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

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
The Voice of Bob (Bair) (00:12):
Welcome to Plastic Model Mojo, a
podcast dedicated to scalemodeling, as well as the news
and events around the hobby.
Let's join Mike and KentuckyDave as they strive to be
informative, entertaining andhelp you keep your modeling mojo
alive.

Mike (00:46):
All right, Mojovia, it's time for episode 133.
Dave, how are you doing?

Kentucky Dave (00:58):
I'm doing good.
I'm doing good.
The snow is going away, thetemperatures are well above
freezing and the days aregetting longer.
All of that is good.
Well, not only that, but I wentand got my real ID driver's
license so that I can get intoCanada for HeritageCon this year
.
Well, that's a good idea.

(01:19):
A little less modeling that I'dlike, but we'll get into that
at the Benchtop Halftime Report.
But getting somemodeling-related equipment, I'm
getting some modeling readingdone, just tons of interaction
with listeners and friends, andI'm a little bit sad that the

(01:43):
pro football season is going tobe ending soon.
That's one less distraction.
Yeah, yeah, true, true enough,but I enjoy it.
That's.
That's probably the sport Ienjoy the most, and so I'm going
to be going to be sad to see itgo.
But all in all, I'm jazzed, andwe've got a heck of a few

(02:09):
months coming up in front of us,and if it all falls into place,
I'm jazzed for it.
I can't wait.
How about your model sphere?

Mike (02:19):
Man, I'm just navigating life.

Yeah, you certainly have had your share.

Mike (02:25):
I'm telling you, I'm just looking for holes I can plug
with hobby stuff.
When I can find one, thereain't many right now, yeah.

Your life got incredibly full, incredibly
quickly.

Mike (02:40):
Incredibly inconveniently.

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

Mike (02:49):
It could have been.

Yes.

Mike (02:50):
But we'll get through it one way or the other.

Yeah, but you've got a model done for the year.
You're already chalking up onefor 2025.
You're making progress on otherstuff.
We'll talk about that in theBenchtop Halftime Report.
But you know there's a lotpositive for you.

Mike (03:10):
There is, I think, one thing we've been struggling with
at least I have for the lastcouple three months even is what
we can actually get donecontent-wise for the show versus
what we want to get done.
Yes, I think we got lucky acouple of months and we're able
to get a lot more out than wenormally do.
And yeah, now that's kind of Idon't know.

(03:32):
It's kind of gone the other way.
We'll see see where it goes.
But this isn't exactly theepisode format we wanted to have
for this episode.
We'd hope to drop a short andthen have a real have a feature
episode.
But uh, we'll get to more aboutthat in a minute.

(03:52):
But uh, other than that man,we're super close on getting
phase one launched on thewebsite of the final payment's
been made to our design team andwe're talking about all the dns
stuff we got to do to move overto the new, the new host and
kind of get away from thebuzzsprout plastic model mojo
page.

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

Mike (04:18):
You know we're getting there.
It's definitely happening, justyeah well, our design teams.
This is side hustle work forthem.
They work for another firmfull-time, so I understand.
Plus, you know, helps on thecash flow when it takes a little
longer.

Yeah, that's right.

Mike (04:34):
That's right.
So that's what I got going on,man.

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

Mike (04:44):
I do.
I went and got some moreRussell's tenure after life
happened fast last week.
You needed it right, I won'tsay I needed it, I just, yeah, I
wanted it.

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

Mike (04:59):
I need to take it down a notch.

Yeah, well, and that's what modeling fluid is
for.
Not only does it help yourmodeling, it makes life a little
better, in moderation, that'strue.
What do you got?
Well, normally I try not torepeat modeling fluids.
I do a lot of beers and I'mtrying to try new things, a

(05:23):
because I always like trying newstuff, but also to give the
listeners kind of a widerpicture out there, what's out
there and what I found and whatI like.
But tonight is an actual repeatof one I've done before.
It is and you'll remember this,from Oklahoma City in 2003 at

(05:46):
the Nats.
This is Ace Pear Cider that Ifirst drank when you and I were
sitting in Brew Works just downfrom the IPMS National
Convention.

Mike (05:58):
That was a long time ago.

That was a long time ago and it's one of my
favorites to this day.
It's one of my favorites andthe reason I have some is my
lovely older daughter.
She came over with hersignificant other to watch the
football playoffs tonight andthey were kind enough to go and

(06:21):
pick up a six-pack of Ace PearCider.
So I know I'm going to likethis.

Mike (06:29):
It's going to be a good episode, all right.
Well, the mailbag's notdisappointing.
Good Kind of back to our normalflow, because we stacked up a
bunch there last time yes.
First up, our good friend fromBases, by Bill Christian Gurney,
sent in.
Folks may have already seenthis out on the interwebs and
the Facebooks, but they've got anew challenge.

(06:49):
Coin display stand.

Yes, which.

Mike (06:51):
I thought was brilliant.
So all these folks picking upthese challenge coins et cetera.
Now you got something you canstand them on.
So check out basisbybillcom,see what that's got going on.

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

Mike (07:08):
Yeah, exactly that I need to display somehow so if you're
picking some of those up, goodon you.
Now you got a cool way todisplay them along with your
models and not just have themall laying laying down
horizontal.
Yep, pretty cool idea it is.
Uh, lee edmonds, he writes inagain.
We've heard from Lee quite abit, but not in a little while,

(07:28):
and he's trying to tackle hisstash.
He says he completed 36 modelslast year and only bought 22.

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

Mike (07:58):
But he says the math shows it's still going to take 150
years to get to next grade yeahwell.
Hey, man eat right yeah that'sright.
Another thing, as you've seenin the past year demonstrated is
the truism that if you want aninjection molded kit to be
produced, start working on amore difficult vacuform or resin

(08:21):
kit.

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

Mike (08:27):
He finished last year a Dujun resin, a Marcel Beeson
MB411.

Okay.

Mike (08:34):
No clue.

I know what it is .

Mike (08:36):
Well, he says there are only three of these aircraft
ever made and he reckonedthere'd never be a plastic kit
of it.
Well, there is, of course, andan Anagran resin North American
F-108.
Oh, okay, apparently that's inplastic now too.

Yeah.

Mike (08:54):
So if there's a kit you want to see manufactured and he
happens to have the impossibleresin or vacuform, let him know
and he'll get started on it foryou.

Well, our friend Steve Hustad is doing the same
thing for 72nd scale modelers.
He's currently working on aHeinkel 219 Night Fighter from
the very awful Dragon Kit and hesent pictures.
And gosh, it's every bit as badas people have said.

(09:25):
So I'm counting on the factthat as soon as he finishes this
model, somebody will beannouncing a brand new tool
HE219.
Thanks, steve.

Mike (09:37):
Now is that a crappy anomalous kit even for Dragon,
because it seems like it or isit just a really old one?

no dragon in the 90s released a bunch of german
aircraft the 219, the 234, the335 and they were all all well
okay.
The the detail molding on themis pretty darn good.

(10:06):
The fit is just unbelievablybad, and some of the pictures in
fact he may have posted becauseI asked him to, he may have
posted a picture of the assemblyof the tail unit fitting to the
fuselage.

(10:27):
I mean, it's as bad as any 60sLindbergh kid out there.
Oh man, I am counting on thefact that now that he's done
this, we're going to get a brandnew tool 219, which we need.

Mike (10:45):
Well, and he's built that big matchbox float plane too,
right?19, which we need.

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

Mike (10:50):
Yes, that's right.
He's jumping on a lot of swords, that's right.
Well, up next is Ken Schaeferfrom Stratford, connecticut, and
he's a returnee to the hobbyafter a 35 to 40-year hiatus.

Welcome back.

Mike (11:05):
His daughter bought him a Tamita 48 Corsair oh good choice
.
And he's finally got around tobuilding it after hanging onto
it about a year, and he's pickedup the 48 Zero to compliment it
Also a good choice.
Says he's cannonballing into thepool of his youth by building
some of these kits and he'sliking the podcast.

(11:25):
He started down all theinternet YouTube, facebook group
rabbit holes to learn stuff and, to make a long story short,
he's been going through the backcatalog and some of our guests
have some information where he'dlike to stop and take notes or
whatever, and it makes it hardto listen to a podcast when
you're doing that all the time.
So, he was asking if there wereany transcripts available for

(11:48):
for the episodes, and this isgood for everybody.
So I answered him directly.
But you know, folks, we startdoing transcription for the
podcast about.
Oh, I'd have to look and see,but sometime last year summer,
maybe on top of my head.
So if you start at the episodesand work your way back, you

(12:10):
should be able to see the onesthat have not just a show notes
but transcripts, and thefunction we're using does a
pretty good job.
They get a little wonkysometimes, but in general I
think they're they're adequatefor most people's use.

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

Mike (12:26):
No, because we don't need another job.
I don't need another job andit's getting better.
Yes, that's going to besomething that's going to
continue forward.
You're going to see thetranscription, the chapter
markers, that sort of thing.
So, yes, that sort of thing.
So yes, sorta, we havetranscripts for the better part

(12:48):
of the last year or so year,eight months, six months maybe,
and it's going to be somethingthat we continue doing, going
forward, so you should be ableto find that.
Yeah, that's a good question, apractical one.
Don Gilman from down in Texas,way, yeah, I assume he was at
the Museum of the American GI atWinter Blitz yesterday.
I would hope so.

(13:10):
Looked like that went off well.

Yeah.

Mike (13:12):
We're getting pictures on the dojo Brandon.

Yes, come on, brandon.

Mike (13:16):
Been seeing a few somewhere else.
Gonna make me mad.
No, just kidding.
We want to see them, though.
Don's mentioned my kidney stone.
He says some women have saidthey are as bad as childbirth.
Well, we'll have to take theirword for it on that.
But yeah, that wasn't fun andhopefully I'm over that, at
least in the near term yeah he'sgot a show idea.

(13:39):
We'll take that under advisement, don.
I think it's a pretty good idea.
I just got to figure out howI'd want to do it and where we
slot it in.
That's right.
I'm getting kind of busy.

I know.

Mike (13:52):
Well, thank you for the concern and thank you for the
suggestion.
Don Charles Reishardt hasmentioned the WZ-34 armored car
from the 3D Print Company.
Yeah, last episode, and he hadactually built and completed
this little Serdy kit fromPoland.
Yeah, and he sent a couple ofpictures.
You should put them on the dojo, charles.

(14:14):
Not a bad completion of thatlittle crappy monster.

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

Mike (14:32):
Well, folks may have seen on the dojo that the new one has
arrived.
Hope to get into letting folksknow what that's all about here
soon.
Yeah, kit Hedley.
No geography for kit and I'lljust mention it right now.
Folks, please send us yourgeography.
We'd like to know where you'refrom, just name and city or name
and country, that's all we need, just to know where we got
folks listening to us from andwe appreciate that.

(14:54):
Kit says we're the only reasonhe knows what these are and the
these is kilometer post markers.
He sent a couple of photos fromGermany or somewhere, some old
roadside kilometer markers,boundary markers, that sort of
thing.
So yeah, they're everywhere.

They are Particularly back.
I mean now, of course, youdrive along the interstates and
there's a mile marker everytenth mile or tenth of a mile,
depending if you're in the urbanarea or out in more rural.
But yeah, no back when thingswere much more undeveloped.

(15:33):
Those were vital and lots ofcountries had them.

Mike (15:38):
Up next is Will Woods, and Will enjoyed episode 132, and
he's ordered a copy of SteveAnderson's journal.
Yes, and Will says it's been animportant part of his modeling
and he started out with, justyou know, like a Costco journal.
Yeah, and he continues to usethat.
But earlier this year hediscovered the Modeler's Journal

(16:00):
Modelers with two L's.
They're out of the UK, anEssential Companion for Every
Work bench by Matt from modelminutes, and I went and checked
these out.
He's got three.
Now Steve's is a littledifferent.
Steve's is a guided journal.
It provides you with a, aquestion to form the nexus for
your, for your journaling, forthat particular journal entry

(16:21):
you're doing, for your right,and and these are a little
different these are for keepingtrack of your kits and stash and
your accessories, and the otherone is kind of slated for
keeping track of a project asyou work through it.
Gotcha, I'll put a link tothese in the show notes.
They look useful as well, butthey're a little different than
Steve's.

Right.

Mike (16:41):
They're not guided journals, they're more kind of
blank do-it-your-way kind ofjournals.
And he also keeps a binder fullof the box tops for every model
he completes.

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

Mike (16:57):
I cut the box art off the E16 and put it up on the top
shelf of my workbench.

Good for you.

Mike (17:03):
Glad to get through that one.
Yeah, on the top shelf of myworkbench.
Good for you.
Glad to get through that one.
Yeah, and from IPMS Hamilton,duncan Young.
We'll be up there shortly.
I don't think you're on copy.
Maybe you are.
No, I don't think you are.
I need to send this to you.
It's got the Moose Root Cup 6criteria for completion.

Yep.

Mike (17:23):
And some modeling, registration and museum ticket
pre-purchase information for theupcoming Heritage Con.
So I've reached out to Duncanand hopefully going to get the
Hamilton crew on here in thenear future to let them make
this spiel.
But I will put all thisinformation also in the show
notes and folks ought to reallyconsider going.

Oh absolutely, absolutely.
It's just fantastic.

Mike (17:49):
There are still sponsorship opportunities and
raffle donations that can bemade and contributed to the
vendor.
Tables are sold out 120 tablesin less than six hours and he's
always appreciating thepromotion, so we're going to
help him with that.
I hear we got some digs again.

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

Mike (18:19):
Well, like we joked last episode, it'd have to be at the
front end of that same littledevelopment, because there's
nothing else any closer unlessyou got an RV in the museum
parking lot.
That's God's honest truth,folks.
We were close as we could get.

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

Mike (18:37):
They don't have hookups man.

Yeah, that's true .

Mike (18:40):
Yeah, it could be bad, Cousin Eddie.

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

Mike (18:51):
Steve Berktole from Covina , california, and he was
listening to us talk about theejection seat handles and he
mentioned, like I did to you,the Edward Brasson handles, the
pre-painted ones.
And I think the discussion is48s and smaller.
Those are probably fine.

Oh yeah.

Mike (19:11):
But you get larger than that.
And you mentioned that thesethings are actually spiral
striped, they're not justconcentric rings.

They are a single cord, In other words it is not
two different colored cordswrapped together, but it appears
to be that way because theyellow stripes, the handles, are
black with yellow stripes.
But the yellow stripes aren'tjust simple stripes down
vertically down the ejectionhandles, they're actually spiral

(19:44):
along the cord so that it lookslike a black and a yellow cord
twisted together.
So a yellow stripe and yes, for48th and 72nd scale, it is
probably these aftermarket oneswith the simple stripes on them.

(20:06):
Even if you open the cockpitcanopy, that's good enough,
unless that just simply bothersyou too much.
But when you get in a largerscale it becomes much more
noticeable.

Mike (20:20):
All right, that's all I've got from the email side of
things, dave.

Okay, all right, that's all I've got from the
email side of things, dave.
Okay, we've got a number ofFacebook interactions and I want
to bring a few to people'sattentions.
One we got a ton after our lastepisode of DMs about Steve
Anderson's journal.
Where can I get it, where can Ipick it up, and all of that,

(20:45):
and we put links in the shownotes and it's also available on
Amazon, and so we had quite anumber of inquiries in regard to
that.
So we answered all of those.
Just in addition to all of that,there are a couple of DMs I
want to mention.
One is that Warren Dickinson,our friend from southern

(21:11):
Kentucky, has recently posted infact today, on the Dojo, at my
request, a book review of arecent modeling or aircraft
history history-related book.
And that's something I want toencourage all the Dojovians to

(21:31):
do Not only give us buildconstruction posts, finished
build posts, contest shots,contest reports, but if you read
modeling-related material, posta book report, just a simple
book review, to let others know,hey, I got this, I found it

(21:55):
really helpful, or I got thisand it really isn't as useful as
I thought it would be, and justgive us the basics.
Doesn't have to be big, doesn'thave to be fancy, but just a
place to let the fellowDojovians know what's out there,
because I get X amount of timemodeling, but a lot of my model

(22:19):
sphere time is reading,model-related reading, so I've
got a limited amount of time forthat.
And if you're out there and youpost and let me know, or let all
of the people in the dojo knowthis is a good book, or steer
away from this one, both ofthose help.

(22:40):
So thanks to Warren for doingthat.
And please, if you finish abook or if you pick up a
modeling tool or a new type ofpaint which I'm sure Mike's
going to post about sometime youpost that stuff, because that's
all.
It's not direct modeling butit's model related and it is

(23:04):
helpful to the whole community.
So please do.
Next, we've got Jason MichaelCampbell down in Knoxville,
tennessee.

Mike (23:13):
Yeah, our Gundam, guy.

Yeah, and he wanted to let us know he had
ordered off the Dojo merch storea hoodie and a t-shirt merch
store, a hoodie and a t-shirt,and he got the hoodie right away
, but he's still waiting on thet-shirt and it's been about a
month or two.
So we'll have to look into thatas much as we can from our end.

(23:35):
I know that Mike had one ordergo astray.
It wasn't the manufacturer'sproblem, it was a shipping
problem that occurred up inChicago.
So I appreciate him telling usAny of you't great or I didn't
get that.

(23:55):
Please let us know any of thatand we'll do what we can to at
least assist you in finding out.

Mike (24:12):
Yeah, I don't know what all we can do on that end.
I'll look into it.

Yeah, they're third parties, so there's not
much we can do any more than theactual purchaser.
Not much we can do any morethan the actual purchaser, but
it's at least good for us toknow.
Finally, tony Jacob had reachedout and he was taught.
You know how.
We were talking about decalingand using something to either

(24:40):
roll water out from under adecal or pull up excess water,
and we talked about not wantingto use a Q-tip because they
sometimes shed hair.
And he was talking about heuses the specific Tamiya Q-tips,
the cotton buds that come indifferent sizes, that Tamiya

(25:06):
sells and those are very tightlywrapped and they don't shed
because they are so tightlywrapped compared to a normal
Q-tip.
And that's what he uses toeither wick off excess moisture
or to roll moisture out fromunder a decal.

(25:27):
And he just wanted to sharethat was something that he used
and it works really well for him.

Mike (25:35):
All right.
Well, we got a lot of decalingtips out of that segment.

Yes, yes, we did.
It was amazing.

Mike (25:41):
Anything else.

That's it.

Mike (25:43):
Well, folks, we appreciate all the mail and DMs.
If you want to write to us atthe show, you can send us an
email at plasticmodelmojo atgmailcom, or send us a Facebook
message using the directmessaging system with Facebook
and let us know your geography.
That makes it more fun for us.
Yes, it does.

We love this segment, so keep it coming,
folks.
I'd just like to thankeverybody who has gone to the
podcast app they use and ratedthe podcast.
We've gotten a lot of very goodratings.
It's really helped us with thealgorithm very good ratings.
It's really helped us with thealgorithm and we thank you for
that.
Also, if you have a modelingfriend who doesn't currently
listen to the podcast maybe theydon't listen to podcasts at all
would you please recommend usand please, if necessary, show

(26:52):
them how to download and listento the podcast?
The best way for us to find newlisteners is for current
listeners to recommend us.

Mike (27:02):
And once you've done that, please check out the other
podcasts out in the model sphere.
You can do that by going towwwmodelpodcastcom.
That's model podcast plural.
It's a consortium website setup with the help of Stuart Clark
at the scale model podcast upin Canada, and Stu's aggregated
all the banner links and createdthis website, so you got a
one-stop shop to go find all theother podcasts and then you can

(27:23):
subscribe to them from there ifyou like.
We've also got a lot of blogand YouTube friends Evan
McCallum, mrpanzermeister36, agreat YouTube channel.
You're going to want to get inon that if you like.
Weathering armor.

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

Mike (27:38):
The Inch High blog, mr Jeff Groves all things 72nd
scale.
He's always cracking outsomething and always fun to see
what he's got going on.

Absolutely.

Mike (27:47):
Stephen Lee Spruipi with Fretz, also 72nd scale centric,
but a lot of long and short formblog.
Yeah, jim Bates had mentionedhe hadn't put much long form up
of late and I was just curiousif Steve had a comment about
that or what we might expectfrom him in the future.
So I'm always looking, butanxious to get it when it shows
up.
And model airplane maker ChrisWallace, our host up in Canada,

(28:09):
has cranked out his 2025wishlist of recent and he's got
a good blog and a good YouTubechannel as well.

Yes, he does.

Mike (28:17):
So folks want to check that out, and you're also going
to want to check out the ScaleModel Workshop over on Patreon,
dr Paul Budzik, and get in onthat action as well.

So plenty out there to keep you busy when
you're not modeling or when youare, say, IPMS Canada, IPMS
Mexico or your national IPMSorganization.
I would consider it a personalfavor if you would join the IPMS
national organizations, for thedifferent countries do a lot to

(28:50):
promote modeling inside theircountries and promote
relationships among the modelinggroups in different countries,
and they're great organizationsand well worth the small
membership fee.
Also, if you're an armormodeler or post-1900 figures

(29:12):
modeler, consider joining theArmor Modeling Preservation
Society, AMPS.
It's a great bunch of modelersdedicated to the art of armor
modeling and you will find nomore talented group of armor
modelers anywhere than inside ofAMPS.

(29:36):
So I highly, highly recommendit.

Mike (29:39):
Well, Dave, let's have a word from our sponsor.

The Voice of Bob (Bair) (29:43):
Plastic Model Mojo is brought to you by
Model Paint Solutions, yoursource for harder and
steam-backed airbrushes, davidUnion power tools and
laboratory-grade mixing,measuring and storage tools for
use with all your model paints,be they acrylic, enamels or
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Check them out atwwwmodelpaintsolutionscom.

Mike (30:08):
Well, folks, as luck would have it, our special segment
tonight is Model Paint Solutions, dr Strangebrush.
Dr John Miller and I'dmentioned earlier that we had
originally thought we would do ashort, a special and then put
out a shop talk for episode 133.
But we got John's schedule andended up going just north of an

(30:32):
hour with him and that's about Idon't know 35 minutes longer
than I thought we were going togo.
But it was all good and we justturned this into a Dr
Strangebrush episode.

Yep.

Mike (30:52):
Well, dave, we got a new year and I think, to get the
engine primed, we're going totalk about primers tonight.

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

Mike (31:07):
John, how you doing tonight.

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

Dr. Strangebrush (31:17):
Well, I just started my first tumbler of
bullets, so give me a 30 minutes.

Mike (31:21):
You got it, it'd be lethargic.
Yeah, be a little more relaxed.
You'll go to sleep this time.

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

Mike (31:35):
I hope I've got the bad part behind me.

Yeah, I hear you, I hear you.

Mike (31:43):
Yes, it can only get better from here, mike.
Well, john, when we finish amodel, or some of us shoot a
little primer along the way,where do we want to start this?

So, as usual, I give a fair amount of thought
to these, to these things, andI've been, I've been jotting
down notes on my uh, my legalyellow pad here for for a couple
of days and I I'd like to thinkthat I've at least hit the high
points, and with a couple ofcaveats along the way.
But why don't we just call it aprimer on primers and dive
right in?
So let's assume you're gettingready to prime the model that

(32:21):
you, that your masterpiece.
So I'm going to assume thatbefore you actually began
building the model, you did alittle bit of degreasing.
Some guys don't, you don'tnecessarily have to, but before
I actually build the kit, asI've discussed before, I will
soak it for about, oh, an hourand a half, two hours in a

(32:42):
one-to-one solution of denaturedalcohol and Windex.
And I've had guys say, yeah,well, I build, you know, tamiya
kits and they hardly need thatat all.
And you're absolutely right,they don't.
You're absolutely right.
One of the reasons I recommendthe DA with Windex and remember
that's denatured alcohol forcleaning glass.

Right, it doesn't have petroleum Exactly.

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

And the place to get that is a paint store.

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

No, they don't.

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

Mine too yeah.

Mike (33:27):
And the same yeah.

So yeah, so anyway, I recommend using the DA
and the Windex.
It is a very strong solution.
Recommend using the DA and theWindex.
It is a very strong solutionbut it will work for, obviously,
your brand new Tamiya kitswhich don't have that much of an
issue with mold release.
But also in case you're doingsomething from Eastern Europe,

(33:51):
let's say you got a 25-year-oldspecial hobby kit that's been
sitting around in the box for awhole bunch of time letting that
mold release just suck into theplastic.
It's for those folks that ifyou use the denatured alcohol in
the Windex, you stand a goodchance of getting most of that
mold release off the plasticbefore you even start building
the model.
Now do you?

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

dry.
You know it's funny.
I'm actually going to put myneck on the block and say that
many years ago I did this with akid.
It was an older special hobbykit and after a couple of
minutes in the denatured alcoholand Windex I felt the plastic
and I could still feel it was alittle smooth.
So I got about a two-inch widepaintbrush, the kind you'd use

(34:39):
for your house, and I just kindof brush the sprue very lightly
just to break the surfacetension of what's on the surface
of the plastic.
And that does seem to help.
I don't scrub it, I don't rubit or anything like that, I just
kind of brush it down with atwo-inch paintbrush, let that
sit for about an hour, hour anda half, and then I wash the

(35:01):
sprues in as warm a water as myhands can stand.
Obviously the warmer the better, not so much so that you're
going to warp the plastic, but anice warm rinse.
And then I just set them asideto dry.
At that point you've gottenmost of the mold release off and
you can start building the kitwithout worrying about that.
Now, right before I prime,because of all the finger oil

(35:24):
that has been transferred to themodel in the process of
building it.
I'll wipe the kit down withstraight denatured alcohol on a
chem wipe wipe and we talkedabout chem wipes before.
They're laboratory-grade,lint-free tissues that I used
for years to clean the lenses ofhigh-end microscopes and
similar laboratory gear.

(35:45):
They're really handy to have ona paint bench, though for a
whole bunch of jobs.
So I will take a wet chem wipewith DA, I'll wipe the plastic
down and then at this point Ihave to decide if I'm sitting
there, you know my bench workingon something on whether I'm
going to prime this kit using alacquer or an enamel based

(36:06):
primer or I'm going to prime itwith an acrylic.
I am interested to hear this ifI'm going to go with an acrylic
which I've done for years andyears and I've tried a fair
number of them I will take thetime to grab myself a piece of
micro mesh usually 6,000 to8,000 micro mesh and I'll micro

(36:28):
mesh the entire surface of themodel down as best I can and
just roughen it up a little bit,not roughen it up to the point
that you can actually see thescratches through the primer
coat after you shoot.
Which is why I say go to six or8,000 micro mesh and use it with
cold soapy water, which alsodecreases scratching.

(36:49):
But if your aim is to primeyour kit in an acrylic primer,
you want to give that acrylicprimer, which doesn't have the
same bite as does a lacquerprimer, give it as much surface
area to bite into on the surfaceof the model as you can.
So if you just prep thatsurface with a little bit of

(37:09):
micro mesh, roughing it up alittle bit, you'll find that
most acrylic primers adhere waybetter than just too smooth
plastic primers adhere waybetter than just too smooth
plastic.

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

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

(37:51):
Now.
No acrylic primer in my hands.
No acrylic primer is as easy touse as its lacquer counterpart.
Lacquers are just easier to use, at least in my experience.
So in order to get Mission tobehave the way I want it to, I
will usually dilute itone-to-one with its thinner, but
I'll also throw in LiquitexFlow Aid to about 5% or 10% by
volume.
That helps immensely with thesurface tension of the paint,

(38:12):
with the leveling action of thepaint once you shoot it.
So my go-to now is Mission.
Now, prior to Mission, my go-towas the old Vallejo white
surface primer, which was thewhite polyurethane and that
works beautifully.
So if you guys can you know, ifyou guys out there have a
bottle of you know Vallejosurface primer or white primer,

(38:33):
I would add again Liquitex FlowAid, 5% or 10% by volume to that
neat right out of the bottleand then shoot it straight and
it works beautifully.
So I used the Vallejo primerfor, I'd say, the better part of
eight or ten years before Iswitched over to Mission and
I've also given Stynal Res a tryand we're going to get to

(38:56):
Stynal Res here in a minute, butthat's a good question.
Right now my go-to is MissionOkay Okay.
So this might surprise you,though.
Let me back up one more.
So the last thing I do before Iactually shoot my primer, after
I degrease with DA, is I'lltake again another chem wipe,

(39:17):
but I'll make sure this chemwipe is dry and I'll give the
service of the model a prettyaggressive buffing with a dry
chem wipe.
It's surprising how smoother,how more smooth the plastic
feels after you buff it with achem wipe.
In addition to that, as we'vediscussed before, chem wipes are
treated to remove staticelectricity when you use them

(39:38):
dry.
This is part of the reason thatthey can be used to clean
microscope objectives and notget static electricity on the
objective, which would give youdust, which would give you
visual contamination.
So that's a good idea.
If you are in a coldenvironment and you've been
running the heater at 11 for thelast two months, it's a pretty

(40:00):
good bet that you've got somestatic electricity issues.
And in Omaha, when I firstdealt with this, I found that in
the winters I found thatbuffing the kit down with a dry
chem wipe before I went to shootmy primer.
It just went on a little easier, just flowed a little better.
So the last thing I do after thedry chem wipe is set the kit
down and get ready for my primer.

(40:21):
Before we do that, let's take alittle digression and not go
right to talking about shootinga primer with an airbrush, but
instead let's talk aboutshooting primer right out of an
aerosol can, and a lot of guysdo this and they have beautiful
results with it.
I have to admit I haven't beena big aerosol can guy.

(40:44):
Off and on I've used them.
Most recently I took on acommission job to paint a couple
of 1, 24th scale car bodies.
I don't know if you guys knowthis, I didn't know this.
There are guys out there thatturn those 124 scale car models
into slot cars.

Yeah, I do think I did know that.

Yeah, I can't wait to go see that.
Apparently there's a tracksomewhere you know in the
greater Seattle area that I'mgoing to go take a look at that.
That just sounds like a blast.
But a gentleman who isn't handywith an airbrush but is into
this hobby approached me and Igot to thinking about how I
wanted to do these cars and Igave actually a couple of primer

(41:28):
cans or different aerosol canprimers a try and I was really
pleased with the results.
So let's dive into that realquick before we get to
airbrushing the results.
So let's dive into that realquick before we get to
airbrushing.
Mr Hobby.
Mr Surfacer comes in 1,200 and1,500.

(41:51):
Comes in white and black.
This is some really good stuff.
In fact we're going to comeback to Mr Surfacer out of the
bottle, not the can, as prettymuch in my book, my go-to
lacquer primer for practicallyeverything.
But out of a can, pardon me.

Same here.

Yeah, it's good stuff.
But out of a can you can getthe 1000, 1200, the 1500 in
white or black.
It works beautifully, as doesTamiya Surface Primer and you
can get that fine and you canget that in much like the Mr
Hobby, mr Surfacer white, grayand black.
With both of those, mr HobbySurfacer or the Tamiya Surface

(42:24):
Primer, it helps to take the canand warm it in hot water.
Now don't get it too hot, forobvious reasons.
But I, yeah, I had secondthoughts before I put that in.
I decided I'd figure guys aresmart enough to know not to go
too hot.

Warm water.

Warm water and it's surprising how much it
helps the paint move and flowand level once you get it on the
kit if it's warm.
So I'll set up a pan of waterunderneath the tap, let it get
nice and warm, immerse the canin that for five, ten minutes
and then shoot it.
The other thing that's reallygood to do is practice.

(43:04):
I find using an aerosol can toshoot primer a little
challenging because it's one ofthose deals that one more pass
and you've put too much on Right.
So it really helps to maybe getthe feel for the working
distance from the can to themodel, as well as just how much
volume you're putting out on asheet of styrene or, even better

(43:26):
, a paint mule until you get thehang of it.
But got really good resultswith those.
In fact I'm going to jump aheadof myself here real quick and
tell you that one of those carbodies I shot with a Tamiya
white surface primer.
I did a very, very quick buffout with 8,000th micro mesh and
a dry chem wipe.
It was velvety smooth.

(43:47):
And then right on top of thatwhite smooth finish I shot
Tamiya clear pearl coat.
Ah, and it came out like whitepearl and it looked beautiful
without actually having to shootwhite paint because the white
primer was, you know, perfectlyfine, right, yeah, so now if, if
, if you don't want to use theMr Surfacer or the Tamiya

(44:12):
surface primer, or, let's sayyou, you live in a place where
they're not necessarily easy toget.
I spoke with Eric ChristensenEric the Tank man Christensen,
the president of our local IPMSclub, good friend of mine and a
really, really accomplishedarmor modeler, and for years he
has used Krylon ColorMax paintplus primer in an aerosol can.

(44:38):
He can get it from, uh, fredmeyer apparently, and, I assume,
some other hardware stores, buthe's shot black because he's an
armor guy.
But he shot this paint foryears and he gets really nice.
Uh, leveling the stuff loses somuch volume as as it dries,
that you know little puddleshere and there just kind of

(44:58):
disappear.
It's a real handy way if you'rean armor guy and you just want
to get that thing black and getto painting Krylon ColorMax
Paint Plus Primer.
I've played with it a littlebit myself and it does work
exceedingly well, let's see.
So okay, now let's say you haveopted to not go with an aerosol

(45:20):
can primer, but you're actuallygoing to use your airbrush.
For those who want to read a bitmore into this, if you go to
Model Paint Solutions on thehomepage, there is the first row
of articles.
Are you know the tips andtricks articles on airbrushing?
Check out Tips and TricksVolume 3, which is entitled
Matching the Tip Size, thePressure and the Dilution to the

(45:42):
Job, and there I kind of touchin more detail on what we're
going to be talking about righthere.
But if you're going to beairbrushing your primer, the
first thing you want to thinkabout is how am I going to
configure my airbrush to deliverthis primer?
And one of the things youshould think about there is the
tip size that you're using.
This is one job that isshooting primers and clear coats

(46:05):
for that matter that I havebecome a firm believer in using
a larger tip than I wouldnormally use for general work or
most certainly for fine linework.

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

Yes, I mean right on the nose.
Yes, that's exactly right, andI'm going to give you some
ranges here of tips that wouldbe appropriate, roughly speaking
, for the scale model thatyou're working on.
But real quick, why do I preferthe larger tip?
When you're shooting a primeras well as a clear coat, the

(46:41):
idea is you want to get enoughpaint or primer on the model so
that the primer has enoughvolume so that it can level and
it can be a nice smooth finish.
Therefore, when it dries andusing a larger tip just allows
you to deliver more volume in ashorter period of time than if

(47:02):
you were trying to just, let'ssay, shoot primer on a 124 scale
airplane with a 0.15 millimetertip, it'd take you all day and
the surface would be less thanideal Because it'd be very
sampling.
Yeah, and that very sampling.
Yeah, and that's the real.
That's the main reason becauseyou remember, for each size tip

(47:23):
you kind of have a window thereof lever pull where you get the
best atomization of the paint.
If you pull that lever past 70,80 percent throw, take a look,
do this on a piece of paper andprove it to yourself.
Once you get, you know, into 70or 80% lever, throw on
practically any size tip you'reusing, you'll start seeing

(47:46):
stipple, little dots ofunatomized paint start appearing
on the periphery of the linethat you're shooting.
That's because the nozzle hasbeen pushed past its optimal
window.
So if you go back to the guyyou know trying to shoot a 124th
scale airplane with a 0.15millimeter tip, when he goes to
do his little mini wet coat,what he's doing is shooting

(48:09):
stipple and unatomized paint allover his finish, versus if he
was doing the same primer joband instead using for that size
model a 0.5, 0.45, 0.6millimeter tip.
So then when he goes to deliverhis wet coat he's going to have
a large volume of paint notstipple, that's nice and

(48:31):
atomized paint that's coming outof that brush and giving you
enough paint primer to level andgive you a nice, you know,
smooth finish when it's done.
So that's the reason I'd liketo switch to a larger tip for
primers and clear coats.
And just to give you some rangeshere in my experience, if I'm
working with 1.144 to 1.72,let's say it's a small to medium

(48:55):
size model I'll be looking at a0.2 or 0.3 millimeter tip
somewhere in there.
If it's a large 72nd or 148thor 135th, at that point again,
very large range of models there.
I mean you can have a 170second scale b29 and a 148 scale
p26p shooter, right, right, butso big range there.

(49:19):
But general, when you get up tolarge 72nd, 48th, 35th, I start
looking for my 0.4 tip, my 0.45tip.
If you were using other brushesbesides harder, steam back 0.5,
0.52 tip somewhere in there iswhere you want to be Large kits,
let's say the 116th scale orlarge 1-30-second scale

(49:40):
Lancasters and something likethat.
You want to start thinkingabout 0.5, 0.6 millimeter on the
tip in order to get a nicesmooth finish when you're done
shooting.
Now, as far as pressure goes,for primers I shoot a little
higher than I do for generalwork and most certainly for fine
line.
Look at about 15 to 18 PSI forshooting.

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

So you're getting good atomization too.
Gotcha, because to lowerpressure, you get that stipple
building up on each side of theline and that's just going to
add to the texture of the finish.
Now, there's always anexception.
That's the rule in life.
I've found there's usually anexception to things, and one
exception to this is stinal res,which does not like anything

(50:32):
but about 35, 40 PSI, yeah.
So if you're into shootingstinal res, you're going to have
to jack your pressure up alittle bit.
Likewise, stynal Res prefers alarger tip.
It's one of those primers.
It's a bit finicky in thatregard.
So at least 0.35, 0.4, 0.45 iswhere you want to be if you're

(50:53):
going to be shooting Stynal Res,and at about 35 PSI.
We'll come back and touch onthat in a little bit there.
And then one last thing I'm kindof doing make them you know
this is my pitch for use alarger tip when you shoot your
primer coat and a lot of guys go, yeah, but there's so much
paint, it's just so much paintcomes out.
Well, spend a little time on asheet of styrene and learn to

(51:15):
calibrate your finger, to useless lever throw, I mean,
instead of pulling the thingback to a third.
You know, learn to pull it backone twentieth Just barely pull
that lever back and even with a0.4 or 0.45 millimeter tip, you
can manage a two, three, fourmillimeter wide line if you use

(51:35):
just a very little bit of leverthrow.
So don't be afraid to go intothose larger tips because you're
afraid of flooding the model.
Just spend a little time on apaint mule or a piece of styrene
and calibrate your finger andyou'd be surprised how easy it
is to do.
Yeah, so with that, we'rezipping through this, guys.
That's great.
So with that, now that you'veconfigured the brush and you've

(51:57):
decided what you're going toshoot, let's talk about acrylic
versus lacquer primers.
There are so many options thesedays with regards to paints and
primers.
In fact, I know you guys watchthis because you guys watch the
industry carefully.
It seems as though everybodyand his brother is coming out
with a new paint right now.

Mike (52:18):
It's been that way for four years.

Yeah, like four years, Mike and I, every time
we're like, okay, this has to bethe last one, no, but there
can't be another.
And then you know, you go tothe Nationals and ICM announces
a new paint line Squadron justreleased announced a paint line.
Now that's one they acquired.

(52:42):
They acquired Steel Colors, butyeah, it just it's.
You can't, you can't swing adead cat without hitting a new
paint company.

Mike (52:53):
Well, and then you know some of the newer, particularly
Spanish, players in the marketkeep changing their lines and
redoing them.

Yes, oh, don't go there.

Mike (53:04):
I won't.
That's as far as I'll go.

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

Mike (53:09):
God help the retailers.

Yeah, you've done that, you've opened the
door and I'm going to walkthrough on that one because I
got a bone to pick.
Walk through on that onebecause I I got a, I got a bone
to pick.
Um, I put up every ak realcolor myself when I launched
that brand on model paintsolutions.
Every single paint requires itsown dedicated url yeah and when

(53:31):
they revamped the paint theymade sure that even on colors
where they could have carriedthe old catalog numbers over
they didn't.
They gave every color a newcatalog number.

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

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

It baffles me because it's the same paint.

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

Yeah.

And new URLs have to be launched, and that's
a huge amount of work, not tomention the fact that now you've
got a bunch of dead URLs thatare going to have to be ligated
which is what I call it on thesite to make sure that your
Google ranking doesn't suffer.
So it was really I'm just goingto be blunt a harebrained idea

(54:44):
to do that, and the bummer is aswe've talked before.
It really is.
In my experience, one of thebest paints that you can use is
AK.

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

It is, it is.
I've been swearing by it foryears.
So anyway, now that I got thatchip off my shoulder, sorry.
So now I'm sorry, I'm sorry,sorry, more fumes.

(55:34):
So if you're in an apartment oryou have a significant other
that has sensitivities to strongfumes, maybe you know lacquers
aren't going to be the best foryou.
You want to go with theacrylics, which don't smell
anywhere near as bad as thelacquers do.
Dry time Acrylics havesurprisingly fast dry times.

(55:55):
In fact, most of the acrylicprimers that you can get out
there you can dry with ahairdryer and in fact I did that
with both Vallejo primer andthe Mission primer, which is
pretty handy.
Versus lacquers Some of thoselacquer slash enamel primers
they take a while to dry,especially if you want them to
cure, so you don't get thattacky finger feeling when you

(56:15):
touch the kit.
So you're looking at, you know,24, 36 hours sometimes, to make
sure you have complete dryingof those Leveling there.
For me, as the guy that lovesshooting an airbrush, there is
the huge difference betweenlacquers, enamels and acrylics.
Lacquers and enamels want tolevel.

(56:35):
They're just a leveling kind ofchemistry.
They hit the plastic, they move, they level better than
acrylics Acrylics in many ways.
You kind of have to trick theminto leveling.
They don't level as well.
It takes an investment of timeto kind of get the trick down in
my hands before I could getthem to shoot as well as

(56:56):
lacquers my hands before I couldget them to shoot as well as
lacquers Finish.
Usually the lacquer slash enamelprimer is going to give you a
hardier finish.
That's just the way it is, inlarge part because the lacquer
thinner in the paint cutsthrough any of the residual
finger oil on the plastic,unlike an acrylic thinner, which
is going to be water alcoholbased, it's not going to cut

(57:18):
through finger oil as well as alacquer will.
So right off the bat it's goingto cut through any residual oil
better.
It's also going to etch intothe plastic better than will a
more weak acrylic primer.
So in general painting withbroad strokes here lacquer
primers have a hardier finishthan do acrylic primers.

(57:40):
So there's ups and there'sdownsides to each one.
Now, with regards to the acrylicprimers and just a quick
rundown, you know what are someof the primers that are out
there right now that people haveoptions on Lifecolor, vallejo,
mission, stynal, 3g, ammo,oneshot, proacryl.
Even MicroMark makes an acrylicprimer and because of that,

(58:07):
like we were saying earlier,because with so many paint
brands that are coming out onthe market right now, it's kind
of hard these days to come upwith a one-size-fits-all
approach to diluting andspraying acrylic primers,
especially when you get intoprimers like the 3G primer or
the ammo one-shot primer.
That said, I do have somegeneral guidelines for shooting

(58:31):
more of the let's call it moreof the well-known or more of the
more common acrylic primers outthere, in particular talking
about Vallejo, life Color andMission.
Most of those acrylic primers,as do almost all acrylic primers
and paints, benefit from theaddition of 5% to 10% flow aid.
Again, acrylic primers dry fastand they tend to dry on the tip

(58:56):
and give you goobers.
So if you throw in some flowenhancer and or retarder, that
can go a long way to taming youracrylic primer.
Now for most of the more commonones Vallejo, mission and
Lifecolor.
I've had very good results withLiquitex Flow Aid.
And just be mindful, you canget Liquitex products at like

(59:19):
Joann's and Michael's and hobbystores.
Just be mindful, when you buyit, to read the label very
closely, because they don't markthe different kinds of Liquitex
very differently.
They're all black label withlittle white letters.
So you don't want flow orretarder medium, you want
Liquitex Flow-Aid or LiquitexSlow-Dry, which is their

(59:42):
retarder.
That works really well, as Isaid for the primary acrylic
primers that are out there.
That said, Vallejo MIG.
They make their own flowenhancers and retarders and I
have tried some of them and theywork comparably to Liquitex.
So if you have access to thoseat your hobby shop, pick those

(01:00:02):
up.
Those work perfectly fine.
In addition, you can usuallyuse them at about the same
percent volume or you knowpercent retarder, which would be
five to 10% in your final mix.
So adding a flow retarder orflow excuse me, a drying
retarder or a flow enhancer willgo a long way to kind of taming
the acrylic primer lie in there, which can be difficult due to

(01:00:27):
the fast dry times.
So, that said, let's now segueinto how you actually spray the
primer onto the kit, into howyou actually spray the primer
onto the kit.
I find in my hands acrylics area bit more tricky to get onto
the model and with the finishthat you want than our lacquers.

(01:00:48):
And what I like to do when Ishoot most acrylic primers is I
will shoot a dry coat and thenI'll follow that up very quickly
with a wet coat.
Now a dry coat is where you'reholding the brush a little
farther from the model.
You have adjusted the lever sothat you have a nice cone of

(01:01:08):
paint that's hitting the model,but it's hitting the model
already somewhat dry.
You can tell if you've shot adry coat if you look at the
surface of the model.
Where the dry coat is hittingthere should be no shine.
If it's shiny, you've stumbledinto a wet coat, you're putting
the paint on too wet.
So a dry coat really isn'tshiny, kind of hits the model.

(01:01:32):
It's also called a tacky coat.
I kind of go with dry coat, butdry and tacky, you know.
I think it conveys what we'retrying to go for here.
So you shoot your dry coat firstand then you cycle back onto
that portion of the kit and youshoot a wet coat on top of your
dry coat.
Now the wet coat.
When you shoot that, your brushwill be held closer to the

(01:01:53):
model than in the dry coat.
Your lever will be pulled backa little more to give you more
volume of paint coming out.
The rate at which you move thebrush while you're painting will
be faster because you'reputting more paint out than it
was when you were shooting thedry coat.
And, most importantly, whenyou're shooting a wet coat, if
you're bouncing light off ofthat portion of the model where

(01:02:16):
the paint is hitting the surface, that area will be shiny
because the paint will behitting the model wet.
Now, one of the reasons I liketo shoot a dry coat preparatory
to a wet coat when I'm shootingacrylic primers is that dry coat
kind of acts as a catch for thewet coat that's going to come

(01:02:36):
on top of it.
And with some acrylic primers,depending on your luck, if you
go straight to a wet coatwithout a preparatory dry coat,
the paint will actually bead up.
Not good.
Very quick way to ruin yourfinish is to get beading.
So anyway, dry coat followed bywet coat.
When I explain this, either onthe podcast with you guys or

(01:03:01):
even in the shop, the firstquestion most guys have is well,
how long between the two?
Should I wait 10 minutes?
No, no, no, no.
You're not going to wait anymore than 45 seconds to a minute
between shooting the dry andthe wet coats.
You shoot the dry coat and youwait just long enough for the
residual thinner to burn off.

(01:03:21):
If you will leaving just thisdry, tacky coat of paint, then
you go back and shoot your wetcoat on top of that dry coat.
45 seconds to a minute betweenthe two Make sense.
Okay, any questions?

Mike (01:03:37):
No, I don't think so Okay cool.

Dr. Strangebrush (01:03:40):
I guess you guys knew all of this.

Kentucky Dave (01:03:42):
Well, let's face it, we've talked to you before
and not necessarily recorded onair, but yes, you've given us
many of these pieces of advicein person and in our private
conversation.
So let's put it this way youhaven't shocked us yet Okay, I'm

(01:04:03):
trying not to.

The shock comes at the end, okay, okay.
So a couple of exceptions toshooting acrylic primers as a
dry followed by a wet coat.
Again, as we were speakingearlier, stynal Res shoot that
at about 35 PSI with a 0.4 tip.
You shoot that directly as awet coat.
It does not like being shotfirst as a dry coat.
That's just Stynal Res.

(01:04:24):
It's very peculiar that way.
Likewise, mission.
If properly diluted and treatedwith flow, a flow enhancer, you
shoot that as overlapping wetcoats and you get beautiful
results with both of those wetcoats and you get beautiful
results with both of those.
You know if, if you, once youget the once you get the trick.

(01:04:45):
Now, lacquer primers now there's, there's there's not good
selection of lacquer primers areout there.
And let's go back to the oldAlclad 2 primer which I'm
guessing a bunch of folks use.
I use that for years and Istill use it sometimes.
That's a very good lacquerbased primer.
You can shoot it pretty muchstraight, neat, right out of the
bottle.
I found that if you take theold Alclad 2 primer this is the
stuff with the micro filler youcan add Mr Color Leveling

(01:05:11):
Thinner to that to about 10% byvolume to the Alclad and it will
shoot with a slightly finer,smoother finish for you.
So usually when I shoot AlcladI'll spike it with a little bit
of leveling thinner.
Likewise, ak now has twolacquer-based primers with micro
filler and this handles verysimilar in my hands to the way

(01:05:33):
Alclad with filler handles.
Just for a second.
Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt.

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

That's a really good question.
If you have very, very, veryfine scratches the kind of
scratches that you get if maybeyou push down too hard with six
or 800 grit sandpaper reallyfine scratches a lot of those

(01:06:11):
scratches can be filled in byovershooting them with a coat of
primer that has micro filler orfiller in it, and that's what
the filler does.
It's there to basically take upspace and fill in those, those
tiny scratches.
You have to be careful there,though, because if the scratches
are too deep or too intense,you're not going to cover them.

Right.

Right.
So now, definitely better thanshooting I mean especially for
for styrene you're definitelyprobably going to get a smoother
finish if you're shooting afiller that excuse me, shooting
a primer that does have a littlebit of filler in it.
I prefer that to shooting, just, you know, a lacquer paint as a
primer coat, because you justdon't get as smooth a finish.

(01:06:53):
So the filler does, you know,does function to give you a nice
smooth, satiny finish when it'sdone.
Now, both the Ocklite and theAK, the lacquer primers, they
come in white, black and gray,handy, and we're going to cycle
back and talk about how, if youwant, you can nudge those colors

(01:07:13):
white, black or gray colors,white, black or gray, either way
.
Let's say you're shooting a grayprimer and you want that to be
lighter or darker than what itis right in the bottle there.
You can nudge those by addingpaint to the primer and take
them either way.
You want whiter or darker, andwe'll get into that in a couple
of minutes here.
But let's get to.

(01:07:35):
I kind of took a vote amongstthe modelers that I know in my
modeling club, my modelingcircle, and it was almost
universal.
Most of the folks that arebuilding models in my area they
are using Mr Hobby, mr Surfaceras their primer, and this is not

(01:07:56):
the stuff in the aerosol can.
This is the stuff in the bottlethat they mix with leveling
thinner and then shoot onto themodel.

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

Yep, that's what I do, that's pretty much my
go-to, and I started that ohgosh, I don't know eight years
ago, no, nine years ago,probably more, and this, for me,
is the best way to go.
Now, mr Hobby, mr Surfacer,we're talking about the stuff in
the little glass jars.
It comes in 500, 1,000, and1,500.
The one I prefer.

(01:08:29):
Now let me back up for a second.
If you've not used Mr Surfacer,it is a gray liquid primer.
The lower the number, the morecoarse the filler material is.
So if you have large, let's sayone, two, three millimeter
holes in the surface that youwant to fill, you're going to go
with 500.

(01:08:50):
Micro-scratches in the paintthat you just want to fill in,
you're going to go with 1500.
So you can match the coarsenessof the fill with what you're
trying to cover up or whatyou're trying to blend.
That said, for me I actuallyprefer the Mr Surfacer 1000 to

(01:09:14):
mix with Leveling Thinnerpreparatory to shooting it
through an airbrush, and Iusually mix that at about 30% by
volume.
So three parts Mr Surfacer 1000to seven parts leveling thinner
, and I'll apply that as a verywell, since it's lacquer, you
can go right to a wet coatbecause it's in leveling thinner

(01:09:37):
and it's lacquer and it'lllevel beautifully and give you a
really nice finish.
You can also apply it as alight dry coat, then follow up
with a wet coat.
Either application techniqueworks well with that After
that's dried, depending on howsmooth the finish is.
You can also take after thatwith Micro, micro mesh, six or

(01:09:58):
8,000 grit preparatory to yourpaint.
And also, let's back up for asecond.
Let's say you're a car guy andyou're doing a car model that
where in where on the plastic isis actually in pretty good
shape.
You don't have a lot of pittingor roughness to the surface.
It's pretty much just as smoothas you can get it right as it

(01:10:21):
is.
If that's the case, but youstill want to shoot a primer
coat on it, take your MrSurfacer 1000 and cut it from
30% to 15% in leveling thinnerto 15% in leveling thinner, and

(01:10:42):
what you'll find.
I just shot this about a monthago, maybe a little longer, and
if you mix up about 15% MrSurfacer in leveling thinner,
you get this very, very, verysmooth surface.
I mean it just has less fillerin it, so it's just going to
have less texture.
So you can again if you have amodel that doesn't have a lot of
blemishes and it's darn nearready to go, you know, right
into paint because it's sosmooth, but you do want to get a

(01:11:03):
primer coat on it.
Cut your Mr Surfacer down alittle bit and you will get an
even finer finish when it's dry.
Okay, now from there.
Let's talk about for a minutewhat I'm calling specialty
primers.
Let's talk about for a minutewhat I'm calling specialty
primers.
So let's say that you're goingfor a polished metal finish.
Let's say you're going forpolished aluminum or you're

(01:11:24):
going for chrome.
Either one of those finalfinishes, as you guys both know,
require a gloss black baseunderneath the metallic metallic
.
And you know, as just an aside,I know a lot of guys that when
they're shooting let's saythey're going for polished

(01:11:49):
aluminum they will shoot theirgloss black coat and they will
put a huge amount of time intobuffing that black coat out into
a gloss finish prior toshooting their metallic paint on
top of it.
You can do that.
I actually prefer, whenpossible, to do that work with
an airbrush and not a buffinghand.
So when I shoot my black base,I try to shoot it and get it as

(01:12:12):
glassy and shiny as I can rightout of the airbrush so I don't
have to do any buffing, and ifyou kind of think ahead, you can
actually get that done and kindof cut your buffing time down.
So, that said, if I want toshoot an acrylic gloss primer
coat in preparation for asubsequent metallic coat Mission

(01:12:36):
Black excuse me, mission GlossBlack Base for Chrome, I think
it's called, but it's in theMission line.
It's very thin, it goes onbeautifully.
It gives you a very, very gloss, shiny black finish.
That's pretty much my go-to foran acrylic gloss black primer.

(01:12:57):
If I'm not shooting that, I willgo with the old Alclad gloss
black once again with 10%leveling thinner added to it.
The one that works best in myhands, however, is the AK
Extreme gloss black.
That stuff is pretty amazing.
I just shot that about twomonths ago for a project and I

(01:13:19):
tried to improve on it byassessing how various
concentrations of a levelingthinner made that extreme gloss
black go on, and what I foundwas that's one paint that likes
to be just left alone.
Shoot it neat, don't add anyleveling thinner or any.
Yeah, it kind of surprised me.
That stuff's really good.

(01:13:40):
I actually like it more thanthe old Alclad Lacquer Black.
You have to give it about twodays for it to dry entirely, you
know completely.
Once it's dry, it's rock hardand it is very, very shiny.
So if you're looking for theshiniest lacquer black primer

(01:14:02):
coat that you can get, myrecommendation is going to be
using the extreme gloss black.
That's about as good as you canget in my hands.
And lastly, that one.

Mike (01:14:12):
Is that one part of their extreme metal?

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

Mike (01:14:18):
That's what it's formulated for, then?

Yeah, it is.
You can shoot Alclad on top ofit.
I have and it workedbeautifully.
It's just a very, very hardygloss black.
When it's dry it's just one ofthe hardiest paints I've ever
seen.
So they got the formulationright on that one.
So one last specialty primerthat I ran into a couple of

(01:14:40):
years ago is actually using backto the AK Extreme Metallics,
actually using AK ExtremeAluminum as a primer coat.
And I stumbled on this when Iwas doing the Edward 148 scale
ME-109 G6 Night Fighter and Idid a plane flown by Kurt Gabler
Red 8.

(01:15:00):
And it's a distinctive 109because it seems as though his
ground crew spent a lot of timeremoving most of the paint from
the fuselage.
So it was essentially a naturalmetal 109 fuselage with some
accounts of painted wings withsome accounts painted wings.

(01:15:21):
And since I was going for thatscheme, I went right to with no
black base or no primer coatwhatsoever.
I went right to shooting theentire model with AK Extreme
Aluminum that was diluted, about70% paint and 10 or 20% extreme
metallic thinner, aka extremethinner.
That worked absolutelybeautifully and I wrote about it

(01:15:45):
in detail in an article that'son the site For the folks
listening at home if you want totry toL-E-R-S Red 8.
You should very quickly find,at least in the first couple of

(01:16:06):
results there, the article onModel Paint Solutions where I go
into more detail on this.
It worked absolutely beautifullyand it served as a really good
undercoating for the subsequentacrylic color coats that I shot
on top of it and it.
I was really impressed with hownice the paint looked on this.

(01:16:27):
And just to back up a littlebit, one of the reasons that
when I shoot extreme aluminum asa primer coat I will use the AK
Extreme thinner to dilute itabout, you know, 30%, 20 to 30%.
I do that use the Extremethinner because when I use the
aluminum as a primer coat I wantto get as much etching of that

(01:16:50):
paint into the plastic as I canand the Extreme Thinner kind of
helps with that.
It gives you a really hardyfinish once it's dry.
If I were shooting it on top ofa pre-primed surface I'd
probably switch from AK Extremeto Leveling Thinner because it
might give you a slightlysmoother finish.
But it's something that came upwith Steve Hustad in an article

(01:17:19):
that he put recently on ModelPaint about his beautiful Edward
72nd scale ME109G10s, which arejust unreal?
Yes they are.
Have you ever met that man faceto face?

Many times, many times.
In fact four times last yearalone.

Mike (01:17:42):
Yeah, he's become a regular in our show entourage.

That's awesome .
I've had so many goodconversations with him on the
phone and so many hilariousemail exchanges, but
unfortunately I never met theman face-to-face.
Here's the real question I havefor you have you ever seen him
cut his finger or in any wayinjure himself?
No, because I'm wondering if hebleeds green.

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

Yeah, it is.

It's so unfair.

The Voice of Bob (Bair (01:18:23):
Terribly unfair.

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

Yeah, yeah, I got you there as a matter of fact,
when he was doing those G10s.
He was sending me, texting mepictures all during the build.
And I'm telling you what he andBarry Numerick both have been

(01:19:09):
very impressed by those newEdward 109 kits and I've got to
tell you that that's got mecurious to break one of those
out.

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

Bomber.
Oh, I've seen that thing inperson.

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

Yeah.

Something like that, something like that.
Anyway, I just have to saypublicly I am always elated when
I get to put a Steve Hustadarticle up on Model Paint
Solutions, because not only arethey just visually stunning, but
I always learn something everytime I read his articles.
Yep, absolutely.

(01:20:07):
And lament the fact that Idon't live in Minnesota so I can
go over to his house and payhim for modeling services.
Yeah, so anyway, he brought upto me, as well as another very
good modeler I think you bothknow, tim Too, tall Nelson.
Oh God yes, or as he prefers tobe called, tim Right.

Height, just the Right Height Nelson.

Yeah yeah, tim's a great guy and he's an
excellent modeler and he andSteve both pointed out an issue
with shooting extreme metallicsthat I'd like to, even though
it's off our primer thing hereI'd like to address real quick.
I couldn't get it to repeat theway they did until I kind of
played with the paint and thenit did exactly what they say,

(01:20:53):
which is, even after the paintis dry it tends to react with
the adhesive on masking tape andit doesn't pull off.
It doesn't chip off, but whenyou pull the tape off it changes
the texture and therefore thesheen of the underlying paint
and you can see where the tapewas.

(01:21:15):
So I went to the SecretUnderground Model Paint
Solutions Research PaintLaboratory and played around
with some concoctions and cameup with a really easy fix for
that.
And it simply add a littlegloss to the metallic when you
mix it up and it worksbeautifully.
And I actually, you know, added, you know I had two strips of

(01:21:37):
sheet styrene and one was shotwith my normal mixture of for AK
talix and the other was shotwith that mixture plus five
percent by volume AK gloss addedto it.
I let them both dry overnight.
I embossed a piece of Tamiyatape on top with a burnishing
tool, let it sit for about 12hours and then pulled the tape

(01:21:57):
off with a burnishing tool.
Let it sit for about 12 hoursand then pulled the tape off and
you can't see where the tapewas on the surface that had
gloss in it, but you can seewhere the tape was on the other
one.
So yeah, so let me give themthe formula for that real quick
is roughly 70% metallic, whetherwhatever it is, you know,

(01:22:18):
aluminum, dark aluminum, whitealuminum, 70% metallic, about
20-25%, thinner, levelingthinner or AK Extreme, and then
the balance 5-10%.
However, you're mixing it withjust gloss, ak Gloss, and it
works beautiful and it makes ita paint that withstands masking

(01:22:38):
tape much, much better.
So a little bit of a tangentthere, but anyway.
Lastly, last kind of thing hereis talking about the color of
the primer to use on on yourmasterpiece.
So, being an aircraft guy, Ikind of cut my teeth on using
white or very light gray primersfor most aircraft builds.

(01:23:02):
I'm not one that uses a lot ofblack primer on an aircraft
build, although you can ifyou're going to be doing
marbling on top of it.
That's a great color to startwith Most of the time for me
aircraft and car models.
I go with white or light gray,armor models, I think, or models

(01:23:25):
that have very busy surfaces,as does an armor model.
I think those kits really leanthemselves to shooting with a
black primer, and particularlybecause of course you're going
to get that shadow effect in allthe little nooks and crannies
that are now painted blackbefore you shoot your tan or
your green or whatever on top ofit.
But the other thing to thinkabout is perhaps, depending on

(01:23:49):
the color that you're going for,you can oftentimes make do if
you have a nice smooth primercoat.
You can make do with thatprimer coat as your primary
color.
And again on the site I didthis thing, my, I can't even
pronounce it anymore.
It's a russian twin boom, ahigh altitude spy plane.
Um, uh, models of it makes, themakes, the kit.

(01:24:12):
It's on my, my chef, my chef m1.

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

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

The Voice of Bob (Bair) (01:24:20):
I should have that on top of my
head.

Yeah, I should.

Anyway, nonetheless, I built one of
these for the museum displayyears back and the article is on
model paint solutions and whatI found was it was basically a
white and gray airframe and Isimply painted the model white
and gray primer and it lookedbeautiful.
I shot it in white, I taped itoff, I shot it in gray.

(01:24:45):
No, no, no, you know colorcoats required.
So there's one option for youknow, if you can make the primer
coat color work, you may notneed to actually have to shoot a
paint on top of it.
Color work, you may not need toactually have to shoot a paint
on top of it.
And to that end, let's sayagain you're going to be
shooting a gray primer and thecolor that you want is a

(01:25:07):
slightly lighter color of gray.
Well, if you're shootingacrylic primers like Vallejo
primer, you can add Vallejopaint to Vallejo primer and
tweak that darker or lighter tothe shade that you want.
Likewise, you can add MissionPaint to Mission Primer.
Here's one that's handy forthose folks again, using Stynal

(01:25:29):
Res, you can take Vallejo paintand add to Stynal Res white
primer and change that color aswell.
If you're preferring to uselacquer primers like Alclad 2 or
AK, both of those primers canbe tweaked color-wise by adding
AK Real Colors paints or theTamiya lacquer line to both of

(01:25:51):
those primers Really good forchanging those colors as well.
And lastly, back to Mr Surfacer1000, which seems to be
everybody's go-to primer.
I'm in the process right now ofdoing a project for the museum,
which is, I think I'm going totake Mr Surfacer 1000 and tweak

(01:26:12):
it a little bit by adding alittle bit of AK paint to that
primer and get it into a darkergray that I need for this
project and use that as my finalcoat.
Don't really have to shoot anypaint on top of it because it'll
be exactly the color I'mlooking for.
So anyway, in summary, thereare times, especially if you're
working in the white gray, blackscale, that you can tweak the

(01:26:34):
color hue of your primer to getwhere you need to be without
coming on top of it with a colorcode.
And with that I open the floorto any questions I think you've
covered it pretty extensively.

I've, I've, I do too.
I I never fail when you justthought you were talking about
Steve earlier and learning fromH interaction with him.
I never come away from one ofthese things without having
learned one or two new tricksthat I have to write down

(01:27:11):
because I don't want to forgetthem and my mind is getting a
little older but tricks that Iwant to try the next time.
And so I've got a couple ofprojects I'm finishing up now,
but the next time I prime I'mgoing to try a couple of those
tricks.

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

Mike (01:27:33):
Well, what's been going on at Model Paint Solutions?

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

Mike (01:27:48):
We've had several listeners get those over the
holidays and are liking thatthing.

I kind of fell for it hook line and sinker.
Now I had the.
I had the david unionreciprocating sander on the site
a few years back.
They came, became difficult toget and I kind of gave up on
them.
I tried the this, this new oneby dispe, and I was really
impressed with it.
It's small, it's light, it'srechargeable.
There's no cord.

(01:28:14):
That's always in your way.
But the big difference for mebetween the David Union is the
tips that they give you, theseblack nylon tips they give you.
You know that you put yoursandpaper on.
They provide tips in the kitthat are round, that are
semi-round, that are, you know,90 degree angles.

(01:28:35):
Those kind of special, you knowshaped tips are really handy
for, for sanding and buffingjobs.
And the David, the David Unionstuff just did not have the same
, the same selection of tips.
So anyway, I really liked those.
Those are going up on the site.
I've got them in stock.
They should be up in the nextcouple of days.
The big thing for me, as I'msure a lot of folks know out

(01:28:59):
there is Harder.
Steam Deck has launchedbasically a new line of
airbrushes, starting with theUltra 2024, the Evolution and
the Infinity 2024.
And I have to say I've been anEvolution guy for as long as the
brush has been out.
I actually prefer the Evolutionover the Infinity.

(01:29:19):
It just fits my hand better.
And I was dubious when I heardabout all these claims that the
new Evolution was thismonumental step forward, and I
was really pleased to see, whenI got one in my hands, that
indeed it really is.
They did a really good job whenthey redesigned or

(01:29:39):
re-engineered the evolution.
The lever in particular is anentirely new design.
There is no play whatsoever inthat lever.
The moment you pull the leverback, the needle comes back.
I'd heard people complain abouthow much play there was in the
old Infinity lever and it never,ever bothered me.
And it wasn't until I tried thenew Evolution with this tighter

(01:30:03):
lever that I realized.
You know what?
There was a little play in thatlever that I never really
noticed before.
So, first off, the lever isnewly designed.
The air valve is designed forbetter airflow.
The needle chuck has beendesigned so you don't ding the
tip of the needle as readilywhen you slip the needle in.
In addition to that, hs came outwith two new size tips a 0.28

(01:30:24):
and a 0.45.
Again, I was dubious and then Iput the 0.28 in my brush and
that's the tip that stayed in mybrush ever since I put it in
there.
That is a really handy size tip.
It provides surprisingly finelines but it's big enough that
when you have to do a littlemini you know wet coat it can
handle it Very nice size tip.

(01:30:44):
The Evolution excuse me, theInfinity as well as folks know
that was released a couple ofmonths ago.
It has the same redesign leveras the Evolution, so there's no
play Definitely an improvementover the older Infinity.
The new Infinity is also comingout with two new size tips a
0.21 and, I think, a 0.41.

(01:31:06):
For me, just to speak bluntly,I was not entirely pleased to
hear that the Infinity can onlyuse those two size tips.
I think one of the realutilities to harder Steenbeck
brushes is that with oneairbrush you can use a full
range of different size tips.

(01:31:28):
The good news there is that thenew Evolution 2024 was designed
such that you can use all ofthe old harder Steenbeck tips on
the new Evolution 2024.
So you can put the 0.15, the0.2, the 0.4, the new 0.28, the
new 0.45, or a 0.6 on theEvolution.

(01:31:51):
One airbrush, that many tips.
That, in my book, makes it oneof the most utilitarian brushes
that I have ever seen, andthat's before you get to just
what a quality design the thingis and how well they did on the
redesign.
So, and once again, I'm notgoing to make some folks at
Harder Steamback happy with me,but I also think that there

(01:32:12):
might be some guys out therethat you know think they want to
get into an ultra because youknow they're, they're, they're a
newbie to the sport and youknow think they want to get into
an ultra because you knowthey're, they're a newbie to the
sport and you know this is abrush made for newbies.
My suggestion to you is thatunless you just have no
mechanical ability whatsoeverand you're you're deathly afraid
of airbrushing, you might bebetter served by getting an

(01:32:34):
evolution, better served bygetting an evolution.
I have sent multiple ultras outand I find that for folks who
are again with no real abilityand no experience, this might be
the perfect brush for them.
It definitely works for theyounger crowd.
I've got multiple kids thathave ultras and they're very

(01:32:54):
happy with them and it's a goodbrush for if you're learning the
very basics, but if you're evenslightly past that.
I strongly suggest you thinkabout picking up the new
Evolution 2024.
That is a brush that you canboth learn on and you can't
outgrow it, because it's justtoo good a brush to outgrow.

(01:33:16):
So, anyway, the new thing forme is the new Evolution 2024.
Great brush.
I will be coming out withanother article on it in the
next month or two and you know,if anybody has any questions on
that, send me an email or we canarrange a chat.
I'll be glad to talk to youabout it.
You guys still there, yeah.

You cut out for just a second.

Mike (01:33:38):
You're talking about arranging a chat.

Yeah.

Mike (01:33:41):
Why don't you repeat that part?

Okay.
So if anybody's interested inthat, you know, feel free to
send me an email and I'll getright back to you on that.
If, like a lot of guys do, youknow, I prefer having a quick
chat by phone versus spending anhour hunting and packing having
a quick chat by phone versusspending an hour hunting and
packing.
So if anybody has questionsabout the new Evo or what
airbrush would be best for themat this stage, send me an email.

(01:34:09):
We'll set up a time to have aphone chat and we'll talk it out
.
I do that two or three times aday and that's kind of the
highlight of my day is talkingto other modelers, so give me a
call.

Mike (01:34:14):
And then, before we let you go, john, you also wanted to
mention the old bubbles in thecup problem you seem to have a
rash of lately.

Yeah, so thanks for reminding me on that,
mike.
So, yeah, time for the ModelPaint Solutions public service
announcement.
I've been hit by a lot of guyslately sending me emails giving
me a call about bubbles in thepaint cup, and this is a very
common problem, in particularfor the folks out there that are

(01:34:43):
shooting harder Steinbeckbrushes or Iwata brushes or
Hansa brushes or Procon brushesAll of these brushes are prone
to this issue of developingbubbles in the paint cup.
The bummer is for a lot of guys.
They'll look at the bubblescoming out of the paint cup and
they'll think, aha, there is aclog somewhere between the air

(01:35:03):
valve.

Guilty as charged .

And the nozzle , and they'll break the brush
apart.
They'll clean it right, they'llput it back together.
And here's the bad part.
This is how fate messes with ussometimes.
And when they put the brushback together, they'll simply
screw the parts back togethertighter than they did before and
the bubbles will go away.
And then they will attributethat to well, there must've been

(01:35:32):
a tiny little piece of gooberthat I didn't see, that I got
out of there and that's why it'sworking now.
And that's actually not it.
What actually happened was you.
When you put it back together,you tighten the air cap
appropriately and the bubbles goaway.
Yeah, so when you have bubblesin the paint cup, this, this,
with with the following but hshansa awada, pro Pache.

(01:35:55):
What that means is that youhave a leak of air right at the
nozzle.
Now, with Harder Steenbeck, youcan have a leak at the back of
the nozzle where you have thelittle white Teflon seal, or you
can have a leak coming out ofthe air cap where you have the
black O-ring.

(01:36:15):
Now, both of those parts, asyou guys know, are available
through Harder Steam Bank.
You get three seals per bag.
They're like $4.
Every once in a while it's agood idea to change those seals
out in order to keep this fromhappening.
If you do get bubbles in thepaint cup, however, the first
thing to do is to remove thetailpiece from the brush, loosen

(01:36:38):
the needle lock nut, pull theneedle back a centimeter, half
an inch or so, so you don'tcrash the needle into the nozzle
when you reach down and tightenthe air cap.
That's where the leak isoccurring.
So once you get a goodtightening on the air cap and if
it's an HS brush you're lookingat hoping to get that air cap

(01:37:01):
to turn between a quarter and athird of a turn.
That will usually lockeverything in place and the
bubbles will go away.
Now, that said, some folkswhether they have tender hands,
not a lot of hand strength, orthey have a brush that has some
wear and tear on the threadssometimes it's difficult to get
enough torque pounds onto thattiny air cap to get it to seal,

(01:37:25):
and for that I stronglyrecommend anybody go in this
situation, go to Amazon andsearch for soft jawed pliers,
and what you'll find is aselection of pliers, all of
which have these Teflon insertsthat cover the metal jaws so
they don't mar metal surfaces.
I have a couple of pairs ofthese in my shop.

(01:37:46):
These pliers are real handy forgetting that last little
tighten on the air cap so youcan get those bubbles to go away
.
If you're running an Awadawhich has a different air cap
design, in that situation you'vegot the tiny little wrench and
the tiny little nozzle.
In that case you're going topop that air cap off and grab

(01:38:08):
your wrench and try to getanother.
You know eighth of a turn,because those threads are so
fine.
Try to get an eighth of a turnon that little nozzle.
Reassemble the brush, thebubbles should go away.
Fine, try to get an eighth of aturn on that little nozzle.
Reassemble the brush, thebubbles should go away.

It's amazing how many guys have spent how many
hours cleaning their brushes forthis, for the reason I'm
laughing is that this exactthing happened to me like three
or four years ago and and Ispent a whole day tearing down a

(01:38:40):
brush, cleaning it, putting itback together.
Why are there bubbles?
What the clearly I'm not.
And I finally gave up andcontacted john and john said
just tighten the cap.
A little bubbles went away.
You feel kind of dumb.

I had one of my oldest customers call me
about, send me an email abouttwo weeks ago with this problem,
and I sent him a long emailback and he just couldn't get
the air cap tight enough and hekept sending me.
You know, no, I did that, it'stight and we just went back for
three or four emails and finallysent him.
I called him actually and, as Isometimes do, and as soon as he

(01:39:27):
answered the phone I said, yeah, this is John from the model
paint solutions airbrush crisisline.
I'm here to talk you down, it'sokay.
I'm here to talk you down, it'sokay, and in live time, talk
with him on the phone.
I said, hey, do you have a pairof soft jawed pliers?
And he says, yeah, I do, let mego get them real quick.
He went and got them and afterhe pulled the needle back and,

(01:39:47):
you know, get a little, got alittle good torque on the air
cap.
It worked perfectly the veryfirst time he tried it and he
just died laughing and he's like, oh yeah, the hours I've spent
cleaning this brush.

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

So the air goes a whole bunch of crazy
places, you know, not just astraight line from the air valve
to the air cap.
So anyway, that is the publicservice announcement.
Remember bubbles in the air cup, excuse me, bubbles in the
paint cup.
Take a step back, pull theneedle back, tighten the air cup
.
And the excuse me, bubbles inthe paint cup.
Take a step back, pull theneedle back, tighten the air cap
.
You should be good, you will beand if you're not the hardest

(01:40:45):
game, bet guys real quick, andif you're not, then you have to
think about getting a getting ahold of a bag of the teflon
nozzle seals.
And those seals pop right offwith your fingernail or an
exacto blade.
The new seal pops on with afriction fit.
So change those white Teflonseals out on the back of the
nozzle and at the same time goahead and change out the black

(01:41:07):
O-ring under the air cap.
Change both those out at thesame time.
Retighten the air cap.
Bubbles will go away bubbleswill go away.

As always, John, super informative.

Mike (01:41:18):
Love to get together and chat To figure out what the next
one's going to be.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking.

Mike (01:41:27):
I've got some ideas, all right, send them to us.

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

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

Mike (01:41:45):
Well, Dave, I hope people get in the show notes so they
don't have to take notes duringall that.

That's one of those things that, like you said
, we contemplated just having ashort conversation and it just
expanded, expanded and I mean itwas great.
I enjoyed every bit of it and,like I have said, every time we
talked to Dr Miller I learnednew stuff, and that was no

(01:42:12):
exception.
So I hope everybody elseenjoyed it as much as I did.
So I hope everybody elseenjoyed it as much as I did.

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(01:42:43):
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Mike (01:43:06):
And a Challenge Coin display stand.

Yes, absolutely.

Mike (01:43:11):
Dave, I hope you've gotten to the bench a little more than
you did during the dark times.
What is up on Dave's bench?

I have Not as much as I'd want.
Still, the past week to 10 daysI've done a little work on the
salmon.
To be frank, it's so superclose.
I mean I am getting to theplace you did where you made the
rush to the finish with thepawl.
But most of my effort has beenput into the Moosaroo because

(01:43:42):
there's a time limit on that andthis kit has had some
challenges to it and, like allmodels, when you're building it
in retrospect you do itdifferently next time In
retrospect, you do itdifferently next time.
But it's moving along.
But time is short and I have toget it done.
I have to get moving and so Iam focused on that.

(01:44:06):
I've got time in.
I got some time in.
A lot of it is very, verytedious small detail sanding, I
mean, you know, with water andvery fine sandpaper, sanding
very, very small areas.
But it's going to get there.

(01:44:27):
I promise it's going to getthere.

Mike (01:44:30):
You've got to find your cadence because if you do, you
could have two done by Mark.

Yes, I could, that is impossible.
I could have two up at Mark.
Yes, I could, that isimpossible.
I could have two up at HeritageCon.
We'll see.
But I have gotten to the benchmore, and that's good.
Not as much as I want.
Not back to full-time, orfull-time for me, normal time,
just simply because workpost-New Year's and then

(01:44:58):
post-Martin Luther King Day italways just picks up, and so the
practice has been very busy andthat's kept me from doing more.
But I am getting stuff done,I'm enjoying it, my mojo is
pretty high and I've beeninspired by my fellow podcaster
who actually finished a modelOne we've been talking about for

(01:45:22):
a number of years.

Mike (01:45:23):
Yeah, too long.
Well, it is done.
The E16 is done, done, done.
Despite the warts, I'mextremely pleased with it and I
appreciate all the kind wordsfolks had about it.
On the dojo, I really do.
I like it a lot.
Yeah, I don't know if I wasdone last time.

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

Mike (01:45:58):
Well, I think last time I had to put the catapult on the
base and then the plane on thecatapult.
Right, we're there now.
The plane's still notpermanently attached and I don't
know if I even will.

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

Mike (01:46:13):
It's pretty stable, even when it's on there unfastened.
So, yeah, we may have to takeour chances on that, sure.
Of late, though, I've been backon the kv-85.
I've been working on littlestuff about the hull, side
bulges and then the frontfenders and the driver's visor,
just kind of getting into thezen of all that because, uh,

(01:46:35):
that one's more of a traditionalproject for me.

Yeah.

Mike (01:46:39):
More my flavor and I don't know it's.
It's just going to go and goand be done when it's done.
So no projections, I'm justgonna keep chipping away at it.

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

Mike (01:46:53):
Squadron sent us a sample of scale colors.
Squadron sent us a sample ofscale colors.
This was Jeff Hearn's paintline.
I guess he's been assimilatedinto Squadron and they have
picked up this paint line andhe's going to be a remote
employee and work on that kindof thing.
But I haven't done a lot withit yet.
But watch the dojo, I have usedit.

(01:47:14):
I got to go back and make somenotes and think about a couple
things.
Well, it looked reallyinteresting.
I have used it.
I got to go back and make somenotes and think about a couple
of things, but uh, well, itlooked really interesting what
you you were.

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

Mike (01:47:24):
Yeah, I stripped the old paint mule, cause it had
Henamaru on it for decal tests.
So I stripped it back down pastthe primer and reprimed it and
I tried to think of something Icould do with the colors that he
sent and I did someundercoating and pre-shading and
that sort of thing and thenthey top coated it and we'll get

(01:47:46):
to that at a different time.
The only other thing I've beenworking on just a little bit of
dabbling going on with the FlakPanzer 38D.
Nothing worth mentioning really.

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

Mike (01:48:01):
You deserve it.
Anything else on the bench?
That's it.

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Squadron adding to the stashsince 1968.

Mike.
They've been announcing newkits hot and heavy.
We've got this is kind of theseason We've got Airfix's range
release.
We've got IBG teasing a new kitfor Nuremberg.
You know some other companiesannouncing releases.

(01:48:54):
So what have your faves andyawns been lately?

Mike (01:49:00):
Probably the most interesting one, and I don't
know if it's sleepies details orslipies detail, s-l-y-p-i
details, and they've got somehungarian subjects in 35th skill
that are really interesting.
Now these are 3d print models,I'm almost certain.
Yeah, they have a hungarianmodel 29, 80 millimeter bofors

(01:49:20):
anti-aircraft gun which looksawesome yeah, it kind of looks
like a, like a german 88 or a ora soviet 85 kind of that size
gun, and they've also got anammo set and an ammo case on for
it, really so so you could havesomething pretty impressive
there if you wanted to.
Yeah, that was interesting.
You know, we've got, we've gotsome hungarian armor and plastic

(01:49:44):
right, 35th scale, but this is,and I've got a.
I've got a ukrainian made kit20 millimeter, bofors, hungarian
right, but this is.
This was new to me and lookpretty cool.

Well, good.

Mike (01:49:57):
You got one.

Well, my first one's going to be out of the
Airfix range.
Announcement.
They announced unsurprising notreally surprising, given the
late model B-24 that they cameout with in the last year or so.
In the last year or so they'veannounced a B24D the early model

(01:50:25):
, the Plo SD Raider model, b24din 72nd scale and the B24 late
model kit that they've alreadyreleased is really good, so I've
got to think that the kit thatwe're going to get with the G
model is going to be just asgood.
I can't wait.
Now we've got an excellent B24Dfrom Hasegawa, so you know this

(01:50:50):
was not the most desperatelyneeded item, but I'm not going
to turn down a new tool B24D.

Mike (01:50:58):
Well, how many do you have in your stash from some other
brand?

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

Mike (01:51:15):
A company called 3D Wild is Okay Is doing the Hunley.
That's on my list In severalscales, including 72nd scale, so
I figured you would like it.

Yes.

Mike (01:51:25):
Now a historical note.
They listed it as CSS Hunley.
Yeah, it was never CSS Hunley,right?
It was an Army concern, right?
Not a Confederate Navy concern.
But that's neither here northere.
So I don't know if this one'sgoing to be post-discovery or
pre.

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

Mike (01:52:12):
Models had been made based on drawings and all some of
which turned out to be incorrectwhen they found the actual ship
, which has been excavated andis now in Charleston undergoing
preservation.
Yeah, I've been to the display.
They've got there.
You can't see much of thesubmarine, but they've got the
other artifacts.
I guess the biggest thingpost-discovery is that all the
external rivets were ground flat.

Yes.

Mike (01:52:27):
And other than that, I don't know that.

Well, the spar location, the spar torpedo
location, whether it was on thetop or on the bottom, had been a
matter of speculation If itcame off the bottom of the nose
or the top of the nose.
Well, that question's now beensolved.
So I'm assuming this kit willtake advantage of all of the

(01:52:54):
knowledge that we have now thatthe ship's actually been
recovered.
What you got next?
Well, that was one that I had,but another one that I had,
that's a fave, and this one, I'mthinking of you.
Naomega has announced, in 72ndscale, a cam ship hurricane

(01:53:17):
catapult section.

Mike (01:53:20):
I think they're the same people who make the one for the
walrus in 48th scale.

They may, I do not know.
Now, this is for those whodon't know.
There was a brief time wherewhat they did to combat German
raiding aircraft raiding intothe Atlantic, they basically
took a hurricane and mounted iton a catapult on a freighter and

(01:53:52):
if an enemy aircraft wasspotted, then the hurricane was
launched to fight off theattacking German aircraft and
then, if you were close enoughto shore, the hurricane would
try and fly back.
But in many cases the pilot,once they'd done their job,

(01:54:14):
would simply ditch alongside andhope to be picked up.
And I think and Jim will haveto correct me, I think a number
of these conversions wereactually done in Canada.
So they've actually got acatapult section for one of

(01:54:36):
these cam ship catapults in 72ndscale and we've got a couple of
really good hurricane kits thatwould be pretty easy to convert
to a cam ship hurricat.
We need the whole catapult.
Yeah, well, it says catapultsection, so I'm assuming it's

(01:54:58):
not the whole catapult but therest of the catapult.
It looks to me ought to befairly easy to reproduce.
They've given you the.
They're giving you all thetough stuff.

Mike (01:55:10):
Okay, well, maybe I need to look at it a little harder.
Yep, yep, I thought it wasgoing to be just like the Walrus
one, which is this stubbylittle section, right?
I thought it was going to bejust like the Walrus one, which
is this stubby little section,right?
You know, I wouldn't want to doit that way, but it's a decent
display for the model.

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

Mike (01:55:26):
My next one's not terribly exciting MiniArt is about to
rip through a series of RSOtractors in 35th scale.

Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:55:35):
You know, I don't know if it's going to be how much better
, if any, than the Dragon ones.
I bet the instructions arebetter.

Well, that's damning with faint praise.

Mike (01:55:47):
I don't know, that's not a particular vehicle that I've
been highly interested in, withone exception being the one they
took the cab down and put the.
Pac-40 on Right.
That's one I've always wantedto model and I know dragon
kitted it and I never did pickit up.
So I probably end up giving itto skip and getting this one

(01:56:09):
instead.

So that's, that's my next one've got one more,
and this one is courtesy of JimBates, who knows me and my
interests very well.
There is a company out ofNorway called Vingtor Decals and
they have announced a brand newsheet for RAF aircraft in the

(01:56:35):
Norwegian campaign of 1940,basically just up my alley and
it is decals for GloucesterGladiators of 263 Squadron and
Hawker Hurricane Mark 1s of 46Squadron.
And yeah, jim knows me well.

(01:56:56):
This is a must-have and I'll begetting this one I don't know
exactly when, but soon.
So do you have any others?

Mike (01:57:08):
No just sort of Okay, you mentioned Nuremberg, that's
kicking off here this week.

Yes.

Mike (01:57:17):
We know there's an ICM 72nd scale release and our
friends have been speculatingaround what that might be.
Ibg, ibg, that's right, ibg isgoing to be releasing, so we've
been speculating a little bitabout that.
Yes, be curious to see who'scorrect, or maybe everybody's
wrong, I don't know.
But generally, the 35th scaleplastic reveals and all the

(01:57:40):
published 2025 catalogs from thefolks who have published new
catalogs so far this year havebeen kind of weak in my opinion.
I'm hoping for a Nurembergsurprise in 35th scale.
I don't know if we'll get it.
Yeah, I don't know.
A lot of the Asian companiesdon't typically announce at that
show.
I don't know if we'll get it,because I don't know a lot of
the Asian companies don'ttypically announce that.

(01:58:00):
That show Right.
And then one more thing.
You know we kind of minedthrough skill mates to find some
of this stuff.
35th scales, this 3D print isjust becoming white noise.

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

Mike (01:58:10):
I don't, I don't, can't keep up.
Who made this?
Who made what?
Whose is better, better?

who's it's right?
I don't know yep, no, I'm tryingnot to tune it out, right, it
is just.
It is a fire hose and it's Imean.
I got back into the hobby.
I knew literally every kit that, in 72nd scale, had been made,

(01:58:48):
and just because there were sofew manufacturers, so few kits,
you know, and I even knew mostof the aftermarket.
It's, you know, and I even knewmost of the aftermarket, but
now it is literally a fire hose,especially with 3D printing.
The variety of stuff that'sbeing announced and the

(01:59:11):
frequency with which it's beingannounced, it's just flat out
amazing.

Mike (01:59:16):
It is, and I guess the solutions in the statement,
scalemates at least there youcan filter and keep up with
stuff based on the subject.
So it's just a lot of it.
I'm kind of gobsmacked by howmuch of it there is and it just
keeps coming and coming andcoming.
So I guess that's where I amwith that.
So folks keep doing it.
I'm not saying don't make stuffbut old Mike here can't keep up

(01:59:38):
.

Well, and that emphasizes something I mentioned
earlier when you come acrosssomething, particularly when you
get your hands on something,please post on the dojo and let
us know hey, especially inregard to the 3D stuff, because
the quality of 3D stuff rangesso widely that it's really good

(02:00:05):
to let your fellow modelers know.
Hey, I ordered this, this iswhat I got.
It's great or it's not great?
Help a fellow modeler out, leteverybody know.
Well, mike, we are at the endof the episode and since we both

(02:00:29):
had these fluids before, Isuspect neither one of us is
disappointed.

Mike (02:00:36):
No, and I had this one last episode.
So, folks, sorry about that,Not sorry, but you know I will.
Uh, I will make a vow to havesomething different next feature
episode.
How about that?

There, there you go, there you go.

Mike (02:00:53):
You got to do it as well.

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

Mike (02:01:00):
Ace's Parasider and the Russell's Reserve 10-year, both
good.

Both recommended.

Mike (02:01:07):
Mojo House favorites.

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

Mike (02:01:27):
I have one shout out, and it is the obligatory Thank you
for all the folks who'vecontributed to plastic model
mojo through their generosity.
I keep talking about this newwebsite.
It is coming, I promise, andthen we're going to be diving
rapidly into the development ofphase two, which will hopefully
allow us to bring you some morecontent visual content, folks.

(02:01:48):
We really appreciate it.
We've set up several channelswhere you can do that.
You can subscribe at Patreon,you can contribute through
PayPal, buy me a coffee or themerchandise store.
We really appreciate it.
It's been a big, big helpgetting us to where we want to
be this year and I want to thankeach and every one of you for
contributing to the show.

Absolutely, and I would second that we would not
have been able to do what we'vedone so far without listener
support.
It's really gratifying to bothMike and I that people care that
much and please, if you feelmoved to contribute, please do.

(02:02:29):
We certainly can use it.
The only other shout out I'dlike to make is to Mr Chris
Wallace, model airplane maker,for making the arrangements for
our stay at HeritageCon.
Thank you, chris.
We can't wait to see you and Iswear I'll have some hot sauce

(02:02:52):
with me when we show up.
Well, dave, that's it.
Yes, it is Another one in thebooks, as we always say so many
kids, so little time.

Mike (02:03:04):
Dave, take it easy, man, and figure out the schedule for
February.
Yes, we do.

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

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