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
Shop Talk with Mike and Kentucky Dave: Episode 142
What truly makes this hobby special? Is it the kits, the techniques, or something deeper? Today we explore how the human connections in scale modeling often become more meaningful than the models themselves. Kentucky Dave shares touching stories about celebrating a fellow modeler's retirement and another's first home purchase—reminders that our "model sphere" extends far beyond the workbench.
We dive into a thought-provoking discussion about modeling legacies after helping liquidate a deceased modeler's extensive collection. This sobering experience prompts us to consider: what happens to all our carefully accumulated kits, books, and supplies when we're gone? Many modelers face the reality of needing to "thin their stash" not just for space, but as an act of consideration for those who might inherit our collections.
Listener mail brings fascinating questions about AI-generated 3D printable figures, naval catapults, and whether competition is necessary to be recognized as a skilled modeler. We tackle these queries with honest perspectives gained from years in the community—acknowledging that contests motivate some builders while others find fulfillment simply in the creative process itself.
Our Shop Talk segment focuses on plans for skill improvement, from mastering the zen-like flow of efficient decaling to challenging ourselves with entirely new modeling subjects. We also share our candid thoughts on frustrating model companies that should know better (looking at you, Hasegawa and Bronco) before closing with exciting new kit announcements that have us eager to clear space in our already overflowing stashes.
Whether you're just starting your modeling journey or have decades at the bench, this episode reminds us that beneath the plastic and paint lies the true value of our hobby—the community we build together. Subscribe now and join our conversation about what makes modeling matter beyond the models themselves.
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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:Well, welcome back Mojovi to episode 142, kentucky. Dave, how you doing, man?
Kentucky Dave:I'm doing good. Summer's in full swing and I'd be ungrateful if I was complaining about anything.
Mike:Well, what's up in your model sphere?
Kentucky Dave:You know what I want to talk about a little something different for the model sphere.
Mike:Ah good, Keep the variety up here, man.
Kentucky Dave:Exactly Normally we talk about the model sphere. Ah good, keep the variety up here, man. Exactly Normally we talk about the model sphere. We talk about whatever modeling-adjacent stuff going on in our lives or complain about how we're not getting enough time, or something like that. But in the last couple of weeks have been a couple of events in the lives of modelers that we know, of events in the lives of modelers that we know, and it's been nice to go through it or celebrate with them these milestones in their lives. In one instance that I posted about on the dojo, dr Terry Hill, who was the founder of the Military Modelers Club here in Louisville, the good doctor.
Kentucky Dave:The good doctor, chiropractor for more years than I think possible to count, retired and he had a retirement party at his office and I was able to go and attend, and many other folks from the modeling club were also there at the party. Oh good, it was really nice to celebrate his retirement, celebrate what he meant to all of his patients, to all of his patients. He's a top-notch chiropractor, really, really a person who did a lot of good in his community. However, he is also the beating heart and soul of the modeling community here in Louisville. He founded the Military Modelers Club in 1976. He was the president for many, many years. He also helped run the show and make it the success that it is today, every year, and we think of the model sphere as something that's closely model-related. That's closely model-related, whereas I think that's probably too narrow a view that our model sphere, in many ways the best parts of it, are the people and the people we connect with. Sure, we all have modeling as a common interest, but it's the friendships. All have modeling as a common interest, but it's the friendships.
Kentucky Dave:And not only was this driven home to me by Terry's retirement, but another modeling friend of ours that will remain nameless for the moment because I haven't asked permission recently went through the experience of buying their first home and it was really kind of nice to experience the excitement that they were experiencing in buying their first home and all the worry that comes with it. Of course, you and I've owned numerous homes in our lifetimes and so you kind of forget the magic that comes with that first big purchase and it was kind of nice to vicariously experience that excitement. And so my model sphere has been really good, not because of the books I read, not because of the new models I acquired or not because of anything directly model-related, but because good modeling friends were experiencing significant events in their life and I got to share it with them. And you know what? It was wonderful, and I know that sounds a little corny and weird and all of that, but it really was great. And so my model sphere was fantastic.
Mike:Ah, good job, Good job. How about yours state? Ah good job, good job, how about yours? Uh, back to the bench and pod production since returning from vacation.
Kentucky Dave:vacation was nice I was gonna say how was florida? It looked like you were. You were catching some fish we did.
Mike:I don't know if I told you, maybe a little bit, but yeah, we went down to keys and did some fishing and snorkeling, kayaking in the mangroves, all that stuff you can do down there. And yeah, fishing was good. I love saltwater fishing. The highlight was actually seeing a 13 to 14 foot tiger shark in the wild oh wow, I've told a few folks this already. I was sure glad that was on the day we were in a chartered fishing boat, not that they were in the water snorkeling yeah, absolutely yeah, that's a lot of fish man.
Mike:Done it, done it. Yeah, even our guide was quite impressed. He's like I hadn't seen one that big out here in ages, so pretty cool that's cool. It's one of those things you're not going to experience on the regular unless you live down there, no, and do a lot of diving and stuff or chum the waters to make them yeah, exactly well, the model sphere.
Mike:The model sphere has been about the only thing going my way lately, save family milestones and vacations. Um, I got a lot of irons in the fire, dave. Yeah Well, we both do, we do. I got to divvy out the work and give you a little. Well, we've been reaching out to some folks to propose a few things and we've been hearing from about as many coming out of the way with some great suggestions and we're working all those avenues and things are really lining up for the show to finish the year out pretty strong and I'm I'm pretty excited about it. So that's the model sphere, man.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, and stay tuned, folks. You're going to see lots of changes and additions coming up, if Mike and I can keep all these balls in the air.
Mike:We'll see what happens. Man, you got it. At least we'll get some new guests out of it.
Kentucky Dave:At a minimum.
Mike:That's right.
Kentucky Dave:Well, Mike, it wouldn't be a new episode without a modeling fluid. Do you have a modeling fluid? I'll steal your stick man. Oh there. Oh, I love it, I love it.
Mike:That's as impressive as it gets folks. It's a Guinness stout draft in a can. Oh nice choice, but it's going in a glass.
Kentucky Dave:Listen, they say that you could live off Guinness beer alone, that it has all the nutrients that you need. I don't know if that's true.
Mike:I highly doubt that, but they can say what they want, I guess.
Kentucky Dave:I know they prescribe it to pregnant women over there.
Mike:But what about you, what you got?
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, not bad either. Well, as I noted, on the dojo we have the best listeners. Yeah, Mr Ken Schaefer, from up in the Northeast, out of the blue, sent a package with eight beers four each for Mike and I of the same beers with eight beers four each for Mike and I of the same beers. And the beer I'm drinking tonight is from Two Roads Brewery out of Stanford, Connecticut, and as a lawyer, I love the name of this beer Workers' Comp. It's a session beer, so it's lighter side alcohol and I just love that name Workers' workers comp for the end of a long week, so I'm sure that it's going to be good and I'm sure it's going to get me through the episode.
Mike:I suspect those are residuals from our amps non-attendance.
Kentucky Dave:I suspect that may be the case.
Mike:Well, the mailbag is busting at the seams again. Can't complain about that. Facebook messengers the same, all right. And we've got a couple that came through the new avenue off the show notes. Good, the show notes link. So we got all kinds of stuff coming in. Man, that's great. Well, let's get into it. Okay, I want to revisit one. I think we picked this one up at the tail end of the listener mail from the previous episode. It's Larry Donovan. I forwarded you this one from New Brighton, minnesota. He's the one that had some suggestions for other folks who might have interest in that estate book collection. Right, we've been yammering on about for a couple episodes, yeah, and I think I sent this to you already. But there was one thing at the very end I kind of didn't get to, and it was just an interesting point that that episode and all our tellings of it had motivated him to make sure the disposition of all his books and war games and kits and stuff is taken care of so his spouse doesn't have to deal with it at his end time.
Kentucky Dave:It's had a profound effect on me in that exact same way, and in fact we'll talk about that a little bit later.
Mike:Yes, we will Up. Next Eric Kintzer this one is really, really interesting and Eric's from Roseville California. Well, no, he was in Roseville California they went to see. He and his son went to see the Union Pacific big boy locomotive that's on display there and he says there were hundreds of people on the platform, you know, looking at this enormous steam locomotive. And so to commemorate this family outing they had, he went and bought the 187th or HO scale Revell static kit of that thing.
Kentucky Dave:I had that kit at one time.
Mike:And he likes to place his models in context, like on a small diorama or a scenic base, and he wanted to do a scene showing a large group of gawkers and folks taking selfies and rail fans and taking pictures and all that kind of thing. And he knows he could just go buy a bunch of stock HO scale figures. I tell you, though, some of those pre-painted Prizer things can get a little pricey. Yes, they can, especially if you need a lot of them. So he wondered if, if AI technology gotten to the point where he could prompt an AI to generate 100 HO scale figures suitable for 3D printing, so output an STL file Of 2024 era Americans of many different ethnicities, men, women, children of all ages, including strollers, most of them wearing shorts and t-shirts, some of them sweating in the 90 degree heat, et cetera, et cetera, right Varying heights and ways to represent the demographic of folks who might be at something like that.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:And you know I thought about this and, like you know what, I wonder if it has. So I went out and I found a, a a service called Meshi, and I don't know if it's any good or not.
Mike:It's the first one that I found that would actually generate an STL file and I put in some prompts a highly detailed 135th scale figure of a World War II era Soviet soldier directing traffic, wearing a summer model 1935 uniform, with an SVT-40 slung across his back, with an ammo pouch and a canteen, et cetera, et cetera, and you know what?
Kentucky Dave:For my first shot it sort of worked. That, I guess, doesn't surprise me, because apparently one of the things that this AI is being used for very heavily is to write code, is to write code, whereas programmers used to do you know all their coding themselves or they'd pull out of code libraries. Well, apparently one of the things you can do with the AI different AIs is get it to code things and write the code without you even having to know how to code. So it doesn't surprise me that you could get it to generate an STL file, and obviously I'm sure it's far from perfect because we're only in the early generations. But I wouldn't be surprised five years from now if you and I aren't sitting here and there's a service where we can put in that kind of prompt and get anything we want.
Mike:Well, I'm not surprised that it worked. It was just interesting. I never thought about applying it that way. But I tell you to reply to something you just said. I believe it was Neil deGrasse Tyson said I believe that's who said it as soon as the AI can write its own code, you're not going to be able to believe in anything on the Internet anymore.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, well, and that's true. These large language model AIs have learned. They've tried to use it to write briefs and quickly discovered that the AIs imagine cases that don't exist. Who apparently used AI to generate their briefs, complete with case citations, and never went back to check and see if those were actual cases, have gotten themselves in some deep trouble, having submitted AI-drafted briefs. So yeah, you're right. The fact that the AIs can imagine stuff that either never happened or never was and present as if it was fact, is kind of kind of frightening.
Mike:Up next is steve williams, from down under gotcha, and he sent me an update from one of the folks he follows on cults 3d that, speaking of STL files, the, the, the STL marketplace.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:Cults cults 3d.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:And these were a bunch of catapult models. Oh really, yeah, naval aviation catapults.
Kentucky Dave:Right. Not like not like throwing stones.
Mike:No siege engines here, right Gotcha, it was interesting. There were several of them. Two were obviously german, two were japanese, two were us and there was a big boxy framed one that might be british, I'm not sure right that's what was perplexing about it. It just said, like naval catapult, it didn't tell what models any of them were right and it didn't tell the design scale, so I don't know how useful they are for what I would want to do.
Kentucky Dave:I may download one they're not very expensive and just see now with colts 3d you can download the actual stl file and then you can manipulate it yourself, right?
Mike:oh, you can probably size it yourself. You got to jump through some hoops to get that back to a model. You can actually do CAD stuff too.
Kentucky Dave:Gotcha.
Mike:Uh see, I don't understand any but even with the, even with the scaling, if it was designed for one to 350th, well, you're not going to go print that in one second scale, yeah, and if it was designed in 32nd scale, you may run into issues reducing that all the way down to 70 second scale Because, depending on the fidelity of scale where they designed it, it may end up too small or too big, depending on what direction you're going. It just might not work right. So it's probably a little room there to do some things. But again, no scale, no identification just might not work right. So it's probably a little room there to do some things. But but again, no scale, no identification. I think these were probably done for one to 350th because some of the other ship fittings he'd got seemed to be targeted for that, that scale. I just thought it was a little odd that he didn't identify what, uh, what nation and what model the catapults were well, I think you're gonna have a lot of you.
Kentucky Dave:You and I've already commented about when, how the flood of 3d printed stuff that you see on scale mates is just, I'm on, almost overwhelming and by the very nature of that, you're gonna get a lot of slop, a lot of stuff that's either just very generic, where somebody mocked up something that kind of looks right, or stuff that hasn't been modeled by somebody who really knows what they're doing in the CAD world. So, yeah, again, you and I have commented previously, previously a lot of times, with this 3d stuff from these 3d companies, you don't want to buy something from them unless you know somebody who's already bought from them and you can. You can get some idea of the quality or hold it in your hand.
Kentucky Dave:First, exactly, yeah, well, that's the other thing.
Mike:Sight unseen is a little risky there Sometimes. Now, if it's somebody you know, you bought product X from them. Y and Z might be okay too.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:Exactly. But if it's just, you know, your first time going with somebody, right? Yeah, some of that stuff's good and some of it's just not. You got to be careful. I suspect that overall quality is probably trending upward?
Kentucky Dave:Oh, I think so too, just by the very nature of it.
Mike:Yeah, and not just from the skill side of the folks doing the CAD work.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, well, and that is, by the way, something I want to mention. Well, and that is, by the way, something I want to mention, folks, when you acquire new 3D printed items, post pictures on the dojo and let us know who the manufacturer is and how you obtained the item and what the quality is like, because, again, the only way we're're gonna know is by sharing among the community up next dave from detail and scale.
Mike:Rock, rozak and, yes, rock. We survived the recent storms in kentucky yes the london got pounded and a bunch of they were having a fly-in down there, some 50s vintage trainers yeah and man. Every last one of them got just completely demolished.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:That's a bummer man, yep. Well, he wanted to let us know that the P-51 Mustang in detail and scale, part two, is out now. It is indeed Going to cover the XP-51B through the P-51C. So still the high back kind of Mustangs.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, we'll get to the D's next that's the reference you're going to need for your Arma kits looking forward to that one.
Mike:So, folks, if you're in the P-51, you're going to have to get volume 2 if you got volume 1, if you don't go back and get it too. But I'm sure, like always, it's available in both print and digital forms. So visit detailandscalecom to figure out how to get the, get the format you want and give them some business. They're good folks, they are. This one came in via the the new feedback link and the show notes is from Leo Nunhofer in Munich, and he's a 45 year old fiend for bourbon. He likes the Mictors number one. Oh, good choice. Good, he's an oral-year-old fiend for bourbon. He likes the Michter's no 1. Oh, good choice, which is good. He's an oral surgeon by trade and a woodworker at heart. Leo, my dad was a dentist by trade and a woodworker by his imagination. He tried, he tried, sure. Well, he wanted to reach out because he was listening to our episode with Panzermeister36, evan McCallum on last time for our last Shop Talk last episode.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:And Evan and his friend Michael down there while they were in Germany, in Munich. He told the story. He tried to go to the Hofbrauhaus and it was just Right Way too crowded, packed like it always is, and huge and packed in every section of the place yeah, the indoor parts and the beer garden parts. So they went to the Anger restaurant and beer house and Leo says his brother's the chief brewer for that brand.
Kentucky Dave:Oh really.
Mike:Yeah, so that's kind of a small world thing.
Mike:That's exactly that's exactly what I was thinking, and he said if we show up, he'll fix us up with the best personal tour of one of the best Bavarian breweries there is. Oh, that's tempting. And he says if you really want to visit a Brauhaus like the Hofbrau, don't go there. As Evan said, it's mayhem. He says, to visit the Augustiner Stammhaus it's a 10-minute walk away from the Hofbrau and much quieter and it's an awesome wonder of art deco decor inside. And I think I talked to Evan about this a little later, well late last week that I'd gotten this message and he said they went there too. So that's not the crux of his email.
Mike:Although that's more than enough. This getting frustrated with ending up working on a postage stamp size portion of his workbench really got to him once, oh. And he's got his own system now, okay, and he's trained himself to use. He's trained himself to drop any and all tool or instrument he's using to his right side immediately after using it, like off his workspace, but to the right.
Mike:Gotcha to his right side immediately after using it, like off his workspace, but to the right, and all the paraphernalia and the model parts and other stuff goes to the kit box on his left and he's trained himself to do this that he doesn't end up with a cluttered workspace. That's smart. It is I'd like to give that a try.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I'm going to God. Looking at my bench right now.
Mike:Can you see it, parts of it, from Lancaster, california, mr Louis Toledo, or Luis Toledo, I'm not sure. Model builder, 15 years. He's a late starter, he's 47 now, but he's glad he started Well. He modeled in early life but he picked it back up. But he's glad for that because things have advanced so much. It's just a lot easier to learn new things and the products are better All the reasons we always mention, you know.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:He wanted our opinion on some things and he actually CC'd a lot of the, I guess, the podcasts he listens to, some of them Sure On here and he wanted to know what our opinion was on modelers who are not interested in competing but feel they get looked down on for choosing not to. He says is it something to be recognized, to be a recognized modeler, and what has competing at shows really made a difference in the skill level you're at? It's been his mind for a while and he just was kind of curious what we thought about it. Well, a lot more to his email, but he summarized it at the very end, you know. I guess the short answer is no, I don't think it's necessary to be a recognized modeler, right, I don't think it's necessary to compete.
Mike:It's not. I don't think so either.
Kentucky Dave:Now I will tell you, I do know modelers who do compete, who use the competition as motivation to push themselves, not only to finish models but to improve their skills and learn new techniques etc. And that the competition is helpful for them because they find it motivating to do those things. But I don't think you have to compete in order to be able to motivate yourself, to improve your skills or to learn new things, etc. I mean, competition is nice for those who enjoy it. I think there are a number of good modelers that I can think of right now who were fantastic modelers but never competed, and the only downside of that is, if they didn't go and display their models in a display portion of an event, you didn't get to see their work, and that's a shame, just simply from the standpoint.
Kentucky Dave:There's a lot of good modelers out there producing a lot of good models, and there's nothing better that I love seeing than a really well-built model, something eye-catching, something different, and so, even if you're not a competitor, I would urge you to, if you can, if you can find one, go to a contest with a display-only area and display your work to share it with other people. That's, by the way, one of the ways, at these contests, where you start interacting with other modelers, somebody will come up and say I really like that model. How did you do X? Or which kit was that? And then the next thing you know you've made a new friend and you're sharing information.
Mike:And I would add that I think many people who even there's not a display-only area. They're entering a quote-unquote contest but it's really just about putting their stuff out there and showing folks what they've done.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:So I don't even think you need the display only. I think that's kind of an up-and-coming thing we're starting to see, at least in the IPMS format it shows recently. But I'm sure that will encourage more folks who don't want to compete to bring their models out. But even if that option doesn't exist, you can bring your model out and not give a rip about the competition part of it. And I think I think we you and I personally know a lot of people in our circle who just who to do that. I do that now.
Mike:I don't you know? There's a lot of categories I'm in typically with, with what I might enter, that you know I'm not. I'm not going to win at a big one, two, three like the IPMS national convention, but you don't care, but I don't care Now. I used to care. There's a problem that's a whole nother rabbit hole to go down Right, yes, it can make you better, but at some point it can become toxic if you're not careful.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, it's toxic.
Mike:The rate you want to get better might not be a realistic thing. Yeah, he says he kind of thinks folks get the wrong impression that he's better than them when he says he doesn't need a medal or trophy to assure him that's a good modeler. You know, I guess what's. The first thing that comes to my mind is to well. Let's quote John Lydon on Plastic Model Mojo.
Kentucky Dave:Oh gosh.
Mike:You don't have to explain yourself to anyone.
Kentucky Dave:I think that's absolutely true.
Mike:Maybe just spare that conversation. Just tell me you're not interested. Yep, Just don't elaborate what you do and don't need. That's your business really.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, no, I completely agree with you, all right.
Mike:Dave. Well, that is my last email, all right.
Kentucky Dave:What do you got? Well, I've got a bunch. First, I've occasionally posted things on the dojo for sale some books from that collection that I'm trying to find homes for, or spare kits from the stash that I'm trying to find homes for, or spare kits from the stash that I'm trying to move along to somebody who will love them better than I do. I want to thank everybody who's made a purchase and those of you who've purchased kits I want to see them built posted on the dojo and those who bought books. Give me book reviews and thank everybody. You've all been really wonderful and I'm gonna post more from time to time, so I want to thank everybody yeah, generally speaking, we don't mind that yeah, we don't, unless you abuse the privilege.
Mike:Well, if, it got really popular. We just open another like marketplace, exactly A third, a third group. Then that's fine too. We'll just see how it goes, but I'm glad you sold some stuff, man, you needed to.
Kentucky Dave:I did Related to that and I've mentioned this, I think, on the last episode. We've had several modelers recently who have helped other modelers on the dojo or they brought in new listeners and Mike and I have sent out a couple of thank yous to people who've done that. We want to continue that tradition. In fact we want to probably step that up and we're kind of talking about how we do that. But if you're on the dojo and another modeler, you post a question or you need for a part or need for a kid or whatever it is, and somebody helps you out, dm me and let me know that and I'll reach out to them and get their address and Mike and I will send them a little something to acknowledge that they've made the community better. And that's really what it's all about with the dojo.
Kentucky Dave:The next DM I wanted to mention was Martin Paeda, who I've DMed with before. He DMed me in the middle of the day we're both working. He DMed me about an aircraft he saw at the museum out in Seattle a Japanese aircraft, and the way that they had painted the interior housing of the tail wheel. We had a little discussion back and forth regarding Japanese Army and Navy colors, et cetera. It wasn't really anything to be, anything other than we were both working. It was the middle of the day and it was a nice little break from the grind of work to out of the blue, get that, have that exchange. It lasted four or five minutes, a couple of messages back and forth, and it was just really enjoyable. So I wanted to acknowledge that.
Mike:There you go, man the dojo, getting in the way of work again.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's okay, that's all right, just don't tell my bosses. The podfather, dave Goldfinch, has informed me that well, you know, he's coming in 2026 to go to the Nationals up in Fort Wayne, right? Yeah, well, he's informed me that he plans to come back in 2027 for Wonderfest.
Mike:Wow Okay, talk about forward thinking.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, so not only are we pre-planning 2026, we are pre-pre-planning 2027. And we've got some contacts at Wonderfest and we are going to make sure that Dave gets the premium experience. All right, looking forward to that.
Kentucky Dave:I am too Dutch Vosburgh, member of the dojo, mentioned that he was taking a trip to Udvar-Hazy. It was his first time going, I believe, trip to Udvar-Hazy it was his first time going, I believe, and I gave him a few of my inputs because I've been there two or three times. It's just one of the best places on the planet. That's the National Air and Space Museum out near Dulles in Washington DC or in Northern Virginia technically, and if you are anywhere near that place, you would do yourself a great favor by going out and visiting.
Mike:I got to get there, man.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, Tried my best with the last name, Michael Grispen, out of Suffolk, England. He's one of the people I mentioned who had brought in new listeners and he told us that he is at his local club and on his local Facebook pages promoting Plastic Model Mojo. So I sent him a little thank you note and we appreciate him doing that. And anybody else out there, any of the listeners, please go ahead and mention us to your modeling friends. We appreciate it. The next one I want to mention is Ron Smith and the reason I want to mention he was listening to episode 43. And I'm sure it was. You was talking about cross-kitting, you know, parts from different models to make them chimed in to let us know. He was listening to that one and talking about swapping various parts on 48 scale Hasegawa F4s to do the same thing.
Kentucky Dave:But the reason I wanted to mention it was that we have a lot of folks who go back through the whole old catalog Somebody will discover us at episode 141, and they'll go back to the beginning and listen to everything coming forward, and I want to encourage listeners when you do that, even though it was an episode from two or three years ago. If you have a comment or a question or input on an episode from the past, please feel free to reach out and let us know, because we kind of like that and, among other things, it helps Mike and I because we've done a hundred and I guess this is 142, we've done 142 of these main episodes and it's really kind of nice to be reminded of something that we discussed in the past. One of my goals, eventually, is to go back and actually listen to all the old episodes, just to go back through and see how they've changed.
Mike:It might give us reason to revisit some topics too Exactly.
Kentucky Dave:Exactly. Finally, our good friend Bob Bear the voice of Bob reached out to tell us that he had visited the website and how much he liked it and how much he enjoyed it and was very complimentary. And that means a lot coming from Bob, somebody whose opinion in those realms that I greatly respect. So it was very nice to hear, and I assured him, that there were going to be future changes, phase two and phase three yeah, when you and I can get enough money, time and everything else to implement those changes. So in the meantime, if you all have suggestions for the website, please let us know, Reach out, because that really does help us figure out what people like, what people don't like and what direction to take things in the future.
Mike:You all done.
Kentucky Dave:That's done.
Mike:Well, folks, I've said it a million times, for at least 142 times this is our favorite segment of the show, or one of probably the probably my favorite. I like them all, but I really liked this one because it's interacting with all you folks out in the model sphere. You can send us an email to plasticmodelmojo at gmailcom. That's one way to get in touch with us. You can send a, you can send us a direct message if he has Facebook messenger, and there's also a feedback web link in the show notes of this episode and I think all of them I think I figured out how to get it into all of them, even all the back catalog, so you can use any of those three avenues to send us a message, even a voice message If you want, if you use that web link in the show notes.
Kentucky Dave:When you're done listening to this episode, please go and rate the podcast on whatever podcast listening app you use. It helps us promote the show. Also, as I mentioned in the last segment, one of the big ways that we get new listeners and we continue to get new listeners one of the big ways is current listeners recommending us to their modeling friends and associates. Please recommend us to people that you know who are modelers, who aren't currently listening to our show. We'd appreciate it. You're helping the podcast continue to grow.
Mike:In addition to your podcast players of choice, you can also rate the podcast in a web link found in the show notes. We'd appreciate that We've got a few there as well. In addition, please check out the fellow podcasts in the Model Sphere. You can do that by going to wwwmodelpodcastcom. That's Model Podcast plural. It's a consortium website set up with the help of Stuart Clark up in Canada and he's aggregated all the banner links to all the podcasts in the model sphere. You can go there and just a one-stop shop for everything out in the model sphere podcast related. And we've got a new one, dave, yes, I know. Listener Paul Pendleton Brown and a troupe of his merry men have started Beyond the Box Art.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, over an old blighty.
Mike:That's right. So check it out. They've put out a couple three episodes two, three. I can't. I know it was up current until maybe this week. I need to look, but anyway, they're just getting started. Check them out and help those guys along too.
Kentucky Dave:And we will not hold it against them that they're friends with Dave.
Mike:Goldfinch? We will not. In addition to all those podcasts in the model sphere, there's a lot of blog and YouTube friends we've got. We've mentioned Devin McCallum Panzermeister36. You want to check out his YouTube and subscribe to it?
Kentucky Dave:Yes, please, trying to get that boy a plaque. We want to get him to 100,000, guys.
Mike:Chris Wallace, Model Airplay Maker, A great, obviously aircraft-centric blog.
Kentucky Dave:He's always working on something cool. Yes, In fact I know he's working on something extra cool right now.
Mike:Stephen Lee Spruipi with Frets, a great long and short-form blog, tends to be 72nd scale, a little model railroad thrown in. Yep, steve, you listen, I appreciate the stuff you sent me last week. We get this phase two of the the website up and we'll get that content up. I really appreciate what you did for me there. Jeff Groves, the Inch High Guy another 72nd Scale blog. Jeff's a good friend of the show and you're going to want to check out all his content.
Mike:And Paul Budzik Scale Model Workshop, who's killing it lately? He's been killing it lately and he's also got a lot going on. Paul wrote in I should have mentioned Lister Mail but I didn't, so I'm going to talk about it now. He sent me, sent us, a very complimentary email based on some things he had gleaned out of I don't know, our last two or three bits of content feature episodes, shorts, that sort of thing and sent us a really, really nice email and we really really nice email and we really really appreciate it and it's going to hopefully lead to Paul's next appearance on Plastic Model Mojo, because I think some of the things you discussed in that thoughtful email would be some good stuff to hear from a lot of us.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, and with the changes going on in his life and in his modeling life, that's going to be of great interest to a lot of modelers. I mean, it's of great interest to you and I and I really can't wait to get him on and talk about all of that.
Mike:So no date yet, but you'll find that out in a 12-minute model sphere in the future. Not sure which one, but we'll get there. Well, that's all the extra content, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:Well, finally, if you're not a member of IPMS USA, IPMS Canada, IPMS Mexico, any national IPMS organization in the country in which you live, please join. They are great organizations. Ipms USA is having its elections right now. There are actually a couple of contested positions, so please, if you are a member, please vote. If you are interested in armor or post-1900 figure modeling, please consider joining AMPS, the Armor Modeling Preservation Society. Please consider joining AMPS, the Armor Modeling Preservation Society. Great group of guys really dedicated to the art of armor modeling and the related figure modeling. And Mike and I unfortunately missed this year's nationals, but we are definitely going to be back at South Bend next year and can't wait to see all the folks that we missed this year.
Mike:You're a little fast and loose with that, definitely, man.
Kentucky Dave:We're definitely. Hey, we got to say definitely, come on commit.
Mike:We did, then we didn't go.
Kentucky Dave:Do or do not. There is no try.
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Mike:Well, folks, we got back-to-back shop talks, yep. But.
Kentucky Dave:I'm looking forward to this.
Mike:Yeah, we came off of one, but we're going to give our next guest for episode 143 a little more time to get his feet back on the soil and think about what he wants to talk about. So we're going to have shop talk, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:Yep and I am looking forward to this. I like all of the subjects.
Mike:Well, dave, topic number one has kind of been our mantra. We kind of got away from it, so we're going to get back on this one.
Kentucky Dave:We've been reminded by several listeners. That's right. We need to bring this back. What's your plan for getting better? Well, considering I've been forbidden from talking about certain parts of the plan, well, let's elaborate folks.
Mike:I told Dave when he suggested this, getting back on this topic, I said you cannot talk about time management, you can't talk about modeling faster and what was the other one? You can't talk about getting organized. So this ought to be good folks.
Kentucky Dave:Well Is that it. Yeah, that's it Done. No, seriously, in addition to those things which I'm not allowed to talk about, I really want to. I I previously, when we talked about this, the thing that I was I was concentrating on to get better was panel line engraving and re-engraving.
Mike:I should have added that to the list.
Kentucky Dave:Oh well, thank you, don't worry, I'm not going to talk about that. I was just mentioning that as a prelude, but I actually think I did concentrate on that on my last several models. It made a difference. I think I did actually get better in doing that. That's not perfect, but better. That that's not perfect, but better. I would like to get better and faster, and I know I can't talk about faster too much, but they are kind of related with decaling. I'm pretty decent at being able to decal and get the results I want most all of the time it's just such a tedious process and I tend to go to a session of decaling only get a couple of decals on, particularly if I'm working with small detail decals just get a couple of decals on and it's draining both physically and mentally to the point because you know you're moving those, especially those detail decals.
Mike:Yeah, stencils and crap.
Kentucky Dave:Exactly You're positioning them. So you're moving them around with a tip, with a, the tip of a paintbrush, and you want to get them just to the right spot and then, once you get them there, get them set there, et cetera. The other night I spent a solid two hours at the bench getting good modeling in putting on decals and put on 12 decals that's not bad In two hours 12 small stencil decals in two hours and I've got to get faster at that.
Mike:Knowing you, man, I'd call that a win for now.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I felt better, it was better than what I've done for now. Well, I felt better, it was better than what I've done. That's part of my plan for getting better is I did move a little bit faster and I kind of got into a rhythm. Yep, that's what I was about to say, man. And and I do I do think that's a big part of getting better and getting faster and getting better at decaling is finding a well, first of all, blocking out time, cause that's one problem that I do have, that it just I'm not sure there's any solution for is I have a very limited time at my bench and blocking out two solid hours is tough.
Kentucky Dave:I did it the other night. I knocked out those decals. It wasn't bad, but I really do think that I ought to be able to do more. So I want to try and see if there's some shortcuts or some techniques that will help me apply decals faster, so that I can get more decals applied in a decal application session. So, all the listeners out there who have techniques for what they do, be it I use a coffee warmer to keep the water hot, I use paper towels or I use Q-tips you know the pointy Tamiya Q-tips or whatever your tip is. I want to hear it, because one of the things I'm going to focus on for the rest of this year is getting better at decalingaling faster and better.
Mike:Well, I think some of that is you mentioned. It's the rhythm and getting comfortable in your own skin. We all have our own way of moving it around. We all have our own way of wicking the excess out from under to get it set and I think the more you do it, you just recognize when it's going right.
Kentucky Dave:I do think it's kind of like airbrushing that it's something that if you don't do it on the regular it's a skill that diminishes and deteriorates and you've got to get comfortable with it again. It's like if you haven't picked up an airbrush for two or three months, the first time you go to airbrush something it's just not as comfortable. You kind of have to relearn the feel. I think that same thing applies to decaling.
Mike:Yeah, and honestly, when you're in the rhythm and it's going well, it can be zen-like, oh gosh. Yes, when it goes south, your audio gets R-rated really quick.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, and in fact that is also like airbrushing the same thing. When you are dialed in, when the airbrush is dialed in, the paint is just at the right consistency and you have the right pressure and the airbrush is clean and everything's working. It's very zen-like. But man, it is easy to pick up an airbrush and have nothing go right. Same thing. Same thing for decaling. You're trying to put on a decal. It won't come off the paper. It comes off the paper. You can't get it where you want it. Every time you get it close and you want to move it a little bit, you always overcorrect one way or another and next thing you know you're using Carlin's seven dirty words. So what's your plan for getting better?
Mike:Well, foremost is a flip and finish something.
Kentucky Dave:Well, yes, I mean, I think that's the obvious goal here, but getting better, besides just finishing.
Mike:For me, better is not limited to just making the next model for me look better, in an aesthetic sense, than the last one I built, gotcha, or more realistic or whatever, than the last one, if it's just as good, maybe sometimes even not as good, I don't know.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:But I'm trying to think what's the next thing? This KV 85 I'm working on is not. You know, I pose a suspension on it. I'd never done that before. Right, I'm still not done with it, so I can't say I've pulled it off yet, but I think I'm far enough along that you are learning a new skill, I'm learning a new skill. So that's the plan for getting better.
Mike:The other place, the next one that comes to mind, because I've got my next kind of pick three of my next potential armor projects. None of those are really going to be skill learning type things. They're just subjects I always wanted to build and then they're kind of. They are kind of complex a couple of them anyway but they're not. They're not going to leverage anything new. So I really want to get something done, not just because I know finishing things means I'm modeling and the fact that you're modeling means you're going to progress in your skills. I want to start something new and I don't want to start anything new until I've got something finished. I really want to get another airplane started, but only after I finish something on the bench right now. And I think for me right now, going through another aircraft project is going to be. It's got the most opportunity for me to learn something new.
Kentucky Dave:I would agree, and a great way to build on what you did with the PAW Right. I mean, if you walked away and didn't do another aircraft model for five years, you'd lose a lot of what you gained from building the PAW.
Mike:So actually, I think I would like to start too. I'd like to do something simpler than Nepal.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:But you know, if one of those catapults that that guy showed could be scaled up and it happened to be British, yeah, would love to build the walrus. Yeah, cuckoo, cuckoo.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, two music references in one show show a rigged biplane flying boat oh yeah sounds hard. Nothing tough about that not at all.
Mike:Yeah, the kits are wonderful in 70 second scale, right, exactly, exactly. So I, yeah. I guess going up in complexity and challenging yourself is is a way I would like to plan to get better.
Kentucky Dave:I think that that that that actually qualifies.
Mike:You got anything, got another one.
Kentucky Dave:No, that's it on that one.
Mike:That pulled the rug out from under you, I guess.
Kentucky Dave:One. Yeah, that's right, you can't let, you won't. Let me talk about the other stuff, all of which does need to be addressed. But yes, I get your point.
Mike:Well, I've got another one and it's one you need to do too, just maybe not the way I'm going to do it. Okay, I need to use my machine tools more. Use them at all, really. Oh great, you've got some stuff in your shop that you have got little to no use on so far. You'd do good to think up a project to utilize one of those. I need to find some good educational and instructional content on lathes and milling machines and maybe figure out some small project-based something to walk me through that. I don't mean a scale modeling project. I mean machine, this mounting plate or this bracket or you know whatever.
Mike:Just to learn to use the tool.
Kentucky Dave:Or you know, you've got that 3D printed flat panzer. Learning to turn barrels would be a really great brass barrels would be a really great skill to acquire.
Mike:It would. Now, that's not the one to do it on, because those are like the size of toothpicks.
Kentucky Dave:Well, come on, it's a challenge.
Mike:It is.
Kentucky Dave:Actually, I will say that I recently, you know, when we were at Michigan Toy Soldier, yeah, and I bought that little USB-powered drill, right, I've actually used that recently on multiple occasions, within the last like two or three weeks and, by the way, it's really great. In fact, I saw these guys at Wonderfest and they had one of them and I told them I said, guys, I'm really glad I bought this, this thing was really great. And somebody was standing there and they were like really, and I told them all about it Next thing, you know they sold it.
Mike:Did you say you owe me a fiver man?
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, well, I didn't, but the thought was there.
Mike:Well, dave, the next one gets back to that estate library deal. Yep, a little bit Thin in your stash.
Kentucky Dave:Just to let people look behind the curtain. We have a little outline that helps us generally talk about what we're going to talk about on a show. I mean, we don't have it scripted or anything, but we have outline. And Mike's outline for this was thinning your stash and my little note under it was, yes, related to what I talked about earlier, that I had sold some stuff on the, a few things on the dojo.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I will tell you that, dealing, having gone up and having seen that library and and all, and having having learned about this widow who was burdened and that is the only way to put it burdened with this fantastic library I mean honestly, one of the best book collections I've ever seen in my life and I'm sure to her husband it was his comfort and his joy and everything. But when he died, without a plan for how this was going to get handled, he handed his wife, who was quite old, herself a burden, and having talked a little with her and having talked with the guy who was helping her liquidate it, it was a profound experience as far as realizing that if I keeled over tomorrow, realizing that if I keeled over tomorrow, that while I have made some arrangements, I would still be handing my wife quite a burden, and I don't want to do that. So that caused me to step back and take a look at things, and one of the things that caused me to step back and take a look at was my stash. At one point I had over a thousand kits, and at my rate of building a thousand kits, you know, unless Elon Musk gets us these new robot bodies and all of that, there's no way I'm going to complete them. All of that, there's no way I'm going to complete them.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I had I thinned the stash down already to about 600 kits, but 600 is still way too many, and so, even though I'm still buying the occasional kit, I am looking at my stash and I'm going to some things.
Kentucky Dave:You will never build that, or you will never get to that in your lifetime, and I don't want that to be a burden that my lovely model wife has to deal with. And so I've started thinning out the stash, donating to the local club for their monthly raffles or to the show for the show raffle, or posting them on the dojo. If I can find a, a home for a kit that somebody else really will build, that I'm unlikely to build before, I assume, room temperature. I'm going to do that and I have dedicated the next year to getting that stuff in order. So thinning the stash, yes, needs to be done, and if your stash is 100 or 500 or 1500, you would be well to at least look at that and make those considerations, because I do think they're important and I do think that we don't think about them until you run into an event like this.
Mike:Well, that reminds me in Paul Buzzick's recent email that he said he'd gotten rid of a bunch of kits and wanted you to know that it didn't hurt.
Kentucky Dave:Well, it does kind of hurt a little bit Every time I let one go. It's not exactly like selling one of my children, but it does hurt a little bit like selling one of my children, but it does hurt a little bit. Now I know you cause you and I have talked. You have taken a step regarding a lot of the model railroading stuff you have and I'm interested in hearing about how that all came about.
Mike:Well, how far back do you want to go? I was in the old. In the old house, I was planning on building a small layout and I accumulated a lot of stuff in that regard, and we got to a point in our lives where we needed to move, for the kids' educational reasons, to somewhere else, and we moved into a house that, uh, while the house was bigger the actual unfinished well, in its entirety the basement was smaller, right, I'm like, well, this isn't going to work, given all the other stinking hobbies I've got. So I was like, you know, I'm not going to miss this. So I liquidated a bunch of it. Well, a bunch of it was maybe half of it, right, so I still had the other half.
Mike:So I've just been, you hadn't been doing anything. No, no, not years. No, I've maybe touched a couple railroad models since I've moved into this house and that's about it. And you know, I've culled out a few things that I still have some potential interest in and messing around with in the future. But all the scenery and structures and detail, scenic parts and all that, that just stuff needs to go away, and I've been selling it off on Facebook Marketplace because you can get the most bang for your buck someplace other than eBay Might not get the exposure, but you're not going to lose 13%, 14, 15% of what you're trying to get. All You're going to have to discount it anyway, right To get rid of it. So that's phase one. Phase two of that is connecting with the NMRA club here in town that I used to belong to and was a founding member of, and I just want to arrange for one of their future meetings just to show up with all this stuff and tell everybody to bring ones and fives and we just go make it go away.
Kentucky Dave:Make it fives and tens.
Mike:Well, we could do that too. Some of it maybe, yeah, but you know I'm not looking to recoup Right. That's foolish to think you're going to do that Right. But you know, back to the more traditional scale modeling side of things, my stash has always ebbed and flowed. Now it's been in a flow since the podcast started, just because my enthusiasm has been higher After a long ebb period where I did get rid of probably a third of my stash.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I remember that.
Mike:Yeah, saying I could just get it all on eBay. I still believe that. Yeah, just get it all on eBay. I still believe that. Yeah. And folks who are disciplined about not accumulating kits like this, yeah, logic's on your side. I mean, you're right, you're not going to build them all, but we've kind of alluded to it before. That's not really the point. I guess it could be, maybe it should be, but buying those and talking about them, looking at them people have big stashes do get a lot of joy out of that. Unfortunately, it's a space hog and it can just become clutter and overwhelming and can be a burden to those you leave behind.
Mike:That's right. So it might be time for another ebb on my end. I'm looking back through it, that's right. So it might be time for another ebb on my end. I'm looking back through it. You know, the space I store it now in the furnace room is actually smaller than the space it was in before I moved it into there. So after the last ebb period I moved it and now it's. You know, now I'm starting to get a few double stacked areas again. I'm like, eh, what's going on? Time to get rid of some stuff. So maybe at the MML show I'll have a big table stack so folks can come by and help me thin my stash too. But yeah, I probably need to go down that journey of thinking about the disposition of what I don't get rid of.
Kentucky Dave:And you know I've got the military collection and a bunch of other crap around here too. Well, and that as much as the hobby stuff, would be a burden to your spouse when you pass your military collection. Really, because of the value of it and the unique nature of what you have, yeah, I mean that really would be.
Mike:Yeah, so I really need to do something about that. Yes, so, folks, it's something to think about. We'll see. You might see some cheap kits here soon. Well, dave, our final topic tonight is what is your least favorite model company and why? And this comes from Steve Anderson's A Guided Journal for Modelers, and he's wanting to know what's our least favorite model kit and why.
Kentucky Dave:You mean model company? Model company yes, sorry and okay. I'm going to exclude from this consideration the really crappy model companies.
Mike:Yeah, certainly I did too.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, the ones that we all know, as our British friends would say, are shite.
Mike:I'm just going to exclude those, because that's too easy to pick on the expectations there that those are going to be those, because that's too easy to pick on the expectations there that those are going to be right, exactly.
Kentucky Dave:You know, I could talk about a model kits all day long, but that's, that's not. I'm talking mainstream major players, major players who ought to know better probably right, who ought to know better.
Kentucky Dave:Old answer would have been, for the longest time, special Hobby. Because Special Hobby, they started as a short-run player and they developed, and now Special Hobby's current stuff is very, very nice. You and I both have their HE-162. Yep, that is just a top-notch model, as good as anything out there on the market. But there was a period a number of years ago, as they were transitioning from short-run manufacturer to top-quality manufacturer, where you never knew what you were going to get. The new Special Hobby kit could be top quality major manufacturer or could be short run looking bar of soap that you got to carve. So my answer would have been Special Hobby. So my answer would have been Special Hobby. But it's not. Because, again, special Hobby has now transitioned to the point where they're just cranking out quality kits, and so I'm going to pick on somebody else, and that somebody is Hasegawa. Oh man, hasegawa, listen.
Kentucky Dave:Hasegawa has a lot of kits, has a lot of fine kits, but they also continue to re-kit, re-pop molds that are from the 70s and 80s. Now, they do a fine job of cleaning them up and they went through in the 80s and put in engraved panel lines in a lot of them. They are. They're not awful kits, but they are. They are continuing to, every few years, re-release them with a new set of markings, and it's the same mold from the 70s or 80s that hasn't made any significant improvement. The interiors on their kits are nearly uniformly awful, and while I'm not saying you can't take a Hasegawa kit and build a decent model from it because you can in fact, you can build really good models but they just need to take and take those molds from the 70s and 80s and start redoing them as modern 2025 kits.
Mike:Yeah, Some of those need to be man-made coral reef.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, exactly so that what you get is, instead of releasing a Kate kit, that was the original Mania molds from the late 60s early 70s redo that kit in the style of, or the quality of, arma or IBG or Edward, with the full interior, et cetera, et cetera, and just retire that old Mania mold. You've gotten all your use out of it. And I'm not saying you can't take that kit and build it today and make it look good today and make it look good. But they've got a stable of stuff they've been living off of for 30 and 40 plus years and they just need to stop.
Mike:And it's kind of up in the air of late if they're even interested in making anything new in the aircraft range.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, absolutely, absolutely. So that was my least favorite model company. And why? How about you, bronco? Okay, you're not going to say Allen kit, you did the same thing I did. You're putting away those companies.
Mike:Putting away the car soap models, like you said.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:You know I'm much less enthusiastic about the other Bronco kits in my stash after working through this KV-85.
Kentucky Dave:Just over complex or what Well, I got a laundry list here man. Okay, start to preach, brother.
Mike:The detail is mostly good, but it's just a big box. I mean it's in a big box of not exactly.
Kentucky Dave:Not exactly. It's a great description.
Mike:Just really poorly executed locating features. There's some just impossible fits and assemblies in there. There's unorthodox engineering compared to other armor kits. There's some stuff they just flip and made up and I'll get to this in the Benchtop Halftime Report. Some of this stuff. But man, it's just one thing after another as I work through this. I mean I'm doing a bunch of stuff Again. I'll talk about it in the Benchtop Halftime Report stuff that just ought to be pretty pedestrian. Just look and do and work your way through it and get it done and it's all of it just needs just something a flashy edge, or just something doesn't fit or it's not right, or you're like wondering what the heck it even is, because it's not in any photo of what you got. And right.
Mike:It's just bizarre and just the way they. You know I re-architected the entire suspension on it and I just don't understand why they did it the way they did it to begin with, and you know you don't see many of those kits built and I understand why. Now the Trumpeter kit's got its own Easter eggs, so I don't know if it would have been any better or not, but you know I'll get there. It's, it's, it's coming together. It's like I said, it's been a big box and not exactly.
Kentucky Dave:Big box and not. I love that description. You need to, you need to, you need to trademark that one a big box and not exactly.
Mike:So, steve, your questions are fun. There's a there's a fave one. We may maybe do it next time, but right now Bronco is my least favorite, and I guess Hasegawa is yours, dave.
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Mike:All right, folks, it's the Benchtop Halftime Report, and hopefully you've been modeling too, dave.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, I have Not as much as I want to, not as much as I should. Well lay it on us. What's going on? As you know, we've got the Nationals coming up and I've got the Bearcat batch build going on and it's moving along not as quickly as I want it to, and Dr Geldmacher reminded me today that there are 57 days to get it done. So I got to get it done. We were talking I was talking previously about decaling.
Kentucky Dave:Specifically, I was decaling the props for the Bearcats, and so I've got three of them, and Dr Geldmacher helpfully pointed me to a Tecmod decal sheet that had the stenciling and prop logos that I picked up and used. And that's the first time I've used Tecmod decals and I can wholeheartedly endorse them. They're thin. They were thin, but they were not so thin that they weren't especially when you're dealing with something like a small logo or a data stencil If being too thin can actually be a problem, because then it just wants to fold up on itself. These decals are thin, but they're not so thin that they were not able to be put onto the model and manipulated without folding, and the results were great. I'll post a picture on the dojo, and I really liked the way they came out.
Kentucky Dave:I can endorse Tecmod decals, and now I'm about to well, I'm about to prime the kits themselves so that I can lay down Luckily it's one color, well, it's almost all one color glossy blue on all three of the aircraft and I also got the canopies masked and I've got the landing gear all painted and detailed and washed and weathered, and so I'm making progress, not as much as I want to, not as quick as I want to. I got to get moving, I got to model faster and I got to find some more time. I mean, I don't know about you, but the last month I'll bet you I'm probably not getting three hours a week of bench time in, and that's just. I mean that's killer, because it's so hard to maintain momentum with that kind of schedule. How?
Mike:about you Taking a break from the CAD work I was doing and I've not touched the Flak Panzer. I've been working on this KV-85 because the basic form of the model is assembled, so it's kind of like just decorating a Christmas tree. Now Been working through the details on the hull, front armor, add the machine gun, the light and horn and all that and all the fuel and oil filler caps on the top of the hull.
Kentucky Dave:Well, you're pretty close to priming that I'm getting there.
Mike:You know, none of that was particularly challenging, other than the machine gun. The KV-85 was. Unique is not the right word, but it was the first serial production vehicle. You know they didn't make many of them, but it did go into serial production for a limited amount of time. Go into serial production for a limited amount of time. That had a fixed bow machine gun, meaning that it was it only fired in a straight line and at one angle, right, probably controlled by the driver with a foot pedal or something I don't know.
Mike:Um, the, the bronco kit part was just really malnourished looking. It was just undersized. So I robbed one out of the Trumpeter KV-85 and the architecture, the way they go together in the two kits is completely different. So I had to do some careful angle cutting on the Bronco or on yeah, on the Bronco, no, the Trumpeter part to get it to match up with the armor plate angle on the other one, because the way they went together it fit into a hole on the other one. Because the way they went together it fit into a hole on the trumpeter kit and the one that came with the bronco kit actually passed through a hole from the back side, gotcha. So it didn't? It already had the angle molded into it. That was correct. So I had to cut that part carefully, get it sanded dry and get it mounted.
Mike:That wasn't hard, it's just something I had to do so so, flashing back to episode 43, you were cross-skidding, cross-skidded this one a little bit yeah and a little bit more here and coming up, the KV-85 had two rotatable driver's periscopes on the hull top and the the Bronco ones are a little bit lame. They've got this silly clear part that you're supposed to sit down in the armored shroud that goes around that part. They're the wrong shape and they just don't fit well, and it's just that they weren't very good.
Kentucky Dave:A whole lot of maybe. Yeah a whole lot of not exactly. Not exactly.
Mike:So again I'm going to rob the trumpeter kit for their periscope tops and they need a little shortening to fit into the armored shrouds that go around them. But just work, that shouldn't have to be done. So getting there, that's the hull front and hull top. The other thing I've been working on is the engine hatch. You know know the domed hatch on the center back of the av right.
Mike:There's been this notion for years that that that dome had a flattened area on it, so the turret bustle would clear it right. If you imagine that dome divided into four quadrants like pizza slices.
Kentucky Dave:Right, and just to remind people, they only produced what like 300 of these things.
Mike:No, it was like 100 and change.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, 100 and change, and that there are only there's not one at all surviving 14 or 15 photographs of the thing, yeah, and no good set of reliable plans for it.
Mike:There's a monument tank in Leningrad area, but it's the prototype. So it's a converted KV-1S hull. So all bets are off if it matches the serial production or not, nobody knows Right. But if you take that KV dome over the engine air filter and you cut it into four pizza slices, you got a port and starboard and a forward and rear. Well, that forward one, that was under the turret overhang, has been purported to have been flattened so the turret wouldn't hit it right. I think that's bs. Nobody's ever produced any evidence at all that it was that way and and my theory is that this supposition, I guess, is an artifact of a resin part that was offered by a Japanese cottage industry called Model Artisan Mori. They made a well-mastered, really detailed little engine hatch for the Eastern Express kit, for the Eastern Express kit Mm-hmm. I think what they didn't realize was that the Eastern Express KV-85 has the standard turret center location as a normal 76-millimeter gun to KV Mm-hmm. That's not what it was, so they made that part to clear the kit as built out of the box.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:The actual KV-85 had the turret center pushed forward, presumably so the turret race would not intersect the firewall to the engine compartment Right. So we start looking at things and there's just no way that the turret bustle would ever hit that dome.
Kentucky Dave:So did Bronco and Trumpeter, both model them.
Mike:Both of them modeled it flattened. Okay, that's what I was going to ask. It's mentioned as flattened in the Stokes book, but there's no evidence whatsoever that anybody's produced to date. And I could be completely wrong. They could all be right, but I don't think so. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Kentucky Dave:And so you're going to model it with the dome unflattened, unflattened.
Mike:So there are like two or three sprues from Bronco's SU-152, the KV-based self-propelled gun, right In that same kit box, and the engine hatch for that vehicle is in the kit box and it just needs a little bit of modification, light modification, to get it to fit. So that's what I've done.
Kentucky Dave:Gotcha.
Mike:That's what's going on, man.
Kentucky Dave:It sounds like you're making progress Not as quick. We both need to pick up the pace, as certain people have reminded us again and again, and they are correct.
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Mike:Finishing that stash in 2168.
Kentucky Dave:There you go, thinning that stash in 2025. Yes, so, mike, there have been a lot of announcements of a lot of new things. This is faves and yawns, and I got to tell you I got a lot of faves.
Mike:I've got three faves.
Kentucky Dave:I don't have any yawns, I've got four faves and no yawns, so I go you one better.
Mike:Okay, well, good for you. So who's first me?
Kentucky Dave:Well, no, since I got the extra one, I'll start first.
Mike:We'll see if we got any duplicity here.
Kentucky Dave:There you go. All right, get what we do. Dream Model has announced in 72nd scale, a Ka-52. This is one of the two current Russian attack helicopters.
Mike:I saw that.
Kentucky Dave:Zvezda has previously done the kit, and not well. I saw that extent in Syria and it is a really well, assuming that the kit is done well and to modern standards. This would be a very welcome addition to the 72nd scale modeling community.
Mike:Yeah, you're next, or my first. Your first it's an aircraft. All right, not what I'm going to build, I'm just glad to see it, tacom is kicking out a Henschel HS-129 in 48th scale.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mike:You know this plane was underpowered, it was undermanufactured, but it was a very, very interesting aircraft overall.
Kentucky Dave:And very effective at what it did.
Mike:Yeah, I would love a state-of-the-art one in 72nd scale. I suspect you might too.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, I would.
Mike:But you know it's interesting, it's because it's a small plane. Yeah, for a twin engine it's a small plane. It's a very small plane.
Kentucky Dave:Basically built around the guns and the pilot and these very small engines.
Mike:That was, yeah. Like I said, underpowered, yes. So that's you know? Looking forward to seeing what TACOM does with an aircraft.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mike:There's probably others out there. They've done already, maybe I don't know.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:Not familiar with their aircraft line, but interesting selection from them.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, it is.
Mike:What you got next.
Kentucky Dave:My next one is a little bit odd. A company called Dogfight Models which I have never heard of and I don't know if it's a new company or what has announced an Albion three-point refueling truck, point refueling truck. This is the standard British refueling truck in the early war, 1939, 1940 to 1941. So Battle of Britain, battle of France, early refueling truck and it's odd looking. It basically is a truck and it has what almostfields in France and in Britain you see them all the time and it's unusual and odd looking and I'd really like one. I've wanted one for a long time and I'm really happy to see this announced. I'll be interested to see what it actually looks like.
Mike:Is it plastic? Do you know?
Kentucky Dave:uh, I think it's plastic, but it's you. Sometimes it's hard to tell on scale makes yeah so how about you?
Mike:my next one is for miniArt. Okay, it's the Sonderanhanger Ost. Okay, one and a half ton cargo trailer.
Kentucky Dave:There was a mouthful.
Mike:Yeah, it was Special trailer. That's what that means.
Kentucky Dave:Okay.
Mike:Special trailer East 1.5 ton cargo trailer. Just a big ugly trailer with, like steel rim, solid wheels on it. It's interesting for me because I have a period photo of an sdkfc 251 towing one of these trailers and it's filled with standing soviet pows oh, that would be a great diorama it's a lot of figure painting, but yes you could do something a little different and not have it completely full.
Mike:I mean it's like jam-packed, because you know not a lot of respect being dealt out there, so there was no room to sit down. Yeah, but that's how I've got familiar with this thing. It's interesting. This thing I was is interesting, I think. Maybe, maybe, like a adv azimuth has kitted this before, either in resin or maybe in their ironsides range of right of a bygone era, but this is a new one, in injection mold for mini art. So it's, you know, might have a lot of parts and they might be fiddly, but it's not gonna be a resin kit, it's not 3D printed either.
Kentucky Dave:Well, that's an improvement. My next one is a general one, and that is a company called Blue Rider. It's a decal company that apparently still exists it started in 1987, and the reason I love them is that I have an obsession. One of my many obsessions is small air forces and Blue Rider specialized in a lot of small air force markings, particularly between the wars between the World First and Second World War and they used to do a magazine called Insignia Magazine and every issue had a decal sheet in it and they were always interesting, unusual small Air Force markings. Well, I thought they had gone out of business and maybe they just did for a while, but they are in business currently. They've announced some new sheets which are actually 1920s and 1930s Greek aircraft, greek Navy and Greek Army aircraft, and I was just happy to see them back because they do such interesting stuff that I'm just pleased. They've got a Facebook page. You can look them up on Facebook and follow them there, and I was just happy to see it.
Mike:That's right up your alley man.
Kentucky Dave:That's right. So what's your last one? That's right up your alley man, that's right.
Mike:So what's your last one? My last one we may have mentioned in Faves and Yawns last year Okay, but it's finally on the streets which is Heller's E2C Hawkeye a new tool, yes.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, first new tool aircraft from Heller in forever.
Mike:Now I think this is allegedly from the same research and stuff from. Somebody just came out with a 48 scale, one Academy maybe Somebody, I forget who Somebody did. Kitty.
Kentucky Dave:Hawk no.
Mike:I can't remember. Somebody had a 48 scale ETC and this was a daughter project to that under the Heller name. A cool plane, another twin engine. That's not really huge yep but it's from that freaking color, colorful, marking era man yep and just could be a really cool plane. I, this one ended up in the stash. You probably shouldn't be too surprised, okay, if this?
Kentucky Dave:one ended up in a stash, you probably shouldn't be too surprised.
Mike:Okay, well, that's good, I'm glad to hear that it's a neat, neat, neat plane.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, it is.
Mike:You got one more right.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, I do. You'll have to talk to the model geeks about that. They'll be able to tell you a lot about that. My last one is there's a company out of Central Europe called DP Casper and they make decal sheets and their decal sheets are interesting in that they are themed around particular wars or particular operations. The one that they've just announced that caught my eye, that I definitely am going to pick up, is they now have a sheet coming out of the 1942-1943 Aleutians campaign which has everything from Canadian Tomahawks to Wildcats, to Japanese float planes, roofs and Jakes, to PBYs to Betty Bombers I mean just 20 or 30 different aircraft from both sides and their sheets are fantastic. I love them. I've got a number of them and I've never used their decals before. I've got a number of them and I've never used their decals before. So if there's somebody out there who actually has used the decals from a DP Casper sheet, please reach out and let me know what your experience was, because otherwise I'm going to buy the solution sheet for sure, just because I am so interested in the subject matter. Mike, we've gotten to the end of the episode and I've gotten to the end of my session.
Kentucky Dave:Beer, a Worker's Comp from Two Roads. It's a very mild 4.8% alcohol by volume Mr Schaefer, thank you again. And I got to say pretty darn good beer For what it is. It's very light, but it's not like a mass market beer, so you don't feel like you're drinking Coors or something like that. It's got a little bit of body to it, which is, you know, as light as a beer as it is. You wouldn't expect that. So, yeah, I can endorse Two Roads Workers' Comp Session Beer.
Mike:I'll just try it out. I guess I get to.
Kentucky Dave:You do, unless I drink yours first. I better get to Louisville quick. You better get to Louisville quick, so tell me about yours being fully transparent, dave.
Mike:Yep, this was bought to make fish batter. Oh, and it's good for that. My son found an English fish and chips recipe to try out on some of the vacation catch.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:And, honestly, I should have just saved it for that the next time we do it. I used to be a fan of Guinness in my unrefined youth.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mike:I've just lost my enthusiasm for this American market can Guinness? I just don't think it's very good anymore.
Kentucky Dave:Well, my wife went through a phase where she loved Guinness and it was really the only beer she drank. She got past that as well.
Mike:I say all that, yet I'm on my second, so yeah.
Kentucky Dave:Mike, we are at the actual end of the episode and we've got shout outs, but my shout outs this time aren't so much shout outs as recommendations. Okay, so you go ahead and give us a shout out.
Mike:I got two. I'll give you my first one. It's the obligatory. Thank you for all the folks supporting Plastic Model Mojo through your generosity. You can do that by going to wwwplasticmodelmojocom. There's a support the show tab on the menu That'll take you to all the avenues that you can support the show, if you care to do so. They're also in the show notes of the episode. Really appreciate it, folks. We got a lot going on. Phase 2 is coming up on the website. It's lagging a little. Be a great time if you've ever considered to helping out the show to do that.
Mike:We'd appreciate it. We do. Thanks a lot. It's got us to where we're at so far and it's going to get us to where we're going. So we really appreciate the generosity folks have expressed to Plastic Model Mojo.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, and the future's so bright bright, we gotta wear shade. You just had to get one in, I had to get one in. All right, my shout, my first shout out, is actually a recommendation for a youtube channel called kings and generals, and it's a channel that covers the military history of different battles, conflicts, wars, etc. Everything from ancient battles all the way up to modern conflicts, everything in between. Now, a lot of their content is members only. They want you to join, pay a monthly fee, etc. But they do have a lot of free content. And you know I mentioned the Aleutians DP Casper decal sheet, a series or YouTube video that's about an hour long on the illusion campaigns in 1942 and 1943. Highly recommended. I watched it. It was very enjoyable. You learn a lot and it's very, very well done, so I highly recommend. If you're looking for something to watch on YouTube, I can highly recommend the Kings and Generals channel.
Mike:Well, my next shout out Dave is to Adam Coleman in the Dallas Texas area. He's been a great listener, glad to have him as a listener, and he reached out about something we'll keep under wraps for now, but I appreciate the conversation we had and had some nice things to say about the show and what we've done and where we're going. And thanks a lot, adam, that was nice, nice chat with you the other night.
Kentucky Dave:My next recommendation is a podcast, particularly some episodes of a podcast. Some episodes of a podcast. I venture to guess that a lot of listeners to this podcast are familiar with a podcast called we have Ways, which is done by World War II historian James Holland and comedian Al Murray. Well, james Holland's brother, tom Holland not the actor does a podcast called the Rest is History with Dominic Sandbrook, and Tom Holland is, and James Holland's a World War II history guy. Well, tom Holland is a ancient and medieval history guy is an ancient and medieval history guy, and they just recently did a four-part series on Hannibal and the Second Punic War, going from the end of the First Punic War all the way up to Hannibal's victory at Can I, and it was four-part series.
Kentucky Dave:Each episode's about 20, 25 minutes each, and when you're done listening to a Plastic Model Mojo episode and you're waiting for the next one to drop, I can highly recommend the Rest is History and particularly the Hannibal series. Go listen, I think you'll enjoy it. I don't have any more, dave. I don't have any more either. I think we're at the end of the episode.
Mike:We are. So folks join us for episode 143 later in the month for a chat with modeler Harvey Lowe Looking forward to that, and we may drop a short in there as well. So hopefully that'll happen. You can keep an eye out for that as well. Until then, Dave, so many kicks, so little time. Dave, have a good evening. You too, Catch up real soon.
Kentucky Dave:You got it.
