Red Cross Clubmobile with Jake McKee: PMM Episode 139

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
The Voice of Bob (00:12):
Welcome to Plastic Model Mojo, a podcast
dedicated to scale modeling, aswell 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 (00:42):
All right, dave.
All right, mojovia.
Welcome to episode 139.
Moving up the road?
Yes, we are.
Well, I hope you had a goodEaster everybody.
You too, dave.

Kentucky Dave (00:53):
Yes did.
I had a great Easter.

Mike (00:57):
Well, other than that, what has been up in your model
sphere?

Well, my model sphere is better now.
The reason this episode's a dayor two late is wholly on me.
I was a little bit under theweather for a day and that
caused us to push the recordinghere, but my model sphere's
better.
I'm feeling better, Happy to berecording the episode.

(01:22):
I've been making slow butsteady modeling progress and you
know the only downside is, withspring comes all the spring
chores.

Mike (01:36):
Tell me about it.

And you know that takes away from modeling time
time, but on the plus side Ihave plenty of time to listen to
On the Bench and other podcastsas I'm working on my yard.
Well, good on you.

Mike (01:53):
How about you?
I've got a lot of balls in theair.
We've been getting thingssquared away with our new
sponsor there, the fine folks atKit Mass.
We've had a little back andforth with them and expecting
something new from them in thenext week or so.
That's going to be exciting forus.

Yep.

Mike (02:13):
And I've been thinking a lot about the web content for
Phase 2, when we might actuallyget to roll that out.
Yep, still kind of up in theair and, of course, trying to
get prepped for our trip to AMPScoming up here next month.

I am looking forward to it.
I had such a great time lasttime and I've never been to Camp
Hill, pennsylvania slash,harrisburg before in my life,
been as far as Hershey Park andAntietam and all, but never
actually gotten to Camp Hill.
So I'm kind of looking forwardto seeing what this venue looks

(02:47):
like.

Mike (02:48):
Well, I bet we have a good time man.

Oh, have we ever gone to a model contest and had
a bad time?

Mike (02:56):
No, I don't think so.

I was going to say.
I don't think so either.
I'm just there's a saying Ican't repeat in public.
But yeah, even the worst modelcontest is fantastic.
It's a great time.

Mike (03:12):
That is true.

Yes.
So, mike, since we're recordingan episode, that has to mean
you've got a modeling fluid.
What modeling fluid do you have, peroni?
Oh, okay.

Mike (03:29):
Good choice, good choice.
You've got a modeling fluid.
What modeling fluid do you have?
Peroni, oh okay, good choice,good choice.
I mean, if you like those kindof sulfur finish european
pilsners, yeah, yeah, some folksdon't like them too much, but
I'm fine with them, I thinkperoni has its place.

I mean, mean you know it's a good.
You go to a bar and it's got alimited menu.
If you see a Peroni on there,you know you're going to have a
good beer.
What about you?
Well, as a matter of fact, oh,back to that.

(04:02):
That one was a little hard toopen.
I have Holston Premium 5.0.
It's brewed by Carlsberg Canadaunder license from Holsten
Brewery AG, so I take it it'sgoing to be a European-style

(04:22):
beer, so it might not be allthat different from the Peroni.
This is one of the beers thatwas brought to the dojo at
Heritage Con.
I have absolutely no clue whobrought it, but whoever it was,
thank you.
We had a lot of people in andout of the dojo over two nights,

(04:42):
so let me take a sip.
Yep, very similar to a peroni,I think.
I think this one's gonna get methrough the episode folks often
say be careful what you wishfor.

Mike (04:56):
Yes, maybe sometimes I should just let things ebb and
flow as they do, but I did sendout a request for listener mail
last time and it did not fall ondeaf ears.

Yes, yes, same thing at the DM end.
So we better get into it.

Mike (05:12):
We probably should Well.
First up tonight is longtimelistener supporter of the show,
Mr Terry Wilkinson, and he had alaugh about Piedmont Airlines.
Uh-huh, you know he's anex-airborne guy and he had a
laugh about Piedmont Airlines.
Uh-huh, you know he's anex-airborne guy Right, and he
flew out of Fort Bragg andFayetteville many times on
Piedmont in the early 80s.
Oh yeah, he says they scaredthe hell out of him.

It's true, Dan I understand.

Mike (05:39):
He said he spent four-plus years jumping and rappelling
out of just about anything themilitary flew and that was
child's play compared to flyingthe Pede.
I don't have such shockingmemories of Piedmont.
All of ours were pretty good.

Actually all of ours were pretty good, except I
do remember that one flight onthat Fulker F-27, particularly
going into Tri-Cities in easternTennessee yeah, that's my
hometown when the guy stood theplane on the wing to make the
approach.
So yeah, it's kind of nestledin the mountains, as it were.
So I do remember that being alittle bit worse.

Mike (06:24):
I bet Asheville's worse.

Probably.

Mike (06:28):
Terry looks forward to seeing us at AMPS, and I look
forward to that too, because Idon't think we've met Terry
face-to-face yet in all theseyears.
I don't think so.

Well, good, I'm glad he's going to be at AMPS.
Look us up, please.

Mike (06:40):
We'll be at our table.
Next is Steve Hustad.
He's accusing us of notlistening to him.
Yes, he is.
Apparently, our suggestions forblending in the display-onlys
with the regular entries issomething they do at Nordicon,
using a different sheet fordisplay-only.

Yeah.

Mike (06:58):
So the judge's note is simply pass them over.

And apparently he's told this to us on more
than one occasion and it hasgone in one ear and out the
other.

Mike (07:08):
Or down one glass.
Well okay, up another, upanother maybe.
Yes, he says it's exactly whatthey're already doing.
Well, good on them, Yep, andthey've also used a GSB jazzy
system.
So they are trying the best ofboth worlds.

Yes.

Mike (07:28):
Well, steve, we do listen to you and hopefully our latest
airplane projects reflect that.

Yes.

Mike (07:36):
Because Nordicon's a long way from us.

I know we got to get there, man.

Mike (07:40):
Well, someday.

I got to get there.

Mike (07:44):
Kit Hedley's written in in again, and this time it's in
response to how far away haveyou found a part that you lost?
Uh-huh, he goes into quite abit of detail.
He was a professional modelmaker for a while, didn't build
much, but at some point hedecided to pick up a kit and he
was building this one to 2500scale star trek enterprise from

(08:04):
the motion picture.
I guess AMT had a three pack ofthese little guys, yes, while
he's living in Texas, and he gotinto it and then kind of got
out of it Some life stuffhappening and moving to Seattle.
But he was keeping up with hisdad doing some like zoom call
modeling, yep, and he was on achat with his dad one time and

(08:25):
his mom comes on the screen andasks if he knew what this little
white piece of plastic was thatshe'd had at the bottom of her
purse, for she didn't reallyknow how long and it was part of
his enterprise.
He had no idea where it was.

I wonder how it got into her purse.
Well, just like any model part,yeah Well, that's a good mom
who'll see something like thatpick it up and put it in her
purse instead of throwing itaway.

Mike (08:54):
His distance is three states, about 4,000 miles round
trip and 10 years between losingit and turning it up.
So that's not a record.

That's a good one .

Mike (09:05):
God help who's got one worse than that?

Yeah.

Mike (09:10):
Carl Barrow, originally from Yorkshire in the UK, but
currently in Richmond,California.

Okay.

Mike (09:16):
Well, El Sobrante, is that right?
I don't know.
I've not heard of this town.
I'll have to look it up.
Anyway, he is also Piedmont.
He sent some references in fordecals and the Fokker overwing
turboprop that you mentioned.

Yeah.

Mike (09:34):
So there, Dave, if you want to build one.

I've got the kit.
If I've got the kit, I want tobuild it eventually, but I'm not
sure how high that's going togo on my list, especially
considering that kit has to be40 years old well, he's wants to
credit the show with hisdecision to join the ipms.

Mike (09:58):
Good, and through the national website he discovered a
local club, the mount diablomodel club.
He's also joined that.

Great, that's fantastic.
There is nothing better foryour modeling than joining a
local modeling club.

Mike (10:13):
John McAvoy's written in again.
Dave, Okay, this is in ourresponse to infrequent use of 3D
printers.
Uh-huh, I guess I was talkingabout reconstituting mine and
you put out a general questionabout whether or not that was a
problem.
He's got a couple of bulletpoints.
One any mechanical device isbetter served by frequent use.

Yes, that is true .
That's why airlines keepairplanes in the air all the
time.

Mike (10:41):
And he says FDM printers are more mechanically complex
than resin printers in hisopinion and he's seen several
fallen disrepair due toalignment and clogged nozzles et
cetera.
But he's seen those get firedup without much trouble and he
says initially didn't seeanything about letting resin
printers sit, just got fewermoving parts and that kind of

(11:02):
thing.
If they're kept in aconditioned space this shouldn't
be, shouldn't be too muchtrouble.
But you know, keep it clean.
He uses a cardboard bib tapedover the vat when pulling off
the build plate to preventdripping resin back into the
machine.
And if you're going to situnused for an extended period of
time he tries to remove the theresin and put it back in the
bottle.
Otherwise he stirs the resin inthe vat before if it's been

(11:25):
sitting around a while.
Now my Form 3's got anautomatic stirrer on it so
that's not too much problem forme.
I think sometimes my resin canthicken, I think it sits a long
time and that can be a problemand he likes to clean off the
build plate with isopropylalcohol before each use.
That's something I do actuallyafter I take the uh the prints
off all the time, I'll uh cleanthat sucker off.

(11:47):
I think John's points thoughkeeping the resin fresh and
keeping it clean.
Those are all good points, man.
We got a lot tonight, dave.
Yes we do Well.
Aw Smith wants to thank us formentioning the model cave up in
Michigan.

Yeah, that's the one we didn't get to go to.
Right that we did not get to goto.
Well, michigan toy soldier hadhurt my wallet so badly.

Mike (12:14):
I'm not sure we could have made it for financial reasons,
but we were pressed for time andweren't able to get there well,
he's up in romulus, quite,which is right there where the
airport is Right, and he says hewas pretty overwhelmed by the
selection of kits, paints andaccessories, and every time he
goes up he's going to plan onstopping by there.

(12:35):
Nothing like a good hobby shop.

Oh yeah, Nothing like a good hobby shop.

Mike (12:41):
Up next from West Alexandria, ohio, is Greg
Williams, and he wanted to getthe word out through us.
If there's anyone in need of a116th scale value gear vietnam
stowage set he's picked up onesomewhere and doesn't need it
okay, he's willing to mail thoseto someone who wants or needs
it.
To go well with andy's hobbyhead quarters.

(13:01):
M113a1 and 116th scale.

And anytime you have something like that, by the
way, post it on the dojo Ifyou've got something you're
willing to rehome.
That's part of the communityaspect of this thing, so please
feel free to post something likethat on the dojo.

Mike (13:20):
He's in the dojo and if somebody finds Mr Greg Williams
there, you can DM him throughFacebook if you're interested.
And we'd encourage you, greg,to go ahead and post that up if
you still have it, and give itto the first taker.
From Mr Ray LeGrant.
Okay, he was worried in my callfor emails that maybe some were

(13:48):
getting lost and I think what Idid well, I know what I did.
I shifted this one over to afolder I'd created ahead of the
last Wheel of Accidental Wisdomand I started sending some of
those emails over there and itwas over there and it didn't
come up during the randomselection so it didn't get read.
Gotcha.
But he had an interestingquestion that I think we'll go

(14:09):
ahead and take care of.
All right, he just completedbuilding the reissue of of the
Jupiter C rocket and gantry andI guess one to 110th scale from
Revell.

Yep.

Mike (14:22):
That's a pretty old kid, I think that is an old kit.
He's put a lot of work into itand he's really proud of the way
it turned out.
And there's an upcoming IPMSshow and he says, given the
fragility of this thing, there'sno way he's taking this thing
to the show.

And I sympathize with that.
I really.
Especially if you finishsomething that you're very proud
of, you would like to show itto people, and it used to be
back in the old days.
The only way to do that was totake it to a show and put it on
a table, and the more fragile amodel is, the more danger that

(15:00):
is, and when something breaks,you can never repair it and make
it look as good as you had itoriginally.

Mike (15:07):
Now sometimes you can.

Well, after a finished model, yeah, that's
right.
Show is that you have theability to share a model that
you're very proud of withouttaking it to a show.
All it takes is some averagephotographic skills Cell phones
these days, the cameras havegotten so good that you can
produce really, really stunningphotographs of a very nicely
finished model.
But no, I completely sympathizeWinning a little piece of

(15:52):
plastic or a little trophy orwhatever is not worth destroying
a model that you've poured yourheart and soul into, that
you've poured your heart andsoul into.

Mike (16:03):
Well being, primarily armor up until recently.
As far as models go, I thinkthey tend to be a little more
travel-friendly.
Right, they got a lower centerof gravity, they don't have a
lot of fragile landing gear andstuff like that on them.
Yep, but he just was curious.
Have other modelers experiencedthis of having to leave one of

(16:24):
their best builds at homebecause they'd fear it would get
damaged at a show?
So I'd be curious if anybodyout there in Mojovia has had a
similar hesitation.
And he goes on to ask does thismean that some of the best
built kits never make it toshows?
I don't know If we're notseeing them.
It remains to be seen whetherthe best builds or not, but I'm

(16:44):
sure there's some amazing buildsthat never make it to a show
because of fragility and travelconcerns.

Yep, I am too.

Mike (16:51):
But I've seen some pretty dainty things at model contests.

Listen, when Mr Husted transported that
scratch-built tri-wing World WarI float plane, I mean that
thing looked as delicate asanything I've ever seen in my
life and he transported it allthe way to a Nationals and back

(17:15):
successfully.
So of course he does a verynice job of preparing his
transport.
He builds transport boxes andin fact we'll have to talk to
him about that sometime becausethey are amazing little models
in and of themselves.
But I suspect he would tell youthat you could transport

(17:36):
anything as long as you built atransportation case for it.

Mike (17:44):
Next up is from Jeff Groves, the Inch Eye guy.
He sent us an email that had alink in it to some coverage of
the Tulsa Route 66 Model Expo.
Yes, and this was written byGreg Kittinger and it was on
iModeler.
I don't know if that's a blogor.

Yeah right, it's a blog.
Is it his blog?
No, I don't know.
I forget who runs iModeler, butit's been around forever,
almost as long as Hyperscale.

Mike (18:16):
This show's running an exhibition style where a
particular modeler's entries areall grouped together Like you'd
see at a figure show, likeyou'd see at a figure show.
Like you'd see at a figure show,and they do a GSB award system.
They've got a lot of specialawards.
There's a lot to this blogarticle and I think I'm just

(18:38):
going to link it in the shownotes and I encourage everyone
to read this if you've got anykind of opinions on model show
formats or are just curiousabout how different things might
operate.
It's a, it's really wellwritten and it's got some
interesting stuff in it, but uh,it's uh, it's worth checking
out.
So I appreciate jeff forsending us that, because that's
kind of been.
It's not a topic we've hitdirectly, but kind of on the

(19:01):
periphery.
We've we've had this come upseveral times.
Well, different show formatsand judging formats.

I would say it's coming up more and more because,
again, as you have noted on acouple of occasions, you think
there's some real movement inthis area, like some
momentum-building movement.
I think so.
I don't disagree with you, soI'll be interested to see where
things go.

Mike (19:31):
And finally Dave, from the email side of things, from
Duncan Young, Okay, and fromGuelph, Ontario.
I can miss Hamilton, our friendup at Heritage Con and he heard
our banter in 138 about someappropriate clothing while at
the bench and he's shifted towearing a canvas apron when he

(19:51):
works at the bench.

There are.
I have seen several, severalmodelers.
In fact there are severalcommercial products.
I think the guys who doFlexifile actually make that
type of apron and I know thereare a couple of others.

Mike (20:10):
Well, the reason he wears a canvas apron, dave, is because
he was modeling one stuffysummer evening, I guess last
year.
Let me check this.
Yeah, it's about a year ago, ona warm Sunday evening.
He was merrily building away athis workbench while on a Zoom
call, and he can't recallexactly what he was doing.
He was doing something with hishobby knife and it slipped and

(20:32):
he struck himself, pointed inright in the abdomen, right in
the gut, oh, which required anER trip and a couple of stitches
and some convincing the doctorand the ER attendants that he
was not attempting to self-harmhimself in any way.
So safety first, wear your PPE.
And in his case it is a canvasapron, so he's not stabbing

(20:54):
himself again.

Yep, I'm telling you, I think everybody has cut
themselves with a falling exactoat one time or another, and you
know those.
They hurt, they really hurt,and you know you got to be lucky
not to get a bad one, so I canimagine if you catch it in the

(21:17):
abdomen that's one of the moreserious ones.
It is.

Mike (21:22):
Oh, and I misspoke.
That's not the last email.
I do have one more.
Okay, and it's for Mr MichaelKarnalk.
And I misspoke.
That's not the last email.
I do have one more.

Okay.

Mike (21:26):
And it's for Mr Michael Karnalka in New York City.
I figured it as much there.
I had not moved it to listenermail yet.
Okay, and I knew I'd got it.
As I was talking Right as Isaid that about Duncan's email,
I knew there was one more, okay.

Okay.

Mike (21:44):
Um, so if the global trade war we find ourselves in should
last it a long time and we wereto see a disproportionate, a
disproportionate effect on thescale modeling community as a
whole, how long would you and orDave last or make it through?
I guess he means buying no morenew kits.
Personally, he has enough kitsto make it through several ice

(22:05):
ages, should they reoccur.
But don't tell anyone, yeahreally.

I think he blew that with the email.
But the answer to the questionis I have reached what they call
Sable S-A-B-L-E Stash AcquireBeyond Life Expectancy.
Have reached what they callSable S-A-B-L-E stash acquired
beyond life expectancy.
I could, today, never buyanother kit in my entire life

(22:35):
and I could build at a ratethree to four times my current
production pace and still would,day I expire, there would be a
stash for for my uh remainingheirs to have to deal with.
So yeah, not a problem.

(22:59):
I'll be honest with you.
I'm not worried about any ofthat stuff.
I have more than enough stuffto keep me occupied.

Mike (23:08):
Well, I'm in the same boat , apparently.
Well, he just said he was too.
He said he'd be in pretty goodshape.
He'd still like a couple of theannounced 135th scale Vespid
A30 Challenger tanks.
So that's right, I forgotthey're coming out with a 35th
scale tank.
Other than that, he should beable to stick it out, and I can
certainly stick it out, thoughI've slowed here last.
I don't know what's going oneither.

(23:30):
Subconsciously, I know I've gottoo much.

Yeah.

Mike (23:35):
Or just the releases.
Haven't been up my alley oflate, so that's, that's probably
what it is.

I have been acquiring and there's and
there's plenty of stuff on theradar that I want.
So, yeah, I will continue tobuy as it's available.
But should a global trade warshut down all global trade in
models, I will still beperfectly fine.

Mike (24:05):
Well, that is it from the email side of things, Dave.
What has been up on the directmessages?

Well, people took you to heart on the direct
messages too, and so I've got anumber of them and I want to run
through them just relativelyrapidly.
Our friend from SouthernKentucky, warren Dickinson
Kentucky, warren DickinsonWarren, has decided to go ahead
and acquire one of those Despayball hand steadiers that I got a

(24:32):
couple of years ago.

Mike (24:33):
Yeah.

And I'll tell you what I told him.
It really does help.
Warren has the same type oftremor that many of us get as we
get older and I will tell you.
Particularly on the SAM projectI'm currently working on, it's

(24:57):
been extremely helpful.
I found it very helpful forapplying small decals and small
pieces of photo etch.
So I told Warren.
I think he will be pleased withit.
It's not overly expensive butit's not cheap.
But I think he will be pleasedby the effect that it has the

(25:20):
effect that it has.
Next, martin Pieda, listeningto our last episode where we
talked about a companyannouncing a 3D printed Loticor
631, which not only did I knowwhat it was, I had actually seen
one built, not the 3D print,but a vacuform kit done a number

(25:46):
of years ago.

Mike (25:48):
Yeah, you mentioned that last episode.

Right and Martin heard us mention it and he never
heard of this thing before.
So he went and looked at it andwas pretty impressed.
You know, the Between the WarsFrench flying boats are just
some of the most interestingaircraft around and this one

(26:11):
kind of got Martin interested.
I don't know if it got himinterested enough to spend the
money for the 3D printed kit,but we'll see.
Our good friend Chris Wallaceand I am embarrassed for my part

(26:39):
in this in 48 scale that wasreleased back in the 80s before
the actual stealth fighter theF-117, broke cover.
Testers and a couple of othercompanies did hypothetical
stealth fighter models.
Chris wanted to get one andbuild one at the time but he

(27:03):
didn't, and so he found one oneBay but they wouldn't ship it
to Canada.
So he had it shipped to myhouse and I took it to Heritage
Con and gave it to him and he isactually building this thing.
I'm assuming at some pointthere's going to be a video on

(27:26):
Model Airplane Maker on thisthing.
It is to my eternal shame thatI have been involved in this
project in any way Because thetester's kit was such Well.
On one hand it was hot garbage,had no relation to anything in
reality.
But, on the other hand, I haveno doubt they sold a ton of

(27:52):
these things because it wasreally the hot speculation at
the time.
Yeah, and, by the way, as youwould expect with Mr Wallace,
he's doing a great job.
I mean, he is making this piglook so much better than it

(28:14):
deserves.
I'll be honest with you, Ican't wait to see the video on
it.
Speaking of our friends from upnorth, mr Ian McCauley, good
friend, good friend of thepodcast, good friend of ours, an
administrator in the dojo, ianwasn't able to make it to

(28:34):
HeritageCon this year due topersonal issues and those had
caused him to be kind of off thegrid for a little bit, had
caused him to be kind of off thegrid for a little bit.
And we recently reestablishedcontact and Ian's doing great
and it was nice to hear from him.
I missed him at HeritageCon.

(28:56):
I know we all did and we'relooking forward to having him
back next year and it was goodto hear from him.
So, ian, glad to hear from you,glad you're doing okay.
South Carolina modeler turnedKentucky modeler, jim Sloan.
Jim was a longtime member ofIPMS chapters down in South

(29:19):
Carolina when health issuesbrought him to Kentucky, to
Louisville, where he joined ourclub.
Jim's a really great guy and henoticed the announcement from
Arma of the Hawk 75s and he knewfrom our conversations that I'd

(29:42):
be interested so he sent me.
They had released the firstartwork and everything for that
kit and so he sent it to me tomake sure that I had seen it,
which of course I had becauseI've been following that one
really closely.
Next is modeler Seb Vydeck fromSlovenia, and Seb sent us a long

(30:08):
DM that you and I bothcorresponded with him on and he
was talking about he had noticedthe same thing you had
mentioned about an accelerationin the number of shows that were
using an open gold, silver,bronze, unlimited awards type

(30:31):
award system.
Now, the reason it wasinteresting from Seb's
perspective is that of coursehe's over in Europe, so he was
giving us a perspective fromwhat he was seeing in Europe and
it was a really.
He sent a very long, thoughtfulDM and it was really

(30:51):
interesting to get thatcontinental European perspective
.
And for listeners who are outthere, who are in Europe, or
even if you're in Asia, we'dlike to hear from you all about
what you're seeing develop,because Mike and I we report on

(31:11):
what we see in North America andwe kind of like to hear what's
going on in the rest of theworld.
So thank you, seb, formentioning it, and anybody else
out there wants to chime in,please do.
Finally, evan mccallum, you hadmentioned product uh, ammo, the

(31:34):
splashes, the, yeah, the lackof longevity, right, the lack of
longevity.
Right, the lack of longevity,and Evan had just DMed in to
mention that he had encounteredthe same thing that they tended
to dry up fairly quickly onceopened to get these products for

(32:02):
a particular project.
Don't get them in advance.
Wait until about the time youneed them to acquire them so
that you will get the maximumlife out of the product.
It's good to have him confirmwhat you had experienced in your
modeling.

Mike (32:23):
Well, that's interesting because there was another email
that came just today from DaveMorris about these kind of
products and he's telling me I'mnot alone in having my AK
terrain materials turn to rockwhile you're not looking Right,
and he thinks he's found asolution.
Oh wow, what he does is hetakes a piece of saran wrap and

(32:48):
then he puts it over the jar andthen pushes it down in there to
where it's contacting thesurface.

Yep, you know where that comes from, or not
necessarily where that comesfrom.
I know where.
I've seen that before.

Mike (33:01):
Well, he credits his wife for the idea, because he
shamelessly stole it from herpreservation of her brown sugar
container.

Now, I have never seen it in that regard, but
I'll tell you where I've seen it.
You know drywall mud.
Yeah, I've seen that come tothink Yep, that is a tip that
you will see.
You know you have a containerof drywall mud and you know you
open it up, you use some of itand the odds that you're going

(33:31):
to use drywall mud again soonunless you're doing a whole home
renovation is low over the, thetub opening and then push it
down into contact with the, withthe drywall mud, and it

(33:55):
actually works it.
It extends the longevity of thelife of that stuff pretty well,
so that that makes perfectsense.

Mike (34:05):
Well, he wants you to know he's still looking for that
Trappist-Dale he told you about.
Okay, and he looks forward toseeing us at AMPS.

Again, I'm looking forward to seeing
everybody at AMPS.
Amps is going to be a party.
A lot of the podcasts are goingto be there.
A lot of the listeners that weinteract with on the regular are
going to be there.
Young Evan McCallum is going tobe there.
So, yeah, I'm looking forwardto it.
All right, is that all you got?

Mike (34:33):
That's it.
Wow, that was a lot folks.
Keep it coming.
We love it.
Yes, absolutely.
We had so much this time.
I was a little discombobulatedabout where I'd put everything.
We'll improve on that.
But if you want to write intothe show, you can do so by
sending us an email atplasticmodelmojo at gmailcom.
That's one way to do it.
Or you can use our Facebookpage and DM us using Facebook

(34:59):
messenger, and we also have thegive us your feedback link.
That can be found in the shownotes of this and every episode.
So send them in, folks.

And that's a nice feature on the website to be
able to give us feedback andhave it linked specifically to
the episode that you werelistening to when you
communicated.
You've got the idea tocommunicate what you wanted to
communicate, so that's a reallynice way to tie it to a

(35:31):
particular episode.
When you're done listening tothis episode, please rate us on

(35:56):
whatever podcast app you use.
Please give us the highestrating possible.
It helps drive the visibilityof the show.
Also, if you listen to thisshow and you know a modeling
friend who doesn't, pleaseencourage them to listen.
The best way for us to continueto grow is for current

(36:18):
listeners to recommend us to afriend.

Mike (36:21):
You can also rate the podcast using the rate the show
link.
That's also in the show notes,dave, so we've added that as
well.

Yeah.

Mike (36:28):
And once you've done that, please check out our fellow
podcasts out in the model sphere.
You can do that by going towwwmodelpodcastcom.
That's model podcast plural.
It's a consortium website setup by Stuart Clark from the
Scale Model Podcast up in Canadawhere he's aggregated all the
banner links to all the shows inthe model sphere and you can go
there for a one-stop shop tofind them all.
In addition, we've got a lot ofblog and YouTube friends out in

(36:51):
the model sphere and we'vementioned the Inch High Guy,
jeff Gross, his Inch High Guy,jeff Groves, his Inch High Guy
blog.
Evan McCallum Panzermeister36.
Got Stephen Lee SpruPi withFrets, a great long and short
form blog.
A lot of 72nd scale contentthere, just like Jeff Groves.
Yep, you mentioned ChrisWallace, model airplane maker,
so maybe we'll see his stealthfighter come up soon on a video.

(37:11):
I'm sure we will.
And Paul Budzik Scale ModelWorkshop over on YouTube and
Patreon.
So always some good stuff therefrom Paul.
So please check out all thisstuff.

Also, if you are not a member of your national
IPMS chapter, ipms USA, ipmsCanada, etc.
Please consider joining.
The national organizations do alot to promote modeling in the

(37:44):
respective countries.
Additionally and we'vementioned the AMPS National
coming up if you are not amember of the Armor Modeling and
Preservation Society and youhave an interest in armor
modeling or post-1900 figuresmodeling, that's a great
organization, a great group ofguys.
They've got a lot of greatlocal chapters and their

(38:05):
national is an endless amount offun and Mike and I plan on
experiencing that again thisyear.

The Voice of Bob (38:14):
Plastic Model Mojo is brought to you by Model
Paint Solutions, your source forharder and steam-backed
airbrushes, david Union powertools and laboratory-grade
mixing, measuring and storagetools for use with all your
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Check them out atwwwmodelpaintsolutionscom.

Mike (38:40):
Well, Dave, we have a great special feature, don't we?

Yes, we do.
I mean, I cannot tell you howmuch I am enthused about this
particular project, so I really,really encourage everybody to
go to the show notes and checkout our guests' blog entries and

(39:02):
posts regarding his currentproject.

Mike (39:06):
And our guest is Mr Jake McKee.
He's been on the show a coupleof times already, but he
approached us with this ideaabout talking about his
Clubmobile project.
So hopefully some of you folkshave followed the link in the
teaser on the Plastic Model MojoFacebook page not the group,
but the page and checked outJake's project because it's
really cool.
So let's go ahead and get intothe discussion, dave.

(39:27):
Well, dave, we try to bringsome different things we can.
I mean, there's a lot ofpodcasts out there now and it's
easy to retread and go down thesame beaten path that others
have.
But sometimes we see somethingthat's really cool and this time
it just happens to be withsomeone who's been on the show a

(39:49):
couple of times.
Jake McKee, how are you doingtonight?

Jake McKee (39:51):
I'm doing good, I'm doing good.
I'm excited to talk tonight.

Mike (39:55):
Well good, I'm excited to talk tonight.
Well good, I'm glad you gave usthe opportunity to feature this
one.
It's a really cool project andwe're going to put your link up
to your blog so folks can get alook at this, before this
actually drops, and understandwhat we're talking about.
But you are building a clubmobile, why don't you?

Jake McKee (40:12):
just lead off with with, with what a club mobile is
, and then we'll, we'll just gofrom there well, and I was just
mentioning before we got startedthat you know I'm back to
loving this project because, asall projects go, you know the a
few days ago I was at thatmoment of just wanting to say
out of hell with it after all.
This time I'm setting it aside,I'm moving on, just because you

(40:32):
know some things weren't goingmy way, but that was more.
You know life in general, Ithink, causing me trouble.
But but this evening I've gotmy modeling fluid and I'm back
in the good spot, so I'm readyto go.
All right, all right.

Tell us what it is and then tell us how you
decided.
This was a subject you wereinterested in.

Jake McKee (40:51):
Yeah, so a good start, a good starting point.
Good start, a good startingpoint.
A a club mobile was a world warii converted gmc two and a half
ton truck that the american redcross actually operated, and
they had three women that drovethese things around the, the
countryside and, you know,pretty damn close to the, to the

(41:14):
battlefields, and would servecoffee and donuts.
The point there was that donutsand coffee were two very iconic
American things and for allthese troops that were extremely
far from home, many of them hadnot gone out of their city at
that time, much less out of thecountry right.
And so they were the Red Crossand there was one guy in

(41:38):
particular I can't remember hisname off the top of my head, but
they came up with this idea toconvert about 100 GMC trucks
where they built these boxes onthe back of the truck, extended
the chassis and put donut fryersin the back, put coffee urns in
the back, put a big, hugeboiler that was powered by a
little small field stove andthey'd drive around and serve

(42:02):
coffee and donuts and a wholelot more.
There was a lot of music playingand the socializing with the
troops and that sort of thingthat these women would do.
And let me pause there,actually, because before we
start talking about how Istarted it, we could talk for
hours at this point.
I've done a ton of research onthis project and I'm fascinated
by the whole concept, but I'llgive you guys a chance to ask
some questions along the wayhere.

The behind the lines stuff to me is the under
studied, under modeled area ofparticularly World War II, but
all wars.
What was it that first caughtyour eye and said, yeah, that's
a project I'd like to do?

(42:45):
How did you first come acrossthe Clubmobiles?

Jake McKee (42:50):
The simple answer to that is that I found I believe
it was a CMK resin conversionkit years ago I mean, it's
probably been at least 10 yearsof the Clubmobile and thought,
man, that's cool.
And, to your point, I reallylike the rest of the story.
Type of stuff, right, the planeis interesting, but the bomb

(43:10):
truck and the crew that ran itwhen they were getting loaded up
has always been morefascinating to me.
And even more fascinating thanthat is the civilians that were
helping to support the airfieldin the first place.
Right, I really like this ideaof the rest of the story.
And so you know, the Clubmobilewas an interesting one just
because it was this kind of oddboxy project.
It was a conversion that youknow, I always like doing these

(43:32):
conversions.
But it also was interesting tome just because it had, you know
, I mean, it's got a donut fryerin the back, right.
How many World War II projectsdo you get to do that include
donut fryers?

Well, I love donuts, so this one gets me on.
Just this one ticks about everybox that I could possibly have,
except it doesn't have wings.
Did know about the donut, theclub mobiles, before you came
across the cmk conversion alittle bit, not a lot, you know.

Jake McKee (44:04):
And and I it was one of those things where I saw it
I thought, oh, that'sinteresting.
And, as we all do, you know, Istarted looking a little bit
more into.
You know what is the clubmobile?
And and I want to say I pickedit up somewhere, kind of on a
lark, you know, at a show orsomething.
Somebody was selling their oldversion or something, and so I
didn't know a lot about it atthe time.
I just thought, hey, I likedoing conversions and it would

(44:25):
have a good spot in the, in thestash, and so grabbed it up,
came home, looked up a littlebit and went, oh, that's really
interesting project, and put itaside and not necessarily forgot
about it.
I knew it was in my stash andI'd run across it every once in
a while.
But you know, years went by andI didn't think much of it and I

(44:47):
started doing the GMC garbagetruck conversion, which is, you
know, it's in progress as wellin itself, from scratch, because
I found a really interestingphoto from probably the 50s I
think that was in Life Magazinethat had a picture of a
converted GMC truck with astandard civilian packmaster

(45:09):
garbage truck bent on the backand some big Duke tires.
The duck amphibious vehicle.
It was using those tires on theGMC it.
It was this kind of mishmash ofinteresting things.
And I thought, man, that'spretty cool.
And that was really the firstbig conversion project that I'd
done in this year and a half orso that I've been messing with
CAD and so I started payingattention to some other things.

(45:29):
I finished up the Warren gasstation diorama and thought, all
right, well, what's next?
And I haven't done CAD in alittle while here, so I'm going
to for anything big.
And so do I get back to thegarbage truck or do I start
something different?
And I don't know.
The Clubmobile just kind ofstruck my fancy and I went to
the storage unit and pulled outthat resin kit and was like all
right, I'm going to get started,I'm going to start gluingped

(46:00):
beyond belief.
And I was like man, you knowwhat am I going to do to
straighten all this stuff out?
And you know there's going tobe a lot of work to get detail
parts added onto this.
I can design those.
And of course my brain startedsaying why are you going to try
and fix all these warped oldresin pieces that the detail is
most likely wrong on anyway, andyou're sure enough, I started
looking into it, even just acursory glance at the, at the

(46:22):
historical photos the few thatthere are and I was like, man,
there is this, this thing iswrong.
I mean, it's just top to bottomwrong.
And so I started, I opened cadand started building, and that's
been going on for about four,four or five months now,
probably.

Uh, Well, let me stop you there, because you said
something.
Well, you said a lot ofinteresting things, but one in
particular.
You said the few photos thereare.
I would have thought that ifthere were a hundred of these
things built and they were usedin every theater throughout the

(47:02):
war you know 42 to 45, I wouldhave thought that at some point
there's a Life magazine with anentire feature on the Clubmobile
and the donut dollies, andthere have been photographs
galore.
Is none of that out there?

Jake McKee (47:24):
Well.
So it's a good question andyou're absolutely right, there's
a lot of well, let me rephrasethat, a lot's a relative term.
There's a number of photos outthere of the exteriors, much
more kind of PR photos, you know, women hanging out of the
window, the much more kind of prphotos, you know, women hanging
out the window, the servingwindows, and you know troops
rallied around that sort ofthing.
But interestingly for forhaving a hundred of these built,

(47:46):
almost none of them, if if any,really survived much past the
end of world war ii.
A few were saved and went on toserve in korea and I think they
rebuilt some brand new ones forVietnam, but largely they, they
, they were gone at the end ofthe war for, for whatever
reasons, but and you know theywere, they were built in in

(48:07):
England by, by a British company, completely sourced from this
British company, outside the,the, the normal army procurement
channels, because they, youknow there was a red cross that
was in charge of these projectsand I I have found and we'll
talk more about the process, butI found, I eventually found
some plans that really helpedout.
But they were, they were roughand you know I've I've spent

(48:30):
some, I've spent some timelooking around and there's only
a handful of photos that are ofgood interior shots, right, and
lots on the external.
I've been able to sort of figuresome of that stuff out.
What I discovered is that, yeah, there's a few recreations out
there of these vehicles aroundyou know reenactment circles and
whatnot but those are eithercompletely wrong, like the

(48:53):
serving windows on the wrongside of the vehicle on one of
them.
Another one was a basically afacsimile of the club mobile
that was built on top of a GMCshop truck.
So they basically took the shoptruck and converted it to look
on the outside like this.
But you know, even the one thatI found that was in somewhere
in Europe and was part of areenactment they actually had

(49:15):
some women that were dressed uplike the Red Cross workers as
part of that reenactment, butthey didn't have the donut
machines inside, right.
They're not running theoriginal equipment at all.
They've gotten sort of close tothe overall exterior design,
but it's not exact right, whichhas been an interesting process
to try and figure out what isgood information and what's bad

(49:35):
information.
That's interesting.

What is good information and what's bad
information.
That's interesting To me.
My first instinct would havebeen well, I'm going to email
the Red Cross.
Surely they have the completeeverything on this, including
plans and photos, and you wouldhave thought that's a big part
of their history that they wouldhave preserved all of this.

Jake McKee (50:02):
Dave.
It's a good thought.
It is one that I tried.
So here's the process.
For me is, as you might imagine, I did as much upfront work as
I could define the photos and ifanybody's gone online to try
and search for stuff, you knowhow it works.
Right, that you start searchingand you'll find five things and
you're like, oh, these aregreat.
And then a week later you'researching on something

(50:24):
completely different andsuddenly Google works better for
you and you find five morethings and then you start
finding some repeats anddifferent.
You know there's a low versionand a high quality version.
Then you go to Pinterest andyou find a bunch of stuff that
you hadn't seen before.
And then you know you gethalfway through your build and
something pops up on your radarand you're like, where did that
come from?
Why didn't I have that when Istarted?
Yeah, that's been, that's beenthe process and I have.

(50:46):
So there's there's been avariety of things that has has
happened in this, in thisproject, including emailing a
lot of people.
So I've emailed a number ofpeople around the web who run
forums for your restorationvehicles.
I've I've gone on a lot of theFacebook groups that and join
those that do GMC renovationsand you know, both for sort of

(51:06):
the truck itself and detailingit, but also trying to ask hey,
anybody know anything about this?
You know, sometimes you justhappen to come across somebody
who has a cache of informationand I'll share more more about
that story in a second.
But I did email the red cross,got their archivist.
Actually, after gettingforwarded around a couple of
times she came back and saidwe've got a lot of information

(51:29):
but I don't know that we haveanything like that.
She did point me to a library.
There's a women's historylibrary on the campus of Harvard
that a lot of the club mobilersthey didn't call themselves
donut dollies, but everybodyelse apparently did.
They didn't really like thatterm very much but the world

(51:50):
kind of called them donutdollies, but a lot of them as
they've been passing away or asthey've been collecting all
their information up and they'vebeen sharing it with.
I think it's the Schlesingerlibrary.
So I've I've literally beentrying to figure out when I can
fly out there and just digaround for the day.
But there's also another museumin England that has a bunch of

(52:10):
papers on various conversionsthat the Red Cross did, both for
things like dentistry, but alsofor videography, you know, like
showing, showing video moviesout of the side of a truck, and
they had some images.
And I asked around and ourfriend, malcolm Childs from the
just making conversation podcast, volunteered to go a couple

(52:31):
hours from his house and andtake a bunch of pictures from
their collection.
And so, you know, I've been,I've been looking all over and I
actually ran into a guy thatfound me.
He saw me posting somewhere onthe on one of the Facebook
groups about this project and hestarted.
He's a researcher and runs asite about Sherman's but also
had a bunch of Clubmobile photos, had some links to point me to.

(52:55):
He has a bunch of knowledgethat he's gained over the years
and so I've been asking himabout, you know, hey, how does
this thing work?
What is that thing in thecorner there?
And he's been really superhelpful.
That's, that's really cool,yeah.
And then, of course, yeah,there's a.
There's a number of books I'vepicked up off of Amazon.
There's one that was made inthe eighties that I've I've
found a digital copy of calledARC in the storm, about the club

(53:17):
mobile core, you know, but it'sit's out of print, way out of
print.
I think it was a small run tobegin with in the eighties and
you know it's the only one I canfind on eBay is $900.
So library of Congress actuallyhas a digital version of it.
So you know, just digging anddigging, and you know, finding
things like some of the originalsales manuals from right after

(53:38):
the war for the Lincoln Model Ddonut maker that's in the trucks
, that was super helpful tounderstand what they look like
and kind of where parts fit onthe exterior and whatnot.

When I went to your blog and website and looked
at that, that was one of thedetails that just completely
tickled my fancy the ability tofind and 3D model this piece of
industrial equipment that was anautomated donut maker.

Jake McKee (54:09):
Right, yeah, and it's been interesting too,
because, just to take that onepiece of this right, there's a
bunch of different components ofcabinetry and water tanks and
loudspeakers, I mean you name it.
There's just a bunch ofdifferent pieces.
And again all of this is reallycoming.
I'm having to dig around a lotof photos and and what I find

(54:31):
interesting about the the thingslike just taking the donut
maker for, for instance is thatI I modeled it and got a decent
shape but didn't have a lot ofthe details.
And then I look at the samephoto that I had that had one
angle, black and white, fuzzyphoto, but I got a high enough
quality version of it that Icould get your dimensions
generally right and some of thedetails.

(54:53):
And then I'd look at it threeor four times, and every time
I'd look at it I four times andevery time I'd look at it I'd
find something different.
I'm looking at the same photo,but I just keep reviewing it and
just keep going back to it andof course you know part of that,
part of this is that you knowwhoever was designing the cmk
kit glanced at the photo,knocked something out and then
moved on with their lives.
Right, I have not been able todo that because, you know,

(55:15):
months in and I'm still just,you know, added two or three new
things to the donut maker theother day that I, my brain, was
seeing but what wasn't reallyprocessing, right, I saw this
thing hanging off the front ofit but I was like I don't know
what that is, I'm going to skipit.
And then, and I just kind ofkept going back and looking at
it and it's like, you know, I soclose to being as accurate as I
can possibly get it, I might aswell take it across the finish

(55:37):
line best I can, you know.
So there's been a lot of thosekinds of processes where I look
at one part and I work on it andit gets, you know, I try and
get the dimensions right, itfits, and then I'm like, well,
wait a minute, what does thatmean for this other thing I've
been looking at?
And, can you know,comprehending is something
totally different now that I seeit.
Oh, okay, well, that means thatthese, these cabinets must be

(55:57):
twice as deep as I thought theywere.
Whatever, right, you know, I'vebeen working on the jump seat.
From one photo I can't find anyother photos of the jump seat
and that folds down in the inthe back for one of the women to
write on.
I've got one photo and so I'vebeen basically just having to
make that one up best I can.
But there's other little piecesthat you know until leaf hubert
is the guy that reached out andsaid hey, I've got a bunch of

(56:19):
knowledge if you want it, andI've showed him a few things
every once in a while and he'lllook at it and go, yeah, but you
know you're missing this thing,right and I'm going oh what are
you?
talking about I go back and lookat the photo and I'm like, oh,
now that you've contextualizedwhat I was looking at, I
understand completely what thatwas, and now I need to go fix it
.

Mike (56:36):
Well, I think it's really interesting for projects like
this.
You know, I'm building thisKV-85.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it'spretty dissimilar, granted, but
the point is there's not much,there's not much information out
there, so you end up having tobackdoor all this stuff and it
just I don't know.
I don't know how you feel aboutit, jake, but I think it's a

(56:57):
lot of fun, and maybe theproject doesn't progress as fast
as you would like it to.
It's not, like you know, like atiger tank.
There's a website on tigertanks that shows every stinking
tow cable bracket on everysurviving tiger in the world.
Right, it's just not that way.

Jake McKee (57:19):
And when you pick a unique subject like this, you
really don't know what you'resigning up for until you start
digging into it.
Yeah, and that's been one ofthe most interesting parts of
this project and, to your point,mike, I love this project
because it's been so much fun.
It's been so interesting theprocess of going through all
these photos, reaching out.
There's been several peoplethat I've reached out to that

(57:42):
have been extremely helpful andyou know I've made new friends
along the way who know a bunchof stuff about these things.
And you know when, when leafhas answered a bunch of my
questions, when I respond andsay, well, what about this thing
?
Here's what I've found, andhe's like, oh man, that's cool,
I didn't know that.
That's when I feel really good.
Right, no-transcript journaling,where where these women went,

(58:23):
what they were doing, and youknow how they were kind of
getting acclimated to the, tothe process, how close some of
them were to the front lines,like you know having having
generals say, dude, you need toslow down, you're going too fast
.
I'm getting nervous about whereyou're at Right and actually
repainting the vehicles.
They started off gray, kind ofa U S Navy type of gray, and

(58:43):
most of them, but not all ofthem, got repainted as standard
olive drab because they werestarting to stick out, because
they were that close to thefront lines, right and in in
many ways, you know, one of thethings that's that I don't want
to forget to mention is that.
Dave, back to your questionabout what really was
fascinating about this projectto me.

(59:24):
I think part of the reason whyI've gone so hardcore on trying
to get this as accurate ashumanly possible, right, but
every other thing is based on,you know, plans, it's based on
photos, based on, you know, oralunderstanding of at were on the
front lines who were dealingwith you know, hundreds and

(59:44):
hundreds of soldiers that weregoing through their own stuff
and having to be great partyhosts at all times, right, and
through a lot of, to put itmildly sexual harassment right
All day, every day, day afterday for years.
And then they went home and alot of the family members had no
idea.
They were just like oh, youwere just serving donuts.

(01:00:05):
You know it's no big deal, wedidn't any big thing, and they
had as much ptsd and in someways, all kinds of different
ptsd than than the soldiers did,but got almost none of the
support, despite a reallymiraculous effort on their part
really important effort, and soI've been really trying to get
it as right as possible for them, as part of the philosophy of

(01:00:27):
doing better with our modelingright.

Kentucky Dave (01:00:30):
I agree, wholeheartedly, wholeheartedly
agree.
Now that brings up aninteresting question.
Now, that brings up aninteresting question.

Jake McKee (01:00:49):
Were these women civilians or were they in the
military?
They were never in the military.
They were Red Cross employees.
The theory was that they neededto be basically on par as
officers so they wouldn't getharassed as much.
No, yeah, and so they weren'treally military, but they were
treated with the rank ofmilitary, if that makes sense.

Gotcha pensions or GI Bill benefits or any of
that stuff that even waves orother females who were in the
military ended up with asbenefits from having been a
veteran, yeah, and I don't knowif the Red Cross did something
specific for them, but Iseriously doubt it.

But they certainly didn't get GI Bill and you know
veterans benefits and va careand that sort of thing, as far
as I know to me.

I would have thought that I could go to a
library somewhere and therewould be a book called the club
mobile in world war ii and you'dpull it out and it would be the
entire story of the clubmobilehow it came about, what it
looked like in great detail,with hundreds of photographs,

(01:02:02):
and then the story of the womenwho served in these vehicles.
And it's just amazing to methat there's not that book.

Yeah, I agree, and I've been talking to our hobby's
friend, david Doyle, who writessome just.

That's exactly who I was thinking of.
It would be a David Doyle book.
I'd just go up and yeah by Jake.
Mckee oh man, well, right,maybe there will be.

Yeah, yeah, you know , maybe I'd like to get some
help from David, but yeah, I'dlove to have that kind of book
and it's, you know I'm.
I really like the again go backto the rest of the story kind
of thing, whether it's thebehind the lines rest of the
story for the war or you knowhow things, you know small
little efforts like this were.
You know, there there was a guyand I really I'm sorry I don't

(01:02:52):
remember his name we, there wasone particular person who said,
hey, I have this idea, and hebasically convinced the Red
Cross to go spend money toconvert 100 vehicles.
Originally the concept was thathalf of them were going to be
serving soup and cocoa, I think,and the other half would be
serving donuts and coffee.
And pretty quickly, thedifficulties, logistics and

(01:03:15):
value of doing soup and coffeeand donuts it was just too much
work.
They didn't seem to have thesame value out of the soup
kitchens, basically because theywere already doing food
elsewhere.
They switched it more to almosta hospitality mindset with the
donuts and coffee and really sawhow much that hit as a reminder

(01:03:35):
of home, really saw how muchthat hit as a reminder of home
and so.
But that all started with oneguy saying, hey, I have this
idea and sold it into the RedCross to go invest.
And then really designed thatwhole program and hired women,
trained the women, three pervehicle to operate them.
You know, that story in itselfis an amazing standalone story.

We take it for granted today, but women who
knew how to drive much less.
Drive a truck in 1940-41 was arare commodity.

Absolutely yeah.

My grandmother on my mother's side, did not know
how to drive until the day shedied.
It was not while American carculture meant that a lot of
American males knew how to drive, compared to males in other
countries.

The concept of finding women and then training
them to drive a two and a halfton truck, and and not just any
two and a half ton gmc truckright that had the, had the, the
staked bed on the back, yeah,but one that had a massive

(01:04:50):
oversized box on the back right.
This was.

This is kind of nuts yeah, this was loaded all
the time yeah, which probablyplayed with the, with with the
handling characteristics to someextent.

Oh, I'd imagine, and I'm guessing that's part of why
many of those didn't survivethe wars, because those you know
.
I heard an interesting statfrom the guy who does all the
restoration and repair for thePacific War Museum just up the
street from me in Fredericksburg, texas, right, a guy named
Aaron.
He does some really great workthere.
But he was talking to me at onepoint when I was out there
taking photos of a GMC actuallythat those trucks, the Jeeps,

(01:05:26):
the GMCs largely those thingswere designed and expected to
last six months.

Right.

And then at six months they were trash and they
basically just scrapped themunless they could keep them
running.
They had to keep them runningwhatever.
But you know, generallyspeaking, the design length of
lifetime was was six months.
You can imagine putting thatmuch extra weight on the back of
that thing.
And most of them dragged atrailer behind them with either
a water tank or a supply trailer.
So you know, you're drivingthis big, huge, oversized box on

(01:05:57):
a truck with a manualtransmission GMC from World War
Two and pulling a trailer.
I don't know if anybody'sdriven a modern car with a
trailer behind it, but it's.
It's not always fun.

No, no, oh, you mentioned speakers.
So in addition to servingcoffee and donuts, I assume they
probably played music.
You know familiar tunes at thetime.

They did and this is so.
This is one of the interestingparts about you know, really
digging in and understanding thevehicle itself, and I think in
some ways this was this has beenkind of a component of my
design process was to really tryto understand, not just from
the pictures, what the elementswere.
Right, there's a cabinet on theleft, there's the smaller
cabinet on the right, there'sthe donut maker, there's this,

(01:06:39):
this other cabinet over here.
But to really understand, whenyou open, there's, there's
access doors.
What are those access doors do?
Well, the one on the left sidewas for the, the field stove, so
you could heat up the boilerand make the coffee.
The two in the front that thatoverhang the, the two access
doors in the front that overhangthe cab.
It took me a while to figure out, and actually that came not

(01:07:01):
from photos but from narrativeand then some book that I was
reading something from.
They were talking about howthey'd pop those things open and
there was loudspeakers in therehooked up to a record player in
the back of the truck, and sotrying to understand what was
actually happening and what theywere doing so that you could
translate that into these photos.
And what are you looking at inthe photo?
Oh, this cabinet over here thathas kind of a weird shape.

(01:07:22):
That's where they had therecord player that was hooked up
to the two loudspeakers oneither side of the vehicle.
So that means that these littlesmall, you know 12 inch tall or
so shelves that were, that werereally small little rectangles,
those that must be where therecords went.
Okay, now I know what goesthere, right, I'm looking at the
plans and I see this cabinet,but I don't know what it, what

(01:07:44):
it's for.
Oh, it's the records and therecord player Got it.
So there's been a lot of thatkind of work to try and
understand, you know, how arethey using things.
Where were they making things?
Oh, that's the flower bin,that's the sugar bin.
Here's how they would havegotten into them.
They actually fold out, theydon't slide out that sort of
thing.
But yes, the coffee and thedonuts was a component of the

(01:08:05):
overall mission for them, whichwas really to provide some sense
of hope.
That was the umbrella, and sothat meant seeing some women
when all you've seen is men onthe battlefield.
Some of that was being able toflirt with those women, to be
able to talk to them in waysthat you can only talk to women.
You can't get out of men on thebattlefield right and getting

(01:08:26):
music getting tapped into someR&R for a few minutes or an hour
before you have to go back tothe battlefield right.
But yeah, they had twodifferent loudspeakers mounted
on either side of the vehicle.

Let's move on to the actual modeling of this
project.
Yeah because I could go on juston this part forever.

So yeah, and hey, Dave, if you want to call me
one-on-one, I can talk aboutthis for hours.
That I'm sure the podcastlisteners don't want to hear,
but I'd love to.

I was going to say be careful with that
invitation, because I may welldo it, because, like I said, I
am extremely enamored of thisproject and projects like it.

If you need to come along with me to the Schlesinger
Library in Harvard to searchthe research archives, I can
always use some help, so we'lltalk about that offline.

All right, so talk about the modeling.
What kit are you using as thebasis for the truck?

Yeah, good question.
So the majority of the vehicleis made up of basically two and
a half components.
Right, it is the base of theTamiya 35th scale GMC two and a
half ton truck, you know thatone that we've all known and
loved, the deuce and a half,yeah, and then the box on the
back, that's.

(01:09:44):
You know, I basically modeledthat and it is its own kind of
separate component.
So you know that thing, I'mbasically building the chassis
and that, and then there's oneextra piece that I've had to add
because the, as I mentionedearlier, the chassis got
extended in the back, uh, to beable to fit the size of the box.
So I've modeled a little extraextension onto the back, but for

(01:10:06):
the most part the, the tamiyakit.
I've got some resin wheels, ofcourse I've swapped those out
for the tamiya kit wheels, but,but basically the chassis with
some photo etch details and alittle bit of 3d printing here
and there is basically theTamiya kit at its core, and then
the kind of the box is what I'mcalling it on the back is all

(01:10:26):
fairly self-contained and that'seffectively 100% designed from
scratch in CAD and 3D printing.

Now, what software are you using to do the
?
You don't work work in cad inyour normal job, do you correct?

Mike (01:10:41):
I mean, unlike mike who, who lives in cad in in some
respect I used to, not so muchanymore, but but that's true I'm
I might have an affinity thathe's still trying to develop.
So it's pretty amazing thatyou're you're cranking out what
you're cranking out.

Jake yeah, so I'm using Autodesk Fusion.
Yep, it is a very.
It's one of those programsthat's easy enough to learn and
probably never going to master.
But you know, I constantly callup Will Pattison and say, hey
man, why is this working thisway?
And then he just kind of shakeshis head and he goes man,

(01:11:19):
you're doing it wrong.
And then the next project I'mlike, oh, this is much easier
this way.
It's sort of that happy Gilmoreline, you know, when he hits the
hole in one and said that'smuch easier.
I should do this every time.
Yeah, but I have a lot of thosesort of moments.
I'm doing a little bit with theweb app for the Glowforge
software, the laser cuttersoftware.
I'm doing a few small thingswith the laser cutter.

(01:11:40):
I have a travel box becausethis is my project I'm taking to
SMC this year.
So I've got a travel box that Ipainted and I'm going to do
some stenciling on the outsideof that and I'll use the Cricut
cutter for the stencils or maybethe laser cutter if I can find
the right material to use forthe stencils.

But yeah, most of it's the Autodesk Fusion.
So I assume you are basicallybuilding the components of the
box first and then building asseparate components all of the
things that go inside the box.
That would be the kitchenrecreation area, when all of

(01:12:20):
that stuff, I assume there's a ashell and then the stuff that
goes inside the shell.
Is that the way you're doing?

it.
That is the way I've done itwith, with one minor caveat to
that that I've I've done anumber of things where so yes,
that's where I started this Ibuilt the, the shell of the box
itself right and the the frontcab overhang has kind of a weird
contour to it.
So you know that I wanted toget that kind of knocked out of
the fairly early on because itwas just it was just difficult

(01:12:50):
for me as a newbie to to getthat, that weird angle right,
that weird sort of curve surfaceright, but generally the, the
rest of the box is, you know,two straight walls and the, the
weird front wall and the backwall.
That's got the, the two foldingdoors on it, right.
But but yeah, largely that'swhere I started was was the box

(01:13:11):
to get the core shape done.
And then there was a lot oftweaking as I went, because you
know, obviously, when I builtthe box and I thought, okay,
it's the right size, and thenI'd go in and line it with the
chassis and I'm like, no, it'stoo short, I got to go back in
and, you know, make it a littlewider, a little longer.
I'd get the serving window putin and then go.

(01:13:36):
Oh well, where I put some ofthese external bracings?
It's not hitting in the rightspot.
You know, again, so much of thiswas based off research that I
didn't sit down and kind ofsketch out anything first and
then go do it in CAD.
I was kind of sketching in CADand there was a lot of stuff
where it was do a thing, get itclose to what I think I'm
looking at on the photo, go backand look at the photo again,
notice another detail that Ikind of can ground to and say,
oh well, if the serving windowsare this big and there's this

(01:13:57):
thing in the middle and they'reequally spaced, then my spacing
is wrong or the serving windowsare too big.
So there was a lot of that sortof stuff that happened.
And then when I went inside thebox and started doing things
like cabinetry, then there was anumber of things where I didn't
realize what I was looking atuntil I'd kind of gone through
the process and said, oh okay,well, those weren't.

(01:14:17):
That's not the wheel.
Well, that's actually part ofthe cabinetry.
So it's going to be a differentmaterial, which means it's a
different size and a differentlocation and that sort of stuff.
But you know there's been a lotof those sorts of back and
forth and you know it feels likeI'm getting if you start from a
hundred and you just keepdividing in half to get to zero.
You just keep doing theselittle, incrementally smaller
changes each time.

(01:14:41):
We call that the endless streamof half measures, exactly,
exactly.
There's been a lot of those,and, in fact, the one that
really has stuck out is and thisis part of the challenge for me
has been it's not just with anyproject right At work, in life,
at home, or modeling with anyproject it's this balance of
trying to figure out how muchpre-work do you do before you do

(01:15:03):
the real work, because I couldhave done a ton of planning, I
could have done a ton of CAD,and then started printing stuff
out to see how well it worked.
I knew that that wasn't goingto keep my motivation high.
I needed to be seeing stuffcome to life physically on a
regular basis, or else I wasjust going to get bored.
As much as I like doing the CADwork, I had to sort of have the
physical output happening tokeep me motivated, but what that

(01:15:26):
meant, though, was things thatI just kept putting off certain
stuff, like I want to do theselittle, the wire racks that hold
all the donuts, and there's twoboxes on either side of the
serving windows that has four orfive different donut racks, you
know, so that you can have astash when people start getting
in line and coming up and I wasnervous about how to make the

(01:15:49):
racks printable, becauseobviously they're 35th scale
wire racks, right.
They're, you know Right, prettydelicate, yeah, really delicate
, really thin, and it was one ofthose things where I just kind
of kept shoving it to the sideand shoving it to the side.
And then I I got to the pointabout I don't know a week or two
ago and realizing it's time Igot to do this, and so I I made

(01:16:12):
one, printed it out.
It printed out surprisinglywell and I was like, oh, this is
excellent.
Okay, now what?
Well, let's go make sure thatthey fit.
And I, I had been modeling iton the right side cabinet and it
fit wonderfully.
I was like man, this is amazing.
Oh yeah, I got to put it in theleft side too.
So I went to put it in the leftside and realized I had made
the size of the holes for theracks wrong on the left side.

(01:16:33):
Not not a huge deal, you knowknow, went back into my sketches
, changed the dimensions,printed it out.
Everything's fine.
But it was one of those, likeyou know, I didn't realize how
many pieces I had to rejigger tomake those work when there was
one standard size, but theselittle boxes on on top of the
counters, on the, you know, nextto the serving windows, I'm not

(01:16:54):
really sure.
There's been a couple of timesalong the way where I'm like I
have measured everything,everything makes sense, but
there's something wrong with thedimensions, in just a small
enough way for things not to fit.
And so I've been trying tofigure out how to get these,
these boxes of multiple donutracks, wire racks, printable for
one, which is challenging whenyou know there's so, many, so

(01:17:16):
many little small spaces to tryand get in and get supports.
And then how do you get themoff the supports without tearing
the thing up?
That's, that's its ownchallenge.
But then also, oh, to get themto fit right in the dimensions
that I can see are supposed tobe right.
There's something wrong overalland I'm a millimeter or two off
so that it doesn't really makethese things slide in and out of

(01:17:38):
bowl right, the, the, thecabinets.
I can slide the racks in andout and I'll glue those in place
.
These I have to print them inplace for for several reasons,
but they're, they're basicallyjust a little bit too big and at
that scale I don't thinkanybody's going to actually be
able to see it with a human eye,which is okay, fine.
But again, if I had, if I hadstarted out with the wire rack,

(01:17:59):
then I could have really kind ofdesigned everything around that
, which in retrospect would havemade more sense because it was
a common element.
So I'm really, you know thenext project I'm already
rethinking.
You know which pieces do Istart with and you know which
parts of the project that aregoing to be the hardest or the
most kind of pivotal for otherdimensions and that sort of
thing.
It's.
It's given me a lot of insight,for that that's more of an
engineering process than it is amodeling process, right?

Mike (01:18:22):
And then you just want it to fit together, like I will say
, fall together.
You want to get this thingdesigned the way it was in real
life and it should just fittogether.
Right, right, but it but itdoesn't.
It's driving you nuts.

I, mike, that's part of this process I've gotten so
far down the path as to somereally solid accuracy.
This is by far, probably, I'massuming, the most accurate
Clubmobile model that will existin 35th scale or probably any
scale at this point.
That has been made and there'salmost a there's like a

(01:19:00):
spider-man with great power,responsibility kind of mindset.
Right that?
I'm like right, I do, I need togo back and fix all this stuff.
And you know, normally you'renot really going to be able to
see that on this model, right onany other model I'd just be
like you're not gonna be able tosee that.
It's fine it On this one.
I'm like well, do I go back andrejigger every part of the
interior left side cabinetry tofit this one millimeter off

(01:19:23):
donut rack box?
I don't know, maybe.

Mike (01:19:28):
Well, and there's the wild card is these were converted by
some probably not so largeBritish firm who did these
things Right.
They may be more bespoke thanyou think they are, that's what.

I'm going with.
That's a good theory and I'mgoing to stick with that because
it didn't work because of theguys that were doing it were
hastily putting them together.
They're all different.

Yes, well, you know the story is.
Restorers will tell you thatparts from one spitfire will not
fit another spitfire becausethey were in essence handmade.

Mike (01:20:09):
I got to think after the Mark II or III that that had to
have changed.

But that's a completely different discussion.
It did some Well, jake.
I'm going to ask you a coupleof what may be terrible
questions.
Question one are you going tomake the top removable so that
people can see what you've doneinside?

Yes, it is removable , and because I can't do
anything small, I wanted tolight it as well.

You anticipated my next question Because this
cries out to be lit.
It really does.
So that's, you anticipated mynext question Because this cries
out to be lit it really does.

Mike (01:20:52):
Yes, absolutely, it's got those two big serving windows.
So I mean.

Right, it does, but you know I don't want anybody to
have to stick a flashlight into see all this detail.
So there's two ways to go aboutthat.
One is that I've made the roofremovable Fairly straightforward
.
Right, I cut it.
In a certain way.
There's a little bit ofinaccuracy at the front where it
fits, but if it's on it'saccurate.
If it's off, then well, sue me.

(01:21:19):
But the lighting actually is aninteresting challenge because I
didn't want to have to hangwires off the side.
You know, have this thing wiredup and have it hang off the
side.
So in my many travels aroundYouTube and looking up lighting
tutorials and starting to askthe question, how do I make
these things, how to make theroof totally removable yet still

(01:21:41):
have lights on it, and I cameup with a couple of options that
didn't really work very well.
One in particular where there'sa new way that you can basically
create wireless LEDs, that youget a metal ring that goes to
your battery pack and thenanything inside that ring and up
to a certain distance, willpower itself without any wiring,

(01:22:04):
right?
Which amazing.
But I couldn't work in a wire,a round large ring like that,
and it was too tall up off, awayfrom what would have gone under
the vehicle or even under thebase to actually reach, you know
, have that power, transmit.
So what I, what I discovered,is that you can actually solder
magnets to the end of your line.
So underneath the vehicle is,you know, in the base would be

(01:22:29):
the battery pack, and run wiringup through the vehicle into the
top of one of the water tointernal water tanks that hangs
on the on the wall towards theceiling and the roof has two
little magnet receptacles.
Basically, that are, again, nottotally accurate, but it works.
So it's fine and if all goeswell, when you put the roof in

(01:22:52):
place the lights will come onwell, how are these things lit?

actually, are there a couple of bulbs down the
center line of the cat?

that's exactly right they've got.
They've got three although Ionly put in two just because
trying to get the roof lineright was proving to be
difficult, but especially withnot a lot of great photo photos
and they, they have three skylights where they can actually
open some hatches on the top andyou'll get light in that way
and fresh air.
They've got, obviously, the twoserving windows on one side and

(01:23:23):
then on the other side they'vegot a little tiny window and
kind of the upper ceiling abovethe donut machine, but there is
some very basic light fixtureson the ceiling as well.

Yeah, that's what I would have thought that
they're, you know for, at least,like at night or something like
that, if they're somewhere farenough back where they've got to
see to work to be able to makethe donuts.

Mike (01:23:47):
Yeah, exactly right.
This is based on my observationof your photos on your blog and
my parallel is this little flakpanzer I'm building.
It's a 3D print.
I bought the STL files offColts 3D and this thing is going
to end up being one of the mostexpensive models I've ever
built.

(01:24:07):
So you've got a picture on yourblog.
This is a big old pile of close, but not exactly.
What's that been like?
The trial and error, the fitmod, fit, all that and if you're
passionately invested, I knowyou really don't care.
But man, when you look back andscratch your head, you got to

(01:24:28):
think wow.

I do.

yes, that was a lot of 3D print resin.

It has been a lot of 3D print resin.
This is one of those situationswhere I'm not really paying too
much attention to how much I'mspending on resin.
When I need a new bottle, I geta new bottle and I use the
bottle right Because part of it.
So again, it goes back to moreof the engineering process than
the actual modeling process,because there's been some.

(01:25:00):
You know, if I had done somethings in how I organize some of
the components that I'mbuilding within the single
master file CAD drawing that I'mdoing, it would have been a
little easier to not miss things.
Like you know, when I'm, whenI'm printing out the overall
shell, for instance, there'sthere's a bunch of different
components to turn on and offright, because I've modeled each
, each different thing, likeeach door.

(01:25:22):
The service window doors aredifferent parts.
The little access panels forthe loudspeakers those are two
independent parts because I wantto be able to print them either
closed or open.
You know, there's just a bunchof those little parts, but
there's also some ways that I'vemodeled different things.
Maybe it's the rightmethodology, maybe I'm just, you
know, getting started.

(01:25:43):
It's not the right way, I don'tknow.
But I've done a lot of thingswhere, if I miss turning on one
of those components, I'll do awhole print, get it out and be
like, oh man, and that is.
That's about half the testprints, to be honest.
The other half is just me sortof.
I mean literally doing a testprint saying, okay, is the shell
the right size, have I gottenit to the right point that it

(01:26:09):
needs to be, and is it has tohave the right components, and
so, okay, it's good, it looksgreat, it can actually print.
Well, that's good to knowbefore I go too much further
with this particular approach tohow I'm designing the shell.
I actually upgraded my printerto be able to fit the shell as
one piece.
Uh, I got a, got a biggerprinter because the small one I
had wouldn't fit it all as oneand I I really wanted to print
it all as one.
You're getting quite the shop,yeah, yeah, yeah, tell me about

(01:26:35):
it.
But yeah, there's, there's alot of.
There was a lot of trial anderror.
That was completely fair,normal process stuff that I'm
very, very proud that.
That's how I went about doingit.
And the other part let's nottalk too much about that.
That's kind embarrassing, I youknow, and it didn't happen once
or twice.
I mean, it happened so manytimes where I was like what is
wrong with you, man, payattention to what you're
exporting before you youactually go through the whole

(01:26:56):
print process.
And there's been a bunch oftimes I pulled stuff off the
printer because I started amidnight print, you know to be
done the next morning when Iwoke up, yeah you know, forgot
one little piece.
That's basically impossible toyou know, scratch, build out in
afterwards or something.
So back to the printer.

I would assume that one of the many side
benefits besides learning aboutthis important piece of history
and doing the research and thesatisfaction and making all the
friends and contacts, I've gotto think that one of the side
benefits for your modeling isthat you really must have

(01:27:35):
improved, over the life of thisproject, both your CAD skill and
your 3D printing skill.

Yeah, that's completely fair and it's really
been.
You know I have to give a shoutout to the community as a whole
because I've asked a bunch ofquestions to some of the guys,
like John Colesante and WillPatterson and Matt McDougall you
know who text on a regularproved I'm getting much better.
And it's funny because you knowI sat down to work on the, the

(01:28:13):
little folding jump seat thisthis afternoon actually, and I
was just thinking, as I finishedthat file and sent it to print,
how much faster and moreorganized that design file was
to create and then to print itout.
We'll see how well it printsout here in about two more hours
.
But uh, you know, the the, thespeed at which I was able to get
a pretty good design done waswas radically faster than when I

(01:28:38):
started the project.
And it's, you know it's.
It's been interesting too,because part of the reason why I
left some of the stuff off,that donut machine for instance
was because I'd I'd kind oftapped out on on the interest on
it.
Right, it was just, it was so,so much mental energy to get to
a point of having a good enoughversion that you know I was like
, okay, it's, I'm done, I can'tdo it anymore.
Now, you know, when I went backand looked at it a little

(01:28:59):
longer, I'm like I know, if Ijust spend another 30 minutes or
maybe an hour and a half atmost, I can get everything that
I can see in the picture on thatmodel.
Come on man, you just go do it.
You know, and it really wasmuch faster, much more organized
than when I started off.

It's like I'm listening to you and I talk and
you talking about the KV-85 andhow this isn't quite right.

Mike (01:29:23):
That isn't quite right Well he's talking about this
jump seat and I know what'sgoing to happen.
Jake, You've had to backdoor somuch information You're going
to.
There's going to be a photoshow up that is taking it some
airfield in England and it'sgoing to be Clark Gable getting
his donuts and coffee at theClubmobile and the center of the

(01:29:45):
.
He's the focal point of thepicture and just over the
woman's shoulder serving him isthe jump seat right?
That that's how this kind ofproject moves forward and it's
it's fun.

But part of that iterative design process that
I've been going through is forexactly that reason because,
yeah, part of its understanding,like I was talking about
earlier you know it's.
You're not knowing whatsomething was, and so you design
it in a certain way becausethat's what your brain tells you
to do it.
You know that that door backthere is some for for X instead
of Y, so it's going to look likethis, or the hinges are going

(01:30:20):
to be in this spot.
And then you get anotherpicture.
You read an account and you'relike, oh, wait a minute, that
was a storage area so it wouldhave swung out, not back in or
up or whatever.
That's happened a number oftimes and I've been starting to
joke now at this point that it'salmost guaranteed that TACOM or
Trumpeter or somebody is goingto come out with a Clubmobile

(01:30:40):
here in about six weeks.
So for all the rest of you guysthat are interested in this
project, you're it's gonna, it'sgonna suck well.

Well, that actually raises that.
That actually raises twoadditional issues.
One, I would suggest that'sprobably not gonna happen
because, given the, the, whatyou've had to do to research it,
I'm not sure anybody.
Well, of course, they go now to, they go now to your blog and

(01:31:07):
everything's all in one placeyeah, talk to me whoever you
know.

Icm many are.
You guys want to talk?

you just come to me well right, give me a little
credit on the box at least theyjust injection mold, the uh cm,
the cmk thing you bought, yeah,yeah but that's the other
question.
I'm assuming, after you builtthis and you've shown it around,
you know for a model season orwhatever have you given any

(01:31:36):
thought to actuallymanufacturing this yourself,
either printing them and sellingthem or selling the STL files?

I have thought about it a little bit and it's, you
know it's an interestingquestion for me.
I'm, you know some of this is Ithink some distance is going to
be needed.
It's not that I I don't haveany desire to gatekeep the
design, and if somebody elsewants to use it or use parts
from it or talk about it, thenyou know I'm an open book.
Let's, let's talk about it.
I've this one's the firstproject that I've done of, you

(01:32:14):
know, small or large nature,either one, you know, small
component or full build that Ifelt like you know, maybe the
parts here are good enough thatyou know it's not.
I could print them and actuallyjust sell somebody the part on
the supports and not feelembarrassed about the quality,
right, because you don't have todo a ton of cleanup on some of
these things to get it to theusable state.

(01:32:34):
It's like any 3D part, everypart requires some cleanup, but
I just mean I'm not trying tofix it after I've printed it
like I have in past builds.
So maybe I think it's a goodquestion.
I I don't know yet, in partbecause I still have several
other ideas for you know,there's some really interesting
photos of of people who wouldset up the donut machines kind

(01:32:59):
of under a tent, out in thefield and and in fact they what
would end up happening is thatthey discovered that doing a
bulk of the donut making in thevehicle was not the best use of
time, because these very uniquein a battlefield situation women
were called to be more present,not to be in the truck making

(01:33:19):
donuts.
Set up a an area with three orfour or five of these donut
machines which could makesomething like 8 000 a day or
something they were.
They were insanely, uh, insanenumbers.
It's like crispy, yeah, yeah,exactly, and they'd set up
basically a little small donutshop, right and and they'd have

(01:33:40):
a bunch of guys you know a bunchof privates somewhere back with
the you know donut machinescranking these things out.
Then they'd ship those back tothe trucks and and by and large,
they'd make a majority ofdonuts elsewhere eventually.
So you know some littlevignettes with the donut
machines and guys sitting onsome stools with the big sticks
of donuts.
You know, sounds like a funproject.
That would be great, yeah, andthere's, there's another one,

(01:34:09):
there's another photo that Ireally like of one of the club
mobiles being driven off, one ofthose large landing craft uh,
you know post d, d plus five orwhatever it was and it you can
see about half of it in thephoto because it's still in the
truck and half of it's on theramp.
You're driving onto the beachand so you know, I've, I've got
the ability now to justbasically close all the doors,
print out one shell that's gotall the pieces on it and just go
straight to paint.
Right, and I have that 35thscale landing craft from was

(01:34:35):
that from?
Trumpeter?
I think yeah.
So you know there's severalmore project ideas I have in
mind, so we'll see.
You know, kind of once I've runout of those ideas, I may think
about putting it up on Colts orsomething.

The reasons I love this project are almost
endless, but one of the reasonsis that we all love the cool
Sherman or the cool Tiger orwhatever about having you on.

(01:35:13):
One of the things I said is aUS soldier was probably much
more likely to have seen one ofthese club mobiles than they
ever would have been seeing aTiger tank.

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

The rear area.
The story is that for one guyat the front you need 10 support
people behind him doing all ofthe things that need to get him
and his ammo and all to thefront, and so it's just such an
underappreciated area.

You know the tanks are cool and all, but it's this
stuff that actually made allthat other stuff possible at the
front yeah, 100, and and youknow what's on top of that too,
I find it really fascinatingpersonally just how many
versions of the gmc variantsthere were.

(01:36:05):
Right, oh, yeah.
Anyway, it's part of thefascinating to me.
I've always enjoyed the homefront stories about what they
were doing with production andhow they were centralizing and
standardizing certain types ofthings.
But the amount of things thatwere put on the back of a Dodge,

(01:36:26):
gmc or Chevy truck chassiswhether it was the turret
trainers that went on the backof the Chevy bomb trucks, the
shop trucks, these club mobiles,you know there's, there's just

(01:36:51):
so many of those variants, andand for me personally I like the
stuff that isn't somethingsomebody else has done already.
Uh, at least not a lot ofpeople have done already.
You know, the coming up withthings that we just don't get to
see much is what I alwaysgravitate to at the shows.
You know when I go to the tablesand you know, you can see the
most beautifully weathered tigertank.
But you know, the one thingyou've never seen before and

(01:37:14):
never even heard of.
That's always fascinating to me.
And then I want to go home andyou know, I want to talk to the
modeler and say, hey, tell memore about this thing that you
it, because it's the fascinatingrest of the story.

Well, and that's to me one of the best things
about this project, when you'redone, not only do you have this
model of a club mobile, but youwill know a lot of the story of
all of these women who did allof this stuff that has pretty

(01:37:50):
much been invisible to anybodybut a super hardcore historian,
and even most of them probablynot To me.

The fact that by building this, you're also going
to bring their story forward isjust a major benefit, I think,
of the project.
Yeah, and Dave, I'm glad youbrought that up too, because
I've really been thinking a lotabout.
I have the unique privilege ofbeing here in Austin with Matt
McDougal and he and I get to goto lunch usually once a week or
so.
He and I get to go to lunchusually once a week or so.
We talk a lot about modeling inlife and the philosophy behind
what subjects we're working on.

(01:38:34):
He's talked a lot lately aboutbringing more whimsy into the
hobby.
I don't know if you guys followthe model philosopher Chris
Medding's podcast, where Mattwas on talking about the idea of
purposely you know, purposelymaking his work more political,
so to speak and I'm using myquotey fingers when I say

(01:38:55):
political, but you know moremeaning and I, years ago in
Austin, at the TEDx Austin event, I saw this woman who was a
photographer speak on stage andshe talked about her work going
to Africa and African villagesand taking photos there that you
know help to really share morethan just what you see on the
news and, you know, really givemore flavor of life and bring

(01:39:15):
that back to the, to the U?
S, so we can see both the goodand bad about what's happening
in very specific parts of Africaand whatnot.
And her, her speech and this was10 or 12 years ago, but it has
stuck out to me on a regularbasis that you know she was
saying if you're going to takephotos, take photos.
That matter and in some ways Ireally like that idea and I've

(01:39:37):
been thinking a lot about it asI was reading some of the
accounts of what some of thesewomen went through in the club
mobiles no-transcript and I'mhoping that the way that I pull

(01:40:16):
off the story I've got in mind,which we'll talk about in
another episode once I get itdialed in, but you know I'm
hoping that helps to make apoint that is, using the
modeling you know, not just tomake a model but to also tell a
story to enlighten us all, toget us thinking about.
You know, in particular, whatthose women went through and you
know how does that translatethrough to today and you know

(01:40:37):
what does that mean for all ofus men that listen to listening
to this podcast today and youknow how does that impact our
daily lives as we interact withthe women around us and whatnot
you know.
Hopefully that has an impact onus.

One final idea when you finally take this to a
contest and display it, stop bya Krispy Kreme, get a dozen
fresh donuts, stick the boxunder the table and just open it
up so that if people come up tolook at the model, they get the
smell of fresh made donuts.

And Dave I, I love that idea enough that I'm
probably going to figure out howto add it to my, you know, to
my concept here.

Mike (01:41:20):
So there's probably a candle or something.

Yeah, yeah, probably a little battery powered fan
sitting on top of a box ofdonuts under the table.
I like it Well, and there'smore elements to this that I'll
release as I get themconceptualized.
But you guys remember the CylonRaider had the Viewmaster.
Well, I've been working on somethings to try and get BuildLog
across in a moreproject-adjacent version instead

(01:41:46):
of just kind of an off to theside.
You know, photo book there's,there's some ideas I've got for
you know how to integrate itinto the overall display of
whatever diorama I come up withthe travel box that I've got
going, and then, of course, thethe, the build log content.

Just don't let the TSA anywhere near.

Well, I'm flying the .
I'm assuming that the firstshow that this will show up at
is is SMC in October.
That's that's my timeline.
I'm working.

Mike (01:42:13):
Well, that'd be a tall order for getting it somewhere
safe yeah.

But I've I've been designing it around the the
travel box that I have that fitsunder the airline seat, so
hopefully it goes better thistime, buying its own seat.

Mike (01:42:29):
No kidding, no kidding.
Well, jake, we we thank you forgiving us the opportunity to
showcase this project and again,we're going to put this in the
show notes and in the teasersahead of this episode, because
it's a really, really coolproject and I really Dave and I
both just speak a little bit forDave we appreciate the the

(01:42:49):
history around this project, butalso the technical aspects of
this project.
Really, uh, give me a littleinspiration to maybe get back on
a couple things I've beenneglecting of late, and simply
because I, honestly, I've got alot more cat experience than you
do.
That's you know, full stop,that's the truth.
I'm an engineer, right, andyou're doing all this stuff with

(01:43:09):
fusion and I'm like I justcan't make myself go do it.
It's really encouraging to see,see you do this stuff.
I mean it's.
I've looking at the 3d modelsyou're showing in the blog and
it's it's all really, reallygreat stuff and I can't wait to
see this thing come, come to itsfruition.

Yeah, and I can't wait to see this thing come,
come to its fruition.
Yeah, thanks, man.
Well, you know, I'll reiteratetoo is kind of a closing thought
here that you know a huge partof what's made it, I mean this
is this is going to be a longproject, right?
I'm I'm almost to the point ofbeing able to really start
putting real paint down.
I've been doing a lot of painttests and part tests and whatnot
.
But you know, I'm almosthopefully a week or two away

(01:43:50):
from really sitting down andsaying, okay, I've got every
single internal component done,I just need to start painting
them and putting them togetherand I'm probably going to have
about 10 figures on the base.
So you know, between thediorama of actually finishing

(01:44:10):
this project out and and doingthe figures it's, you know,
there's a remarkable amount ofwork ahead still that.
I'm hoping I get done byOctober yeah.

Mike (01:44:14):
That's not global bill, yeah.

Yeah, that's, that's all this stuff surrounding it,
right, much less all the youknow, display issues, but.
But I think what's you knowwhat for me in this?
This may be different for otherpeople, but for me what's been
really surprising is how muchenjoyment I'm getting out of
this project lasting as long asit has, because it's been this
multi-nature dynamic of you know, finding people to talk to
about it who really are aspassionate about the nerd

(01:44:39):
history as I am, to be able tofigure out other places to get
information.
So you know this idea that I'mliterally planning a trip at
some point as soon as I get onthe calendar to go to go to the
Harvard and dig through their,their archives, but also reading
the stories along the way.
Right, you know, I've I've readbook and a half now, all the
way, cover to cover, about youknow stories and I'm I've I've

(01:45:01):
read in parts to others.
Right, I'm reading that arc inthe Storm book online when I can
get to it.
You know, just combining thislevel of, like, deep research
with fun interaction, talkingabout it with the actual drive
of the work itself in CAD, butalso printing it so I can see it
coming to life, all thesepieces really fit together to

(01:45:23):
make a really fun long termproject, in a way that I would
have gotten bored so easilyearlier if I hadn't had kind of
all those pieces playingtogether.
You know, a huge part of thatis being able to see it come to
fruition and, you know, not justkind of sit around and design
all day long and then at somepoint a year later print it out.
But you know, printing it andgoing man, this thing is I'm
holding right now, as a matterof fact, I'm holding my you know

(01:45:44):
, hopefully final donut maker inmy hand and that looks really
cool.
I'm really excited about that.
Just imagine when I go andfinish the cabinetry on the
right side that I'm almost donewith.
You know that that'll feel justas good.
Right, it's just, it's veryempowering to sort of bump back
and forth between all thosedifferent elements and, you know
, kind of make it.
It's a.
It's a fun story to read aboutit, to see come to life.

(01:46:08):
It's a fun story to share withothers and you know that makes
for a very interesting modelingexperience beyond.
Just sit at the bench, buildthe model, be done, put it on
the shelf, move on to the nextone.

Well, thank you very much.

Yeah, thank you guys for giving me the chance to
share all this nerdery that onlyfolks like you might get a kick
out of.

Mike (01:46:22):
Oh well, there's plenty of people get a kick out of it and
we'll make sure the folks knowhow to get to your blog.
And again, we'll, we'll, we'll,tease the blog ahead of the
episode drop so folks can warmup to it a little bit and know
what we're talking about.

Yeah.

Mike (01:46:36):
I better go make some updates, then you bet.
All right man, thank you verymuch.
All right, thanks, guys.
Wow that was fun.

That was great, we could have gone another hour.
I mean, I am endlesslyfascinated by this project and
related projects.

Mike (01:46:59):
Well, it makes me want to get back on my Hungarian truck
because he's certainly doing thesame kind of level work and I
don't know.
I just got to find themotivation to get back on that.

Yes, you do, because that's good, that's a
great project.

Mike (01:47:14):
Well, let's thank Jake one more time for coming on the
show and look forward to thenext time he's on man.

Me too Can't wait to see this project completed.

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needs.

Mike (01:48:13):
Well folks, it's the Bench Top Halftime Report and I hope
we've both got some progress toreport.
What have you been doing, dave?

I do have progress to report.
The F8F group, or batch build,is moving along at a steady pace
so far.
I'm enjoying the heck out of it.
I can see why Inch likes batchbuilds.
I really do.

(01:48:40):
It truly is.
If you are building a number ofversions or a number of copies
of the same kit a number ofversions or a number of copies
of the same kit it really is atime saver to have multiple
parts that you can paintfollowing the assembly sequence
for the same step acrossmultiple models.

(01:49:03):
I very much am enjoying that.
Additionally, the SAM is movingalong.
I need to pick up the pace onweathering the underside of it
because it's very close to done.
It is super, super close tobeing finished.
Obviously, I don't have toworry about getting it finished

(01:49:25):
for amps, but I do want to getit finished and I really like
the way it's turning out.
So I'm making progress, not asmuch or as fast Partly that's
due to spring having arrived andother obligations, but other
than that I'm satisfied.

(01:49:46):
How about you?

Mike (01:49:47):
I've got a little bit done .
I've been slumping a little bit.
I need to get my butt in gear.
Mostly we've talked about my 3Dprinter and getting that going
again.
I've been reprinting a lot ofparts for the Flak Panzer and
getting those cleaned up.
I tell you, my opinion rightnow is that unless the materials
change for the better, myopinion right now is that unless

(01:50:08):
the materials change for thebetter, they're okay now, but
they've got some nuances aboutthem that I don't like.
Compared to styrene or evenpolyurethane resin, I don't
think plastic kits are in anydanger anytime soon.

Well, I do think that you will see continued
evolution in the material.

Mike (01:50:28):
Sure, I do too, but I think right now there's nuance
to these things.
It's a different skill set.

Personally, some of it I find not too fun to work
with, right that's my opinion,there are some inherent
limitations, including the onethat occurs to me off the top of
my head is an inability.
You know, if you have apolystyrene part that has a warp
to it, it can be straightenedout with an application of heat

(01:51:00):
and pressure, and that's notreally the case for most of the
3d print stuff that I've seenthe case for most of the 3D
print stuff that I've seen.

Mike (01:51:12):
Well, I'll give a little tease.
For May we have a guest comingon to talk about working with 3D
printed kits and accessories,so we'll get into more of that
next month in one of the featureepisodes.
I've also been working on theKV-85, slowly adding whole
details.

Yes, I really like the work you've done on the
fenders and supports.

Mike (01:51:29):
It's going slow, but you know, I'm just being meticulous
and trying to do the best job Ican.
I'm still kind of looking forthe right size nylon mesh for
the intakes.
I'm getting closer, yeah, butthat's you know.
Chipping away, you know I mightbring that unfinished model to
AMS to have at our table.
Yeah, that would be cool.
That'd be kind of cool, yep.

(01:51:50):
Other than that, that's it I've.
You know, I've refrained fromstarting anything new.
It's been tempting but Ihaven't done it yet.

Well, good.

The Voice of Bob (01:52:08):
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Squadron adding to the stashsince 1968.

Mike, I assume you've spent a little bit of
money on modeling-related stuffsince you got back from
HeritageCon.

Mike (01:52:35):
Yeah, a little bit, not a lot, related to both my Benchtop
Halftime projects KV1, Iordered, you mean the KV85?
The KV85, right the front towshackles from Aver for KV-85.
Or for the KV-85, right thefront tow shackles from Aber for
KV series.
They're multiple part andthey're kind of nice for what
they are.
And then the barrels for theKugelblitz, barrels for the flak

(01:52:58):
pans I'm working on.

Now, those are in brass right.

Mike (01:53:02):
Well, the barrels are aluminum and the muzzle brakes
are.
They could be 3D printed.
I don't know if they are.
They've already been cleaned up.

Okay.

Mike (01:53:12):
Or they're urethane cast.
I don't know what the materialis, but they're resin of some
kind.
And I got these from B&A out ofAustralia and man, I got to
shout out those guys.
They are so fast consideringthey're halfway around the world
.

Yep, yep.

Mike (01:53:28):
And the.

Australian postal system is impressive.

Mike (01:53:31):
And I just bought through their eBay store I was trying to
find.
Well, I looked for both ofthese at Heritage Con and didn't
find either one of them, andwith little stuff like this I
don't want to buy it from twodifferent suppliers, right?
So B&A had them both, so Iordered from B&A and then, you
know, I showed them on the dojoand Rob Riv from over at the

(01:53:54):
Modeling Insanity podcast saidhey man, jadar is a another
source for for ABER.
You know and he's right, I'veI've done a lot of business with
JADAR in the past there'sanother photo-ish brand called
Part that they carry and they'rethey've got good prices and
fast service too.
So Jadar hobbies Absolutely.
That should have.

(01:54:16):
I guess it didn't come to mebecause I was.
I had my nose into eBay lookingat it that way, and they used
to have an eBay store.
I don't know if they still door not.
At least I didn't run into itwhen I was looking for these
things.
But certainly if I'm behind theeight ball again, I'll probably
go to them.
What about you?

Well, I'm tempted to tell you that what broke my
wallet was the purchase of allnew appliances for my kitchen.
But that's not modeling relatedit broke your wallet.
It broke my wallet, it shreddedmy wallet, but my lovely better
half has been extremely patientand it was time and she is a
very much a thrift shopper andfound a really good deal.

(01:55:03):
So I mean, it's still a crapton of money, but I can't
complain.
On the modeling front, I boughta couple of things.
One shout out to Dr DavidGelmacher.
I was working on these Bearcatprops, the F8F props that have

(01:55:26):
an AeroProp logo and then somedata stenciling, and the Hobby
Boss kit gives you a pretty goodAeroProp logo in their decals
and these things were veryprominent on the Bearcat.
All the pictures you see of theprops all have the AeroProp
logo and then that datastenciling.

(01:55:48):
Well, the Hobby Boss Aerooproplogo isn't bad.
It isn't perfect but it isn'tbad.
But their data stenciling isjust awful.
It's yellow, basically theequivalent of like yellow bars.
There's no lettering to it andI was like I can't put that on

(01:56:08):
the prop.
I mean, since there's no detailto this kit, they're basically
being built out of the box.
What is going to matter is themarkings and the weathering, and
the detail and the markings andthe weathering and the external
look of the thing, as opposedto any fine detailing.
So, dr Geldmacher, I wasbemoaning that fact.

(01:56:32):
Dr Geldmacher pointed out thatthere were a couple of companies
TechMod being among them whomade both the logos and the data
stenciling.
So he pointed me to the sheetwhich I then ordered, and it's
on its way.
In addition, I dropped anairbrush and bent the protective

(01:56:56):
guard for the needle.

Mike (01:56:59):
Now you got five more.

I do, I do, but I like this airbrush.
It's a Badger Velocity.
So I went on their site ofBadger Velocity.
So I went on their site and,instead of just replacing the
nose cap, I bought two newneedles, two new nose cones and
two new protective caps.
So those are on their way.

(01:57:21):
I found a really good deal on aPacific Profiles book on
Japanese transport aircraft, soI bought that.
And then finally, I got.
You know how?
We all have the rubberself-healing cutting mats for

(01:57:41):
our workbenches and I've gotseveral of them on my workbench.
Well, they make the same thingin tempered glass.
So if you're doing things likecutting photo etch or cutting
decals, there are someapplications where you want a

(01:58:02):
very hard surface like glass ormarble to cut on as opposed to
the self-healing surface.
And so I went ahead and orderedone of those and I'm going to
replace one of my self-healingmats on my bench with that

(01:58:23):
tempered glass mat.
So I spent a little money.
Like I said, the vast majorityof it not related to modeling,
but I did spend a littlemodeling money and looking
forward to amps, because you canalways find something to buy at
amps.
Mike, we're almost the end ofthe episode, which probably

(01:58:47):
means you're almost at the endof your modeling fluid, because
I know I am and I suspect we'regoing to have similar reports.

Mike (01:58:56):
Go ahead.
Well, the Prone is good.
It's not great, but it's goodenough.
Yep, I enjoy it every now andthen.
Of course, it comes in themetric bottles, so it's a little
shy.
12 ounces that's a littleannoying, because you're usually
paying an uplift, right?
Yes, so you're paying more forless when you buy these things.

(01:59:16):
Well, dave, how is yours?

Very similar.
Again, I suspect you could putthis beer in a glass and put it
next to Peroni and there wouldbe very little difference
between the two.
They are the classic Europeanbeer with that slightly sulfury
finish.
You know, 5% alcohol by volume.
Now this is 473 milliliter can,so it's actually more than 12

(01:59:49):
ounces.
So you got shortchanged alittle bit, I got a little bit
extra and considering this onewas a gift from somebody who
stopped by the dojo, you knowit's free beer and how can you
complain about that?
But good beer, not top-notchbeer, but good, solid drinking

(02:00:12):
beer.
Now we're really at the end ofthe episode and it's time for
shout-outs.
Do you have a shout-out?

Mike (02:00:25):
Like always, Dave, I want to shout-out our contributors,
those folks who've taken it uponthemselves to support Plastic
Model Mojo through theirgenerosity.
This is real easy now.
You can just go towwwplasticmodelmojocom and click
the support selection in themenu bar and it'll bring up
links to all the avenues ofsupport for the show, and I

(02:00:46):
really appreciate folks doingthat.
You can also find it in theshow notes.
But it all goes a long way tohelp us out, and of late our
expenses have been kind of highand it's really helped us out.

Yes, it has.

Mike (02:00:56):
Folks, thank you very much , absolutely.

I want to second that.
Thank you very much.
We appreciate it and if you'remotivated to donate, please do.
My shout out is somebody Imentioned earlier, ian McCauley.
Ian, we missed you atHeritageCon.
Glad to reconnect with you.
Hopefully you're having a greattime and looking forward to

(02:01:24):
seeing you whenever we can gettogether, and I know we'll see
you at Heritage Con next year.

Mike (02:01:32):
Anything else?
That's it, dave, as we alwayssay.
So many kids, so little time,dave.
So let's get to the bench andfinish something.

Yeah, let's finish something.

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