Shop Talk with Mike and Kentucky Dave: Episode 142

Episode Transcript
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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):
Well, welcome back Mojovi to episode 142, kentucky.
Dave, how you doing, man?

Kentucky Dave (00:48):
I'm doing good.
Summer's in full swing and I'dbe ungrateful if I was
complaining about anything.

Mike (00:55):
Well, what's up in your model sphere?

You know what I want to talk about a little
something different for themodel sphere.

Mike (01:01):
Ah good, Keep the variety up here, man.

Exactly Normally we talk about the model sphere.
Ah good, keep the variety uphere, man.
Exactly Normally we talk aboutthe model sphere.
We talk about whatevermodeling-adjacent stuff going on
in our lives or complain abouthow we're not getting enough
time, or something like that.
But in the last couple of weekshave been a couple of events in
the lives of modelers that weknow, of events in the lives of

(01:31):
modelers that we know, and it'sbeen nice to go through it or
celebrate with them thesemilestones in their lives.
In one instance that I postedabout on the dojo, dr Terry Hill
, who was the founder of theMilitary Modelers Club here in
Louisville, the good doctor.
The good doctor, chiropractorfor more years than I think

(01:52):
possible to count, retired andhe had a retirement party at his
office and I was able to go andattend, and many other folks
from the modeling club were alsothere at the party.
Oh good, it was really nice tocelebrate his retirement,

(02:18):
celebrate what he meant to allof his patients, to all of his
patients.
He's a top-notch chiropractor,really, really a person who did
a lot of good in his community.
However, he is also the beatingheart and soul of the modeling
community here in Louisville.

(02:39):
He founded the MilitaryModelers Club in 1976.
He was the president for many,many years.
He also helped run the show andmake it the success that it is
today, every year, and we thinkof the model sphere as something

(02:59):
that's closely model-related.
That's closely model-related,whereas I think that's probably
too narrow a view that our modelsphere, in many ways the best
parts of it, are the people andthe people we connect with.
Sure, we all have modeling as acommon interest, but it's the

(03:24):
friendships.
All have modeling as a commoninterest, but it's the
friendships.
And not only was this drivenhome to me by Terry's retirement
, but another modeling friend ofours that will remain nameless
for the moment because I haven'tasked permission recently went
through the experience of buyingtheir first home and it was
really kind of nice toexperience the excitement that

(03:50):
they were experiencing in buyingtheir first home and all the
worry that comes with it.
Of course, you and I've ownednumerous homes in our lifetimes
and so you kind of forget themagic that comes with that first
big purchase and it was kind ofnice to vicariously experience

(04:16):
that excitement.
And so my model sphere has beenreally good, not because of the
books I read, not because ofthe new models I acquired or not
because of anything directlymodel-related, but because good
modeling friends wereexperiencing significant events

(04:40):
in their life and I got to shareit with them.
And you know what?
It was wonderful, and I knowthat sounds a little corny and
weird and all of that, but itreally was great.
And so my model sphere wasfantastic.

Mike (05:00):
Ah, good job, Good job.
How about yours state?
Ah good job, good job, howabout yours?
Uh, back to the bench and podproduction since returning from
vacation.

vacation was nice I was gonna say how was florida
?
It looked like you were.
You were catching some fish wedid.

Mike (05:17):
I don't know if I told you , maybe a little bit, but yeah,
we went down to keys and didsome fishing and snorkeling,
kayaking in the mangroves, allthat stuff you can do down there
.
And yeah, fishing was good.
I love saltwater fishing.
The highlight was actuallyseeing a 13 to 14 foot tiger
shark in the wild oh wow, I'vetold a few folks this already.

(05:40):
I was sure glad that was on theday we were in a chartered
fishing boat, not that they werein the water snorkeling yeah,
absolutely yeah, that's a lot offish man.
Done it, done it.
Yeah, even our guide was quiteimpressed.
He's like I hadn't seen onethat big out here in ages, so

(06:01):
pretty cool that's cool.
It's one of those things you'renot going to experience on the
regular unless you live downthere, no, and do a lot of
diving and stuff or chum thewaters to make them yeah,
exactly well, the model sphere.
The model sphere has been aboutthe only thing going my way
lately, save family milestonesand vacations.

(06:22):
Um, I got a lot of irons in thefire, dave.
Yeah Well, we both do, we do.
I got to divvy out the work andgive you a little.
Well, we've been reaching outto some folks to propose a few
things and we've been hearingfrom about as many coming out of
the way with some greatsuggestions and we're working
all those avenues and things arereally lining up for the show
to finish the year out prettystrong and I'm I'm pretty

(06:44):
excited about it.
So that's the model sphere, man.

Yep, and stay tuned, folks.
You're going to see lots ofchanges and additions coming up,
if Mike and I can keep allthese balls in the air.

Mike (06:57):
We'll see what happens.
Man, you got it.
At least we'll get some newguests out of it.

At a minimum.

Mike (07:04):
That's right.

Well, Mike, it wouldn't be a new episode
without a modeling fluid.
Do you have a modeling fluid?
I'll steal your stick man.
Oh there.
Oh, I love it, I love it.

Mike (07:18):
That's as impressive as it gets folks.
It's a Guinness stout draft ina can.
Oh nice choice, but it's goingin a glass.

Listen, they say that you could live off Guinness
beer alone, that it has all thenutrients that you need.
I don't know if that's true.

Mike (07:35):
I highly doubt that, but they can say what they want, I
guess.

I know they prescribe it to pregnant women
over there.

Mike (07:43):
But what about you, what you got?

Yeah, not bad either.
Well, as I noted, on the dojowe have the best listeners.
Yeah, Mr Ken Schaefer, from upin the Northeast, out of the
blue, sent a package with eightbeers four each for Mike and I
of the same beers with eightbeers four each for Mike and I

(08:07):
of the same beers.
And the beer I'm drinkingtonight is from Two Roads
Brewery out of Stanford,Connecticut, and as a lawyer, I
love the name of this beerWorkers' Comp.
It's a session beer, so it'slighter side alcohol and I just
love that name Workers' workerscomp for the end of a long week,
so I'm sure that it's going tobe good and I'm sure it's going

(08:30):
to get me through the episode.

Mike (08:32):
I suspect those are residuals from our amps
non-attendance.

I suspect that may be the case.

Mike (08:38):
Well, the mailbag is busting at the seams again.
Can't complain about that.
Facebook messengers the same,all right.
And we've got a couple thatcame through the new avenue off
the show notes.
Good, the show notes link.
So we got all kinds of stuffcoming in.
Man, that's great.
Well, let's get into it.
Okay, I want to revisit one.

(09:00):
I think we picked this one upat the tail end of the listener
mail from the previous episode.
It's Larry Donovan.
I forwarded you this one fromNew Brighton, minnesota.
He's the one that had somesuggestions for other folks who
might have interest in thatestate book collection.
Right, we've been yammering onabout for a couple episodes,
yeah, and I think I sent this toyou already.

(09:21):
But there was one thing at thevery end I kind of didn't get to
, and it was just an interestingpoint that that episode and all
our tellings of it hadmotivated him to make sure the
disposition of all his books andwar games and kits and stuff is
taken care of so his spousedoesn't have to deal with it at

(09:42):
his end time.

It's had a profound effect on me in that
exact same way, and in factwe'll talk about that a little
bit later.

Mike (09:52):
Yes, we will Up.
Next Eric Kintzer this one isreally, really interesting and
Eric's from Roseville California.
Well, no, he was in RosevilleCalifornia they went to see.
He and his son went to see theUnion Pacific big boy locomotive
that's on display there and hesays there were hundreds of
people on the platform, you know, looking at this enormous steam

(10:14):
locomotive.
And so to commemorate thisfamily outing they had, he went
and bought the 187th or HO scaleRevell static kit of that thing
.

I had that kit at one time.

Mike (10:27):
And he likes to place his models in context, like on a
small diorama or a scenic base,and he wanted to do a scene
showing a large group of gawkersand folks taking selfies and
rail fans and taking picturesand all that kind of thing.
And he knows he could just gobuy a bunch of stock HO scale
figures.
I tell you, though, some ofthose pre-painted Prizer things

(10:50):
can get a little pricey.
Yes, they can, especially ifyou need a lot of them.
So he wondered if, if AItechnology gotten to the point
where he could prompt an AI togenerate 100 HO scale figures
suitable for 3D printing, sooutput an STL file Of 2024 era

(11:13):
Americans of many differentethnicities, men, women,
children of all ages, includingstrollers, most of them wearing
shorts and t-shirts, some ofthem sweating in the 90 degree
heat, et cetera, et cetera,right Varying heights and ways
to represent the demographic offolks who might be at something
like that.

Yeah.

Mike (11:31):
And you know I thought about this and, like you know
what, I wonder if it has.
So I went out and I found a, aa service called Meshi, and I
don't know if it's any good ornot.
It's the first one that I foundthat would actually generate an
STL file and I put in someprompts a highly detailed 135th
scale figure of a World War IIera Soviet soldier directing

(11:54):
traffic, wearing a summer model1935 uniform, with an SVT-40
slung across his back, with anammo pouch and a canteen, et
cetera, et cetera, and you knowwhat?

For my first shot it sort of worked.
That, I guess, doesn't surpriseme, because apparently one of
the things that this AI is beingused for very heavily is to
write code, is to write code,whereas programmers used to do
you know all their codingthemselves or they'd pull out of

(12:35):
code libraries.
Well, apparently one of thethings you can do with the AI
different AIs is get it to codethings and write the code
without you even having to knowhow to code.
So it doesn't surprise me thatyou could get it to generate an
STL file, and obviously I'm sureit's far from perfect because

(12:59):
we're only in the earlygenerations.
But I wouldn't be surprisedfive years from now if you and I
aren't sitting here and there'sa service where we can put in
that kind of prompt and getanything we want.

Mike (13:15):
Well, I'm not surprised that it worked.
It was just interesting.
I never thought about applyingit that way.
But I tell you to reply tosomething you just said.
I believe it was Neil deGrasseTyson said I believe that's who
said it as soon as the AI canwrite its own code, you're not
going to be able to believe inanything on the Internet anymore
.

Yeah, well, and that's true.
These large language model AIshave learned.
They've tried to use it towrite briefs and quickly
discovered that the AIs imaginecases that don't exist.

(13:58):
Who apparently used AI togenerate their briefs, complete
with case citations, and neverwent back to check and see if
those were actual cases, havegotten themselves in some deep
trouble, having submittedAI-drafted briefs.

(14:18):
So yeah, you're right.
The fact that the AIs canimagine stuff that either never
happened or never was andpresent as if it was fact, is
kind of kind of frightening.

Mike (14:33):
Up next is steve williams, from down under gotcha, and he
sent me an update from one ofthe folks he follows on cults 3d
that, speaking of STL files,the, the, the STL marketplace.

Yeah.

Mike (14:46):
Cults cults 3d.

Yep.

Mike (14:48):
And these were a bunch of catapult models.
Oh really, yeah, naval aviationcatapults.

Right.
Not like not like throwingstones.

Mike (14:59):
No siege engines here, right Gotcha, it was interesting
.
There were several of them.
Two were obviously german, twowere japanese, two were us and
there was a big boxy framed onethat might be british, I'm not
sure right that's what wasperplexing about it.
It just said, like navalcatapult, it didn't tell what

(15:22):
models any of them were rightand it didn't tell the design
scale, so I don't know howuseful they are for what I would
want to do.

I may download one they're not very expensive
and just see now with colts 3dyou can download the actual stl
file and then you can manipulateit yourself, right?

Mike (15:42):
oh, you can probably size it yourself.
You got to jump through somehoops to get that back to a
model.
You can actually do CAD stufftoo.

Gotcha.

Mike (15:50):
Uh see, I don't understand any but even with the, even
with the scaling, if it wasdesigned for one to 350th, well,
you're not going to go printthat in one second scale, yeah,
and if it was designed in 32ndscale, you may run into issues
reducing that all the way downto 70 second scale Because,

(16:10):
depending on the fidelity ofscale where they designed it, it
may end up too small or too big, depending on what direction
you're going.
It just might not work right.
So it's probably a little roomthere to do some things.
But again, no scale, noidentification just might not
work right.
So it's probably a little roomthere to do some things.
But but again, no scale, noidentification.
I think these were probablydone for one to 350th because

(16:31):
some of the other ship fittingshe'd got seemed to be targeted
for that, that scale.
I just thought it was a littleodd that he didn't identify what
, uh, what nation and what modelthe catapults were well, I
think you're gonna have a lot ofyou.

You and I've already commented about when,
how the flood of 3d printedstuff that you see on scale
mates is just, I'm on, almostoverwhelming and by the very
nature of that, you're gonna geta lot of slop, a lot of stuff
that's either just very generic,where somebody mocked up

(17:07):
something that kind of looksright, or stuff that hasn't been
modeled by somebody who reallyknows what they're doing in the
CAD world.
So, yeah, again, you and I havecommented previously,
previously a lot of times, withthis 3d stuff from these 3d

(17:30):
companies, you don't want to buysomething from them unless you
know somebody who's alreadybought from them and you can.
You can get some idea of thequality or hold it in your hand.
First, exactly, yeah, well,that's the other thing.

Mike (17:45):
Sight unseen is a little risky there Sometimes.
Now, if it's somebody you know,you bought product X from them.
Y and Z might be okay too.

Right.

Mike (17:55):
Exactly.
But if it's just, you know,your first time going with
somebody, right?
Yeah, some of that stuff's goodand some of it's just not.
You got to be careful.
I suspect that overall qualityis probably trending upward?

Oh, I think so too, just by the very nature of
it.

Mike (18:13):
Yeah, and not just from the skill side of the folks
doing the CAD work.

Yeah, well, and that is, by the way, something I
want to mention.
Well, and that is, by the way,something I want to mention,

(18:40):
folks, when you acquire new 3Dprinted items, post pictures on
the dojo and let us know who themanufacturer is and how you
obtained the item and what thequality is like, because, again,
the only way we're're gonnaknow is by sharing among the
community up next dave fromdetail and scale.

Mike (18:50):
Rock, rozak and, yes, rock .
We survived the recent stormsin kentucky yes the london got
pounded and a bunch of they werehaving a fly-in down there,
some 50s vintage trainers yeahand man.
Every last one of them got justcompletely demolished.

Yep.

Mike (19:06):
That's a bummer man, yep.
Well, he wanted to let us knowthat the P-51 Mustang in detail
and scale, part two, is out now.
It is indeed Going to cover theXP-51B through the P-51C.
So still the high back kind ofMustangs.

Yep, we'll get to the D's next that's the
reference you're going to needfor your Arma kits looking
forward to that one.

Mike (19:32):
So, folks, if you're in the P-51, you're going to have
to get volume 2 if you gotvolume 1, if you don't go back
and get it too.
But I'm sure, like always, it'savailable in both print and
digital forms.
So visit detailandscalecom tofigure out how to get the, get
the format you want and givethem some business.
They're good folks, they are.
This one came in via the thenew feedback link and the show

(19:55):
notes is from Leo Nunhofer inMunich, and he's a 45 year old
fiend for bourbon.
He likes the Mictors number one.
Oh, good choice.
Good, he's an oral-year-oldfiend for bourbon.
He likes the Michter's no 1.
Oh, good choice, which is good.
He's an oral surgeon by tradeand a woodworker at heart.
Leo, my dad was a dentist bytrade and a woodworker by his
imagination.
He tried, he tried, sure.

(20:18):
Well, he wanted to reach outbecause he was listening to our
episode with Panzermeister36,evan McCallum on last time for
our last Shop Talk last episode.

Yeah.

Mike (20:30):
And Evan and his friend Michael down there while they
were in Germany, in Munich.
He told the story.
He tried to go to theHofbrauhaus and it was just
Right Way too crowded, packedlike it always is, and huge and
packed in every section of theplace yeah, the indoor parts and
the beer garden parts.
So they went to the Angerrestaurant and beer house and

(20:52):
Leo says his brother's the chiefbrewer for that brand.

Oh really.

Mike (20:56):
Yeah, so that's kind of a small world thing.
That's exactly that's exactlywhat I was thinking, and he said
if we show up, he'll fix us upwith the best personal tour of
one of the best Bavarianbreweries there is.
Oh, that's tempting.
And he says if you really wantto visit a Brauhaus like the
Hofbrau, don't go there.
As Evan said, it's mayhem.

(21:17):
He says, to visit theAugustiner Stammhaus it's a
10-minute walk away from theHofbrau and much quieter and
it's an awesome wonder of artdeco decor inside.
And I think I talked to Evanabout this a little later, well
late last week that I'd gottenthis message and he said they
went there too.
So that's not the crux of hisemail.

(21:40):
Although that's more than enough.
This getting frustrated withending up working on a postage
stamp size portion of hisworkbench really got to him once
, oh.
And he's got his own system now, okay, and he's trained himself
to use.
He's trained himself to dropany and all tool or instrument
he's using to his right sideimmediately after using it, like

(22:02):
off his workspace, but to theright.
Gotcha to his right sideimmediately after using it, like
off his workspace, but to theright, and all the paraphernalia
and the model parts and otherstuff goes to the kit box on his
left and he's trained himselfto do this that he doesn't end
up with a cluttered workspace.
That's smart.
It is I'd like to give that atry.

Yeah, I'm going to God.
Looking at my bench right now.

Mike (22:25):
Can you see it, parts of it, from Lancaster, california,
mr Louis Toledo, or Luis Toledo,I'm not sure.
Model builder, 15 years.
He's a late starter, he's 47now, but he's glad he started
Well.
He modeled in early life but hepicked it back up.
But he's glad for that becausethings have advanced so much.
It's just a lot easier to learnnew things and the products are

(22:48):
better All the reasons wealways mention, you know.

Yep.

Mike (22:51):
He wanted our opinion on some things and he actually CC'd
a lot of the, I guess, thepodcasts he listens to, some of
them Sure On here and he wantedto know what our opinion was on
modelers who are not interestedin competing but feel they get
looked down on for choosing notto.
He says is it something to berecognized, to be a recognized

(23:11):
modeler, and what has competingat shows really made a
difference in the skill levelyou're at?
It's been his mind for a whileand he just was kind of curious
what we thought about it.
Well, a lot more to his email,but he summarized it at the very
end, you know.
I guess the short answer is no,I don't think it's necessary to
be a recognized modeler, right,I don't think it's necessary to

(23:35):
compete.
It's not.
I don't think so either.

Now I will tell you, I do know modelers who do
compete, who use the competitionas motivation to push
themselves, not only to finishmodels but to improve their
skills and learn new techniquesetc.
And that the competition ishelpful for them because they

(24:05):
find it motivating to do thosethings.
But I don't think you have tocompete in order to be able to
motivate yourself, to improveyour skills or to learn new
things, etc.
I mean, competition is nice forthose who enjoy it.

(24:26):
I think there are a number ofgood modelers that I can think
of right now who were fantasticmodelers but never competed, and
the only downside of that is,if they didn't go and display
their models in a displayportion of an event, you didn't

(24:48):
get to see their work, andthat's a shame, just simply from
the standpoint.
There's a lot of good modelersout there producing a lot of
good models, and there's nothingbetter that I love seeing than
a really well-built model,something eye-catching,
something different, and so,even if you're not a competitor,

(25:11):
I would urge you to, if you can, if you can find one, go to a
contest with a display-only areaand display your work to share
it with other people.
That's, by the way, one of theways, at these contests, where
you start interacting with othermodelers, somebody will come up

(25:34):
and say I really like thatmodel.
How did you do X?
Or which kit was that?
And then the next thing youknow you've made a new friend
and you're sharing information.

Mike (25:47):
And I would add that I think many people who even
there's not a display-only area.
They're entering aquote-unquote contest but it's
really just about putting theirstuff out there and showing
folks what they've done.

Right.

Mike (26:03):
So I don't even think you need the display only.
I think that's kind of anup-and-coming thing we're
starting to see, at least in theIPMS format it shows recently.
But I'm sure that willencourage more folks who don't
want to compete to bring theirmodels out.
But even if that option doesn'texist, you can bring your model
out and not give a rip aboutthe competition part of it.

(26:26):
And I think I think we you andI personally know a lot of
people in our circle who justwho to do that.
I do that now.
I don't you know?
There's a lot of categories I'min typically with, with what I
might enter, that you know I'mnot.
I'm not going to win at a bigone, two, three like the IPMS
national convention, but youdon't care, but I don't care Now

(26:48):
.
I used to care.
There's a problem that's awhole nother rabbit hole to go
down Right, yes, it can make youbetter, but at some point it
can become toxic if you're notcareful.

Yeah, it's toxic.

Mike (26:58):
The rate you want to get better might not be a realistic
thing.
Yeah, he says he kind of thinksfolks get the wrong impression
that he's better than them whenhe says he doesn't need a medal
or trophy to assure him that's agood modeler.
You know, I guess what's.
The first thing that comes tomy mind is to well.
Let's quote John Lydon onPlastic Model Mojo.

Oh gosh.

Mike (27:22):
You don't have to explain yourself to anyone.

I think that's absolutely true.

Mike (27:27):
Maybe just spare that conversation.
Just tell me you're notinterested.
Yep, Just don't elaborate whatyou do and don't need.
That's your business really.

Yep, no, I completely agree with you, all
right.

Mike (27:40):
Dave.
Well, that is my last email,all right.

What do you got?
Well, I've got a bunch.
First, I've occasionally postedthings on the dojo for sale
some books from that collectionthat I'm trying to find homes
for, or spare kits from thestash that I'm trying to find
homes for, or spare kits fromthe stash that I'm trying to
move along to somebody who willlove them better than I do.

(28:07):
I want to thank everybody who'smade a purchase and those of
you who've purchased kits I wantto see them built posted on the
dojo and those who bought books.
Give me book reviews and thankeverybody.
You've all been reallywonderful and I'm gonna post
more from time to time, so Iwant to thank everybody yeah,

(28:30):
generally speaking, we don'tmind that yeah, we don't, unless
you abuse the privilege.

Mike (28:35):
Well, if, it got really popular.
We just open another likemarketplace, exactly A third, a
third group.
Then that's fine too.
We'll just see how it goes, butI'm glad you sold some stuff,
man, you needed to.

I did Related to that and I've mentioned this, I
think, on the last episode.
We've had several modelersrecently who have helped other

(29:09):
modelers on the dojo or theybrought in new listeners and
Mike and I have sent out acouple of thank yous to people
who've done that.
We want to continue thattradition.
In fact we want to probablystep that up and we're kind of
talking about how we do that.
But if you're on the dojo andanother modeler, you post a
question or you need for a partor need for a kid or whatever it
is, and somebody helps you out,dm me and let me know that and

(29:34):
I'll reach out to them and gettheir address and Mike and I
will send them a littlesomething to acknowledge that
they've made the communitybetter.
And that's really what it's allabout with the dojo.
The next DM I wanted to mentionwas Martin Paeda, who I've DMed

(29:56):
with before.
He DMed me in the middle of theday we're both working.
He DMed me about an aircraft hesaw at the museum out in
Seattle a Japanese aircraft, andthe way that they had painted
the interior housing of the tailwheel.

(30:17):
We had a little discussion backand forth regarding Japanese
Army and Navy colors, et cetera.
It wasn't really anything to be, anything other than we were
both working.
It was the middle of the dayand it was a nice little break
from the grind of work to out ofthe blue, get that, have that

(30:42):
exchange.
It lasted four or five minutes,a couple of messages back and
forth, and it was just reallyenjoyable.
So I wanted to acknowledge that.

Mike (30:53):
There you go, man the dojo , getting in the way of work
again.

Yeah, that's okay , that's all right, just don't
tell my bosses.
The podfather, dave Goldfinch,has informed me that well, you
know, he's coming in 2026 to goto the Nationals up in Fort
Wayne, right?
Yeah, well, he's informed methat he plans to come back in

(31:18):
2027 for Wonderfest.

Mike (31:22):
Wow Okay, talk about forward thinking.

Yes, so not only are we pre-planning 2026, we are
pre-pre-planning 2027.
And we've got some contacts atWonderfest and we are going to
make sure that Dave gets thepremium experience.
All right, looking forward tothat.
I am too Dutch Vosburgh, memberof the dojo, mentioned that he

(31:53):
was taking a trip to Udvar-Hazy.
It was his first time going, Ibelieve, trip to Udvar-Hazy it
was his first time going, Ibelieve, and I gave him a few of
my inputs because I've beenthere two or three times.
It's just one of the bestplaces on the planet.
That's the National Air andSpace Museum out near Dulles in

(32:19):
Washington DC or in NorthernVirginia technically, and if you
are anywhere near that place,you would do yourself a great
favor by going out and visiting.

Mike (32:32):
I got to get there, man.

Yes, Tried my best with the last name, Michael
Grispen, out of Suffolk,England.
He's one of the people Imentioned who had brought in new
listeners and he told us thathe is at his local club and on
his local Facebook pagespromoting Plastic Model Mojo.

(32:55):
So I sent him a little thankyou note and we appreciate him
doing that.
And anybody else out there, anyof the listeners, please go
ahead and mention us to yourmodeling friends.
We appreciate it.
The next one I want to mentionis Ron Smith and the reason I

(33:17):
want to mention he was listeningto episode 43.
And I'm sure it was.
You was talking aboutcross-kitting, you know, parts
from different models to makethem chimed in to let us know.

(33:43):
He was listening to that oneand talking about swapping
various parts on 48 scaleHasegawa F4s to do the same
thing.
But the reason I wanted tomention it was that we have a
lot of folks who go back throughthe whole old catalog Somebody
will discover us at episode 141,and they'll go back to the

(34:05):
beginning and listen toeverything coming forward, and I
want to encourage listenerswhen you do that, even though it
was an episode from two orthree years ago.
If you have a comment or aquestion or input on an episode
from the past, please feel freeto reach out and let us know,

(34:30):
because we kind of like that and, among other things, it helps
Mike and I because we've done ahundred and I guess this is 142,
we've done 142 of these mainepisodes and it's really kind of
nice to be reminded ofsomething that we discussed in
the past.
One of my goals, eventually, isto go back and actually listen

(34:55):
to all the old episodes, just togo back through and see how
they've changed.

Mike (35:03):
It might give us reason to revisit some topics too Exactly
.

Exactly.
Finally, our good friend BobBear the voice of Bob reached
out to tell us that he hadvisited the website and how much
he liked it and how much heenjoyed it and was very
complimentary.
And that means a lot comingfrom Bob, somebody whose opinion

(35:29):
in those realms that I greatlyrespect.
So it was very nice to hear,and I assured him, that there
were going to be future changes,phase two and phase three yeah,
when you and I can get enoughmoney, time and everything else

(35:52):
to implement those changes.
So in the meantime, if you allhave suggestions for the website
, please let us know, Reach out,because that really does help
us figure out what people like,what people don't like and what
direction to take things in thefuture.

Mike (36:11):
You all done.

That's done.

Mike (36:14):
Well, folks, I've said it a million times, for at least
142 times this is our favoritesegment of the show, or one of
probably the probably myfavorite.
I like them all, but I reallyliked this one because it's
interacting with all you folksout in the model sphere.
You can send us an email toplasticmodelmojo at gmailcom.
That's one way to get in touchwith us.
You can send a, you can send usa direct message if he has

(36:36):
Facebook messenger, and there'salso a feedback web link in the
show notes of this episode and Ithink all of them I think I
figured out how to get it intoall of them, even all the back
catalog, so you can use any ofthose three avenues to send us a
message, even a voice messageIf you want, if you use that web
link in the show notes.

When you're done listening to this episode,
please go and rate the podcaston whatever podcast listening
app you use.
It helps us promote the show.
Also, as I mentioned in thelast segment, one of the big
ways that we get new listenersand we continue to get new

(37:35):
listeners one of the big ways iscurrent listeners recommending
us to their modeling friends andassociates.
Please recommend us to peoplethat you know who are modelers,
who aren't currently listeningto our show.
We'd appreciate it.
You're helping the podcastcontinue to grow.

Mike (37:56):
In addition to your podcast players of choice, you
can also rate the podcast in aweb link found in the show notes
.
We'd appreciate that We've gota few there as well.
In addition, please check outthe fellow podcasts in the Model
Sphere.
You can do that by going towwwmodelpodcastcom.
That's Model Podcast plural.
It's a consortium website setup with the help of Stuart Clark

(38:18):
up in Canada and he'saggregated all the banner links
to all the podcasts in the modelsphere.
You can go there and just aone-stop shop for everything out
in the model sphere podcastrelated.
And we've got a new one, dave,yes, I know.
Listener Paul Pendleton Brownand a troupe of his merry men
have started Beyond the Box Art.

Yes, over an old blighty.

Mike (38:39):
That's right.
So check it out.
They've put out a couple threeepisodes two, three.
I can't.
I know it was up current untilmaybe this week.
I need to look, but anyway,they're just getting started.
Check them out and help thoseguys along too.

And we will not hold it against them that
they're friends with Dave.

Mike (38:56):
Goldfinch?
We will not.
In addition to all thosepodcasts in the model sphere,
there's a lot of blog andYouTube friends we've got.
We've mentioned Devin McCallumPanzermeister36.
You want to check out hisYouTube and subscribe to it?

Yes, please, trying to get that boy a plaque.
We want to get him to 100,000,guys.

Mike (39:16):
Chris Wallace, Model Airplay Maker, A great,
obviously aircraft-centric blog.

He's always working on something cool.
Yes, In fact I know he'sworking on something extra cool
right now.

Mike (39:27):
Stephen Lee Spruipi with Frets, a great long and
short-form blog, tends to be72nd scale, a little model
railroad thrown in.
Yep, steve, you listen, Iappreciate the stuff you sent me
last week.
We get this phase two of thethe website up and we'll get
that content up.
I really appreciate what youdid for me there.
Jeff Groves, the Inch High Guyanother 72nd Scale blog.

(39:47):
Jeff's a good friend of theshow and you're going to want to
check out all his content.
And Paul Budzik Scale ModelWorkshop, who's killing it
lately?
He's been killing it lately andhe's also got a lot going on.
Paul wrote in I should havementioned Lister Mail but I
didn't, so I'm going to talkabout it now.
He sent me, sent us, a verycomplimentary email based on

(40:08):
some things he had gleaned outof I don't know, our last two or
three bits of content featureepisodes, shorts, that sort of
thing and sent us a really,really nice email and we really
really nice email and we reallyreally appreciate it and it's
going to hopefully lead toPaul's next appearance on
Plastic Model Mojo, because Ithink some of the things you
discussed in that thoughtfulemail would be some good stuff

(40:29):
to hear from a lot of us.

Yes, and with the changes going on in his life
and in his modeling life, that'sgoing to be of great interest
to a lot of modelers.
I mean, it's of great interestto you and I and I really can't
wait to get him on and talkabout all of that.

Mike (40:52):
So no date yet, but you'll find that out in a 12-minute
model sphere in the future.
Not sure which one, but we'llget there.
Well, that's all the extracontent, Dave.

Well, finally, if you're not a member of IPMS USA
, IPMS Canada, IPMS Mexico, anynational IPMS organization in
the country in which you live,please join.
They are great organizations.
Ipms USA is having itselections right now.
There are actually a couple ofcontested positions, so please,

(41:26):
if you are a member, please vote.
If you are interested in armoror post-1900 figure modeling,
please consider joining AMPS,the Armor Modeling Preservation
Society.
Please consider joining AMPS,the Armor Modeling Preservation
Society.
Great group of guys reallydedicated to the art of armor

(41:50):
modeling and the related figuremodeling.
And Mike and I unfortunatelymissed this year's nationals,
but we are definitely going tobe back at South Bend next year
and can't wait to see all thefolks that we missed this year.

Mike (42:04):
You're a little fast and loose with that, definitely, man
.

We're definitely.
Hey, we got to say definitely,come on commit.

Mike (42:12):
We did, then we didn't go.

Do or do not.
There is no try.

The Voice of Bob (42:17):
All right, you kind of look like Yoda Plastic
Model Mojo is brought to you byModel Paint Solutions, your
source for harder andsteam-backed airbrushes, david
Union power tools andlaboratory-grade mixing,
measuring and storage tools foruse with all your model paints,
be they acrylic, enamels orlacquers.
Check them out atwwwmodelpaintsolutionscom.

Mike (42:46):
Well, folks, we got back-to-back shop talks, yep.
But.

I'm looking forward to this.

Mike (42:51):
Yeah, we came off of one, but we're going to give our next
guest for episode 143 a littlemore time to get his feet back
on the soil and think about whathe wants to talk about.
So we're going to have shoptalk, Dave.

Yep and I am looking forward to this.
I like all of the subjects.

Mike (43:12):
Well, dave, topic number one has kind of been our mantra.
We kind of got away from it, sowe're going to get back on this
one.

We've been reminded by several listeners.
That's right.
We need to bring this back.
What's your plan for gettingbetter?
Well, considering I've beenforbidden from talking about
certain parts of the plan, well,let's elaborate folks.

Mike (43:36):
I told Dave when he suggested this, getting back on
this topic, I said you cannottalk about time management, you
can't talk about modeling fasterand what was the other one?
You can't talk about gettingorganized.
So this ought to be good folks.

Well Is that it.
Yeah, that's it Done.
No, seriously, in addition tothose things which I'm not
allowed to talk about, I reallywant to.
I I previously, when we talkedabout this, the thing that I was
I was concentrating on to getbetter was panel line engraving

(44:14):
and re-engraving.

Mike (44:15):
I should have added that to the list.

Oh well, thank you, don't worry, I'm not going
to talk about that.
I was just mentioning that as aprelude, but I actually think I
did concentrate on that on mylast several models.
It made a difference.
I think I did actually getbetter in doing that.
That's not perfect, but better.
That that's not perfect, butbetter.

(44:47):
I would like to get better andfaster, and I know I can't talk
about faster too much, but theyare kind of related with
decaling.
I'm pretty decent at being ableto decal and get the results I
want most all of the time it'sjust such a tedious process and

(45:08):
I tend to go to a session ofdecaling only get a couple of
decals on, particularly if I'mworking with small detail decals
just get a couple of decals onand it's draining both
physically and mentally to thepoint because you know you're

(45:29):
moving those, especially thosedetail decals.

Mike (45:33):
Yeah, stencils and crap.

Exactly You're positioning them.
So you're moving them aroundwith a tip, with a, the tip of a
paintbrush, and you want to getthem just to the right spot and
then, once you get them there,get them set there, et cetera.
The other night I spent a solidtwo hours at the bench getting

(45:56):
good modeling in putting ondecals and put on 12 decals
that's not bad In two hours 12small stencil decals in two
hours and I've got to get fasterat that.

Mike (46:13):
Knowing you, man, I'd call that a win for now.

Well, I felt better, it was better than what
I've done for now.
Well, I felt better, it wasbetter than what I've done.
That's part of my plan forgetting better is I did move a
little bit faster and I kind ofgot into a rhythm.
Yep, that's what I was about tosay, man.
And and I do I do think that'sa big part of getting better and

(46:36):
getting faster and gettingbetter at decaling is finding a
well, first of all, blocking outtime, cause that's one problem
that I do have, that it just I'mnot sure there's any solution
for is I have a very limitedtime at my bench and blocking

(46:58):
out two solid hours is tough.
I did it the other night.
I knocked out those decals.
It wasn't bad, but I really dothink that I ought to be able to
do more.
So I want to try and see ifthere's some shortcuts or some
techniques that will help meapply decals faster, so that I

(47:25):
can get more decals applied in adecal application session.
So, all the listeners out therewho have techniques for what
they do, be it I use a coffeewarmer to keep the water hot, I
use paper towels or I use Q-tipsyou know the pointy Tamiya

(47:46):
Q-tips or whatever your tip is.
I want to hear it, because oneof the things I'm going to focus
on for the rest of this year isgetting better at decalingaling
faster and better.

Mike (48:01):
Well, I think some of that is you mentioned.
It's the rhythm and gettingcomfortable in your own skin.
We all have our own way ofmoving it around.
We all have our own way ofwicking the excess out from
under to get it set and I thinkthe more you do it, you just
recognize when it's going right.

I do think it's kind of like airbrushing that
it's something that if you don'tdo it on the regular it's a
skill that diminishes anddeteriorates and you've got to
get comfortable with it again.
It's like if you haven't pickedup an airbrush for two or three
months, the first time you goto airbrush something it's just

(48:40):
not as comfortable.
You kind of have to relearn thefeel.
I think that same thing appliesto decaling.

Mike (48:47):
Yeah, and honestly, when you're in the rhythm and it's
going well, it can be zen-like,oh gosh.
Yes, when it goes south, youraudio gets R-rated really quick.

Yes, and in fact that is also like airbrushing
the same thing.
When you are dialed in, whenthe airbrush is dialed in, the
paint is just at the rightconsistency and you have the
right pressure and the airbrushis clean and everything's
working.
It's very zen-like.

(49:19):
But man, it is easy to pick upan airbrush and have nothing go
right.
Same thing.
Same thing for decaling.
You're trying to put on a decal.
It won't come off the paper.
It comes off the paper.
You can't get it where you wantit.
Every time you get it close andyou want to move it a little
bit, you always overcorrect oneway or another and next thing

(49:42):
you know you're using Carlin'sseven dirty words.
So what's your plan for gettingbetter?

Mike (49:53):
Well, foremost is a flip and finish something.

Well, yes, I mean , I think that's the obvious
goal here, but getting better,besides just finishing.

Mike (50:07):
For me, better is not limited to just making the next
model for me look better, in anaesthetic sense, than the last
one I built, gotcha, or morerealistic or whatever, than the

(50:38):
last one, if it's just as good,maybe sometimes even not as good
, I don't know.

Right.

Mike (50:44):
But I'm trying to think what's the next thing?
This KV 85 I'm working on isnot.
You know, I pose a suspensionon it.
I'd never done that before.
Right, I'm still not done withit, so I can't say I've pulled
it off yet, but I think I'm farenough along that you are
learning a new skill, I'mlearning a new skill.
So that's the plan for gettingbetter.

(51:07):
The other place, the next onethat comes to mind, because I've
got my next kind of pick threeof my next potential armor
projects.
None of those are really goingto be skill learning type things
.
They're just subjects I alwayswanted to build and then they're
kind of.
They are kind of complex acouple of them anyway but
they're not.
They're not going to leverageanything new.

(51:28):
So I really want to getsomething done, not just because
I know finishing things meansI'm modeling and the fact that
you're modeling means you'regoing to progress in your skills
.
I want to start something newand I don't want to start
anything new until I've gotsomething finished.
I really want to get anotherairplane started, but only after

(51:49):
I finish something on the benchright now.
And I think for me right now,going through another aircraft
project is going to be.
It's got the most opportunityfor me to learn something new.

I would agree, and a great way to build on what
you did with the PAW Right.
I mean, if you walked away anddidn't do another aircraft model
for five years, you'd lose alot of what you gained from
building the PAW.

Mike (52:21):
So actually, I think I would like to start too.
I'd like to do somethingsimpler than Nepal.

Yeah.

Mike (52:25):
But you know, if one of those catapults that that guy
showed could be scaled up and ithappened to be British, yeah,
would love to build the walrus.
Yeah, cuckoo, cuckoo.

Oh, two music references in one show show a
rigged biplane flying boat ohyeah sounds hard.
Nothing tough about that not atall.

Mike (52:51):
Yeah, the kits are wonderful in 70 second scale,
right, exactly, exactly.
So I, yeah.
I guess going up in complexityand challenging yourself is is a
way I would like to plan to getbetter.

I think that that that that actually qualifies.

Mike (53:10):
You got anything, got another one.

No, that's it on that one.

Mike (53:14):
That pulled the rug out from under you, I guess.

One.
Yeah, that's right, you can'tlet, you won't.
Let me talk about the otherstuff, all of which does need to
be addressed.
But yes, I get your point.

Mike (53:27):
Well, I've got another one and it's one you need to do too
, just maybe not the way I'mgoing to do it.
Okay, I need to use my machinetools more.
Use them at all, really.
Oh great, you've got some stuffin your shop that you have got
little to no use on so far.
You'd do good to think up aproject to utilize one of those.

(53:47):
I need to find some goodeducational and instructional
content on lathes and millingmachines and maybe figure out
some small project-basedsomething to walk me through
that.
I don't mean a scale modelingproject.
I mean machine, this mountingplate or this bracket or you
know whatever.

(54:07):
Just to learn to use the tool.

Or you know, you've got that 3D printed flat
panzer.
Learning to turn barrels wouldbe a really great brass barrels
would be a really great skill toacquire.

Mike (54:22):
It would.
Now, that's not the one to doit on, because those are like
the size of toothpicks.

Well, come on, it's a challenge.

Mike (54:31):
It is.

Actually, I will say that I recently, you know,
when we were at Michigan ToySoldier, yeah, and I bought that
little USB-powered drill, right, I've actually used that
recently on multiple occasions,within the last like two or

(54:53):
three weeks and, by the way,it's really great.
In fact, I saw these guys atWonderfest and they had one of
them and I told them I said,guys, I'm really glad I bought
this, this thing was reallygreat.
And somebody was standing thereand they were like really, and
I told them all about it Nextthing, you know they sold it.

Mike (55:14):
Did you say you owe me a fiver man?

Yeah, well, I didn't, but the thought was
there.

Mike (55:25):
Well, dave, the next one gets back to that estate library
deal.
Yep, a little bit Thin in yourstash.

Just to let people look behind the curtain.
We have a little outline thathelps us generally talk about
what we're going to talk abouton a show.
I mean, we don't have itscripted or anything, but we
have outline.
And Mike's outline for this wasthinning your stash and my
little note under it was, yes,related to what I talked about

(56:00):
earlier, that I had sold somestuff on the, a few things on
the dojo.
Yeah, I will tell you that,dealing, having gone up and
having seen that library and andall, and having having learned
about this widow who wasburdened and that is the only

(56:27):
way to put it burdened with thisfantastic library I mean
honestly, one of the best bookcollections I've ever seen in my
life and I'm sure to herhusband it was his comfort and
his joy and everything.

(56:48):
But when he died, without aplan for how this was going to
get handled, he handed his wife,who was quite old, herself a
burden, and having talked alittle with her and having
talked with the guy who washelping her liquidate it, it was

(57:11):
a profound experience as far asrealizing that if I keeled over
tomorrow, realizing that if Ikeeled over tomorrow, that while
I have made some arrangements,I would still be handing my wife
quite a burden, and I don'twant to do that.

(57:32):
So that caused me to step backand take a look at things, and
one of the things that caused meto step back and take a look at
was my stash.
At one point I had over athousand kits, and at my rate of
building a thousand kits, youknow, unless Elon Musk gets us

(57:53):
these new robot bodies and allof that, there's no way I'm
going to complete them.
All of that, there's no way I'mgoing to complete them.
Well, I had I thinned the stashdown already to about 600 kits,
but 600 is still way too many,and so, even though I'm still
buying the occasional kit, I amlooking at my stash and I'm

(58:16):
going to some things.
You will never build that, oryou will never get to that in
your lifetime, and I don't wantthat to be a burden that my
lovely model wife has to dealwith.
And so I've started thinningout the stash, donating to the

(58:38):
local club for their monthlyraffles or to the show for the
show raffle, or posting them onthe dojo.
If I can find a, a home for akit that somebody else really
will build, that I'm unlikely tobuild before, I assume, room

(58:59):
temperature.
I'm going to do that and I havededicated the next year to
getting that stuff in order.
So thinning the stash, yes,needs to be done, and if your
stash is 100 or 500 or 1500, youwould be well to at least look

(59:28):
at that and make thoseconsiderations, because I do
think they're important and I dothink that we don't think about
them until you run into anevent like this.

Mike (59:40):
Well, that reminds me in Paul Buzzick's recent email that
he said he'd gotten rid of abunch of kits and wanted you to
know that it didn't hurt.

Well, it does kind of hurt a little bit Every
time I let one go.
It's not exactly like sellingone of my children, but it does
hurt a little bit like sellingone of my children, but it does
hurt a little bit.
Now I know you cause you and Ihave talked.
You have taken a step regardinga lot of the model railroading
stuff you have and I'minterested in hearing about how

(01:00:12):
that all came about.

Mike (01:00:15):
Well, how far back do you want to go?
I was in the old.
In the old house, I wasplanning on building a small
layout and I accumulated a lotof stuff in that regard, and we
got to a point in our liveswhere we needed to move, for the
kids' educational reasons, tosomewhere else, and we moved

(01:00:36):
into a house that, uh, while thehouse was bigger the actual
unfinished well, in its entiretythe basement was smaller, right
, I'm like, well, this isn'tgoing to work, given all the
other stinking hobbies I've got.
So I was like, you know, I'mnot going to miss this.
So I liquidated a bunch of it.
Well, a bunch of it was maybehalf of it, right, so I still

(01:01:00):
had the other half.
So I've just been, you hadn'tbeen doing anything.
No, no, not years.
No, I've maybe touched a couplerailroad models since I've
moved into this house and that'sabout it.
And you know, I've culled out afew things that I still have
some potential interest in andmessing around with in the
future.
But all the scenery andstructures and detail, scenic

(01:01:24):
parts and all that, that juststuff needs to go away, and I've
been selling it off on FacebookMarketplace because you can get
the most bang for your bucksomeplace other than eBay Might
not get the exposure, but you'renot going to lose 13%, 14, 15%
of what you're trying to get.
All You're going to have todiscount it anyway, right To get

(01:01:46):
rid of it.
So that's phase one.
Phase two of that is connectingwith the NMRA club here in town
that I used to belong to andwas a founding member of, and I
just want to arrange for one oftheir future meetings just to
show up with all this stuff andtell everybody to bring ones and
fives and we just go make it goaway.

Kentucky Dave (01:02:06):
Make it fives and tens.

Mike (01:02:07):
Well, we could do that too .
Some of it maybe, yeah, but youknow I'm not looking to recoup
Right.
That's foolish to think you'regoing to do that Right.
But you know, back to the moretraditional scale modeling side
of things, my stash has alwaysebbed and flowed.
Now it's been in a flow sincethe podcast started, just
because my enthusiasm has beenhigher After a long ebb period

(01:02:28):
where I did get rid of probablya third of my stash.

Yeah, I remember that.

Mike (01:02:34):
Yeah, saying I could just get it all on eBay.
I still believe that.
Yeah, just get it all on eBay.
I still believe that.
Yeah.
And folks who are disciplinedabout not accumulating kits like
this, yeah, logic's on yourside.
I mean, you're right, you'renot going to build them all, but
we've kind of alluded to itbefore.
That's not really the point.
I guess it could be, maybe itshould be, but buying those and

(01:02:59):
talking about them, looking atthem people have big stashes do
get a lot of joy out of that.
Unfortunately, it's a space hogand it can just become clutter
and overwhelming and can be aburden to those you leave behind
.
That's right.
So it might be time for anotherebb on my end.
I'm looking back through it,that's right.

(01:03:20):
So it might be time for anotherebb on my end.
I'm looking back through it.
You know, the space I store itnow in the furnace room is
actually smaller than the spaceit was in before I moved it into
there.
So after the last ebb period Imoved it and now it's.
You know, now I'm starting toget a few double stacked areas
again.
I'm like, eh, what's going on?

(01:03:41):
Time to get rid of some stuff.
So maybe at the MML show I'llhave a big table stack so folks
can come by and help me thin mystash too.
But yeah, I probably need to godown that journey of thinking
about the disposition of what Idon't get rid of.

And you know I've got the military collection and
a bunch of other crap aroundhere too.
Well, and that as much as thehobby stuff, would be a burden
to your spouse when you passyour military collection.
Really, because of the value ofit and the unique nature of
what you have, yeah, I mean thatreally would be.

Mike (01:04:25):
Yeah, so I really need to do something about that.
Yes, so, folks, it's somethingto think about.
We'll see.
You might see some cheap kitshere soon.
Well, dave, our final topictonight is what is your least
favorite model company and why?
And this comes from SteveAnderson's A Guided Journal for

(01:04:47):
Modelers, and he's wanting toknow what's our least favorite
model kit and why.

You mean model company?
Model company yes, sorry andokay.
I'm going to exclude from thisconsideration the really crappy
model companies.

Mike (01:05:06):
Yeah, certainly I did too.

Yeah, the ones that we all know, as our British
friends would say, are shite.

Mike (01:05:15):
I'm just going to exclude those, because that's too easy
to pick on the expectationsthere that those are going to be
those, because that's too easyto pick on the expectations
there that those are going to beright, exactly.

You know, I could talk about a model kits all day
long, but that's, that's not.
I'm talking mainstream majorplayers, major players who ought
to know better probably right,who ought to know better.
Old answer would have been, forthe longest time, special Hobby.
Because Special Hobby, theystarted as a short-run player

(01:05:49):
and they developed, and nowSpecial Hobby's current stuff is
very, very nice.
You and I both have theirHE-162.
Yep, that is just a top-notchmodel, as good as anything out
there on the market.
But there was a period a numberof years ago, as they were

(01:06:10):
transitioning from short-runmanufacturer to top-quality
manufacturer, where you neverknew what you were going to get.
The new Special Hobby kit couldbe top quality major
manufacturer or could be shortrun looking bar of soap that you

(01:06:33):
got to carve.
So my answer would have beenSpecial Hobby.
So my answer would have beenSpecial Hobby.
But it's not.
Because, again, special Hobbyhas now transitioned to the
point where they're justcranking out quality kits, and
so I'm going to pick on somebodyelse, and that somebody is

(01:06:54):
Hasegawa.
Oh man, hasegawa, listen.

(01:07:14):
Hasegawa has a lot of kits, hasa lot of fine kits, but they
also continue to re-kit, re-popmolds that are from the 70s and
80s.
Now, they do a fine job ofcleaning them up and they went
through in the 80s and put inengraved panel lines in a lot of
them.
They are.
They're not awful kits, butthey are.
They are continuing to, everyfew years, re-release them with
a new set of markings, and it'sthe same mold from the 70s or

(01:07:41):
80s that hasn't made anysignificant improvement.
The interiors on their kits arenearly uniformly awful, and
while I'm not saying you can'ttake a Hasegawa kit and build a
decent model from it because youcan in fact, you can build

(01:08:04):
really good models but they justneed to take and take those
molds from the 70s and 80s andstart redoing them as modern
2025 kits.

Mike (01:08:22):
Yeah, Some of those need to be man-made coral reef.

Yeah, exactly so that what you get is, instead of
releasing a Kate kit, that wasthe original Mania molds from
the late 60s early 70s redo thatkit in the style of, or the

(01:08:47):
quality of, arma or IBG orEdward, with the full interior,
et cetera, et cetera, and justretire that old Mania mold.
You've gotten all your use outof it.
And I'm not saying you can'ttake that kit and build it today

(01:09:07):
and make it look good today andmake it look good.
But they've got a stable ofstuff they've been living off of
for 30 and 40 plus years andthey just need to stop.

Mike (01:09:21):
And it's kind of up in the air of late if they're even
interested in making anythingnew in the aircraft range.

Yep, absolutely, absolutely.
So that was my least favoritemodel company.
And why?
How about you, bronco?
Okay, you're not going to sayAllen kit, you did the same
thing I did.
You're putting away thosecompanies.

Mike (01:09:44):
Putting away the car soap models, like you said.

Right.

Mike (01:09:48):
You know I'm much less enthusiastic about the other
Bronco kits in my stash afterworking through this KV-85.

Just over complex or what Well, I got a laundry
list here man.
Okay, start to preach, brother.

Mike (01:10:04):
The detail is mostly good, but it's just a big box.
I mean it's in a big box of notexactly.

Not exactly.
It's a great description.

Mike (01:10:18):
Just really poorly executed locating features.
There's some just impossiblefits and assemblies in there.
There's unorthodox engineeringcompared to other armor kits.
There's some stuff they justflip and made up and I'll get to
this in the Benchtop HalftimeReport.

(01:10:38):
Some of this stuff.
But man, it's just one thingafter another as I work through
this.
I mean I'm doing a bunch ofstuff Again.
I'll talk about it in theBenchtop Halftime Report stuff
that just ought to be prettypedestrian.
Just look and do and work yourway through it and get it done
and it's all of it just needsjust something a flashy edge, or

(01:11:00):
just something doesn't fit orit's not right, or you're like
wondering what the heck it evenis, because it's not in any
photo of what you got.
And right.
It's just bizarre and just theway they.
You know I re-architected theentire suspension on it and I
just don't understand why theydid it the way they did it to
begin with, and you know youdon't see many of those kits

(01:11:23):
built and I understand why.
Now the Trumpeter kit's got itsown Easter eggs, so I don't
know if it would have been anybetter or not, but you know I'll
get there.
It's, it's, it's comingtogether.
It's like I said, it's been abig box and not exactly.

Big box and not.
I love that description.
You need to, you need to, youneed to trademark that one a big
box and not exactly.

Mike (01:11:50):
So, steve, your questions are fun.
There's a there's a fave one.
We may maybe do it next time,but right now Bronco is my least
favorite, and I guess Hasegawais yours, dave.

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Mike (01:12:50):
All right, folks, it's the Benchtop Halftime Report, and
hopefully you've been modelingtoo, dave.

Yes, I have Not as much as I want to, not as
much as I should.
Well lay it on us.
What's going on?
As you know, we've got theNationals coming up and I've got
the Bearcat batch build goingon and it's moving along not as
quickly as I want it to, and DrGeldmacher reminded me today

(01:13:19):
that there are 57 days to get itdone.
So I got to get it done.
We were talking I was talkingpreviously about decaling.
Specifically, I was decaling theprops for the Bearcats, and so
I've got three of them, and DrGeldmacher helpfully pointed me

(01:13:40):
to a Tecmod decal sheet that hadthe stenciling and prop logos
that I picked up and used.
And that's the first time I'veused Tecmod decals and I can
wholeheartedly endorse them.
They're thin.
They were thin, but they werenot so thin that they weren't

(01:14:04):
especially when you're dealingwith something like a small logo
or a data stencil If being toothin can actually be a problem,
because then it just wants tofold up on itself.
These decals are thin, butthey're not so thin that they

(01:14:25):
were not able to be put onto themodel and manipulated without
folding, and the results weregreat.
I'll post a picture on the dojo, and I really liked the way
they came out.
I can endorse Tecmod decals, andnow I'm about to well, I'm

(01:14:46):
about to prime the kitsthemselves so that I can lay
down Luckily it's one color,well, it's almost all one color
glossy blue on all three of theaircraft and I also got the
canopies masked and I've got thelanding gear all painted and

(01:15:07):
detailed and washed andweathered, and so I'm making
progress, not as much as I wantto, not as quick as I want to.
I got to get moving, I got tomodel faster and I got to find
some more time.
I mean, I don't know about you,but the last month I'll bet you
I'm probably not getting threehours a week of bench time in,

(01:15:33):
and that's just.
I mean that's killer, becauseit's so hard to maintain
momentum with that kind ofschedule.
How?

Mike (01:15:43):
about you Taking a break from the CAD work I was doing
and I've not touched the FlakPanzer.
I've been working on this KV-85because the basic form of the
model is assembled, so it's kindof like just decorating a
Christmas tree.
Now Been working through thedetails on the hull, front armor
, add the machine gun, the lightand horn and all that and all

(01:16:03):
the fuel and oil filler caps onthe top of the hull.

Well, you're pretty close to priming that I'm
getting there.

Mike (01:16:12):
You know, none of that was particularly challenging, other
than the machine gun.
The KV-85 was.
Unique is not the right word,but it was the first serial
production vehicle.
You know they didn't make manyof them, but it did go into
serial production for a limitedamount of time.
Go into serial production for alimited amount of time.

(01:16:35):
That had a fixed bow machinegun, meaning that it was it only
fired in a straight line and atone angle, right, probably
controlled by the driver with afoot pedal or something I don't
know.
Um, the, the bronco kit part wasjust really malnourished
looking.
It was just undersized.
So I robbed one out of theTrumpeter KV-85 and the
architecture, the way they gotogether in the two kits is

(01:16:57):
completely different.
So I had to do some carefulangle cutting on the Bronco or
on yeah, on the Bronco, no, theTrumpeter part to get it to
match up with the armor plateangle on the other one, because
the way they went together itfit into a hole on the other one
.
Because the way they wenttogether it fit into a hole on
the trumpeter kit and the onethat came with the bronco kit
actually passed through a holefrom the back side, gotcha.

(01:17:20):
So it didn't?
It already had the angle moldedinto it.
That was correct.
So I had to cut that partcarefully, get it sanded dry and
get it mounted.
That wasn't hard, it's justsomething I had to do so so,
flashing back to episode 43, youwere cross-skidding,
cross-skidded this one a littlebit yeah and a little bit more
here and coming up, the KV-85had two rotatable driver's

(01:17:45):
periscopes on the hull top andthe the Bronco ones are a little
bit lame.
They've got this silly clearpart that you're supposed to sit
down in the armored shroud thatgoes around that part.
They're the wrong shape andthey just don't fit well, and
it's just that they weren't verygood.

A whole lot of maybe.
Yeah a whole lot of not exactly.
Not exactly.

Mike (01:18:11):
So again I'm going to rob the trumpeter kit for their
periscope tops and they need alittle shortening to fit into
the armored shrouds that goaround them.
But just work, that shouldn'thave to be done.
So getting there, that's thehull front and hull top.
The other thing I've beenworking on is the engine hatch.

(01:18:32):
You know know the domed hatchon the center back of the av
right.
There's been this notion foryears that that that dome had a
flattened area on it, so theturret bustle would clear it
right.
If you imagine that domedivided into four quadrants like
pizza slices.

Right, and just to remind people, they only
produced what like 300 of thesethings.

Mike (01:18:57):
No, it was like 100 and change.

Okay, 100 and change, and that there are only
there's not one at all surviving14 or 15 photographs of the
thing, yeah, and no good set ofreliable plans for it.

Mike (01:19:14):
There's a monument tank in Leningrad area, but it's the
prototype.
So it's a converted KV-1S hull.
So all bets are off if itmatches the serial production or
not, nobody knows Right.
But if you take that KV domeover the engine air filter and
you cut it into four pizzaslices, you got a port and
starboard and a forward and rear.

(01:19:36):
Well, that forward one, thatwas under the turret overhang,
has been purported to have beenflattened so the turret wouldn't
hit it right.
I think that's bs.
Nobody's ever produced anyevidence at all that it was that
way and and my theory is thatthis supposition, I guess, is an

(01:19:57):
artifact of a resin part thatwas offered by a Japanese
cottage industry called ModelArtisan Mori.
They made a well-mastered,really detailed little engine
hatch for the Eastern Expresskit, for the Eastern Express kit
Mm-hmm.
I think what they didn'trealize was that the Eastern
Express KV-85 has the standardturret center location as a

(01:20:19):
normal 76-millimeter gun to KVMm-hmm.
That's not what it was, so theymade that part to clear the kit
as built out of the box.

Right.

Mike (01:20:29):
The actual KV-85 had the turret center pushed forward,
presumably so the turret racewould not intersect the firewall
to the engine compartment Right.
So we start looking at thingsand there's just no way that the
turret bustle would ever hitthat dome.

So did Bronco and Trumpeter, both model them.

Mike (01:20:52):
Both of them modeled it flattened.
Okay, that's what I was goingto ask.
It's mentioned as flattened inthe Stokes book, but there's no
evidence whatsoever thatanybody's produced to date.
And I could be completely wrong.
They could all be right, but Idon't think so.
It just doesn't make sense tome.

And so you're going to model it with the dome
unflattened, unflattened.

Mike (01:21:15):
So there are like two or three sprues from Bronco's
SU-152, the KV-basedself-propelled gun, right In
that same kit box, and theengine hatch for that vehicle is
in the kit box and it justneeds a little bit of
modification, light modification, to get it to fit.

(01:21:35):
So that's what I've done.

Gotcha.

Mike (01:21:39):
That's what's going on, man.

It sounds like you're making progress Not as
quick.
We both need to pick up thepace, as certain people have
reminded us again and again, andthey are correct.

The Voice of Bob (01:21:53):
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Mike (01:22:18):
Finishing that stash in 2168.

There you go, thinning that stash in 2025.
Yes, so, mike, there have beena lot of announcements of a lot
of new things.
This is faves and yawns, and Igot to tell you I got a lot of
faves.

Mike (01:22:39):
I've got three faves.

I don't have any yawns, I've got four faves and
no yawns, so I go you one better.

Mike (01:22:45):
Okay, well, good for you.
So who's first me?

Well, no, since I got the extra one, I'll start
first.

Mike (01:22:52):
We'll see if we got any duplicity here.

There you go.
All right, get what we do.
Dream Model has announced in72nd scale, a Ka-52.
This is one of the two currentRussian attack helicopters.

Mike (01:23:08):
I saw that.

Zvezda has previously done the kit, and not
well.
I saw that extent in Syria andit is a really well, assuming
that the kit is done well and tomodern standards.
This would be a very welcomeaddition to the 72nd scale

(01:23:42):
modeling community.

Mike (01:23:44):
Yeah, you're next, or my first.
Your first it's an aircraft.
All right, not what I'm goingto build, I'm just glad to see
it, tacom is kicking out aHenschel HS-129 in 48th scale.

Yes.

Mike (01:24:02):
You know this plane was underpowered, it was
undermanufactured, but it was avery, very interesting aircraft
overall.

And very effective at what it did.

Mike (01:24:11):
Yeah, I would love a state-of-the-art one in 72nd
scale.
I suspect you might too.

Yes, I would.

Mike (01:24:16):
But you know it's interesting, it's because it's a
small plane.
Yeah, for a twin engine it's asmall plane.
It's a very small plane.

Basically built around the guns and the pilot
and these very small engines.

Mike (01:24:30):
That was, yeah.
Like I said, underpowered, yes.
So that's you know?
Looking forward to seeing whatTACOM does with an aircraft.

Yes.

Mike (01:24:40):
There's probably others out there.
They've done already, maybe Idon't know.

Yeah.

Mike (01:24:44):
Not familiar with their aircraft line, but interesting
selection from them.

Yes, it is.

Mike (01:24:50):
What you got next.

My next one is a little bit odd.
A company called DogfightModels which I have never heard
of and I don't know if it's anew company or what has
announced an Albion three-pointrefueling truck, point refueling
truck.
This is the standard Britishrefueling truck in the early war

(01:25:19):
, 1939, 1940 to 1941.

(01:25:45):
So Battle of Britain, battle ofFrance, early refueling truck
and it's odd looking.
It basically is a truck and ithas what almostfields in France
and in Britain you see them allthe time and it's unusual and
odd looking and I'd really likeone.

(01:26:07):
I've wanted one for a long timeand I'm really happy to see
this announced.
I'll be interested to see whatit actually looks like.

Mike (01:26:17):
Is it plastic?
Do you know?

uh, I think it's plastic, but it's you.
Sometimes it's hard to tell onscale makes yeah so how about
you?

Mike (01:26:28):
my next one is for miniArt .
Okay, it's the SonderanhangerOst.
Okay, one and a half ton cargotrailer.

There was a mouthful.

Mike (01:26:40):
Yeah, it was Special trailer.
That's what that means.

Okay.

Mike (01:26:44):
Special trailer East 1.5 ton cargo trailer.
Just a big ugly trailer with,like steel rim, solid wheels on
it.
It's interesting for me becauseI have a period photo of an
sdkfc 251 towing one of thesetrailers and it's filled with
standing soviet pows oh, thatwould be a great diorama it's a

(01:27:09):
lot of figure painting, but yesyou could do something a little
different and not have itcompletely full.
I mean it's like jam-packed,because you know not a lot of
respect being dealt out there,so there was no room to sit down
.
Yeah, but that's how I've gotfamiliar with this thing.
It's interesting.

(01:27:29):
This thing I was is interesting, I think.
Maybe, maybe, like a advazimuth has kitted this before,
either in resin or maybe intheir ironsides range of right
of a bygone era, but this is anew one, in injection mold for
mini art.
So it's, you know, might have alot of parts and they might be
fiddly, but it's not gonna be aresin kit, it's not 3D printed

(01:27:53):
either.

Well, that's an improvement.
My next one is a general one,and that is a company called
Blue Rider.
It's a decal company thatapparently still exists it
started in 1987, and the reasonI love them is that I have an

(01:28:18):
obsession.
One of my many obsessions issmall air forces and Blue Rider
specialized in a lot of smallair force markings, particularly
between the wars between theWorld First and Second World War
and they used to do a magazinecalled Insignia Magazine and

(01:28:39):
every issue had a decal sheet init and they were always
interesting, unusual small AirForce markings.
Well, I thought they had goneout of business and maybe they
just did for a while, but theyare in business currently.
They've announced some newsheets which are actually 1920s

(01:29:04):
and 1930s Greek aircraft, greekNavy and Greek Army aircraft,
and I was just happy to see themback because they do such
interesting stuff that I'm justpleased.
They've got a Facebook page.
You can look them up onFacebook and follow them there,
and I was just happy to see it.

Mike (01:29:27):
That's right up your alley man.

That's right.
So what's your last one?
That's right up your alley man,that's right.

Mike (01:29:33):
So what's your last one?
My last one we may havementioned in Faves and Yawns
last year Okay, but it's finallyon the streets which is
Heller's E2C Hawkeye a new tool,yes.

Yeah, first new tool aircraft from Heller in
forever.

Mike (01:29:53):
Now I think this is allegedly from the same research
and stuff from.
Somebody just came out with a48 scale, one Academy maybe
Somebody, I forget who Somebodydid.
Kitty.

Hawk no.

Mike (01:30:08):
I can't remember.
Somebody had a 48 scale ETC andthis was a daughter project to
that under the Heller name.
A cool plane, another twinengine.
That's not really huge yep butit's from that freaking color,
colorful, marking era man yepand just could be a really cool
plane.
I, this one ended up in thestash.

(01:30:29):
You probably shouldn't be toosurprised, okay, if this?

one ended up in a stash, you probably shouldn't
be too surprised.

Mike (01:30:32):
Okay, well, that's good, I'm glad to hear that it's a
neat, neat, neat plane.

Yes, it is.

Mike (01:30:37):
You got one more right.

Yes, I do.
You'll have to talk to themodel geeks about that.
They'll be able to tell you alot about that.
My last one is there's acompany out of Central Europe
called DP Casper and they makedecal sheets and their decal
sheets are interesting in thatthey are themed around

(01:31:01):
particular wars or particularoperations.
The one that they've justannounced that caught my eye,
that I definitely am going topick up, is they now have a
sheet coming out of the1942-1943 Aleutians campaign
which has everything fromCanadian Tomahawks to Wildcats,

(01:31:27):
to Japanese float planes, roofsand Jakes, to PBYs to Betty
Bombers I mean just 20 or 30different aircraft from both
sides and their sheets arefantastic.
I love them.
I've got a number of them andI've never used their decals

(01:31:51):
before.
I've got a number of them andI've never used their decals
before.
So if there's somebody outthere who actually has used the
decals from a DP Casper sheet,please reach out and let me know
what your experience was,because otherwise I'm going to
buy the solution sheet for sure,just because I am so interested

(01:32:12):
in the subject matter.
Mike, we've gotten to the endof the episode and I've gotten
to the end of my session.
Beer, a Worker's Comp from TwoRoads.

(01:32:37):
It's a very mild 4.8% alcoholby volume Mr Schaefer, thank you
again.
And I got to say pretty darngood beer For what it is.
It's very light, but it's notlike a mass market beer, so you
don't feel like you're drinkingCoors or something like that.
It's got a little bit of bodyto it, which is, you know, as
light as a beer as it is.
You wouldn't expect that.
So, yeah, I can endorse TwoRoads Workers' Comp Session Beer

(01:33:01):
.

Mike (01:33:03):
I'll just try it out.
I guess I get to.

You do, unless I drink yours first.
I better get to Louisvillequick.
You better get to Louisvillequick, so tell me about yours
being fully transparent, dave.

Mike (01:33:16):
Yep, this was bought to make fish batter.
Oh, and it's good for that.
My son found an English fishand chips recipe to try out on
some of the vacation catch.

Right.

Mike (01:33:29):
And, honestly, I should have just saved it for that the
next time we do it.
I used to be a fan of Guinnessin my unrefined youth.

Yes.

Mike (01:33:41):
I've just lost my enthusiasm for this American
market can Guinness?
I just don't think it's verygood anymore.

Well, my wife went through a phase where she
loved Guinness and it was reallythe only beer she drank.
She got past that as well.

Mike (01:33:58):
I say all that, yet I'm on my second, so yeah.

Mike, we are at the actual end of the episode
and we've got shout outs, but myshout outs this time aren't so
much shout outs asrecommendations.
Okay, so you go ahead and giveus a shout out.

Mike (01:34:22):
I got two.
I'll give you my first one.
It's the obligatory.
Thank you for all the folkssupporting Plastic Model Mojo
through your generosity.
You can do that by going towwwplasticmodelmojocom.
There's a support the show tabon the menu That'll take you to
all the avenues that you cansupport the show, if you care to
do so.
They're also in the show notesof the episode.

(01:34:43):
Really appreciate it, folks.
We got a lot going on.
Phase 2 is coming up on thewebsite.
It's lagging a little.
Be a great time if you've everconsidered to helping out the
show to do that.
We'd appreciate it.
We do.
Thanks a lot.
It's got us to where we're atso far and it's going to get us
to where we're going.
So we really appreciate thegenerosity folks have expressed

(01:35:04):
to Plastic Model Mojo.

Yep, and the future's so bright bright, we
gotta wear shade.
You just had to get one in, Ihad to get one in.
All right, my shout, my firstshout out, is actually a
recommendation for a youtubechannel called kings and
generals, and it's a channelthat covers the military history

(01:35:30):
of different battles, conflicts, wars, etc.
Everything from ancient battlesall the way up to modern
conflicts, everything in between.
Now, a lot of their content ismembers only.
They want you to join, pay amonthly fee, etc.

(01:35:50):
But they do have a lot of freecontent.
And you know I mentioned theAleutians DP Casper decal sheet,
a series or YouTube videothat's about an hour long on the

(01:36:15):
illusion campaigns in 1942 and1943.
Highly recommended.
I watched it.
It was very enjoyable.
You learn a lot and it's very,very well done, so I highly
recommend.
If you're looking for somethingto watch on YouTube, I can

(01:36:35):
highly recommend the Kings andGenerals channel.

Mike (01:36:39):
Well, my next shout out Dave is to Adam Coleman in the
Dallas Texas area.
He's been a great listener,glad to have him as a listener,
and he reached out aboutsomething we'll keep under wraps
for now, but I appreciate theconversation we had and had some
nice things to say about theshow and what we've done and
where we're going.
And thanks a lot, adam, thatwas nice, nice chat with you the

(01:37:01):
other night.

My next recommendation is a podcast,
particularly some episodes of apodcast.
Some episodes of a podcast.
I venture to guess that a lotof listeners to this podcast are
familiar with a podcast calledwe have Ways, which is done by
World War II historian JamesHolland and comedian Al Murray.

(01:37:26):
Well, james Holland's brother,tom Holland not the actor does a
podcast called the Rest isHistory with Dominic Sandbrook,
and Tom Holland is, and JamesHolland's a World War II history
guy.
Well, tom Holland is a ancientand medieval history guy is an

(01:37:51):
ancient and medieval history guy, and they just recently did a
four-part series on Hannibal andthe Second Punic War, going
from the end of the First PunicWar all the way up to Hannibal's

(01:38:11):
victory at Can I, and it wasfour-part series.
Each episode's about 20, 25minutes each, and when you're
done listening to a PlasticModel Mojo episode and you're
waiting for the next one to drop, I can highly recommend the
Rest is History and particularlythe Hannibal series.

(01:38:32):
Go listen, I think you'll enjoyit.
I don't have any more, dave.
I don't have any more either.
I think we're at the end of theepisode.

Mike (01:38:40):
We are.
So folks join us for episode143 later in the month for a
chat with modeler Harvey LoweLooking forward to that, and we
may drop a short in there aswell.
So hopefully that'll happen.
You can keep an eye out forthat as well.
Until then, Dave, so many kicks, so little time.
Dave, have a good evening.
You too, Catch up real soon.

You got it.

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Shop Talk with Mike and Kentucky Dave: Episode 142

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