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
Holy Bubbles Dr. Strangebrush! What's Wrong With My Airbrush?: Episode 147
Ever wondered what's causing those mysterious bubbles in your airbrush paint cup? In this episode, Dr. Strangebrush returns to solve the airbrush mysteries that plague scale modelers everywhere. Drawing from decades of experience, he walks us through common issues with surprising solutions – from the simple fix for bubbling paint cups to the proper technique for applying dry and wet coats.
The doctor's paint crisis hotline is open as he addresses listener questions that reflect the frustrations we've all faced. Learn why your clear coat turns out pebbly (hint: it might be your tip size), how to keep paint workable during long sessions, and the proper sequence for spraying multiple colors to minimize cleanup. His practical wisdom transforms technical problems into solvable challenges with straightforward explanations that will immediately improve your results.
Beyond the masterclass, we explore the modeling sphere with updates on the de minimis exemption affecting cottage industry suppliers, share listener mail about upcoming model shows, and showcase bench projects including Dave's nearly-complete Bearcat and Mike's KV-85 tank radiators. The episode rounds out with new kit releases and an appreciation for the growing community of modelers supporting each other through knowledge sharing.
Whether you're battling airbrush demons or simply looking to refine your techniques, this episode delivers insights that will elevate your modeling experience. Subscribe now and join our community of passionate scale modelers keeping their mojo alive!
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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, Mojovia, thanks for joining us for episode 147. Dave, getting a little early sampling of fall weather this weekend weather turning this cool in late August, early September in Kentucky.
Kentucky Dave:it's not what we wanted for this year. So, yeah, it's already feeling like mid-fall, not just early fall, but mid-fall. Well, it's not going to last. That's what they say, and I am hoping you are right, because I want to get in that pool a little bit more before we have to close it up for the year well, it's got a heater, so you ought to be good well, that's true, but you know, if I wanted to heat that pool, it would be just as easy to take giant piles of money and set it on fire and use that to heat the water.
Mike:It's not cheap well, enough of that, my friend. What is up in your model sphere?
Kentucky Dave:Well, I am still basking in the afterglow of the Nats. In fact, I did a Facebook post on the dojo with a photo that we all took at the end of our Nats trip when we were all getting ready to leave and so I'm still enjoying it, reveling in it, but, by the same token, I'm looking forward to upcoming model contest. Our local contest is here in three weeks and I'm looking forward to that. And, in addition, I brought home a lot of reading material from the Nationals. I bought I think it was nine books and unfortunately, as you and I have mentioned on the podcast several times, life has been a little hectic lately and one of the things I've gotten away from is sitting down and dedicated model-related reading. So I'm going to do that. I bought these books and I want to get some of them read because some of them are just super interesting. So my model sphere is positive, my model sphere is high, my model sphere is doing well, but it can always do better. How about yours?
Mike:Well, I got quite a bit going on. I think I mentioned last episode, or was it on the dojo, I can't remember, but the Moose Rude Cup kit came in.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mike:It's a curbside automobile kit. It's a Mazda Miata from Aoshima, from some anime I'm not familiar with. I've got a plan, I just got to get cracking on. It should be a quick build, though it's all going to be paint and finish, I believe well I'm I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it.
Kentucky Dave:You and I've talked about it a little bit and and I really kind of like where you're going.
Mike:Well, in addition to that man, I've been just watching all the fallout from the revocation of the de minimis exemption.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mike:Man, it just seems like some stuff's going to get hard to get here for too long.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I'm of the opinion In fact, I was talking to Jim Bates this afternoon about this very thing and I'm of the opinion that this thing's probably going to be fairly short-lived, that it's going to bother enough people in enough ways that they're going to work out a workaround here of some sort. They're going to either reinstate it or they're going to have some sort of workaround because, yeah, it really is starting to have an impact.
Mike:Well, I hope this gets sorted out in a manner that's workable to all concerned, and likewise I hope our cottage industry friends can weather this in the short term.
Kentucky Dave:Very much so.
Mike:It appears that the way it's structured currently, as far as those folks are concerned, it's really punching down yes, which is unfortunate.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, no, the bigger manufacturers and the mainline distributors they're big enough that they can deal with this sort of thing small cottage industries who are doing some really fantastic stuff and making things that we modelers really want to have, who are getting impacted the most, and so I'm hoping that, like I said, I'm hoping this whole thing resolves relatively quickly.
Mike:Well, that's it for my model sphere man. So there's probably more, but we don't want to get into all everything. Got to save some for next time.
Kentucky Dave:That's right, mike, we're recording, so that means modeling fluid, what you got.
Mike:Well, usually it does, and tonight's no exception. I've got a Woodinville straight bourbon whiskey finished in port casks. Ooh, that sounds good From Woodinville, washington, and we were not real good about taking names at the Nationals, but I think Tim Nelson brought this to the Airbnb dojo one evening in Hampton.
Kentucky Dave:I believe he did.
Mike:If not, somebody please tell me and we'll correct that. But I think that's what I think.
Kentucky Dave:Tim is who gave it to us. I think Too Tall. Tim Nelson brought that to the Airbnb one night. So if we're wrong, whoever did bring it, please reach out and let us know. Tim, if you're listening, please confirm that it indeed was you.
Mike:Well, that's my modeling fluid tonight. Dave, what's yours going to be?
Kentucky Dave:I have a very special modeling fluid tonight.
Mike:Oh, I know what that is.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I'm sure you do, Listener Don Gilman from Texas. Don came by the table, brought us a beer that he home brewed and he and I got into a discussion. He's been home, brought us a beer that he homebrewed and he and I got into a discussion. He's been homebrewing for like 25 years, so he gifted us a bottle. It's a lavender beer and I'm going to take a taste right now. Oh yeah, Now Don, me opening that bottle was the second time.
Kentucky Dave:I opened it because my wife she is a beer snob and when she heard I had this, she insisted on getting a taste. And so about five minutes ago, right before we started recording, I opened this bottle and gave her a taste and she immediately wanted to know if we had more than one bottle. She really, really, really liked this beer. She is super impressed by it. She was very disappointed when I told her that we had the one and only bottle, but I just had my first sip and I can see what she's impressed about. It is really, really good beer. So I'm going to enjoy this in the episode. I have no idea what the ABV is or any of that stuff, I'm just going to enjoy it as we record this episode.
Mike:Well, you've blown all the details for the end, so I hope it's about 14%, so you can say a bunch of dumb crap at the end.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, well, no, I still haven't described it or anything. We'll get into it. There's plenty to talk about because it's good.
Mike:There is, and a lot of it is listener mail. Okay, we've been doing pretty good with the listener mail, this go around, so let's get into it. Man, you got it. First up is Luis Toledo and he'd written in a couple months back and he'd copied a number of the other podcasts on his email and he was just thanking us for all taking time to answer him. He was wanting to know about, or what we thought about, folks who possibly looked down on other modelers who did not participate in the competitive side of things or the show entry and that sort of thing. You remember that? Yep, I do. So, luis, I hope we gave you a satisfactory answer and you're very welcome and we welcome questions like that.
Kentucky Dave:So yes, we do.
Mike:Thank you very much. Up next is David Kettler and he is a member of the West Michigan IPMS and they've got a show coming up in October, so that makes me wonder if we ought to bank this one and see if they might be interested in a spotlight segment.
Kentucky Dave:That's a good idea.
Mike:Cause we don't have any for October yet. So, david, I'm going to do that. I'll be in touch because that's going to get out a little later in the month and your show's early October, so should not be a problem. We'll be in touch and just you know along that vein, if clubs are out there and would like to be considered for one of those model show spotlight segments, please just just reach out and ask and we'll we'll take those under consideration and let you know. And we really only have time to do a couple every month, but I've got a swizzle in mind for that short that may help us at least touch on a few of the others at the very end or something. But we like doing it and it seems to be helping some of the folks. So, yeah, if you've got stuff like this, please send it in and if you really think you might want to have an appearance, let us know. Well, dave from Southern Maryland.
Mike:Mr Justin Reed, he has answered your call for folks run down on their national attendance, so I'm going to forward that on to you because we're going to do something with that Probably. I will mention, though, he did have a great time and even picked up one of our rare, limited edition plastic model Mojo rock glasses, which will be available at the MMCL show at the end of the month. If somebody's in our region and might want to get their hands on one of those and hopefully they won't be that rare and limited, we probably get some more once we run out. But appreciate the folks who picked those up at the show and thanks for answering our call there, Justin. Some of this is good information and we're going to sort through it and see what we can do with it. Well, David Waples has written in and it's in the theme of modelers helping other modelers.
Kentucky Dave:We like that.
Mike:He's been working with an Otto Gerza at rcsubscz. Oh yeah, I know who they are and it's for a 1 to 144th scale and a 172nd scale 3D printed resin Los Angeles class submarine flight one Mm-hmm. And he said there's an excellent set of plans that were made by Greg Sharp of Deep Sea Designs that are no longer available and he had noticed that Jeff Groves, the Inch Eye guy, used these same plans on his 72nd scale Los Angeles submarine.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that he did as a vacuform, self-made vacuform.
Mike:Well, he reached out to Jeff and Jeff just sent him the plans. Dave says he offered to pay for them, but Jeff just sent them.
Kentucky Dave:That is so, Jeff Groves. It's not funny.
Mike:Consider us not surprised at all.
Kentucky Dave:Exactly.
Mike:So we'll give Jeff a handshake at our show. We'll probably see him if things go as planned. So, dave, thanks for making mention of that. That's really cool. I love the information exchanges and it was good to see you at the National Convention as well. Another show, dave, steve Hustad. He sent us in the Nordicon flyer. It's the same day as our show. Luckily it's a bazillion miles away. It shouldn't affect, but it's a good show. We'll post this flyer on the dojo.
Kentucky Dave:A couple of things he wanted us to mention about the show. If you don't mind me taking a minute, no, go for it.
Kentucky Dave:Obviously the date and time. It's September 27th, from 9 am to 4 pm. What he really wanted to mention was that you know how we've been talking about how shows have been changing, judging how displays becoming more prominent, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah Well, nordicon for a number of years has done both a contest and a display, and the kind of unique thing for them is all the models are on the same tables.
Kentucky Dave:There's not a display area and a contest area. What they do is you put your model in whatever category it would normally fall and if you're doing a display, only you've got a different color form and that tells the judges. Okay, I don't have to judge that one, but you still have all the 72nd scale single engine aircraft together on the same place on the table so that you get that seamless effect. You don't have to go find the display area, and they're very proud of having done that. And I hope other shows that start to emphasize display do that because, frankly, I think that's probably the best way to do it, so that people can see everything in a particular scale or particular subject matter, and all whether it's for display or whether it's for contest, and I think it would encourage people to bring in their work for display, but he wanted me to mention that particularly.
Mike:Well, we'll put the flyer up on the dojo so people can have all the information. Yeah, I need to link these in the show notes as well. But one more thing from his flyer that I'd like to mention is that this show is like co-hosted by five different groups. Yes, so there's a lot of them. Twin City Arrow Historians, which I think Steve and Mark's club yeah, the RPM Model Club, oddball Modelers Group, minnesota Military Figure Society and the Minnesota Scale Modelers. Wwwnordicconcom yeah, n-o-r-d-i-c-c-o-ncom. So we'll help folks get this information. But thanks, steve, he was worried it was too late, but it's not too late. Still got almost a whole month to get that one on somebody's calendar.
Kentucky Dave:That's right.
Mike:Another show related one, dave, is from Drew Savage, who also saw at the National Convention. Drew wants to know what process do people in local clubs use to determine a theme for a contest. He says the club he belongs to has traditionally picked themes tied to a specific event date. He says the club he belongs to has traditionally picked themes tied to a specific event date or genre 50th anniversary of blank, the end of World War I, star Wars, whatever and he thinks that limits the people that can compete for that particular award, the theme award.
Kentucky Dave:He's trying to move his club in the direction of finding themes that can hit every category or most of them anyway, where all builders can find a way to qualify Well, and our club has been mindful of this, mmcl. And so, just to give you an example, the theme for this year's contest is the Great War 1914 to 1918. But we don't limit it to just military items. So if you build a vehicle that was 1914 to 1918, it qualifies. If you do a figure 1914 to 1918, whether it's civilian or military, it qualifies. Say, you do a train car from 1914 to 1918, french railroad train cars, that qualifies. So a lot of times it's not just saying well, you can't use a historic event, it's thinking broadly about that historic event and using more the time period rather than the combat itself, like Korean War combat where you limited only to airplanes and military figures and armored vehicles.
Mike:Yeah, but even still with World War I, the Gundam and Mecha folks, people were trying to get into shows and the real space guys and that sort of thing. Broad is good. Yeah, it is a noble effort to try to get something that everyone can cover. Yeah, I don't think it's completely necessary all the time, but the broader the better I get where he's coming from. Necessary all the time, but the broader the better I get where he's coming from. But I think he's got a theme that for their 2026 show that is going to actually accomplish that.
Kentucky Dave:Oh good.
Mike:It's heavy metal. Best use of natural metal finish.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, that is a good one.
Mike:So that can pretty much touch on just about everybody. Be curious what the nautical folks are going to do.
Mike:It's probably something out there I don't know about. Yeah, but Drew, yeah, I think we've said it there. Yeah, our club strives to be as broad as possible but depending on the makeup of the club, that could certainly bias things toward more narrow themes. I can see that happening. It's just the nature of the beast, I guess. But I think you're doing good to consider this and be curious how that theme goes down. It should go good. So it's a little ways off yet but we'll see. Good theme.
Mike:Well, Mark Doremus has written in again, Dave, and he wished he had saved episode 146 before he went to Thailand last week. So he's on another excursion to Asia and hitting all those great shops he's found over there. But he just wanted to say he appreciated our interview with Doug Reed for our Spotlight of the Oregon Modelers Jamboree. He says Doug's a really great guy and all that managed to come out in the interview. Doug hosts three Zoom meetings, sessions a week for modelers in those areas that he's in and he just lives and breathes all-inclusive modeling. So glad that resonated with some people. Lives and breathes, all-inclusive modeling so glad that resonated with some people. And hopefully, Mark, you make it to the show. Yeah, Because you're certainly in the geography to do that. And he says there are up to 10 tables now claimed by local clubs. So the club-sponsored tables seems to have grown since we talked to Doug in our last short segment.
Mike:So, hopefully he'll show us how that went down. We'll get some photographs of all those club tables. Looking forward to that.
Kentucky Dave:When I was talking to Jim Bates earlier today, he mentioned that show and that he's going, so I've got him committed to getting us lots of pictures.
Mike:All right, my last one from the email side of things. Dave is from Special Agent 003. Where is he now, brandon Jacob? Where's he now, brandon Jacob? Where's Waldo?
Kentucky Dave:That's right.
Mike:He says Mike, thank me later, but I strongly recommend that you put the airbrush down for an evening and go enjoy the music of Fish at the Bourbon and Beyond Festival in your hometown. You have been warned, brandon. Thank you for the suggestion, but jam bands are not my jam, and this reminds me of something my father said. This comes to mind when my mother asked if he would like to join her and her sister on a motor coach bus tour to New York City. His reply was honey, thanks, but I wouldn't get out of the electric chair to go do that.
Kentucky Dave:Thanks, but I wouldn't get out of the electric chair to go do that. Although, if you are a music aficionado, bourbon and Beyond is a three-day music festival that has a very, very wide selection of bands. It's really, really enjoyable. 15, 20, 25 different bands. It's really really enjoyable 15, 20, 25 different bands, many of them smaller, regional bands, and it was just great. So, yeah, if you get a chance and you're into music, bourbon and Beyond I can highly recommend.
Mike:And you can go see Scale Reproductions during the intermissions. That's right, that's right. Got to tie it back in some way.
Kentucky Dave:I like the way you think.
Mike:Well, that's it from the email side of things, Dave. So I know you got some DMs, so let's dig into that. I do have some.
Kentucky Dave:DMs spread across a number of subjects. Before I get into them, I got several DMs responding to my request for the Nationals experience from people who went. We've got those collated, as Mike mentioned earlier. We're continuing to gather them. We're going to use them in a future episode, but we're also, because I'm on the IPMS board right now, I'm passing the information anonymously to the second vice president, who is the officer most directly in charge with putting on the Nats, so that he gets to hear from people what they liked and what they didn't like and what their experience was. So please continue to send those in. I don't care how you do it, just please, if you haven't already done it, go ahead. And if you were at the Nats in Hampton, particularly if this was your first Nationals experience, reach out and talk about it. Let us know what you liked and what you didn't like.
Mike:And that's anonymously submitted. With regard to the provider of the information Right yes, not you.
Kentucky Dave:Not me, no the second vice president knows me. I can't be anonymous to him.
Mike:But yeah, you could.
Kentucky Dave:Right, get creative. No, so that when I pass him the different people's comments, so that when I pass him the different people's comments. They will be without their name.
Mike:Anonymized.
Kentucky Dave:Right Anonymized so that they get the information, but they don't know who the commenter was.
Mike:Well, we'll milk it for some content too, though.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, we will. On the DM side, first thing I want to mention is Warren Dickinson. Our friend from Southern Kentucky reached out. He had just bought the IBG they call the black box set with the new IBG 72nd scale Spitfire Mark I and II. He was highly impressed, wanted to let me know that he also promised he's coming to the MMCL show at the end of the month and he's going to bring it so that Jeff Inch Highgroves and I can take a look at it. Speaking of Inch, he is going to be both at the MMCL show at the end of this month. He's also going to the Cincinnati show and we have tables at both of those shows and his table's going to be right next to ours. So if you're going to either one of those shows, if you find us, you'll find Inch right next door. Come by and say hi.
Kentucky Dave:The next DM was from Mike Halliday, and Mike was looking out for you and me. He knew that we had previously talked about the S38 S boat by four models, yeah, and he had run across one that was deeply on sale. I forget who the dealer was that was selling it, but they were basically like half price and so he wanted to make sure that we knew about it, in case we needed one. I told him I had already gotten one, but that I'd pass the info to you if you were currently in the market for one.
Mike:I don't know, I'll have to check it out. I don't know, I'll just check it out. Send me the information.
Kentucky Dave:I will Next a DM from Brian Bennett. He and I had done a transaction online. I sold him a couple of kits that I posted on the dojo, one of which was the old Revell CR42 Falco, the little Italian biplane fighter and he DM'd me to let me know that he got them. That led into a discussion of Italian aircraft. We both have an interest in it. That led into a discussion about some of Harvey Lowe's recent work, because Harvey's been doing a lot of unusual Italian aircraft from resin and vacuform kits and 3D printed kits. I pointed those out to Brian to take a look at. It was just one of those nice conversations I keep talking about how, in the middle of the day when I'm dealing with clients and their legal problems, it's really nice out of the blue to get a DM from a modeler talking about model subjects and injects a little bit of joy into what can sometimes be otherwise tough work.
Kentucky Dave:The next DM is from our friend Michael Grispen, the North Carolina guy with the German-sounding name who lives in England. But Michael had previously sent us a couple of nice shirts from a local brewery from North Carolina and he DMed me to let me know that a model company, a model accessory company called Ask they do 3D printed accessories had just announced and come out with a 3D printed engine and cowl flaps for the Tamiya Zero kit. So he wanted to make sure I was aware of this. I haven't seen the actual print, but he sent me the picture of, or the link to the picture of, the 3D, the CAD design, and, gosh, it looks good. If it looks as good printed as it does in that design, I can see me buying multiple copies of that. So thank you, michael, for helping spend more of my money.
Mike:Grizzabian.
Kentucky Dave:Grizzabian, thank you, just popped into my head Grizzabian.
Mike:Now we got it.
Kentucky Dave:Now we got it. I would blame it on the lavender beer and its high alcohol content, but I can't say that's what's doing it. Dr Gelbmacher, who we saw at the Nationals, reached out because we're mentioned is that Fort Wayne has a double-A baseball team. Dr Gelbmacher and Chris and myself are all interested in trying to catch a game while we're there. We've begun planning one of the evenings and I'm not sure which. We've got to look at the schedule and everything we know. The team is in town during the convention. They're doing a homestand at that time and we're going to figure out one evening where we go out to the ballpark and watch a minor league baseball game. So if you've got any interest in that and you're going to the Nationals in Fort Wayne, take a look on the web and find the Fort Wayne baseball team and plan to go to a game.
Kentucky Dave:Three Floyds has made it to New Jersey beyond gumball head and I told him he's not going to be disappointed. Three Floyds makes really good beer. That they do. Finally, our friend Paul Budsing. He DM'd me recommending the Iwata airbrush holders. They make a thing that you clamp to your bench that holds a couple of air, two airbrushes, and he's got two of them on his bench and the thing he likes about them over pretty much any other airbrush holder is he says they hold the brushes really securely, which some airbrush holders don't really do. That, and if the airline gets tugged or it doesn't get seated in there they can fall out and then damage the airbrush. So he highly recommends these and I'm here to tell you if Paul Budzig recommends something, I'm definitely going to take a look at it. So that was it from the DM side, other than Mr Husted wanting us to mention NordicCon, which you covered masterfully already.
Mike:I don't know about that, but we did cover it, Yep, and we'll help propagate the information. Well good, so folks keep sending in the listener mail. You can do that via email by sending something to plasticmodelmojo at gmailcom. You can DM us through the Facebook messenger system. There's also a web link in the show notes titled Give Us your Feedback. That's also kind of a quasi email. It's just a portal to send a message and you don't have to know the email address. You can just use that link and send it that way. All those are great. We appreciate all the email we get. It's our favorite segment of the show. Keep it coming, folks.
Kentucky Dave:When you're done listening to this episode. If you would go to rate the podcast on whatever podcast listening app you're using, Please give us the highest rating five stars, thumbs up, whatever it is. It helps the podcast remain visible and we appreciate the help. We're continuing to grow and we really are focusing on finding new listeners. The best way that we can find new listeners is get a recommendation from our current listeners. So if you know somebody, a fellow modeler, who isn't currently listening to the podcast, please recommend us to them If they need help, showing them how they can access the podcast. If you would help them with that. It is the single best way for us to continue to grow and we want to keep growing because we want to keep doing this for you all. We really really enjoy it and the biggest joy that we get from it is the interaction with the listeners. Joy that we get from it is the interaction with the listeners, and so more listeners equals more interaction, which equals more joy. So please do that for us.
Mike:Don't just rate the show. Write a review too, if your app will let you do that, and if your app won't, you can go to the rate the show link in our show notes and that portal will let you do both those things and we really appreciate the feedback and reviews you can leave there. Once you've done all that, please check out the other podcasts at modelpodcastcom. That's model podcast plural. It's a website set up with the help of Stuart Clark at the Scale Model Podcast up in Canada. It's just an aggregated website of all the banner links to all the other podcasts out in the model sphere. We've got some blog and YouTube friends as well. We've already mentioned Jeff Groves, the Inch High guy. He's got a great blog. Come out and see us at the MMCL show if you want to meet Jeff. We were talking to Chris Wallace last night. Yes, we were Model airplane maker. Great blog, great YouTube channel. He's going to be our guest for Shop Talk in episode 148. So you're going to want to tune into that one as well.
Kentucky Dave:And go watch his latest video. It is really, really good.
Mike:Stephen Lee SpruPi with Frets long and short form blog, mostly 72nd scale. Also some model railroad content on there. You're going to like what Steve's got to say. Yeah and enjoy that blog. Evan McCallum Panzermeister36 YouTube channel Just moved to a new house. He's a little behind the eight ball on content, right now.
Kentucky Dave:We talked to Evan last night and he promised that there is indeed a new video coming very soon.
Mike:And finally, Dave, you already mentioned in your DM summary Paul Budzik and the airbrush holder, but you're going to want to check out Paul's skill model workshop and you can get to that through Patreon and some of it on YouTube. But please check out what Paul's got going on and I need to talk to him.
Kentucky Dave:So, yes, there are a lot of the national IPMS chapters are run by volunteers who are trying to give modelers in general a better modeling experience, so please consider joining. Also, if you're an armor or post-1900 figures modeler, you might consider joining the Armor Modeling and Preservation Society, a good group of guys dedicated to armor modeling and all of the skills and techniques involved. In addition, they're going to have their national again in South Bend in 2026. And you should join the organization and you should make plans to come to the national.
The Voice of Bob (Baer):Plastic Model Mojo is brought to you by Model Paint Solutions, your source for harder and steam back airbrushes, david Union power tools and laboratory grade mixing, measuring and storage tools for use with all your model paints, be they acrylic, enamels or lacquers. Check them out at wwwmodelpaintsolutionscom.
Mike:Well, model Paint Solutions is not just our sponsor. Dr Miller, aka Dr Strangebrush, is a regular personality on our show and we've got him back again. Dave yes, aka Dr Strangebrush, is a regular personality on our show and we've got him back again.
Kentucky Dave:Dave, yes, we do, and, as always, fantastic conversations with the guy and I always learn something.
Mike:Well, Dave, we got Dr Strangebrush making another house call. John, how are you doing, man?
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Hanging in there. Hanging in there. I had my meds this morning, so I'm feeling very much like Strangebrush, so good.
Kentucky Dave:Well, it's good. It's been a little while since we've talked to you, so it's been a minute Happy to get to sit down and get some airbrush wisdom.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Well, I don't know about wisdom. Let's not be too grandiose, but I'll take my best stab at it. Let's put it that way.
Mike:Well before we get rolling, John, we want to bring up an exchange that happened on our dojo Facebook group where we had a guy asking some airbrush questions and they were referred to you and I think he called you and you ended up helping him out and you ended up buying an airbrush.
Kentucky Dave:So it is amazing to you and I think he called you and you end up helping him out and you end up buying an airbrush. It is amazing and this has happened multiple times on the dojo. Mike brings this one up just because of the fact that it happened within the last two or three weeks. Somebody will come on and say in this guy's case, I've got an Iwata. It's not working right, something's wrong. I've tried everything, I've cleaned it to within an inch of its life, but I can't figure out what's wrong. And the funny thing is, not only did I chime in, but like five other Tojo members all chimed in with oh you need to reach out to Dr Strangebrush, talk to him, he'll get you fixed up. And the guy apparently did. You cured his Iwata problem, whatever it was, and he ended up buying a hard-earned Steenbeck. He posted it on the dojo when it came in. So we were kind of thrilled at that. Well, I appreciate that.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):That's kind of the way I prefer to do it. Yeah, I prefer, you know, for guys to reach out either by email or via phone. I'm still a firm believer in using the phone. You can get so much more done with a five-minute chat than you can with a week and a half of hunting and pecking.
Mike:Yep, I agree. Can you come talk to the under 30 engineers at my place of employment?
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yeah, Been there, done that when I was in science me an email and they say you know I'm having this brush, it's spitting, it's coughing, it's hacking, whatever, and you know I can't figure it out.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Is there a time when I could call you? And the conversation usually starts with what's wrong with their airbrush and it segues into how they're diluting their paint, which is exacerbating the problem that they're having with their airbrush. And then, by the end of the call, not only have we figured out what's wrong with the brush but, as I hear from an email, a week or two later they'll go back to their bench and they try some of the things that we discussed during that call and they come back with man, this works so much better, I'm so much happier and I'm not chasing my tail and fighting the brush every time I want to paint something. And yes, and then there is a customer for Model Paint Solutions. And if I could, I'm not as fast as Amazon, I never, ever will be but the difference is the first time that you run into a question or a problem with anything, you can actually call me and I'll call you back.
Kentucky Dave:You mean, I don't get a call center somewhere in Southeast Asia?
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):No, I'm not making any of my calls from Mumbai. Okay, they all come right from my shop here, surrounded by airbrush parts and paints, and, yeah, that's the best kind of interaction I can have with my customers and that's I think. I would like to think it's one of the things that model paint solutions can provide that other shops can't do as well.
Kentucky Dave:To be honest, Well, clearly it works because, like I said, you have such a fan base, particularly from our listeners and the folks who are on the dojo, that when anyone pops up with a hey, airbrush question, the comments are all call Dr Strangebrush, call Dr Strangebrush. I appreciate that, the customer-friendly, customer-centric interactions they get and you end up solving their problem. And that's the long and the short of it.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):I appreciate that. I appreciate that you know for what it's worth. You boys are in the South and I'm just going to speak bluntly I'm from the South, I was born and raised in the South and I'd like to think that there's just a little bit of that Southern hospitality and the way things are done at Model Paint Solutions. Like you, send me an email. You know it may take a day, but I will get back. If you call me and you're having a problem, I will stop what I'm doing and I will help you with your issue. I call it the paint crisis helpline.
Kentucky Dave:There you go, the paint crisis. Helpline I you go the paint crisis. I'll use that in the future.
Mike:Well, that's great man, but we probably ought to get on into this Yep, yep, but before before. Okay, let me back up. This was a stump the airbrush chump episode where you've solicited questions and problems from your, your customer base. I have, I'm sure you're well prepared for that. But tonight, john, I'm the lead off batter. Okay, I've got a problem. Oh, I know, mike. No, not that one.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Oh, okay.
Mike:Thanks guys. And it's not you eitherave. Yeah, sure it is. So I've got an evolution that I use. It's pretty much my uh go-to it. It replaced my badger 150 when I got that from you and when I noticed this, when it's obvious to I'm either blowing thinner because I'm cleaning my airbrush or I'm spraying some high dilution ratio 80, 20, 90, 10 paint primer. Whatever I push the trigger down to start the airflow, I start pulling it back to start the paint. I can watch the cone increase in size, Then it decreases in size and then I pull a little bit further back and it picks up back where it was supposed to be, Plus probably the difference.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):That's a master seal.
Mike:Okay, cause the needle's clean. That was going to be my caveat. I know that needles clean.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):That's a mad sounds like a master seal problem, and you know I work on mostly obviously harder sheen becks. I work on a fair number of Awatas, I will occasionally work on a Grex, and you know each brand has its strengths and has its weaknesses, let's be honest, and HS has a lot of strengths in the design. One of the things that you do have to watch with an HS is that master seal, and when a brush starts behaving as you've just described to me, I can usually go in and change out the master seal and that will fix the problem. It's not a nozzle seal, it's not an air cap o-ring. So we can go about this one of two ways. I could send you the new master seal with the needle seal as an assembly, along with a little disassembly tool that you need to take the old master seal out and put in a new master seal. Now when I say master seal, I'm talking about the needle seal. A lot of people call it the needle seal. But anyway, once you have the little HS disassembly tool, I can talk you through that over the phone. I can point you in the right direction and give you some tips on how to install that and do it right.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):The other thing that you can do and I do this pretty regularly with my customers is, if you would prefer, send the brush to me. I will do the work and then I'll mail the brush back to you and then I'll charge you. If you're a Model Paint Solutions customer, I'm glad you brought the. We're talking about this. If you are a model, if you're an NPS customer and if you bought the brush from me, you're going to pay to get the brush to me. I'll do the work for free.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):If it's an NPS brush, I don't charge anything for for the work, for the labor, and I give you 15% off what the parts cost to do the repair and then you pay for shipping home. So it's 50% off and shipping and no labor charge for NPS customers. If you're not an NPS customer, I can still work on your brush. Depending on the brush, it ranges between $20 to $30 for a rebuild. I usually keep these things pretty economical, so let me know what you want to do on that. Mike, I can always get the tool to you and then I can talk you through it, or you can just send me the brush, either one.
Mike:All right, we'll figure that out later, but I didn't stump the chump, so did I win or lose?
Kentucky Dave:I don't know, that's a better deal than Badger has with rehabbing their airbrushes. That's a great deal.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yes, it is, and I stand by it.
Mike:All right, John, you're free to dig into your first line of business.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Okay. Well, this first one comes from Joe A I'm not going to use last names. Actually he was on the Facebook Dojo page and he was asking about new parts for the HS Infinity. Now HS has not made those parts available to dealers. Actually they haven't made them available to anybody except. I contacted HS with this question and apparently if you are an Infinity owner, if you have the brush and you need a needle or you need a nozzle, they will send you those parts, they'll sell you those parts. They're going to come out with the parts for dealers sometime in October November. So, bottom line if you own an Infinity and you just ding the needle and you need a needle, contact HS, they will sell you a needle. Or, you know, as I said, october November I'll have the main parts for the Infinity. On Model Paint Solutions.
Mike:Now is this for the revamped.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):This is for the new Infinity 2024 with the titanium nozzles 0.22 and 0.44 millimeter.
Mike:Business as usual. For the prior versions.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yes.
Mike:Okay.
Kentucky Dave:Do you think this is just the fact that these parts haven't been available to you as a dealer just simply because of manufacturing lag? They've been cranking out the brushes and they haven't therefore built up a parts and repair inventory that they can push out. Or did they just not see a need up to now? Or do you have any idea?
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):It's a good question. I can't believe that they didn't see the need, given that everybody that's running harder Steenbeck has experience in the airbrush field. So I actually can't give you an answer as to why they didn't come out with spare parts for the Infinity, because they came out with the spare parts for the new Evolution as soon as the Evolution was released.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, interesting question.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yeah, no, and shameless plug time. I'm just going to say it again. I've used the new. I have one of the new and of course I do. I'm a dealer. I have one of the new Infinities. It's a great brush. It's good for fine line. It does everything it's supposed to do. I will still tell you, I'm still in the evolution camp.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):I prefer the feel of the brush, I prefer the way it handles, I prefer the weight and the balance to the evolution. And, in addition, one of the main things I like about the Evolution is that the new Evolution 2024 has the new trigger design which takes the slop out of the system. If you think about moving the needle, the needle moves. It's a very, very tight trigger design. It's the same trigger design, essentially on the Infinity that the Evolution has, infinity that the evolution has. But for me, the real utility of the evolution is that the front end of the new evolution is the same as the front end of the old evolution, which means that if you have the 0.15 tip, the 0.2, the 0.4, all of those old HS tips will fit onto the new evolution 2024. That's the real utility of the brush, right there.
Kentucky Dave:Well, and I will tell you and I have told everybody who has asked that the one thing I can say is I can do things with the Evolution that I can't do with any other airbrush. When you get down to the really really tight, fine, super fine detail that it's just, it performs better and you can do things with it that you can't do with even other brushes that I really love, like my Badger or the H&S Infinity.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):I agree. In fact, for my fine line work I actually took one of the old Infinity 0.15 millimeter tips and I put that on an Evolution 2024. And I have never had such a tight fine line airbrush in my 50 years of shooting airbrushes. Unlike the new Evo 2024 with the old 0.15 tip on it, there is no airbrush that can outperform that combination for fine line work. It's just it's not out there.
Kentucky Dave:So do you have somebody else who has a problem?
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yeah, I do so. The next up is Michael L, and this is an interesting question and I have to say a lot of the questions I got and I chose a few that there's a real practicality to some of these questions, and this is one of them. It comes back with what do you recommend for sequencing a paint session so that you have to do the least amount of cleanup? That's a great question. I thought so too. And so if you're going to be doing a session and you're going to be shooting four or five different colors, how do you arrange those colors If you have the latitude in the project to shoot whatever color you want? So the easiest way to do that is to start with the lightest colors first and progress to the darkest colors later.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):And you know, as an example of that, let's say I have to an extreme example I have to shoot something white and I have to shoot something black. Okay, I'm going to start with the white parts and I'll shoot them white. And then, when it comes to cleaning the brush, I won't do a full three soaks for five minutes each. You know the shot glass For something like that. I'll clean the paint cup out really well with a Q-tip. And then here's the trick Whatever cleaner I'm using, I have in one of the 250 mil squeeze, laboratory squeeze bottles on model paint solutions and I will hold the brush over the garbage can and I will squirt cleaner into the bottom of the paint cup. But I have the lever pulled back.
Kentucky Dave:So it just naturally flows gravity-wise down and through.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Exactly. And it doesn't put back pressure on your needle seal, which would happen if you were squirting into the paint cup and you had the lever forward. So with the lever back I'll squirt and you can see the paint gush out of the nozzle and the tip. When you do that, then have you gotten all the white paint out? No, no, you haven't. You've gotten the majority of it. You know, let's say, 95%, 98%. But if your next color is matte black and you've got two and a half mils of your diluted matte black to go into your paint cup, you're never going to see that trace amount of white. It's just not going to happen.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):So I mean, that's a gross simplification of the idea of starting with the lightest colors first and then going progressively to the darker colors. You know the reverse of that would be let's say, you shot the black first and then you wanted to shoot the white. A trace amount of black is going to turn your white a slight gray Right. So with that in mind, what are the colors that I wouldn't put in this lineup unless they were the very last colors? Let's start with metallics.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, right, yeah, right. Enough said, everybody has done that, where they've ended up with metallic black paint because metallic black.
Mike:I didn't know there was such a thing yeah, exactly I was working on it.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):This had to have been probably 20 plus years ago.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):I was doing a 48 scale spitfire and I it came down to the gloss coat, after decals, the ceiling oh god no and I grabbed the wrong brush and I put my clear coat in there and I fired the thing up, and before I didn't, I wasn't using good light, and I want to touch on that here in a couple minutes how really important it is to have a good light source. Yeah, when you're, when you're shooting paint, and before I knew it, I had the only pearled spitfire and that's that's gloss over the decals, guys, hard to come back from that. It's hard to come back from that. It was I. I tested the aerodynamics of that model into the garbage can.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Um, what are you going to do? So, first and foremost, if you're shooting metallics in this, this session, you're going to want to do those at the very last because, if not, the metallics going to contaminate everything. Um, but some other colors to be mindful of is hard. Bright colors like red, signal red or navy blue, especially, at least in my hands, especially red, for some reason, trace amounts of red will will tend to color anything that's going into it, whether it's, you know, gray, white, whatever. So, anyway, you know, just as as the way to end that, use a little common sense when you're lining up the colors that you're going to be shooting. And generally, if you can go from light to dark and then after you finish that session of four or five colors, at that point go ahead and do your full cleaning routine, whatever that is, and if it happens to be the three soaks for five minutes, that's great. For five minutes, that's great. And then one of the things, another, another.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):You know I don't have his name here, but another customer just sent me an email not more than a day or two ago asking about how often I clean the needle. And that's that's a good question, because I do the three soaks and when I'm usually done three and doing the three soaks, you know I'll call the brush clean every two or three sessions. I will pull the needle and I'll, and there's always a little bit of residual paint back on the end of the needle. We're closer to the needle seal. You'll always get a little little bit of paint there and every once in a while there'll be a little patina of paint along the length of the needle as well, and the rest of the brush is usually serviceably clean. So I will take a Q-tip with my favorite cleaner and I'll just run the Q-tip down that needle, just, you know, five seconds, clean it up, reinsert it back into the airbrush, call it done Okay.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Next is from Charles Chuck S, and this was another really good question. He sent a question about how to prepare your brush and your paint if you're going to be shooting a long session. Hmm, that's a good question. Yeah, and I've been there and maybe other people have too.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yeah, I've certainly been there and maybe maybe other people have too, if you've certainly been there, if you're working with something that, let's say, you are shooting a color and you have to shoot it, and then you have to let it dry on the model for a while so you can unmask some areas and then shoot some more of the same color, and the brush is going to be in use, for, you know, with paint in it, off and on for, let's say, an hour, as opposed to 15, 20 minutes, which is what most sessions you know are, you know, roughly in that range. So clearly, charles had an issue with this. He does a lot of builds where he has the brush set up and, you know, on the bench for an hour. And one of the things that you can start with is, if you're using, let's say, 40% paint, 60% thinner, try a slightly more dilute paint, you know it's going to thicken up a little bit because you know the thinner is going to be cooking off with time. So take your paint a little thinner if you can, just to kind of get ahead of what you're going to be losing there, right, right?
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):The other thing, of course and here's the easy one is simply put a lid on top of your paint cup. This will decrease the loss of thinner and such. One of the things that I like to do there actually is not use the lid that comes with the brush, whether it's hard or steam, echo water or anything else. I actually prefer using a piece of parafilm. Yeah, a lot more airtight it would. Whether it's hard or steam, echo water or anything else, I actually prefer using a piece of parafilm. Yeah, and a lot more airtight.
Kentucky Dave:It would and it is.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Do you poke a little hole in it?
Kentucky Dave:Well, what you can do is, or do you just do that when you're not using it?
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Just pull the parafilm off of one side of the cup and leave it on, shoot what you're going to shoot, and then pull the parafilm back over the paint cup, and just so everybody's on the same page here. Parafilm is a waxy kind of material. It comes in a sheet like a piece of paper. I have it on Model Paint Solutions. It's used extensively in laboratory settings for sealing all kinds of beakers and containers, and it's a great way to seal your paint cup so you don't lose so much thinner while your brush is sitting there waiting to be used.
Kentucky Dave:It's also great for masking large areas to avoid overspray like onto the wings when you're doing something on the fuselage of a model.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):That's what I use it for, more than anything. You hit it right on the head, I'll have a sheet of it and I'll pull a big piece because you pull it to make it stretchy and I'll cover both wings and the empanage so I can shoot on my tail, band or whatever. And I, because I've done that too and once that, that yellow, gelb, gelb for you know, yellow patinas all over the back end of your 109, you're like, oh dear, right, yeah. So, and one more tip for this if, if you happen to use the shot glass technique for for cleaning, grab that shot glass and put some of the thinner du jour that you're working with for that session into the shot glass that you're working with for that session into the shot glass, and when you're done shooting, seal your paint cup with parafilm and then put the nose of the airbrush in the shot glass Just to keep the things from drying the needle shut, or something like that.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Exactly. That's actually, I think, of all the series of things that you can do for a long session shoot. I think that's probably the most helpful, and I do that a lot. If I have the brush loaded up and I have to take care of a mask problem or whatever, I'll disconnect it from the air and I'll just drop it into a shot glass with just enough thinner to cover the air cap. Drop it into a shot glass with just enough thinner to cover the air cap and that way the nozzle, the tip of the air cap, the needle, all that stuff that usually is going to get gummed up with the airbrush sitting there, won't get gummed up. Then, when it's time to shoot, pull it out of the shot glass, reconnect it to the air, blow a few times to get the liquid off the tip of the brush, off the air cap, so you don't splatter all over the model, and the tip is wet and ready to go with no dry paint.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):And then lastly, if you're going to be doing a long session, with the brush sitting there, you have to be mindful of the paint settling. That's especially true with metallics and I think everybody has experienced that. The the one I like is I got an email from a guy who was doing like a 32nd scale Mustang or something. Thing was big, you know natural, natural metal finish and he loaded up a five mil cup of his dilution and he says he's halfway through the job when the entire finish that he's getting with this paint changes and he was. You know he was having a hard time troubleshooting this.
Kentucky Dave:What was happening is that the metallics in the paint were settling to the bottom of the paint, precipitating to the bottom and therefore coming out in thicker quantity compared to the barrier you got it, you got it. You've got with model paint solutions. You've got those little wooden stir sticks.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Well, there's two things you can do there. You can do a stir stick, and that's a cheap and easy way to do it. I actually like pipetting up and down in the paint. Gotcha, that's what I do.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yeah, yeah, and for that. I don't know if you've seen them on the site, but I have these little tiny mini pipettes. Those are ideal because you can literally just put it in the paint cup and leave it there, yeah, yeah.
Mike:Just cycle that stuff in and out a few times and get it blended back together.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Exactly. So if you're going to be doing a long session, a couple of things to remember there. Dilute the paint a little bit more, try putting the tip in a in a shot glass. Cover the paint cup with with something and then don't forget to stir the paint up in the in the paint cup, even if it's not a metallic. Stir it up a little bit before you go to use it for for your next uh, for your next shot.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):So that makes sense yeah, I thought that was a good one. Yeah, okay, next one, jeremy p, and you know this is one that, if you wanted to, it's one of those questions that you could expand into an hour-long discussion and we're not going to do that. But he had questions about shooting dry coats and wet coats and I get this a lot. By the way, this is the big question that I get thrown at, thrown to me pretty regularly and he actually called me up another customer that called me up. We had a great talk on the phone and he was learning how to shoot dry and wet coats and he was following the instructions you know that I had given him and articles and stuff, and he said you know, I liken shooting the wet coat to walking the wet line across the model and I thought that's a really good way of describing that. So, with a little bit of a preface here, dry coat versus wet coat. So let's let's take a really easy example. You got a 48 scale p40 and you're using an acrylic, not a lacquer, that you could shoot right directly as a wet coat. It's gonna. You know, a lacquer or an enamel is going to be way more prone, you know, as a wet coat hit the surface of the model to level and move on its own and give you a nice finish. Now there are acrylics that will do that, but in my hands, at my bench, most acrylics like to be applied first as a light dry coat, followed by a wet fill coat. Now, a dry coat means fill coat. Now a dry coat means back to our P40, we're going to be shooting, let's say, the left wing, the top of the left wing, first. Let's just say that's what we're shooting Now. For a dry coat, the brush will be held farther back from the model than with a wet coat. The lever will not be pulled as far back as with a wet coat. You're going to be delivering less paint. You're going to be moving the brush as you pass from left to right across the wing. You're going to be moving the brush more slowly than you will for a wet coat.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):The most important part about this, though, as we were discussing earlier, is the light that you have at your workbench while you're shooting. You've got to have good light, and I will even put on magnification, like 1.5, 2x glasses that help me see the surface of the model while I'm shooting. I started doing that about 10 years ago. Maybe it's a function of age, I don't know. But I'm surprised I didn't come up with that trick earlier, because it really does help to have that little bit of magnification going when you're shooting trick earlier, because it really does help to have that little bit of magnification going when you're shooting Now with a dry coat.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):When you're looking at that area of the model where the paint cone out of the tip of the brush is hitting the surface of the model with a dry coat, you don't ever want to see that go shiny. You want the paint to hit semi-dry, if you will, and be flat. When you try to bounce a light off of the area that you're shooting, that makes it a dry coat. Now, once the dry coat is applied let's say left to right on the top of our P40 wing I'm going to cycle back pretty quickly and start spraying the wet. I once had a guy send me an email and he says I just finished the dry coat yesterday and I want to talk to you about shooting the wet coat today. Yeah, that didn't go well.
Mike:Missed the bus.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I remember you telling people before, but explain the logic behind dry coat and then a wet coat, especially with acrylics, what it does to bond the paint.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Sure, sure. So, first and foremost, with some acrylics. If you try to go right to a wet coat, they will bead, and I've had that happen too many times. So this is one way of making sure that you're not going to get beaded paint on the surface. The thing about a dry coat is it's a way of getting more paint on the model while at the same time decreasing the chance of getting runs or spiders, where you've got so much paint it starts waving on you, if you will. So with the dry coat, really, what that dry coat does, what that layer of semi-dry paint does, is it acts as a catch for the wet coat to come on top of it. And if you time it right, what you end up with is a dry coat that serves to catch the wet coat, decreasing spiders and runs. Decreasing spiders and runs. But if you time it correctly, the subsequent wet coat will actually solubilize the dry coat that's already on the model.
Kentucky Dave:For want of a better way to describe it, it melts into the wet coat.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yes, you could think of it like that. And so what's you know, at the end of the story, what do you get? You get more paint on the model, hopefully in a way that the paint will be wet enough to move and level and give you a nice, smooth finish. That's what we're going for. And so when you go to shoot that wet coat again left to right on our P40 model right, the wet coat is going to be shot closer to the model You're going to pull more lever to deliver more paint. Most importantly, you're going to have to move the brush faster.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):With a dry coat, you're doing these kind of slow light passes. With a wet coat, you should be putting enough paint out such that, as the cone of paint hits the surface of the model, it is shiny, it is wet and in order to lessen the chances of runs or spiders, you have to increase the rate at which you move the brush across the surface of the model. Once you get the trick down, you can start your wet coat back to our P40 at that left tip of the wing and once the tip goes shiny, okay, you can. Then, as you're moving the brush up and down across the wing, you can then walk that shiny portion from the left tip of the wing all the way to the wing root by watching the shine as you lay your paint down, which is which was what jerry's germ is way of saying. Walk you know, walk the wet line from you know, from one side of the model to the other as you're lying the wet coat down.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):That's a really great way of looking at it well, good yeah, hopefully that'll help somebody out there who's working with dry and wet coats. And one more thing on that I get a lot of guys who say, yeah, I'm going to work out dry and wet coats and I have a paint mule. That's great. I actually suggest, and I get better results in my shop when I have somebody face-to-face for an airbrushing session.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):If you're not adept at shooting these things, it's actually easier to learn on just a sheet of styrene. It's flat, you have a large surface area to work with so you can calibrate your distance and the rate at which you move the brush, unlike a paint mule especially if it's an aircraft, it's rounded. It's smaller. Now you're going to have to graduate to a paint mule before you move on to a model. But if you're just learning the basics of dry versus wet coats and how to apply them, you can't do any worse than going on Amazon and getting a sheet of evergreen sheet styrene and using that as your paint mule for at least an hour or two, just to get the basics down. All right, okay. The next one is from pat pat s, one of my older customers, actually he's been, he's been coming to model paint. Now do you mean long time, or do you mean older? I have in pat's case and I know he won't mind me saying this both oh, I thought that's what I thought you were gonna say.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):He had a great question he's getting into using retarders in his paint and he's happy with the results. And he picked up some, mr Hobby, mr Retarder. And then he asks the question can you use this with all kinds of paints?
Kentucky Dave:That's a great question.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):It is a great question and you know what? It's not an easy answer. It really isn't. There are so many different brands of paint out there right now.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):That I can give you some general generalities. Let's just talk about the two primary retarders that I have on model paint that are probably the easiest to find out there, one of which is Mr Hobby, mr Retarder. Tamiya makes a good retarder that's very similar to Mr Hobby. The ones that I also use are made by Liquitex. I use both Liquitex Flow Aid and Liquitex Slow Dry. Now, mr Retarder is one of those reagents that works really well, even in hardware store lacquer thinner. So you can think of Mr Retarder, mr Hobby, mr Retarder, as the retarder you're going to want to add if you are using a really strong lacquer-based paint, like you know, let's say, hardware store lacquer and tamiya, which some guys do now to me.
Kentucky Dave:To me of the lp line sure or to me as a, to me as a alcohol base just looking for clarity there.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yeah, no, no good, it works with both.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Now, at the opposite end of that spectrum is the liquitex reagents that really lean towards more of the I will call water alcohol versus alcohol water, if you will and we talked last time I was on way back when, whenever I was on, we talked about that that progression of of of paints that you can go from the hardcore water loving acrylics like Lifecolor or Mission or the old Model Master Acryl line those are very water-loving acrylics all the way up to what some people call the acrylic lacquers, which are paints that do well in both more water-loving thinners as well as more lacquer-like thinners. A good example of that is the old Tamiya line. So the best way if you're interested in adding a retarder or a slowing agent to whatever thinner, whatever paint that you're using, really the best way to find out if what you're going to combine is going to work is simply do a test, An easy way to do that is to use some of the small spin tubes that I've had on Model Paint Solutions ever since we opened the virtual doors 10 years ago now.
Kentucky Dave:And if you've ever purchased anything from Model Paint, I often throw a couple of spin tubes into shipments just as a way of getting them out there. So guys will use them, and I have the ones you have sent to me I have used time and time again.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yes.
Mike:Now, spin tubes for the uninformed are basically centrifuge tubes.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yes, centrifuge tubes. I mean they're made for protein samples, dna, rna and they come in a lot of sizes. And they come in a lot of sizes. They come in a lot of sizes. I think the two most common sizes are the 2 mil and the 5 mil. I have both of those size tubes on model paint. I like them because they have gradations on the side. You can use them to dilute your paint. When you're done shooting, you can take the unused amount of paint, put it back into the spin tube, snap the spin tube closed, put it in a rack and it will be ready years later.
Mike:I had pre-mixed paint and spin tubes for my E16 Paul project. A year they're in the tubes and used on and off for a year. You're absolutely right.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yep, I mean, these things are good enough to store DNA and RNA. So yeah, they're good enough to store basic, basic paint dilutions. What I like them for are basically testing New paints with new thinners or, as we're discussing here, what retarder is going to work best with a given thinner. And the way to do it is very simple. Let's say, I prefer to use the 2-mil tube so you waste less of your thinner in your reagent testing. So you take a 2-mil spin tube, you put a mil of your thinner that you're testing in the tube and then you grab whatever retarder, whatever slowing agent you want to test. Add roughly to I don't know to a mil. You'd probably add 10 drops, let's say, of your retarder.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Snap the cap, shake the tube, take a look at what you get. If the solution turns cloudy, if it starts clumping up, that's not a good mix. If it stays clear, sometimes they'll go slightly cloudy when you first shake them and then they'll go clear. That's a good sign. But once it goes clear, set it on your bench and wait for a few hours. It's still clear, because I have had some combinations look good and then I come back an hour or two later and they have what we would call flocculants. Yes, it was one of them.
Kentucky Dave:one of them one of them $10 words. Reblease for the uninitiated yes.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):And you know you don't want that. Where is that going to come into play? Well, it could lead to clogging, tip drying when you're trying to shoot. You know paint in that mix. The other thing you want to think about is if you're going to put your unused portion of paint back in the spin tube and save it. If that's a bad reaction that's occurring between, let's say, your thinner and your retarder, that paint's probably not going to be good a year from now when you go to grab that tube.
Kentucky Dave:Or 30 minutes from now, or 30 minutes from now exactly.
Mike:Yeah, that would be my question. Another point to watch is if it settles out and separates, if it looks good, but then after 30 minutes hour day, whatever it separates out, yep, will it re-blend or not?
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yeah, that's exactly right. I use this all the time. I mean I get a lot of new paints coming through my shop, both because guys are bringing new paints in and they want lessons with the new paints or I'm helping somebody online. I will run into my shop real quick sometimes, grab a spin tube, grab whatever paint. You know that that you know we're we're wanting to test and I'll take the paint right into different thinners in spin tubes and you can tell right off the bat if it's a bad mix, because the paint turns into cottage cheese.
Kentucky Dave:New paint? What are you talking about? There hadn't been a new paint line in years.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Well, I thought it was 15 minutes.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, exactly.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yeah, and we're going to talk about how we're going to approach that right. Yeah, absolutely. So maybe we ought to just touch on that right now, real quick, quick. One of the things that you know as we discuss what we can do on our next session with the podcast is try some of these new paints and discuss how they handle, how they dilute, how they spray during the podcast, and then I will put up an article that shows pictures of the paint. You know, on sheet styrene, we'll do the masking masking tape test, a gloss coat, you know, overcoat test. And you know, maybe for some of the newer paints, like Adam Adam paints or the new Acura enamel paints or AK third gen or you know you name it we'll take one or two of these new brands on. You know, when we talk next time and I'll do my best to try to give folks suggestions as to how to get the paint you know diluted and get it working and then let them, you know, do the final dial in at their bench.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah. So, Yep, that would be a good idea.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Okay. And then how are we doing on time, guys, we got time for two more. Two more, we do. Okay. So, fred H, this is my favorite one. This is the one I get more than any other airbrush-related question ever. This is number one. Bubbles in the paint cup I was going to is number one bubbles in the paint cup.
Kentucky Dave:I was gonna say bubbles in the paint and this is the one you saw for me, and I was amazed that I I completely understand why everybody has this problem and cannot figure out what's going on. Yep, here, you told me, and it was like oh my god, that works it's brand specific though yes, yes and yes and no, and.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):And I actually spent a couple of minutes in my shop earlier this afternoon making bubbles in my paint cups I would have to get you some therapy. I don't get much. I don't get out much, guys, you know how it is. So you can get a badger to do this by just by loosening the air cap. I mean, I think I won't say it's universal, because there's always going to be a brush that doesn't, but for most of the major brands out there, fixing bubbles in the paint cup is strikingly similar, irrespective of brand.
Mike:Well, you can also get on a badger when you split the little brass nozzle tip.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yep, and there, exactly. So my favorite scenario here is a guy will get bubbles in the paint cup. He will assume that there is a clog somewhere downstream of the paint cup, let's say somewhere in the nozzle.
Kentucky Dave:And this guy's name is David Knights. And this is before he calls Dr Strangebrush and says what am I doing wrong? Because this is exactly the scenario we have.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):So, poor Dave, poor Dave. He breaks the brush down Three times and cleans it Right Three times and cleans it, and he keeps getting bubbles in the brush down Three times and cleans it Right Three times and cleans it, and he keeps getting bubbles in the paint cup. Worse than that is the guy that breaks it down, cleans it, doesn't really find anything. But when he reassembles it, he reassembles it tighter and the bubbles go away and then he makes the assumption well, there must have been something clogging the nozzle, which is what I dislodged when I cleaned it. So next time it bubbles I'm going to clean it again.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Right. So what's the answer here? The answer is usually, when you get bubbles in the paint cup, it means that you have a leak, an air leak at the air cap or at the nozzle, either one. Now let's just take HS brushes for an example. Hs brushes have an air cap that spins on that screws onto the tip of the brush and there's a black O-ring under that air cap. That O-ring wears and once it gets to a point where it will no longer seal the air cap to the body, it leaks. And when it leaks air at that O-ring you get bubbles in the paint cup.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):The other place with an HS brush this is also true for gallery, this is also true for a WADA brush, this is also true for gallery this is also true for a lot of just this different design is a leak at the nozzle and not the air cap. Now on HS you have a little white Teflon seal that's on the bottom of that nozzle. That seal will wear with compression. You know, every time you tighten the air cap, sooner or later it's not going to seal anymore. And a leak at that nozzle seal will also give bubbles in the paint cup. How do you fix it if you get bubbles in the paint cup, first thing you're going to want to do is release the lock nut on the needle, pull the needle back a you tighten the air cap gee, I wonder why dave split his uh nozzle yeah, yeah, okay, I
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):call it the wily coyote musket syndrome. Yes, yep, and I. I won't mention his, but there's a very well-known builder right here in Seattle that was having an issue with this, and this guy is very, very smart, very, very good with his hands, just wicked fast, and it never occurred to him to pull the needle back before he typed the air cap. So you can be a really smart guy with a lot of experience and miss this one.
Kentucky Dave:Oh yeah.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):So ergo, dave, so pull the needle back a little bit and then, after the needle is clear of the air cap, tighten the air cap down. You can white-knuckle tighten these things. You're not going to break them, okay, unless?
Mike:you have the needle locked in its operating position.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Then you get the Wile E Coyote musket syndrome.
Mike:Or that's why it was never tight in the first place. They went just hand tight against a fixed needle and it never sealed Right.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Right, right. So the other thing that you can think about for this is, again, as too many, I think, folks are doing you go to Amazon for everything. And, sure enough, if you go to Amazon and you search soft-jawed pliers, you will find that there's a whole selection of pliers that have Teflon inserts, or the jaws themselves are made out of Teflon. They are excellent for working on airbrushes. So invest, you know, $12, $15 in a pair of soft jawed pliers and you can get those pliers onto the knurled collar that's on the bottom of the air cap. On an HS, you can get a third, maybe a half a turn on the air cap. The bubbles will go away. Now what happens when you tighten the air cap down and the bubbles don't go away? At that point you have to assume that either the black O-ring under the air cap and or the white seal on the back of the nozzle have worn out and it's time to replace those seals.
Kentucky Dave:And you might as well do both at once. Instead of trying to figure out because the O-ring and the Teflon seal or neither one is ungodly expensive, just go ahead and get them both and replace them both Exactly.
Mike:Exactly, exactly. I think I want to see Dave do like four hours worth of AB swaps trying to figure out which one it is.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yeah, exactly that's the easiest way to do it it really is.
Mike:No, no, it's not.
Kentucky Dave:Younger Dave.
Mike:No, replacing them both at the same time is the easiest way to do it.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yes, it is, and, as you say, they're cheap I think they're $4 to $5, and you get three of each in a bag and if you push out I don't know, eight to ten models a year, whatever, you might go through one or two O-rings with that much volume, which isn't bad.
Mike:I've got to imagine why Dave's even having a problem with it then.
Kentucky Dave:Well, thank you. Thank you, Okay, mike. Wow, it's getting rough. Yeah, I know, and it also depends on if you're using enamels or lacquers or acrylics, because obviously you know, a little bit of the thinner medium may get on those and enamels or lacquers are much more aggressive than acrylics and may start to soften those.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):That's especially true for the black O-ring under the air cap. If you're an HS guy, so you can shoot the nastiest lacquer through HS brushes all day and it won't hurt them. But that black O-ring is exposed on the outside of the brush. So if you spill lacquer thinner on it or you soak the air cap with the black O-ring on it in lacquer thinner, it won't last, it'll just dissolve and then you'll start getting bubbles in the paint cup. So okay, last one. This is when everybody applauds.
Kentucky Dave:No.
Mike:I'll put that in later.
Kentucky Dave:No we listen. Every time that we do one of these episodes our, the response we get from all of our listeners is when's he going to be on again?
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Each one of those guys costs me $5.
Mike:Well, do you want the applause or the laugh track?
Kentucky Dave:Either one.
Mike:I'll take both.
Kentucky Dave:Okay.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Or both, all right. Last one, ronald T. Now, this was a good one. Ronald called me Again, one of my customers. He's been a customer of mine now for three or four years and kind of watched him progress through various stages, of newbie through somebody who pretty much knows what he's doing, and he sends me pictures of his model. He's a car guy and the gloss coat looks horrible, it's pebbly, it's textured, and he and I spent probably way too much time on the phone trying to figure out what in the heck was going on with his gloss coat. And we spent way too much time talking about dilutions and including retarders and yada, yada, yada. And finally, after kind of exhausting all the other possibilities, I asked him something I should have asked him from the get-go, which is for a 1-24th scale car model what size tip are you using to apply your gloss coat? And he came back with well, I only use one size tip, doc, it's the 0.15.
Mike:He's likely one clogging yeah and that was the.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):He was gloss coating a millimeter at a time you know, the thing is that he, he came, he developed a technique right where he was getting gloss onto the model as a wet coat. It was shiny. But here the deal he was pulling the lever all the way back to the stop. He's getting a lot of halo effects. You got it and you know. This gets to a brief discussion on what the window, the ideal window of lever throw is for any nozzle needle combination, any nozzle needle combination. And in my hands, once you get the throw past about 60% into 70, you can look on the outside of that cone and you can start see stipple, start seeing stipple build up around the comb. That's paint that's not being atomized and it's coming off in drops Just blowing out of there.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Brush went back and shot you know another car model and got a gloss coat that looked like you know 10 foot deep glass is absolutely beautiful.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):So all of that work he did nailing his, dilution, nailing his, everything else you know worked out in the end, once we figured out where the problem was and the moral to the story is, in general at least in my hands I find it's it's it's best to match the tip size that you're using to the job and if you're going to be shooting something like a primer or a clear coat and you're working on something like a 48 scale aircraft kit, 35th scale small piece of armor, you're going to be wanting to run something like a 0.4 or 0.45 millimeter tip for primers and clear coats. You know, the opposite end of that spectrum of course is if you're doing fine line and you're trying to get a one millimeter wide line, you're never going to try to do that with a 0.45 millimeter tip. So at that point clearly the job dictates a smaller tip. And for fine line, you know, I like to say if you can get down to 0.15 with the HSie Dave, I'm an airbrush junkie.
Kentucky Dave:I'm there with you. I currently have six, so I'm oh, that ain't nothing, I'm there with you. Do you tend to actually swap out the needle and tip on airbrushes, or do you have one that's a 1.5 tip and another that's a 4 tip and another that's a 2.5 tip, I mean so that you don't have to ever bother doing the swaps? Or do you go ahead and you have, you know, one, one evolution one?
Mike:man, that's a first world pro?
Kentucky Dave:yeah, I guess it is. I completely admit that yeah.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):So it's a great lead up to what I think is the the real utility of of having a brush with different size chips versus a brush where you've just got the one size. To answer your question, back when I was a wee baby modeler and wasn't a dealer in harder steam bag brushes, I only had two or three brushes that I used all the time. Now I have a collection of brushes that go back literally to 1973. I still have the first Badger I ever got. Okay, so I won't tell you how many airbrushes are in my collection, because it's embarrassing. How many do I actually use? Because it's embarrassing? How many do I actually use? Back before I was a dealer? Maybe two, and at that point I was changing out the tips and, unlike an Iwata, where to remove the nozzle, you need to get that tiny little wrench and those tiny little threads that are just trying to get cross-threaded when you put it back in.
Kentucky Dave:And they're done that have the receipt.
Mike:Right and the broken airbrush.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, exactly.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Right Now. The utility of the HS design is that there is no wrench involved. As you guys know, you screw the air cap off and the nozzle literally just pops right out of the air cap no wrenches required. So, because I was using HS way back when, I did take the time to change up my tips from 0.15 to a 0.2 to 0.4 to a 0.6, whatever I needed, depending on the job. To answer your question now that I'm a big fat HS dealer with access to everything I've ever wanted yes, I do have a brush configured just for fine line. I have a brush configured for my normal work, which is an. They're all evolutions. I'll tell you honestly, they're all evolutions. I am an evolution fanatic. I think it's the best brush I've ever used.
Kentucky Dave:I don't disagree at all.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yep. So I have a fine line evolution, I have a general work evolution, I have a primer evolution primer and clear coat evolution and I have, I think, a couple of infinities configured for fine line as well as metallics, if you can afford to have a brush that's dedicated just to metallics.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Talk about a first world problem yeah that's an easy way of making sure that you never get a pearled spitfire. Yeah, yeah, but it costs money and not everybody can afford a dedicated brush just for metallics, so you don't have to have that. Of course you know that. I mean you can get any brush clean enough after metallics. You can go through it to you know to shoot a clear coat and not have a problem. It's just going to be more time and work on your part to do. Yeah, you just got to do it yeah, you do.
Kentucky Dave:but it is nice to be in the position where you've got those brushes lined up and you can just without having to do the swaps. Although, especially on the Evolution, the swap is very easy, it is Because that tip is a drop-in fit rather than a screw-in fit. You just pop that nose cap off, you drop in the new tip and then you take the needle that you've taken out, you put the one in that's sized for the. It's not a four to five minute job to actually do that.
Mike:But you see what he did there, john, what he just split his freaking nozzle.
Kentucky Dave:No, I had the needle out first.
Mike:It's like when you get on YouTube or the internet for a DYI car project disconnect the negative battery terminal. It's the first step of every DYI car project.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:So for airbrush work, for an HS evolution it should be Take the needle out, Back the needle out or take it out.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Yep the needle out, back the needle out or take it out. Yep, you know, if I, if I could add one of the things that, uh, that hs changed relatively recently, a couple of years ago is they went to the new v2 needles which had the little bumps machined on the back of the needle yeah, that's nice for keeping them straight.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):It really is, because before they they had practically no markings that were easy to identify. But now that you've got a one bump, two bump, four bump, whatever, that makes changing tips really really easy and darn near impossible to mix match the wrong needle with the wrong tip, as long as you're looking at those bumps, yeah, yeah, and with that gents. That is my last stump, the chump question.
Kentucky Dave:Well, as always it has been, a time has flown. We've been sitting here talking well over an hour, and I would swear it was 15 minutes. As I always say every time you're on, I learn new things. That's true, true as true today, as the first time we talked and it was too long from having you on previously. We need to either have that paint talk or do something. We need to have another talk and not let it go another eight months or whatever.
Mike:Well, it's going to be paint talks, plural Talk. Okay, that's fine.
Kentucky Dave:That paint talks plural Talk.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Okay, that's fine, that sounds good to me, that sounds good. I always enjoy it. Guys Truly do.
Mike:All right, john. Well, thanks again. It's always a pleasure to have you on and the information is always very valuable, and I always have an opportunity to make fun of Dave while we're talking to you, so it's all good.
Kentucky Dave:It's so easy. It's not the only time he does it, though.
Dr Strangebrush (John Miller):Take care guys.
Mike:Hopefully we'll figure out my master steel problem and my evolution.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, first of all, john's just a really nice guy. He's also a natural teacher. He has information and he wants to share that with other modelers, which is what makes him so good at helping people when they contact him with airbrush problems.
Mike:It's always good to have him on and I think we got some good plans for some more features coming up in the future.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mike:And look forward to having him back, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:Me too, yes, and look forward to having him back.
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Mike:It's the Benchtop Halftime Report, Dave, just in time for college football.
Kentucky Dave:And you know what? I've got a benchtop that's actually doing things. Good, let's hear about it. The Bearcat is 99.9% done, or, as I texted to you, very, very, very, very close to finish Basically, I'm adding some exhaust stains, a little chipping, then I've got to slap the gear in and it's done. And in fact I was DMing with Dr Geldmacher because this needs to go to be with the collection of models that we had for Hampton this year. It looks like we're tentatively planning to meet in Murfreesboro at the Murfreesboro contest in November, because that's kind of in the middle for both of us. Tentatively, I'm planning to attend that contest in November where I will hand over the Bearcat to him, but it should be done next 10 days. Just again, the things that are left to do are almost nothing. Then I will immediately. Well, I've, additionally, I had three Bearcats that I was doing all at once, two dash twos and one 1B. The two dash twos, one of them went into the trash when I ruined it. The second one is the one that is 99.9% done. The 1B is all painted, ready to go.
Kentucky Dave:And if you remember, mike, because you were sitting in the Airbnb with me, I talked with Paul Gloucester extensively about masking because he had done a Red Bull Air Racer that had been done all with masks, and I want to do masks and stencils. I've got the Cameo but I haven't used it much. That aircraft is going to be a project that sits on the side and from time to time I pull it out and I'm using it as a masking and stenciling mule and I'm counting on Mr Gloucester to hold my hand and walk me through that. Additionally, two other things. The SAM will then go back on to get the underside oil treatment, and the SAM is pretty darn close too. So my idea is I'm going to bring that back into the queue to get it finished. I'm also going to finish up that Vespa BT-7. And then I talked to Mike about this the other day.
Kentucky Dave:Chris Meddings provided some 3D printed stuff that he's been doing and he did some 72nd scale Vickers K guns, which are machine guns that were used by the British for machine gunner rear machine gunners. For machine gunner rear machine gunners. The Japanese copied the gun, so it also applies to many early Japanese kits and I was telling Mike the other day I pulled these things out and just primed them just to see what they were like. The level of detail is unbelievably impressive so impressive that, frankly, I'm amazed that you can get the level of detail that he did on something this small it really.
Kentucky Dave:Once I had primed them and then cut one or two off of the support structure and took a look at them under a magnifying glass and took a look at them under a magnifying glass, I was just blown away. I'm going to start playing around with those a little bit just because I want to get a couple of them done up, and I'm going to send a couple to Mike to have him look at them. And, chris, if you're listening to, this color me impressed. These things are freaking amazing. So that's what my bench looks like.
Mike:Now you got to come up with a project to use them.
Kentucky Dave:I know, I know, but believe it or not, that has been nagging at me ever since I primed these.
Mike:So it sounds like a way I would get into a project.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's exactly. That's exactly right. So that's what my bench looks like, and things are moving and I'm motivated. Post-snats, everything's coming up roses, I'm happy and the mojo is high, so hopefully that will continue. What does your benchtop look like?
Mike:Well, send some of that my way, because I've been struggling lately just to get motivated and I don't understand.
Kentucky Dave:Well, it's not necessarily you're struggling to get motivated, but you, you've, you've got so many things in mind yeah, it's, it's not all directly putting parts together kind of stuff.
Mike:I got a lot going on and, uh, I get in these modes where I'm just doing a lot of research and solution thinking and I don't know, I kind of drown in that sometimes. So I've been trying to take at least one thing approach at the workbench every day to keep things moving. So I don't know, I think I'm at the point now where it's going to start moving forward again. And one thing I've been working on folks have been seeing it on the dojo group the radiators for my KV-85, done a what I'd call Verlinden-esque boxing blank with the detail down inside of it to put up under the opening in the tank proper. And man, that just took all the joy out of painting those things.
Mike:I stated on the dojo I felt like a failing kindergartner because I was trying to paint this stuff down inside this box and just paint was getting all over everything I didn't want. It was better just to bend those and jump back into CAD and break the thing apart into two pieces and then print them separately. So now I've got a radiator and then I've got the blanking box. The blanking box just has to be painted black. The radiator's got some flat aluminum colors and some grays and some stains and stuff. I know what I want to do with it, but now that it's free of the vertical walls around it I can get to everything I want to get to and paint the full thing. So that's where that's going. I haven't done much else past that because I've got to get these done before I can seal up the back of the engine deck. So I just need to get these painted and get them assembled and we'll be good to go forward again.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, Well, you're making progress and I'll tell you, you brought that KV kit to the Nationals and had it out on the table and it really looked good. I mean, you've made some really nice progress on it and I'll be honest with you, I'm just anxious to see it in primer because I really want to see where you're going to go from there.
Mike:Well, in addition to the KV-85, I've been doing kind of front-end work on the Musaru project, the Miata. And front-end work I don't mean step one and two of the construction sheet, I mean sorting out the paint scheme I want to do and the markings I'm planning to do on this car and figuring out how I'm going to do that. So once I'm comfortable with that, we'll probably start that one next month. I think it's a curbside kit, so there's not a lot to the model itself. It's more paint than assembly. I think, yeah, it's a curbside kit, so there's not a lot to the model itself. It's, it's, it's. You know, it's more paint than assembly, I think.
Kentucky Dave:So sure Should be fun you got to get that KV and primer.
Mike:I do, I do, and it's not. It's not that far off. I think it can happen fairly quickly If I I created for myself.
Kentucky Dave:But then you solved it yourself too.
Mike:So that's great and this one's. It'll be a little bit of a surprise. I've had an, an HO scale structure in the back of my display case for a number of years. It was a, a kit that I ended up building as a, as a shallow relief facade to like go against the backdrop. And I started this thing after I'd gotten out of model railroading, for the most part because I saw what decently painted structures were selling for on ebay yeah I mean really selling, not what some joker was asking for, it right.
Mike:But you go into a sale sold auction and see I'm like, okay, I know I can build one and paint one better than that and that that was worth that guy's time. So I started this thing and a lot of the base painting and the masking, the doors and windows is all done. It's just been sitting so thinking about using this as a Kickstarter to get back into kind of the paint mindset before I get the KV that far along.
Kentucky Dave:One of the things that makes really good modelers really good modelers, from what I've observed, is that they paint regularly, that they've always got something that they're airbrushing or weathering, and those are skills that I've said this before on this podcast those skills, I think, are perishable. I think are perishable, and so one of the things I think is a good idea is to always have something like that or in process, so that you don't go more than a week without having picked up an airbrush and painted something.
Mike:And a lot of the stuff I need to do on. It is applicable to other things. There's going to be a lot of layered painting effects and stuff on it, so I might do that. I haven't decided yet. There's some parts I have to locate for it to finish it out right. But again, it's mostly together and it's already been base coated. It's been sitting in there for a number of years I can't even venture to guess how long before this podcast initiated. So definitely more than initiated. So definitely more than five. So that's my bench man.
Kentucky Dave:All right.
Mike:That's quite a bit sort of.
Kentucky Dave:I haven't done a whole lot, but we're looking forward to hearing about great progress in two weeks.
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Kentucky Dave:Mike. Manufacturers continue to roll out kits at an amazing rate, everything from the mainline big manufacturers to these 3D print companies which seem to be sprouting up like mushrooms. So do you have some faves and yawns?
Mike:Yeah, I might disagree with your generalities about how fast that's been coming out, but I got a few. Okay, my first fave is from a company called Sarmat Models and it's in 135th scale.
Kentucky Dave:Okay.
Mike:It is a 76.2 millimeter regimental gun, model 1927.
Kentucky Dave:I know what that is.
Mike:I know you do, because you picked it in all your early campaigns for your Red Army in close combat. Cross of Iron video game. Exactly Because it's all you can afford to get. Yeah, that's right, but that's the gun it is. I don't think it has a split trail, I think it's got a single trail arm, you know, rectangular shield, short barrel. It's a really interesting gun. I'd like to have this kit, but unfortunately it's from a Russian manufacturer and you know, and you know what that all entails.
Kentucky Dave:Right, that's no-go, at least for the time being. Has anyone done that kit, that gun before?
Mike:I need to go dig in the stash I've got remember I picked up those .35-scale guns. It was at our show a couple years ago. I want to think one of them is this gun, but I don't think it is.
Kentucky Dave:Because I bought them as well. I know they had the little 45 millimeter anti-tank gun. But there was another gun. Almost can see it from where I'm sitting. I don't think it's this gun, but I can't, so I can't tell you. But as soon as we're done recording, I'm going to go over there and look.
Mike:So am I, but in my stash, not yours.
Kentucky Dave:There you go. Well, my first one's going to be one that I've already mentioned the resin detail, or the 3D print detail. Company ASK A-S-K has come out with the 72nd scale 3D printed engine and cowl flaps for the Tamiya Zero, and David want, david want bad, and so I'm going to have to figure out how David can get those relatively soon, because, man, if it is as good as the CAD looks and I've seen other products from this company and they are really good, so I've got no reason to believe they're not going to be, and I can just see all sorts of possibilities with this thing. So I can't wait.
Mike:Including complicating your greatest kit builds and not getting any of them done.
Kentucky Dave:All right, thank you, yes, rub it in All right. Thank you, yes, rub it in All right. What's?
Mike:your next fave, it's from A-Model in 72nd scale. Okay, rds-6s, rds-27 thermonuclear bomb on carriage Yep. Very interesting subject. I wonder the quality of this kit, but it's a pretty interesting thing.
Kentucky Dave:I can tell you I have their Tsar Bomba kit, which looks very similar to this, by the way.
Mike:Is that a song by Richie Valen?
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's right, tsar Bomba. And let me tell you if it's anything like the Tsar Bomba kit, it's rough, it is rough, rough. I can see why you're interested. I'm interested too. I like the nuclear weapons stuff and the missile stuff, but I'm not sure. Speaking of not sure, I'm going to give you a yawn before another fave. A company called Old Model Kits announced a release of the Vultee Vengeance in 72nd scale. At least they're honest. Yeah, that's right, because I am absolutely positive from the box art that this is the old frog kit, and the frog kit wasn't that great when it was released. This aircraft is made, I think, special hobby, or somebody released a kit a number of years ago. I cannot think of any reason I would want, or anyone else would want, to buy this kit. Stay away.
Mike:Go ahead and do your fave. We'll finish on mine, because my yawn's a generality.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, it's commentary my fave is there's a company out of Ukraine. Boy, there's a lot of great stuff coming out of Ukraine and I don't understand how, given the nature of what they're dealing with, but also very thankful for it. There's a company called Kellik K-E-L-I-K that does 3D printed decals, kind of like the Quinta things. They've got a set for the Bristol Blenheim and they've got a set for the new Arma Hobby Hawk 75 A1, slash A2. I've seen not this company's 3D, but Quintus Studios and some other companies' 3D decals, interior decals and boy, they really can enhance a model. I mean really, really nice. I'd like to get my hands on these and give them a try. All right, mike, go ahead.
Mike:August was weak sauce Dave.
Kentucky Dave:About what.
Mike:Releases. They gave me nothing, man. Now it's all I got. All right. Much of the stuff that got my attention was from Russian companies, so they're kind of no-goes. I mean, if what was going on didn't bother you, the logistics of getting them is probably damn near impossible right now. And at this point, man, if 3D printed bits and bobs were rain, we'd be building an arc.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, which, by the way, reminds me to tell the listeners if you buy something from a 3D print company, please post on the dojo, post pictures and then post your comments about the quality, where you obtained it, et cetera. Evan recently posted a couple on the dojo of some 3D print stuff that he got, and it was really helpful because these were companies that I'd heck never heard of, much less dealt with, dealt with, and so if there was anybody who was interested in those types of things from that company, it was nice to know what he thought, and it's not just limited to him. Any of the listeners who buy something from a 3D print company, please take pictures of it, post it on the dojo along with your comments, so that we all know the good and the bad and the ugly yes, and the ugly. It's a real service to all your modelers. I'm happy Evan did that and I want to see other people do that as well. We're almost at the end of the episode. I'm assuming you're probably toward the end of your modeling fluid.
Mike:Yes, which was the Woodinville straight bourbon whiskey finished in pork casks. And how was it? It's an interesting palate shift, and I say that because it's young, so it's got a hint of that leather note from the lack of age, and I think the port cask finishing really tempers that.
Kentucky Dave:I like almost anything finished in port casks.
Mike:Really, I don't get much of the port at all in this as far as flavor.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:But I get this tempered youngness out of it, so it's a nice sip. I could enjoy this one from time to time. I think it's a pretty good thing. So Woodinville out of Woodinville, washington Not bad, not bad Thumbs up Good, good.
Kentucky Dave:Well, mr Gilman, I want to thank you for a fine, fine beer. I will tell you, this is the best home-brewed beer I have ever had. It is just a great sip. It's got no bad characteristics at all. It's just a very easy drink. I wish I had a six-pack of this stuff.
Mike:Maybe it'll run into you again somewhere.
Kentucky Dave:That's right, I may have to travel to Texas.
Mike:Well, I think we did pretty good on the modeling fluids. I think we did.
Kentucky Dave:We now are truly at the end of the episode. Do you have a shout out or two?
Mike:I've got two. First up is Alan Tackett, who we saw at the National Convention. He gave us each a coffee mug from his club chapter at the National Convention and that slipped through the cracks last episode. So, Alan, sorry to not mention that, but we appreciate the gift. Thank you very much. They're nice, they're big. They paid the big bucks to get those made.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, in fact, mine is sitting on my desk at work. I use that as my work coffee cup now. Well, if you've got one, go ahead. Well, I'd like to shout out Mr Chris Meddings for sending us that 3D printed sample stuff and tell him how utterly impressed I am by the work.
Mike:I believe Chris is selling that stuff under the ITA3 brand name and I think some of it's being printed in the US now to help him with some of his logistical challenges. So yeah, I've got some parts too. Mine are mostly armor related, but good stuff. Hope he does more.
Kentucky Dave:Very good, so you got another one.
Mike:I do. I want to shout out all those who have elected to support Plastic Model Mojo through their generosity, and we'd like to extend our gratitude to you with a heartfelt thank you, most recently, folks like Paul Gogan and Dan Strohschein. Thank you, gentlemen, for helping us out there a little bit. And now to the general listenership. If you enjoy the show and you like what we're doing, we'd like to ask you to consider becoming part of our growing list of supporters, and we've made it pretty easy to do through several avenues.
Mike:You could become a patron with a reoccurring contribution through Patreon, or you can make a single contribution or manage your own recurring contribution through either PayPal or Buy Me a Coffee. All of these links can be found at wwwplasticmodelmojo under the support tab of the main menu or in the show notes of each and every episode. So thank you very much. We appreciate the help. It helps us keep this thing moving along and help us bring you new stuff. So thank you. We can't thank you enough. Agreed, dave, you got any more before we get out of here.
Kentucky Dave:No, I think it's time for us to get going, man, get to modeling.
Mike:All right, man. Well, as we always say, so many kids, so little time, dave.
