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
PMM Twelve Minute Modelsphere: September 2025
The Plastic Model Modo Twelve Minute Modelsphere is brought to you by KitMasx!
Summer flew by in a flash, and we're reflecting on our recent trip to the IPMS National Convention in Hampton, Virginia. We're eager to hear your experiences if you attended – especially first-timers! Looking ahead, mark your calendars for September 27th when we'll be at the Military Modelers Club of Louisville show in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. We'll have a table right next to Jeff Groves, so stop by to chat! The spacious Pariquet Springs venue makes this one-day show particularly enjoyable.
Our podcast lineup for September includes a special Q&A segment with Dr. Strangebrush in Episode 147 and a shop talk featuring Chris Wallace from the Model Airplane Maker channel in Episode 148.
Don't miss our modeling tip of the month – we've discovered that certain Aldi prosciutto packages contain interleaving film that's actually 2.5 thousandths polystyrene sheeting, thinner than anything commercially available for modeling!
Meanwhile, our Plastic Model Mojo Dojo community continues to thrive with nearly 5,500 members sharing tips, solving problems, and discussing everything from airbrush troubleshooting to using Star Wars kits as painting and weathering practice. Join our growing modeling family and share your own projects and questions!
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Mike and Kentucky Dave thank each and everyone of you for participating on this journey with us.
Kev, tell everyone why you started Kit Mask.
Kevin (KitMasx):Well, manually masking canopies sucks, and somebody had to step in to save those countless kits from the shelf of doom.
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Janelle (KitMasx):Yeah, people don't realize. We take customer requests and we even have a service that gets you canopy masks for free.
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Mike:Dave, I hope you're enjoying this Labor Day weekend.
Kentucky Dave:I definitely am looking forward to it, but, man, where the heck did August go? I'm starting the month celebrating my wife's birthday my birthday Then we go to Hampton and next thing I know it's Labor Day. What the heck happened.
Mike:We've been busy. You know, I mentioned in the last episode that I was super busy before Nats and then we kind of had to tread water to get to even go, and then again we got busy after we got back and now school started and all that stuff and summer's gone, my friend, I know.
Kentucky Dave:Well, you certainly think that from the weather outside August in Kentucky is usually not this school. No that's okay. No, it's fine. I've got no complaints. Heck, we've been having the time of our life. You can't complain.
Mike:We normally start this TMM 12-Minute Model Sphere by where we've been and where we're going. Well, we've done a whole episode on where we've been.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:And you just mentioned it the IPMS National Convention in Hampton, Virginia, which was a blast. But you can go back and listen to that episode if you want to hear all about that. But we've had some post-NATS communications that you thought were worth mentioning, so we'll do that as a little follow-up right here, right now.
Kentucky Dave:Well, what I want to do is ask members who went to the national convention to email us, particularly those we got to see at Stop by the Table, those who, for them, it was their first national convention, and then just generally, anybody who is a listener who went to the convention, email us, let us know your thoughts. What did you like, what didn't you like? I come away from every Nats thinking it was the best one ever. Um, but I kind of want to hear what people think there were some changes and what I think were improvements this year over previous years, and I kind of want to hear back from our listeners. So if you would please email, mike, or DM me to let me have your thoughts on that subject.
Mike:Yeah, you can email us at plasticmodelmojo at gmailcom, or you can DM us through the Facebook messaging system, and there's also a contact the show link in the show notes. You can also use that to send us what's effectively an email, but it's through its own portal, so we've got three ways to do that. So, yeah, please, that'd be interesting and we love to get the email anyway. So good on you if you email us about these things. Well, dave, we are going somewhere in September.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, we are Going to be a little while. I'm going somewhere. Hopefully you'll be going somewhere If the weather cooperates and you don't end up with near flooding and a power outage again. Yeah, we'll both be at the Military Modelers Club of Louisville show in Shepherdsville, kentucky, on the 27th of September. Yep.
Mike:I guess that's the last Saturday of the month.
Kentucky Dave:Last Saturday of the month and in fact, we have a table there and our table is going to be right next to Jeff Inchai Groh's table.
Mike:Oh, okay, we'll have a good time.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, we're going to have a real good time.
Mike:He must be selling a few things.
Kentucky Dave:Some books, believe it or not, but if you can work it out, if you're within a day's drive of Louisville and you can work it out, it's a one-day show, opens at nine. They have you out of there by three 30. They're very efficient on awards and all that so that people can get back home and do the whole thing in a day. I urge you strongly to come to the contest. You'll have a great time.
Mike:Well, moving back to Pariquet Springs was a good move. Yes, it's a pretty nice facility for an IPMS Invitational Size Show.
Kentucky Dave:It is. It's as large, facility-wise, floor space-wise it's almost as large as the area that the Hamilton Club has in the museum for their contest. It's a really, really spacious facility.
Mike:All right, well, I hope to see some of you folks there.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, hey, mike, do we have some episodes coming up in September?
Mike:Well, we've got two and in lieu of the recent double bill show spotlight we just dropped a little earlier last week double bill show spotlight we just dropped a little earlier last week and then this 12-minute model series dropping on a monday, first of the month being on a monday, we're pushing our first feature episode in september out a week, so normally there would have been a feature episode today, on the day this drops, but uh, we kind of got a little glut, so we're gonna gonna push that out and it's gonna be a good episode. Dave. Episode 147, dr Strangebrush has been soliciting questions from his clientele and we're going to tackle those in a special segment with Dr Strangebrush in episode 147.
Mike:So I'm looking forward to that too, so we hadn't talked to him in a little while, so that'll be good. Yes 148 coming up a little later in the month is going to be a shop talk episode and Mr Chris Wallace from the model airplane maker YouTube channel and blog is going to be sitting in the third chair and you know I need to solicit maybe a topic or two from him to talk about.
Kentucky Dave:So yeah, I've got one for for Chris for that uh episode bare metal finishes Cause he just dropped a whole video on that. That might be a really good topic to discuss for our shop talk.
Mike:Well, I'll pencil that one in and tell him to get ready.
Kentucky Dave:That's right.
Mike:I look back and it's been right out of year since Chris was on. He was on the Wheel of Accidental Wisdom about a year ago, in September or so.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, haven't heard from him in a while.
Mike:Well, we've heard from him, but the listening audience for Plastic Model Mojo has not heard from him in a while.
Kentucky Dave:We hear from him regularly.
Mike:That's right, so he was perfectly willing to come on. So bare metal finishes, that'd be a good one, dave, I like that and go watch his video on the subject. Well, dave, we'll kind of stretch this out. Give a little bit more meat to the 12-minute model sphere. Give another little tidbit that folks can find useful. I'm going to try to insert a tip of the month, so we're going to have a little homework to do going forward.
Mike:But the tip of the month for September also stems from our trip to Hampton, Virginia, the IFMS National Convention. It was about a month ago that maybe a little longer than that, because I put it on the dojo I have discovered that the interleave film in a pack of Aldi prosciutto was actually two and a half thousandths polystyrene sheeting and that proved to be quite useful. So it sent us on a little bit of a goose chase while we were in Hampton we rolled up to an Aldi and everybody jumped out and ran inside to go get some charcuterie for the evening. Now there are two varieties of prosciutto at Aldi. One of them is just I guess it's just says prosciutto, and the other one has some Italian style or something on it.
Mike:I didn't know there was any other kind of prosciutto than Italian style, but if it says Italian something on the pack, that's not the one you want. You want the other one. I assume they're packed at two different facilities and the one that just says prosciutto has this ultra thin polystyrene sheeting in it that I've started to find very useful in my modeling. It's like I said, it's two and a half thousandths, which is half the thickness of evergreen's thinnest sheet, and I'm looking for it as a supplied item from a manufacturer. I like prosciutto, Dave, but you know.
Mike:Yeah right, there's only so much prosciutto and washing the washing the, the, the fat, yeah, the fat, and grease off of it, yeah, cause you gotta be careful, cause that's just so thin you can't use very hot water, so Right. So if you need some really, really thin polystyrene, until I enter, until I find out a source supplier for this stuff, you can get it at Aldi in their prosciutto.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:So there's my tip of the month, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, well, we'll see what happens. I need to go out and buy stock in Aldi or something.
Mike:Dave, I know the dojo has been hopping.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, it has. It has been busy, doesn't begin to describe it. We're up to basically 5,450 members, give or take a few. Membership's been climbing. Right now it's climbing about 2% a month, which is a nice steady gain. What I'm really thrilled about is the interaction. We are now regularly seeing 30 plus posts on the dojo. We're getting really great interaction.
Kentucky Dave:Just to give you a couple of examples, there was a member who was having difficulty with their Iwata airbrush and they had tried everything. And I and another member recommended that they contact Dr Strangebrush. They did so. Not only did Dr Miller help cure their Iwata problem, he sold them a hard-earned steam bag while he had them on the phone. So win, win, win all the way around.
Kentucky Dave:And then another member posted a photo of a completed Star Wars. You know one of the Bandai Star Wars kits or Fine Molts I forget which. Either one or fine malts, I forget which Either one. And that prompted a conversation about what a good palette those kits are for painting and weathering. And Paul Gloucester, as you know, brought one to the Nationals that he had done and while we were at Hampton, he and I at the Airbnb were discussing that at length. We were at Hampton, he and I at the Airbnb were discussing that at length and then I commented on this person's post about that. Then Paul chimed in and it led to a really, really nice discussion about those kits Even if sci-fi or star Wars aren't in your wheelhouse just being a great way to cleanse the palette, build a nice kit. They go together very well and they are really good for stretching your painting and weathering legs.
Mike:Well, I rub those every time I see them at the shows. I just haven't pulled the trigger on it. I know I want that big AMT 30-second scale TIE fighter at some point, but the smaller scale 70-second Y-wings, x-wings TIE fighters yeah, I get that. That's pretty cool.
Kentucky Dave:I've got an X-wing and I want a Y-wing.
Mike:We'll buy one, Dave. Yeah, no, I don't need to be buying more kits. We'll sell some at our show.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, well, I'm going to do some of that. I've been selling a few on the dojo and I'm going to be moving some at our show Because, again, as I'll say for the billionth time, the experience of going up and helping that widow clear out her basement of all those books has radicalized me and I do not want to leave my wife and children in that position. So I got to do something Well.
Mike:back to the dojo numbers. I was looking today, dave, and we're getting close to parity between the dojo and the Plastic Model Mojo Facebook page the normal podcast page where I normally post.
Mike:Right where we do just the announcements, just the announcements, and I don't know man, should that run past that significantly? We may have to change the way we do things on there, but real glad to see it. Folks, recommend your friends in your modeling community to the dojo. We just like to see it keep growing. Well, folks, that's September. We hope you join us for everything we can push out for you to digest. It's going to be a good month. We got two good episodes and we look forward to more growth on the dojo and hopefully we'll see you at Paracat Springs in Shepherdsville, kentucky, at MMCL Invitational. Dave, as we always say, so many kits, so little time.
Kentucky Dave:My friend, we'll see you soon see you have a happy labor day you too and to everyone else, all right. Hit the button to stop the recording.
Mike:Well, I just remembered I forgot to do something.
