Plastic Model Mojo
Plastic Model Mojo, a podcast dedicated to scale modeling, as well as the news and events around the hobby
Plastic Model Mojo
Moson Show and Shop Talk with PanzerMeister36, : PMM Episode 141
What would your ideal modeling workspace look like? It's the question that haunts modelers everywhere as we struggle with overflowing stashes, cluttered benches, and the constant shuffle of moving one project to make room for another. In this episode, we welcome back Panzermeister36 (Evan McCallum) to explore the challenges of creating and maintaining an organized modeling environment.
Evan kicks things off with a fascinating firsthand account of his recent trip to the Moson Show in Hungary, where world-class models and unique vendor offerings provided substantial inspiration—and temptation for the wallet. His description of models stacked three deep on display tables, manufacturers offering their own products as awards, and the international camaraderie paints a picture of one of Europe's premier modeling events that might just find its way onto your modeling bucket list.
The heart of our discussion centers on decluttering and organizing the modeling life. We tackle the Marie Kondo-inspired question of whether each item in your stash truly "brings modeling joy," explore digital organization systems like ScaleMates to prevent duplicate purchases, and share our visions for perfect workspace configurations. From Dave's quest to rehome books to Mike's plans for custom shelving systems to Evan's apartment-based challenges, we uncover both the universal struggles and personal solutions that shape our hobby spaces.
Perhaps most telling is the moment when Evan asks whether better organization will actually solve our problems or if "the mess will just expand to match the workspace." It's a sobering thought that resonates with anyone who's ever upgraded their modeling area only to find it just as cluttered months later.
Whether you're modeling from a kitchen table, dedicated room, or dreaming of that perfect future space, this episode offers practical insights to help maximize whatever space you have. After all, in the end, it's not about having the most space—it's about making the most of the space you have.
Hobbyist Decals - For custom decals, listener Adam Coleman recommended this site.
Bytes & Brushes - Listener Stephan Lauren's new YouTube Channel to feature reviews of download and print of purchases STL files for modeling parts and accessories.
Your source for Harder & Steenbeck Airbrushes and David Union Power Tools
SQUADRON
Adding to the stash since 1968
Model Podcasts
Please check out the other pods in the modelsphere!
PMM Merchandise Store
Support the show with PMM Merchandise!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Give us your Feedback!
Rate the Show!
Support the Show!
Patreon
Buy Me a Beer
Paypal
Bump Riffs Graciously Provided by Ed Baroth
Ad Reads Generously Provided by Bob "The Voice of Bob" Bair
Mike and Kentucky Dave thank each and everyone of you for participating on this journey with us.
Welcome to Plastic Model Mojo, a podcast dedicated to scale modeling, as well as the news and events around the hobby. Let's join Mike and Kentucky Dave as they strive to be informative, entertaining and help you keep your modeling mojo alive.
Mike:All right, Kentucky Dave. Episode 141. May is trotting along here, man, and we're close to the end, Moving quick.
Kentucky Dave:Moving very quick.
Mike:Well, we're not alone tonight. Panzermeister 36, evan McCallum's with us in the third chair. Evan, how you been, man, I've been very good, thank you.
Kentucky Dave:You're up in an undisclosed location somewhere in Canada.
Evan McCallum:Yes, maybe For the long weekend.
Mike:Well, happy Victoria Day. Thank you, you know I was looking back. Has it been since February of last year?
Evan McCallum:since you've been on the show, it's been a little while I guess yeah, sorry about that man, it doesn't feel like that because we see each other at IPMS, Nats and at HeritageCon.
Mike:Yeah, I think there's two HeritageCons and a Nats, and I know we've seen you at least three times since then. So it makes the time pass fast, but we'll try to do better next time. That's a long time. You're a good guest to have and we like having you on, so we'll see what happens, but until then, what's up in your model sphere, evan? Oh, man.
Evan McCallum:After coming back from the mozan show and also heritage con before that, I've been very inspired to work on models, but I've also been having a bit of a inability to focus on just one of that one thing. I'm going back and forth between all these projects and I think I need to start something fresh and and focus on something to get something actually finished. That's also why there's been no video since january. I can't. It's like everything's at this point where it's just dragging along with detail, painting and stowage and I can't make appreciable big steps on something which is satisfying right.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I was going to complain about that because, man, you're making it hard for me to get you to 100,000 subscribers.
Mike:But then you remember how much he's paying for it. Yeah, exactly, I shouldn't say anything. Well, I mean, I hope you figure that out, man, it always sucks when stuff stagnates. So you know the devil's in the details. So you got a lot of popcorn to paint and glue on the model and all that kind of stuff.
Evan McCallum:Yeah, I think I need a John Badani palette, cleanser, slammer, build kind of thing to get me back in the I don't know what do you call it, I guess in the mojo right To finish something and focus on something. There you go.
Kentucky Dave:Well, that was kind of like your BT2.
Evan McCallum:Was it a BT2? Yes, that's what I did, and I've got a BT7. That might be the next thing that will be my slammer build. We'll see.
Mike:Well, dave, what about?
Kentucky Dave:you man. Uh well, may is in full swing. I've been doing a little bit, but I'm I'm having trouble getting to the bench. Spring is in full swing, where I can draw you a map. Thank you, I appreciate it. We're opening the pool. I've been working in the in the yard every weekend, as you know, because you and I talk to each other or text each other in the yard every weekend, as you know, because you and I talk to each other or text each other in the weekends, and they've been pretty darn full. So about the only bench time I'm getting is when I'm getting down to the bench late at night just for a little bit of time, and most of the time I'm too exhausted. So my model sphere is unfocused, although I have been doing some organizing and that's making me feel a little better.
Mike:That's turned into a cop-out answer, though I know I know.
Evan McCallum:Dave, there has to be some 15-year-old kid on the street. You can pay 20 bucks. He can come mow your lawn, listen to OTB for you and you can get down to the bench for you and you can get down to the bench.
Kentucky Dave:Well, if you can find him, that's a thing. If you find that guy who'll do it for 15 bucks, you send him my way.
Mike:Well, that and Evan, we should start a weekly conference call and do this floating workbench design. You can just take it out to the swimming pool.
Kentucky Dave:There you go. Well, you know, I've got those Howard floats, I know, so I'm halfway there already.
Mike:You need to arm those things. So when Goldfence comes back, you guys can play wooden ships and iron men.
Kentucky Dave:There you go, man, but that's my model sphere. How about yours, mike?
Mike:Man, this Raboboton thing. Folks, if you're tired of hearing about it, I'm sorry, but I'm going to keep talking about it, because this thing comes and fits and starts, and right now we're in a start and it's kind of like manic depressive, I guess. So I'm manic on this program right now, and you know I'd posted those. Well, let me back up. You know I'd posted those. Well, let me back up. Somewhere over the course of this project, somebody or somewhere, I found about a half a contact, the guy that runs the Huns on Wheels we talked about this last episode, he and another guy Well, there's another guy he put me in contact with who's actually done a 3D model already Same thing I'm doing. Right, I doubt I'll do the entire truck because I'm not going to make it that way, but anyway, he's done the whole thing and it turns out the one part of the chassis ladder that I was still confused about he is too, which kind of surprised me. So I sent all the photographs to the Huns on Wheels guy and he posted them on his Facebook page. And it turns out there's a guy that chimed in kind of vaguely, that knew of this truck and knew where it was and as it's played out a little bit. He's one of the principles in the restoration of it, but for some reason they're keeping this thing severely under wraps and he's not been real cooperative. Well, today, well, when did this happen? I noticed he was friends with another person I know in Hungary and I reached out to him and said hey, do you know this other guy? I noticed he was friends with another person I know in Hungary, Right, and I reached out to him and said hey, do you know this other guy? He's going on about this truck and these photographs I posted. And the short of it is he was a little guarded against being involved with that guy for various reasons and kind of the whole reason for keeping the thing under wraps was a little bit silly and selfish. So we're still kind of sorting that out, but he's like just hang on till Monday. I'm busy this weekend, Just we'll talk Monday.
Mike:Well, about six hours ago I get a image dump from my friend and he has sent me. It's a photograph, it's not a scan. I'm trying to get a scan from it, but he sent me a photograph of an original Raboblue print of the chassis ladder. There you go. Nice, it's the whole freaking thing Nice, it's just it's the side rails and everything that runs transverse across it.
Mike:So it answers a lot of questions. Answers a lot of questions. It's a top view, a bottom view, a section view, and when he took the photo he cut the front and back off. So I got to go back and see if he'll figure that out. But I'm also going to ask if he'll just take it somewhere and just get the damn thing scanned. And he also sent me a couple other images that were it looks like the same part but on a different truck chassis. That's got a little bit more detail. So it's kind of cool. So this thing's moving along and honestly I think I shared photos of that, my latest prints on the dojo. If I haven't, I need to, but you know, my first informed guess was pretty damn close, Close enough that I don't know that I'm going to change it.
Kentucky Dave:Well, being an engineer, that does not surprise me that your guess would have been pretty close.
Mike:I thought there'd be something I was incredibly wrong about, but turns out maybe not, so I don't know. Interesting Keeps going. I think I've put the chassis to bed. But we'll get to that in the Bench Top Halftime Report. But that's where that's going, kind of the drama around the information.
Evan McCallum:So how much more work are you going to have to sink in before IBG or Gecko Models announces this kit right underneath you?
Mike:That's a real good question. I don't know, because I know the person who I was put in contact with via the guy who runs the Huns on Wheels Facebook page has already submitted kind of a. It's a book, but it's one of those you know, it's it's 3d model and they dissect the thing and show you all the components. It's one of those kinds of that kind of book is kind of under works, in the works right now. It sounds like and that's just my speculation based on the way he talked about it. I think once that happens, it's potentially I mean, I think you're right, evan, I think somebody might do it. I'm going to keep plugging along.
Evan McCallum:This seems like the kind of subject that would be expected from IBG or, like I said, Gecko models, because they kind of do those kind of like secondary access country soft skin vehicles like Italian stuff, and it's usually pretty cool.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Evan McCallum:But hopefully you get yours done first and actually get to print it up and enjoy it before you get stabbed in the back He'll be three quarters of the way through the scratch build when the kit comes out, oh yeah, as long as it's better than the kit.
Kentucky Dave:I bet it will be, I'm sure it will.
Mike:Well, enough of model spheres. We got plenty of listener mail man.
Kentucky Dave:Well, well, enough of model spheres. We got plenty of listener mail man Well hang on Before we get to listener mail.
Mike:Oh, I skipped a thing. I got that one right in front of me and didn't even read it.
Kentucky Dave:All right, before we get to listener mail, evan, do you have a modeling fluid tonight?
Evan McCallum:Indeed, I do. I have Juicebox Hazy IPA by Sons of Kent Strong beer. I bet, yeah, it's a nice 6.9% ABV. Oh that's medium. It looks good. It's supposed to be one of those maybe you'd call it like a northeast IPA style, where it's more of a citrus hop than a pine hop, as a western one would be. And I prefer this type, so me too.
Kentucky Dave:We will see how it goes, Mike. What do you have?
Mike:Uh, I've got a little bit of bullet tonight. Good choice. Yeah, I was a little budget minded here of late per our offline discussions and, uh, that one fit the bill cause it wasn't very expensive. I knew I'd like it, so nothing new there. What about you, man?
Kentucky Dave:I got this beer called Beer Garten Blonde by Braumeister Brewing Company out of Carleton, Ontario. A listener gave it to us. I'm not sure who the listener was. Take notes man, I know who it was. It was Evan.
Evan McCallum:Half the reason I like Braumeister is because it sounds like my Panzermeister YouTube channel name.
Kentucky Dave:Maybe, you need a beer label.
The Voice of Bob (Bair):I need a sponsorship.
Kentucky Dave:Right, I was doing that to see if I could get a rise out of Evan. That's not bad. That's not bad at all. I could get a rise out of Evan. That's not bad. That's not bad at all. So I'll let. I'll give you a report when we get to the end, but it's promising to start with.
Mike:All right, well, we can get the listener mail now.
Kentucky Dave:Now we can get the listener mail.
Mike:All right, how much you got? I got a few. You know we were. We were for a few days out of the shoot. We were a little worried about the, the feedback around the last episode. But boy, that self-corrected, so go ahead I will. First up is from a past guest, steve Anderson. He's got a new question for us All right, probably one he ought to add to the next edition of his book, his journal. His wife got him the Armah Hobby Cactus Air Force Deluxe set, oh nice, featuring the P-39, the F4F-4. Yep, all in one box.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, it is.
Mike:And he'd been eyeballing that since it came out, and he wants to know what is our favorite modeling-themed birthday gift, why it's our favorite. Who gave it to us? He supposes buying it for ourselves on our birthday would work, but that's kind of out of the spirit of his question.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:So what's going on? He says he's a very lucky man with a model wife.
Kentucky Dave:He is indeed model wife. He is indeed. Well, I'll start in general, because of my stash, to begin with, and because of my book collection. I have a lot, and so mostly my wife and children stick to non-modeling gifts. Although I will say, for Christmas my oldest daughter got me a new wet palette which I should be breaking out sometime soon. But in general, I mean I've gotten gift cards to the local hobby shop and that's always well appreciated, but in general they've stayed away from the model themed gifts, simply because of simply because of the depth and breadth of what I already have. I understand that. How about you, evan?
Evan McCallum:This might be relatable to many other modelers out there, where you're kind of at the point where you already have a lot of crap and you're very particular about the kind of stuff you buy. So usually when people want to buy you a kit, they kind of just ask you what you want, you know Right, and so you can tell them I'm interested in these kits or whatever, and then that shows up. So I haven't been surprised with a lot of kits, because often I'll tell people what I'm looking for. But for Christmas my fiance got me one of those Tamiya dinosaur kits. It's the Parasaurolophilus, whatever it is Right, the one with, like the trumpet built into his head. Yeah, and in the past I think I told her and this is how she got the idea but I told her it would be cool to do a dinosaur because it's a bit different. But you kind of still painted a camouflage in the end, right?
Kentucky Dave:Well, I was going to ask you know those are 35th scale Exactly Are you going to paint it in an ambush scheme?
Evan McCallum:Yeah, I'll put the US stars or German markings on it. No, I'll do it pretty seriously, but it looks like a pretty good kit and it'll be something different and you can make a little diorama. It comes with some little pterodactyls and stuff too, something out of the ordinary but still kind of in the same realm of my usual builds. You know, no clear parts or wings or anything like an aircraft Right.
Kentucky Dave:So I have seen some of those kits done up. I mean super nice, super well-painted, and they can build up to be impressive kits.
Evan McCallum:Yeah, I think it's verging more on a figure where a lot of the work is actually in the painting, not in the detailing or assembly I can't add. Aftermarket tool clamps to it.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, photo etch. I'm afraid you've got to add photo etch.
Mike:It's like photo etch teeth or something I don't know.
Kentucky Dave:I was thinking the other end, but that's okay.
Mike:For me. I don't know Birthday, maybe not, but I'm going to dig way back. Okay, I mean, I've gotten a lot of model stuff paintbrush sets, kits, all that but, man, when I was in high school. So I'm going way back.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, this is Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Mike:Yeah, 1985. The girls dating in high school conspired with my mother to get me. It was a Christmas present, it wasn't birthday, so I'm changing the holiday. I hope that's all right. That's okay. Got me two books. I got an Osprey book and one of the Squadron Signal books.
Kentucky Dave:I still got them, but the girlfriend's no longer around.
Mike:No, she's happily married and moved on. Yeah.
Kentucky Dave:That's life, man.
Mike:Who can blame her? Oh, moving on from Monterey, california. Stephen Joris, I think that's right and I'm going to miss him, Dave, but he's coming to Wonderfest the end of May. I don't know if you're planning on making a pop in. Yes, he a pop in. Yes, he is coming in. He's going to be here for a few days and he's going to have a rental car, so we'll handle this one offline. He's wanting to know some stuff to do in the greater Louisville area.
Mike:Oh, we can hook him up, so I will forward you this one. Okay, steven, thanks for writing in and we'll get you. We'll get you hooked up. Restaurants, museums, hiking, etc. Is what he's got here. So, oh, should be no problem yep, none whatsoever the next one from Sullivan, indiana, or Sullivan, indiana?
Mike:that's a great question, I don't know. I have to Google map that. Stephen McDonald. Now he wrote in and this is one of those that's kind of sprouted wings and started getting around. Stephen wrote in about real space. Models, was an engineer and he was thinking he would like to. He was a modeler, he's going to get his dad into modeling and he thought real space would be the way to go and and not being versed in that, he was having a little trouble navigating that space and trying to figure out where to get stuff and what was even available and and all that.
Kentucky Dave:Anyway, I well, my guy at a cabbage would be somebody to I was going to say I'd put him in touch with my guy at a cabbage.
Mike:To put him into contact with, and I did and Mike took the ball and ran with it and sent him a bunch of links and started a little conversation. So that was really good to see that the community stepped up there and my old friend Mike helped him out.
Kentucky Dave:Well, the real space community is man. You want to talk about outreach and enthusiasm and camaraderie. The real space guys have it. I mean, they're all technophiles and they're all forward looking and they just love running into somebody else with the same passion that they have well, he also has a passion for bourbon and three floyds, being from the midwest good by the way, sullivan is south of terre haute.
Mike:Okay, I looked it up well, I'm glad that worked out and I'm be curious to he's already sent me back one response or update. I'm be real curious where that works out. So appreciate that. Appreciate Mike stepping up and taking that one for us.
Kentucky Dave:I knew he would.
Mike:Well, this one's interesting. He's kind of overlaps you, evan, and your recent travel, which we'll get to later. But from Texas, our friend Adam Coleman yeah, now he's. He was the guest last year for the Moshon show, right? Uh, he's got a Hungarian wife and he, he goes every year and I should have flipping, remember it and put you two guys in contact with each other. He sent me a really good email. It's got some good information here, but at the top of it is he, he. He went to Moshon again. He says the chief judge is a really good friend of his, so he got to see a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff going on Commenting. The vendor halls were incredible. So, Evan, you're going to have to substantiate that in a little while, or not, we'll see. Maybe have varied opinions.
Evan McCallum:No, no, no, it was fantastic.
Mike:But a couple of things from episode 140. There's a question about decal creation from old, washed out or cracked, non-functional decals, and Adam builds a lot of stuff from pre-1980 and he runs into this issue a lot and he uses HD decals or hobbyistdecalscom from India. Yes, I've heard of these guys? Yes, and somebody else mentioned this.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, they did.
Mike:And I don't think it was Adam. No, he says they're really easy to communicate with. You send them a scanned copy and measurements or whatever they need to work from, and then they'll make it for you. He just recently did a whole sheet for an Airfix ship kit he was working on, and for that one kit the sheet was like $35, including shipping.
Kentucky Dave:God For that one kit. The sheet was like $35, including shipping. God, it's amazing. Because of the internet and because of all this technology, you can order custom-made decals from halfway around the world.
Mike:Now that sounds like a lot compared to like an $8 mass-produced sheet from somebody right Right, but for something one-off, exactly, that's really not bad.
Kentucky Dave:No, no With shipping and all from again halfway around the world.
Mike:And I assume they would do custom stuff too.
Mike:Yeah, I checked out the site. We'll put the link in the show notes and kind of interesting because that's a good service if it's working out. He's also friends with the gentleman who runs Huns on Wheels and he gave me a little bit of information there and encouragement there to keep working that line of contact. And he mentions the Raybould Baton and he says there's only one example of truck left in Hungary and now after a week of poking around I know that's no longer true. There's actually two. One of them is a lot nicer than the other one but there are two. And again he mentions the person from Huns on Wheels. But finally the crux of his email is he is now the sole US distributor for Liang Hobby. Now they make kind of a lot of stuff. They've got some 3D printed and assembled tools they do. They've got some figures and they've got some paint masks, some stencil type paint masks.
Evan McCallum:Yeah, I've got a bit of their products. It's pretty good. I think it's by the guy who also maybe currently or used to be a designer for T-Rex Studio. Okay, I have a figure from them also. Maybe currently or used to be a designer for T-Rex Studio. I have a figure from them and also a set of boot stamp prints.
Mike:Yeah, the boot stamps Make the boot stamps, that's right. It all looks good, well good. So I've got a little conversation to have with Adam about that in the future. But thanks for writing in, adam, and it's good to hear about this decal company especially. That should be helpful to a lot of people.
Kentucky Dave:Indeed, john Bryan from Croydon in the UK as opposed to Croydon Indiana. Just up the road it's Croydon, not Croydon, I know.
Mike:Got some letters rearranged.
Kentucky Dave:I know.
Mike:I'm joking. He's really enjoyed the 3D print episode. It's the first of a couple we'll have along that line and I think you mentioned this in the podcast in 140, and I made reference to that on the dojo, but he mentions that probably the thing holding back the small-scale manufacturer of aircraft and 3D prints is clear parts. Yes, and that did make sense until this week on ScaleMates. And what about this week? On ScaleMates? A particular company in Ukraine has started doing some real small-scale 1-to-1-44 scale, but the clear parts are vacuformed over 3D-printed bucks.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, and that makes sense. That was. I think that was the way that problem was always going to be solved.
Mike:And it looks like most of them come with two. So yeah.
Kentucky Dave:That's always good. Yes, whenever you're dealing with vacuformed canopies, the manufacturers if you're out there listening any manufacturers who supply vacuformed canopies should supply two copies and the buck.
Mike:Well, you know, it's good to know that and we'll keep an eye on that. The company was Metallic Models, I think is the name of the company in Ukraine. They make a pretty wide variety of things. I've got some armor resin upgrades from them. But uh, back to this topic. It's, it's just, it's good to see this, even even though it's on the small scale side of the spectrum. Now, you know, 70 seconds next, probably.
Kentucky Dave:Oh yeah, for sure.
Mike:Well, you know cause. They're printing. I don't know if of them are already, are you know already? Wing on fuselage right, which, for most of the smaller 3d printers, is not something you can do, it's just, it's just too big, but for one to 144 scale it's working out good. But but the canopies? You could just sell canopies right, right so, and maybe we'll see more kits. It'd be curious to see what, what this, what comes of this, because I think, yeah, that's the, that's the obvious solution. That wasn't so obvious when we were talking about it the first time.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:And next is our friend Ken Beckler, over in Indiana as well, or Illinois, actually the Peoria gang. He's going over to the UK solo and he's meeting Tom Choi over there for Telford and he's going to a bunch of museums and he's taking photo requests from us and I don't know if we'll have any, but it's just real thoughtful of Ken to do that and you know if he's going to be over there. If you got something you're interested in, dave, maybe we ought to talk to him.
Kentucky Dave:But uh, send him over to hungary and ask him to crawl under the ray.
Mike:But yeah, that'd help a lot, you could have sent me there I was. I was in hungary a month ago yeah, yeah, I know this all kind of happened after you got home. Yeah, boy ken also sent me some photos a really nice, really nice Volvo V70R that was for sale. That's just, man, timing's not right, but I appreciate it. Maybe next time.
Kentucky Dave:You got a hankering man.
Mike:Well, got a second one going to college man.
Kentucky Dave:I know you don't have to tell me I'm in the same boat, brother.
Mike:Well we got an email through the new feedback link in the show notes. Yay, lauren Steffers from the Netherlands. He may have written in before under our normal channel. The name sounds familiar, but he really liked the idea of a ScaleMaze type thing specifically for 3D add-ons, which I think is a good idea. I, I don't know, I it'd be nice if there's some kind of repository for reviews and things right, and he started a youtube channel. We'll put this link in the show notes as well, but his first video is is the purchase and print of an stl file and seeing how it all goes down in the end, right, and this is a theme he wants to kind of double down on and continue with.
Kentucky Dave:He's gotten inspiration from Evan and his 3D printed track reviews.
Evan McCallum:That was a big financial investment. Yes, I know it was. Those tracks ain't cheap. Now, most of them were good in the end, but it's not cheap to buy a whole bunch of 3D prints and compare them.
Mike:Well, I haven't looked in a while. Is that still going crazy or is that kind of panned out?
Evan McCallum:I think the tracks thing is pretty well panned out. I haven't seen any. I mean when I when I gave up we'll say after about I think, as Dave said, maybe 16 different tracks. Afterwards I saw a few more come out. This would have been almost two years ago. Now a few more popped up, but since then I haven't really noticed that many more. I think the market's pretty saturated, especially with frio model now back because it was bought by a new individual actually they were at the mojon show. So with them back and I think also with people from China now importing master club tracks through Russia and making those available again, I think there's a lot of options in the market. So I mean it's not a problem. There's already too many 3d printed tracks in the market.
Mike:So got to wonder if anybody's making money on them. Yeah, so no part three, I hope not. Probably wise, probably wise.
Evan McCallum:I'm pretty happy, like the top three brands I found were fantastic, and I can't imagine anything being better, unless you have a little sweatshop child actually assembled them for you beforehand. I don't know.
Mike:Well, I mentioned Mike Iadacavage before and he's down in Marietta, georgia, to give a little geography. He also appreciated the 3D printing episode because kind of the tail end of his career he was and maybe still is. I can't remember if Mike's retired or not, he'll correct me, I'm sure but he was because he's chemical, he's a chemist and he was doing 3D resin development at one point in the latter part of his career most recent part of his career, and he just had some comments. You know we keep talking about the fact these things are brittle. He sends some information that this is not necessarily an inherent properties materials. There are resins out there for the various print technologies that can produce pretty robust resins as far as impact resistance and brittleness and kind of the reason why a lot of the printed model parts tend to be brittle is that a lot of these hobby printers are running off these low-cost kind of resin formulations.
Evan McCallum:Yeah, or they're being overexposed as well.
Mike:Right, which are brittle, yeah, or they're being overexposed as well, but still, I think it's an access problem, that the resins most of these people are using are the ones that are readily available to these hobby printers, and I think that's why the brittleness is probably as rampant as it seems. Then he goes on to second and he forwarded me some graphics about 3d print resident and print safety handling. Because stuff's kind of nasty, honestly, and it's kind of compounded because you're using alcohol to to do all your cleaning with. Well, there's some water-based rinseable resins now, but alcohol is like readily absorbed by your skin. So if you got a bunch of 3d print resin suspended in it and you get it on your hands, it's just kind of it's like a short circuit into your into your body. I'll post these graphics on the dojo because they're just some pretty basic stuff, but we want everybody to be safe.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, absolutely. We in the hobby deal with some pretty nasty chemicals and there are consequences to not being careful chemicals and there are consequences to not being careful. They may not seem readily apparent at the time, but you stretch that over a hobby of 30 or 40 years, you can do some damage.
Mike:Well, we'll get these up and encourage everybody to be safe with this stuff. Admittingly, I'm probably not as good as I should be. Luckily, the printer I use offers a pretty good opportunity for a lot of hands-off kind of handling of this stuff. Yeah, but most do not.
Evan McCallum:Now, you mentioned this just a minute ago, but I was speaking when I was doing my reviews on the tracks. I was speaking with some of the manufacturers and they did agree that the resin is not a big expense. Not a big expense. A lot of the expense is labor in cleaning up the parts that are going to be bagged up, doing quality control, especially these guys that are one or two man shows making tracks or other accessories.
Evan McCallum:Another thing I am hearing mixed opinions about regarding 3d printed stuff for scale modeling is a lot of companies, when you, when you buy the accessory and you look at the package, it says don't expose it to uv light, like make sure it's not sitting out in your workbench for a while because it can become brittle. But some people say that's not true because it already should be solidified, because it was, you know, already printed, and so I wonder if there's any people out there who are smart chemical engineers you, you know, like your listener here who can actually confirm or deny if it is true that these resins are susceptible to maybe moisture in the air, uv exposure and I know a lot of us stash stuff away for, you know, 10 years in our workbench for a project long down the future? Are these things going to be like? We're not that far along the 3d printing in the hobby yet? This has only been been a thing for maybe five years at this point?
Evan McCallum:Yeah, at least like big scale? Yeah, I'd say where you're going with this. Yeah, are you gonna 10 years when I crack open? Yeah, all this stuff I bought at mojan is it just gonna be like a pile of sand?
The Voice of Bob (Bair):is it?
Kentucky Dave:gonna bags of goo. Yeah exactly?
Evan McCallum:is it gonna melt or be super? A pile of sand Bags of goo. Yeah, exactly Is it going to melt or be super brittle? I hear mixed opinions about this. It also might depend entirely on the resin as well.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:Up next from Dallas, Oregon, Michael Parr, and considering we're all on the internet quite a bit, this is an interesting question. He belongs to a dozen or so Facebook groups, dozens plural. In all these groups, it would be appropriate to post pictures of your models.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:And he's asking us because we're the last one he listened to, but a lot of the podcasts are asking listeners to post on their sites. The posse's got their page, the geek's got theirs and the insanity's got theirs and we got ours got their page, the geeks got theirs and the insanity's got theirs and we got ours. And he says back in the day he would post a hyperscale and feel good that a lot of modelers were seeing his work, at least in the United States, and I didn't know what to do. He didn't want to span the internet by posting the same pictures across multiple pages, but he still wants people to see his work and get to talk about it and comment about it and all that he says. Does he pick a favorite place to post these and stick to it? Does he spam the Internet? What's he do? Well, he probably hasn't posted much in the last two years. He's just kind of perplexed as to what is apropos or in good faith to do this.
Kentucky Dave:Well, my suggestion and this is just my suggestion there's nothing wrong with posting it to every Facebook group you belong to, and if a lot of other people belong to the same Facebook groups, they may see your model multiple times. If you don't want to do that, what I would suggest is pick two or three places, your favorite two or three places. Or if, let's say, you built a T-34 and one of the groups you belong to is the T-34 modeling group on Facebook, obviously, even if you wouldn't normally post there, you definitely want to post that there because that's going to be where the most people with the interest in that particular model are going to be congregated, so you're going to get the most feedback, the most views of it. But that's personally, for me, that's, you know. I pick one or two places and that's it.
Evan McCallum:Yeah, I agree with you there. I mean, a bit of a pet peeve of mine is when I might scroll through Facebook and I see the same post like six times in the span of 30 seconds. Yeah, I'm with you there. But that's like the smallest problem of my entire day, right. I can just scroll past it, it doesn't really matter.
Kentucky Dave:Right, it just means you have to move your finger a little faster.
Evan McCallum:I find that when I post something to multiple groups, when I try to go back and read the comments, like the discussion is being split across so many different ways. I think it's almost like spreading the knowledge away, when it could be focused and people who are interested could be actually, you know, getting all the information if I only posted it in one spot. Now what I usually do now. Now I don't post a lot on Facebook because I don't finish enough stuff recently, but I think a lot of our, I think a lot of our community, especially our close friends, are already all in the same groups to begin with.
Evan McCallum:So I kind of spread my posts between, like, I'll post one update in one group and then the next update, I'll post the next group and then, because everyone's probably going to see it either way, because they're all right groups, right, yeah so, but also I have my own page associated with my channel, which is just for me to post stuff. So I'll kind of post it there and then I might share it to one group or the next group, depending on, like you said, if it's a special interest group for actor ads or T34s, I'll post it there as well, because there's also experts in that group who can give me some good feedback as well. But it all depends on what you're looking for. Are you looking for feedback or just sharing your work or inspiring other people? There's very technical groups and there's also more generic groups where people are just happy to see a nice model. So it depends what you're looking for.
Mike:Well, we mentioned Tom Choi just a second ago. He's got an interesting question and he's talking about our kids growing up and dating and getting married and what's this got to do with modeling? Well, that part of it, not really anything, but dad's a modeler. Part of it, not really anything, but dad's a modeler and he's kind of curious of the reaction that the kids, or the significant others of these kids, have when they gain knowledge of what their, what their hobby is. Does that make sense?
Kentucky Dave:Yep, your future your son-in-law right the future son-in-law discovers. Right the future son-in-law discovers that that's what your hobby is. Well, in general, you can judge him by how he reacts. Is he suitable for your daughter? If he recognizes a T-34 on the bench, you know your daughter's chosen well.
Evan McCallum:If he's a 72nd skill aircraft modeler he's got your approval right.
Mike:Yeah, that's right. He's marrying Dave, not his daughter.
Kentucky Dave:Automatic steal with approval. You know generally and we've discussed this actually previously my hobby is pretty much. I share it with you all and other modelers In general. It comes up occasionally in public out with the real world. But well, just to give you an example, my oldest daughter has a significant other and he knows about it just because it's been vaguely talked about. And he knows about it just because it's been vaguely talked about. But I don't go into any great detail because I assume most people have little or no interest in it. So I share all that stuff with my modeling buddies and it's kind of sectioned off from the rest of my life.
Mike:Well, evan, do you? Well, I don't have any kids. I thought you were going to say you don't have any friends. I you're gonna say you don't have any friends. I was like well as your friends you don't, but do you have? Do you have friends up there that aren't in the hobby?
Evan McCallum:I sure I assume you do yeah, I mean in high school and everything, there were people who were into warhammer and so on. I'm kind of like uh, dave said I didn't really, I don't really advertise it, but sometimes it comes up in conversation. Well, first of all, people are like you're into modeling, and then they immediately think of fashion modeling and I have to quickly explain no, I'm into scale modeling.
Kentucky Dave:Evan, you can see how somebody would make that mistake, I know, being the fashion plate that you are.
Evan McCallum:Yeah, that's why I have a YouTube channel, not a podcast, right? Exactly? Yeah, we can see you. Yeah, I mean people never really judge me for it, because I think they understand if they're into Warhammer and so on, and I'm still young enough that they can assume that this is just some little kid thing after all.
Kentucky Dave:Right, but it is what it is, I don't know. Never had problems with it. How did the future?
Evan McCallum:in-laws react? Oh, the future father-in-laws. He used to do model trains and I think people appreciate I mean, my fiance is also an artistic person, so they appreciate people of artistic hobbies and yeah, don't really discuss it much, but it's something I do.
Mike:Well, if we have to answer Tom's question or not. But that's kind of mixed reactions. I guess I don't expect any particular reaction. I've gotten a little more public about mine at work and stuff and they all know what I do. But they've all got their own interests and ultimately they'll be polite about it. But do they really care? I don't know. And do I really care? Whether they care or not? Probably not. All right. Well, from the email side of things, that's going to be it. Larry Donovan from New Brighton, minnesota, late to the party response about all the books. Dave Yep, he sent a long list of potential folks who might be interested in this and we'll go ahead and send us to jeff groves.
Kentucky Dave:And, yeah, if there's anything left, maybe some of these folks will like a shot at it before all the stuff gets thrown away I hooked the the man who was helping the, the widow, with this stuff, mr Huber I hooked him up with Ron Young, the head of the Indianapolis IPMS club, and so they were going to get together and he was going to bring club members, and so I don't know what's happened further in that regard, but there was a further rescue mission being organized when last I heard.
Mike:Well, hopefully they got good homes for most of that stuff.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, yep Sounds like a lot. I'm starting to rehome some as well.
Mike:Well, that's it from the email side of things, Dave. What's the DMs been looking like?
Kentucky Dave:Well, we got a lot of DMs Now. A number of them were people expressing their sadness that we weren't going to make it to AMPS and I'm not going to mention each one. But thank you all. We were all looking forward to going, but life intervenes and life intervenes Additionally. Life intervenes Additionally being spring in Kentucky means storms and tornadoes, and it's really kind of nice that every time that happens we get DMs from listeners from around the world who hear about the weather and check in to make sure that neither Mike nor I were affected and luckily neither of us were.
Kentucky Dave:But yeah, some places in Kentucky got hit really badly, mostly to the south of us. But thank all of you for checking in to make sure we're okay. That again, it's just really really nice to know that people care enough to do that. Mike, steve Lee wrote in to let us know that you were a trendsetter, Uh-oh, because you finished a Japanese float plane, and he went to his Delaware IPMS club's monthly meeting and sent me a picture of the finished models that people had brought on the table, and there were two Japanese float planes on catapults.
Mike:And they were some obscure ones too.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, they were Absolutely Stuff. You don't see every day. So he wanted you to know that you're setting the trend. Listener Ron Smith did us a favor and I want to thank him for it and encourage other people to do the same. He was going through the back catalog and he noticed that an episode was missing, and I think it was episode 61. And so he let us know and we kind of figured out what was going on. And anytime with the website where you run into something like that, where you notice anything from a simple misspelling to something's not working right, please reach out and let us know. We appreciate that, because a lot of times we're not going to figure that out unless somebody tells us.
Kentucky Dave:I had a nice conversation with listener Eric Wardlaw. That started out off of our conversation about 3D printing, but Eric is a car modeler and with a particular interest in Mustangs, and so we had a very nice conversation, just a general conversation. It's one of those things that starts off with one simple comment and then goes from there into just a wandering conversation, but it was really nice. And finally, ken Beckler you mentioned him in the email side. He sent me a DM to let me know that I have an opposite effect on him that every time he hears me say that you know, life's too short to build a crappy kit, that he digs out one of the old or challenging kits kit. He mentioned a bunch of A-model kits, all of which are really really rough. So apparently I inspire him in the opposite direction. So as long as he's building, that's great and I'm happy for him. But there's no way I'm building any of those kits.
Evan McCallum:I saw what you bought at Heritage Con. Life makes you too short for you to build crappy kits, but doesn't stop you from buying them, does it?
Kentucky Dave:Okay, I will confess. Yes, you're right, I bought I wouldn't call them crappy kits, I bought some older kits.
Evan McCallum:Was that a French float plane?
Kentucky Dave:Oh yeah that is kind of a crappy float plane. Oh yeah, that is kind of a crappy kit, but I got it. I have an ulterior motive for that, because Mike's going to need that eventually, oh man.
Mike:Well, is that all you got, dave? That's it, mike. Well, folks, if you want to write into the show, you can do so by sending us an email to plasticmodelmojo at gmailcom, or you can direct message us through the Facebook Messenger system. Or in the show notes you can find a feedback web link. You can take that web link and you can leave us a text message, written message or even a voice message if you'd like to. So please check that out.
Kentucky Dave:When you're done listening to this episode, if you would do Mike and I a favor and rate the episode, either through giving us feedback on the website or going to whatever podcasting app you use, and rate the podcast. It helps us grow the visibility of the podcast. Additionally, if you know somebody, a modeling friend, who isn't listening, please recommend us to them. The best way we get new listeners is recommendations from current listeners, so if you would, please go ahead and recommend us and, if they need help, show them how to start subscribing and listening to the podcast.
Mike:In addition to that, please check out the other podcasts out in the model sphere. You can do that by going to wwwmodelpodcastcom. That's model podcast plural. It's a consortium website set up by Stuart Clark at the Scale Model Podcast up in Canada up there where Evan's from. He's aggregated all the banner links to the podcast and the model sphere. You can go there and one-stop shop and have a listen to all of them. He's also got a lot of blog and YouTube friends out in the model sphere. Dave, you mentioned Stephen Lee. Yes, sprupie with Fresh, you're going to want to check out his blog. We've also mentioned Jeff Groves, the Inch High Guy. Another great 72nd Scale blog, chris Wallace, model airplane maker. He's beaten that stealth fighter to death for you man?
Kentucky Dave:Yes, he has.
Mike:Paul Budzik Scale Model Workshop. He dropped a couple of nuggets this week.
Evan McCallum:I was going to mention that, but yeah, and then finally, our guest, evan McCallum Panzerme. I was going to mention that, but I do a little bit of everything, and maybe this year some modern stuff and also occasionally some model railroad weathering content. So a little bit of everything, but I mean painting and weathering is my passion, after all, and I like to share my techniques with everyone, so check it out if you're interested.
Kentucky Dave:When you're done listening to this episode. If you're not a member of the IPMS USA, IPMS Canada, IPMS Mexico or whatever national organization is appropriate for where you live, please consider joining IPMS. The national organization is run by volunteers in your country to help give you a better modeling experience in the country. So if you're not a member, please join. Also, if you are interested in armor or post-1900 figure modeling, please consider joining AMPS, the Armor Modeling and Preservation Society. They just had their national convention in Camp Hill and we are pleased to report that next year's national is going back to South Bend, Indiana. So, though we missed this one, we will be in South Bend again, because Mike and I both had a great time. Consider joining the organization. It's a really fine organization, full of really dedicated modelers who are interested in all aspects of armor and armor modeling.
Mike:Well, I'm not going to promise we're going to be anywhere anymore, but we'll have a word from our sponsor though.
The Voice of Bob (Bair):Plastic Model Mojo is brought to you by Model Paint Solutions, your source for harder and steam back airbrushes, david Union power tools and laboratory grade mixing, measuring and storage tools for use with all your model paints, be they acrylic, enamels or lacquers. Check them out at wwwmodelpaintsolutionscom.
Mike:Well, folks, it's our Shop Talk episode and we got some good topics we're going to get into tonight. And let's get into that Up first. Evan, we want to hear all about Motion 2025. We had a guest, adam Coleman we mentioned before, who was on the show to talk about it last year, but we know you as well and it sounds like you had a great time. So what was it like for you?
Evan McCallum:Oh man, it was amazing. I think it's ruined all other model shows for me because, like people always say this about these fancy european shows like smc and and mojan but this is one of those shows where every single model on the table is an award-winning model and you see all these models like dozens of models you've seen in magazine articles or publicized on in social media. And also this all the people there you also want to meet, because a lot of our esteemed modeling heroes are European. So I mean, how do I even start? I mean, it's a one and a half day show, which I think is something that shows like Heritage Con should also.
Evan McCallum:We've talked about this before, but a lot of big one day shows in north america are kind of crammed in because you're trying to do everything at once yeah I mean this show, like I said, a day and a half long and even then it was hard to see all the models and all the vendors, because it's a it's a big show, top quality work, as I said, and also the vendors, is really something special because, as opposed to north american shows, where you have a lot of people selling, you know their stash, dumping out a bunch of old kits at the cheap prices, which isn't isn't bad, but sometimes that gets a bit kind of boring or samey after a couple years. Right, and also you end up with a lot of hobby stores selling at North American shows. It seems With this show it was mainly the specific manufacturers that are vending. So you have all the big guys like AK and MIG and whatever, the big manufacturers of aftermarket and so on, and even some little scale one-man show, decal, 3d print companies, and you could have filled up like I could have filled up a couple of suitcases with all the good stuff that was there and I could have dropped a lot of money.
Evan McCallum:But I actually had a list. I went onto their website, checked out all the vendors and I made a list of I need to go to this booth pick up this product this booth, pick up this product this booth, talk to this guy this booth, top and. And I think I got everything I wanted. But there was so much good stuff and I bought a lot of crap. Well, not crap, I bought a lot of good stuff, right, but I actually was because I had to fly back. I did not buy any actual kits, I only bought accessories like figures, decals and like resin accessories for kits and mainly like diorama accessories and so on. But there was so much good stuff there it was hard to you know, keep control.
Kentucky Dave:How was the pricing? Was it pretty much all retail or were companies making deals?
Evan McCallum:I think some of them were making deals, especially if you bought a couple of products. It seems like they would often round down to the nearest 10 euro or 5 euro kind of thing. The fact that they're also using different currency makes it hard for me to judge exactly how good the deals are. It didn't seem like there were many super, super good deals. I mean some of those small manufacturers like I bought some shrubs and so on, like handmade shrubs, and those were really cheap because that's just a hobby guy doing that on the side. But with the main companies that were there prices were maybe a little bit below retail. With the main companies that were there, prices were maybe a little bit below retail. But for me the main attraction was I don't have to pay shipping or risk getting nailed by the import duty, taxes, whatever's by a Canada Post or whoever from small scale European companies online. Sometimes it's a bit sketchy because it might not be a good quality, but being able to physically look at, like this HD models or whatever other, like they're 3D prints.
Evan McCallum:You look at that and you can see, okay, it is like no layer lines, the support structure is like minimal cleanup or it's already been cleaned up and it's not bigger than the part. Yeah, and there was a lot of really good stuff and I also had uh, I should mention that I was there with hamilcar barkis, my, my great german youtube modeling buddy. He basically, well, we, we took a like a week and a half long european vacation, me and my fiance and the. The tail end of the the trip was the show. You know, convenient, right, who could have seen that coming? Yeah, but michael actually let.
Evan McCallum:And the tail end of the trip was the Mojan show. You know, convenient, right, who would have seen that coming? But Michael actually let us stay with him for a few days beforehand and showed us around his local area and then he'd already been to the Mojan show. So he guided me around and showed me also a lot of these European companies that he sees at shows often that I don't really know of. And he told me these guys have good stuff, these guys have good stuff, these guys have good stuff. And, oh man, it was so good.
Kentucky Dave:Now the show is put on by the town right.
Evan McCallum:Yes, and it seems like this is the one thing that happens in this town every year.
Evan McCallum:It's a pretty small town. I'm sure they have other stuff going on, but this is obviously a big source of income for the locals because lots of tourists, especially maybe a Western tourist who have a little bit of money to spend, you know, because not to be mean to the Hungarians, but it seems like you know, their currency is a bit in the in the back behind the show, between the display area and the, the vendor area in the parking lot outside, so you could go and buy local paprika and, and they had their food trucks there with their local hungarian cuisine, I would say, you know, like basic lunch, snacks and stuff like that. So it's it's fun to be able to support the local economy and also have some real Hungarian food and stuff like that as an option there instead of McDonald's or whatever. Did they have seminars at the show? I didn't attend them. I believe they had something going on. I met with Tae Sung from Alpine and he was talking about how he was doing something like a demonstration on sculpting figures, and so on.
Kentucky Dave:I have seen his demonstration on sculpting figures. It's amazing.
Evan McCallum:Yeah, he's really talented and he's always fun to meet. I think that was the third time I've met him at a show and he's always a cool guy to hang out with. There were a lot of cool people there. I should have taken more photos with all the people I met. I met plenty of fans, people who I don't know, but they know me.
Evan McCallum:I met people who I've seen in magazine articles so good to meet them and put a face to a name. And I also got to meet some of my modeling heroes, like Radek from Rado Miniatures. He's a very skilled modeler as well. And I got to meet Taesung. I saw you got to meet Night Shift. I did get to meet Night Shift.
Evan McCallum:He uh, apparently some kind of youtube modeler. I've never really seen his work before, but now it was great to meet him and he's a really cool guy. Sometimes you worry about meeting your heroes if they're you know, if they're actually a nice person in real life. But it was really cool to hang out with him for a little bit and chat and just kind of get his experience on how YouTube and Patreon everything are going for him, because he does it full time right and he's serious on it, but it was cool to meet him and his girlfriend there and I also got to meet Lucas from Cold Demons PL, another great YouTube modeling channel that I enjoy watching. So it was cool to meet him and talk to him about his recent book with AK Interactive.
Kentucky Dave:Now did AK and Meg Ammo have a rumble in the middle of the show, in the middle of the vendor's room?
Evan McCallum:It was funny. Their booths were basically in opposite sides of the vendor area. The main vendor area is basically, like, I guess, an indoor sports-sized gym kind of room, indoor sports, yeah, sized gym kind of room. So that was a big room and they were on opposite corners, I guess.
Mike:To you know, keep the distance between the conflicting companies there gotcha well, for for people who are thinking they might like to get adventurous and do something like this did you guys drive from germany?
Evan McCallum:yeah, we drove, we, we, we stayed with Michael and then we drove down about well, it's supposed to be six hours, ended up being about 10 because the highway got shut down.
Kentucky Dave:Did they spill queso or something on the road?
Evan McCallum:No, it kind of felt like the same thing that happened to us in. Was it Arkansas?
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, yeah, that was in Arkansas Hope.
Evan McCallum:Arkansas. It was kind of the same thing, but I think a car was on fire and the highway got shut down for about an hour and a half there.
Kentucky Dave:Oh my.
Evan McCallum:But we actually stayed just on the Austrian border side with essentially the European equivalent of an Airbnb, I guess you'd call it. It was very affordable and I mean we got to. You know, we actually ate dinner on the Austrian side where we could, where Michael could speak German with the waitstaff and everything, which is a little bit more convenient. But this year there was some kind of mad cow disease going on, so the border crossing was a bit tricky between Austria and Hungary every day, but still wasn't too bad. I know people stay at the local paprika I think it's called the Paprika Hotel. It's near the show and apparently that's pretty good and there's like a built in restaurant or bar or something. So when you go on the Mojan show website there's a lot of like information about the town places to stay, places town has, you know, the Blackberry Festival or the Farm Days or whatever.
Kentucky Dave:Every little town has some sort of festival.
Evan McCallum:It's interesting that a town would somehow develop a model contest as their thing because, yeah, I don't know the backstory, but there must be some reason why it's held there. I mean, it is also probably a pretty convenient location for a lot of people from Germany, austria, poland, czechia. That's where a lot of the modeling guys are, and then also you're closer to Asia and so on, so it's a relatively central Eurasian location, I guess you could say. But there must be some reason why it is in that town, but it's a nice town.
Evan McCallum:And I I would really like to go back there, but it's, it's a it's a bit of a trek from Canada. They had like a little pin board you could say where you were from and I think there was only two pins in all of Canada and and people who met me, they were surprised that I had come all the way from Canada. Night Shift thought I was joking when I said I was going to be there, but no, it worked out, basically because Easter weekend was so late this year that I could, you know, pull off a European trip and use less leave from work. But that show was fantastic. I think I'm. Next time I got a chance to go to Europe, I think I'm going to go to SMC just to see how that compares, because I know the posse guys have been to SMC and they are saying it's the best show in the world and people I've spoken with say, yeah, like MoShon and SMC are probably the two top shows.
Evan McCallum:I guess the what's that one in Japan, Shizuyoka I don't know how to pronounce that that's also one of the big shows. I think, compared to SMC, Moshad might have fewer models. The number of models on display was. It wasn't like a blowout. You think with a show like this renowned, there'd be billions of models. But actually the number of models on display wasn't insane. But there was a lot of models on display and it was all top-notch work and it took a while to filter through and and see everything because they are stacked like three models deep on the table and some in some places, like the, the aircraft.
Evan McCallum:They actually had to put more tables behind because you kind of like walk around in a ring a bunch of tables yeah they put more tables behind and put the models further and further back, which is a bit unfortunate, but they do shuffle them around when they do the judging.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I was personally jealous when you got to go to the original Hofbrauhaus in Munich.
Evan McCallum:Oh, we actually didn't go there.
Kentucky Dave:Well, there's a picture of you in front of it.
Evan McCallum:Yes, but it was pandemonium in there. Oh my god. Yes, yeah, I didn't realize like it was that big. We we walked in there and it was, like I said, pandemonium. There's people everywhere, people yelling beer, going out all over the place. The the waitress is caring and myself and my fiance were like, okay, this is a bit overwhelming because, also, this is our first day in munich. We hadn't slept in like 36 hours because we just landed and flew in the night before. We wanted a bit more of a peaceful meal.
Evan McCallum:So we tried to escape the restaurant. We tried to walk through it, I understand, and we walked through and then we realized, okay, we're now in the patio, in the atrium, in the middle of the Hofbrauhaus, which is the same thing, but now open air. We tried to escape that by continuing going straight ahead and now we're in the other half of the Hofbrau house. We have to keep going, it just wouldn't end. They must have seen thousands of people in there. It's gigantic, but it was impressive. So we went across the street to a place called Eyinger, I think, which had really good food. I mean all the food we had in Europe, all the food, all the beer. It was all so good. I don't think we had a single crappy meal, but we actually ate at a serious restaurant every single day. Oh man, I want to go back.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I hear you Next time you can take me.
Evan McCallum:You can come and sit at Gabby, you can be there, you me. You can come and sit at Gappy. You can be. There, you go. You can hold my hand as we go through the restaurants and everything.
Mike:Let me ask one thing You're from Canada, yes, michael's from Germany, yes, but you're in Hungary. Once you're in Hungary, how is navigating that like? Because you know, with this truck project, I'm on and through my military collecting as well that With this truck project, I'm on and through my military collecting as well. That language is not like anything else.
Evan McCallum:Yeah, it seems like Hungarian is an independent language in terms of its origins, so we didn't have any trouble because it seems like everyone at the show is kind of bilingual. The only guy who I had trouble speaking with was the guy at the food truck, but I was able to figure out the word for goulash kielbasa. And then the pickle was tricky. I had to go through cornichon pickle, gherkin. Eventually I figured out what I wanted, what he wanted. Eventually he figured out what I was trying to order.
Evan McCallum:Again, we didn't stay in the town, we stayed on the Austrian side, just over the border there. But I don't know, man, it seems like the people there are able to communicate well. I mean, the show is catering to a wide variety of Europeans and people who speak different languages, so I didn't have any trouble. Yeah, my other point was I thought this was interesting. I'd never seen this before. So, along with the show handing out awards to the best models, there were lots of clubs offering their little awards, their little poker chips, which you see, but they're also putting bottles of beer and liqueur next to models that they really appreciated and I thought this was really cool.
Kentucky Dave:We got to get that tradition started here.
Evan McCallum:I know, what was really cool was I saw this a few times manufacturers were putting their accessories as an award for someone who'd done a really good job with their products on a model.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, that's a great idea.
Evan McCallum:They did a diorama which did really well, was really well done with their figure set. Oh, that's a great idea. That's great. Such a good job with their product. It might be some kind of advertising for their product as well, because you did such a good job. That was really cool. I've never seen that before. That's great. I did see a few figure sets and aftermarket accessories placed next to models where the same products had been used, which I guess because this show also attracts a lot of the manufacturers themselves. They can go see their work on display, which is something really interesting.
Kentucky Dave:That is, that's really interesting.
Evan McCallum:Anything else. Okay, one last point. There was a category. When we started looking at the armor, like we started at one point on the table and we were like, wow, this stuff's really really good, and then we realized this was the junior category. It was like kids, it was like 14 to 17. And the models there were better than the stuff that I than I do.
Evan McCallum:That'll break your heart every time you started and you're like this is so good. And then you look at the category. This is like the 12 category and there were models in there that would place at like North American shows as well, like 12 year old kids or younger doing fantastic work. So this goes to show that you know there is still talent up and coming in this hobby for years to come. That was really cool to see.
Mike:Well, up next, Dave. This is your suggestion Declutter your model life, so get us started. Where are you going with this?
Kentucky Dave:Well, this is kind of again part of the overhang slash reaction to the recent trip up to Indy where the modeler with the fantastic book collection had passed on and his wife was stuck trying to get rid of the stuff. And one of the things and I've taken a bunch from that experience, including that Jeff Inch Highgroves is a really good friend but one of the other things that I've taken from it is the need to organize what you have, the need to go through what you have and if something is extraneous or expendable, do either of you know who Marie Kondo is?
Evan McCallum:Yes, this does not bring joy.
Kentucky Dave:This does not bring joy Every 72nd scale aircraft model that's right.
Kentucky Dave:Marie Kondo is a Japanese lady who has. She was very popular a number of years ago for having people go through their entire house and declutter and get rid of things, and the classic phrase from her particular philosophy was you hold an item and if it does not bring you joy, then you get rid of it. And it's not exactly that, but part of it's organizing my model bench. I've been talking about it for months now and it is still nearly the mess that it was. When I started talking was when I started talking, and organization is a big part of decluttering your life, because if you use a tool and you put it back where it belongs, then when you go to use it again you don't spend 15 minutes looking all over your bench for it.
Kentucky Dave:But I'm a pack rat and I'm a librarian at heart, and so I have a lot of books.
Kentucky Dave:But and now I have a lot more books but I am going through the books, as well as all the accessories that I bought over the years and some kids, and trying to decide does this bring me modeling joy? Is this something I can see myself actually doing and doing sometime soon? And putting stuff, making a place for everything and putting it in its place to make the modeling experience much more pleasant for me and one day, when I shake off this mortal coil, hopefully not to leave my spouse with a problem because you've just died a problem because you've just died Well, my spouse might be happy, but most spouses won't be happy that you've died. The last thing they need is the additional burden of having to deal with a completely and utterly unorganized space, and you got to have a plan to to have stuff done with your stuff. Of course, my plan is to ship everything to evan, yeah, but but pass the burden on exactly it's a big truck and you're going to get a big bill from canada post or customs.
Kentucky Dave:But but seriously, if the stuff is all disorganized and everywhere, that just makes the job for whoever does it your spouse, the modeling friend, you certain joy in sending something off to its new home. I just recently posted a couple of books on the dojo that somebody was interested in and I packed them up and shipped them off and sent them. Sent them, and you know it actually was. It felt kind of good knowing that those items were going to somebody who wanted and would appreciate them. Now, mike, I know you've talked about your modeling area in the basement and the associated storage area that had a lot of Christmas stuff in it and you've got plans to completely redo your modeling space.
Mike:Yeah, it's slow rolling though.
Kentucky Dave:So what's the motivation behind it?
Mike:The details of the space will come up in their final topic. But just, I need more room because what I've got back there is starting to well. It's getting double stacked because there's so much stuff back there that it's not fitting on the shelves that it's intended to sit on in any kind of organized fashion, and once stuff gets double stacked, you lose all control of what you have.
Mike:Yeah, and I'll be interested to hear what Evan's got to say about just the general buying stuff. I know, evan, when I was your age and doing my job and you're a little ahead of me because you've got a fiancé already but when I was tearing it up in the single life I was buying just whatever I wanted and I accumulated a bunch of stuff and then I've spent a bunch of time getting rid of a lot of it and now I'm kind of went through another accumulation, but of late I've kind of stopped buying so much stuff I don't know. Back to Dave's point. The motivation is just to get the storage somewhere where it makes sense, because if it makes sense then I can actually look at it and say, oh well, I probably don't need all these and I'll probably never get to that. But right now there's stuff I can't even see. It's all hidden so it's out of sight, out of mind, and I've got aftermarket that's older than Evan back there. It's never going to get built.
Kentucky Dave:The problem with that stuff is nobody else is going to want it so exactly, and it's that's the hardest thing for me is actually throwing away either a kit or an aftermarket accessory that now has been superseded so badly that you couldn't find anybody who wants it and just throw.
Mike:Throwing it in a garbage can physically hurts me it makes you wonder if you should just be at the model show and look at the aftermarket, then whip out the 30 bucks and just set it on fire. Yes, I mean, and just yeah. Okay, I don't have the 30 bucks and I don't have that either, cause it's not going to be worth anything by the time I ever get around to it. But uh, evan, I know, on the book front, not a big book accumulator.
Evan McCallum:Well, yeah, I've got. I've got a number of modeling books, but I've got one shelf on a bookshelf of modeling books, not one room of modeling books, like kentucky dave, yes I keep my my book collection refined to my my core interests and I focus on the good stuff.
Evan McCallum:I've got a lot of panzer tracks in the past couple years which are very useful because I'm kind of like a self-rivet counter I really want to like. I enjoy the process of solving the puzzle and correcting the accuracy issues of a kit. I enjoy that part of my own builds which is not for everyone but I like that. So I like these super technical books. So when I'm building something I will. I'll find some books, but I don't collect a lot of books and I'm trying not to collect a lot of kits because I have the benefit of being able to look up to all my older modeling buddies and see the nightmare of having like 10 000 kits yeah and I don't want to.
Evan McCallum:I don't want that to happen to me. So I'm trying to be reasonable in my purchases and I'm honestly. I mean there's only so much you can do, but but probably for every three kits I buy I actually finish one of them within a couple of years. So it does accumulate, but I'm trying to be serious. Usually what I do is I think of projects I want to do and then I go buy the kit. I don't buy kits that I don't have a serious project in mind for, because that thing will then never get built. Now I still have more projects than I can actually do, but I try to keep things logical. I will hopefully actually build this and have a plan for it.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I've got a plan for every model I've ever bought. Evan, you live unlike Mike and I. You live in an apartment. Yes, evan, you live unlike Mike and I. You live in an apartment, yes. And so Mike and I have modeling rooms and I've actually got rooms plural if you take into account where the books are stored and the models are stored and all. What challenges does having an apartment-style space present and what do you do to adapt to it?
Evan McCallum:Well, I've got a room dedicated. It's a small bedroom but I can put my workbench here. I guess we're kind of encroaching on the next topic right as we discuss room configurations here, but I kind of like what Mike was saying. I do suffer from having little storage space for the stash. I've been very recently I've actually I think I talked about this last time I was on but for the past couple of years I've been, I've been using scale mates to organize and keep track of everything I own track of everything I own.
Evan McCallum:So on my scale mates account I have like every single piece of after market and kit organized and I also cataloged them. Like I bought this after market to go with this kit for this project and I put my reference photos also there as well because otherwise I'm going to forget. And, kind of like I said before, I don't want to be the guy who I've seen at a show who buys the kit and then goes home and then they're like oh, I forgot, I already had two more of this kit in the. And kind of, like I said before, I don't want to be the guy who I've seen at a show who buys the kit and then goes home and then they're like oh, I forgot, I already had two more of this kit in the stash somewhere. I don't want to be that guy, so I keep track of what I've already bought.
Evan McCallum:Like Mike was saying, I'm at the point where my model's storage pile, which is a closet, is too deep, physically two stacks deep. So there's kits in the back there that I kind of that like they're out of sight, out of mind, even though they're in my scalemaze catalog. I kind of forget that I've got that kit because it's not visually in my you know right, I don't see it every day when I go in here and then I kind of forget about that and I worry that I've got projects I am looking forward to doing and I'm just going to forget about them or lose interest. So I guess we'll talk more about this in the next point, but I've got plans for what I want my future model room to look like.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I want to hear those plans. So, mike, let's cover that next topic.
Mike:Well, this last topic comes from Steve Anderson's A Guided Journal for Modelers, and is what would your ideal bench or workspace look like?
Evan McCallum:Evan, we'll let you go first, since it's hot on your mind. I'm sure some of you have seen that Facebook meme where it's like my ideal house and it shows like the floor plan, where 90% of it's like a 12-car garage. Right, right, like I'm. As someone who's currently planning on buying their first house, to be a homeowner, a model room is like up on my priority list along with having a nice kitchen and so on, because this is a serious thing and I want to make sure I stay organized with everything. So there are things that I want to be able to have in my room Like.
Evan McCallum:My current setup is not bad. I've got a lot of table space, but the issue is I can't have my laptop set up and my airbrush booth at the same time. So I want my future room to have a workbench for building. I also want a separate. I guess I'm going to have to buy the big spray booth you have, dave, because the silo Peacemaker yeah, I need that because I need a separate, dedicated airbrushing area.
Evan McCallum:It could be directly next to the workbench, but right now I've got like one space and if I need to airbrush something, I have to kind of put away what I'm also building at the moment and then I'm starting to like mix paint and and glues and I feel like things are going to get lost like small parts or and it's just a bit of a mess. I also don't want to be spraying like airbrushing in the same spot where I'm building, because there's lots of sanding dust all over the place and I worry that's getting blown up into the paint and contributing to bad surface finish. And a third thing I want now this could be shared with the airbrush booth for ventilation concerns. But I also want a spot where I can actually set up a 3d printer, because I have a 3d printer. I've had it for probably close to three years now and I've never even cracked the box, because I don't have it.
Kentucky Dave:It's probably obsolete.
Evan McCallum:Now I was going to say I just don't have somewhere to put it, Like, where would I put it right now? It would have to go in the kitchen, but it's going to poison us because you need ventilation and the only ventilation I have right now is my spray booth and that's not really going to cut it for a printer.
Kentucky Dave:Well, Evan, you mentioned that you have a bedroom in your apartment dedicated as your modeling room. Yes, now, when you go by the house, the physical space of this little bedroom is X feet by X feet. What do you envision would be an ideal space size-wise? How much bigger would this one room need to be to meet your needs?
Evan McCallum:This bedroom is probably I think it's 14 feet by 10 feet 9 feet. It's not small, but the issue is I also have a model railroad shelf layout taking up about 30% of this room, gotcha. So unfortunately, the basement will have to be sacrificed to the model railroad. It's a small price to pay, right? I don't know.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Evan McCallum:And then I think if I didn't have the model railroad in here, this room would be definitely big enough for a workbench, like for a model room, but that is an issue. A model railroad ain't small and it takes up space. So I do want to have, like, the model railroad will be a long part of the basement and then I'm going to have to try to set up a man cave somewhere adjacent to that. But my my current work bench like physically that I have the ikea bench it's probably about the same size of the one that you have, dave, and it's enough for building. But the fact is it's also where I have my computer set up and, optionally, my airbrush booth and it's not big enough for those three Gotcha, yeah. So those three things I need I need a workspace for building, painting and 3D printing and I also need a better storage solution for my kit. So they can all be visible. Probably a lot of Ikea shelves.
Kentucky Dave:I don't know Well, mike. So I mean, I've seen your modeling space. What do you envision doing to it? That's going to change it?
Mike:I just need to keep executing the plan. It's like 15 years in the making now. Just other stuff is just always taking priority. A lot of what I have down here now is what to call it permanently temporary.
Evan McCallum:Yes, that's where we're all at, isn't it?
Mike:My spray booth is vented to the outside through the egress window. In the window, well to the basement. It's sitting on a surplus kitchen cabinet. It's too low, it needs to be higher. I'd rather it be ported through the wall at the floor joists above the ceiling instead of going out the window the way I've got it now. I've got a wooden panel in one of the window sides. A little natural light comes down here during the daytime, but if I could fix that I would double it. I've got about 12 to 14 running feet of cabinetry.
Mike:I want to put down here and I've talked about it before it could be a mix of drawer and base cabinets and then drawer banks, and all the drawers need to be shallow, no deeper than six inches, like I did in my other shop. I don't like deep drawers in a workshop because stuff gets lost. They get filled up with crap. You can't really organize deep drawers. The thing I've got going right now in my head is my bookshelf is just. It's overloaded, it's completely full. It's got five shelves and counting the one on top, the very top of it, it's six and it is completely full. So Evan mentions Ikea. I want to take three or four of their smaller bookcases that are. You know they're only like they're less than four feet tall right, and then build a horseshoe out of those and put a countertop on it. So all around the perimeter of this thing on three sides is bookshelves and then I've got a work surface where I can move all my power tools and the 3D print stuff there. And then there'll be a knee nook on the fourth side where you can actually sit at it and do work. So it'll be more counter space.
Mike:The running cabinets will have a countertop on those and that's an artifact of my old workshop at the old house. I love that setup I had there. I wish I still had it, hopefully soon. And then my primary workbench is a bench my grandfather made and that's always going to be my primary bench and it's a pretty big space. I like it a lot. It's just ideally. I don't want space serving multiple tasks. The build bench is for building.
Mike:Wherever my computer is, it's only for the computer. Wherever the power tools computer is, is only for the computer. Wherever the power tools are, that's only for the power tools. And then the other countertop space is just going to be for whatever's left. Everything will have a spot and I won't have to move one thing to do something else. That's really the situation I ideally want to avoid in my workshop. Where's your 3D printer set up? Right now it's sitting on top of my wife's grandmother's sewing machine cabinet. That's another thing I wish we had a better place to put. Maybe when the last kid goes to college it can go upstairs, but right now it's sitting on there, along with the alcohol wash station, just sitting in the middle of the room.
Evan McCallum:Now, what you just said reminded me I've talked with my fiance about this as well when we have our future house, whatever in my workbench area, I also want a fourth surface which is going to be like I want just like a wheeled wooden table, almost like an actual like woodworking workbench in the middle of the room, and it's going to be for like, if I need to cut wood or work on like diorama, like the actual messy stuff like with, with, uh, like spraying glues and stuff like that, like yeah, like I said, cutting wood and doing diorama stuff is is messy and I don't like doing that on my workbench because you're you know you're working with like dirt and foliage and stuff like that.
Evan McCallum:I want to keep that separate from my model building because it just seems like it's making it extra filthy and it's also because I think everyone has this, where you have a table in the house that just becomes the messy everything table. Yeah, I think everyone has that and I want a table that's planned ahead to be this table and it could be in the workshop area. I understand that, but you kind of need that mess table, like you have a mess chair, like the laundry chair. I want that table as well.
Kentucky Dave:Dave, I'll tell you, my modeling room is ideal if it were properly organized. I've got plenty of space. I do need to organize it better so that I don't have to move some things to do other things, like Evan was mentioning, do other things, like Evan was mentioning, but I'm actually I'm happy with the space. I do need to organize it and I need to clear some of the books out of it and move those into the pool room. That's table pool, not the pool outside. A lot of what I need is just making it more. You've heard the term ergonomic and I need to make my modeling area more ergonomic, but I have plenty of physical space. I don't need any more physical space. I just need to use the space much more efficiently.
Evan McCallum:I'm not sure about that I mean we're all working towards the same place here, where we all think, if we have the ideal workspace where everything's organized, it's going to make our lives easier. But is that actually going to happen, or is the mess just going to expand to match the workspace?
Kentucky Dave:I think that's what's going to happen, and so, yes, if I had double the space, there would be double the mess, and that's not good, and that is something that is a flaw in my personality that if you gave me a choice to fix one thing about me, that would be the thing that I would fix.
Evan McCallum:Yeah, because I started on the kitchen table like we all did, you know, spilling glue and paint on the dinner table. Yeah, like I had much less space and now I've got a table that is kind of like what Mike said, probably 14 feet long, it wraps around the corner, 14 feet long, two feet deep, and I feel like I still just have one square foot of clear bench space in the end of the day, right.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's right. I'm always modeling on a space that is no more than eight and a half by 11 inches, the size of a standard piece of copy paper.
Mike:Well, I think I'd do a little better than that. I think for me, the cabinetry and stuff lets me unpack a lot of stuff I've had packed up for years and I know where stuff is. The organization side of it is really valuable for that for me and I just need to get going on it. I've got so much stuff that's still packed in boxes from when we moved into this house years ago. I've just deferred this and deferred this and hopefully I'm at a point now that the season is going to be not too far away where I can finish this out and get back to the space I used to have at the old house.
Evan McCallum:When I buy my house. I guess I might make a YouTube video series on building my man cave and setting it up and doing things like lighting and organization, because that I guess is interesting and everyone else who has a good opinion. They can give me feedback in the comments about how they would recommend doing it. But I mean Chris Wallace. Just he recently was doing his basement. You know he put in the ventilation for a spray booth and everything right. So we all have dreams about our man cave. I guess me being in the position to buy a house and being young. But I'm going to try to do it properly.
Kentucky Dave:The one piece of advice I will give you in that regard, evan, is take your time and build the space out correctly the first time, because once you get in it, it becomes exponentially harder to redo it.
Evan McCallum:Yes, because the mess will fill the space and I can't move anything if I've got 12 projects across the table.
Kentucky Dave:Exactly.
The Voice of Bob (Bair):Bases by Bill is back with quality display bases that enhance any model, From US and Japanese wooden carrier decks to custom-sized cherry hardwood bases. Bases by Bill display bases are available for any type of model and for any size. Oh and have you heard? Bases by Bill is now a US reseller for one-man army high-definition paint masks. These masks bring amazing detail to your model, even maintenance stencils. They have to be seen to be believed, and all one-man army products include free shipping. Check basesbybillcom to see the products Bases by Bill for all your model display needs.
Mike:We've talked about our benches. Have we got anything on them?
Kentucky Dave:Well, let me start first because mine's going to go very quickly. In the last two weeks I have done a little bit of work on the landing gear, on the F8F batch build build. I've also masked the canopies for the Bearcats using the really great kit mask masks. I got to tell you this was actually my first time using the kit mask products and boy, they are really well designed, really well designed, and that's about it. I've got a lot of things that need to happen and I have just not made the time to make them happen because it is a flaw in me and I'm not making the time that I should make. So that's me.
Mike:Well, Evan was squawking about not finishing anything earlier.
Kentucky Dave:Yes. Evan but he's got an excuse he's an world international traveler and man of mystery.
Evan McCallum:I've had trouble finding time to finish kits since the holidays, the new year and when I was originally planning on going to Am amps. I was excited to finish a bunch of things for amps but that wasn't going to happen. Then, of course, I had to cancel my attendance at amps kind of last minute as well, but I guess it's good. I didn't rush anything because I have a lot of projects that I'm working on and I want to do them right. And and having been to all these shows in the past couple of years, you know I've been inspired and I do want to start making vignettes and adding figures to my builds, because that always makes everything look more impressive in terms of the presentation and storytelling. So essentially, everything I'm working on now has a base to go with it, which could slow things down even more, has a base to go with it, which could slow things down even more.
Kentucky Dave:Well, what project are you inspired? By?
Evan McCallum:What one are you hot to get to? Well, I've been working on, for about two years now, a diorama with a Jagdpanzer IV and a SDKFZ-250-9, the small half-track with the two-centimeter autocannon turret from the SDKFZ250-9, the small half track with the two centimeter auto cannon turret from the SDKFZ222. And that was like my first project where I was going to do a proper base and a bunch of figures, and of course it's taken two years for me to actually try to get it done, because it's intimidating doing all that new stuff and trying to paint figures correctly, because it's also the first time I'm looking at doing actual resin figures, not plastic figures which are, you know, a step down from resin yeah I'm at the point now where the vehicles are built and painted and essentially weathered as far as you can go.
Evan McCallum:I left off the like the, the bulk of the mud effects, because I want to do that as I do the base.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Evan McCallum:But I'm at the point now where I have to set the scene, like physically set how the diorama is going to be laid, and that's what's hanging me up because I've never done that before up because I've never done that before, and there are pros out there who do these fantastic, you know, like champagne or like that kind of style, where it's it's a vignette or a diorama, that is a true storyteller.
Evan McCallum:And I'm just like, how do I do that? Yeah, I guess this is like when people watch my weathering tutorials and say, like, how do you just do that? Like there's there's sometimes there's a bit of like, like a, like a built-in talent or some kind of ability you have which helps you take the next step in terms of doing a certain technique and and I don't seem to have the how to lay out the diorama, how to visualize how all the pieces are going to go together, and so I'm looking to speak with some of the the guys who are really good at that, like I'm going to try to speak with Rick Lawler about setting up that scene, because I'll spoil it here. I basically have the half track and the Jagdpanzer 4 from the Windhund unit, which is like, I think, around Aachen 1944 where they had those dragon's teeth you know there's famous scenes of like the panthers and so on driving through and also, like the US, obviously bulldozing dirt over those dragon's teeth.
Evan McCallum:So I have, like that unit was in a spot where those dragon's teeth were. I have the vehicles, the figures and I have a residence of those dragon teeth from Diodump and I just need to figure out how I'm going to arrange those vehicles with those dragon's teeth to make a cool scene. But I'm kind of stuck there and I've got a few other things going.
Evan McCallum:As you might have learned, I've recently developed an interest in Chinese vehicles because they're a little bit different, they're all a little bit unique. So I've actually built three Chinese vehicles in the past year and one of them is like a super lightweight airborne IFV I guess you'd call that, and I also have a cool vignette plan for that where it's coming down a steep embankment because they kind of use these things up in the, I guess like the Kashmir, where there's currently some conflict between India and Pakistan. China's also the third party in there and there's border skirmishes there and some of these vehicles are used there. So I have another vignette plan for that, where it's coming down a steep embankment and I got to start doing the groundwork on that one too.
Mike:Got a lot going on. Yeah, glad somebody does so, mike. Still, a lot of mine's been on 3D CAD modeling. I've started adding some more bits to the KV-85. Not a lot, though. I'm just working my way from the front to the back and putting this stuff on. I still have this issue with the intake screens I haven't completely resolved so historically, a problem like that's been kind of a showstopper until I find a solution for it. I know the solution. I just got to order more material samples and find the right one. I need to do that with the way I want to do it. But I've got them picked out. They're in my cart on eBay, just haven't pulled the trigger yet. Not much work on the Flak Panzer and I'm telling you I'm getting the itch to start another airplane. So I got to get something done before I do that.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, Now, this airplane isn't going to take four years, right? No it shouldn't.
Mike:Okay, good, we'll see what it takes.
Evan McCallum:The last one was an award-winning aircraft.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, that's true. I was not denigrating the quality of it.
Mike:Yeah, it came out okay.
Kentucky Dave:It came out great.
Mike:We'll see what the next one is. Yeah, it came out. Okay, it came out very nice. We'll see what the next one is.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's right.
Mike:Yeah, we'll see what the next one is. I don't know yet.
The Voice of Bob (Bair):Classic Model Mojo is brought to you by Squadron. Head on over to squadroncom for the latest in kits and accessories, all at a great price and with great service. Are you a modeler on the go? Check out the Squadron mobile app for your Apple or Android device for easy shopping from just about anywhere. Squadron adding to the stash since 1968.
Kentucky Dave:Gentlemen, stuff continues to be announced for release and again, we live in the best modeling times, the golden age. So tell me a favor, or yawn that you've got Evan.
Evan McCallum:Well, this weekend was the big show in Japan. I tried to pronounce it before.
Kentucky Dave:Shizuoka, or whatever.
Evan McCallum:Sorry, I can't pronounce that. And I and I saw Hobby Japan announce an S tank. What's it? Strutswagen 103. Yep, and I'm sure it's no surprise that I'm interested in these turretless, sneaky tank kind of vehicles, as I like the Sturmgeschütz, my favorite tank. So this kit, I think, was announced actually, or initially teased more than a year ago, but finally we see it in the plastic and hopefully we see it in production soon, because I do like that vehicle. I think the trumpeter kit that exists is a bit long in the tooth. Not bad, but a new kit from Hobby Japan, who apparently does a very good job. I've never built one of their kits, but I think that'll be a welcome addition to the market.
Mike:Mike, I don't know I've got a fave this time. Okay, I'll take a yawn. The yawn for me and it's probably a fave for a lot of people. I guess AK's doing that Chevy pickup truck in 35th scale. Oh, I saw that. Yeah, a lot of use for that. But man, that's like the most unsexy thing ever.
Kentucky Dave:It is unsexy, but it will be incredibly useful for mob.
Mike:It will be, we'll see, it's just not for me.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I understand, it's a Chevy pickup truck, you know.
Mike:And keep going on the yawn theme and theme and having to step on your toes here. I don't know Cause we talk. We were joking about this on the on the message board, but model collect is pumping out some really ridiculous Japanese paper. Oh, super heavy tank destroyers.
Evan McCallum:I was disappointed when I saw that that's ridiculous there's.
Mike:There's plenty of good stuff to still do out there, man yeah yeah, what about you, dave?
Kentucky Dave:well, the one that caught my eye, and I have no idea about this company or their quality. I've never heard of them. A company called AMC slash, amt France announced a Tachikawa KI-74 in 72nd scale. Now, this thing has never been kitted before. I think there might have been a very rare resin or vacuform, but there'd never been a kit of it. It's a twin engine Japanese fast bomber recon heavy fighter. They only built 16 of them, but the Americans were aware of them enough that they assigned them the code name Pat or Patsy, and it's just a really cool looking aircraft. It's very, very sleek, very aerodynamic and it would make a great addition to a Japanese collection. So if anybody knows anything about this company, please reach out and let me know, because I got to say I'm interested.
Mike:Anything else.
Evan McCallum:I've got a fave, I've got a fave based on the last episode, the recently announced Resin Tech Models KV4.
Mike:Yeah, I saw that they posted that to the dojo. I was glad to see them do that. It's another obscure one that I don't know it's for me, but I'm going to send him some product suggestions because that thing looks phenomenal.
Evan McCallum:Yes, and for me, I'm with you there where it's something I appreciate. But I'm so close to ordering one of those because it's very cool. But first of all, I've already got like three other KV1 projects and KV2 projects I want to do. I've already bought the kits and aftermarket for. And second of all, I think Jan, the guy who does the designs like he's the guy behind the company I think he did the right thing in designing the kit such that all the welds are not there. There's just the gaps for you to do your own welds, the putty snakes and worms that you push in there and then texture with the night shift technique and so on. But I can't do those welds good enough to do it justice. I am not good enough with the welds.
Kentucky Dave:I think you could do it I could, but you know what steve husted says about practice just I don't want to practice on that thing. It's expensive and beautiful you practice on on a piece of strip or styrene that you've carved channels in yeah, no, I could, but I am so close to doing ordering that thing.
Evan McCallum:But I wouldn't do it justice. There's going to be people out there who do a great job with that thing and I'll just appreciate it through them.
Mike:Yeah, I appreciate his design skill. There's a couple of things I'd like to see him possibly tackle that are a little bit more mainstream but vacant in the market.
Evan McCallum:Dave got anything else, nope that's it All right, Hold on. Hold on, Dave. You don't have a fave for the recently announced 135th scale Border model P-51 and SBD Dauntless.
Kentucky Dave:No, I don't. I mean, I don't begrudge anybody having those, building them whatever, just zero interest from me.
Evan McCallum:I'm surprised Border is sticking with their 135th scale aircraft. They're trying to make it a thing, but I don't know if it's going to work out.
Mike:They're all in now, man.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, they are. Gentlemen, we are almost at the end of the episode and I'm happy to report I'm at the end of my beer garden blonde from Braumeister Brewing Company out of Carlton Place, Ontario, Canada, supplied by our guest. He gave me this at Heritage Con in exchange for cheese 5% alcohol by volume, very low IBU, meaning it's not bitter, it's not hoppy, it's a very middle-of-the-road type beer. It's something that you would drink. It's kind of light. You would drink it with a dinner, you could drink it out by the pool in the summer. It would be refreshing. Maybe not as refreshing as something with a little more citrus to it, but pretty darn good Canadian beer, I got to say.
Evan McCallum:Yeah, I agree with you. When I tried that, I thought it was I guess this word might be a bit mean, but a bit unremarkable. It was perfectly acceptable, but it wasn't standout. It wasn't something special, but it was perfectly acceptable for a good quality beer.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, it doesn't have a lot of personality.
Evan McCallum:That's a good way to put it.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, so how about you Evan?
Evan McCallum:My Juice Box Hazy IPA by Sons of Kent. It is clear that it is 6.9% ABV because you can actually like it's one of those beers where it's a bit boozy. You can actually taste that aspect of it, but I don't mind. The flavor is good. As I initially suspected, it's more of that citrusy hop. It comes more across as the orange citrus. Sometimes it leans more towards a grapefruit with the hops, which I also like, and I had one recently which was called, interestingly, the Hoppenheimer, which came across as banana with the hops, which was very interesting. I'd never seen that before. But this, like I said, this juice box hazy IPA If you're into these kind of citrusy IPAs, this is very nice but a bit boozy.
Kentucky Dave:Now I almost don't have to ask Mike, because I know Bullet was. It might not have been Russell's reserve, which he's been spoiling himself with, but I'm betting that it did okay.
Mike:It did okay, and you took the words out of my mouth, dave words out of my mouth, dave.
Kentucky Dave:We are truly at the end of the episode and the only thing left is shout-outs. I'll start, if you all don't mind. I want to shout out the upcoming IPMS USA National Convention in Hampton, virginia, and the awards packages, the sponsorship for the awards packages, have gone on sale and it's important in any convention for the majority of the awards, if not all of the awards, to have a sponsor that pays for that set of awards for a particular category. They are looking for sponsors to step up. So if your club or your Facebook group wants to sponsor an award or a category, please reach out to the folks at the National Convention, go to the National Convention website and email them and they'll set you up with an award sponsorship. Evan.
Evan McCallum:My shout-out it'll go to Mr Hamilcar Barcus, who I think I shout out every time I'm on here for various reasons. Understandable this time, yes, understandable, because he was kind enough to host myself and my fiancé for part of our European trip and then take us to the Mojan show and show us around and really made the vacation special. When you've got a local guide it makes everything go smoothly. So that is very much appreciated, that's for sure.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Evan McCallum:And, of course, he is a fantastic YouTube scale modeler. I really enjoyed my pilgrimage to his workbench and seeing his projects that I've been watching on YouTube for like 14 years at this point and it was really cool to see everything in person. It was also inspiring towards my goal of building more vignettes with figures and everything with my armor subjects.
Kentucky Dave:Well, and having met him at Madison, he's a really great guy. He is a very nice fellow, you can't complain, mike.
Mike:Well, as always, dave, I'm going to shout out all the folks who have chosen to contribute to Plastic Model Mojo through their generosity. We've set up several avenues for folks to be able to do that Mojo. Through their generosity, we've set up several avenues for folks to be able to do that. You can find them all on the support the show link on the website, wwwplasticmodelmojocom, and you can find them in the show notes to every episode as well. Folks, it's a big help to help us cover our production expenses and we really appreciate it very much. So thanks for that.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, I'd like to second that.
Mike:Any more. Shout outs, guys, that's it. That's it Well, evan. Thanks for joining us again. Thank you for having me on. We appreciate your insight and we'll get you on a little quicker than a year and change next time.
Kentucky Dave:Right, we got to do this more than once a year.
Mike:And I hope we see you before HeritageCon next year, but I don't know if we will or not.
Evan McCallum:Maybe We'll see the guys were trying to get me to that. Was it Amps in Atlanta in February?
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, oh, that's a good show.
Evan McCallum:That's tempting.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, Well, you know you pass right through. You could fly into Louisville and we could drive you down.
Mike:All right guys All right. All right, all right guys, all right.
