PMM Twelve Minute Modelsphere: July 2025

Tired of the frustration that comes with masking canopies? You're not alone. This episode kicks off with an introduction to Kit Masx, a company born from the simple truth that "manually masking canopies sucks." Founded by Kevin and Janelle, this modeling business now offers over 400 precision-cut mask sets, with Kevin personally testing each one multiple times to ensure perfect fits. The best part? If you reach out, you're talking directly to the owners—real modelers who understand your challenges and will replace or refund your purchase if you're not completely satisfied.

We then dive into recent modeling events, particularly Wonderfest held at the end of May. The quality of models continues to amaze, with expanded Gundam displays and increasingly sophisticated builds featuring lighting and motorization. A standout piece was a gorgeously lit recreation of the Victorian-style spacecraft from "The Black Hole." For those looking ahead, IPMS Nationals is just five weeks away, with pre-registration now closed and excitement building among the community.

The modeling community continues to thrive online as well. Our Facebook "dojo" is approaching 5,400 members with over 20 posts daily showcasing works-in-progress and completed builds. We've managed to squash Facebook's intrusive AI-generated content in our group, keeping the focus on real modelers sharing their genuine work. Looking forward, we tease upcoming episodes featuring interviews with Harvey Low and Bob Bair, plus additional vendor spotlights. Whether you're a seasoned modeler or just starting out, join our growing community...  and don't forget to take advantage of Kit Masx MOJO15 discount code for 15% off your first order—your canopies will thank you!

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Episode Transcript

Janelle (KitMasx) (00:01):
Kev, tell everyone why you started Kit
Mask.

Kevin (KitMasx) (00:03):
Well, manually masking canopies sucks, and
somebody had to step in to savethose countless kits from the
shelf of doom.

Janelle (KitMasx) (00:11):
And now we've got over 400 sets and counting.
We've got old kits, new kits,forgotten kits, you name it.

Kevin (KitMasx) (00:15):
Yeah, and if we don't have it, just ask.

Janelle (KitMasx) (00:18):
Yeah, people don't realize.
We take custom requests and weeven have a service that gets
you canopy masks for free.

Kevin (KitMasx) (00:22):
We do.

Janelle (KitMasx) (00:23):
Our masks are precision cut.
They fit well, they're easy toapply.
Kevin cuts and tests every set.

Kevin (KitMasx) (00:30):
Several times.

Janelle (KitMasx) (00:31):
Yeah, precision is kind of his thing.

Kevin (KitMasx) (00:33):
And Janelle.
She does everything else.
She cares about each customerand is the heart of our business
.

Janelle (KitMasx) (00:38):
If you ever reach out, you're talking
directly to us.

Kevin (KitMasx) (00:40):
Real people, real modelers, and if you don't
love your masks, we'll refund orreplace them.
No questions asked.

Janelle (KitMasx) (00:47):
Visit kitmaskcom, join the mailing
list and treat yourself toeasier, cleaner masking.

Kevin (KitMasx) (00:53):
Kit Mask made by a modeler for modelers.

Janelle (KitMasx) (00:55):
Hey what about me?

Kevin (KitMasx) (00:56):
You're not a modeler.

Mike (01:02):
It's July Kentucky day.

Kentucky Dave (01:15):
Yes, it is.
How the heck did that happen?

Mike (01:18):
I don't know, but it causes a log jam at Plastic
Model Mojo.

Kentucky Dave (01:22):
Yes, it did, yes, it did, yes, it did.
But like we said, life happens.

Mike (01:29):
Life goes on.

Kentucky Dave (01:31):
Yeah, yeah.

Mike (01:32):
Well, again, we got to thank Kevin and Janelle at
Kitmas for sponsoring 12 MinuteModel Sphere.
And don't forget folks, there'sdiscount code MOJO15 for 15%
off your first order.
Take advantage of that, folks.
They're good people.

Kentucky Dave (01:45):
They are.

Mike (01:46):
So good that it got mentioned in one of our upcoming
episodes by our guest.
Yes, it did.
We'll get to that in a minute,but until then, dave, where have
we been and where are we going?
Well, I've not been anywhere,really, you have.

Kentucky Dave (01:59):
I have.
Wonderfest was right at the endof May, beginning of June and I
managed to make it out therefor a couple of hours, so a lot
of our listeners got to see JohnFigueroa, who is on the IPMS
board and he's also spearheadingthe 2026 Fort Wayne Convention

(02:20):
heading the 2026 Fort WayneConvention and got to see Mark
Cable and John Dietrich some ofour old friends from Military
Modelers Club.
Yeah, it was amazing.
Every time I think the modelscan't get better.
You just walk into that roomand you start walking up and

(02:43):
down those tables and you'relike wow.

Mike (02:47):
You're probably also getting an eye for the genres
now.

Kentucky Dave (02:50):
Yes, that is true .
I'm probably becoming a littlebit more sophisticated in some
of that stuff.
I did notice that Gundam hadexpanded significantly.
Gosh, just all of the folks whoare doing things with lighting
and with small electrical motorsand things like that.

(03:14):
It's just wild.

Mike (03:19):
Hopefully I can make it next year, yeah.

Kentucky Dave (03:22):
One model in particular.
You remember last year theFoundation ship.
Yes, Caught both of our eyes.
This year, you remember themovie the Black Hole yeah, Okay,
Do you remember the ship?
It was a very Victorian-lookingship.

Mike (03:40):
Vaguely.
Yes, I can't remember what itwas called, though.

Kentucky Dave (03:43):
Yeah, somebody did that and lit the whole thing
.
That's cool, it was gorgeous,it was freaking gorgeous and got
to see the folks at round twothey're releasing.
They announced a new moldrelease of I believe it's one of
the vehicles from theThunderbirds the Jerry Anderson

(04:03):
marionette show marionette show.

Mike (04:04):
I was.
I believe it's one of thevehicles from the.

Kentucky Dave (04:05):
Thunderbirds.
The Jerry Anderson marionetteshow.
Yeah, marionette show.
I was searching for the wordPuppet show doesn't sound right
Marionette yes, they weremarionettes, so had a great time
.
I wish you'd been there.
Hopefully you'll be able to bethere next year and maybe I've
got some long-range plans thatdidn't come off this year.
That.

Mike (04:26):
I'm thinking you and me both.

Kentucky Dave (04:27):
Yeah, I know Thinking about for next year.
So we'll see.
I'll hold that close to thevest for right now, but we'll
see what happens and, of course,where we're going in five weeks
.

Mike (04:40):
Something like that.

Kentucky Dave (04:41):
Five weeks is the nationals.

Mike (04:43):
Yep and we've already helped squadron promote one of
their big announcements and theyjust had the other one last
Wednesday.

Kentucky Dave (04:50):
Yep and, in addition, registration.
Has it officially closed?

Mike (04:55):
now pre-registration I think last week was the last
week wasn't it?

Kentucky Dave (05:00):
Yeah, I think so.

Mike (05:02):
And it is past week.

Kentucky Dave (05:03):
Right, if you're listening to this, you may have
already missed the cutoff forpre-registration, so hopefully
everybody out there going to theshow has has pre-registered and
I know Mike got his done and Igot mine done and I'm really
looking forward to this thisyear.

Mike (05:23):
Me too, man, I know.

Kentucky Dave (05:24):
I know, and a lot of our friends are going to be
there.

Mike (05:28):
It's going to be a gathering well how many episodes

(05:50):
we're gonna have in july day.
See if you can't get it figuredout for June or May.
Really, Folks are probablywondering what the heck happened
to episode 143.

Kentucky Dave (06:00):
Yes.

Mike (06:01):
Well, folks, it's in the works.
Still.
We've got the interviewrecorded and plans to finish
that out what we want to do.
Last month we kind of wanted tosneak in a vendor spotlight in
there and we ended up getting ahold of Brandon at squadron and
had him on, and we went a littlelonger than I wouldn't say
longer than planned, but I guesslonger that that longer than I

(06:22):
had envisioned and the showended up performing well for us,
as much so as a feature episode, and then a bunch of life kept
getting in the way and it justit's become the episode that
could not be recorded.

Kentucky Dave (06:35):
Yeah Well we're getting there because the
interview with Harvey is reallygreat, yeah, and hopefully you
and I have cleared off enoughlife out of our way that we'll
get it knocked out and get itdropped soon.

Mike (06:48):
Yeah, then we got episode 144, which is going to be a shop
talk, and if our plans hold on,that one, bob Bear, the voice
of Bob, is going to come on.
He's helped the show out a lotand he's a really great modeler
too and he does some interestingsubjects and it'll be nice to
have him on for a shop talksegment.

Kentucky Dave (07:04):
It will be.
It'll give me a chance to putthe arm on him to get him to
come back up to Wonderfest.

Mike (07:10):
Or our show, yeah, or our show, yeah, or our show.
Oh, that's true too.
And again, we may sneak anothervendor spotlight in there.
I think we're going to.
I won't reveal what that one'sgoing to be, but it's a new one.

Kentucky Dave (07:22):
Right.

Mike (07:22):
And then I don't know, after that it'll be gravy.
Yeah, we'll see what we can do.
If we get the TMM, a vendorspotlight and two episodes in
July, we'll be doing good andwe'll head on into August and
take it from there, man.

Kentucky Dave (07:36):
You're all along for the ride with us on this,
guys.
Thanks for being patient.
Yes, exactly.

Mike (07:47):
Dave, I've been putting in some dojo posts as I work
through my KV85 and it's kind ofbeen hopping a little bit again
.
It's always fun.

Kentucky Dave (07:56):
Yes, we are up to , I think, 53.
We are very close to 5,400members.
Things have slowed down ever soslightly, so any of you current
listeners out there go throughyour Facebook contacts, find
modelers that you are friendswith who aren't on the dojo and

(08:19):
invite them to the dojo.
We like the community thatwe've grown and we want to grow
it further, so the more themerrier.
And I'll tell you what.
The folks have been extremelyactive.
You can tell that show seasonis upon us.
There have been a lot of showposts, a lot of in-progress
stuff, some absolutely amazingfinished builds yeah, a couple

(08:45):
of them that a couple of peopleposted F8F Bearcats and I don't
know if they're trying to shameme or what, but yeah, I'm
feeling bad, but my F8Fs aremoving along.
So we're getting it.
You're getting close.
We're to the point where we'reseeing 20 plus posts a day on
the dojo, which, with the wayFacebook works and the way

(09:09):
Facebook's groups work, youreally have to scroll back so
that you don't miss something.

Mike (09:14):
Yeah, it's kind of the annoying part of it all it is.
That's just the way it'sstructured.

Kentucky Dave (09:19):
It's the way they set it up and there's nothing
we can do about it.
We did get the annoyingAI-enabled posts where we killed
that bot.
Ai-enabled posts we killed thatbot.
What had happened was Facebookhad, without telling any group
owners in advance, had basicallydropped an AI chatbot into

(09:41):
every group on Facebook and itstarted using AI to generate
posts, I guess in an attempt tostimulate activity in the
different groups.
But it was annoying and withthe help of Evan McCallum, I was

(10:02):
able to squash it.
Squash it dead.

Mike (10:06):
Yeah, till the next one comes.

Kentucky Dave (10:07):
Yeah, it's going to say it's dead until they turn
it back on without telling us.

Mike (10:13):
Well, the prosciutto slice separator plastic post was a
good one.

Kentucky Dave (10:18):
I like that.
I like that idea.

Mike (10:21):
I'm still trying to figure out how to find that stuff.

Kentucky Dave (10:24):
Well, I know, if you go to Costco you can get it.

Mike (10:27):
No, I want to buy the plastic on a roll or something
that's already been thin.

Kentucky Dave (10:30):
The prosciutto is great man.

Mike (10:33):
You got to wash it just to pain the butt.

Kentucky Dave (10:34):
Yeah, I know, but somebody, yeah, if they're
making that for an industrialpurpose, you know that there is
some supplier out there who issupplying that to the companies
who are doing the packaging, theprosciutto.

Mike (10:50):
So folks keep it coming on the dojo and hang out with us
in July and hopefully bring yousome more good content.

Kentucky Dave (10:57):
Yes, absolutely.

Mike (10:59):
All right, dave, as we always say so many kids, so
little time, man Bye.