July’s
Newsletter for
the Quad-City Scale Modelers Society
The Meeting Minutes:
I don’t know if anyone showed up for a bull session at the
Carriage House in June, but we did have about 8 folks show up in
The Dates:
July 14: Chapter
Meeting. Club
barbecue. Keith’s House in
August 11: Chapter Meeting at the
August 22-25: IPMS/USA 2007 National Convention hosted by IPMS/Orange County; Anaheim Marriott, Anaheim, CA; details at www.ipmsusa2007.org
September 8: Chapter Meeting
October 13: Chapter Meeting
November 10: Chapter Meeting
December 8: Chapter Meeting. Christmas party and annual “What If? Contest. The $20 challenge will also be held. Bring in the completed kit you bought for $20 from Ed and get your money back.
Hobby Shop News:
MVR Hobby will be closed from July 3rd to the 7th. They will re-open July 10th. Mel has some new stuff on the shelves as well.
Hobbytown: They are having a 50% off sale on models until they are all gone. This is being done to clean the shelves for the next big order. They still have some pretty good armor left, with some ships and cars. Aircraft are pretty much all gone.
Majors have some new consignment stuff and expect more in the coming weeks.
Barnes and Noble book store at Northpark Mall have the latest model magazines in.
SPASAM
Newsletter.............VOL 1. #1
The Regional report:
Okay Boyz and Girlz...............it was a GAS!!!!!!! It really was a Gas!!!! (From Humble Pie's Performance at the Fillmore)
This is the following posted on the IPMS/USA Forum. “It was a tremendous success and I will let
Herr Thorne report on that and get the accolades the Team so richly
deserves. As the Region 5 Coordinator that accepted this Bid, it was
unique in the fact that it accomplished three things. NUMBAH 1: It gave a NEW
crew the experience needed to put on a Regional. Yes, several of us were on
hand that served and ran the 2001 National Convention.......BUT, it was our
intention only to weigh in when asked. In that respect, these guyz did an awesome job and gained so much experiance that anything is now possible. NUMBAH
2........It also was IPMS/SPASAM's first solo effort
in the Local or Regional arena giving the Region another tree to bear
fruit from. NUMBAH 3.......it was the first time that I've seen a
Most of all, I would like to say HI JOE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God I
can't wait till the next time........it really felt extraordinary to get the
Band back together again. It was GREAT to hang out with you guyz from
Cincy....
YES.............the disappearing act was planned....(I was in the Bar having a Beer with Herr Stover and Schock).......I do not like being put into a spotlight, but I do appreciate the Award and you thinking of me. Again, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! More from Ronbo in the coming dayz with the particulars :)”
So Gang................as you can see it was very cool!!! My THANKS to all that made this happen. There were 433 Kits entered by 100 Modelers. Display kits did not enter into this. John Leyland took the Judges BOS with his Dio of the USS INDIANAPOLIS. There were also several deserving kits all around but the detailing involved that s noticed the second time around really made this stand out. Ed Wahl can supply us with a winners list that will be posted on the website and perhaps shot out to you via this newsletter.
IPMS/Ft. Crook was awarded the 2008 Regional. That will be in NE. YES, the vendors had a few issues but nothing that was overcome. The Vendor area was a tad oversold but that is now in the brain bank and point taken. No........there was NO FIGHT. But, confidence was high :) The Money Part right now is now in approx. numbers only.............but SPASAM is set for a long time. Mike can give you the numbers at the Meeting. Dinner afterwards was very special and I didn't have that feeling of camaraderie in a long time. I missed it so............and I will make it a point to show up more often as work permits :) God Bless You and I'll have more down the road!!!!!!
Jack Bruno IPMS #25313
SPASAM Newslettewr Editor
Region 5 Coordinator RETIRED
2003 Regional Coordinator of the Year
Drafting Guys Over 60
A contribution from Paddy McGannon:
I’m over 60 and the Armed Forces say I'm too old to track
down terrorists. (You can't be older than 35 to join the military.) They've
got the whole thing backwards. Instead of sending 18-year-olds off to fight,
they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn't be able to join a military unit
until you're at least 35.
For starters:
Researchers say 18-year-olds think
about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a
day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on
the enemy. Young guys haven't lived
long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. If we
can't kill the enemy we'll complain them into submission. "My back hurts!
I'm hungry! Where's the remote?"
An 18-year-old hasn't had a legal beer yet and you shouldn't go to war until
you're at least old enough to drink. The average old guy, on the other hand,
has consumed 126,000 gallons of beer, and a jaunt through the desert heat with
a beer and an M-60 would do wonders for the old beer belly. (Note there are 24
hours in a day and 24 bottles in a case...another convenient way to measure
time!)
An 18-year-old
doesn't like to get up before
If captured we
couldn't spill the beans because we'd forget where we put them. In fact, name,
rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser.
Boot camp would be easier for old guys.
We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and we like soft food.
We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We like them almost better than naps.
They could lighten up on the obstacle course however. I've been in combat and didn't see a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training. I can hear the Drill Sgt now, "Get down and give me ... er ... one." Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy. I've never seen anyone outrun a bullet. An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He's still learning to shave, to carry on a conversation, and to wear pants without the top of his butt crack showing and his shorts sticking out. He's hasn't figured out that a pierced tongue catches food particles, and that a 400-watt speaker in the back seat of a Honda can rupture an eardrum, and that a baseball cap has a brim to shade eyes, not the back of his head. These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm's way. Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten cowards who attacked us on September 11. The last thing an enemy would want to see right now is a couple of million old farts with attitudes.
Regional Coordinators Corner:
Hello Region 5,
Yes, it is that persistent Regional Coordinator again. I bet some of you are just mumbling “does
this guy ever shut up?” The answer is
generally only when my wife tells me to.
As I have mentioned from the beginning, I plan to be a frequent
communicator. I hope you all will
communicate back with me from time to time.
First, I want to apologize to the West Central Mo chapter for not making
their show after I said I would. My ride
got ill the night before and my wife (with our good car) had family commitments
so I was without reliable transportation at the last minute. Guys, I know you set me up for some meetings,
I owe you. Next item. Most of you who are receiving this are your
chapters’ contact. As such you should
have been receiving some recent things sent out by our DLC, Dick Montgomery,
about the duties of the Chapter Contact and using the Chapter Fact Sheet. I know some of you are already on the ball
with this and will breeze through the charter renewal process in the fall. I hope all of you are getting familiar with
these forms and the process. If I can
assist you in any way, please let me know.
Regional Convention. I want to thank Ron Thorne for a great
event. I am not positive about the
numbers but I think they were about 100 participants and over 400 models. I am sure they will give us an update
shortly. I was there and greatly enjoyed
speaking to those who attended. I
thought the event went really well and did not notice any hiccups to dampen
anyone’s spirits. As a result of the
conversations there, I have some things to focus on for the RC’s website and to
discuss with IPMS USA on behalf of our chapters. Thanks for taking the time to talk to
me. I am very pleased to announce that
IPMS West Central
Drum roll Please, the 2008 Region 5 Regional will be hosted by IPMS Ft.
Crook on May 16th-17th.
Regional Coordinator’s website. I am very close to getting this going. The hold up is me, getting the material to
the webmaster of the hosting site.
Again, one of the things I will be posting on it is bios on chapters and
members within Region 5. Another thing I
want to do is provide links to the chapters in Region 5 that will take anyone
visiting my page, straight to your chapter’s website. So…..I am requesting that you send me a good
quality JPEG of your chapter logo so we can use that for the link. Some other things I will hopefully be adding
are some descriptions of the contest/regional process for approval. Basically it will be primarily based on the
one Jon Vanek has in Region 6. As a result of talking to some folks at the
regional, I now have some things to add to this site such as scheduled events
(with contact information). Judging. I want to
thank Sam from IPMS SPASAM for getting me a list of those who judged at the
Regional. I will be contacting each
judge and asking if I can place them on master list for Region 5 so those who
hold shows can contact them for help. A
mix of judges not in a host chapter goes a long way to prevent accusations of
“home cooking”. Sam and IPMS SPASAM did
a great job of getting a mix of judges.
There were judges from
Mike George
Region 5 RC
Kit Review: Italeri 1/35 Scale Kit No. 6462; LVT-2 Amtrac
By Cookie Sewell
Price: $45.00
Advantages: first kit of this vehicle in this scale; very nice interior details
Disadvantages: as it comes, will only build into a late-production version of the base LVT-2; some shortcuts in production; tracks are a matter of acceptability (see text)
Rating: Highly Recommended
Recommendation: for all "alligators" and US WWII fans
Since Italeri released their first LVT kit in 2001 (LVT-4
Water Buffalo, No. (6)379) they have also produced two others, the LVT(A)-1 and LVT(A)-4 but to mixed reviews. Acceptance of the kits depends upon what the
modeler wanted to see, and over six years has ranged from very happy to
extremely disappointed. The first kit was met with the same views - it was
either (A) "kit of the year" or (B) "dog of the year" with
little in between. As then, my views on the kit were (C) None of the above.
This model builds on the previous kits and has its own unique points, both good
and bad. The actual LVT-2 was a developed version of the "proof of
concept" LVT-1 and fixed many of its problems with thrown tracks by
modifying the track return roller assemblies, adding five feet to the bow
section to provide a more seaworthy hull profile and solve some of the handling
problems with the LVT-1. It had a down rated version of the engine used in the
M3 light tank family, and over 2,950 were built with about 52% going to the
Army and 46% to the Marine Corps. Its one fatal flaw was the fact that the
troops carried in its hull compartment had to climb up and over the sides to
get out of it, which silhouetted them for Japanese machine guns and caused a
lot of casualties. It also made loading and unloading anything other than man-
handled cargo very awkward and difficult. Due to crew casualties two options
were taken, one being a simple armored sheet with slits stuck over the normal
folding windows in the cab, and the other being a full- fledged armored cab and
appliqué package. This kit provides the basics for a mid- to late-production
LVT-2 and the sprues indicate that somewhere down the line Italeri has an
LVT(A)-2 variant coming as well. The kit only comes with the "two hole" version of the sponsons, as those are shared with
other kits. Most of the early production LVT-2s had four, with two more being
located about 30 inches above the two in the kit; this is an annoyance to have
to build as it requires a lot of cutting and filing to get the holes to match.
The kit is fine as it comes, but some modelers would have liked the option. The
running gear has taken a lot of heat as Italeri unfortunately simplified much
of it to provide an easy to assemble kit. When assembled it looks the part, but
some items could be better done such as the idler adjustment assembly. The most
savaged part of the Italeri LVTs has been their
tracks. Now admittedly many people do not like Italeri tracks in general as
most of them tend to be very stiff and inflexible, and that is not a good
quality for a model that intends to represent a prototype with curving or
drooping tracks and flat runs. The ones in this kit have been hit hard on those
grounds. The biggest problem is the fact that in order to get a clean
"pull" from the molds there are two ejector pins located in the
"cups" of the track shoe attachments, and those do degrade their
appearance. The tracks also do not sit down on the identical drivers and
idlers, so to get a proper look the teeth must be trimmed down to get the
tracks to sit properly. But the tracks, like many model parts, are part compromise,
and overall they really do not look all that bad when properly seated. (The
alternative is to seek out a resin set or a $90 after-market set which is as
close to correct as one could possibly hope for, but it is up to the modeler if
he wants a $45 weekend build that looks good or a $200 one that looks fantastic
- e.g. brass, the high end tracks, etc.) Ittaleri has done a fairly decent job
on the interior, as it comes with the driveshaft and tunnel in two parts split
laterally, but once assembled it looks fine. The kit also has the floor plates
for the gunners in the right spot and other interior details which match the photos
I could locate and my own slides from
a solid styrene tow cable, which is borderline in this
day and age. Note that there are a number of holes that must be opened from the
inside during construction, and while called out careful attention must be paid
during construction or you will miss the callouts. Markings are provided for four vehicles, but
sadly Italeri has picked four nearly identical ones with identical overall grey
schemes. They cover vehicles from Saipan 1944,
Kit Review—Ed Mate
Modeling notes for
Hasegawa’s 1/48 F-86F Sabre
Courtesy of IPMS
Will-Cook Newsletter
Because I like to build kits in pairs, I was looking for a subject to pair up with my F-86D. I considered a Korean War F-84 and F-86. You don’t see many completed F-84 kits, but in the end the appeal of so many Korean War aces’ F-86’s won out. I used the original issue Hasegawa kit that I swapped a couple of submarines for at the Will-Cook SHOW XI. I started building this kit at the cockpit – only not per the kit instructions, but using an Aires resin replacement cockpit. Once the parts were cut away from the pour sprues they were painted Floquil black. One of my references indicated all Korean War F-86s had flat black cockpits. The ejection seat, however, seems to be a bit more variable. In color photographs, I’ve seen black and grey, sometimes with a silver back plate, and with red or black head pads. I chose a grey seat with red head pad. Once again (like my Ki-100 cockpit) there were no instructions about what portion of the kit fuselage halves need to be removed. I ground away the rear deck (under the canopy) and started fitting the large resin cockpit tub. One of the less pleasant tasks of this kit was cleaning up the ejector pin marks on the insides of the intake trunk halves and exhaust pipe halves. I filled mine with putty, followed by tedious sanding, Mr. Surfacer, and more tedious sanding. Then it’s on to gluing the halves together followed by more Mr. Surfacer along the seam and even tighter tedious sanding. Once everything was smooth the inside was airbrushed silver. The intake was glued to the nose piece; then both intake and exhaust assemblies were glued to the right fuselage half. At this point I realized the ejector pin marks on the inside rear of each fuselage half can be seen (the tail pipe ends short of the marks), so I filled and sanded to make those go away. Once all of the detail painting of the cockpit was done, the instrument panel was added and the assembly was fitted inside the right fuselage half. I added a little lead in the nose just to be sure the model will sit properly on the landing gear. With all of the internal parts done, the two fuselage halves were joined. This was not an easy task! I could apply pressure with my fingers in the right spots to persuade the gaps to close and the joints to line up, but no amount of tape and clamps could do the same thing. I started this task when I had an extra 15 minutes before having to leave for work and was late that day when it took almost a half hour to clamp and tape to end with something acceptable. That evening after removing clamps and tape, I found I could not live with the result between cockpit and rudder on the fuselage top, so I split this seam. With all the stress that joint was under, it was easy and resulted in a 1/32” gap. The second time around I used super glue (gel type) and ended up with much better alignment (and I pray the super glue never fails under the stress). Needless to say, I spent a fair amount of time with files, sandpaper, and scribing tool to get all the joints looking the way I wanted. I inserted a .012” shim between the right fuselage half and the fuselage insert in front of the nose gear well, another small .012” shim at the rearmost part of the fuselage spreader (under the wings), and a .005” piece of plastic on the right wing top half (to increase span). These shims filled the biggest gaps and helped keep the putty content down. Next time (well, I did build five Hasegawa P-47s, so there will likely be a “next time”), I’m not going to add the nose piece to the right fuselage half; I’ll add it after the two fuselage halves are joined so that I get a better result with the joint up front. If that weren’t enough, during a club meeting, when talking about the progress I’d been making on the kit I noticed that the rudder wasn’t straight. It had a gentle bow in it curving off to the right from bottom to top. This had to be fixed! With fingers and thumbs I applied “persuasion” to counter the bow. I fully expected white stress marks to develop in the plastic; instead I was treated to a “snap”. Fearing the worst, I flipped the model over to discover what happened. Fortunately, the “snap” came from splitting the leading edge seam open. A little more persuasion and I finally had a vertical rudder. Some liquid glue and clamps fixed the leading edge seam and I was on my way once more. The wings and tail are nice moldings. The lower wing on my kit had a kink in the trailing edge, but it was not a problem when glued to the upper wing half. The wing fences are a bit thick for my taste, so I plugged the rather large locating holes in the top wing halves with stretched sprue and thinned down the kit parts. In doing this I lost the stiffeners on one side (I placed the lost detail inboard), but the fences are about half as thick and look much more to scale. Joining the wings to the fuselage went smoothly (with the .005” shim added earlier). I had some gaps both front and back on the fuselage underside but these were eliminated with some stretched sprue and putty. The drop tanks are split into left and right halves rather than top and bottom, but the seams cleaned up OK. The drop tank fins are a bit thick, but not as much as you might guess – I was surprised at how thick the full-scale fins look in photographs. I replaced my kit fins with thinner replacements from plastic card anyway. The kit parts measure .024” thick, which scales to over one inch thick on the original. Using 0.010” card put them much closer to reality. To get the stabilizer/elevators attached with consistent dihedral (they are not horizontal; they angle up), I made a cardboard jig using the correct angle from a scale drawing. Once glue is applied, just hold the elevator against one edge and make sure the other edge is flush with the fin. Almost every photo of an F-86E or F-86F that shows the airplane parked shows the speed brakes out. Hasegawa provided separate parts for the speed brakes so it is easy to show them deployed. I started the painting process with Gunze acrylic white paint. This is the surface primer for the Alclad II metallic paints and serves double duty as a white backing for the yellow areas on the model (which were masked with masking tape prior to painting the various silvers). Even though I used gloss white paint, I sanded the paint with 1200 grit sandpaper for an even smoother surface. I also sanded out bits of dust and a couple of fingerprints (boy, that paint is soft for a long time!). I noticed the seam between the cockpit and the rudder (haunting me again), so I applied Mr. Surfacer and sanded that out. A little more Gunze was sprayed to cover the areas that were sanded through to the plastic. The yellow is a deep orange-yellow; I used some Floquil Japanese ID yellow (for wing leading edges). The base color is Alclad dark aluminum. While putting the first coat on, I held the model by the taped areas. Unfortunately, I rolled my thumb and put a fingerprint into a wing tip. The next morning I picked up the model and proceeded to sand the offending print out. I noticed a new mar on the leading edge. I started sanding that out and saw another. Then I peeled my thumb away from the leading edge. The Alclad had softened the Gunze and it was still soft eight hours later! I waited a day, sanded all of the offenders, and put another coat of Alclad on the model. The marks could still be seen. A day later (after the monthly club meeting) I sanded more aggressively right down to the plastic in some areas. Touch up with Gunze, more sanding, and back to the Alclad to finish the paint job (with ample time before touching the model). Various panels were masked with parafilm, post-it notes, and masking tape, then painted with other Alclad colors. Then I noticed it – cracking! This happened to a P-51 model of mine. A few small cracks formed and a year later it looked like a turtle shell. My wife gave me the day to do what I wanted on Father’s Day (2006), so out came the sandpaper and I started all over again. Yep, sanded right down to the plastic; lots of water and 400-grit sandpaper followed by washing, 600-grit, 800-grit and more washing. Two hours later I was ready to start again. Starting over gave me a chance to reconsider the kit’s wing fences. I decided to do away with the thinned down kit parts and use metal sheet instead. I used my Tiger razor saw (from Czechoslovakia) to cut thin slots in the wing then super glued replacement fences, made from photoetch “extra” stock, into the slots. I had hoped to save the drop tanks, but sure enough, the cracks formed. Off came the 0.010” plastic fins with the paint. I was prepared to use the Tiger saw to cut new slots for brass sheet stock the second time around, but I decided this was way too much work to put into very marginal drop tanks. I cast resin replacements using the very nice Monogram F-86D drop tanks as the master. The second time around I used Alclad grey primer. The primer was sanded with 800- and 1000-grit sanding pads; then the model was ready for the second painting session. This painting session was much like the first, only Gunze paint never got anywhere near the model. The black trim areas are carefully masked Floquil paint. I also masked off the wheel and speed brake wells and painted them chromate green, followed by detail painting and oil wash. The model was sealed with Future before decals were applied. I wanted to model a Korean War aircraft flown by John Glenn (USMC), so I used some Superscale decals. There’s a photograph of Glenn’s airplane in Mig Alley published by Squadron/Signal and another shot in their Walk-Around book. The Superscale decals are not accurate compared with the photograph, but they look OK on the model. Hasegawa has released the same kit many times with different options, including “Mig Mad Marine.” I have found that the Hasegawa decals are well researched (many times they are more accurate than after market offerings), but I don’t have that release so I don’t know if they are more accurate. However, Hasegawa’s decals are often thick and hard to make disappear. Once all decals were on the model, another coat of Future sealed them in and a dark brown oil wash was used to highlight the panel lines. The final shininess was accomplished with a coat of Floquil crystal clear. The model was finished by adding all of the remaining parts – landing gear using Tenax 7R, gear doors, speed brakes, and their actuators using super-glue, and ejection seat and canopy using white glue. I added the resin drop tanks using brass pins and super-glue. The final touch was painting the formation lights using the carrier, but not the pigment, from some red and green metallic paints. Natural metal finishes are a lot of work (when done twice it just about converted me to armour modeling); but I enjoyed building the kit and will likely build the other copies that I have in my collection. I rate the kit an 8 out of 10 on the Mate Meter. Now, would Hasegawa invest in another release (F-86E) with wing slats?
A Mother's Day story
Sent in by Kerri Broman
So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just
recently died. Jack was a great cat and
the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him.
He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom. Well we
have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3 years old
and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves chapstick.
LOVES it. He kept asking to use my chapstick
and then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I
keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he
wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.
Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush around and try to
get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys are
fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse my little one at
the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess and everyone has
long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job
that is motherhood. We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the
car and I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally round
the corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack's . . . Rear end. Eli
looked right into my eyes and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat,
you know that he is right--their little butts do look pretty chapped. And,
frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind. And the only question to really ask at that
point was whether it was the
FIRST time Eli had done that to the cats behind or the hundredth. And THAT is
my favorite Mother's Day moment ever because it reminds us that no matter how
hard we try to civilize these glorious little creatures, there will always be
that day when you realize they've been using your chapstick
on the cat's butt.
Masking
By Pete Hiatt, courtesy of IPMS Orange County Newsletter
Masking is a process by which we are able to progress from a monochromatic, dull, boring, pedestrian finished item to, instead, a multi-color, vibrant, living, outstanding model that brings a viewer into the model from a different perspective, one of realism.
I will cover briefly the use of tapes, liquids, putty, papers, and foils.
Tapes-Masking tapes run the gamut from narrow to wide, thick to thin, flexible to rigid, low tack to high tack, expensive to cheap. For my money (time is money), Tamiya tape is indispensable. It comes in several widths and is easily cut to any size narrow enough for the task at hand. Similar to Tamiya tape is a product called Kobuki tape available in much wider widths of over one inch. Tamiya tape is so outstanding that Eduard, famous for photo-etch, has developed a line of masks using Kobuki tape (similar to Tamiya tape) that are pre-cut for many different modeling subjects. The tack of Tamiya tape is low enough to not lift the surface it is applied to (usually) yet, as the tape stays on a surface longer, it sticks tougher. Tamiya tape is utilized for demarcation lines, canopy masking, and protecting areas from overspray. Liquids-Liquid masking medium is available from many different makers. Some are easier to use. Some are more durable than others. All require care of application and some testing prior to actual use on your project. Don’t be impatient with liquid masking as you may experience a major problem removing it from a painted surface, especially “flat” painted surfaces. Liquids are useful for masking irregular areas such as seat upholstery on automobiles, filling in canopy glazing after outlining with tape strips, landing gear struts, or AFV road wheels, to mention but a few items.
Putty-Putty can be used for many masking chores and help you to get results quickly. This type of putty is available from art supply and office supply stores. It is generally used for temporary mounting of paper and poster items and is not used to fill gaps and joints. There are many brands of putties. My very most favorite is the “UHU” brand. In the world of model painting, however, putties are best used for masking irregular patterns such as camo patterns, filling and covering depressed areas such as wheel wells and cockpits, covering previously painted wheels enabling the spraying of the tire area, and so many more there is not enough space to cover it. The putty is applied as a small ball to an area and spread around with fingers and toothpicks. After spraying, the putty is easily removed by sticking a toothpick into it and lifting, then just stick the putty on to itself and pull out the remaining putty from the masked area. Then simply roll the used putty into the original ball and reuse all of it. No waste!
Papers-Papers, in this case, will include post-it notes, frisket films, paper, and paper towels. Post-it notes can be used for quick, low-tack panel masking and helping to contain overspray when doing touchups or detail work. Frisket films are thin, see through sheets of various tacks and surface finishes. It is easily cut with scissors or knife and can be applied and removed over and over, if necessary. Frisket film is very good for duplicating a pattern and its transparency enables you to see details that need to be considered for alignment. Another type of frisket film is a product called Para-Film. It comes in rolls which are cut to size, and then the film is stretched, let set for a short time, and then applied. After application the film is trimmed to cover the area needed. Paper, including paper towels, can be used with tape to cover areas that need protection from overspray. In addition, patterns may be cut from paper which is then held in place with tape or putty, producing a “soft-edge” when air brushed away from the edge. The blue shop towel” paper towels are lint-free and don’t scratch the surface of your finished project. Using tape and blue towels you can make a localized covering, sort of a glove, which acts as a handling spot and eliminates wear and tear of finished surfaces.
Foils-Self-adhesive foils such as Bare-Metal foil may be used for masking. The pros include a low-profile edge, great conformity, and ease of contouring. The cons include the need to unmask at the earliest possible moment, possible scratches while trying to lift a corner of the mask, and adhesive residue to remove after unmasking.
Review: Skif BMP -3, 1/35
scale
By Dennis Leonituck, Jr. IPMS #35776, courtesy of IPMS Richmond Spare Parts Newsletter
The BMP-3 is a
further development of the BMP series of fighting vehicles designed and produced
by the
Parting shot:
A stranger was seated next to a little girl on the airplane when the stranger turned to her and said," Let's talk. I've heard that flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.
"The little girl, who had just opened her book, closed it slowly and said to the stranger, "What would you like to talk about?"
“Oh, I don't know", said the stranger. "How about nuclear power?"
"OK," she said. "That could be an interesting
topic. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat
grass, the same stuff. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns
out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose
that is?"
The stranger thinks about it and says, "Hmmm, I have no idea,"
To which the little girl replies, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don't know s**t?"
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