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
The Japan Journey: Episode 143, Harvey Low, Shizuoka Show, Hobby Shops, and Modeling Culture
Scale modeling in Japan exists in an entirely different dimension—where subway stations host free model building events, highway rest stops sell Tamiya kits, and every other child seems to know their way around plastic cement. On this episode, we're joined by acclaimed modeler Harvey Low, who recently returned from an extended trip to Japan where he experienced the famous Shizuoka Hobby Show, Tokyo's legendary hobby shops, and the unique modeling culture that permeates Japanese society.
Harvey shares remarkable stories about the staggering 12,000-15,000 models displayed at Shizuoka, the insanely cramped but treasure-filled hobby shops of Akihabara, and finding modeling supplies in places you'd never expect. You'll be amazed by his accounts of ultra-rare kits available nowhere else, the predominance of scratch-building over out-of-box builds, and jaw-dropping new releases—including a 1/144 scale Yamato battleship that costs $8,000 and spans 6-8 feet when built.
Beyond just shopping experiences, Harvey offers deep insights into what makes Japanese modeling culture unique. From the deliberate cultivation of young modelers through free kits and building stations to the greater emphasis on display and craftsmanship over competition, these cultural distinctions have created one of the world's richest modeling environments.
Whether you're planning your own modeling pilgrimage to Japan or just dreaming of one, this episode provides invaluable tips on what to buy, where to go, and how to make the most of the experience.
In our Benchtop Halftime Report, Mike and Kentucky Dave share updates on their current builds, and we review some exciting new kit announcements hitting the market soon. Drop in for a modeling journey unlike any other!
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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:All right, Kentucky Dave, episode 143. We're finally going to do this.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, that's right, and instead of being the end of June, it's the beginning of July.
Mike:That's right and it's just kind of like we said in the 12-minute model sphere. It's been a little dodgy the last couple weeks.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Mike:Well, hopefully there's something up in your model sphere given all this busyness.
Kentucky Dave:Well, there is. There are a couple of things. One, as people who've watched on the dojo have found out, I finally finished my pool project, getting the stairs sanded and painted and all that sanded and painted and all that. So the pool has been filled and just in time for certain individuals to show up on July 4th for a cookout and pool party.
Mike:All right, looking forward to it.
Kentucky Dave:It's modeling adjacent because my partner in podcast crime is going to bring his family and I'm going to once again try the impossible feat of feeding to Phil, two teenage boys.
Mike:One's 21 now, oh God yeah.
Kentucky Dave:I know it's amazing.
Mike:And he swims about a million laps a week too.
Kentucky Dave:Well, the pool's there waiting for him, and decently warm too, Perhaps a week too.
Mike:Well, the pool's there waiting for them, and decently warm too. What about on the model front, on the hobby front?
Kentucky Dave:You got much going on On the model front. Obviously I'm on crunch time on getting stuff done for the Nats and we'll talk about that in the benchtop halftime report. But in related Nationals news I did get registered for the Nationals. I do believe pre-registration is now closed, but I did manage to get pre-registered. In addition, we finally nailed down our accommodations at the Nationals. We're going to do a little something different this year and I'm I'm looking forward to. It's only five weeks. Five weeks away. It's close. I know before we know it it is gonna be here before we know it.
Kentucky Dave:And finally, I have spent a bunch of time in the last two weeks interacting with our listeners, whether it be on the dojo or getting DMs from them or text. Some of our listeners I text with or communicate in other form or fashion. And work has kind of sucked lately, just between you, me and the wall. Don't tell my employers I've said this, but work kind of sucked lately Just between you, me and the wall. Don't tell my employers I've said this, but work kind of sucked lately. And there is nothing better in the middle of the day, when I'm grinding it out and not particularly happy about the work at the moment to get a DM, or to stop and go through the dojo and see a really great post, and I'll tell you what that has really added to my model sphere. So I want to thank everybody who's interacted with me lately on that front. So has your model sphere been anything but cutting the yard?
Mike:Yeah, I've been well, you've been in. But cutting the yard? Yeah, I've been well, you've been in on the conversation to some degree. We've got a lot of stuff. We're lining up for the next couple months and doing a little bit better job with our forward planning than we've done. We do pretty good. No, we've got some good things on the horizon?
Kentucky Dave:Yes, we do.
Mike:Getting everybody lined up to do that is a little bit of a juggle, but not too bad.
Kentucky Dave:It takes a little time, it takes a little effort, but we seem to be doing well. We've got a lot of good stuff coming up.
Mike:We do so, planning and getting those folks lined up. So that's what I've been doing. Are you about ready for the Nationals? I hope so. I just shot an order of our secret project up to our secret contractor to get our secret surprise finished up for the Nationals.
Mike:So we'll just have to stop by the table and see what we're talking about. We're not going to say until then, but it's something that's been requested, yes, with some frequency, so some folks are going to be happy. That said, I also got the vendor table paid out and got got pre-registered. So, good, all my ducks are in a row as well.
Kentucky Dave:So All right, I can't wait, man, it's going to be here. It's going to be here before you know it. That's right. It will so, mike, since we're doing a full episode. Finally, do you have a modeling fluid in front of you? I?
Mike:do. What do you have? I went out and got it tonight in fact. Oh wow, well, don Gilman listener, he's from Texas, I believe. Yeah, posted on the Dojo he was doing an old Forester flight and had a couple of the standard labels. Then the whole. I can't remember it was a Whiskey Rose series or Prohibition series, I can't you know the dated bottles.
Harvey Low:Right.
Mike:I went out and got the favorite of mine out of that line the 1920?, the 1920, I guess.
Kentucky Dave:Oh God, that's good stuff.
Mike:So it's pretty good. It's been a while since I've had it, so I got to be careful I might be slurring my words later.
Kentucky Dave:Tread lightly that one's on the high end.
Mike:Yeah, it's a moderate pour with a big old rock. Good, we're good. What about you, man?
Kentucky Dave:Well, I've got kind of a double this evening, of a double this evening One. The beer is Krampusnach, which is a Schwartz beer from Braumeister Brewing up in Canada. This is another one of the ones that Evan McCallum gave to us at Hamilton and I'm pouring it into a glass supplied to us by one of the listeners. Michael Grispen, who lives in England, has the most German-sounding name in the world yet, apparently originally came from the Raleigh, north Carolina area and there is a brewery called Aviator Brewing Company in Raleigh, and he sent a little care package of two of their glasses and two T-shirts. So I have poured the Krampusnacht into the Aviator Brewing Company glass and I will tell you it is definitely a Schwartz beer. Yep, definitely a Schwartz beer. You can taste the malt and, boy is it, it got some body to it. This will be interesting as we go through the night.
Mike:I bet so.
Kentucky Dave:It's got some real body to it. Evan really liked that one. He said Okay, real body to it. Evan really liked that one. He said so I'll be interested to see how it develops as our night goes on, and when you show up Friday I'll have the glass and the t-shirt from Michael for you to pick up.
Mike:All right. Well, that'll give me more incentive to get there, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:That's right. Like you need it any more than my bright smiling face. Okay, okay, all right.
Mike:Well, the mailbag's in pretty good shape, especially since we got stuff coming from multiple channels now.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, really, yes really.
Mike:Well, the first one up is in response to well, there was the best gift ever question we got, and then also a call to call out someone in our community who has done you a solid.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:Well, this is from the good Dr David Gelmacher. He tells a story that I'm going to tell. I'm going to work my way through this and you'll probably remember it, but just hold your water until we get to it. Okay, he says. When his son was about four or five he quote unquote gave him a really nice Revell 72nd scale F89 Scorpion, I think In the checkerboard markings on the tail wing pods.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:And it didn't survive one of his moves. So in 2016, his local club had a Build a Revelle kit challenge. His thoughts went pretty quickly to redoing that one. Well, he found a copy of the kit at a good price, but it was a different boxing, had different scheme in it, mm-hmm. So he posted it to the 72nd scale modelers forum with his use, with his username, and he said that you responded he'd met you through a Jim Bates you could provide it for for $5. And then when he sent his real name not his handle for the forum and his address, he says oh, I didn't know it was. You forget the five bucks. So he's a. He's reliving that memory.
Kentucky Dave:That is an absolutely 100% true story and this was back when I knew of Dr Gelbmacher. But I didn't really know Dr Gelbmacher just other than through Jim, and I remember that one. In fact I still have the F89 kit, less the decals, in my stash.
Mike:Probably got a sheet of decals in your stash.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, I've got like four sheets of decals, so I'm covered.
Mike:Well, he says that story predates the podcast by about three and a half years. It does, but you're still helping each other out.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, in fact I got decals from him not too long ago, so he's paying it forward or paying it back.
Mike:Mojovian Special Agent 003, brandon Jacob sent us a rather lengthy email in response to all the goings on about stash reduction and the big book collection. That's been an interesting topic.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mike:Well, you know, he and his friend Rick Cotton down there in Texas have been getting into the stash flipping business, right Liquidation business, and you know this is a long email and I think once we get the next phase of the website done this would make a very nice blog post kind of article. So I'm just going to hit a couple of high points. Then I'm going to touch base with Brandon to see if maybe a little bit could be fleshed out here and maybe turn us into something else, because it's really good. A couple of points to consider. The high points of this is he says your plans should not only include with what to do with your stash, but to also remind the person or persons who are going to have to disperse this collection that it's okay.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:That they don't need to wrestle with not being able to bear selling off what their late spouse's joy came from.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:But to you know, go ahead and let them know it's okay. In the end it's plastic in a cardboard box.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, good point, that is a very good point.
Mike:And the other one is he encourages folks to guard against the. Oh, a family member pops on eBay and sees a 30-year-old Tamiya kit selling for 50 bucks as an asking price and the widow or family gets sold down this golden road of unlimited fortunes, as he puts it. They've got this big thing that's got a thousand kits in it and they're all worth between 40 and 50 bucks.
Mike:Yeah, get the dollar sign eyeballs yeah dispersing this kind of a collection and getting anything close to a a market price for it is a long tall order yeah so you know they don't even sell the stuff on ebay.
Mike:They they like to do the show price thing and blow it out, it right? And you know they're making some on the side, but you know they're not getting a lot of money for these kits, right? So they're probably not giving a lot of money for these kits and that's what it takes to make these things go away. Is somebody being realistic about the secondary market value of most of this stuff? Now, there are exceptions, oh yeah. No, there are the ultra rare kits. This stuff, yeah.
Kentucky Dave:Now there are exceptions, oh yeah, no, there are the ultra-rare kits and stuff like that and the highly desirable ones that may be.
Mike:you know they're going to command a price, but by and large this stuff depreciates rather precipitously.
Kentucky Dave:It does indeed.
Mike:So, brandon, if you're listening, think about what I said about turning this article into something else, because I think you're onto something. Well, I was going to say he's in the kind of broker's businesses for sale.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:So you know, he's kind of got a little knowledge in this regard.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:Eric Kintzer wrote in and he gave us a wheel topic which I'm going to not reveal, but it's a good one and we thank him for that. I mean encourage anybody else who has a topic they think would be good, for either the wheel of accidental wisdom or even our shop talk episodes could be used either either place. Really, we need to do it.
Kentucky Dave:We need to do another wheel episode.
Mike:It's not been too long. We got a little ways to go before we do another one, but it's gonna be shop talk about every month, so yeah, we can certainly populate that list as well. Up next, bruce mccray wrote us back, dave, and uh, he's had quite the adventure on his spring model show tour of the united states. And, bruce, I sent you a reply and get back with me and see about when we can get you back on the show, because there's a lot to tell here and I'd like to be the ones to help you do it.
Kentucky Dave:It's kind of the modeling version of National Lampoon's Vacation.
Mike:In retrospect yes.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:But we'll let him tell it and what it means to him.
Kentucky Dave:It's one of those things that, looking back on it, it's funny.
Mike:now I don't know, he may still have trauma from it.
Kentucky Dave:That's true, I need a sip of beer.
Mike:Charles Rice has informed us of the Lowcountry Nationals July 19th, so that one's coming up quick. It is a model show held in the North Charleston area of South Carolina at the Trident Technical College and that's going to be again July 19th 2025. $5 entry for non-participants. $10 for the first five models, $1 each additional model after that. No charge for display only. So they're doing display only.
Mike:That's great and he says previous first place winners can enter the best of the best category. Registration is 830 to 1130 am, day of the show, judging noon to one, awards at two and there's vendor tables available for $25 a pop and the sponsorships available for $25 per class. I'm assuming those are still available. I really don't know, but you can get all the information at wwwcharlestonmodelerscom. That's one word Charleston Modelers. So there's a show for summer, a rare summer show. Well, they're not terribly rare but they're not as common as the spring and fall for sure. From Cape Coral, florida, michael Turner's written in and wants to know about this bottle of 1792 he won.
Kentucky Dave:Oh well, it's terrible. Send it here, I'll take it off your hands, there you go.
Mike:Yes, I've had this. Is it exceptional? I don't remember, it's good.
Kentucky Dave:It's good, I can tell you, it's good.
Mike:I think it's one of Barton's higher levels, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, enjoy it. You can answer that question yourself.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:See if you think it's drinkable.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:We think so. Chris Veitch, I'm going to give the German pronunciation of that name, although he's from Sunderland, UK. He sent me, or us. Actually, in regards to Shop Talk in episode 142, I'd mentioned, well, we talked about plans for getting better and I mentioned my shop tools, my machine tools.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mike:A lot to go through here, and I'm going to parse through this and list some of it to the dojo, but he sent me a lot of resources for getting up to speed on this kind of stuff and small starter projects, so a lot of helpful stuff. He didn't send me any time, though, yeah.
Kentucky Dave:He must be out. I'm looking for a bottle of Mr Modeling Time that's right. It makes you know it's rarer than unicorn tears.
Mike:Well, chris, thanks for that. I took just a quick look at some of this stuff, but you sent me several links here and I'm going to take your advice on starting with a few simple things and once I get to it, I'll I'll look into some of these, these books and resources, because that's exactly what I needed. Well, in addition to email, we've got several have come through our message and voicemail link. First up is Arthur Garanazo and he's from Brazil and I think he wrote in a long time ago. I'm not going to try his town name.
Kentucky Dave:Brazil.
Mike:It's Brazil but Portuguese has a lot of vowel modifications that I don't understand. Yep, well, he enjoyed the squadron vendor spotlight again with Brandon and it was interesting to see the company view of the hobby. And he was really curious about the Eagle Club and the national contest exclusives, even though he's probably not going to be able to participate, being in Brazil. But he just thought those were really good ideas to spur the business and get people involved in the hobby. So he enjoyed it. Glad to hear it. Thank you for the comments, arthur. Also from the feedback link is Aaron Bennett and again, he's a huge Squadron supporter. He's been a faithful customer for more than 30 years and he's just really excited to see what brand has done with the company. Completely agree and really looking forward to that. So he's he's glad to see his old friend squadron still kicking it down the road, thanks to Brandon and company.
Kentucky Dave:It brings a smile to my face Every time I go to their website, just because of the fact that there's that, there's that nostalgia, that that you, just you, get the, you get the tingles for.
Mike:I know it's got this nostalgic brand, but he's certainly keeping up with the times.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, absolutely that website's dynamic.
Mike:Finally, from my side of things, the email and the feedback link is Peter Kwong and he wanted to comment about episode 141 shop talk our discussion about organization and he cleaned up his work bench by getting a lot of these mini sterilized sliding drawer things that you can stack at least as high as your ceiling is sometimes. So he got he recommends those to use up some vertical space and free up the horizontal for for your work and get things a lot tidier, like his sanding sticks are now in one place instead of in several containers and soup cans on the workbench. So it's a good idea.
Kentucky Dave:I've got nine. I'm sitting here looking at one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine drawers of those, Myself in my hobby room.
Mike:And then one of the other shop talks, I think still episode 141 or two. He has been reducing his stash for quite a number of years and it really picked up after he had a modeling friend suddenly pass away and he had to help their partner sell the stash of model kits and model railroad stuff. And he doesn't buy a whole lot much these days except tools and accessories and tends to buy fewer kits, mostly newer stuff that he finds interesting. But yeah, it's something definitely on his mind and recommends folks keep that in check.
Kentucky Dave:And there is nothing that will focus your mind. I think, on that subject. People can talk to you all they want to about it. Or you have a modeling friend who passes on and you have to go over and help do something with the collection of both built and unbuilt kits. It really does make you come back home and go look around and say, okay, I need to do something here. If I croak tomorrow this would be a disaster.
Mike:So I've got to do something and I'm slowly doing it Well, and he gives us a couple of shop talk topics and one of these is going to be really fun to talk about with Bob Bear. So hopefully we can pull that off and get Bob in here for shop talk in our next episode, and this will be a good one.
Kentucky Dave:Well, great.
Mike:Well, Dave, from the email and feedback link side of things, that's it for me.
Kentucky Dave:Well, from the DM and text message and that side of things I've got a number of things. One, our good friend Jeff Groves Inch, high Guy Inch, and I text each other a fair amount during the week on different topics and he texted me to thank us for recommending the God Hand Spru Cutters. And he was just. He was sitting there modeling and marveling at how good they were at flush cutting and, you know, leaving little or no sprue attachment gate. He seconded my idea that it's one of those tools that's expensive but it is actually worth what the cost is, and so it's kind of nice to hear from him that that recommendation resonated with him and he got one and he appreciates it. Rob Morales reached out. Rob is a friend of Mike Idekavage's and he's going to a model show where there is a vendor who has a lot of different airline decals and he remembers me talking about the Piedmont Friendship F27, the Fokker F27. And he contacted me and offered to look out at that show to see if indeed that vendor had 72nd scale Piedmont decals for that kit. And if he does, well, you know me I can't resist a decal sheet. So hopefully he'll find one and then I'll have another decal sheet to deal with, but not a bad problem. Christian Gurney reached out to us. Bases by Bill. Christian wanted to let us know they're about to release three new bases two Soviet-style air bases, concrete tarmac-style bases and then additionally they're doing a modern US carrier base and so they'll have all three of those out.
Kentucky Dave:Next we have a listener who goes by the Facebook name of Wesley Scale Models who's in South Africa and reached out to tell us that he was listening in South Africa, which was kind of nice. Mike and I we can actually go and look at some of the statistics and tell where listeners are by continent and sometimes even by country, and sometimes granularly even by city. But it's kind of nice to hear I don't think we've ever interacted with our listener from South Africa before and it's kind of nice for us to hear from folks who listen in the countries that we don't normally interact with. So it was nice of him to reach out and let us know he's in South Africa and he's listening, and I want to thank him for doing that. And you know anybody else out there in unusual places. Please reach out and let us know that the plastic model mojo is reaching you, because that's kind of neat to know.
Mike:Well, if we could pick up Antarctica, I think we'll have them all.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, antarctica is the one. We don't seem to have any listeners there yet. Maybe we can get somebody down to one of those stations down in the South Pole, it'd be a good hobby to have down there. It would be Get your stuff down there.
Kentucky Dave:That's right. Yardwork would not be your excuse. You mentioned Bob Bear and I had recommended a couple of podcasts and YouTube channels on a previous episode and one of them was a podcast called the Rest is History and I recommended the four-part series they did on Hannibal and Bob listens to a lot of series. They did on Hannibal and Bob listens to a lot of podcasts kind of like me and he seconded that recommendation. He also said that the Rest is History also does like a four-part series on 1066 and on the Norman Conquest of England and he recommended both of those series as well worth listening to. So if you're looking for more podcasts after of course you're completely caught up on Plastic Model Mojo, the rest is history and they're 1066, norman Conquest and Hannibal's four-part series. Joe McCaslin, modeler, reached out, was interested in doing some 72nd scale US Pearl Harbor subjects and was looking for decal manufacturers who had models in that area or with those markings, and I pointed him to Starfighter decals.
Mike:Yeah, I was about to say somebody makes.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, starfighter makes a sheet with like four or five different Pearl Harbor aircraft US aircraft P-40, p-36,. Might even be a Wildcat or a Buffalo on there, I don't remember, or a buffalo on there, I don't remember. But I pointed him to Starfighter to check out that particular sheet. If any other listeners know of any other manufacturers who do 72nd scale US Pearl Harbor subjects, please let me know, post it in the dojo and bring it to Joe McCaslin's attention. Our listener from across the pond, chris Meddings, took friendly umbrage with my pronunciation of Suffolk in England and he wrote to inform me that the correct pronunciation is Suffolk and that's just like all the people who mispronounce Louisville, all the different ways to mispronounce Louisville. It irritates the ear of a native, so I understand why hearing me say Suffolk instead of Suffolk would bother him. So thank you for the correction and that's the last one I have from the Facebook Messenger side.
Mike:Well, I'm sure Chris will forgive you. I'm sure he will. Well, if that's it, Dave, we want to remind folks to write into the show. This is our favorite segment and got a lot of ways to do that now.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, we do.
Mike:Email to plasticmodelmojo at gmailcom is a primary way to do it, and you can also send us a direct message through the Facebook messenger app, or there's a feedback web link found in the show notes of this and every episode. So please take advantage of all those and send us some. Send us some email, send us some listener mail, some feedback. We we love it.
Kentucky Dave:Reach out. We don't really care which way you do it, just reach out. As I said, I love nothing better than the interaction I get with the listeners, with the community, so please do that. We always love to hear from you. As I always say, please rate this podcast on whatever podcasting app you're listening to, give it five stars. You'll help us make the podcast more visible. In addition, the best way for us to continue to grow is for you to recommend our podcast to one of your modeling friends who isn't currently listening, to one of your modeling friends who isn't currently listening. So please recommend us to your modeling friends who aren't currently listening to either podcasts in general or Plastic Model Mojo in particular.
Mike:And don't forget, in addition to a feedback web link, we also have a ratings web link in the show notes as well, so you can rate and comment on the podcast there too and give it five stars. We sure appreciate it. In addition to the podcast, we've got a lot of blog and YouTube friends out in the model sphere. You can check out all the other podcasts 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 and he's aggregated the banner links to all the current podcasts in the model sphere and you can go there for a one-stop shop and check out some of the others. We also got a lot of YouTube friends out there and blog friends.
Mike:Stephen Lee SpruPi with Frets has got a great blog that you can check out. All his 72nd scale stuff for the most part and some model railroad thrown in and then just some general thinking about the hobby and what's going on sometimes. He's always got some pretty good content there If you like 72nd scale. You've already mentioned Jeff Groves, the Inch High guy. He's always got some batch builds going on or some interesting project, but again, it's always 72nd scale. If you're into the gentleman's scale. Those two ought to get you down the road pretty far. Evan McCallum, panzermeister36, great YouTube channel on weathering armor, some build reviews and even a model railroad subject thrown in for interest there every now and then too as well. So we'll cross over there. And we got Chris Wallace, model airplane maker. Chris has got a blog and a YouTube channel and always fun to see what he's got going on.
Kentucky Dave:And he builds in 48 scale, but we forgive him for that. And he does some beautiful stuff in 48 scale, just amazing.
Mike:And finally, a scale model workshop from our friend, paul Budzik. Lots of great insight and wisdom to be found on his YouTube channel, so check all those out. You're going to get a lot of good stuff from him.
Kentucky Dave:Finally, if you're not currently a member of IPMS USA, ipms Canada or whatever national organization in the nation you're listening to us from, please consider joining. The national IPMS organizations are a way for the volunteers in the hobby to help the hobby grow, not only in their country of origin, but they also facilitate communication between the different branches in the different countries. If you are a fan of armor modeling or post-1900 figure modeling, consider joining the Armor Modeling and Preservation Society, amps. They're a great group of guys. They really are dedicated to the armor modeling hobby and are dedicated to making it better and sharing it widely. I say it almost each time we get to this point If you can get to their nationals which sadly Mike and I missed this year, next year's in South Bend If you can get to the nationals, go to the Amps Nationals. I guarantee you'll have a great time.
"The Voice of" Bob Bair:Plastic Model Mojo is brought to you by Model Paint Solutions, your source for harder and steam-backed 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, Dave, we ran into our guest again up at HeritageCon.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, I'm glad we finally were able to get him on.
Mike:Harvey Lowe's our guest tonight and he's recently returned from a lengthy trip to japan where he took in the shizuoka hobby show and did some shopping around tokyo and went to some museums and just had a really fabulous time. And harvey agreed to come on and give us the ins and outs of his little trip and some pointers along the way, if you might like to go to japan and check out the hobby scene sometime. Well, dave, over the years that we've been going to HeritageCon in particular, we've made one more Canadian friend that we've been wanting to get on the show for a while and we finally got around to that. We've got modeler Harvey Lowe with us tonight. Harvey, how are you doing? I'm?
Harvey Low:great, and greetings from the great white north in Canada. Guys, it's a pleasure to be here.
Kentucky Dave:Hopefully it's not white right now.
Harvey Low:No, it's not. It's actually like 40 degrees Celsius, and I just came back from Blue Jays game. It is very hot and humid in Toronto Canada.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I was going to say this is the two or three-month stretch where you all in Canada get really nice weather and taking in a Blue Jays game. That's a great way to spend an evening.
Harvey Low:Yeah, well, today it was so hot that they closed the dome. They usually leave it open, but, yeah, our winters are very, very white and very cold. A lot of snow, a lot of snow. So I'm enjoying the day.
Mike:Good, I wanted to have you on for a while. Dave did too, and the reason for that? We've there's some modelers out there in the community that have been doing a lot of great things for a lot, of, a lot of my time in the hobby. I mean they were, they're already established. You know we've had Paul Budzik on a number of times, folks like that, and you know Harvey for me anyway, and I assume Dave too. We've we've followed your builds and stuff for a long time. Oh yeah, and it's all just really impressive stuff all the time and it's just a thanks for coming on the show.
Harvey Low:Oh, I feel honored. Thank you guys. And there's, I'm in good company. Let's just keep it at that.
Kentucky Dave:So tell us, when did you start modeling? How did you get in? What do you like to build? How did you get to where you are now? Just give us the couple of minute. Harvey, low, sure.
Harvey Low:Yeah Well, like anybody, I started off really young, right? So I'm in my early 60s and grew up in the genre of, you know, 1960s battle of britain, battle the bulge, where a lot of the war veterans were then become movie actors and audie murphy and all that kind of stuff. So a lot of our generation just got into that stuff right. And I did my first. It was an airfix bow fighter that I had to have my neighbor help me build when I was, I think, six or eight. And then of course, school kicks in. Everything kicks in. I did a lot of builds as a kid with my neighbor friend up the street and we would ride to the local hobby shop and buy an air fix kit. And in those days air fix prices were based on their series. So the series one kit would be a buck, the Series 2 kit that's how far back I go.
Harvey Low:And then you know, you go to university, you get your career off the ground. Actually, the only time I ever stopped is when I went to university and dating, when I met my wife. I didn't build much models and then I started up again after I entered my career and I basically went. I started off as a figure modeler and then I quickly turned to military and started with aircraft tanks. But now lately, when you follow my work, my focus is primarily on the bad guys. I like World War II Italian and in particular I like World War II Japanese. So that's my focus now, although I do the odd pieces here and there and I guess, now that I'm got into early retirement, basically all I do now is build models, do things, articles for magazines, and I build for clients. And that's the journey. And now it's taken me finally to a relaxed time where I can kind of do what I want and I'm gratified that I can do models without any type of pitches.
Kentucky Dave:Well, you kind of undersold yourself there. You talked about oh I build Italian or I build Japanese, but it's not like you're going and getting a Hasegawa or a Tamiya kit and putting it together in some of your builds lately, seek out the weirdest resin, vacuform, I mean things that were to call them cottage industry kits undersells cottage industry a whole lot.
Harvey Low:Oh, you caught me. Well, maybe this is yes. I love scratch building. I got inspired by the early scratch built models by George Lee at IPMS National.
Kentucky Dave:Oh yes.
Harvey Low:I just remember those and go, wow, that's different. It's kind of like getting hit by a big Mack truck and then you got to say, all right, building models is fun. But I kind of get a kick out of guys going, what kit is that? Well, it ain't a kit, or where'd you get that? I kind of did it on the side with bits of this and that, and I kind of like doing things that are different.
Harvey Low:So, dave, you're right, I love scratch building, I love super detailing. I love super detailing. I'm old school, so I do a lot of my own resin casting, I carve wood molds and I just like to do weird stuff. Just to put it in perspective, in this year 2025, I think I'm up to about seven, five, five completed, of which all of them are pretty well scratch builds or very mixed bag conversions, with only one kit recently that I did which was almost out of the box, which was that great. Five mold zero. But the rest were all you can get into it in a little while. The rest were all scratch builds or conversions. But yes, I love the weird stuff If I have to build a kit, like if it's a little, while the rest were all scratch builds or conversions.
Harvey Low:But yes, I love the weird stuff. If I have to build a kit, like if it's a sherman, it's got to be. Well, what's different? I got to do a different angle, so I'm tinkering doing a half decent sherman from the movie fury. You're also something different. But yeah, you're right, I love doing weird stuff and oddball stuff that's probably why I like to follow your work.
Kentucky Dave:Well, and you do have some things in common with Mike, where you'll take a kit, to call it a kit, is sometimes stretching it, and then you'll look at it and you'll go well, I can use this and this and this, right, but then, well, the perfect example is a year or two ago, you did a US World War II submarine, the S-44. Oh, yes, right, yes, the basis of which was was it combat models?
Harvey Low:Yes, sir, it was a combat, full combat, vacuform yeah. I was going to say was a combat models vacuform no-transcript man, this is gonna be an easy one, uh, and then it doesn't right, because, oh no, not even an old vacuum form kit's gonna hold up. But yeah, I had to, you know, remold it in wood and all oh. By the way, that kit I just recently sold and oh did you really.
Harvey Low:I hope it got a good home. I it got a very good home and so I'm very happy of the new owner and I'm very happy with the factor that's got a great home. So, yeah, but yeah, to go back to to these difficult, I like to resurrect old stuff and if I can take an old vacuform kit and do that, then you know that's the challenge. Now I do need palette cleansers and I know that a lot of guys talk about palette cleansers. I heard Evan talking about some that he's working on. So that's why I did the Fine Molds, japanese Zero, good choice, which is almost right out of the box and it's working on. So that's why I did the fine molds, japanese zero, which is almost right out of the box and it's it's finally finished. So that that was a nice.
Harvey Low:Now I'm back to. I'm back to scratch, building and modifying stuff. What are you currently working on? Yeah, okay, so I'm trying to get my my mojo back in armor, cause I've been literally doing aircraft for, oh my God, the last three, four years, partly because a lot of the aircraft I do are for clients. And before I answered that question, it just popped in my mind One of the builds I had to do on a quick timeline was I was honored to get.
Harvey Low:Well, I'll make a long story short. I'm in the military and I get this email from an aid to camp. Now, when you're in the military and I get this email from an aide-de-camp. Now, when you're in the military and you get an email from the aide-de-camp, you're either in trouble or something's good Right. And so they asked me hey, harvey, we know you build models. Can you build a model for General Richard Romer for his 100th birthday? And I go oh, like what kind of model? And they said well, he flew Mustangs during World War II and D-Day. And so I said, yeah, of course I would. And so that took about six months because I didn't know anything about Mustangs. So I asked, a whole bunch of friends went on the internet and I had to, because if you build something you want to do it right if it's for the pilot that actually flew it.
Kentucky Dave:Right, the one guy who really will know whether that's the right color.
Harvey Low:Oh, and, by the way, now that you mentioned that, um, I was doing the one I did. I decided to do a one 32nd because he could see it. No, he flew a one 70. Uh sorry, he flew a 170. Uh sorry, he flew a mustang one with the canadian air force and it it was a photo recon. So there were certain changes to, without getting into the details, and when I looked at because they sent me pictures, the military sent me some, some archival photos of his aircraft.
Harvey Low:It was pretty dirty and I talked to him. They they told me it was a secret, don't let on like you're building a model for his birthday. So so I called him and you're chatting oh, by the way, you flew mustangs. Yeah, yeah, where'd you find? And so he said they flew them off front bases in france right after the d-day landings. And they were. They had no runways, basically a mud field right, and they got really dirty. So I really dirtied up this thing. And when you say they know, so we brought it out to him. The first day we brought it out to him was at a small gathering, a private gathering at Canadian Forces Base Borden, which is north of Toronto. He didn't know what was happening. I presented the model to him to Toronto. He didn't know what was happening.
Harvey Low:I presented the model to him and I tell you guys, he started to cry and he said this is exactly how I remember, and it's like I'm 20 years old again Now. How can I do an okay job? Well, if he's crying, I think I did.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, you can't, you can't be, you can't beat a memory like that.
Harvey Low:No, and that guy's got a sharp memory. So I don't want to belay the point. But I put D-Day stripes on it and I asked him on three occasions. He said the D-Day stripes were over the entire wing. Yet every with all due respect, every discussion group on the web said that Canadian Mustangs did not have D-Day stripes over the whole wing and he said oh, no, no, no, no, mine did, and they use brooms and mops to put them on. He said that three times to me, so you're hearing it from the pilot. That's what I put it on. But to get back to you know why I've been doing aircraft? It's projects like that. Now, turning to answer your question, what I'm working on on now, just in a quick nutshell I am almost finished. A breida 61. You guys know what that is test, test, time test time breida 61, it's, it's, it's a vehicle, it's a military vehicle.
Harvey Low:Breida 61, it you give up I, I give up.
Mike:I don't know in a truck.
Harvey Low:It's actually half track. It is the Italian version of the German STKFZ7 half track.
Mike:Oh, okay.
Harvey Low:The front end's completely different new engine. The drive is on the right side instead of the left side, so I'm cobbling together an old Creole models resin bonnet onto a dragon rear part. So, uh, I'm working on that. I'm working on an indian pattern, 135th british armored car. Uh, there's nobody that makes a kit of this, except a pretty bad resin one from a defunct model company called ima that has harvey lowe written all over. Oh it's, it's a tough build. But who's got an indian pattern? Well, I at least have one in my collection. And and and lastly, believe it or not, I am working on a matchbox gu188 out of the box oh my gosh, why it's palate cleanser you guys did a.
Harvey Low:You guys did a a great episode with the folks kevin and janelle from mask. Yeah well, I bumped I would. The time I met you guys at heritage con, I was sitting right next to their vendor table because I was vending you're right, I remember that, in fact.
Kentucky Dave:Fact, I bought some stuff from you.
Harvey Low:Yeah, oh, you did. I hope all the parts were there.
Kentucky Dave:I think so.
Harvey Low:So I was talking to Kevin and Janelle and they said, harvey, what are you working on? And I said well, what I'd like to do is do an old vintage kit. And they said which one? I said you know what I've always liked? The JU-188. I did it as a kid. I'd like to do it again, but there's no canopy mask, hint, hint. Well, guess what? They had a set made in a month I don't know how they do it and they sent me three of them and they said so I'm doing that and I'm probably going to turn it into a very quick article for perhaps fine scale, on just how to put new life into an old kit. And that's my palate cleanser with some of the other stuff I'm working on.
Mike:I'm still stuck at the two sub subpar resin makers you just rattled off.
Harvey Low:Oh, by the way, you talk about cutting it. Just I'm I hope I'm not, you know making it longer than necessary in the show. But I got to tell you a funny story. So I get the. Sometimes my wife buys me these kits. You know for what? A birthday Christmas. So she got me an ICM 148, key 21, sally, and I thought, well, you know Sally's great, but I want to, I want to keep it. Seven Topsy. Yeah, now you guys know the difference between a key 21 and a key 57,. A Topsy is the transport.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Harvey Low:But the wings are dropped lower into lower position because she's got a passenger compartment for cargo and passengers. So what I did was I took the ICM kit and I simply cut the whole fuselage apart and kind of threw that out and I just kept the wings and the tail appendage. And you know, I'm doing that sawing and cutting and throwing out while my wife walks by. So how do you explain? You're kind of destroying a model kit you got as a gift. Well, you got to look at the light at the end of the tunnel and it was useful when I merged it, when I mated it with the old Sanger vacuform kit of the Key 57 Topsy I just finished that one, I think last month, yep.
Kentucky Dave:Well see, harvey, that's the difference between you and me. I want to do a Topsy, but I'll wait until ICM takes the wings to their KI-21 and does a new fuselage.
Harvey Low:Well, you know, guys, if you're doing this type of scratch building, you kind of got to be quick, because you have no idea if a major manufacturer is going to release something.
Kentucky Dave:So you got to beat them to the line, right Well or you are doing the sacrifice that gets us all a Ki-57 topsy from a manufacturer, because that's the way it works.
Harvey Low:That's very true. Yeah, it gives them a kind of idea of, hey, this might be not a bad idea to produce in mainstream.
Mike:Well, let's change gears a little bit and then we can go back to some models, maybe at the end. Sure, you just came back from a I'll call it a vacation. I don't know if it was or not, but you've been to japan to do some stuff, won't we? When we talk about that, because I'm really interested, was this your first trip?
Harvey Low:no, I've been to japan about three times before. I go quite regularly. I just simply love the country, oh, it's fantastic.
Kentucky Dave:You have, you guys, been or not? Yet I have been on Japanese soil for three hours.
Harvey Low:Plain changeover.
Mike:I was. I was there in 20, I guess 2018. Huh, late summer for for work at my prior employer, so uh.
Harvey Low:Did you get to go out and see any shop, Mike?
Mike:I did when? Where'd I go? It was in Yokohama. Oh, Yokohama yeah it was in a shopping mall up on the third floor of this big. What was it?
Harvey Low:Lala Port. Yeah, it's in a, I think, eon Mall or Lala Port.
Mike:Yes, yeah.
Harvey Low:It's B's Hobbies, b's Hobbies, b's Hobbies, that Beast.
Mike:Hobbies. That's exactly it. That's it. That's the one, that's where I went. And it was funny because, having not been over there the company you know they made sure I had a handler when I was over there, because when we get lost we make sure I got to where I needed to go.
"The Voice of" Bob Bair:And ahead of time.
Mike:I said hey, if there's time, I would like to maybe check out something like this. Right, and it blew you away. Right, right it did, but you know my, my, uh. He later came to kentucky and was working at our, our facility here, um he picked me up at the airport, and that's the first place we went.
Harvey Low:Oh my god, aren't you, aren't you, a hardcore steel modeler?
Mike:so, uh, that was, that was fun. Yeah, it blew me away. I mean just gosh, there was so much, not, you know, we couldn't spend a whole lot of time there. I don't know, I was there about an hour. But yeah, that's my only, that's my only taste.
Harvey Low:But ah well, it's a good taste of a good start. So, yeah, yeah, I was. I've been a few times now I, when I go back and visit, I do it in, so you know you go back, you might do this part of japan, another part, you know another part. So this time was actually the longest I've been there. I did the middle part of Japan.
Harvey Low:So if you can kind of picture Japan as an island, right, hokkaido is way up in the north, the big island and the big city. Up there is Sapporo, and on the south is Kyushu Big city, down there is Kagoshima, and in the, the middle, you kind of have generally osaka, kyoto, nagoya, shizuoka, and then you, of course, a little bit up north, you have tokyo, right, and so I focused this time on the territory between osaka and tokyo. And this the only difference this time, instead of taking bullet trains or transit, I I rented a car, and there's a bit of pros and cons of doing that in rural Japan, but it was an experience and that allowed me to not only get around to the hobby stores, which I'll talk about in a sec, but a lot of really, really cool museums, seeing the most rarest historical subjects, battlefield sites and, of course, hobby shops. But yeah, it was for about a month.
Mike:Wow, yeah, now you went to the show, right.
Harvey Low:Yeah, oh yeah, you want to start with that.
Kentucky Dave:Let's start with that. Oh gosh, yes.
Harvey Low:Is this the first time you've been to the show? I have. It's the first time. Now I went over with a small bunch of guys from Toronto, two of them who are veteran guys that go to Shizuoka. They go every year but they focus on the show and they're both from Toronto, good friends of mine, and so we all decided if we're going to go this year, let's go together. So we kind of went as a group. Now everyone knows about shizuoka, who's probably listening.
Harvey Low:It's a big, big hobby show. It is not a contest. It basically is a trade show and it's kind of like telford where different groups, just clubs, display models. Now it's a it's the biggest show in japan. I've been to a few shows in asia, I I would think it's the largest. But again, there's no contest there and it's broken out into three base basic stages.
Harvey Low:The first day is a trade show. You know it's just the people that have companies, they work together, they talk together about products, whatever the second day is I probably got the name wrong, but it's kind of like a student day where they invite kids from school and I'll talk about this because the culture of scale modeling in Japan is very different than that of Canada and I can say the United States. I don't know about Europe and other countries, but it's a different culture. We'll get to that in a minute. So they have a whole day for kids and students. And then the last day, last two days, are club displays like telford and and what I. I've heard estimates and it's probably true. Some people put the number of models on those club displays around 12 to 15 000 wow yeah, it's a lot.
Harvey Low:It's a lot if you were to go and it's divided. The hall is divided into a massive trade show part and then the, the, the, the club displays. There is a lot. Here's a tip if you're going to go to shizuoka, it's not always just there at that location. So I found out that there was another location literally a half an hour away that was the vendors, and there was no signage Like it's like you find out by just asking people, and so it's kind of in three different sections, but the vendors are about a half hour away, in a separate building. I don't know if that's overflow, but let's put it this way If you were to go there and wanted to see everything meticulously, it would probably take you three to four days. There's no way you can make it through every display on one day. You can't do it. There's so many right? So it's a. It's a big show and I was honored to to be asked you meet everybody on the internet, right?
Harvey Low:Yeah, so I met this fellow. He's a master modeler, his his name is hisao sato and he is one of the foremost aircraft modelers in japan. He does articles for a lot of the scale model magazines over in japan. So you know we reach out, we talk through facebook. His broken english is about as good as my broken, so you know we reach out, we talk through Facebook. His broken English is about as good as my broken Japanese, but you know it's enough to to communicate.
Harvey Low:And he said Harvey, when you come over we're going to set you up with us Cause you have to, kind of like, go with a club. So if you go to you'll, if you want to go, you'll see the clubs there. If you want to bring your stuff, you have to try to get hooked up with a local club and I was fortunate to get hooked up with the Tokushima model group and Tokushima Hisao Saito and his very talented crew are all from Tokushima, which is south of of Osaka, and I I brought a scratch built key 55 Aida, 148th, and I brought that in. And I brought a scratch-built Key 55 Ida, and I brought that in. And I brought a small scratch-built Japanese tow truck. You know one of those tow vehicles, motor tugs, and I was honored to have it amongst their club display. So it was a different kind of experience, sitting with the Japanese guys looking at the show and looking at the trade show.
Kentucky Dave:Well, you talked about the modeling culture being different than either Canada or the US, which are somewhat similar. Yes, can you describe? How is the modeling culture different there?
Harvey Low:there. Well, first off, what I saw is the. The culture of japanese hobbies is they start the kids off young. They immerse their kids into the hobby very young. Give an example I was over on a previous time visiting a japanese ground self-defense base and I was in there talking to the guys and in the corner of my eye I see they got this little store and I said to them and I said what's that? They go, well, that's our little gift shop. Well, what's a gift shop doing on a Japanese army base? I'm in the Canadian forces. There's no such thing. We don't have a gift shop on the Canadian forces base. I don't know. Well, you can tell me. Are there any gift stores with toys on a U S army base or naval base or period outside of the PX and outside of a museum, a base museum?
Kentucky Dave:I can't think of any.
Harvey Low:Well, yeah, well, they have their little. It's like a little store in in recruitment areas. And then they have these family days. We have them too, but instead of just opening up to you know, teenagers that might be joining, they offer free kits and and show the kids how to build guess what japanese ground self-defense force tanks and airplanes. It's their subjects and the little kids they get. And in fact, the Japanese Self-Defense Force. They were at the Shizuoka show and they brought an armored display. They had weapons displays and they give little souvenirs to the kids.
Harvey Low:So they're there milking every opportunity to bring young kids into this hobby, right? So that's number one to bring young kids into this hobby, right? So that's number one. Number two is, I noticed, driving a car, the coolest place are the japanese highway stops, because they got everything. It's a middle of nowhere, like it's nowhere and you're driving, it's an oasis of restaurants and one gas stop which was in the middle of nowhere. I swear it was like two hours from Hamamatsu and like five hours from the Goya. It's really far. And I walk in there and guess what's in the shelf? Tamiya kits and Tamiya shirts and Tamiya ties Like where do you see that? On a highway stop in Canada or the US? Nowhere.
Mike:Right, nowhere.
Harvey Low:Yeah, right. And then I was in a subway station in Shizuoka and walk along with my wife and what's that? And it was a bunch of tables set up with a bunch of people lined up and they were building Gundam models on tables in the middle of the intercourse where subway stations connect. And so I walked up and I looked and I asked and they said it was free, it's sign up, you have to wait in line, everybody gets a turn. You know you might get. I don't know. They had enough chairs so I presume everyone gets at least half an hour an hour. There were parents there with the little kids. They get a free kit. It was sponsored by a Bondi. Oh wow, big sign there and and it's just like welcome lineup. And there was an actual lineup and the tables were full and this was at rush hour in a subway stop. That's what I mean by the biggest culture. I don't. I've never seen those things in Canada like that and I certainly I don't think those things happen in New York Central, you know station.
Mike:It's like they've they've prevented other activities from encroaching on hobby time for for kids.
Harvey Low:Yes, now, I'm not saying Japan doesn't have social issues, they certainly do. But certainly on the issues of hobbies, they really go after the kids and show them. Hey, this is really fun and you can see it. There's lots of kids at the Shizuoka show tons and they're looking at models and they're being very respectful, they know not to touch them, and so that's the other thing.
Harvey Low:I think the second cultural thing I noticed now this is only my unscientific observation, but when I was at the shizuoka show I was utterly shocked by the number of scratch built and super detailed models. Now I haven't been to telford, I'm I'm thinking about maybe going this fall and I heard they're pretty good, yeah, but the sheer amount of scratch builds and high deed versus simply no, no offense to people who want to build them on a box, that's great too. I do that too the ratio was overwhelmingly in super detail and a particular scratch built and a particular scratch built aircraft like, for example, I saw a a 30-second scale T93, but that's obscene. I saw a 130-second MERT Like stuff like oh my God.
Harvey Low:And I talked to the builders and they're old-fashioned, like me Wood, mold, vacuform, not a lot of 3D printing. They don't do a lot of 3D printing and maybe I just didn't miss it. Like for that type of work work, they do it by hand and they really go to the lengths. In fact, I picked up a couple of kits that are exclusive to japan. I think one was called arrow base. Have you guys heard of that company?
Harvey Low:I I believe so they do they do cutaway aircraft right in photo etch, so picked up a couple. I picked up canine spruce in 48 scale. It's completely just just the structural detail. They like that level of detail Right. So it's kind of like George Lee models all over the place.
Kentucky Dave:Right, very detail oriented society.
Harvey Low:Very and there and and so I asked them about contests and and a few of them said there's not a lot. They they enjoy the camaraderie, the talking. The competition there is not big. And that kind of shocked me, because you know I've been to I think I'm well over a dozen IPMS nationals. You know it is the contest and the vendors Right, so but there they just seem to like to build and do detailed things. And this is my theory. Maybe it's because the pressure's off from a high level competition that they could just do a bunch of scratch, building and detailing and not worry about. Oh, this little rib on this air frame is like half a millimeter off, which would make you lose that finesse well, and, and my understanding is, telford is somewhat that way.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, that's my understanding too, that the, that the competition is a much smaller part, whereas the club displays are.
Mike:Yeah, the special interest groups and all that Right and the club tables.
Kentucky Dave:they have the club culture.
Harvey Low:That is my understanding too, and that's exactly what Shizuoka. So if you do go to Shizuoka, don't expect a show. It's exactly how you described it.
Kentucky Dave:Dave, exactly. Well, let me ask you when you walked through the manufacturer's area, did you see one or two things that were coming out? New, that excited you?
Harvey Low:Yeah, actually All right, tell us Off the top of my head. I not only saw, but I actually touched it. I was touching and feeling the new Tamiya m36 yeah, yep, so they had that there and fine molds. You know they've got the new 48 zero, but they've actually got two new 72nd scale a6m50.
Harvey Low:Yes, that david wants badly yeah and the cool thing about them is is dave. These a6m5s are an earlier version, right without the intakes, so they're kind of hitting on different things. But I saw that as well, and I saw the new fujimi 144th scale, yamato, oh my, yeah, they're coming out with a 144th scale.
Kentucky Dave:Yamato 144th scale.
Harvey Low:battleship Yamato yeah so it was there. How big is that? Oh my god, it's 6 to 8 feet, something like that. That's what I've got to say.
Kentucky Dave:It's got to be even a 1144th scale. That thing has to be between 6 and 8 feet long.
Harvey Low:It's actually huge. They had one at the show and they also had one I don't know who did it. They actually had a built one at the Josson Hobby Shop in Osaka and they had one there and I saw it there and go what the heck is this? Now I humbly did a 1 yamato for fine scale, right, but this, this thing, it's massive and it's like really detailed.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I've seen the. I've seen the 200 scale kit and it's massive, it's great I cannot imagine a 144 scale. No well, what does something like that cost? Did you look? Yes, okay.
Harvey Low:You got about $8,000.
Kentucky Dave:How much? $8,000. $8,000? Yes sir.
Harvey Low:Holy $8,000.
Mike:Yeah, you want two, dave.
Harvey Low:Yeah, I'll take two.
Kentucky Dave:Can I get?
Harvey Low:a discount. If I bought two, I'm sure you could take your passport and get like a 20% discount. That would really lower it. Oh my lord, now, now I I honestly don't know what's involved, but apparently, from what I've learned is it's not your traditional kit, it is. It is a kit that comes in components that some of it are pre-built. I I don't. It's kind of. It's kind of you guys ever heard of the japanese kits from hashet? They do these. You buy them as subscribed to them. They're only in, only in japan again. So they do a 1 100 uh japanese e400 submarine and it's insane. It's got light and sounds. So if you build it you can also sit there and throw a bunch of switches and like it just yells dive, dive, dive in japanese. So you know you get nothing else to do, right, and lonely evening. And and that I think if you threw it and bought every, every module because there's about 160 sets to that kit, right, would cost you a yeah, maybe, about maybe, but this one's, yeah, I heard it's 8,000 bucks.
Kentucky Dave:Oh my Lord, yeah, that's just, that's so you, you bought one and you're shipping it back right.
Harvey Low:Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I took it on the carry-on. Yeah, yeah, in the cabin he wrote it home.
Kentucky Dave:I was going to say that's probably a checked item, Harvey, yeah, must be.
Harvey Low:Now what's really odd is the Japanese companies must know something. They got the market right. So what I found Now I don't know how that's going to sell, but their best sellers by far is Gundam. Right, gundam just dwarfs everything else in Japan. I was over at the Odaiba Gundam base and the stores. You know, with all due respect to military modders, it dwarfs it. But if you go to to now we're getting into the stores, maybe that's a good segue.
Mike:That is a good segue Right.
Harvey Low:So, mike, you went to B-Hobby right, yokohama yeah.
Harvey Low:If the folks that are listening. Pretty simple If you want to do Japanese hobby shops, if you're in Tokyo, there's one neighborhood called Akihabara. Okay, akihabara has probably 10 to 12 hobby shops all within the vicinity of a few blocks and they're all good. I don't know how the competition works, but if you're going to Japan, just take these notes, if you're listening the listeners who want to know. There's a few hobby stores that are musts, and one of them is called leonardo. Now, leonardo has three separate stores all within walking distance of each other. I can't figure it out. They're like two to three blocks within each other, but they have three separate locations that are all the same. They're all. If you're into vintage and new kits, that's where you go, cause you'll find stuff that you will never see the pictures you put on Facebook of that shop.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, and now are most of the Japanese shops like the ones you see in China, where you know you walk sideways. Yes, they're all very cramped, very cramped very narrow.
Harvey Low:Now I've been to hobby stores in Singapore. I've been in hobby shops in Hong Kong. The only difference, in fact. I've been to hobby shops in Europe and I'm not knocking any other country, I've got to put that preamble there Every country. I found some super hobby stores in Parisis, but japan, they seem to. Okay, we're their philosophies. We're going to open up a store and we're just going to fill it with kits until your senses go wild. And so the difference is, not only are the aisles narrow, but the stock is just blows mind. And the third thing is they have ultra-rare kits or kits that have been out of production for years, and you find them there.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, there was one in one of your pictures that, had I been able to get there, I would have grabbed. Which one was that? It's the Aki Firebrand.
Harvey Low:Yes, there's a few people that asked me about that, yeah, a few. That was at a place called Gannett Hobbies, so that's in Kobe and that's near Osaka. So I mean I can't rattle off all the stores, but Gannett's a big hangout for aircraft modelers in the Osaka area and the other places hobby land in osaka. But if most people are heading to tokyo, just go to akihabara because, yeah, you'll find stuff like that fire brand and I. I picked up a 132nd fisher models ryan st stm. They're long gone.
Kentucky Dave:Right Because of the fire.
Harvey Low:Yeah right, I picked up a I forget who makes it. I picked up a one-to-one scale throttle quadrant made out of resin for a Mach-E 202. Where do you get stuff like that?
Kentucky Dave:Well, and that's what I was going to say, I noticed from the pictures you posted on Facebook that not only were these hobby shops crammed full of models, but you had everything from new run Hasegawa or Tamiya to some of the most obscure cottage resin, vacuform, yes, and just stuff that you're like they didn't know existed either didn't know existed or had heard rumor of at one time, but have never actually seen the kit guys, you hit it on the nail mike.
Harvey Low:You said that that you thought you. Look I'm not bragging, but I think I kind of know what's being released, but that's totally false.
Mike:When you get there go, oh my god, I've never seen this before well, I would get in the 90s, when the japanese magazines they're like quasi modeling and then they'd have features on real aircraft. I like model fan, and then there's one called Panzer and there's one.
Kentucky Dave:Those magazines- Koku Fan Right.
Mike:They would always have like a product area in the back and there would be all this really crazy kits and conversions for, you know, like Russian tanks or whatever.
Harvey Low:Yeah.
Mike:But all of it was completely. Unless you had a very good relationship with somebody in Japan who liked the same stuff, you did Right, it was unobtainable.
Harvey Low:Yes, I'll give you an example. They had a 135th conversion set to convert a Chi-Ha to a Chi-Ha recovery vehicle. Like that's insane. Where do you get that? Like, where do you get that?
Kentucky Dave:A Chi-ha recovery vehicle. Yes.
Harvey Low:Oh my gosh, Like really. And so you know, I did ask a couple of the shop owners for the rare stuff and a lot of them. So a lot of hobby stores there. They don't do a lot of mail order and I think that's why Scott picked up at Hobby Link Japan. He kind of filled that void, right right.
Harvey Low:But a lot of local stores, because english over there, without due respect, a lot, especially in the rural areas. Nobody speaks english in the rural areas, not a lick of it, and even in the large cities not a lot of english. So be prepared, a lot of hobby shop owners don't speak at all. So but you know, you find it. So it makes it maybe difficult for them to do international business. Of course the written script's different, right, so maybe it's that. But but they did say that they don't do a lot of international. But then I said you know what happens if you have the money and I just, I just want to buy this, and a lot of them go no, we, we don't ship out there, it's, they just want to do it for the local economy, like these really weird conversions that you only see there.
Harvey Low:An example is I saw a series of decals that I the name slips me. I've never seen them before. They do 172nd german, japanese, italian aircraft. Um, they do some 48 stuff. I bought a set but I haven't tried it yet. They're apparently vinyl. I I don't know what that means. When I look at it it's got it. You kind of like rub it and on and put a pencil. I'm not sure of it. I've never seen any of those and I'm gonna try it. But you look at the company, go on the web. It's all japanese. I can't get them anywhere. But there there's a lot of things that you can only buy in Japan. So that's why I think the trek over there to stores is just a paradise, because you were always surprised.
Kentucky Dave:And that's what I've heard. That's always been. The story that you hear is that you know there are a fair number of models out of Japan that we get and we can buy and all. But the story I've always heard is that there's a ton of models that they make that they don't export at all. No, they don't. It's all local consumption. Yes, it's for the local market, and even if there is a market for it overseas, they don't even bother with it.
Harvey Low:They don't bother, absolutely, absolutely, dave. And what I found interesting is when I went over the stores for the most part they're all there, so obviously they're doing a business to stay afloat, like they're in downtown Tokyo.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Harvey Low:It's not cheap. No, they must be doing well and yeah, they just seem to have so much in just inventory. And then they have the weird stuff and then the new releases. I find you see new releases that wait a minute. I never even saw this new release in North America. You know Right, it may be a basic, a basic hasagaki, but I never saw that one with those decals and this is limited edition. So, for example, I bought a uh 48, uh zero, a6m2 and it's all cutaway. It is 3d parts as well as photo etch, and you, you literally build it's by mid models, japan and it's it. You build a cutaway zero, like, like, where do you get?
Kentucky Dave:I've never seen that in north america so so I have to ask yeah, when you're sitting, when you're over there and you're seeing all of these things that you know you can't get here, how do you keep yourself from just filling a couple of suitcases?
Harvey Low:maybe he did and going and going. I, I did buy an extra suitcase. My wife and I bought an extra suitcase, good for you. Well, here's, here's the cardinal rule. If you're going to go over, maybe make it useful for your listeners. You, you can go over and get a tamiya kit for really cheap, to give an example. You know what comes to mind. You can get like a 172nd p51 mustang from tamiya for I don't know, 12 bucks us, right. But I wouldn't advise you do that because you can buy it over here.
Harvey Low:Okay, you're gonna pay a little because everything takes space in your luggage, so I would only buy really rare stuff, number one. Number two is get rid of any excess packaging. This is an art guy, guys, you got to go to the hotel and, yeah, you got to put this stuff through your mind. It's a science. So, guys, when you go to the hotel, you get rid of any excess packaging. You put kits into one box. So that's another thing to save space. You can also create your own mailing labels so that if you buy a big kit, you go to local post office. You mail it back to yourself. That's another way you can do it. But I only focus on uber rare kits, break them down and I think I ended up filling maybe two suitcases. But yeah, it's hard, you got it, you got it. And books are. Books are worse because they're heavy.
Kentucky Dave:Oh God.
Mike:Yes, yeah, that'd be Dave's Achilles heel.
Harvey Low:Yes, if you, if you guys get to Tokyo and if the listeners are listening, you go to one bookstore it's in Akihabara and it's right beside the big camera store, yobadashi Camera and go to Yobadashi Camera because they got the hugest hobby selection in the camera store, like it's all in there. Just a block away is Sensiro Books. The whole floor is modeling and military books. Again, they produce stuff that you've never seen here. I got a whole bunch of stuff on british armor in japanese service. Like they have the whole line of j tank, which is a periodic magazine on japanese world war ii tanks, the pura. You can only get them in japan and they had most of the volumes at the bookstore there.
Harvey Low:I went to see a fact maybe, like the museums, I'm kind of going back and forth, but one of the museums at gifu, which is outside of nagoya, has a restored k61 tony, fully restored, and they're selling the, the very rare technical books on the key 61 at the museum store for like 20 bucks and right, you can't even find them here, no, and if you do find them here, they're 80 to a hundred. They're 20 bucks at the gift store there. Oh, you're killing me. Yeah, I bought, I bought those books. So you gotta be selective. Don't buy the stuff you can get here. Just go for the hard stuff. Now, things aren't cheap, but if you want it it's there Right. So the common rule is if you want rare stuff, you're going to have to pay for it. The new stuff, especially things made in Japan Hasegawa, tamiya, really cheap, really cheap.
Kentucky Dave:Did you have any trouble getting any of this back into the country? No Good.
Harvey Low:Well, the one thing I do stay away from is obviously paints and those things. But it's funny you asked Dave because I was at a store and I wanted to buy. So take Tamiya. Tamiya offers some products there that somehow I've never seen, at least in Canada. They've got their own masking fluid. They've got a huge line of airbrushes that you never see over here, so I picked up an airbrush. But they also have this. They have some putty which I think you can get here, but you got big tubes that you can buy over there. But then when I bought it they knew, as a tourist said, they won't sell it to you because you can't bring that on the plane. So there are limitations of what you can buy, right?
Mike:At least they told you.
Harvey Low:At least they told me. And if you are going over to buy, bring your passport, cause a lot of the big stores like yo but, I, should camera give you times like 10 20, so bring your passport, really they will give.
Kentucky Dave:Oh yeah, they gave me a deal at bees hobby. Yeah, there you go. I wonder what okay, it's courtesy is, that is it? Just? I guess that's the culture you're. You're a guest here, we're gonna give you a little something extra, that's nice it's like it was like when steven lee went to scale.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah that's right. Well, yeah, what happened there? He got the friends and family discount. Really, yeah, harvey, if you come down, I'll take you to Scale Reproductions and we'll get you the friends and family I'd love to Love to, although it sounds like you acquired plenty to build for the next few years.
Harvey Low:Yeah, well, who doesn't right? My collection is focused on really rare stuff and, yeah, even then I have enough. But I don't build as much for national level contests like I used to, because it takes you time, right.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Harvey Low:And even for scratch building. I, I I talked to a couple of scratch builders we're on a different topic but a lot of them. They may or may not go to the big shows because scratch building, like it, takes you time and then if you apply simple fit and finish rules to a scratch boat mall, it's pretty hard to do so. So I, I just I'm pretty fast now, like having done five already, but one a month, and I've got about three almost ready and finished.
Kentucky Dave:That's, you know, I'm pumping them out so one last thing I wanted to mention. You talked about selling your completed works. Yeah, so you, you clearly don't have once. The fun for you clearly is doing it, and once it's done, you don't seem to have too strong of an attachment to the finished product.
Harvey Low:You know, yeah, yeah, you're probably right, I do have large display cases in my house. But if somebody wants to buy something, I will sell it. And, for example, I have a regular customer. I built F1 112th cars for this customer. He doesn't build models, but he always asks me to build one. Now, I can't do them all the time because they take time. Oh yeah, but you know now, I'm not a huge fan of building for clients.
Harvey Low:The subject matter has to resonate with me. So this guy is a huge Ayrton Senna fan. Okay, he's got everything on Ayrton Senna. So I'm working on a. He asked me to build I think it was a Tamiya McLaren MP4 or whatever it was, which was Senna's car. I did that.
Harvey Low:And then he says, harvey, he drove a lotus 98t. Right, is there any kit of a lotus 98t? And I go, well, if you want 112, there is, and it's by a company called mfh. And if you know mfh, they're out of japan and if you know those kits, they go for around $2,000. Oh, yeah, so I told him that and he goes get it. I go, okay, and I'm actually, I'm looking at it right now and I'm working on it.
Harvey Low:So I, I, I bought it and and and and I'm working on it, but so am I. Am I kind of like, you know I? Yeah, it's going to be there in my house, but honestly, if somebody appreciates it, I'm happy to sell it. Look, and what's going to happen? To look. I don't want to be macabre, but you know, the day comes, what's going to happen with all our models. I'd rather have somebody enjoy it, or it's in some sort of you know museum or something, and that just makes me happy. So I have no qualms to keep these forever. I do love them. I love that one 70 second saw, but it's got a great hole and and that keeps me happy all right.
Mike:Well, that sounds like a pretty awesome trip, harvey it was.
Harvey Low:It was now. I know we're kind of ending it, but if the if you guys do go over or your listeners go over, also don't miss the museums. You got to go there, because it's not just the hobby stores, but if you go, there are some places that you should go, like the air bases Hamamatsu and Gifu being the two large air bases with museums. Down south there's the Turan Kamikaze Museum and I went to some battlefield sites, where one of them is Sekigahara, which is their Gettysburg, and that was a big samurai battle way back in the 1800s.
Harvey Low:Oh wow, interesting, so you can see the beautiful museum, beautiful, so to end it, it's a whole experience, right? It's the Shizuoka show, it's the breadth of hobby stores no-transcript, and then compare and contrast. That's a great idea You're on. That's a great idea they're both island countries.
Kentucky Dave:It would be a great compare and contrast.
Harvey Low:Yeah, and even in Canada, in September I was asked to visit the guys in Alberta, so I'm heading out to Calgary. They've got a military show. So in Canada in September I was asked to visit the guys in Alberta, so I'm heading out to Calgary. They've got a military show. So you know, I'm trying to get around and I want to get to the Malaysian show. They just had theirs and Taiwan's got a big. So I like to get out there and just meet new people. And because you know, when you find, you'll find that the style varies by countries.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, Well, there's a big. There's a big one in China, Shanghai. I've asked China.
Harvey Low:Yeah, I've heard, and you know, hong Kong has a show. I'd love to go to those. Yeah Right, cause I think the hobby it's a very solitude hobby to begin with, and if you have the ability, take advantage, and I'm lucky no-transcript. That you're missing out on a whole part of modeling. Absolutely, dave. I met you guys and it's not just social media, you're right, it's going and meeting people face-to-face.
Mike:Yeah, it is Especially somebody. It's really fun when it's somebody you've met on social media and maybe have communicated with for sometimes even years.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:And you've never, ever met them face to face. Now, now, the video component to what we can do now bridges that a little better. But you know, wasn't that long ago before we didn't have any of this exactly and you just have their, their text. Or maybe you had an audio call every now and then, but that's it.
Harvey Low:That's it when I met hisao in japan. It's like we're brothers now, like passion, and you know there's there's a language barrier I, I, you know, between our broken languages it's but you have that that common passion, right, and so that's, you're right, that's what it's about and I love getting out to me. It's not. It's not to me. It's not about the bling or the award or any. No, because that just sit in the box. It it's the people you meet, yeah, and you guys, you guys got so many episodes on you. It's good for you.
Mike:Um we're halfway through our sixth year, so, wow, no end in sight either, so we're having too much fun that's right.
Harvey Low:yeah, so yeah, but I you know, whatever you guys want, I'm I going to call away, that's great, because we're going to have you back for something. I'm sure.
Mike:And maybe have some fodder for that later. You mentioned what you're working on now. I don't know how far in advance you plan your projects, but what are a couple things you're itching to get to that haven't even seen the workbench yet the workbench yet.
Harvey Low:Yeah Well, one of the things that I am kind of like scoping out now is I want to do an LCT landing, craft 593, and I'm kind of scoping out the drawings. It's kind of like half wood and resin that's going to be LCT not to get into details, but it's. If you see a photo of LCT 593, she has the fuselage of a sterling bomber on it and I thought, well, that's different. So I'm kind of scoping out that I do have a lot of projects now. Look, I'm I don't want to gloat, but everything I start I do finish. There's seldom anything that I don't finish, and so when I'm looking at my list of to do's, I've got about three, six, about maybe eight that are that are all underway. I don't just work on one, I swap back and forth. I will get them all done. You know I'm honored and happy to talk about anything you want. You just let me know I will do whatever you want, say whatever you want, how long, whatever you want Six hour, one or six minute.
Mike:I don't care.
Kentucky Dave:Well, we're glad you're enjoying your retirement and I hope you make it to Telford, I do too, we are scoping it.
Harvey Low:That's in, I think, november.
Kentucky Dave:It is yeah.
Mike:Are you coming down to Virginia for the IPMS National Convention?
Harvey Low:Only I can't, only because I'm out in Quebec and Ottawa for just kind of a trip and another show. But yeah, I'd love to get back down to Louisville. I'm a frequent participant with the Cleveland guys the Buffalo guys right.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, the Rochester guys, we won't hold that against you.
Harvey Low:I even went out to OrangeCon out in California.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Harvey Low:That was a great show. So, yeah, it's just a matter of trying to get my time to all these places.
Mike:Yeah Well, if it's HeritageCon, that's where we'll see you.
Harvey Low:Yes, definitely.
Mike:All right.
Harvey Low:And if you've got time happy to take you around you let me know.
Mike:All right. Well, harvey, thanks for joining us tonight, and it's a pleasure talking to you, and it's really really interesting to hear about your trip to Japan.
Harvey Low:And I'm honored to be here, guys.
Kentucky Dave:Thank you.
Harvey Low:Thank you.
Mike:Well, that was really interesting, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:It was. It was really interesting to get his perspective, having just been there and having been there several times, about how different the hobby is in Japan than it is other places. Well, I do hope he goes to England for Scale Model World and would love to hear from him and hear a compare and contrast between that experience the US Nationals which he's been to before and going to contests and stuff in Japan.
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Kentucky Dave:Dave, it's the Benchtop. Halftime Report. Yep, lay report. Yep, lay it on me, brother, what you been doing. My bench has been active, not quite as active as I'd want, but I have been concentrating on the or the group entry in Hampton. They are now just recently in primer so, and all of the peripherals are already painted and everything. So it's just a matter of now. Having primed, I want to hit them with a quick wet sand. Then it's overall glossy blue, which is, let's face it, not going to be too difficult, and I'm pretty sure I have enough glossy blue, mr Color, to get me through the whole project. And then, once that's on, it's already glossed, so I don't even have to gloss before I put the decals down. I get the decals down and five weeks should get me there. It may be off gassing as we're driving to Hampton, but five weeks should get me finished with these models, well, with that glossy blue.
Mike:I've got a F8 or f9. Yeah, was it panther. Yeah, cougar, something I can't remember. Right.
Mike:Naval plane from the korean war f8 f9f is the panther f8 f9 f5, the one with the long fuse right, yeah, that's the that I that I to do and unfortunately the Matchbox kit's the only one of that one in 72nd scale it is, but I was wondering how the just and maybe, since it's a group project, I don't know, I won't say you don't care as much, but maybe you don't Do you think that level of gloss on the 72nd scale plane is good, or would you want to dial that back a little bit?
Kentucky Dave:I will probably I'll do one of two things Either I'll leave, since I've got two entries in the group build, I may, when I've finished decaling and weathering and everything, I may hit one with a gloss final coat and one with a satin final coat, just to get some variation and see what the two look like, just to give the display some variation. I think you can do either. I've seen them as high gloss, sea blue, even weathered, and they look good. And yet I've seen other ones where they come along and they have really toned down the gloss, and not so much as to make it dull or flat, but say satiny, and both look realistic. So I may try one of each.
Kentucky Dave:I've also got a French bird that I'm building along with it and that one may get a true flat, because those things were really hard worn in Vietnam. I'll be interested to see. I'm going to play around with it. And again because I quote unquote, don't care, I don't mean I don't care, it's just because it's part of a group build. It's going to blend in with a whole bunch of other models. So I feel a little bit more relaxed about taking a chance and doing something that I might not normally do if I was building a standalone model. We'll see, I'll let you know.
Mike:Well, I have to make a point to make the rounds in the small scale tables and see what other folks have done. Yep, I'm sure I'll come out of there liking one or the other.
Kentucky Dave:Or maybe both. Maybe, Yep, but everything else has been shoved aside to get that done. All the props and wheels and gear, doors and everything else are done. So it is just finishing a light, quick wet sand on the primer and then straight on to the gloss and we go from there. So I'm cutting it close, but I'm going to make it Just like I did with the LCM last year.
Mike:I'll rah-rah while I'm at your house this weekend.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, yeah, that's right, I'll let you see them so I know what you've been doing, or at least part of what you've been doing, because you've been posting a lot on the dojo and I kind of like what you've been doing.
Mike:Well, what I've been doing is working through the KV-85 details now and, honestly, I think I really underestimated the amount of work that was going to take yeah, I did Not so much in complexity, I did not so much in complexity Nothing, none of it's been particularly hard, once I figured out how I was going to do something, but just a lot to do.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:More than I thought and some of it's. It's been a little tedious. You know, I suppose I'm going to pose the visor driver's visor open, so I had to work out how that was going to go together, because I was not interested in the way the kit parts actually went together to make that feature like it was and the kit visor didn't fit all that well anyway. So I've used the visor out of the trumpeter kit.
Kentucky Dave:Well, what I really liked was the wire that's next to the machine gun. Yeah, it's like a harness, well, sort of.
Mike:There's a metal conduit that basically one end covers a hole in the hull roof that the electrical wires come up through and into the tube. Then it comes down over the front of the front plate and the electrical cable for the horn and the headlight are in there. Well, let me back up. There's a main power line that comes through that conduit and then it comes down to this little button-shaped thing on the front of the tank. That's basically a junction box. So the one comes into there and it splits out into two, and the two go to the light and the other one goes to the horn.
Kentucky Dave:I was going to ask you what that little button thing was.
Mike:Yeah, it's just a junction. It's where the line goes from one feed to two.
Kentucky Dave:Gotcha.
Mike:So gosh what I use. I use some brass or copper wire out of an old mile railroad switch power switch solenoid for a turnout or switch track. One of those has about 800 miles of wire on it. So I've had one of those since my teen years. I've not even used a tenth of it, I don't think, but it's really really fine wire. Not even used a tenth of it, I don't think, but it's really really fine wire.
Mike:Yeah, the condo is just a piece of evergreen rod that I drilled the end out of to get a hollow end where the wires come out. What else I do? The little junction box thing was a punched out of styrene and then it's got like a rivet or fastener in the middle of it from, uh, some of I can't remember one of the model railroad suppliers nuts and bolts, sets, rivet sets. So got all that on there Trying to think what else I've done. That's about it. I'm probably fortunate I haven't broken the headlight off because it's on a really really finely molded bracket. It's molded to the light bulb, the light housing.
Kentucky Dave:Well, hopefully it will survive the whole building process. Well, it, it will survive the whole building process.
Mike:Well, it ought to look good when it's done, because the lens for the headlights is actually a clear part with the crosshatch texture molded into the one side of it, so that ought to be a nice part. So you know, now I'm hoping to work my way back from there. I've got the I think that front plate's done. Now I probably won't actually put the visor into the opening of the armor in the front until I start painting the thing.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:Really, that's about all I've gotten done and I just chipped away at it a little bit. The nights I can get down here and it's making progress. I thought I was going to go blind after that little wiring harness thing. Man Jeez, that was small. I haven't worked that small in a long time. I'm out of practice.
Kentucky Dave:I hear you. Well, we need to build faster.
Mike:You work on anything else. Nope, that's it, man Well, what are you hoping to get back to after the national convention Finish?
Kentucky Dave:the SAM and the BT-7. Both are going to get finished after the Nats and the F-8. Well, and the F-8, too. Come on man, but it's in third place behind the other two.
Mike:Gosh, but it was started before either one of them.
Kentucky Dave:I know, I know, I know.
Mike:Hustad built a BT-7 inside yours. Yes, I know he did and put it in a diorama.
Kentucky Dave:Of course. He models seven hours a day At least. And no matter how many hours you give me, mine's not going to look as good as his.
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Kentucky Dave:They've been announcing a fair amount of new kits coming out. See anything you like.
Mike:I've got several faves. Now you know I've gotten a little diverse with my faves, just stuff I think is interesting. Whether I'm actually going to buy it or build it, it's a completely different topic. Got three of those and a yawn.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I've got two faves and an I'm not sure. Well, who's first I'll take? It sure this one's 35th scale and it's armor and I don't know. That it's a fave, but I just I, I don't know want to hear what you think about it. A company I've never heard of before, called Zimi Z-I-M-I, has announced a 35th scale Marder One and flat car. Wow, and I like the way the Martyr 1 looks. I've never heard of this company, zimmy, before. I have no idea, and it's interesting that they release it as a joint product with a flat car. But I don't know. You tell me.
Mike:Well, I'll tell you that was my yawn. Okay, zimmy also made that quad bofers, us Navy quad bofers kit. So I've got that, and they make a couple other things. This one's a yawn for me because I know why they released it like this.
Kentucky Dave:Why.
Mike:It's because they picked up the old Panda models. Martyr one tooling and it's a distant second next to the Tamiya kit.
Kentucky Dave:Gotcha.
Mike:And they're not going to sell me those solo anymore. They're just not that.
Kentucky Dave:That explains obviously. I did not realize that that was somebody else's mold so you know, it's an interesting combination I guess.
Mike:But I don't know, for for me the the tank on flat car things kind of kind of run its course. For me as an interest, I probably have in the stash a 35th scale resin German heavy flat car back there somewhere.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, because that's how they got released first.
Mike:Yeah, so now there's more than one in plastic.
Kentucky Dave:So, Mike, what's your first fave? More than one in plastic. So, Mike, what's your first fave?
Mike:It's one kit from a new company out of Ukraine. It's SPA LAH or SPALA or SPALA I'm not sure how to pronounce that, but they're a 3D print company doing some 35th scale stuff. And the one that's interesting is an MT-12 100mm anti-tank gun. Now, this was a post-war Soviet anti-tank gun.
Kentucky Dave:Is that the upgrade of the BS-3 that was during World War II?
Mike:I don't know if the two are related because it's a smoothbore gun.
Kentucky Dave:Oh okay.
Mike:So it saw issuance with a lot of Third World armies and then most of the Warsaw Pact.
Kentucky Dave:Oh true.
Mike:Even after it was phased out of Soviet service. I just thought it was a really interesting offering from a newer company. So again, a 3D print. I don't know if it's going to interest me that much, but as far as a subject, I think it's one that's not been done. I don't know. I don't know if there's one of these in like the trumpeter line or not, I don't really know, but it's a neat looking little gun.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I love anti-tank guns. It just there's something about them. What you got next. Next one is one that I was aware of but you pointed out to me BPK Big Plane Kits 777-700 in 72nd scale that they have now released with the newer blue Southwest airline scheme. They had actually done one of the earlier 737s in Southwest in what was called the peanut scheme, the brown scheme that Southwest had forever, and then Southwest, a number of years ago, switched over to the blue scheme, which is very attractive in my opinion, and so they've released a kit of it. My wife flew on this airplane a whole whole lot in her career and I got to say I'm probably at some point going to pick one up because I want to, I want to do an airliner and doing that one would be really nice to make a nice, nice, nice display piece with all of her Southwest memorabilia. So I may, I may have to pick that one up.
Mike:I thought you might be interested now.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, yep so you're next.
Mike:I can't read my own writing. Newware, uh-huh, it's in 1 to 144 scale.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:It's a Titan II rocket as the launch vehicle for the dinosaur. I know the one. I don't know much about this company.
Kentucky Dave:I've got several of their kits. How?
Mike:are they.
Kentucky Dave:They're good models. They're good. I mean, they're not, you know, modern injection molded and they are helped by the fact that they are modeling. You know a lot of round shapes and things like that. No, the NuWe wear stuff is very good. In fact, if you talk to Mike Ida-Kavich, I'll bet you he'll tell you that he likes a lot of their stuff.
Mike:Well, maybe he'll chime in and let us know.
Kentucky Dave:Okay.
Mike:But I thought this one was interesting because the rocket certainly has some fairly colorful markings.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, and the dinosaur was just a cool concept. We got another one. Well, yes, and this one is my.
Mike:I don't know oh, it wasn't the martyr one, no, the martyr, one was, was was going to be.
Kentucky Dave:I don't know about this kit, but it looks interesting. Okay, this is a company called Emboss E-M-B-O-S-S. Never heard of them before and they are making in 35th scale a decal for do you know what a bead seat cover is? Yeah, you know. Like you see in a lot of taxis.
Mike:Yep, like half the dang taxis in China had those things.
Kentucky Dave:Exactly. They are making 35th scale, which I think is interesting. Would have thought they would do it in one of the car scales, but 35th scale bead seat cover decals in like three or four different patterns.
Mike:Now, are they generic or are they kit specific?
Kentucky Dave:decals in like three or four different patterns. Now, are they generic or are they kit specific? No, they're generic. Hmm, interesting, and, like I said, it's in three or four different patterns. And just when you see them, you look at them and you go, oh, I know what that is. It pops right out, they look like what they're supposed to be, but that's just to me such an interesting little detail that a company would actually manufacture that. I found it very surprising.
Mike:Maybe we've reached the pinnacle.
Kentucky Dave:Maybe we have. No, the pinnacle will be when somebody 3D prints it in 35th scale.
Mike:And the beads actually rattle.
Kentucky Dave:And the beads actually rattle.
Mike:Oh brother. So do you have any more? I do, I've got one more fave.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I'm done, so you go.
Mike:Well, you know, many art's been ripping through the rsos yes they have. They finally boxed one in plastic. That I don't think has been done before. Maybe there's a photo etch set out there to do this, but because normally you only see these stowed on the sides of an rso tractor, but the big stamp metal snowshoes.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:Well, they've kitted a version now that you can actually apply those to the tracks. Wow, and it looks pretty ridiculous with those things on it, because they like span a couple of lengths and just really wide and they're just these thin sheet metal stampings.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:So, yeah, it looks like some kind of moon buggy with those things on it.
Kentucky Dave:Well, the RSO is odd looking to begin with.
Mike:Well, this doesn't help it. High time somebody did it. I have to wonder. I don't know if someone's done those, maybe in Photo Etch before, but then I don't know that they've ever done them, even in Photo Etch, to actually apply to the tracks. They were just to enhance the stowed versions of the things yeah somebody let me know if I'm off base or if I'm correct.
Kentucky Dave:I don't really remember, but that's the end of my faves and yawns, dave all right, mike, we've reached, uh, almost the end the episode, and I am not quite done with my modeling fluid, but it's getting there. And Browmaster Krampusnacht Schwartz beer, 5.0 alcohol by volume. It's out of Canada, out of Browmaster Brewing Company. I want to thank Evan for the beer. I'm not a Schwartz beer fan and I'm not fond of the maltiness that you get with a lot of very dark beers. This is reminiscent in many ways of Guinness, but it's not quite as thick and not quite as creamy, but it does have the extra carbonation that you associate with the Guinness. So, all in all, not bad. Thank you, evan, and thank you to Mr Grisbein for the glass and the t-shirt. How was the 1920? After?
Mike:not having it for a very long time again. I had to get past the heat because it's a hundred and something. I can't remember.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, 110. 110 or 112?
Mike:proof, right so? But once you're there, man, it's got a lot of really interesting flavor to it. Yeah, I remember how much I enjoyed it. Yep, real quickly.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, it really does have. You know, a lot of times, once you get a bit above a certain level of alcohol, the heat from the alcohol is all you taste. But the 1920 has some really great flavors to it.
Mike:It's not just drinking hot alcohol, the 1920 has some really great flavors to it. It's not just drinking hot alcohol. Well, I'd be curious how Don Gilman's flight went and what he came out of there like and better than the others.
"The Voice of" Bob Bair:So let me know, Don Either comment in your thread you put on the dojo, or send us an email.
Kentucky Dave:Now we truly are at the end of the episode. So, mike, do you have any shout outs or anything you want to mention?
Mike:Like we normally do, dave, I want to shout out all the folks who've taken upon themselves to help Plastic Model Mojo out through their generosity. We've had a flurry of activity in this regard. We really appreciate it because, again, we're still chipping away at the website and we've got a little ways to go before we have anything new to launch. So all this is really helping us out. Robert Morales, michael Grisman, who you mentioned already, and William Sommer have come on board as new patrons, so that's great. We really thank you guys a lot, and I sent them all a message thanking them.
Mike:And then we got kind of a mystery one too. Hopefully the person who did this can reach out. They're from a particularly well, a famous namesake chapter down in South Texas, and this email address has gotten handed around by a couple of people when I was doing a little Google searching. So I'm not sure that the context of this one, but again, it's greatly appreciated. And then, finally, dave palais has kind of amped up what he was doing before, so he's helping us out a little more than he was. So really appreciate it, folks. Uh, it's going a long way that the nest egg's growing a little bit so we can finish out this website and we're going to bring you some good stuff, and it just helps keep the whole train moving down the tracks and we appreciate it very much. So thank you, thank you, thank you very much.
Kentucky Dave:Thank you, I want to second that.
Mike:What about you, man?
Kentucky Dave:Well, I want to shout out Mr Grispen again for the T-shirt and the beer glass, always appreciated. Brisbane again for the T-shirt and the beer glass, always appreciated. In addition, I want to recommend another YouTube channel. The guys Al Murray and James Holland who do the we have Ways podcast, have a World War II YouTube channel and they're doing little short YouTubes. They did one that I posted on the dojo about the Me 163. And then they just dropped another one on five reasons why the Sherman was the best all-around tank of World War II and it's really great content. Why the Sherman was the best all around tank of world war two. And they just it's really great con content. It's short, it's digestible. You know 10, 15 minute YouTube episodes and and really fun little watches. So I highly recommend those.
Mike:Anything else? Nothing else for me. How about you? Nope, that's it until 4th of July, my friend, all right, can't wait to see you Until then. So many kits, so little time.
