting the decals done Well and you've actually made progress on another model as well.

Actually too, but that's kind of the point. A while back, folks might remember me saying I was going to double down on this E16 and stop other work and try to get this thing done. Well, that was all great until I started putting decals on.

Yeah, that is something that you can only put so many on at a time, and you find yourself sitting there staring at the model.

Well, it's kind of anticlimactic when you work all week and you make all these plans for yourself on the weekend. I'm going to get up early on Saturday, I'm going to make me some breakfast, I'm going to go down there and do about two hours before I have to do anything else in the house while everybody else is trying to get going and you put a decal on and that's all you can do. It's like this is a bad plan. I need to pick up these other projects while he's literally watching these decals dry. So got back on the KV-85 and knocked out the rest of the engine deck mods that I was working on before I stopped. I got all the bogus welds removed that are on that kit and reeded all the hull side flame cut edges.

And it looks really good. I mean that engine deck looks great.

It came out really nice. I'm really pleased. The gap between the engine deck and the transmission deck is pretty even I didn't know that was going to go in the end, but it's pretty much the same gap from one edge to the other, so that turned out nice. Now moving on to the side blisters, where they made the turret ring bigger versus the standard 76 millimeter gun versions of the KV.

This is where those new photos I mentioned, or you mentioned, came into play. Uh, they were new to me, photos that popped up on a online tank enthusiast website. Nothing really revolutionary there, but there are a couple that cleared up some aspects of the the forward ends of these blisters and how they're welded to the hull sides. I kind, kind of had a vague idea, but this kind of cleared that up and confirmed it was like I thought it was and that'll probably be what I'm working on this weekend getting those done. And there's some other weld work I want to do on the front end, on, like, the driver's front plate. Need to do a little work there, but that's moving along as these decals dry. And then, during one of our Ottawa Kentucky modeling summits last week, lightly attended I think it was just Evan.

It was just Evan, you and I.

I started working on that 3D printed Flak Panzer 38D I bought from bought off Colts 3D that I printed. I got the rear hull attached and got the suspension mounts and final drive covers on the driver's hatch Interesting, I got some weld seam work to do on that thing too. So that's more of a epoxy putty job there, but yeah, three projects.

Have you found that working with that 3D material was in any way particularly different than working with the plastic on the KV?

Oh yeah, it's just a lot more brittle and a lot less forgiving. Okay, yeah, things want to chip and cleave off when you're cutting them and it's. It's a different I wouldn't say it's different skills. You just gotta the finesse, the nuance of working with that material is just a little different right.

The material reacts completely differently than plastic does when you're cutting it, sanding it or yeah, or, or whatever and it's all super glue construction which I can't stand. So right, yeah, I'm the same way.

oh, luckily there's not a whole lot to it, so once I get rolling here that's not gonna be too big an issue issue, but I enjoy working in styrene much, much better. Yeah Well, that's my bench man.

Well, good Sounds like that's a good bench for both of us, that's been a long time coming.

That's probably a month and a half where I've had that much to talk about.

Well, that's great. Now keep the momentum going, buddy.

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Mike, we're almost at the end of the episode. I'm assuming your modeling fluid's about gone. Mine is the bottle and my pour are gone.

Okay, at this point, uh, lukenbach Road Whiskey from Don Gilman given to us in Madison, wisconsin. So appreciate that, don, and I tell you if folks would dig back in the back catalog. I believe Rob Booth gave us a bottle of this back in Omaha.

I'd had it at four.

It's an 88 proof. It's a good sipper. Again. I don't know if it's young or starting to wonder if this is just not a Texas. Oh, it's the water or the homegrown grains or what, but it's that almost peaty leathery front end on it.

Yeah, and you know that's always been the argument from Kentucky bourbon producers is that bourbon from Kentucky is better than bourbon from anywhere else, specifically because of the limestone filtered water, and they attribute a lot of the taste of the bourbon to that water. So it may be that either the water or the grains in these Texas bourbons is just different.

I don't know. It's good. It's a three-year, it's young, but again it's got a palate that seems to encompass many of these Texas bourbons. I like it. Clearly. I finished it off since we were at the National Convention. Yeah, Folks, if they're to go looking for it, it's a little confusing. I don't know if the bourbon or the distillery has been rebranded. I was looking around on the web and it's the 1693 distillery now and I don't know if they're still calling it Lukenbach Road or not. That's the address of the place, so it makes sense why the bourbon's called that. But it's in Fredericksburg, Texas. A good sip, but I got some research to do about some of the flavor palette from these. Is it Young or is it Texas? I don't know, but it's good. I'd take another bottle of this.

All right, Hint, hint, yeah, there you go. Well, I finished the Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA. It's 7.5% alcohol by volume. It is an IPA. It is also fruit slash juice forward. There is clearly a fruity juicy taste to it, but it's very good, very smooth, very drinkable. It's not heavy. Yeah, I've had this before. I know it's good and I got no problem drinking it again.

Well, I've had their standard Voodoo Ranger. I would probably shy away from that one. I don't let you drink it just because of the palate. I don't know, Maybe it's good.

If you had grabbed me 10 years ago and told me that I was going to be an IPA guy, I would have told you you were nuts, but I'm really enjoying the IPAs You've come a long way on the hops man. Yes, I have. Okay, now we truly are at the end of the episode. Do you have any shout-outs?

I've got two shout-out categories, and the first one is the standard fare. I want to shout out all the most recent contributors to Plastic Model Mojo who've chosen to support the show through their generosity Jason Campbell and this one I'm not sure about. I don't have a full name, I don't know whether it's to be pronounced Zebranic Jones is one word or Zebraneck Jones, Right, One word. Also Rob V, Nate B and Jake McKee. See what I did there.

I see what you did there.

David Brown and Panzer Grenadier, roger and Jared Strawn All these folks have chosen to throw us a little love, dave, through their generosity, and if folks would like to be like them, you can do so at Patreon, paypal or buy me a coffee, and you can find links to all these avenues to support the show in the show notes for this and past episodes. So thank you very much.

Thank you. I'd like to give you all a shout out as well. We will really appreciate it and we're investing in the podcast and the website and we appreciate any help we can get with doing that. I'd like to shout out more generally all of the listeners folks. You know I really enjoy our interactions. I really enjoy what you're putting on the dojo. I really enjoy just everything that makes my modeling hobby experience better. We've really grown a community here and I want to keep that. I want to expand it. If you've got ideas, suggestions et cetera, email us. If you've got stuff that you want us to see or you want the community to see posted on the dojo, particularly the stuff regarding your relatives who have served this year has taken off in ways that I think Mike and I are a little bit amazed by, and we want to keep that going and that doesn't happen without you.

so here's a shout out to all of the listeners well, my other one, dave, is mr bill moore from down middle tennessee yes, bill is a good guy he is. And, bill, you know what you did, so thanks for that. Bill is the curator of the world of armor facebook group. If you're in armor, go join Bill's Facebook group. Enjoy some tanks. Yes, got any more. That's it, man, dude, the bench is calling. I know so many kits, so little time, man, let's get to it.