Conquer Fear By Doing, with Tim Nelson: Episode 152

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
The Voice of Bob (Bair) (00:11):
Welcome to Plastic Model Mojo, a
podcast dedicated to skillmodeling, as well as to news and
events around the public.
Join Mike in Kentucky Days totry to be informative,
entertaining, and help you tokeep your modeling module alive.

Mike (00:44):
Well, we're at 152 Mojovia in Kentucky.
Dave, I've been looking forwardto this all day because it's
the first time I've gotten tosit down.

Kentucky Dave (00:51):
Yeah, it's that time of year, man.
That time of year.
And especially you have to takeadvantage when you get a
halfway decent weather day inthe late fall because you gotta
get what you can get doneoutside while the while you're
not doing it in 35-degree windblasts.

Mike (01:10):
Well, did you get your lights up today?

No, I did not, but we've got the tree, but we
normally put the tree up the dayafter Thanksgiving.
We got the tree up uh almost aweek ago, got the lights on it,
and I actually spent part of theday decorating it.

Mike (01:30):
You should start it outside, man.
You're gonna be pushing a badposition now.

Yeah, I know.
I know.
You you are not wrong.
You are not wrong.
Although the weather looksdecent for tomorrow.

Mike (01:41):
Well, you better get out there because it's gonna tank.

Yes, it is.

Mike (01:44):
It's gonna get cold, and then next Saturday it's gonna
rain.

So yeah, it's not gonna get Minneapolis cold, but
it's gonna get cold.

Mike (01:51):
Well, if you're out there and hanging lights, it don't
have to be too cold to get cold.

You are right about that.

Mike (01:57):
Well, enough about that, man.
What's up in your model sphere?

Well, my model sphere is doing good.
Not great, but good.
I went to Murfreesboro.
I had a grand old time, didn'tbuy anything.
I sold uh some stuff.
I found some good homes forsome of those books that we've
been talking about since March.
And I got to see DavidGelbacher and have a very nice

(02:21):
steak dinner with him after theshow.
Got to see Bill Moore, got tosee uh any number of people who
you and I have interacted withas listeners, and everybody was
missing you.

Mike (02:34):
Yeah, Bill gave me a hard time.
I said he should have got cheapon my appearance fee.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, the funny thing is, I wassurprised.
The the sh the contest is.
Do you remember the last timewe went to Murfreesboro?

Mike (02:49):
Barely, but yes.

Has to be what, 15, 18 years ago at least?
Something like that.
Do you remember the facilitywas out in the middle of nowhere
and we had to run up to that uhcheap gas station?

Mike (03:03):
Yeah.

Man, it's all held in the same facility, the
exact same place.
And man, you would not believein 18 years or 15 years or
whatever it was, the sprawl thathas grown around it.
I mean, it is just it's in themiddle of suburbia with all of

(03:27):
the grocery stores and andrestaurants and traffic jams and
everything.
The game, it was amazing.
It took me a minute to realize,yeah, this is the same place,
you know, the same facility inthe same place.
Because wow, when you when weall were there, it was uh it was

(03:49):
completely different.
But I had a great time, andthat inspired me to come back.
I've I've started a project ofthinning out my my model paints
and cataloging the ones that I'mkeeping.
Going to do a New Year'sresolution on getting my
supplies thinned and organized.

Mike (04:10):
Can't wait to hear it.

Yeah.
So how about you?
How what what's your modelsphere been like?

Mike (04:15):
Uh it's been pretty good.
I've been talking to a couplepeople out in the cottage
industry world.
The first one is with a guy atuh his company's called Firma
49.

Yeah, yeah.
I saw those, I saw thoserecently.

Mike (04:33):
Popped up on Scalemates recently, and he's doing a bunch
of fasteners and stuff.
So I was like, well, if he'sprinting fasteners, maybe do
those those Polish fastenersthat are on the turret of the 7
TP that IB didn't didn't quiteget get right and nobody else
makes.

Yep.

Mike (04:49):
He seemed open to it, so I sent him uh it's not much cad
work just to have it as part ofyour line, right?
Right.
Just something else to sell,anything and everything.
Sure.
You know how you know how the3D print stuff is.

Yeah.
That's the beauty of it, isthat you can have tons of
inventory, but no inventory.

Mike (05:07):
That's right.
And we'll mention him again infaves and yawns, but he well, I
told him I I would I sent him aa scaled photo of a scale
drawing from one of my seven TPbooks, and then a photo of one
of the photos in that same book.

Right.

Mike (05:20):
And I I told him these things are drawn on the scale
drawings to about six-tenths ofa millimeter, but I'm not real
sure what the real size is.
And the dome on them is very shvery slight.
Yeah.
But they are dome-shaped.
So I don't know.
I gotta search for someinformation to hopefully help
him.
Uh the other similar situationwas uh a post on the dojo from
RTM, ResinTech Models.

(05:42):
Jan, the the creator there,does does fabulous work, but
he's doing a lot of Sovietexperimentals and and things
like that.
Stuff that's it's clearly hisjam, but it's really not mine.
So I made the suggestion aboutdoing maybe the last version of
the T26 series, a conversion forone of the hobby boss kits, and

(06:04):
uh he's like, send meinformation, I'll look at it.
So I gotta I gotta get back onthat one.
What do I do?
I don't want to send him mybooks.
I probably would if I couldjust replace them really quick.
Right.
But I don't know, it was funtalking to these people and uh
look look at you, you'rebecoming Mr.

Research Resource for the cottage 3D industry.

Mike (06:25):
Maybe one of these will get some traction.
Sure.
I'd love to see Rt RTM do itbecause uh his his kit design
philosophy is not unlike the wayI if I was doing that, the way
I would probably do it.
You know, there's not they'renot real heavy on the print and
place stuff.

Well, and if you can if you can get them, if you
can't reach out to a 3D companyand get them interested in doing
something that you would beinterested in having, and as
part of that, you supply themwith the research so they don't
have to go do that themselves,that's win-win.

(07:07):
And yeah, and again, the thebeauty of 3D is that you don't
have to have tons of inventory.

Mike (07:16):
Not really.
Uh yeah.
I s I I saw he had done on theSMC show in Nijmegen, so he he
took some physical stuff withhim there.
Sure.
And but you know, you you orderthe kits and he sends kits.
So he's you know, he's I don'tknow if he's keeps a small
inventory or prints on demand orwhatever.

Yeah.

Mike (07:36):
Well, that's that's what's fresh in the model sphere.
Good.
It's fun stuff.

Well, we're sitting down on a Sunday night
recording, and I'm hoping thatmeans you've got a modeling
fluid close at hand.

Mike (07:49):
I do, but it's a repeat, Dave.
I'm still kind of working myway through the basil Hayden.

Well, that's okay.
Hey, listen, there's a lot ofthings worse than working your
way through a bottle of basilHayden.

Mike (08:01):
So I usually just keep one around.
I don't collect bottles likesome people do.

Right.

Mike (08:06):
So, you know, I've had this a week and a half,
probably, so I'm taking my time.

Sure.
Sure.
Well, we kind of know whatthat's gonna be like.
It's gonna be anaclimactic, butI'm glad you got a good drink.

Mike (08:21):
Um maybe I'll get something new for Christmas.

Yeah, maybe.

Mike (08:25):
Uh-oh.

I have from a listener, and I don't remember
who, and Mike doesn't rememberwho.
Mike and I are just terrible atwhen people give us this stuff
not writing it down.
And we gotta do something, man.
We gotta, we gotta talk aboutNew Year's resolutions.
We gotta do a New Year'sresolution.

Mike (08:48):
We need some like blank, blank stickers, like avery
labels, yeah, blank addresslabels, just so we can put it on
the bottle and write names onit or something.

What I've got is Suffolk Pride Amber Ale from
Muldoon's brewery in Suffolk,England, obviously.
And if you're the one who gaveme this, please let me know, and
I apologize for forgetting.
And I'll let you, it's a it's anice big bottle, 500

(09:19):
milliliters.
So I'll let you know how it is.
It ought to get me through theepisode.

Mike (09:24):
I'm trying to remember, man.
I should, because that was anunusual one.

Well, as soon as the person hears this and
reaches out, I'm gonna kickmyself because I should have
remembered it.

Mike (09:36):
It'll get sorted out, I'm sure.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Mike (09:39):
Well, speaking of sorting, we got some listener mail, man.
Oh, okay.
Is it in the sorting hat fromHarry Potter?
It is not.
It's in my email inbox.
No, it's not in the in mail.
It's not in the inbox, it's inthe listener mail folder.
Okay.
Well, let's get to it.
Stephen McDonald.
And Stephen is from uh where'she from?

(10:01):
He's in Terre Haute.
Okay, Indiana.
Not too far.
Not uh it's pretty good ways.
Well, yeah, but it's Indiana,so he uh sent us an email from
Sweltering Hot Bali, Indonesia.

Now that is a far way away.

Mike (10:20):
They planned to get married in 2020 and did, and
then a lot of bad stuff happenedand they couldn't have a
honeymoon.
So they're going on their fifthwedding anniversary on their
honeymoon.

Wait a wait a minute.
Are you telling me a guyemailed us for a modeler emailed
us from his honeymoon?

Mike (10:38):
Belated honeymoon house.
I mean Yeah, no doubt.

Okay, thank you for thinking of us, but there
are other things you should bethinking about.

Mike (10:48):
Well, based on the contents of the email, I think
he's uh I think they're overthere for a while.
Apparently his wife had a spaday, so uh Oh, okay.
Yeah, he's been looking forhobby shops and stuff.

Yeah.

Mike (11:02):
Well, the only one he could find on the island there
per well, that they could find,I guess, period, was the Bali
Gundam Hobby Hobby Corner.
Gundams are everywhere, man.
Well, this place was stacked tothe gills, he said, with
Gundam.
And taking the win in Romeapproach, he picked one up and
he's looking forward to buildingthat someday when he needs a
pallet cleanser.
So there you go.

Eve even if you if Gundam isn't your thing, you
ought to buy one and try it justto see what it's all about.
Just as I would encourage anyGundam modeler, even if armor or
aircraft or cars aren't yourthing, buy one, try it, see what
it's all about.
If nothing else, you may learnsomething, and ultimately you

(11:42):
may learn that it's an areayou're interested in.

Mike (11:45):
Well, he's found some mint some modeling fluid down there.
Oh, good.
Says a stark mango ale.
Says it tastes like an orangecream sickle.

Oh, I love that.

Mike (11:55):
And Bintang Rattler, it's an Indonesian beer with the
lemon twist.
So a good rattler's not toobad.

I think I thought we were gonna get a Bali
bourbon there for a moment.

Mike (12:04):
I don't know about that.
Well, he's been trying toimprove his model skills and do
a lot of mental modeling whilehe's been on his trip.
And uh he's found himself,well, now he's back in Terre
Haute lamenting the the lack ofan IPMS chapter near him.
You know, he knows aboutDoonlan and Roscoe Turner.
Yeah.
But nothing up that way.

Hey, take a look at starting a chapter.
Contact IPMS USA.

Mike (12:30):
They'll that's his question.
Any good tips to tap into themodeling community with not an
IPMS chapter nearby?

Well, two two of them.
One, reach out to IPMS USA,because one thing we can do is
we can supply information onnearby individuals.
Now, what we don't do isdisclose people's private
information, but we can takesomeone who's looking to form a

(12:59):
chapter, and we can send theircontact information to to folks
in the general area, which willhelp form a chapter.
The other big tip I would Iwould suggest is make up a
flyer, and if you've got a localhobby shop, put it in the local
hobby shop with your contactinfo.

(13:20):
It doesn't take much to findfour or five interested guys and
gals and start a club.

Mike (13:28):
You could also post on the dojo affairs.
Any other members of the dojothat were within, I don't know,
20, 25 miles of Terre Haute.

Dang, I wish I'd thought of that.
That was great.
Yes, that's something else youshould do.

Mike (13:41):
You should do that, and I would slow roll it.
I don't know that I wouldnecessarily have a club in mind
as the initial kind ofintroduction to all these
people, but maybe get together afew times and see how that
works and maybe get to someshows together and see where it
goes from there.
Yep, I agree.
Well, and he's hoping to getdown to our show and the Roscoe
Turner show and the nationalconvention in 2026.

(14:02):
So that's ought to be prettyeasy from Terre Haute.

Yeah, from Terra Haute.
Yeah, that's gonna be a hop,skip, and a jump.
And you can also go to AmpsonSouth Bend.
That's another one that's gonnabe close by.

Mike (14:13):
It is.
And Dave, he's helping me meetyour IPMS goal 6,000.

Thank you.
I cannot tell you how manypeople have reached out.
I'll I'll get to that later.

Mike (14:24):
Now, Stevens email and this next one came in right
under the wire for the lastepisode.
So, well, Stevens did for sure.
The other one's Mike Mikowski,our real space friend.
Yep.
Who's an early guest of theshow and well he pitched the
Model Zona show for us on theirmodel show spotlight last time.
Yeah.
And episode 150 resonated withhim a little bit too.

(14:45):
Mm-hmm.
He says he's no youngsters ofthe hobby.
He's been doing it for over 50years, and he's got a fair stash
and a lot of full displaycases.
And he's kind of narrowlyfocused.
He's he's got uh severalcategories of aircraft and
spacecraft uh he models.

Right.

Mike (15:02):
Uh mostly most exclusively in 70 seconds scale.
And you know, he's getting tothis point in his life, too,
that he's been selling off a lotof unbuilt kits.
He sold a few dozen through uhJeff Garrety at Rareplane
Detective.
Mm-hmm.
And then in addition to gettingrid of some, he's been building
some over the past couple, threeyears.

(15:22):
He's been building some of thelarger, more complicated things
he bought 30 years ago.
The stuff he would think thatuh, oh, I'll build that when
it's better, when I'm better, orI'll get to it later.
Well, now is later.

And it should be for everybody.

Mike (15:37):
And he's got a lot of these monsters, as he calls
them, done the XB 70, EC 121,DC-130 drum drone controller,
and several others.
A lot of those are all greatkits.
Yeah.
And uh he does have concern,like we mentioned, about uh the
end times, and he's writteninstructions to his family to

(15:57):
help contact the local club andthe national space uh SIG group
about the disposition of hiscollection.
He's made some early overturesto museums, but found they
rarely want scale models, buthe's at least tried.
Yep.
And apparently there's a newmuseum at Edwards Air Force
Base, and he's wondering maybethey'd like his lifting bodies
someday.

And one other thing I'd suggest if you've got
some close modeling friends,pick out one of your completed
models and give it to yourmodeling friends.
It's a way to preserve yourcompleted kits after you're
gone, at least for a while.
You'll remember the club at theNationals that one year who had

(16:42):
a member die, and everybodytook a partially built kit that
that member had done andfinished it.
And it made a beautifuldisplay.
Same thing can happen with yourclub if before you pass on, you
distribute out models to yourmodeling friends in the club.

(17:03):
And then once you know you'reno longer modeling or above
ground, the club can puttogether a display to remember
you by.
And that's it's kind of a nicething to do.

Mike (17:16):
Well, he's got two closing thoughts on planning ahead.
He says he rarely buys kitsanymore.
He has a hundred or so still inthe stash after getting rid of
a lot.
I wish I could say that.
He might buy something new ifit fits one of his kind of
narrow themes.
Yep.
You do that, you'll buy the newlatest, greatest, and get rid
of the dogs, right?

Yep.

Mike (17:36):
I'm in the process now.
And he says he's won a fewawards over the years, so lately
he just builds for theenjoyment.
He's not into the competitionthing much anymore.
And if it looks good on ashelf, that's good enough for
him.

Yep.

Mike (17:47):
She says perfectly finished is better than finished
perfectly.

Yep.

Mike (17:51):
Well, thanks, Mike McCowski, for that.
And thanks for the tips.
Yep.
Man, we got another modelingfluid one, Dave.
Oh, good.
Spencer Talmudge is written inagain, and he mentions
Northwoods Brewing, Landlocks,and Brookie's Pale ale.
And they're out of Hampton andNorthwoods, New Hampshire.
Hazy IPA, very smooth andcitrusy, almost too drinkable.

There's no well, yeah, I get his point.
I understand what he's saying.

Mike (18:19):
Yeah.
Oh, and he got a three-floysglass at Goodwill for a dollar.
So there you go.

Oh, wow.
That's fantastic.
That's the find of the day.
Yeah, we've got a number ofmembers who either post on the
dojo or send us DMs or emailswith modeling fluids.
And we really like that.
You know, obviously Mike and Iare limited to what we're

(18:44):
exposed to, just like everybodyelse is by geography.
And it's really nice to havepeople come in and tell us about
stuff from their area so thateither, you know, that we're
exposed to it and keep an eyeout for it when we go to our
local big box total wine orwhatever.

(19:06):
Or if we happen to be travelingin the area, we know to look
out for that.
So we really appreciate that.
Keep it coming.

Mike (19:14):
Eric Simmelmare has written in again, Dave.
He's a longtime listener.
And uh he proposed a solutionfor our swag dilemma.
Okay.
So I'm looking into that.
So I do appreciate the tipthere, Eric.
Uh and I'm looking at that.
Thank you.

Oh, and on a more general note, guys, if you have
tips for us in relation to thepodcast, things you want to hear
talked about, suggestions tomake it better.
Same goes for the dojo.
We're open to suggestions.
I mean, we want people to enjoythis, what we're doing.

(19:50):
And so we're always, we may nottake every suggestion, but
we're interested in everysuggestion you got.

Mike (19:59):
Oh, you'll like this one, Dave.
Okay.
William Crisman, he also found150 very enjoyable.
He's a longtime uh modelerwho's grown old, and lots of
what Paul was talking about wasvery relatable.
Yeah.
And talk about stashes andmanages them in 151 hit home.
So, well, glad we're helpingpeople.

Yes.

Mike (20:20):
We'll probably move on from this particular topic soon.

Yeah.

Mike (20:24):
But it's been a real popular one.
I'm I guess I'm given thedemographic, I'm not too
surprised.

Yeah.

Mike (20:29):
Uh he started modeling when he was 14, 72nd scale
aircraft mostly.
Yay.
He had the father of a friend,was a military veteran and uh
and was an amazing modeler andhelped him get started, got him
into his local IPMS chapter andhelped improve his skills.
Always good to have a mentor, Ithink.
Yeah.
As long as they're a good one,right?

Right.
Well, uh, you've you've talkedabout Mike Ida Cavage and and
you know what he meant to youfor your growth in the hobby.

Mike (21:01):
That's true.
He lost the script somewhereand didn't build anything for
decades, and then during somekind of stressful life stuff, he
kind of flipped the switch inhis head and started
recollecting the aircraft andvehicles he'd loved from the
past.
And he'd built up a big pile ofwhat wasn't really building
much.
He's just getting himself setup for later.
And then now he's pushing 60,he was gonna look at that stash

(21:24):
and wonder how the heck he wasgonna build everything he had.
So another guy's trimming downand giving away.
Yep.
Keeping only ones he vowed tobuild.
Yeah.
Yeah, you can't vow to buildall of them.
Just not gonna work.

Well, hey, I plan to live to 250.
I'll get it done.

Mike (21:40):
Well, here's the good part for you, Dave.
Okay.
Uh his very first model was aKP72nd scale L29 Delphin.
Oh, I know the kit.
He built that as a kid and hebuilt another one, enjoyed it,
warts and all.

Yeah.

Mike (21:57):
And he decided he's gonna buy as many of those KP models
in their original boxes as hecould find.
And he ended up with abouteight or nine Delphins.
He's gonna build these all indifferent color schemes.

There are a lot of color schemes that was very
popular, particularly in Africa.

Mike (22:15):
Well, the thing about those KP kits, Dave, I'm sure
you know.
Not exactly state of the art.
No.
Even in the 70s, they weren'tstate of the art.
They were behind the wall.
They were coming from behindthe wall.
So those eight to nine dolphinshe had to build, he ended up
cannibalizing most of the eightboxes, and now he has three full

(22:36):
planes with decent fits anddecals.
Yep.

No, that that that's that's one of the things
with building older kits,particularly older kits from
Eastern Europe, but even somefrog and air fix and matchbox
kits.
Quality control is not what itis, and quality generally was
not what it is.

Mike (23:01):
Oh yeah.
Well, he's built a Czech, aCzech one, a Ugandan one, and an
Egyptian one.

I knew he'd do Ugandan.
That's just a great colorscheme and a great set of
markings.
And as you as you noted whenyou did that that little air fix
kit, it it nostalgia builds canbe quite enjoyable.

Mike (23:21):
Especially you don't remember something being as bad
as it is.
Yeah.
Oh man.
Well, he's moved on to 48thskill, unfortunately, Dave, for
you.

Oh no.

Mike (23:32):
But he's retired now and he spends a lot of time at the
bench.
So uh good on you, William.
Thanks for sharing.

Absolutely.

Mike (23:40):
Well, Dave, last episode, Michael Pye from the UK had
written in about uh using AIprompts to to help plan his
diorama basis.
Right.
And he did respond back.
Good.
And I really there's so muchhere I really can't spend a lot
of time discussing it here, buthe's gone through and used AI to
not just do the base, but theaircraft color scheme, the

(24:03):
landscape, the colors of theearthwork, and just goes on and
on and on.
So he's he's he's really putthis to the test and task to see
exactly what kind of stuff hecould get out of it.
So I'll limit this to just uhsaying, Michael, I appreciate
you taking time to paste thatall that into an email and send
in the photographs you did.
Really interesting.

(24:24):
So I'm gonna read through allthat, Dave.
I'm gonna give it a try.
Maybe I'll have more to reportlater.

And if you're listening, please post some of
that info to the dojo.

Mike (24:33):
Yes, that'd be good too.
Yep.
Ken Beckler from the uh JackWisley Polis Coast Watchers in
Peoria, Illinois.
Yep.
Well, he went to Telford withour friend Tom Choi.
Yes, they and had a good time.

And were kind enough to post pictures on the
dojo of their journey.

Mike (24:51):
Especially Tom.
Now Ken claims in his emailhe's gonna catch up to some
degree and post some of the 784photos he took.
Wow.
At the show and at the museums.
But uh sure.
Was really impressed.
Just three huge rooms ofvendors and clubs, and each club
had their own table and andwith a theme, and we're usually
had cookies of candy or stuff tomunch on while you're checking

(25:14):
out their work, and justhundreds of clubs from all over
Europe, and you know, wasequally impressed by the
competition room.
And uh we look forward toseeing all this.
That's that's a show we'd loveto get to sometime.

Yes, it it is.
That's uh that's a bucket listshow.

Mike (25:27):
Well, Dave, the other emails I got are related to
model show activities, and we'regonna do something special with
those a little later toward theend of this month.
So I'm gonna save those.
So that's gonna be my last onefrom Ken Becker there.
So uh what's going on on thedirect message side of things?

Well, we've got a number of direct messages with
a number of them beingrecommendations.
Bob Bear, the voice of Bob,reached out.
There is a four-book series byan author named Jeffrey Cox on
the Pacific War.
And Bob reached out torecommend this four-book series.

(26:06):
He's on the last book and he'senjoyed it so much.
He's sad it's coming to an end.
And I understand that man.
Again, librarian who buildsmodels, so I understand exactly
what he's talking about.
But he did share that thatthese are really, really good

(26:27):
books, and he highly recommendsit.
The author is Jeffrey R.
Cox, and it's a four-bookseries on the Pacific War.
So it's got the the endorsementof the voice of Bob, so take
that to the bank.
Our friend Mr.
Her Hedrick from up in Canada,Mr.

(26:49):
Kit Mask, reached out because,like a number of other people
who sent me DMs, he's joiningIPMS USA, even though he's in
Canada.
And I appreciate that.
And you know, he he's he's anawfully nice person.

(27:10):
And he also asked, what's on mybuild of genuine agenda for
2026?
And do I need some masks?
So that was that was awfullynice as always.
And he also thinks he hassolved the importation problem,
so the selling into the UnitedStates.
So I'm awaiting details onthat.

Mike (27:33):
Yeah, me too.
So Kevin and Janelle, let usknow because uh I was talking to
Janelle uh last week, I think,and uh yeah, they they were
thinking about something.
I don't know if that's whatthey're doing or or uh or if
they got something new, butwhatever it is, yeah, we'll let
them tell it.
So uh looking forward to it.
Well, maybe you know, we'll seewhat's going on.

(27:53):
Might be an opportunity to havehim back on.
I don't know.
We'll see.

Yes.
The next one is Jeff Groves,Inch High Guy.
One of the great things abouthaving so many friends who are
modelers is you end up startingtalking about modeling, and then
you find other areas that youhave in common.
And one of the things that Inchand I have hotly debated is Bob

(28:22):
Lazar and UFOs and all of that.
We it's inevitable at a at a ata model contest, if we've got a
table and we're sitting there,the conversation will will
circle around to that at somepoint.
And he DM'd me to let me knowthat there is a new documentary

(28:42):
on Amazon Prime called Age ofDisclosure on this subject, with
all of the people who haverecently who were mostly people
in the government who'verecently come out and made
claims about what they've seenand uh, etc.

(29:03):
And so he he he DM'd me to tolet me know.
So I'm gonna definitely watchbecause I've been on the more
skeptical side, and if it turnsout that there's an alien body
somewhere in a in a freezer, I'mgonna have to eat a bunch of
crow.
So we'll see.

(29:23):
But again, Inch recommends ageof disclosure on Amazon Pron.

Mike (29:29):
Yeah, I was actually talking to him about that
myself.
I think it's a paid thing, butbe interesting.
Interesting stuff.
We'll talk to him about that ata show sometime.

I'm sure.
And speaking ofrecommendations, Dr.
Dave Geldmacher, happy happybirthday, Dr.
Dave.
It is his birthday today as werecord.
He and I also have a commoninterest in cooking.
And there's a YouTube channelcalled Tasting History by a man
named Max Miller, and it is justa fascinating.

(29:59):
Channel where he cooks aparticular dish from history and
then tells you the historyabout it.
He's got a whole series on thehome fronts in World War II for
the different countries.
He's got sauerkraut soup andblack bread from a World War I

(30:22):
U-boat menu.
Just a really fantastic.
And so Dr.
Geldmacher DM'd me to let meknow that Max had a new one out
on Indian pudding.
And now this is not India,India.
It's the American Indians madea very simple pudding at the
time of Thanksgiving and thepilgrims and all of that stuff.

(30:46):
And Max Miller had a recipe forit.
And it's a really good episode.
And next heard from a listenerand a person coming into
modeling named Lino or Lino, Idon't know how that's
pronounced, Martins.
And he's out in WashingtonState.

(31:06):
And he was big into Legos anddoing Lego construction.
And that caused eventually himto drift over into modeling both
cars and creature kits.
And so he's another member whoA just DM'd us to let us know

(31:29):
that he was a new listener andet cetera.
And also is another listenerwho told me I'm joining IPMS
USA, et cetera, et cetera.
And again, I want to thankeverybody who has heard me and
has responded by joining IPMSUSA.
It's I want to go out on top.

(31:52):
I'm a big believer in theorganization, even with the
flaws that it has.
I thank all of you and thankyou, Mr.
Martins, for letting me know.
Finally, Ethan Eidenmill hasbeen doing the same thing you
mentioned.
Every time he tries, or everyonce in a while, when he tries a

(32:12):
new modeling fluid, usually abeer, he'll, particularly if he
likes it, he'll take a pictureof it and DM it to me.
And the most recent one he hadwas a blood orange beer.
Now, I didn't have the one hehad, but I have had several
blood orange beers, and man,they are good.

(32:34):
They have been really good.
And he recommended this one tome.
I want to encourage people tocontinue to do that because Mike
and I both we really have aninterest in that stuff.
And it's interesting to us whenpeople contact us and let us
know.
So that's all I've got from theDM side.

Mike (32:56):
All right, folks.
If you want to contact theshow, you can do so by emailing
us at plasticmodelmojo atgmail.com.
That gets us the email to metypically, or you can direct
message us through the Facebookmessaging system, or you can use
the contact link in the shownotes of this episode.
Any any of those avenues willget us get us your message.
And we hope to hear from you,folks.

(33:17):
We love this segment.

Yep, we do.

(33:42):
Yes, we do.
One we've been wanting to haveon for quite a while.

Mike (33:46):
Yeah, no excuse for not having him on until now.
Yeah, I know.
Folks, we've got Seattle-basedmodeler Tim Nelson as our
special segment tonight, as ourguest, and just a super guy, a
really well-rounded cross-genremodeler that just tends to
impress Dave and I every time wesee his work.

Yep.

Mike (34:07):
And uh we look we had a good time talking to him, so
hopefully hopefully you folksenjoy listening to it.
Dave, we finally managed to getone of our favorite modelers on
the West Coast.
We've got a lot out there.

Yeah.

Mike (34:23):
But one of our favorite models from the West Coast who
we have managed to see at mostof the national conventions that
we started the podcast.
Mr.
Tim Nelson from the greaterSeattle area in the Pacific
Northwest.
Tim, how are you doing tonight?

Tim Nelson (34:37):
Doing great.
How are you guys?

Mike (34:39):
Fantastic.
Like we talked about ahead ofthe recording.
It's kind of rainy here, butgood modeling weather, like you
said before.

Yeah, and Tim, Mike and I have been trying to
get you scheduled in to do thisfor at least two years.
So I am super excited that wefinally got you to record a
full-blown interview becausethere's just so many topics we

(35:09):
want to talk about.

Tim Nelson (35:10):
Well, it's a pleasure and a privilege.

Mike (35:13):
That's mutual.
We always enjoy your company atthe National Convention and uh
look forward to this next one.
So we'll hopefully see youagain, man.

Tim Nelson (35:20):
Yeah.
Yes, sir.
What's the phrase?
Lord Willing and the crickdon't rise.
I'll be there.
Yeah.

Although the crick is rising right now, man.
I'm telling you.

Tim Nelson (35:31):
It's got time to subside before August.

Mike (35:34):
Let's hope so.
Well, Tim, probably the thingthat has always impressed me the
most with you and your modelingis the sheer diversity of
subject matter that you put yourtoes into.
It's just a lot of stuff.
And now you sent us a littlematerial ahead of time, and in
browsing that over the last dayor so, I mean, I see standard

(35:57):
military aircraft, a lot ofeclectic kind of historic
aircraft, air racers, test beds,science fiction, all kinds of
stuff.
Some real space or prototypespace.
Just it goes on and on and on.
Ships, yeah.
I remember in Las Vegas you hada little ship that blew me
away.

And not only that, but you work in every
medium from standard injectionmolded kit all the way to resin
and to even vacform.
Your was it the BlackburnKangaroo?

Tim Nelson (36:34):
Yes.

Oh my gosh, just absolutely an amazing model.
And just thank you.
You don't seem to have not onlydo you have a wide breadth of
what you're willing to build,but you don't seem to have any
fear of the new challenges thata particular genre or a

(36:58):
particular medium might bringyou.

Tim Nelson (37:02):
Well, that that's a little bit of an illusion.
Believe me, I've got fears justlike the next guy.
But I think it was during thepandemic, the early stages of
the pandemic, that you know,we're all sitting at home
wondering how we're going to getthrough this.
And that was kind of when Imade a conscious effort to, you

(37:24):
know, what can I do to, youknow, rekindle the mojo,
motivate myself, maintain theinterest level as as high as I
could.
And so it was sort of asystematic effort to list out
the fears that I had inmodeling, and and then write

(37:45):
down next to those, each one ofthem, what could I do to try to
attack those fears?
And you know, just over timestart chipping away at that.
And you know, you know, I woulddabble in in multiple genres
before the pandemic, but I thinkthat was really the the
crucible where it it became areal intentional thing for me.

That's the word I was gonna use, intentional.
I'll be honest, it surprises methat it was, well, no, knowing
you probably it doesn't.
Very, very it that that itdidn't just happen, that there
was a lot of thought behind it.

Tim Nelson (38:28):
Well, we all had a lot of time on our hands.
Yeah, true.
Umfortunately, that was when wecould we could start listening
to you guys about the same time.

Uh I was gonna say we had time on our our our
hands.
You built models, we did apodcast.

Tim Nelson (38:46):
Right.
But you know, it's allsynergistic goodness.
Um but you know, I've I haveyou know many modeling friends,
some of which are departed now,but and I've seen so many of
them just paralyzed withhand-wringing about doing a

(39:07):
model or attacking a subjectthat they really like, and
there's always some reason why Ican't do this now.
You know, I'll wait till I getbetter.
So, you know, figure out whatyou need to do to get better,
and once you've checked thoseboxes, just get cracking, you

(39:30):
know.
I I've had a a sticker in myhobby room for over 30 years.
It's an old Nike sticker, itjust says just do it.

Mike (39:40):
Right.

Tim Nelson (39:41):
You know, you remember the old ad campaign.
It's just a hobby.
They're just models.
So don't let fear of failurekeep you from you know, reaching
for something you want to do.

Yeah, I'm worried that on my tombstone is gonna
be the phrase, he was waitinguntil he got better.

Mike (40:05):
Let's hope not, Dave.
Yeah, well.
Well, Tim, that kind ofparallels a little about
approach I have to pickingsubjects.
I'm not quite as diverse orhave an eclectic taste as you
do, but I will pick a projectthat's gonna force me to do
something quite regularly.
I do this.
So I was gonna ask before youwent into the pandemic

(40:28):
explanation of this, uh, youknow, without giving your I'm
all as a kid, then I took offtime in my teens for girls in
cars and college and beer andall that, and then I got back
into it, you know, the thetypical story, but you know how
you got to where you're at, butyou already answered that very
well, outlined these fears.
Fears and challenges.
I I think this is a reallyinteresting approach, but you

(40:48):
know, I'm looking at thesesubjects that you sent us, and
oh man, I can only imagine whatwhat some of these things what
the fears were in some of them.
I see a lot of really highgloss finishes.
I see maybe one that might havesome like maybe plywood
fuselage or something like that,maybe one of those.

Tim Nelson (41:09):
Well, you know, what you don't see are the failed
projects whose pictures I didn'tsend you.
You know, that's that's part ofit.

And and Tim, that is an excellent point.
You know, we talk about fear offailure and and and challenging
your fears and making anintentional decision.
I'm gonna do stuff that'soutside my comfort zone.
And, you know, we look at youand all these beautiful models

(41:39):
that you've managed to turn out,and I'm sure that leads many
people to believe that thereweren't failures along the way.
And and I think that's animportant thing to emphasize to
modelers is to say, you knowwhat, when you do something like
this, when you intentionally goto stretch your boundaries,

(42:01):
when you intentionally try tolearn a new skill, it's okay.
You you may fail, and that'sokay because you learned
something even there.

Tim Nelson (42:13):
Yeah, I would say it's more than okay.
I would say it's it's probablynecessary to fail.

What would you say your failure rate was?
Put a number on it.

Tim Nelson (42:24):
Uh just straight up.
Sometimes the failures are atthe micro level.

Right.

Tim Nelson (42:29):
And you screw up a a part or a subassembly and you
can kind of recover from it.

Right.
You do it again.

Tim Nelson (42:37):
I can't put a number on it, but I do that a lot.
Yeah.
I think one of the mostvaluable modeling skills is is
hiding mistakes and disasterrecovery.
But you know, you know, uh Ihave models that I am absolutely
not proud of.
They're still in my case, butyou know, I don't take them to

(42:59):
the nationals and I don't sendpictures of them to you guys or
post them on Facebook, butthey're absolutely there and
they're they're part of thejourney.

Sure.
You learned something with eachone.

Mike (43:13):
Well, give us an example of one that was a big skill
advancement for you, orsomething that you wanted to try
that you you had been wellfearful of before.

Tim Nelson (43:22):
I would say something that I feared for
years and years was shipmodeling.
And, you know, going to thenationals year after year, uh I
find even though I'm uhfundamentally an airplane guy,
you know, and that was myworking career as well, I would
probably spend more time at theNationals looking at ship models

(43:46):
than any other genre.
Yeah, they're beautiful, and Igot so motivated and excited
talking with Brandon Lowe andhis family, you know, back in
the free time hobbies days.
So knowledgeable, soenthusiastic, and I accumulated
kits and aftermarket.

(44:06):
And I finally decided, youknow, I gotta get off the
schneid and do one of these.
So we do the our one of ourlocal clubs does these displays
for the Museum of Flight.
And we we were planning an 80thanniversary display to

(44:26):
commemorate the Pearl Harborattack back in 2021.
And the guy that was puttingthat display together, his name
is Neil Macar, he wanted to puta different slant on it and
feature more than just theaircraft, even though it's at an
air and space museum.
So he wanted to represent allthe ships on Battleship Row.

(44:51):
He wanted to represent theJapanese carrier strike force,
et cetera, et cetera.
And I thought, damn it, this isit.
This is my moment.
So I signed up for the USSTennessee.
It's my home state, it's whereI was born.

Where where in where in Tennessee?

Tim Nelson (45:10):
Little town called Lawrenceburg in Middle
Tennessee.

Yep, know where it is.

Tim Nelson (45:15):
Um anyway, uh, I knew though that the USS
Tennessee could not be my firstship model.
I was just more of a step thanI wanted to take.
Right.
So I came across this Revellcontainer ship came out a few
years ago.

Yeah.

Tim Nelson (45:33):
And it's still got the superstructure and the PE
railing and and that sort ofstuff that's the bane of the new
ship modeler.
But the it was a small part ofit, and most of it was just
painting the millions ofcontainers, and that I I could

(45:54):
deal with.
So that was my my first stepinto ship modeling, and I found,
as I usually do, tryingsomething new, that you know,
the skills they're the sameskills, it's just a matter of
emphasis, really, when you gointo a different genre.

(46:14):
But, you know, I could get myfeet wet on the photo edge
railing, read what I could inbooks by ex experts and talk to
friends that have done shipmodels and find what works for
me.
And having done that, I feltway more confident about a more

(46:36):
complex model like theTennessee.
And yeah, it takes a lot oftime.
They're not weekend builds whenyou do a ship, but it it
immediately was much morecomfortable.
You know, you don't just likein life, you don't expand your
comfort zone unless you gooutside your comfort zone.

Mike (46:58):
Mm-hmm.
True enough.
Now, was the Tennessee the onewe saw in Las Vegas?

Tim Nelson (47:04):
Yes, it was.
Yeah.

Mike (47:06):
You came up the curve pretty quick.

Tim Nelson (47:09):
For for anyone out there that is a a ship model
admirer and uh and wants to giveit a whirl, but you're afraid.
Uh I wrote an article for JohnMiller's site on what I learned
as a neophyte ship modeler.
It's called a polywog's guideto ship modeling or something

(47:32):
like that.
You can find it on his website,and hopefully that might be of
use to help encourage new shipmodelers to take the plunge.

Mike (47:42):
So that's a great resource.
Well, let's talk about themuseum of flight for a little
bit.
I you forwarded me the uh thedisplay schedule.
Let's let's back up.
Wouldn't you explain to thefolks what the club's
involvement is there?
We'll tell what the club is andyour involvement there and and
what the museum is.

Yeah.

Tim Nelson (48:00):
Yeah.
Northwest Scale Modelers is oneof the two really big general
purpose modeling clubs in theSeattle area.
IPMS Seattle is the the realbig kid on the block.
And back in the 80s, NorthwestScale Modelers began as a, I
guess you'd call it a splintergroup, you know, pissed-off

(48:24):
modelers wanting to break offand do their own thing, you
know, that never happensanywhere else, I'm sure.

No.

Tim Nelson (48:32):
But they met in a local hobby shop in the 80s, but
then in the early 90s, due tosome personal relationships, it
worked out for this club to hostthemselves at the Museum of
Flight.
And the Museum of Flight ishuge, privately run, you know,
it's a nonprofit foundation thatruns it Air and Space Museum

(48:56):
based at Boeing Field inSeattle.
It's a fantastic museum.
We're we're lucky to have it.
I I volunteer there two days aweek, but uh the club meets at
the museum on the first Thursdayevening of every month.
And the museum happens to beopen late on the first Thursday.

(49:18):
So after five, admission isfree and they're open till nine
o'clock.
That's when we have ourmeeting.
And the museum graciously letsus use a room for our meeting,
and in exchange for that, we weput on a big show in February,
we help them out with littleprojects here and there.
And the last 20 years or so, wehave staged these rotating

(49:44):
displays in the lobby.
It's kind of a quid pro quo.
That's a legal term, Dave.

Mike (49:50):
Yeah, yeah.

Tim Nelson (49:52):
But it works great.
You know, it's a it's it's awin for everybody because the
club uh gets a platform to showour models.
The visitors get to see freshcontent on a regular basis, and
the museum, like many museums,they don't have to, they don't

(50:13):
want to handle the models, andthey don't have to handle the
models.
We do that.
We generate the signage andplacard information, and the
museum creates the physicalsignage uh based on that that
goes in the the cases.
But it it's been a greatcollaboration.

(50:35):
We, the club, generally everyfour or five years, we come up
with a brainstormed list ofdisplays or themes that we want
to feature.
We present that to the museum,and they usually they they
approve it.
Sometimes they'll make somesuggestions.

(50:56):
Back in 2016, the museum wantedto observe the centennial of
the Boeing Company, and theycame to us and said, uh, we'd
like you to drop everything andgive us four successive displays
on the Boeing Company.
So we pivoted and and did that.

(51:20):
But in general, they give us alot of autonomy.
I think we've we've earnedtheir trust over the years, and
uh, it's been a greatpartnership.

How how often do you change the display?

Tim Nelson (51:33):
For a long time, we were on a quarterly cadence.

Mike (51:37):
Yeah.

Tim Nelson (51:37):
So you know, every three months we'd put in a new
display.
That was that was beginning towear us out.
Uh because the last thing youwant for something like this is
burnout.
So we we negotiated with themuseum to back off to a
three-a-year cadence, and thathas worked quite well.

(52:01):
It's it's much more relaxing.
Uh and you know, it's good themuseum likes it too, because
it's a little less workload fortheir graphics folks.

Okay.

Mike (52:14):
Well, what I thought was interesting when I went to the
Northwest Scale Modelers weblink you gave me is that the
displays are I don't know how instone this is.
You said you had to pivot oncebefore, but these things are
planned out three times a yearfrom 2026 to 2031.

Tim Nelson (52:31):
Yeah, we try to give ourselves as much lead time as
we can because you know a lot ofa lot of us pick and choose
things that are near and dear tous, and we want to have the
opportunity to to build forthem.
Each one of those displays getsan assigned curator, we call

(52:53):
them.
Sounds a little pretentious,but it's the person that
organizes the display, and andthat person is sort of the
gatekeeper, kind of has a visionfor the display, generates a
list of what they want in it,does outreach to recruit
modelers, develops the signageand all that.

(53:15):
It's been a good system.

Mike (53:18):
It's pretty impressive.
Given the uh the forwardplanning, I might could even
build something for one ofthese.
We had something like thataround here.

Hey, Mike, Mike, you can start your 2031 build
now.
You'll be done just in time.

Tim Nelson (53:34):
You guys were talking, I think it was in just
the last episode, aboutinspirations and motivations and
where they come from.
And I have found, and I am notalone in this, that these
displays that we've done overthe years, they have really
motivated me with the with aneye toward it's an opportunity

(54:00):
to educate the public on some ofthese things.
And this this thing existed.
This is why it's important,this is why you should care
about it.
And it's a motivation that Inever had previously.
You know, if you you'rebuilding for shows or or

(54:20):
whatever, it's a differentmotivation than when you're kind
of aiming for the greater good,so to speak.
And I think others have foundthat too.
Yeah, they are deadline builds,but they're they force you to
make decisions during your buildabout what's really important,

(54:42):
and you don't have time for handwringing about it.
You just gotta make a decision,move on, and get it completed.
And for some reason, this thiseducational motivation doesn't
stress me as much as othermotivations in modeling or other

(55:04):
deadlines, put it that way.

Mike (55:07):
I I wonder if it's the your own you you you are your
own worst critic phenomenon.

Tim Nelson (55:11):
Yeah, it could be.
It since it's not necessarilyfor a contest, you know, and
some of us have had thisdiscussion about how museum
quality is not the same ascontest quality.

Um especially if it's in a case.

Tim Nelson (55:29):
Exactly.
And so uh, you know, I'll admitI I will frequently take
shortcuts on some of thesebuilds because if you think
about the audience for them,which is many thousands of
people over the course of fourmonths, it's the opportunity to
provide a little education onthis little niche of history

(55:53):
that uh is what I find excitingabout it.

Okay, I have to ask what's the next one coming
up?

Tim Nelson (56:01):
The next one.
Well, let me tell you thecurrent one.
Okay, yeah, all about the uhMesherSmith 109.

It's a mod sponsored by Barry Numerick.

Tim Nelson (56:13):
Well, it'd be a problem because this is all 148
scale, and I think Barry'spretty pretty strict about 72.
He is but it's a monograph onthe 109.
We've never done one on the 109before.
Very cool.
You can see pictures on thewebsite, which is nwsm.club.

(56:34):
The next one, which installs inFebruary, is on RAF Bomber
Command.

Oh, it's a good one.

Tim Nelson (56:43):
Exciting.
The one after that is I don'twant to go through all of these,
but the one installing in Juneis a real challenging one, but
but also a lot of fun, and thatis about celebrity and band
aircraft.
Some of which are fatalaccidents, some of which are

(57:05):
just colorful and fun.
I signed up for the BuddyHolly, Big Bobper, Richie Valens
of Beach Bonanza for that one.

Mike (57:14):
Yeah, yep, and that's a good one.
What was Leonard Skinnardflying on?

Tim Nelson (57:19):
Well, uh they were in a Conver 240, and I have
suggested someone do that, butthe only Conver 240 kit that I'm
aware of is Mach 2.
Nobody needs someone.

Yeah, I was gonna say nobody needs that in their
life.
Although you could do Ricky,Ricky Nelson in the C47.

Tim Nelson (57:42):
That's true.
I and I think actually, I thinkthat's on the list.

Is it good?

Tim Nelson (57:47):
I'm not putting that one together.

I was gonna ask you on the 109, does the museum
actually have a 109 at themuseum?

Tim Nelson (57:57):
They do.
Okay.
They do.
They have a World War IIcollection that most but not all
of which came from the old DougChamplin collection that was at
Mace, Arizona for many years.
So his 109 is it's sort of aFranken plane.
It originated as aSpanish-built bouchon.

Mike (58:21):
Right.

Tim Nelson (58:22):
And Mr.
Champlin was determined to makeit look like a 109 E, so he he
cobbled some parts together, andit it looks like an E, but it's
it's kind of not.

Now, when you do these themes, that's what I was
was getting to.
Is there always something inthe museum that is tied to a
particular display or to what'sin the case?

Tim Nelson (58:48):
No, usually there is not.
Um on rare occasions, themuseum will request something
that does tie in, like that yearof Boeing displays, for
example.
That was a big one that came tomind.
But that no, they give us a lotof free reign on putting these

(59:08):
together, and it's worked well.

Mike (59:11):
Well, let's let's pivot back to your own modeling, Tim.
As we said, and you've outlinedas well, you've you've
approached a wide variety ofsubjects.
Kind of what's your your buildmeth methodology and how do you
incorporate kind of the learningnew something into that and and
just at a high level kind oftake us through one of your

(59:32):
projects?
Because I think there's alwayssomething to learn from somebody
who's cranking out the qualitystuff that that you are.

Tim Nelson (59:39):
Well, I think if it's truly a totally new genre
or medium, well, let's takevacuform kits as an example.
I I think I've built five ofthem now.
But yeah, the the first thing Ido is try to learn from the
experts, you know.

(59:59):
So we had a couple of guys inour local clubs here, one of
whom was Terry Moore, who passedaway a couple of years ago,
unfortunately, but great guy,kindred spirit in terms of
modeling.
But he had built, I don't knowhow many vacuform kits, and he
he graciously answered myquestions and demystified

(01:00:24):
aspects of it for me.
And that's kind of the firststep in chipping away at the
fear or paranoia, is justunderstanding what you need to
do.
Um once you can sort ofvisualize a roadmap, whether
it's a model or whatever you'redoing, once you can visualize
that roadmap to where you wantto go, all of a sudden things

(01:00:47):
kind of open up.
But if there's this cloud ofmystery, like, where do I even
begin?
That's a recipe for putting itaway and moving on to something
you're comfortable with.

Kentucky Dave (01:00:59):
When you built your first vacuform, did you
have a subject in mind?
And did you do what you didwith the Tennessee and build a I
don't want to say simplevacuform, but a test build of a
vacuform that wasn't going to beyour ultimate subject?

(01:01:20):
It was your dip the toe in thewater thing.

Tim Nelson (01:01:24):
No, I I kind of dove right in on the vacuforms the
we did an initial Boeing displayin the early teens, and I
wanted to do a prototype of theBoeing B9 bomber.
Oh that was an open cockpit.
I know what it is.
1931 vintage uh airplane.

(01:01:48):
The only kit that ever existedof it is by Formaplane.

Oh god, that is the deep end of the vacuum
vacuform pool, my friend.

You know, they're they're one of those like
several vacuform brands whereyou can actually see the grain
of the wood forms in thestyrene.
Yeah.
But you know, it's the onlykit.
So I wanted to do it, and theshapes, yeah, you could tell
that the shapes were allfundamentally sound, and there

(01:02:22):
was no horrific fit problem, youknow, like one side of the
fuselage being half an inchshorter than the other.
So that was not going to be aproblem.
So it seemed like a good kit tojust focus on the unique
vagaries of vacuform kits.
And it and it was.
And I ended up really enjoyingthe experience.

(01:02:47):
And like I tend to do when Itry something new, I will write
an article about it because Iyou know, I just want to
demystify some of these things.
If if I agonized about it forseveral years and then found,
hey, that it wasn't that bad,I'd like to accelerate that

(01:03:08):
process for other folks.
So I wrote an article in theIPMS journal.
I think it came out in it wasspring 2017.
It was actually the coverstory.
They had a big they had a bigstack of those at San Marcus, I
remember.
I thought, hmm, why do theyhave so many extras?

No, that no, that has nothing to do, has nothing
to do with the popularity of theissue.
We do a run for the currentmembership, and we always do an
overage so that we will be ableto replace when the post office
loses them, but also we can usethem to uh promote IPMS.

(01:03:53):
So actually, the fact that theyhad a bunch of them is an
indication that they liked thatissue, so they made the overage
a little larger to use it as apromotional material.

Well, good.
That's a that's the answer Iwanted to hear.

There you go.
Don't feel bad.
That was that's a that's acompliment, not a dig.

Well, I appreciate that.
Uh I will say that article, inmy humble opinion, is one of the
finest on how to build avacuform kit.
So if if there's a kit outthere where the subject matter
doesn't exist in any other form,and you really want to do a
vacuform kit, that articleshould help you immensely.

Well, and if you're a current IPMS USA
member, you can actually emailthe Historian Publications
Director and they will email youa PDF of that particular
article.
So even if you don't happen tohave that issue of the IPMS USA

(01:05:03):
journal, if you're a currentIPMS USA member, go ahead and
reach out to the historian'spublications director.
They will send you an email ora PDF of that particular article
from that particular issue.

Mike (01:05:21):
So you're immortalized now, Tim.

Yeah, it's right.

I believe the title or subtitle was something like
Don't Fear the Vac or Cure forVacu Phobia or something like
that.

Gotcha.

Mike (01:05:36):
Well now I've got to go check it out, but I know if I
do, I'm gonna get the itch.
So Dave can give me one of hisvacuforms he's got laying
around.

Actually, yeah, I do actually have a couple, not
many, but a couple.

Mike (01:05:51):
Well, Tim, let's talk about uh a recent completion of
yours.
We'll link the article becauseuh John Miller, Dr.
Strange Brush, posted itrecently on uh his website and
linked it to hyperscale and theplastic model dojo.
So hopefully it's getting somegetting some airtime, buddy.
Uh the little bill bus-basedpigeon pigeon loft.

(01:06:15):
Now looking at the looking atthe photos, and you know I don't
know about how big the the billbus is and the scale I'm
modeling.
Actually, I just bought avintage airfix one in 30 seconds
scale one at our local show.
Yeah.
This it's not very big.
And there's a lot going on inthis model.

I should have taken the photo.
I forgot I just forgot to takeat least one with a penny or a
quarter, but yeah, that thatmodel is no bigger than your
balled-up fist.

Mike (01:06:48):
And I know who made it, but I'll let you talk about it.

So well, it's a it was a case where you know the
the multiple genre thing wasdriven, in this case, simply by
cool subject matter.

Mike (01:07:03):
Yeah.

Um, I was on a trip to England a year ago this week
with a buddy, Will Perry, andyou know, we went to Telford and
a bunch of museums, and we wentto the Hannon's shop, and uh I
saw this kit, and I didn't knowthere was a kit of it.
And I guess I was vaguely awarethat these pigeon lofts

(01:07:27):
existed, but you know, I pulledthis thing out and said
instantly, you know, I knew Iwas gonna buy this, and I knew
it was gonna move pretty quicklyto the top of the queue.
And to further reinforce that,the very next day Will and I
went to Duxford, and they havean old bill.

(01:07:49):
In fact, I think it's the oldbill, the one that got that name
in its London city markings,which just reinforced the cool
factor.
So, you know, we've all hadthis experience where sometimes
something gets your attentionand it's just a rabbit hole, and
you gotta follow it.

Mike (01:08:11):
Well, I think I think this subject is really interesting
because and and you you talkabout it to some degree in in
your article, but first off, thethe whole bus and building on
it the way it's done is like themost British looking thing in
the world.
And but uh it's it it's a firstworld war subject, so it is

(01:08:33):
it's a touchstone for thetechnology of the time.
Yeah.
Which is kind of insane whenyou think about what we've got
now.
So won't you tell us a littlebit about the history of this
vehicle and and what uh what'sgoing on here?

Well, I wouldn't call myself an expert on the
history of it, but as World WarI sort of engulfed the continent
and these large mechanizedarmies entrenched themselves,
they had to figure out a way tocommunicate between the front
lines and the rear.

(01:09:09):
And you know, armies have beenusing homing pigeons for
centuries, and so it was amethod readily at hand, and they
recruited the British Army,basically pressed into service
hundreds of those old bill citybuses, mainly as troop

(01:09:30):
transports, but some of themwere converted to be these
pigeon lofts, you know,communications hub back in the
rear, as I understood it, tocommunicate out to various units
up on the front lines.
But you know, it's justfascinating.
And when you see pictures ofthe real thing, they're always

(01:09:52):
just covered with pigeons,dozens of pigeons.
So you know that the model'sgotta have tons of pigeons or
it's not gonna look right.
So, you know, down the rabbithole.

So, where did you find 70 second-scale pigeons?

Well, I scoured the interwebs, and you know, there's
there's people 3D printingalmost everything now, and
there's an outfit in the UK thatalong with many other subjects,
they th they 3D print farmanimals and other animals, you

(01:10:31):
know, diorama accessories,whatnot.
And you can, you know, like allthese 3D places, you can choose
your scale, and they they had72 listed, so check the box.
And it's unbelievable howdelicate the feet were on these
birds.
Mm-hmm.

What's what's the name of the 3D print company?
Because when somebody has agood experience, we try to put
the name out there just like ifthey have a bad experience,
because there are so many ofthese 3D print companies now,
right?
Unless you've dealt with thembefore, you have no idea whether

(01:11:11):
you're going to get quality ornot quality.
So if you found somebody whodid a good job, I want their
name so that we can put it outthere.

Yeah, for sure.
The it was scale 3D.
Okay.
I was just trying to see iftheir website came up, but well,
I can figure that out.

Mike (01:11:33):
Yeah, we'll figure out the link.
Yeah.
Yeah, and we'll link thearticle too, because you do you
do have photographs of them inthe article in their in their
raw state, and just uh just wow.
And this was the Roden kit.
Um is that correct?

Yeah.
Uh you know, Roden has donemore than their share of World
War I military vehicles in 72ndscale and 30 fifth scale too,
yeah.
They just have there's a fairamount of cleanup you gotta do,
which I won't I won't say isthat I enjoy, but just part of

(01:12:10):
the part of the process.

It's modeling.

Exactly.

Mike (01:12:13):
Dave and I say you get a lot of enjoy modeling enjoyment
for your dollar with those typeof kits.

That's right.
You absolutely do.
Okay, so I've gotta ask, how doyou paint 70 second-scale
pigeons?

Oh, with great care.
I I mean I tried because of thefeet on these things being so
delicate, I I decided I wantedto leave them on the bill plate
uh until the last moment.
So fortunately, there was noreal cleanup to speak of.
They were resin printed.

(01:12:49):
I didn't notice any striations,and for that matter, pigeons
kind of have striations.
So I primed them on the billplate.
Uh if you read the article, youcan see how I tried to mix up
the paint palette a little bitto make them look different, but

(01:13:10):
needed to do some hand paintingtoward the end and kind of a
dry brush technique for thatmottled look on the tops of the
wings that that pigeons have.
I did not paint the eyes, thatwas a bridge too far.
Um that's next time.

Yeah, that's right.

Mike (01:13:36):
Uh it's a brilliant little model, and I hope I hope look
forward to a chance to see it.

Oh, thanks.
It was at Hampton.

Mike (01:13:45):
Oh, yes, it was.
I have seen it.

Yep.

Mike (01:13:48):
It it was.
I probably didn't know it wasyours.
Just like the Tennessee.

It's it's awfully little if you're walking down
the aisle.

It it is, but you know, uh I'm one of the many
joys that I have as far ascontests go is the growth in 70
second scale armor that hasoccurred.

Yeah, I agree.

And so now you don't have 70 second scale
models buried in among 35th and48th.
You know, you'll have completetables of nothing but 70-second
scale armor, 70 second scalesoft skins or artillery.
And that's really nice becauseyou can stop and take the time

(01:14:37):
to focus in on just like yourold like your old Bill Pigeon
carrier.
You can actually spend timewith those models.

Yeah, I agree.

Mike (01:14:51):
Well, what's on the bench currently?
Where what's the next fear toconquer?

Yeah, I was afraid you were gonna ask about that.
Um I didn't my standardpractice is to have two going at
once, selected to have to sharesome commonalities.
But for the most part, I'm aserial builder.
I like to I like to start andfinish before I move on.

(01:15:16):
It's how I avoid a shelf ofdoom for the most part.
But with a confluence ofseveral factors, I actually have
seven going right now.
Um finding myself a littlestressed, but I'm doing three
Caudron Simoons, the old Hellerkit.

Yeah.

Beautiful little French monoplane.

Oh, it's a beautiful airplane, and the
Heller kit's not awful.

No, it's it's a product of its time, you know,
circa 1980, but nothing nothinghas surpassed it in 72nd.
Dora Wings has recently doneone in 48th, but I'm also doing
a kit by SBS of a Caudron C600.
Oh gosh, what a beautifulFrench monoplane.

(01:16:09):
And if you've never built anSBS kit, they're a small company
in Hungary.
They are the tamiya of limitedrun kit makers.

Well, yeah, resin, their resin is comparable
to most injection molded, fineinjection molding.
Their G50, their Fairman 190,they're oh, they've got a series
of little trainers, and they'rejust beautiful models, one and

(01:16:42):
all.
Mike actually knows the theSBS, some of the SBS folks.

Yeah, they're they're great guys.
I've met some of them myself,but they just make little
jewelry highly recommend them ifyou want to try something
different.

Mike (01:16:59):
Yep.

If you if you've never done a resin kit, theirs
is an excellent way to startbecause uh they're just
exquisite.

Mike (01:17:09):
I completely agree.
They're 35th skill armorrelated.
They do a lot of Hungarianupgrades for some kits that are
out there that are just they'reall just super.

I'm also working on a Lockheed Vega, one of my
favorite airplanes, you know,from the 20s and 30s.
But it's I'm doing an earlybullet nose version on skis, and
uh this has been the motivationto delve into another scary
aspect of modeling, which is CADdesign and 3D printing.

(01:17:41):
I've had to come up with a newnose section, and one of our
local modelers, John McAvoy, whois a listener, uh graciously
has helped me with quite a fewhours of tutelage on auto desk
fusion.
I've I got a long way to go,but he's been a great help in

(01:18:04):
doing what I've done so far.

Is this your first experience with 3D
printing?
How long have you had a 3Dprinter?

This is my first end-to-end little project.
Uh so John helped me with CADdesign and using the free
version of Autodesk Fusion.
Far more than I probably everneed.
And I bought an ELAGU 3Dprinter, resin printer during

(01:18:35):
the summer, during a sale theyhad.

So this this year.

This year.

Oh, you are brand, brand new to it.

Yep, yep.
And set up a space in anupstairs bathroom that vents to
the outside, because you reallygot to be cautious with that
resin.

Yep.

But I've done the whole process end to end with
this nose section, and so manyof the mysteries have been
peeled back.
Uh, like I said, still a longlearning curve on the fusion
design, but at least thefundamentals of the process I'm
starting to come to grips with.

(01:19:17):
So, you know, it's liberating,it opens up possibilities.

Mike (01:19:22):
Yeah, I I'm to the point now when when I'm you know, like
the KV-85 I'm working on, itbecomes a it's for me, it's
become another another option,another tool and toolbox as the
cliche goes.
I could do it this way, or Icould do that way, or I can, you
know, maybe I could print printall of it or print part of it,
or it's just it's become anothera tool to do things with, to to

(01:19:45):
maybe do part of a model, notnecessarily the entire thing.

Yeah, it changes your your thinking.
So the wheels start turningabout little ways that it can
help you solve a problem.

Mike (01:19:56):
Yeah, I'm I'm to the point.
I don't think I have a personalgrievance with the the the the
complete models that are aredone 3D print where it's only
like six parts and all the ddelicate fiddly bits are are
printed right onto the things.
You don't have to.
Do you it's just that's forarmor.
I think they're handlingnightmares.

(01:20:19):
This is my opinion.
But uh to each their own.
I can understand if you want toget something done till you
break it, it may be a good wayto go.
But I it's not it's not the kitdesign paradigm I would follow
for sure, but uh that's just me.
But again, it's it's a greattool.
I'm be real interested to seethis plane get done and show us
show us what you did with the 3Dprint aspect of it.

(01:20:40):
That's really cool.

Okay, so that's that's six.
There's one left.

Uh that I think that was five.
There's two more that I juststarted.
I'm doing for this Aria bombercommand display.
I'm embarking on the the Airfixrecent tool Armstrong Whitworth
Whitley.

Oh, one of my favorite airplanes.

And I'm gonna do one of the BOAC civil transport
schemes.
And Airfix gives you all theparts to do that.
But they do.
It's it's a great kit.
I really enjoy those new toolairfix kits as palette
cleansers.
For the most part, they gotogether easily, they're

(01:21:26):
reasonably cheap.

Oh, yeah.
The and the airfix, the modernairfix kits are really not for
val value for your moneymodeling.
I don't think you can beatthem.

Yeah.
Well, airfix has always beenthat way.

Yep.
And and the modern kits arevery, very good kits.
You know, they're not theairfix of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
Yep.

Mike (01:21:52):
But it's it's it's good to see them pick some subjects
that are a little lessmainstream like that.
Yes.
Uh that that kind of harkensback to the old airfix line
where they were doing, you know,all kinds of crazy planes.

Yep.
Absolutely.
And the last one on the benchis a a fairy fulmar by AZ model.
Another another purchase onthat Telford trip last year.
So and then I chose it for someparallel commonality with the

(01:22:26):
the Whitley and a few things.

So well, my my friend Skippy is doing a fulmer
right now.
He's doing one out of Salonfrom 1942.

Same kit.

He's got the is his the special hobby?
I think his might be specialhobby.
I'll have to look.
I'll I'll have to to shoot hima text and ask him.
But uh, yeah, he's he'splugging away at that, and it's
just you don't see Fulmers builtvery often.

No, you don't.

Probably for good reason, but it wasn't one of
the more successful designs thatthe fleet air arm ever came up
with.

No, but uh that's not my criterion.
I'm just looking for coolfactors.

Sure.
Again, the wit same thing withthe Whitley.
It's just it's almost so ugly,it's pretty.

Exactly.
Yeah, and these these projectsI mentioned are are postponing
some ships that I really want toget back to.

Oh my.

For years, and I have been girding my loins for a
build of the RMS slash HMTOlympic, and it's World War I
Dazzle.

Oh the de the Dazzle camouflage?

And and lo and behold, Hobby Boss comes out
with a kit.

Yep.

That's you know, right down the alley, and they
even include things like thedeck guns that they installed.

Mike (01:24:01):
Yep.

So that's one that I'm gonna really work hard to
get done in 2026.

That is awfully cool.

It actually, the Olympic had more than one dazzle
scheme, but uh the the later, Iguess the last one in 1918, I
think is my favorite.

Mike (01:24:24):
Those guys had a thing.
What do you mean we gotta paintit again?

Yeah, and you know, you talk about subjects that
send you down a rabbit hole.
Have you guys ever been to theImperial War Museum in London?

I sadly no.

Well, the cafe there is probably my favorite museum
cafe because the entire cafe isdevoted to Dazzle ships of World
War I.
Oh, cool.
And they have it, they have adisplay on the wall of the
actual wooden models that wereused in 1917 and 18 to evaluate

(01:25:05):
candidate dazzle schemes.

Mike (01:25:07):
Yep.

These are the actual models that were photographed
in different aspects anddifferent lighting.

Mike (01:25:13):
Right.

And they they just have a giant case of them.
And uh ever since I saw that,I've kind of been obsessed with
Dazzle.

Yep.
So have you have you seen thatthe Royal Navy and the Royal
Canadian Navy have both startedpainting some of their modern
ships in they're not the harshblack and white dazzles, but
they're doing some of the themulticolored dazzles, modified

(01:25:44):
dazzle schemes, and they'rereally cool.

Kind of uh more of World War II style dazzles.
Right, exactly.
Yeah, I have seen those and Ilove them.

Mike (01:25:53):
Well, a final question would be is there is there a
fear yet, Concord, that youstill want to put on the
schedule for the for the nearterm?

Oh, uh there's always fears.
I I will say I've done a coupleof auto subjects.
I I did a Corvette a few yearsago, which I'm not super proud
of.
I did do the Texaco Doodle Bugtanker truck uh a few months ago
that turned out all right, butI'm still a little bit afeard of

(01:26:28):
those high gloss auto finishes.
So that's that's something Ineed to work on.
And you'd be surprised at thenumber of cars in my stash,
especially vintage NASCAR kits.
Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Like the 50s and 60s.

Okay.
That is truly vintage.

It is, but the cars were were actually still kind of
stock cars then.

That's when yeah, that's that's my whole problem
with NASCAR now.
You know, I want to go back toto the era where you have to
have sold 500 of them and toqualify for NASCAR, and then
they took the stock car andstripped out all the stuff, put
a roll cage in it, and sent youdown the road.

Yeah, no fun.
My interest ended when RichardPetty retired.

Mike (01:27:23):
Yeah, I hear you.
Well, I bet we'll see anarticle about how you realize it
wasn't that much different thanyour glossy air racers.

Well, wait a minute.
Does that mean you want to do asuper bird at some point?

Oh, absolutely.
That was my dream car as aeight-year-old boy.

Mike (01:27:42):
Yep, me too.
All right.
Well, Tim, thanks for joiningus tonight, and it's always a
pleasure to talk to you, man.
And we really look forward toseeing you at the National
Convention and hanging out withyou some more.
It's always good when you showup in the hotel room or the
Airbnb, wherever we happen tobe.

That's right.
The pleasure was mine.
Appreciate it.

Mike (01:28:05):
Interesting approach during the pandemic there, Dave,
to just uh write out thingsthat he called them fears or
challenges or what have you.
It's not unlike the way I kindof pick a new project sometimes.
One of my bigger projects.
Usually there's something aboutit that I want to do.
Right.
Uh but folks, if you're at theNational Convention or any of
the shows out on the West Coastthat Tim gets to, check out his

(01:28:27):
work because it's just reallygood, especially considering
that uh it's not all the samekind of stuff.

No.
You never know what you'regonna see, but you know it's
gonna be amazing.

Mike (01:28:39):
And then I was thinking back, Dave.
A lot of times when modelersstick primarily to to one genre,
they kind of develop a style.
Yes.
Or, you know, a signature lookthat they're there's something
they're doing that that if youlook at theirs versus everybody
else's, you can start to pickout their work on the table,

(01:29:00):
right?

You can walk down a table and you go, even if
you've never seen it before, youcan go, that's so-and-so's
model, that's so and so's model,because you recognize the style
of not only the modeling, but alot of times the base and
presentation as well.

Mike (01:29:18):
I don't think his does that.

No, I agree with you.
And and I think at least in inlarge part, that has to do with
the cross genre aspect.

Mike (01:29:31):
I think so too, because you know, a filled and polished
air racer is not gonna bepainted, probably not weathered
at all, but certainly not gonnabe painted and weathered like
oh, like his his pigeon coop.

Right.
Or uh a 700 scale battleship.

Mike (01:29:47):
Yeah.
So I just thought that was anobservation worth mentioning.

Yep, I think that's absolutely true.

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Mike (01:30:42):
It's another installment of the bench top halftime
report, Dave.

Well, unfortunately, I've looked back
on it and I've been keeping kindof a mental record.
And in the past 14 days, well,no, it's actually, I guess,
about 10 days.
I think I've only gotten abouttwo and a half hours at the
bench in the last 14 days.

(01:31:09):
Family stuff has takenprecedence, and you know, it's
always got to come first.
But I'm motivated, and I havegotten a little bit of progress
on both the SAM and the F6F.
The SAM is within spittingdistance of the end.

(01:31:29):
The F6F is not that far behind.
And I'm taking my time with theF-6F to do some paneling to try
and break up the overall glossyblue look.
And so far I'm enjoying it alot.
And, you know, that's reallywhat you got to judge it by.

(01:31:54):
If you're having fun doing it,even if it's taking longer than
you intended or whatever, aslong as you're having fun doing
it, that's the point of thishobby, to help you relax, to get
away from the whatever yourtroubles are, and to sit down
and that part of the brain thatyou have to, that you have to

(01:32:15):
devote to doing all those thingsthat you do, be it work or
family or household or bills orwhatever, you can park that all
on the side and you can kind ofget that zen-like modeling.
And while I haven't gotten alot of hours in, I have gotten
some quality time in.
And now I'm gonna strive formore hours, but I'm gonna try

(01:32:40):
and keep the quality part of thetime.

Mike (01:32:43):
You're on the threshold of the dark time.

Yeah, I know.
That worries me.
It's three days away.
Yes, it is.
That worries me.
Well, it both worries me andand and brings joy because
Thanksgiving is by far myfavorite holiday.
You know, when you're a kid,Christmas and getting presents
is real important.

(01:33:05):
To me, eating a bunch of reallygood food and watching footb
NFL football all day, that's myholiday.
And then having the day off thenext day.
That's my kind of holiday.

Mike (01:33:20):
Well, you need to build a model that day.

Yes, that's right.
I'm gonna try and and workthrough the dark time a little
better.

Mike (01:33:27):
So have you been building at all?
I've been trying, man.
Okay.
I'm not gonna take 10 minutesto tell everybody I didn't do
anything.

Hey, I'm being honest.

Mike (01:33:37):
I know you are.
Well, all that mesh boughtfilter mesh arrived.
Mm-hmm.
And I did kind of a proof proofof concept to make sure that
was gonna work for me, and Ithink it's gonna be you've you
found a size that works for me.
I found I found a size thatwhen it's painted, it gives me
enough transparency into theradiator radiator intakes on the

(01:33:59):
KV85.
Like I like I said on the groupchat, I think the juice is
worth the squeeze.

Yeah.
Well, and you are going toreveal to all of us on the dojo
with a photograph exactly whatthis product is and where you
got it, right?

Mike (01:34:16):
Yeah, I can do that.
Good.
Field drum straps are stilleluding me.
I know what I want to do.
I just haven't been able to getmy head around how to do it
yet.
What is it that that's what'sthe challenge?
I need a way to form a materialfrom a thin, narrow strap at

(01:34:37):
the ends that needs to be formedinto a C channel.
And the problem is thematerial's so thin.
I got a couple ideas, and Idon't know if it's gonna work or
not, but I'm gonna have to tryit.

In the real world, I assume these things
were metal straps made out of athin, thin sheet metal, yeah.
And then at the end they werecrimped up to form a channel.

Mike (01:34:59):
A C channel, then a a a length of threaded rod stock was
welded into the C channel.

Gotcha.
So And then what they did wasthey sl they that came over the
fuel drum and then went throughan eyelid or something.

Mike (01:35:16):
It's a cleat, so we talked about it last time.
Okay.
Yeah.
There's some nuts on thethreaded rod that clamped to the
bottom of the cleats on the onthe mounts, on the saddles.
Gotcha.
Pulls the strap down.
It'd be cool if I could find away to do it like out of thin
brass or something, but workingwith with thin metals like that,
other than like photoets, is isa skill that still kind of
eludes me.

(01:35:36):
God, you remember that guy usedto be on like early modeling on
Facebook or even the forumsthat used to build all those
35th scale vehicles out ofbrass.

Yes.

Mike (01:35:46):
That kind of nutso stuff.

Well, if any of the listeners out there can
picture in their mind whatMike's talking about and have a
suggestion, either post it onthe dojo or email him.
If it's in regard to thematerial or how you form it or
whatever.
Mike, you might want to post aphoto on the dojo of the real

(01:36:10):
item.
I assume you have a couple ofphotos of the real item.

Mike (01:36:14):
Yeah, I think I've got one or two in that KV book that'll
show it.
And I've also generated a CADmodel of the strap that's flat.
I was trying to see if I workthrough that, maybe I could
think while I was doing the CADmodel, something would come to
me.
Yeah.
A couple of ideas have.
I just haven't tried them yet.

So now were these straps common across Russian
tanks?
In other words, would you findthe exact same strap on a KV-1
or KV2 or T-34?

Mike (01:36:44):
No, it's just for the drums.
I no, I don't think so.
Okay.
They're probably unique to thelate KVs.
Maybe the JS series.
I don't know, honestly.
Okay.
Well, that's where the KV-85is.
This Musuru build, this Miatalittle roaster I've been working
on as well.
I've got some priming andpainting that's underway.
That's right.

And you should you shared some ideas among the
I did.
Our little Canadian group, andman, I love your idea.
We're not going to talk aboutthem.

Mike (01:37:13):
No.

But I love your ideas.

Mike (01:37:16):
I'll there'll be teasers like uh the custom decals for
this project have been designed,and I gotta get those off to
the to the decal printer.

Now you're you're gonna utilize the decal printer
in India?

Mike (01:37:28):
I'm gonna try, yeah.
Okay.
I gotta send that off to them.
Right.
And and then there's a 3Dprinted part that I've gotten
printed and cleaned up, andthat's ready to be primed and
painted too.
So uh uh we'll see how it goes.

I I really like your idea, man.
I really like your idea.

Mike (01:37:47):
All right.
Well, that's my bench, Dave.
Okay.

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Mike, a lot of announcements going on, man.
Just a ton bloody ton ofannouncements.
Yeah, it's quite a bit.
I can see my wallet gettingbroken next year, but before we
we break the wallet, we have tofigure out what's been announced
and what are our faves and whatare our yawns.

(01:38:31):
So I've got quite a number ofthem this time.
So you want to start?

Mike (01:38:36):
Yeah, we'll see if we double up on any of them.
Because I've got three favesand uh uh a yawns kind of a
generalization, but we'll getthere at the end.
Okay, I'm I mentioned in themodel sphere segment this
company Firma 49 out of theCzech Republic or Czechia.
What caught my eye is they'reoffering these Soviet wire spoke

(01:38:56):
wheels too.
Yeah.
And they're not a Russiancompany, so it's gonna be a lot
easier to get.
Right.
So those I'm probably gonna betalking to him about getting
some of those, and then ofcourse I recommended these
Polish fasteners to him as well.
So hopefully.
Yeah.
Um he just they listed a bunchof stuff.
I mean another one of thosehuge scalemates dumps.

(01:39:19):
Right.
I mean, just stuff all over theplace.

We're getting about one every two days from a
3D company that's new to youthat just dumps an entire
product line onto scalemates,and you're scrolling through a
hundred new products.
What's your first one?
My first one is there's acompany called Arma Models.

(01:39:44):
That is not Arma Hobby out ofPoland.
This is Arma Models, and it'sout of either Ukraine or Russia.
I do not know which.
Perhaps one of the listenerscan tell me.
And they have announced a T aRussian T4, and there was
exactly one of these built.

(01:40:06):
It basically the Russianversion of the XB 70, except it
was in bare metal.
And but it looks very similar.
Somebody sometime it might havebeen in fine scale, it might
have been on a forum once, builtone of these things out of a

(01:40:26):
VAC form kit.
And it was really, reallyimpressive.
And it's a big model, and ifArma Models is doing it 70
second scale, it's gonna behuge, and I'm here for it
because I unlike my podcastpartner, I like weird Russian

(01:40:46):
stuff.

Mike (01:40:47):
Well, I'll have to look that one up.

I'm not familiar with that plane, but yeah you'll
you'll recognize it when yousee it.

Mike (01:40:54):
I wonder if they didn't paint it because the paint
adhesion problems the uh 270 hadduring some of his first test
flights.

I suspect that's exactly why.

Mike (01:41:04):
Blowing the paint off the thing.

Yep.

Mike (01:41:07):
My next one's uh Dynamo Models out of France.

Okay.

Mike (01:41:11):
Now, several episodes back, I mentioned they had made
a they had a new tool, a littleFrench 20 millimeter anti-tank
gun.
Yep.

Like the old Heller kit, but yeah, but 20 or
25.
I think it's 25.

Mike (01:41:26):
It's a little bitty thing.
Yes.
They've got a new one.
It's a SA37 uh 47 millimeteranti-tank gun.

Ah, true.

Mike (01:41:34):
Which is I don't know, none of those French guns are
that well known, honestly.
Right.
We know the the small onebecause of the old Heller kit,
but this is brand new.
Again, it's a an injectionmolded kit with I think some 3D
printed bits and bobs, andthere's the the the kit you can
buy in three tiers, a basic, anintermediate, and advanced, and
the advanced one has a a metalbarrel.

(01:41:55):
The mid one just has the Ithink the 3D printed stuff and a
plastic barrel, and the otherone's just the plastic parts.
So interesting subject.
I'm probably I'll probably endup with this one.

Yeah.

Mike (01:42:06):
I'll probably end up with the other gun too, but well, and
it's amazing.

Those French guns, not only did the French
use them, not only the Poles usethem, a lot of other smaller
countries used them becauseFrance sold pre-World War II to
a lot of European countries.
And then not only that, butafter the fall of France, the

(01:42:30):
Germans got a hold of a bunch ofthem.
And man, they utilized the heckout of those things in
fortifications, in police units,and and stuff like that,
anti-partisan units as well.
So those things really deservemore love than they've gotten up

(01:42:52):
to now, and I'll be interestedto see how how these kits are.

Mike (01:42:57):
Got another one?

Yep.
My next one.
You're you're familiar with thecompany First to Fight, right?

Mike (01:43:03):
Yeah, they make a lot of 72nd scale stuff.
Right, and a lot of almostexclusively, I guess.

Right, and a lot of Polish stuff.

Mike (01:43:10):
Right.
Hence the name.

Hence the name.
They have announced a KM12,which appears to be an armored
riverine craft, an armored riverpatrol boat.
It's armored, it's riveted, uhit's got a machine gun kicked uh

(01:43:32):
out of the wheelhouse.
Just I was never, I I have noidea what these things are.
I've never was aware of itbefore before I saw this
announcement.
And the box art is great.
It's got you know those classicPolish multicolor schemes.
And yeah, I this is this is anI gotta have it.

Mike (01:43:59):
This is one I think this is one I think we might overlap
on.
Okay, go ahead.
Uh, it's from Red Iron Models.

Okay.
I actually didn't put this onmy list because I'm sure I was
sure you were going to.

Mike (01:44:11):
Okay.
Yeah, because I texted you thisone.
Uh it's a Russian kit,unfortunately.
So, you know, too bad foravailability or you know, how
you feel or don't feel aboutthat sort of thing.
It's uh Soyuz uh four and five.

And what's interesting to me is the scale
they chose.

Mike (01:44:30):
Yeah, it's in 35th scale, so I don't I still don't think
it'll be huge.
No, but but it's but it's notit doesn't jive with much of the
other real space stuff outthere, exactly.

And that's that's why I found it so interesting.
Now, they do either a 12thscale or a 24 scale Sputnik,
which I have.
I have that kit.
So, you know, they're not aslave to a particular scale.
So 35th scale, it's an armorscale, and maybe they figured it

(01:45:03):
was about the right size.
It's you know, there is thatRevell 72nd scale Soyuz.

Mike (01:45:10):
Yeah.

And, you know, that's about the size of the
palm of your hand.
Yep.
So in 35th scale, this thing'sactually gonna be pretty
impressive.
It will attract your attentionjust because of its size.
And it's not white.
And it's not white.
That's right.

Mike (01:45:29):
So it could be an interesting model.

Yes, it could.
My next one is the one Ithought you and I would overlap.
There's a Ukrainian companythat I have never heard of
before.
It's called Spala, S-P-A-L-A-H.

Mike (01:45:46):
I thought I've mentioned them in the past uh have you?
Past uh phasing yons.

Okay.
Uh well then if I don'tremember it, I'm getting old, so
I apologize.
They just recently announced uhZis III, and you you had
previously done that Zis 2, andI I think the Zis 3's the
prettier gun of the two.
I know you know people candiffer on that.

Mike (01:46:14):
They're almost the same except for the gun barrel.

Exactly.
Different to different caliber,different size, different
length.
But I just thought it's nice tohave a new entry in that
particular Russian artillerycategory or Russian anti-tank
category, and I'll be interestedto see if it's a significant

(01:46:41):
upgrade over currently availablemodels.

Mike (01:46:46):
Yeah, that's what that's what I thought when I saw it.
I was like, why did they pickthat?
Because mini arts is prettystinking nice.

Yeah.
Well, that's that's my questionis is this thing gonna have 3D
parts?
Is it is there something that'sgonna be different that makes
it an upgrade over those miniart kits?

Mike (01:47:06):
It could be.
So I'm interested.
How about you?
It's it's probably got lessparts.
I don't have any more phase,but I've I've got a generalized
yawn.
Okay, go ahead.
Uh it's still it's it's 3Dprint again.
Yeah.
The current crop of World WarII Soviet figures from various
3D print firms.
I'm I'm not gonna throw any onecompany under the bus.

(01:47:27):
Right.
Just the poorly researcheduniform details, and then like
the normalization of some rareor uncommon uniform features
across a whole swath of figures.
Right.
Gosh, and one of thesecompanies was Russian.

Well, and what really galls you about it is
this information is not onlyreadily available through some
very good reference works, butthere are any number of people
like yourself who have thisinformation and would be happy
to share it with anyone who sentthem an email and asked.

(01:48:04):
And instead, they well, thisreminds me of a conversation I
was having with Dr.
Geldmacher at at Memph atMurphy'sboro.
And we were talking aboutdecals and the accuracy of
decals, not only color, size,shape, everything, but fonts.

(01:48:25):
Well, that led me back toreference to him.
One of the better one of thebetter seminars I ever attended
was a guy named Dave Klaus, whoused to run a a modeling firm.
Uh they made details and andfull kits and and some uh and a

(01:48:49):
lot of decals.
And he did a seminar on decalmaking, which was interesting to
learn what the process formaking a decal was.
But what came out of it for methat was really interesting was
his frustration that modelersdon't seem to care about those
details, that they don't seem tocare if the fonts right or you

(01:49:16):
know that the d decals arewholly accurate.
And it drove him up a wall thatpeople didn't modelers didn't
seem to care about that, becausehe went to the trouble of doing
the research and and all ofthat to try and make the stuff
very accurate, and it just itdrove him nuts.

Mike (01:49:39):
Well, I'm not gonna let it drive me nuts.
I'll just move on and get somedifferent ones.

So anybody any of those 3D companies doing that?
If you're listening to this,reach out to Mike.
He can give you a lot ofadvice.
And he's he's a very happysharer too, because he wants to
see accurate stuff.

Mike (01:49:56):
I do, especially on the figures.

I've got one last one that's a fave, and it's not
a particular item, it's aparticular series of items.
There's a company called DPCasper who makes really
excellent decal sheets, and theyhave a different approach.
Instead of theming a decalsheet to a particular aircraft

(01:50:21):
subject or tank subject orwhatever, they theme it to a
particular conflict or operationor whatever, release a sheet
with a bunch of markings for abunch of different aircraft that
participated in that particularoperation.
And they've been releasingsheets left and right now to the

(01:50:45):
point where I have to go andlook at their catalog and see
what they've released lately andthen buy more decals, which is
sad.
But I'm gonna do it.
I will admit I'm gonna do it.
It's sad, but because I don'tutilize them enough, but I I'm a
decal holic, that's all I'llsay.

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Folks, when you finish listening to this
episode, please go and rate thepodcast on whatever podcast
service you listen to us on.
Also, please recommend us toyour modeling friends.
We continue to grow.
We want to continue to grow.
And the single best way we cangrow is for current listeners

(01:51:56):
who enjoy the show to recommendto their modeling friends who
don't listen to listen to us.
And we appreciate it if you dothat.

Mike (01:52:05):
And after you've done that, please check out the other
podcasts out in the modelsphere.
You can do that by going towww.modelpodcast.com.
That's model podcastplural.
It's a consortium website setup with Stuart Clark of the
Scale Model Podcast up inCanada, and he's uh aggregated
the banner links to all thepodcasts in the model sphere, so
you can go there for one-stopshop and check them all out.

(01:52:26):
In addition to podcasts,there's a lot of blog and
YouTube friends we've got in themodel sphere.
We've mentioned Jeff Groves,the InchI Guy, 72nd scale blog.
Stephen Lee, Sprupai withFretz.
He must not have been listeningbecause I didn't get that
manuscript from his rail modelcraftsman Argley's doing on
those uh rail cars.
We'll have to send him a DM.
But in the meantime, folks,check out his blog.

(01:52:47):
Some good uh information thereand some interesting reads.
Chris Wallace, model airplanemaker, great YouTube channel and
a great blog.
Yeah, lots of good aircraftprojects there for your
enjoyment.
Evan McCallum, Panzermeister36.
If you're into armor modelingand the occasional rail car, you
can get some great uh buildreviews and weathering tips and

(01:53:07):
painting tips there from Evan.
He does some good work.
And finally, please check outPaul Budzik's Skill Model
Workshop on Patreon and YouTube.
Check out all he's got going onand support his endeavors on
Patreon over there for his videoprogram.
It's good stuff.

It is.
Finally, if you're not a memberof IPMS USA, please consider
joining.
I'm the retention andrecruitment secretary for IPMS
USA.
This is the last two-year termthat I will be serving in that
capacity.
We've continued to grow everyyear since I took over in that
position, and I would like to goout with IPMS USA's membership

(01:53:49):
being at a number larger thanit's ever been.
Thank all of you who havejoined.
Please consider joining if youhaven't.
I will tell you that the lasteboard meeting that I attended a
couple of weeks ago was veryencouraging regarding many
things that IPMS is looking atdoing for the modeling

(01:54:15):
community.
So please join and be a part ofIPMS USA or whatever national
IPMS organization exists in yourcountry.
Also, if you are into armor orpost-1900 figures modeling, the

(01:54:35):
Armor Modeling and PreservationSociety, great group of
modelers, very dedicated to thecraft of armor modeling.
Mike, we're at the end of theepisode or almost the end.
I am not quite at the end of mySuffolk Pride amber ale, but

(01:54:59):
I'm getting there.
It's a 500 milliliter bottle,so it's 4.8% alcohol by volume.
It's an amber ale.
It's very smooth, verydrinkable.
There's almost a hint of barleyto it, but it's it's not heavy

(01:55:20):
like a scotch ale.
I I really like it.
Uh unfortunately it comes fromEngland, so the chances of me
finding it, finding it locallyare are low, but I'm gonna enjoy
it while I've got it.
How about you?
Well, we know you're drinkingbasil Hayden.
You can't hate that.

Mike (01:55:40):
I can't hate it.
80 proof, good entry intobourbon if you've not
experienced it before.
It's got a good flavor, butit's not gonna knock your socks
off if you're sipping itresponsibly.
So have some.
It's good.

Okay, now we are truly at the end of the episode.
And uh I've got one shout outand one recommendation.
My shout-out is to Bill Moore,Dr.
David Gelmacher, and the gangwho put on the Murphy's Boro
show.
You did a great job.
It was a wonderful show,wonderful time.

(01:56:20):
You all were very, very kind tome, and I thank you for it.
And I would recommend anybody.
They have that showmid-November pretty much every
year.
I would highly recommend ifyou're in the driving area, that
you go to the show because agreat time was had, and I can

(01:56:43):
guarantee you you'll have agreat time as well.

Mike (01:56:47):
Do you have one, Mike?
I do, as I often do, Dave.
I want to shout out the folkswho've helped Plastic Model Mojo
via their generosity.
We've got a lot of folks whoare helping us out every month.
And if you'd like to join thefolks helping out Plastic Model
Mojo, please check out all theavenues for contributing to the
show and supporting the show.
It's uh greatly appreciated.

(01:57:07):
You can find those links uh inthe show notes of each and every
episode or the support the showtab on the webpage at
www.plasticmodelmojo.com.
And folks, we really appreciateit.
We've had a few new folks joinup and help us in recent months.
And Dave, we got to get back onthrowing something back the
other way to those folks.

Yes.
Yeah.
Well, in fact, I have an idea.
So I'm gonna talk to you, andin December, maybe we're gonna
do a giveaway.

Mike (01:57:33):
All right.
What's your other one, Dave?

I have a recommendation.
A few a few episodes back, Irecommended the podcast We Have
Ways.
They did a series on the Battleof Britain that was really,
really excellent.
And now they have done anotherseries, it's either six or seven
parts, on the Siege of Maltafrom 1940 to 1943.

(01:58:00):
It with the one of the twohosts, James Holland, the fur
he's a historian and author.
The first book that he ever didas a World War II historian was
on Malta.
It's it's a great show.
There are, like I said, six orseven episodes.
Each one's about 30 to 40minutes and super entertaining.

Mike (01:58:25):
I'll have to check it out.
Yep, you will.
It's great, great for drivingto work.
Well, folks, thanks for joiningus again at Plastic Model Mojo.
We're gonna do a little shortabout some local club activities
coming up a little later in themonth.
We're about to run out ofmonth.
Yep.
But until then, Dave, as wealways say, so many kits, Mike.
So little time.

(01:58:45):
Hope it don't get many forChristmas.
Yep.

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