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
More Modeling Goodness With The Inch High Guy: Episode 149
A TIE Fighter parked on the moon with footprints leading into mystery. A glossy blue Bearcat bound for a local collection. A workshop cleanup that turns frustration into flow. This one blends story, craft, and community into a practical guide for getting more joy—and more finishes—out of your modeling time.
Mike, Kentucky Dave, and guest Jeff Groves of The Inch High Guy blog kick off with a lively Louisville MMCL recap: books rehomed, raffle wins scored, and real talk about what makes a vendor table actually work. Then we dive into a Fine Molds TIE Fighter Advanced that escapes the stash and lands in a moody micro-diorama—access panels opened, spares-box “widgetology” on full display, and a thoughtful debate about screen-accurate versus studio-accurate color. That sci‑fi detour pairs with classic comfort builds: Hasegawa Panthers and Cougars that favor flow over parts count, contrasted with today’s ultra-detailed IBG, Arma, and Eduard toolings. The takeaway is balance—choose projects that match your bandwidth, and don’t be afraid to chase a story when accuracy turns fuzzy.
The heart of the episode is practical: a week-long workshop overhaul that pays off daily. We talk sorting paints you actually use, labeling decal binders, consolidating spares into findable bins, and adopting tiny habits—put one thing away when you sit down and one when you stand up—that keep the bench from shrinking to a postcard. From there, we explore display strategy: a clean “universal base” that unifies your collection, blurred terrain for convincing motion, etched blurred rotors that work only when the scene supports them, and a wall-of-models shelving build using repurposed acrylic. We also spotlight upgrades and new kits—an AMP Northrop M2‑F3 lifting body perfect for polished metal tones, a Loire 130 redo for better clarity, and jaw-dropping 3D‑printed Zero engines—and look at how shifting import rules may accelerate local printing and hybrid kits.
If you build for the story, optimize your space for speed, and pick a base that frames the work, your models start to sing. Join us for smart tips, a few laughs, and a fresh push to finish what’s on your bench. If this episode sparks an idea, follow the show, share it with a modeling friend, and drop a rating or review—it helps more makers find their mojo.
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Welcome to Plastic Model Mojo, a podcast dedicated to skill modeling, as well as to news and events around the hobby. Join Mike in Kentucky David to subscribe to be informative, entertaining, and help you keep your modeling mojo alive.
Mike:All right, Majovia. Welcome to uh episode 149. We are sneaking up on the halfway mark to our second 100 episodes. Kentucky Dave, what about that?
Kentucky Dave:I'm telling you, 150 is going to be a big one, but 149 is a big one too, because we got a good guest. Well, won't you introduce our third chair tonight, Dave? I'll let you do it. Our third chair tonight is somebody we saw last weekend, and somebody we're going to see two weekends from now. Jeff Groves, Inch High the Modeling Guy, who uh was at the MMCL show. Our table was next to his, and so we got to spend basically an entire day talking modeling. Jeff was kind enough to bring us some stuff from his lending library, and we're gonna go. I'll be going through that probably for a couple of weeks. You okay, Jeff? Yep. Hello, greater Bo Jovia.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, good, man.
Kentucky Dave:Glad to have you back. So, Jeff, do you have fun at the MMCL show?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Oh, I'm telling you, that Louisville show is I always look forward to it. It's one of the better shows in Region 4. Always a good time. Great raffle, great show, great friends. It's it's just one of the highlights.
Kentucky Dave:I saw that you entered a few models there. That KI-43 looked really, really nice. That's the first time I've seen it in person. That was impressive in a group of really impressive 72nd scale single-engine aircraft.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":That was a loaded category this time. There were so many entries. Um, there were. It was. It was crowded.
Kentucky Dave:Now you had a table, so you were doing the same thing I was. We were both trying to sell off stuff from the estate that uh you so kindly alerted me to, and we went up and helped rescue books, and now we're we're finding them good homes. I found good homes for about probably 15 to 20 of them.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":How'd you do? I sold several. I didn't do as good as I thought I I was gonna do or had hoped I was gonna do. I had marked the prices way down past where I would have bought them myself if I didn't already have them. So yeah, I did that.
Kentucky Dave:I did the same thing.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":I was just trying to move them out and blow them out and spread spread it around a little bit.
Mike:Yeah, you'll get another chance in Cincy.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, I'm I'm I'm looking forward to that. I I I think I think that'll work out. I the guy next to my table was also selling books, and he was selling them a lot quicker and a lot more volume than I was, and I couldn't figure it out. I solicited some advice from some people that gave me some pointers. So my my my flaw there was I think I was trying to vend how I would have liked to have seen a table full of books, and that's not the presentation that other people may have been more attracted to. So I got some good advice.
Kentucky Dave:You'll try it up in Cincinnati the other way and see if that does indeed make a difference.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, yeah. I hope it will. I hope it will.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah. Well, let's see, you supplied Mike and I with reading material. Uh we all got we all got to hang out together. Mike, what what's it besides going to the MMCL show? What's up in your model sphere?
Mike:See, now you're encroaching on my uh territory, Dave. After I let you introduce the guest, now you're just taking a mile. Taking a mile, man. Hey, I'm trying to I'm trying to help carry your load, man. Jeff, other than selling books, is there anything else up in your model sphere?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Uh the only other modeling related thing is Friday night. My son and I watched Greyhound with Tom Hanks in it. I hadn't seen that yet, and the library finally got it in, and I dashed down there and we we ate a lot of popcorn and watched watched Tom Hanks sink some U-boats.
Kentucky Dave:How was it? Because I have not seen it yet either.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, I I have a love-hate relationship with those kind of movies. I love to see the animations and the action and everything, and it's it's just you know, it's eye candy, but it it kind of it kind of wears thin on the accuracy and the plot in places, but it's good overall.
Kentucky Dave:Aaron Powell Well, being a navy guy, I'm sure you notice stuff that that many of us wouldn't.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, well, s maybe, maybe, but um some of them were kind of just you know Hollywooded up. And you know, the frustration is, as you well know, there are so many excellent stories that came out of of the real history that you kind of wonder why they feel the need to embellish things.
Kentucky Dave:Sure. Yeah, I agree.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, that that's actually after a novel by C.S. Forrester, The Good Shepherd.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":So you know, he he's a quality writer.
Kentucky Dave:A really good novel.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Oh, yeah.
Kentucky Dave:If you if you haven't read it, go ahead and get it and read it. It's worth it.
Mike:Well, Dave, what's up, what's up in your model sphere?
Kentucky Dave:Well, really good contest. Got to hang with good modeling friends, not just Inch. Got to see a lot of the MMCL guys, got to see a lot, a number of listeners. Again, got to find homes for books, and that's that's kind of my goal with those things is I'm not trying to really make money. I'm just trying to find people who would appreciate these books and and get them into their hands so that you know they'll be taken care of. I like modeling season, contest season. MMCL is barely behind us, and I'm already anticipating Cincinnati. My mojo is high from my model sphere. How about you?
Mike:Well, mine's been mostly in administrative in the context of this segment. We got some stuff we're trying to get laid down for, I guess, the fourth quarter here of the year. Yeah. I've got a couple of irons in the fire that uh I'm trying to get going. I can't say much about them, so I don't even know why I'm bringing them up, but uh one of them involves something we're doing in November, and the other involves uh just general podcast stuff and uh visibility. So um looking forward to that. We've been kind of running uh pretty good here last few months, and uh we're gonna lay the foundation to keep that trending in the right direction, I hope.
Kentucky Dave:Yep. I agree. So we are recording tonight. That means modeling fluid. Inch, do you happen to have modeling fluid?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":I do. I'm violating my self-imposed prohibition tonight.
Kentucky Dave:Okay.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":I'm having another Blue Moon Belgian wheat just because I like them so much.
Kentucky Dave:That is that is an excellent drinking beer. I'm telling you what, if when I go to some place and I want to have a beer and I look on tap, if it's nothing but the mass market, Mikelobe, Bud, etc., I will always get a blue moon.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, it's been my favorite for years, and it will certainly get me through the episode.
Kentucky Dave:Good. So, Mike, you have a modeling fluid?
Mike:I've reverted back to my former staple. I've got a little bullet orange label tonight. Oh, good choice. Good choice. Which that yeah, I'm a little into the into it now because I bought it Thursday night. Friday night. Yeah. I brought it, I bought it just ahead of the weekend, so you know I'm into it pretty good now. But man, that first one after drinking that Russell's 10 was glad that wasn't the review taste for the episode.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:But it's an old, it's an old standby, so we'll we'll we'll be fine.
Kentucky Dave:Well, my modeling fluid is something for those who who prefer their modeling fluids non-alcoholic. Mine is Trader Joe's organic sweet tea and lemonade, also known as an Arnold Palmer. Trader Joe's markets this stuff. You can buy it in the bottle, already pre-mixed, already pre-made. And uh since I'm recovering from a little bit of a stomach bug, I want to try and take it easy on my on my stomach. So I'm having a non-alcoholic modeling fluid, and I went with an Arnold Palmer.
Mike:That'd probably be pretty good with some bottom shelf plastic ring jug Jim Beam or something, in it.
Kentucky Dave:It probably would, but again, that would just that would do and I've got that. I really in the in the bar, I've got that, but no, I'm I I'm taking the night off, hoping to hoping to recover my in my recover back to my pre uh stomach upset.
Mike:While you're doing that, we ought to get into the listener mail. All right. Well, guys, we've had a a deluge of emails regarding model show spotlight, which typically we don't address in this segment because we've talked to those folks and uh hit them up with the model show spotlight, which we are scheduling right now. I think I think we have hit critical mass with that. Yes. Um we are certainly gonna probably hit a high tide with that for this month for November.
Kentucky Dave:Of course, this is the busy part of the fall season.
Mike:You're right, it is, so it won't last. The moon phase will change and the tides will recede, but we had a lot of those. Yeah. So we're not gonna get into those. Outside of that category, we had but one email. Okay. And there was a follow-up. Well, no, it wasn't a follow-up, it was a warning that this email was coming. That's what it was. Okay. You know, we had Chris Wallace on, our one of our favorite Ottawa's, and uh you kept doing your typical Canada bash and you always like to do. Oh wow. I I tea I teased you of of creating an international incident. Yes. Well, you did, uh-oh. But it was not with Canada, at least not in whole, maybe in part. And I got an email from a Mr. Will Edwards, and honestly, I wanted to use AI to read this in the voice of Foghorn Leghorn. Um, if not Foghorn Leghorn, maybe Don Johnson and Django Unchained.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, there you go. I say, I say.
Mike:Or maybe even Carol O'Connor in the heat of the night. Okay. I got it. One of those. You got it?
Kentucky Dave:I got you. I got one where you're coming.
Mike:I'm not gonna imitate that. Thank you. I probably could, but I'm not gonna. Yeah. Dear Kentucky Dave on the plastic model mojo. So this is not an email to plastic model mojo, Dave. Okay. This is an email to you. We write formally in relation to comments you have recently made concerning scale models of World War I aircraft, specifically those crafted in 170 second scale. Your remarks, which we consider disparaging and unfounded, have caused undue distress, reputational harm within the modeling community, and an unjust diminution of time, skill, and dedication involved in their creation. Such comments are not only unconstructive, but are reasonably capable of being interpreted as defamatory, given their negative impact on my standing among fellow fellow enthusiasts, collectors, and associated groups. Accordingly, I demand that you one, immediately retract your disparaging statements regarding 170 second scale World War I models, and two, issue a written apology within the Facebook group dedicated to World War I models and 170 seconds scale, acknowledging that your remarks were inappropriate and cause reputational damage. Unless I receive a satisfactory written retraction and apology within your next episode, I reserve the right to take further action, including but not limited to the pursuit pursuing a claim for defamation and or seeking injunctive relief to prevent further harm. I trust that you will treat this matter with the seriousness it deserves and respond promptly. Yours sincerely, World War I modelers in God's one true scale. So there, consider a one international incident had.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, well, it's funny that you have that email because right after our good friend Steve Hustad listened to the podcast, that same podcast, he reached out immediately to berate me for exactly the same thing. As you know, Steve has built many World War I aircraft models, all in 70 seconds scale.
Mike:And not all from kids. And not all from the nationals with one, if I remember correctly.
Kentucky Dave:That's right, one best of show with one. Yeah. And and my response to him is exactly the response I will give to our correspondent here. I was referring to mere mortals, to the average modeler, such as myself. Those who can build in 70 second scale in World War One, World War I aircraft in 70 second scale are not your average modeler.
Mike:Pause right there, Kentucky Dave. Listeners, if you have some sunscreen, you know, SPF 50 or more, you might want to put it on your posterior right now because Dave's getting ready to blow the Jericho trumpets of sunshine. And you know where it's aimed for.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's right. Go ahead, Dave. But but the those those rarefied modelers among us who can build World War One aircraft in 72nd scale, nay, those who can build scratch build in 144 scale. Yes, they are not the average modeler to whom I refer. They are, for want of a better term, Gods walking among us, and we can do nothing but sit back and marvel at their skill. But for the average modeler, the average Joe such as myself, the guy who's the kit assembler, I maintain that my mark remarks still hold true, and for those thumbless folks such as myself, 48th or 32nd scale is better for World War One. For Dave. For Dave and his ilk, thumbless Kentucky Dave. But I will acknowledge that there are those among us who are whispered about in hushed tones that can accomplish amazing feats, including but not limited to building model aircraft World War I in 70 second scale. Did you minor in theater? No, I'm an attorney.
Mike:That's it has more to do with the rodeo, Mike. I wonder if Mr. Edwards is as well. Well, I don't know if you've satisfied his complaint or not. Inch, what do you think, man? You build any World War I stuff?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":I have got a few in the stash. My only comment I got two comments. Well, one in solidarity with our friend Will. I am in fact wearing a Canada t-shirt as we speak. Well, I don't know if he's in Canada or not, unless you know you're talking about Mr.
Kentucky Dave:Wallace.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Oh, Mr. Wallace. Yes, I'm sorry. The second thing is I had always, always, always, always wished that Wing Nut Wings would have broken down into the other scales as well, particularly 72nd. Their stuff is just so fantastic. I've looked at so many in the boxes, and and I know where Kentucky Dave was led astray by temptation with that. But uh they're just beautiful. I wish they'd scale it down. I don't know why people why these manufacturers don't do that.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah. Well, I do think, I do think with the advances in 3D printing and and CAD and computer aided cut it tool cutting, I I'm not so sure. I mean, Edward has already been doing it with, you know, they'll come out with something in 48 scale and then they'll release the same thing in 72nd. I'm I'm not so sure you won't see more and more of that.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":I I'd love to see more and more of that. I what it one of my great regrets is that the late great Mr. Tomia didn't release the armor line they came out with in 48th, also in 72nd.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, yeah. And my my big regret is he didn't release that P38 in from 48 scale into 72nd.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Oh, well, that list is long. There's a ton of those kits that he came out with that would have been just brilliant to scale down.
Mike:Yep, I completely agree. Y'all missed the wrong way signs. Well, I hope Mr. Edwards is uh satisfied with the response. I'm so I'm sure we'll hear from him again. If not, it could be class action day here.
Kentucky Dave:Brushed up. Yeah, I I'll have to get my I'll have to get my litigation skills working.
Mike:Well, luckily we got one we got a lot of mileage out of.
Kentucky Dave:So folks, yeah, there you go.
Mike:Please send us more email. I was a little disappointed this month. I love that one. But we came up short. What about on the direct messages?
Kentucky Dave:Well, we don't have a ton of direct messages. I think this probably has to do with the fact that there's a lot of shows going on. There's a lot of interaction going on in the dojo, plus, you know, we got to see a lot of people that we might otherwise have gotten DMs. We got to see them in person, such as Inch. But we did get a few. First is Mr. Michael Aluzzi, who wanted to, among other things, remind us that MMSI is coming up. I believe it's the same weekend as Cincinnati.
Mike:It is.
Kentucky Dave:He also wanted to taunt us by sending us a picture of him grilling out on his big green egg and drinking Gumball Head. Okay. And of and of course, he's a lot closer to Gumball Head than we are.
Mike:And he's a lot closer to MMSI than we are.
Kentucky Dave:Exactly. Exactly.
Mike:He came to our room and well, he actually came to Stephen Mark's room, which we're we were hanging out in. Right. And uh gave us a little modeling fluid, so I hate we're gonna miss him this time. Yes. Uh, but it's just it's not in the cards. MMSI is not in the cards for us. I we made it to a lot of shows last year, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:We we did nine last year.
Mike:I'm still not sure how that happened. Neither am I. Because I I can't I've because now that I'm trying, I can't make it happen. Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. Well, what else we got?
Kentucky Dave:Well, uh Mr. Haggerty, who I sold the B-25, Airfix B-25 on the dojo, he bought it and I mailed it out to him, and it happened to have the bad fortune to arrive on Saturday just as he was returning from the West Michigan model show with a bag of models that he had purchased. So he walks in the door, there's a bag of models that he's already purchased, there's a box that he opens up, and there's a model in it. And he said that his wife, who might otherwise have been upset, was willing to be forgiving because it was his birthday. And so he got the birthday free pass. And uh, it looked like he made some good purchases at the West Michigan show. He sent me a picture of the bag and looked like he did well.
Mike:Well, I would say just to be above the table.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, that's right. That's right. Don't try and sneak them, man.
Mike:Uh just you're just asking for trouble.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's right.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":What do you think, Anch? I think you'll always get caught, but the the play here, I think, is to put them in a women's shoebox and bring them in that way.
Mike:There you go. What happens on their birthday when they when they when they open the package is not a pair of shoes. That's right.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Honey, here's the B-25 you've always wanted. I don't know.
Kentucky Dave:I think uh That might not work.
Mike:Haydn's a symptom of other things.
Kentucky Dave:Yes. Our friend Dutch Vossberg reached out because they had an amp show up in in his general area up in Connecticut, and he reached out to ask about posting a flyer on the on the dojo, which of course is always what we want. And I want to use his DM just to remind people if you have a show coming up and you've got a flyer for that show, and almost every show has a flyer, take a copy of that flyer and post it on the dojo. You know, we can't, as Mike alluded to earlier, we can't do a show spotlight for every show that's going on, especially in the spring and the fall show seasons. No doubt. If you've got a show, you are more than welcome. In fact, you are encouraged to. We plead with you to get a get a copy of the flyer, take a picture of it, or take a PDF of it, and post it on the dojo to let people know the show's going on. So it's one of the ways I mean, Mike and I can't keep track of every show that's going on. So it's one of the ways that we're able to keep up with things. So we appreciate you doing that. And I appreciate Dutch reaching out and asking permission, but you don't have to ask permission, just go ahead and post.
Mike:Yeah, please. Just go ahead and post those, especially if it's just a an image of your flyer. I think a lot of folks think they're gonna send a PDF or we're gonna pin it or put it in a file section. Really, I think if you want more people to see it, if it's just a a JPEG or a similar type image file in any phone.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, just a photo.
Mike:And you just put it in in a normal post on the dojo, more people are gonna see it. And it's it's just a lot faster. So if you only have a PDF, just open it up on your computer and take a screenshot of it, and then then just post it as an image file. And folks can see it. But we still want folks to uh at least solicit us for inclusion on the model show spotlight. And another thing I will add is uh Brandon over at Squadron on Squadron TV on Wednesday nights is is doing this at least on part of his episodes during the month. So that's another outlet, and then we need to probably touch base with Brandon and uh see if we can not double dip and expose more shows. Yep. Got any more? That's it. All right, folks, please send us more email. I was a little sad. Well, not really, because I really like the one we did get.
Kentucky Dave:That was that that was uh That was only because you like it only because you could use it to abuse me.
Mike:Well, gold hit a high this week, and the email gold did as well. That was really good. So if you want to email the show, please do so by emailing us at plasticmodelmojo at gmail.com, or you can send a Facebook message through the direct messaging system, or there's a feedback uh web link in the show notes of this episode or off the website that you can drop us uh a message there, and uh, they're all the same. They're just quote unquote emails, and uh we'll get to them and we love it. It's favorite sec favorite segment of the show.
Kentucky Dave:If you have not rated Plastic Model Mojo on whatever podcasting app you're listening on, uh Spotify or whatever you're using, please do so. Give it the highest rating possible. It drives the visibility of the show and gets us more listeners. We continue to grow and we want to continue to grow. The single best way you can help us grow is if you will go to a modeling friend of yours who you know isn't listening to Plastic Model Mojo, recommend us. If they need help in figuring out how to listen to podcasts, we'd appreciate it if you'd help them do it. The number one way we get new listeners is recommendations from current listeners. And I can't tell you how many listeners have reached out and told us that they're listening because a modeling friend of theirs recommended us. So please do so. Help us grow the podcast.
Mike:You can also rate the podcast through a web link in the show notes. And once you've done that, please check out the other podcasts out in the model sphere. You can do that by going to www.modelpodcast.com. That's model podcastplural. It's a consortium website set up with the help of Stuart Clark at the Scale Model Podcast up in Canada. Now they're on a little hiatus right now, but uh Stu's still working behind the scenes to keep the website going. You can check out all the banner links, the other websites or the other podcasts there. In addition, we got a lot of blog and YouTube friends in the model sphere, and one of them was is with us tonight. Jeff, what's going on at the Inch High Guy?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, I'm keeping up with the posts, which is good. Well, yeah, it's it's a kind of a challenge some days, but the the builds keep coming. I get I I have kind of a schedule, kind of an internal schedule. Every Friday I try to post what I'm working on, and every Tuesday I post a finished build.
Kentucky Dave:So So you're using it as a motivation to finish. That's great.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, it it it's going. It's going. It it's a self-imposed deadline that that keeps keeps me on my toes.
Mike:Well, you've been on your toes. You you it's pretty regular, so good job on that. Well, thanks. Well, we've also got Chris Wallace, my L Air Playmaker, who we've mentioned already. Great blog, great YouTube channel. Evan McCallum, Panzermeister36, YouTube channel there. You want to want to check out. Stephen Lee, Sprue Pie with Fred. Steve's got a great blog, mostly 70-second scale stuff. He he crosses over into Model Roading sometimes, but uh a lot of long and short form information there. You're gonna want to check out his blog. And then uh Paul Budzik, Scale Model Workshop. You can get to him through uh YouTube and Patreon, and he's always got some wisdom you're gonna want to check out. So please check out all our friends out in the model sphere. Subscribe to all they've got going on.
Kentucky Dave:If you are not a member of IPMS USA, your national IPMS chapter, please consider joining. I'm the IPMS retention and recruitment secretary. This is the last term I'll be serving in that office. My goal is to get IPMS USA membership to 6,000 members. We're in the 5200 range. It's a big goal, but I believe it is possible. If you are not a member of IPMS USA, please consider joining. Become a member. I'd appreciate it personally. Help us reach the goal to get to 6,000 members. If you're not a member of IPMS Canada or your own national IPMS chapter, consider joining that as well. Also, if you are interested in armor or post-1900 figures modeling, consider joining the National Armor Modeling and Preservation Society, AMPS, their national chapter. You can Google and find them online. Consider joining. It's a very dedicated group of armor modelers dedicated to the armor modeling craft.
The Voice of Bob (Bair):Plastic Model Mojo is brought to you by Model Paint Solutions, your source for harder and steambeck airbrushes and laboratory gray mixing, measuring, and storage tools for use with all your model paints, be they acrylic, enamels, or lacquerers. Check them out at www.modelpaint solutions.com.
Mike:Well folks, we're gonna do a back-to-back shop talk. Got our guest Jeff Groves with us and got some topics to talk about. Let's get into it, Dave. Well, two thirds of this entourage have actually finished something in the last couple of weeks. Okay, we're done.
Kentucky Dave:Okay. Hey, you take shots at me. Hey, it's all gonna take a shot at you. Well, let's talk to the guy who actually finishes a lot of things first. Jeff, tell me about what you finished recently.
Mike:You've got a couple that you finished recently, and one of them was kind of not a surprise. The other one, at least for me, was a surprise. Uh and I'm gonna start with that one first. You've kicked out, I think it was the Fine Molds, TIE Fighter Advanced. It's in 72nd scale, I assume.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yes.
Mike:There's somebody who's at a lot of the shows we go to who's had several of those. Of course. They're not the newer Bandai kits, but the fine molds aren't, you know, they're not terrible either. What possessed you to build this this subject?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, you you want to go outside of your normal genre every once in a while, just as a skills exercise, but I was going through the stash, and this thing just jumped out at me, and it kind of kind of inspired me to make a an unusual diorama out of it. You you guys and I had talked about putting models on bases and temporary bases and permanent bases and all that, and I thought I'm gonna put this sucker down on the moon and have an astronaut looking at it and kind of scratch your scratching his head what the heck's going on with this thing. The challenge of this one is I I got to looking at the rear part of the TIE fighter, and it looked to me like there were some access panels back there. And I thought, wouldn't it be cool to open those up and open the top hatch up and have an abandoned TIE Fighter with footprints leading away from it and the astronaut wondering what the heck is going on and let the viewer fill in all the blanks? Where is the pilot? Was the pilot Darth Vader? Is he sneaking up on the astronaut? Did he walk away all in a huff? What happened to him, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, what's Star Wars doing on the moon, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Mike:Well, let me back up real quick.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":And why was this kid in your stash? I'm not exactly sure. Either my son snuck it in there, he's a big Star Wars fan. Either he snuck it in, or we decided we were gonna do that someday and he lost interest, or I got it as a as a as a contest win in a raffle. I don't know. There's a couple others in there as well, and I I know at least one of those came from a raffle. But the kit's a good kit. It's a fine molds kit, and it's like you would expect from a fine molds kit. It's fine molds slash Hasagawa quality. It assembled quickly. It was a fun build. It was outside of my my wheelhouse, and I got to do something the guys at Lucasfilm did on the original Star Wars filming models, is they famously went to a hobby store and bought the hobby store out and used all the bits and pieces from various model kits to make the Star Wars models. And if you look at things like the Millennium Falcon or whatever, you can see the engine deck from Tiger Ones and just all kinds of parts if you if you're used to looking at that stuff. And so I rated my spares boxes and filled the the detail in these access panels, and I had a lot of fun doing it.
Kentucky Dave:Well, it looked great. I mean, I've got to say, it really looked fantastic.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, thanks. I I had fun doing it. The one really unusual thing, and I have this is unique in my experience. I've never seen this before, probably never see it again. It turns out that if you are a dedicated Star Wars fan, there is more than one proper size for all of these ships. Apparently, the studio for each of the original three movies, or maybe into the the three prequels or whatever, they redefine the dimensions for what a TIE Fighter is and what a X-Wing is and what the Millennium Falcon is. So they're the Fine Molds licensure went with one of these paradigms, and the Bandai went for another. So if you take a Bandai TIE Fighter and a Fine Molds TIE Fighter and put them next to each other, they're different sizes in the same scale. I did not know that. I didn't either. I when in my research I came across that. There's also a hotly debated topic about what color you should be painting your TIE fighters. If you can believe that. Oh, I believe it.
Kentucky Dave:Wait, modelers arguing over what color something is, that never happened.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":They're counting rivets in a galaxy far, far away. It turns out. There is one camp that says that the filming models were actually a blue-gray. Some say it's equivalent to the Navy haze gray, some say it's a little bluer than that. And there's others that say that on the actual film, if you look at the movie clips, they have washed out in the lighting or the editing to a light gray. So if you want to do it as it's on the screen, it's a light gray. If you want to replicate the filmy model, it's a blue-gray.
Mike:And what are the odds that these were painted with some jarstock bottles of uh Flocal Railroad paint?
Kentucky Dave:That's right.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, probably or something out of Home Depot.
Kentucky Dave:That's right, a spray can out of Home Depot.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Exactly. And, you know, that that kind of modeling's interesting, but I would not like the time pressure with that.
Kentucky Dave:You know, hey, it sounds like you really went down a rabbit hole with this thing.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, I enjoyed it. You know, I I do like to research what I'm what I'm getting ready to build and try to get it accurate, but then it occurred to me, you know, I'm building a fantasy ship that never existed. How accurate should it be or could it be? And when I got into where the source material couldn't even agree on the dimensions of the thing, I thought, well, I'm gonna have a lot of fun building the inside of this thing.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Now it it turns out that there are references for what's inside of all these ships. There's a DK book that is in my son's collection uh of Star Wars ship books, and I he kindly let me borrow it for this build. And the artwork is just fascinating. And the old school draftsmanship, if you see some of these original drafted things from World War II or another example is in this book, they're just they're meticulous. They're they're wonders to to behold just the artwork of this stuff. And it was I I was inspired by it, but I did not feel obliged to to replicate everything I saw. Let me put it there.
Mike:Well, given that this was outside your wheelhouse, which we've talked about quite a bit on the podcast, what are your kind of takeaways from from that project?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":First, it was a lot of fun, which is the whole point of what we do. It was a lot of fun. There was some relief from the burden of getting everything technically correct like you would on a historical build. Opening the panels up was an exercise in widgetology, and it was a lot of fun. And and I like the idea of playing with the viewer and letting the viewer fill in the blanks. I didn't want to tell the whole story, I wanted to set up the premise. This is the opening scene of the movie. And you know, the guy's imagination can take it wherever you want to want to take it. As far as a skills exercise, uh I didn't really try anything really new. I don't normally base my models, at least not permanently. So I I did it with this one, and I've done that before, but it was it was nice. It makes a great presentation in a small footprint, which is always a good thing for a diorama in my mind. And it wasn't too crowded. You know, I had one ship and one guy and told the whole story.
Kentucky Dave:Does this incline you to go build another Star Wars model sometime?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":I I wouldn't be disinclined. I'm not looking to make a Star Wars collection, but I do I do see the allure of those ships. They they were revolutionary in my mind because they were the first science fiction franchise where the ships weren't pristine, scrubbed down, pearly white, everything's clean. They were dingy, dirty, had been lived in, had been repaired, had been, you know, scavenged and that sort of thing. So you get the whole weathering attraction that you would with, say, an armor build or something like that. You can go down that rabbit hole with these ships, and it it it was fun. It was fun. Well, good.
Mike:Well, I I've I'm gonna go down that path at some point. I I think I'm gonna go bigger. I keep talking about the the AMT recently released their 30 second scale TIE Fighter. That's that's one I want to I would like to do. And there's some of the 72nd scale either Band-ai or fine molds, whichever I can find that I'm interested in doing as well. And would you ever do one to the to the kind of I don't want you to say standard, but to the same kind of endpoint that you build your 72nd scale aircraft?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":In in what respect?
Mike:Oh, an X-wing or a Y-wing or something like that, or another TIE Fighter built outside this diorama idea you you did, and and kind of approach it as a you know, one of your other standard aircraft projects.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, yeah. They're they're they're interesting ships. They're an interesting concept. You do run into with the TIE Fighter, especially, apparently every place you see them, they're hanging from some kind of girdle arrangement. Um so you know, you you could build a hangar full of these things all hanging from the ceiling, and that would be interesting, but that's that's uh a kind of an Uber project. I I think with the rebel fighters, they all have some kind of landing skid under them of some sort. And so they could they could sit on a shelf, but yeah, I could see building some sort of mini collection of them. It wouldn't be something I'm I'm jumping up and down to do at this point, but if if it if I got drug into that, you know, it opened up that box one night when there's nothing on the bench, you could very easily make a collection of it.
Mike:Well, you you've you've said you've got a couple more in the stash, at least one, maybe, maybe more than one. What tell us again what made you start this particular one?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":It was just serendipity. I I was going through my my stash and I saw that and the the idea hit me. The the model has two Darth Vader figures in it, uh one seated and one standing. And I I got to looking at those figures and I thought, man, that that'd be kind of cool to you know pose as a just uh for a photo shoot, if nothing else, standing around next to something. And pretty soon I had the thing on the bench and I'm cutting the sprues away.
Mike:Well good. So juxtaposition against that one of your recent builds, you've you've you've built an F9F as well.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, I did a a a batch of Navy fighters from the 50s. I did that just prior to the TIE Fighter. No, that was two builds prior to the TIE Fighter. I did those. I did a Sky Raider, a a Bearcat, like Dave was building. He was talking up the Hobby Boss Bearcat, and I thought, well, I gotta see one of these things. I did two cougars and a panther in that build. And those are old Hasagawa kits from I think the 90s. No, they're earlier than that. Yeah, they're earlier than that. They're earlier, but you can still find them, and they're cheap and they go together well. I I like the simpli simplicity, simplicity of these kits as opposed to some of the, you know, Warren brought the the Spitfire IBG Spitfire double boxing. Yes, and there's more parts in the cockpit of that Spitfire than there are in the whole box of the Panther. Yep. It's it's just the attraction of both. Sometimes you want a simple, straightforward build, and you can get, I think Killick makes the decal interiors for those Panthers and Cougars, and they just look beautiful when you put them in there, and you don't have 40 parts to put in to do it. But on the other hand, if you look at the builds of the IVG Spitfire family, they've got a really hot commodity on their hands because there is every little aspect of that is molded.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":But the you the trade-offs of complexity. You're talking a, I don't know, a 200-part kit.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":It's got to be pushing that.
Kentucky Dave:For a single engine 70 second scale aircraft.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Exactly.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":That's a lot.
Kentucky Dave:It's a lot.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":That's a lot.
Mike:Well, I've got an F9 I want to do, but it's You're doing one of the early ones, aren't you? It's the the long one, the stretch. The F5, I guess. Is that right?
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:Yeah, the Dash Box. Yeah. The only kitted version is the matchbox, which I have, which is not that great. Yeah. And it's got this this goes back, this got inspired by oh, who was it? The Model Geeks had had a had a MIG-killer group build, and there was one on the decal sheet from the Las Vegas show. Yeah. But it's a dash five. So what are you gonna do?
Kentucky Dave:Right. So uh put put it away and wait for somebody to come out with a new Dash Five kit.
Mike:I guess not. I guess not. Well, Dave, you just finished something too.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, I did in the in the space of time that it took me to finish one model. Jeff finished oh 15 or so. But I did finally finish the Bear Cat. I took it to to MMCL just to put it on the table, although that model was never built for individual entry and competition because the kit itself has some some limitations due to its simplified nature. But I finished it. It's a good kit. I mean, if you want a three-foot model of the bear cat, just to put a particular set of markings on, it's a good kit. Visually, it it very much looks like a bear cat. It looks good and overall glossy blue. Thanks to uh to Dr. Geldmacher, I have uh uh an unusual set of custom markings on it for the Norfolk Naval Reserve Squadrons from the early 50s. And uh this model, I will be meeting Dr. Geldmacher in uh Murfreesboro in November to hand this model off to him so that he can put it in the Hampton collection and he can keep the Hampton collection together.
Mike:I'm glad you got it done.
Kentucky Dave:I am too. I am too.
Mike:Now, did you have any takeaways from this building?
Kentucky Dave:Yes. I still need to get a lot better. Particularly it's still particularly pay places I need to pay attention to. The canopy interface with the fuselage of the model, I always seem to have uh some sort of less than ideal setup there. The connection never seems to be quite as good as I want it to be. I uh Dr. Delmacher, as I said, had some custom decals made. Now he used the tr railroad decal company mic that I think you're familiar with.
Mike:No, the name escapes me at the moment, but uh we'll go with that.
Kentucky Dave:And and I got I'll be honest with you, when I first got the decals and looked at them, I was like, there is no way these are going to work and be opaque and and all of that. But they really did work quite well. I was I was shocked and surprised. And thank gosh she did those because there's no way I would have been able to do that kit otherwise. And the final thing that you come away with, especially if you've built a Corsair or a Hellcat, the final thing you come away with is you realize how small the bear cat was. I mean, that aircraft is like half the size of a Hellcat. It's amazingly small. And the idea that you were going to fly those in combat, our grandfathers had had stones, man, I'm telling you.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":That was one of the goals of the design, though, wasn't it? The biggest engine you can get and the smallest, lightest airframe. Right.
Kentucky Dave:And what they what they wanted was uh a storage to be able to store the maximum amount of aircraft on a fleet carrier and speed straight line speed because this whole thing was built to go kill kamikazes before the kamikaze could get to the fleet. That's right. It's it looks like a racing plane in many respects, because kind of it was. But I enjoyed it, I will tell you. I I enjoyed the heck out of it.
Mike:Well, I hope you get back to some of your regularly scheduled programs. Naz, you got any got that one done?
Kentucky Dave:Yep, and when we get to the bench top halftime report, I'll tell you about that.
Mike:All right, well, folks, I didn't get anything done in the uh scope of this episode, so uh, we're gonna move on. Well, folks, our second topic tonight was also inspired by one of uh Jeff's blog posts: improving efficiency and modeling mojo with a workshop overhaul. Jeff, you posted the mid-September about revamping your workspace. I did. So, folks, uh we'll we'll link that so folks can go read that. This one kind of ties, well, will tie into uh our second episode of this month, but we'll get into that during the second episode of this month. What exactly did you do and how'd it work out for you? And why?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, I I had finally gotten to the point where I was encountering enough minor frustrations that between builds I bit the bullet and I said, I'm just gonna straighten out, organize, clean everything down in the work area. Now, normally between batches, and I, as many of your listeners will know, I build in batches. I usually build four, five, six, seven at a time. But then when I get that batch done, I don't start anything else. I I clean the bench off, I get a perfectly clean bench, I scrub it down, and I'm ready to start the next batch. Well, this time I went over and above that and went a little further. I cleaned out the drawers, I cleaned out the stash, I reorganized my spares, I reorganized my paints, I finally hung my airbrush hoses up, which I can't believe I hadn't done that. Just went through and got rid of all the little things that bug you when you're sitting at the bench. And part of this is I'm always looking for something that I can do 1% better. I I am competing with myself of last week and trying to do just a little bit better, a little bit more efficient, have a little bit more fun, get a little more productivity, whatever little genre, little niche you want to take that angle on, but I'm trying to improve all the time. And I thought it's finally time to get all my paint sorted out so I'm not looking through the paint drawer for five minutes trying to find the right color and get my evergreen sorted out and get my spare parts sorted out so I can find what I'm looking for and just get everything organized. And it was it was time for a cleaning anyway. Uh the stash was all disorganized. I had spare parts in old model boxes. So you pick up the boxes, is this the one that's got the track in it that I want to glue to my Sherman or whatever? It was just time and it felt good to get everything finally put away, organized, and where I can get at it good.
Kentucky Dave:And how long did it take you beginning to end?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":About a week. And a lot of that was getting the spare parts organized because for years I had taken when I finished a model, the unused stuff had gone in a box of like kits that I had finished, so I might have a box full of German armor parts, and then I might have two boxes of German armor parts, and then I might have a box of American armor parts, and then I might have a box of Luftwaffe drop tanks and that kind of thing. And then pretty soon which box is which? And if you if there's something you want, particularly something that's like a I don't know, a piece of ordnance or a machine gun for a rear cockpit on an aircraft or something, you know you got one, but which box is it in? And I'd finally had enough of that, but I just decided to eliminate all the little frustrations and kind of streamline everything, and it was a good feeling. And I had a good setup to start with. My bench is how I want it. I I used kitchen parts, kitchen cabinetry, and put a bench top on it. I put glass on that, I've got lighting up above, I've got stereo speakers in the overhead so I can listen to you guys on a podcast or put in Pink Floyd or whatever it is I want to do. And I've got a nice little setup in a corner of the basement down there. But the peripherals around that, you know, I have, I don't know, a dozen folders with decals in them that weren't labeled. So I think this one's my Japanese folder. Oh no, it's another American folder.
Mike:Dave's head just exploded.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah. Yeah. It's just the minor frustrations that kind of get in your way and slow you down. And that can lead to do I really want to go down to the bench and try to find that machine gun first? You know, that kind of thing. And that hesitancy sometime can lead to you not even going down to the bench that night.
Kentucky Dave:I feel you.
Mike:Yeah. Watch TV instead or doom scroll on the phone or something, something else equally dumb, right?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yep, yep. But I I took a I took the better part of a week between batches and got everything organized. And it was a good feeling when it was done. Yeah, I I really need to do this.
Kentucky Dave:Me too. Me too. Did you find yourself throwing away a lot of stuff?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Oh, I did. I did. I probably threw away, I don't know, close to 40 old model boxes. Many of them had parts in them. I I kind of save the old boxes that are top opening to use as trays. When I'm we we all hate the end opening box, so you can't really work with that on the bench. So when I get one of those, I take the old top opening box and use it as a tray and dump all the sprues in there. And if you look at my bench, often you'll find a box from something I built three years ago with the new build parts in it, because you can't work out of a end opening box. You're going to lose something.
Mike:Yeah. Well, I I've got I've got boxes in my stash that I've I've robbed from, and and typically I'll take a paint marker or a sharpie and write on the end of the box that I've done that. But did you have that situation where you had parts kits that were maybe not complete anymore?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":I I tend not to rob rob kits. That that rubs me the wrong way. Now there is something you do that to me is an exception to that. You will kit bash a lot of times and take two or three kits and put them together, and I've done that, and then I'll have one of those boxes with all the excess parts and then the build that's in the case. But I don't take just one bogey wheel out of something because it looks better, and now I've got a kit that's minus the bogeys or something like that.
Mike:Yeah, mine are usually a little more in-depth than that, but still I try to mark the boxes so I don't pick one as a project and then find it to be uh less and complete later. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that could be frustrating. Well, Dave, what do you got to do in your shop? You're always trying to organize stuff.
Kentucky Dave:I mean first thing I need to do is I need to throw away 10 to 15 percent of the paint bottles I have. Then I need to organize the rest, and I've got no excuse for not organizing because I've got an old Model Master paint rack that Club man member Randy Fuller gave me.
Mike:But you know, I don't think those are as useful as you think they were gonna be.
Kentucky Dave:They they they hold Mr. Color, they hold Model Master, obviously.
Mike:But they were made, they were made for for eight to ten of the same color in each row.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, that's right.
Mike:If you got one of or two of each bottle, you can't you you start putting those in the same row and now you're not organized again.
Kentucky Dave:Right. Well, you could there are some org ways to to organize that where you can put say, well, the way the thing that you can label them, you could put two or three different colors in each row and have them clearly labeled. So it it just I need to organize the paints is probably the first thing. General cleanup and organization of my model bench because I find myself modeling on a postage stamp. I've got so much, you know, I've got a 13-foot bench and I am modeling on a space the size of a postcard because I've got stuff everywhere. Well, I kind of shove the microphone and boom out of the way, or my video camera. But, you know, there's sanding sticks everywhere, 20 different bottles of adhesive, just all sorts of stuff, and it's all spread out everywhere, and it just needs to get organized organized. It's hard to say it any other way than organized, a place for everything and everything in its place, and one that makes sense at least to me.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":I'll tell you a trick that'll help with that. I want that. When I go down to the bench before I sit down, I make it a habit to put something away. And when I get up from the bench, when I'm done with that session, ready to go back upstairs, I put something away. And just putting those two things can lead to your bench not being cluttered over time. And of course, nothing stops you from putting all seven tubs of paint away. You know, you could you could do that, but just get in the habit of when you go down there, what am I not going to use today? I'm not gonna sand anymore. I'm putting all my sanding sticks away. Well, you know, and then when you get up, what are you done? I'm gonna put all my paintbrushes back in their holder. You know, it can be as simple as that.
Kentucky Dave:And what I do find is, you know, let's say I've used uh yeah, I'll just this is an example because it's right in front of me. Gator grip thin thin blend white glue. And I use that. I was using it on the Hellcat canopy. And I used it and what did I do? I just sat it on my bench in at the first clear space that I could find. Okay, and over time, if you continue to do that, you have everything everywhere all at once. And it just it just it it leads to me searching for everything. And so I need in fact, Matt, maybe I need you to come down and and help me organize my model.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":It sounds like with with the gator glue glue and everything, I'd probably glue myself to your bench in in a few minutes.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, well, I love the gator glue. But yeah, it needs that. And I have done some, you know, organizing with drawers and things like that. What I really need to do, and I actually have started to do is label the drawers. Because you can put stuff in drawers, but if you don't remember what thing is in what drawer, you will find yourself spending 20 minutes pulling open every drawer to look for the item that you're looking for. How many drawers you got? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty two, one, twenty-two, twenty-three, two, four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, three. Yeah, I see your problem. Thirty thirty-seven. Just that's a rough count. Thirty-seven drawers.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Oh my.
Kentucky Dave:So yeah, but but uh getting one of those P Touch label makers and labeling everything. Now I know when I look over that my photo edge bender and my chopper are in that drawer, my rulers, calipers, punch and dies, and drills are in that drawer, and that that alone. Saves me the time of going and looking for stuff as long as I remember to put it back in the proper place, as opposed to just looking for an empty spot on the bench and putting it there.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Man, that's a lot of drawers.
Kentucky Dave:It is a lot of drawers. But I got a lot of stuff, man.
Mike:Well, folks, check out the blog post September 12th on Jeff's Inch IGuy blog and get inspired to clean up your workspace a little bit. Well, this final topic for Shop Talk comes from Steve Anderson's A Guided Journal for Modelers. And it is what change could you try in displaying your models? And Jeff, you already talked about one of yours with your Star Wars thing.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yep, yep. Basing.
Mike:Basing. Anything else come to mind?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, it's funny this one came up. I came across on Facebook Marketplace a seller that was selling a bunch of acrylic shelves. And I have an alcove in my basement that when I remodeled the basement years ago, I put lighting in. I thought someday I'd like to have shelves in there. And this guy had, I ended up buying 45 four foot by 18-inch plexiglass sheets, and I'm gonna put shelving in that alcove. And that's gonna be my model display.
Mike:Cool.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah.
Mike:That's gonna hold a lot of models.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":It'll hold a lot of models. I I have six display cases in my basement right now, and they're they're full. They're full. But this this wall-o models is something I've always kind of had in the back of my mind, I want to do that someday. And this was the opportunity. He was selling them cheap. And I asked him, I said, How did you wind up? He had like 96 of these things. I said, How did you wind up with all this acrylic? And he said, Well, he worked for a data company, and they were moving back into their building. They were, you know, the back-to-work thing. They're not letting their guys work from home. And so they were moving up the floors in their building, and when everybody left was COVID, and before they left, they put those acrylic sheets everywhere as sneeze guards all over the building. And their boss apparently told him, said, I want these things gone and I don't care what you do with them. So he loads them in the back of his truck and he's been selling them on Facebook Marketplace. But the the point is there's probably, if you think about it, a lot of acrylic sheet out there to be had in various businesses.
Kentucky Dave:Was that young man named named Jack Basket?
Mike:Because that sounds exactly like something Jack would my son is not arbitraging uh decommissioned acrylic decommissioned acrylic sneeze guards.
Kentucky Dave:Well, but but come on, admit it. That's not outside of the range of possibilities of something only because he hasn't thought of it. I was gonna say, and not only that, he would make good money at it too.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, yeah. This guy was I don't know if he's you know how much money he's made off of it. He made some off of me for something they were gonna throw away. And it's something I'll be able to use. So we both won.
Mike:That he has zero in, probably.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, exactly. Yep.
Mike:And somebody paid market for that raw material when they put that crap in.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":They paid a bunch of money to get it and even more to cut it and hang it if you think about it. Yes. Or whatever it was they set it in there.
Mike:They did.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":And then he got paid to take it out probably on company time, and he's moving it out.
Mike:And got to keep it.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah.
Mike:Yeah. Well, that's that sounds pretty cool, man. So soon we'll see a blog post once that gets rolling.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, it it's gonna be a project. It's gonna take a while to get that one done. But yeah, I will I will show that off when I get it where I want it.
Mike:Dave, you got one, you got a display, something you you've been meaning to try?
Kentucky Dave:One something I've been kicking around in my head, and I have not come up with a solution for yet. I would like to have, at least for World War II single engine aircraft and maybe small jet aircraft, a universal base. A base that's not a terrain base or anything like that, but a single style of base that is attractive looking, that is of uniform size, that I can take to shows and put my models on, or permanently attached to, either one or both, thinking about both ways, to have an attractive universe because I think a model on a base looks if if the base is well done, okay, if it doesn't detract from the model, if the base is well done, I think a model on a base can make the display of the aircraft more attractive. And I've kicked this around in my head. I've come up with a couple that I've done one-offs of just to see, but I haven't been able to come up with anything that I find fully satisfying.
Mike:Well, it sounds like uh an interesting idea.
Kentucky Dave:Yep. Well, you'll see if you go to model contests, you will see occasionally a modeler who do who has done this, where you'll walk along a model table and you'll see three or four aircraft enter, and I'm just talking about aircraft, you don't see this as much in armor because so many armor models are displayed on a terrain style base. Yeah. If they're displayed on a base, but you'll see it where you'll walk along and there'll be the exact same base under three or four models. And like I said, it has to be an attractive base, it has to be well done, it has to not detract from the model. But if if it's well done and if it it is attractive to the eye in and of itself without being distracting, I think it really does make it draws the the viewer's eye to the model.
Mike:I've got my own thing I want to try, which is I want to build one of these in flights on one of these blurred terrain bases. Oh yeah. I like those. Yeah. What I don't know is when you're looking at the whole thing on the table, does it work, or is it the photography that's making this work? Where you're like cropping out all the stuff you can't see or shouldn't be in the photograph. I I don't know, but I'm not sure I've got kind of three three ideas in mind. I I don't know which one I'm gonna uh pick, but I I think it's gonna be one of the three. One is I want to do a a Vietnam Sky Raider. Right. I think that would be a cool one. The other is I've got this fascination with the age 56 Cheyenne.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:And I think that would be a cool one. And then I I got this lifting body that I'll talk about in the What Broke Our Wallet segment that could actually oh yeah. Could actually build quote unquote in flight, but with a gear down.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:And basically the box art are the famous photographs from the chase plane of this thing coming in for a landing. Um that would be cool too.
Kentucky Dave:I'm I'm gonna quiz you about that when we get to that segment.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":That would be an interesting display. That would be good.
Kentucky Dave:I'm part I'm partly responsible for you ending up with that.
Mike:Well, it was on the it was on the list. You just I know it just made me aware that our uh local hobby shop happened to have it. Yeah. So that's kind of what I got in mind. One of these blurred, I just think the ones that are done well look just really, really cool. Yeah, it can be really made to work. Do I have the chops to pull it off? I don't know, but I'm gonna try with one of these projects. I just don't know which one yet. Odds are it's the lifting body or the helicopter.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah. I want to see that lifting body, man.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":What would you do for the rotor on the helicopter?
Mike:Th there is a company that sells these etched blurred rotors. Oh yeah. Yeah. That that if you just put it on a model without the blurred base, would look a little ridiculous. But I think I've seen a few that they've incorporated that into the the you know, you've got a blurred rotor, blur uh, a blurred tail rotor, and you got a blurred landscape, and your brain kind of connects the dots. Whereas if you just got a thing on a pole on a little p on a little pedestal with a blurred rotor sitting on a on a table, it doesn't quite work as well because you have no reference. It's a model on a stick with a blurred rotor at that point. Yeah.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":You gotta have some some other sense of motion going on there. Right, really.
Mike:So when you when you put it all together, it it it it it it kind of comes across as you intended it to. So I don't know. That's that's kind of my display thing I want to try. So we'll see if we get there. Well, some interesting ideas, guys. And uh I want to thank Steve Anderson again for uh providing us the journal. We've we've picked a few of these. Well, gosh, I guess we're on our tenth one, Dave. Yeah, we've been going since uh January, and we'll uh continue this to the end of the year, and it's been a been a fun segment to consider.
Kentucky Dave:Well, you know what? Considering what we just talked about, the upcoming ad is very appropriate.
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Mike:All right, guys, it's the Bench Top Halftime Report. Jeff, we're gonna start we're gonna start with you, man. What's we know what you finished of late because it's always on the blog, but what's going down?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, what's going down now is just today I put the dull coat on a batch of U.S. armor subjects and one Israeli too. So modern armor. Okay. Uh ready to come off the bench, probably finish them up tomorrow. You may be able to help me with this. The the laser reflective vision blocks that are on the modern armor, they are uh kaleidoscopes of colors and they they're refractive. How does a armor specialist such as yourself pull those off?
Mike:Yeah, I don't know. I'm gonna be able to answer your question. I I know there's some folks out there who do it. I'm just not sure what they're using. So I think you can find a solution.
Kentucky Dave:I know what the old solution was.
Mike:What's that?
Kentucky Dave:But I'm I'm not sure you it it's applicable anymore.
Mike:Photo negatives?
Kentucky Dave:Photo film negatives.
Mike:Yeah.
Kentucky Dave:If you went and got photo film negatives and cut the negative, not the not the strip edge part, which is just brown, but the actual negative itself, which of course is multicolored, and you cut out the little rectangle and glued it to the vision block, you got that multicolored, multi-hued effect from it. But that's that's from back in the 80s. That's what guys used to do in the 80s. I mean, good luck finding photo negatives.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, I I've seen some painting techniques on some of the online YouTube things that look pretty interesting using various clear varnishes, and then you know, you mess with the background in different shades, and that's it.
Mike:Yeah, that's what I was gonna think of. Maybe a a background metallic, maybe, or something like that, with the different clear clear coats on it that are different colors. I don't know, man. That's I I don't modern armor is you know, I built a PT76 or finished one right when we started the the podcast, and that model doesn't even have periscopes in the the hatch covers. I mean, I just I I I just built it out of the box. So I I don't know. So, folks, what's a good solution for uh Modern Armor uh optics?
Kentucky Dave:Either post it on the dojo when you hear this or send in your emails.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, and in 70 seconds scale, it's gonna be even more of a challenge, I'm afraid. So Yeah, it might not matter. It it'll be fun to do, though. I'll I'll I'll play around with it some and and get those things done. But yeah, they're they're just about ready to come off the bench.
Mike:How many models are in this batch?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Eight altogether.
Mike:Are they all one manufacturer?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":No, a lot of them are dragon, various ages of dragon, and of course you run into the famous dragon instruction problem with a lot of these kits. And I think I've got two Ravel in that batch. And one of I've got an AAV7, the uh Marine Corps amphibious tractor, and it had the old dragon metal hulls. You remember when they used to come out with the metal hulls and all the the issues with that? But it's it's a neat thing. They're retiring that thing, by the way. I think today was the last day that they had those in service.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, so end of an era.
Kentucky Dave:After the they had a crew drown, uh training crew drown, they stopped actually practicing with them in the water.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, I I had actually come ashore in one of those as a midshipman as part of my orientation with what the Marines did. And there is not a dry place on those things if you're out in the surf. The the overhead hatches leak. You might as well wear diesel cologne for the next week because that's all you're breathing when you're in that thing. So an interesting exercise.
Kentucky Dave:And that convinced you you didn't want to be a Marine.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah. Well, they got a lot going for them. I mean, I always had a lot of respect for my friends in the Marine Corps, but I did not like those tractors. I did not like any of the small boats that had the diesel exhaust blowing into the boat. The the pitching of the sea on a small craft is bad enough, but you start breathing diesel in the middle of that and you turn green pretty quick.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:Don't need face paint. No, no, not at all. Well, Dave, what's up on your bench?
Kentucky Dave:Well, now that the Bearcat's done, I've have brought the SAM back onto the bench, and the BT7 is on the bench. But what I've been working on the last week, as anybody who knows from listening to the previous podcast and the dojo, is Jim Bates and I pulled out a kit that we both bought in 2012, the Edward Hellcat, when it was brand, brand new. And we both bought it anxious to build it in tw 2012, and both of us put it in our stash and never built it. So because my wife was on a cruise and had a week that I thought was going to be really clear, I I decided to do a quick build. Now life got in the way, work blew up on me, followed by the illness of a pet and illness of me, which stopped me from completing it. But I got pretty darn far along, such that I should be able to wrap it up in another week or so. It's uh Edward F6F Hellcat, and I'm building it as a dash five in the overall glossy blue, so that'll might be my second glossy blue aircraft in a row. And it has a tie-in to the current nationals because at the current nationals that just happened in Hampton, I bought a Furball Aero Design 72nd scale F F6F5 sheet, which has something like 13 or 14 different markings options for this particular kit. So I haven't even decided which one I'm going to do yet, but there are a number of very attractive ones. And so that's moving along. The SAM has been, I've gotten the dust off of it. I've gotten it up onto the the building jig, and I've got it flipped over because where I left it was I was doing the oil wash on the bottom. I had done it on the top, and it came out really well. So I flipped it over, and I've just started doing the bottom. And that and the F6F are the two next in line to get done. And then the BT7 Vespid kit that I started, which was my first link and length track kit ever, which has been frozen in construction. I'm gonna get it. In theory, if the dark time does not interfere, I could get all three of these done before the end of the year, which would be five. And if I do five, Mike will never hear the end of it.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":The Edward Kit is a good kit. That's a great Hellcat.
Kentucky Dave:It actually is a great kit. Although you know what? The fit is amazing, the engineering is great. It's only 13 years old, but when you compare it to a modern Arma or IBG or Edward kit, there's an actual difference. There is still engineering has still gotten a whole lot better, even in that 13-year span. And as good as that Edward Kit is from 2012, it's not to the same standard as, say, an Edward kit that just came out last week.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Now, would you say the same thing about the Tomillo Zero?
Kentucky Dave:That's a great question. The Tomillo Zero is the best kit I've ever built. I've built three of them. I'm probably gonna build another one in 2026. And I I also want to get the new Fine Mold kits because I'd kind of like to compare a Tomia Zero and a Fine Mold Zero and see if I do think there's been engineering improvements. Although I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure how you would improve the Tomia Zero kit. There is not an engineering feature I can think of that would make that kit better.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, the paradigm now, though, is to try to model every little rivet. And I don't think that Tomia Zero is riveted, is it?
Kentucky Dave:No, no, it is not.
Mike:There you go. And you talk and you talk to Barry and Steve.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I'm I don't know. I don't know.
Mike:You sound busy.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, I'm busy, a little scattered, but busy. And meanwhile, inch is distracting me by giving me a whole bunch of information on the 14-meter Daihatsu Japanese landing craft.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":You're always distracted by the Dihatsu. It's a go-to distraction.
Kentucky Dave:I know. It is a go-to distraction, but there's so much you can do with it.
Mike:Except build it because there's no kit. Yeah.
Kentucky Dave:Because there's no kit. Well, that's where I get a friend of mine who's really good with a 3D printer and cad. Yeah, something to print to cad the whole thing up for me. Not happening.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, you do you do have a three-view drawing in that that that one book.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, I do. Yes, I do. But you heard him. I can't talk him into it.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, the the design of that's got to be time consuming.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, yeah, I would think so. Because of the it's it has very unusual shapes in it.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, the it's got a dual bow arrangement. I don't think I've ever seen that before.
Kentucky Dave:Right. Yeah, the catamaran style bottom.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah.
Kentucky Dave:That's really, really unusual. So, Mike, yeah. What's your bench been like?
Mike:Well, I've got most of the undercarriage and chassis subs done for the Moose Roo rally car race car thingy we're building.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:I gotta start painting that. It's kind of like gonna be like an airplane. I gotta build paint, build paint, build paint. So car cars are kind of that way. Luckily, it's not a very complicated kit, so there's not a lot of parts, and it's all gonna be paint and detail paint and mask and paint. And hopefully I'm gonna get to that. I I was really hoping to get to it this past weekend, but it just didn't happen. So hopefully coming up. But uh, you know, I've I've got we were chatting the other night and I I got most of it put together. So that's good. The chassis, not the entire car. Right. For the KV85, I finally found the old on the mark photoet set I was looking for. Talk about organization.
Kentucky Dave:Speaking of that's what I was gonna say, speaking of organization.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Now it would have been in one of 38 my old model kit boxes in my stash prior to the reorganization. Is that where you found it?
Mike:No, I I've never put aftermarket in the kit boxes. Thank God. That's how you end up selling stuff and not realizing you did it. But I found it in buried deep, deep in my aftermarket boxes.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah.
Mike:So I I took that old photo edge set from 1987 and I've I robbed it for two pieces. And I got those formed up and filed out and got the area prepped on the model and they're ready to go on. So wasted a lot of time there looking for those things, but ready to move forward on the KV85.
Kentucky Dave:Have you got the radiators and screens?
Mike:Screens aren't screens aren't done yet. Radiators are in. They're all the they're all masked over and just waiting to have the screens finished and peel the masking tape off after I paint the model and drop the screens in. So nope, that's on hold. But trying to move forward. I got some screen material. I need to try to order off eBay from Asia to see if I can get the right size this time. But I'll get there. It's just it's just slow trying to find the right, the right mesh I want to use.
Kentucky Dave:Do you think you've got it nailed down now as to what mesh you want to use?
Mike:I think of the three sizes I'm going to order next, one of them will be the right size.
Kentucky Dave:And then you're you're going to end up with a drawer full of mesh that you haven't used. Right.
Mike:I'll have like six different one meter by I don't know how wide sheets of stuff folded up into little squares, but uh I'll be ready for the next one, that's for sure.
Kentucky Dave:There you go.
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Kentucky Dave:Gentlemen, I assume we've been buying model and modeling related items. Let's start with our guest, Jeff. Have you bought anything lately? Have you broken your wallet?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":My wallet's not broken, but I did you bend it? I bent it a little bit at the show. Uh the I did not get as much time to go through the vendor room as I would have liked because I was vending myself, but somehow I did manage to come home with another six, eight, ten books that I just had to have. Uh I I didn't didn't spurge on any kits, but I won a couple in the raffle that are are interesting kits. I got a a Ravel F-89 Scorpion.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, great kit.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":It turned out to be a great kit. I I it is I wasn't familiar with it. I opened it up, and the first thing that jumps out at you is it that was a huge airplane.
Kentucky Dave:It was a huge airplane. It's one of the few airplanes that looks exactly like what it's named for. And there are I've got a ton of markings for that aircraft in Air Defense Command Gray with different Air National Guard units.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, there were certainly a lot of colorful schemes on that aircraft, and it's a it's an unusual, interesting plane, and I'm actually kind of looking forward to putting that one together.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, and if you haven't been up to the Air Force Museum lately, they have one, and it is impressively large. Yeah. And because the gear is so low to the ground, I mean, as opposed to walking up next to an F-105 where you're looking up at the aircraft, you can walk up next to the F-89 and you're right there.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":And it's it's a beautiful aircraft. And it is. Outside of that, I've got an order that's kind of pending from kit links, and I think I got bit by the de minimis controversy or confusion or whatever you want to call it. I think they had to order something from overseas, and they're not sure how to get it to finish my order off. So they've been holding that order, and I'm I'm a little frustrated with that because I had some figures in there that I was going to put in those tanks. They're probably not going to be here anytime soon now.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, well, I'm hoping that all clears up.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":It will. It will eventually.
Kentucky Dave:I I see that I think it will too.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":I I I take a very optimistic take on that whole thing anyway. I think it'll sort out and it'll be a good thing when it does. So that's just my two cents.
Mike:Yeah.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":What about you guys?
Mike:Mike? Well, I already mentioned it. Brian, the proprietor of Skill Reproductions, per your notice to me, had stocked the uh AMP kit out of Ukraine of the Northrop M2 F3 lifting body. Expensive little kit. Oh wow.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mike:That kit's expensive.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, but nobody else is ever gonna do that.
Mike:I mean Well, Anagrad did it.
Kentucky Dave:It's your right, but I mean, this is your if you want a modern kitchen.
Mike:And it's a beautiful little kit, but wow, and you know, I got it from Brian, it gave me a good deal, and it was you it wasn't much well with shipping, it wasn't any cheaper out of Ukraine. So why not? So looking forward to that one. That was got a lot of interesting uh takes because it would scratch the itch of me wanting to try one of these blurred in-flight bases.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":That'd be a good subject for it too, Mike. That would look good.
Mike:And it's a bare metal plane, if you can call it a plane. Um it's a bare metal lifting body, it's a bare metal vehicle, which is something else I want to try. It's highly polished bare metal, and it's got a lot of different tones on it. Yes. So it's pretty cool.
Kentucky Dave:It's it's a neat little kit, but you can get a little video with a screen that you can set next to the completed model playing the intro to the six million six million dollar man. That kit's about twenty dollars a linear inch. Yes. Yeah.
Mike:How are the decals in it? They're nice.
Kentucky Dave:Wow.
Mike:You know, they're nice on the paper. Don't know how they are, don't know how they are going down.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, that's a that's a tempting subject. That's a very interesting aircraft. It is spacecraft, experimental craft, whatever you want to call it. It's an interesting subject.
Mike:Yeah, well, it it's it was you know, precursor studies for the eventual shuttle glider kind of thing.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:So it's just a really, really cool thing. And man, I've been waiting on that kit for to be released for a long time. I just didn't know it was gonna be as expensive as it was compared to the size it is. Oh well, I've spent way more on a whole lot less than that. I hear you. Well, Brian brought that to the show last weekend, and I also picked up from Azure another Loire 130 flying boat or float plane. I've got one, but the the canopy in mine looks like an amber beer bottle. Yeah.
Kentucky Dave:The price was good enough that it was worth picking up to make me Oh, yeah, that that thing was very, very inexpensive compared to what it was uh the uh list price when it came out. You got a great deal.
Mike:Lots of modeling enjoyment for the dollar in that kit at any price, though. Yeah. Uh we'll just say that.
Kentucky Dave:But but when you're done, you have something that you can put down on the table and it will attract people's eye just because they've never seen it.
Mike:No, and you know, it was gonna go on a cruiser catapult that some little outfit in France was doing.
Kentucky Dave:I hope I hope that guy's enjoying my hundred bucks. Well, hopefully you'll come across a really good set of plants for that uh catapult, and you'll be able to catch. Add it up yourself. Well, maybe.
Mike:Well, I bought one more thing at the at the at the show, and it was another nostalgia thing. I picked up a really old, probably the first boxing of Airfix's 37th scale, old Bill Bus. Oh wow. Yes, I saw them. I went back and bought it. And it's a kit that's always intrigued me. You know, it's it's by modern standards, it's a dog, right? Right. But the the figures in it are interesting by the way they're done. And I think they would be a painting challenge, but could look pretty good when you're done. And it's this gets strange because the the placards on the side of the the bus are printed cardboard and they're like punch outs. And it's just a really interesting and and it's another one of those things that I'd love to just build it as intended, right out of the box, and uh see what you can come up with.
Kentucky Dave:Kind of see, I was gonna suggest that you look around, start down the rabbit hole, because I'm betting you there's a whole ton, whole ton of really obscure aftermarket stuff for that.
Mike:And 30 seconds scale, probably not. I bet there's I bet there's not. But anyway, that's that's what I've bought. That's what broke my wallet.
Kentucky Dave:Uh unlike you all, I went to the MMCL show and I sold. I didn't buy. I actually did not buy one single thing at the show. Now, I will give you, I did order this is a window into my mental illness. When I decided to start that Edward kit from 2012, I went and I knew right where it was. I pulled it out of my stash, and I realized that's the only Edward F6F that I have in the stash. So I went ahead and ordered a second one.
Mike:Loving it that much, huh?
Kentucky Dave:Well, okay, again, this is a window into my mental illness.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":I had decals on the bingo card, just for the record.
Kentucky Dave:I was gonna say two things. One, I wanted a backup kit in case I needed to steal something. But B, if I finish the Hellcat and really, or yeah, the Hellcat and really enjoy it and decide I want to build another one, I don't have a kit mustache. I'd have to go get one. So why not just go ahead and order it now? And yes, none of that makes sense, and yes, that is a window into my particular little mental illness.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Now, did you order a dash three or a dash five?
Kentucky Dave:I ordered a dash five. So you because the kit uh the kit I'm building, and this is a little secret I can tell you. The kit I'm building is a dash three, but in the in every Edward Hellcat box is all the parts for a dash three, a dash five, and a dash five N.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yeah, yeah.
Kentucky Dave:So all of the sprues have all of the parts on them for any version that Edward releases. It's just that so the boxings where it says dash three, dash five, dash five N is just markings related and nothing more. Is that all you got? No, well, okay, this one's kind of pre. Uh at the show, our friend Warren Dickinson brought the IBG black box Spitfire kit. Yes, the Mark I and Mark II that has parts in there to build literally any version of the early Spitfires. It's amazing. Even comes with the two-bladed prop. There were at least five props in that box. I know. Yeah, this thing, guys, it's a new level of kit. I mean, it really is. But he also brought a company called ASK makes a 72nd scale 3D printed engine and cow flaps for the Tomia Zero. Oh, yeah. And this thing was amazing. Flat out freaking amazing.
Mike:As in Dave Dave ordered Teno.
Kentucky Dave:Well, Dave is in the process. He is trying to locate them stateside because ordering them directly from the manufacturer in Ukraine runs into the problem that uh Jeff just recently referenced.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":At least for now. At least for now.
Kentucky Dave:At least for now. So I am attempting to locate a stateside supplier so that I can acquire at least three, if not four, of them that uh I'll put away and utilize because these things, Jeff, you saw they're beautiful.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":They're they're just little jewels, they're works of art.
Kentucky Dave:Exactly. Right. They are works of art. And I don't know how it gets any better from that. I mean, unless it comes with a back rub from a physical therapist and, you know, maybe a manicure and a pedicure, I don't know how how that that kit part or that part gets made any better, any more detailed, any more realistic. The the biggest challenge is it's going to be a painting challenge just because it's so well done.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, Edward is starting to experiment with what they're calling a hybrid kit now, where many of the components are exactly what you're describing. They are these super high-detail resin monopiece inserts where you have not a 40-piece cockpit anymore. You have a one-piece cockpit that is more detailed than anything you could put together.
Kentucky Dave:Right. Which may or may not be a painting challenge.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Well, it's certainly a painting challenge. I don't know how popular that's going to wind up being, but it's an interesting concept.
Kentucky Dave:And you notice Arma has done the same thing.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yes.
Kentucky Dave:Where they they are now selling separately interiors for all their 72nd scale aircraft kits, 3D printed interiors.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yes. Yes.
Kentucky Dave:And just amazing stuff.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":And that absolutely that may be the way out of this de minimis situation where a manufacturer develops the CAD files and then licenses the production in the United States, sells the intellectual property, and the actual production is in distribution, is all handled within the borders of the U.S.
Kentucky Dave:Right. Because it's, let's face it, it's not a it's not like you're having to set up a giant factory with big machine tooling and all of that. You need a little warehouse space with a whole bunch of high-end 3D printers.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Exactly. Or you could even go the route that Hobby 2000 goes and license the molds, have them shipped over here, and then run your 500 or 1,000 short run of an existing kit with masks and decals and all that, and package that and distribute it, distribute it just within the U.S. Yep. So no, I agree. So that's anyway.
Kentucky Dave:That is pre-broken my wallet. I don't have them yet. I haven't ordered them yet. I am trying to locate them to order them, but consider my wallet fully pre-broken on that one. Okay, guys, we're at the end of the episode. I can tell you my Arnold Palmer has been, first of all, the ABV is zero. I can't tell you how much the how many sugars there are in it. Uh, I can tell you it's quite good, quite refreshing, and it got me through the episode, which is what a modeling fluid needs to do. So, Jeff, how was your blue moon?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Uh, blue moon is every bit as good as I remember. It is 5.4%. I just read on the label, alcohol by volume. I I miss my blue moon. I like my blue moon. I would like to have another blue moon. It was great.
Kentucky Dave:Well, good. Mike, I'm I'm sure that your bullet, while not as good as your Russell's, was still pretty pretty good.
Mike:That's good. It's just different. The the Russell's is a little sweeter, and the the bullets a little uh bullet's a lot spicier, but they're both good, and I enjoyed it. It's all gone now, so I'm drinking water.
Kentucky Dave:Well, that's what you should do when you get to the end of your modeling fluid. And gentlemen, we are now truly at the end of the episode, and this is where we do our shout-outs. Although in this particular episode, I'm going to do a recommendation rather than a shout-out. So why don't we start with Jeff or Mike? Give us your shout-out. You got one, Jeff?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":I've got two and I'll keep them brief. I want to shout out our friend that we've already mentioned a few times in this, Warren Dickinson, came came up to the Louisville show. He helped me man my table. We got to hang out all day. We got a good steak dinner afterwards. He showed off some various things that we all drooled over. It was just good to catch up with him in person and not have to do it online like we do just about every day. Shout out to Warren. I'd also like to shout out Mike and Mark Harrison, who I quizzed about how I could improve my vending. And they gave me some good pointers and some good advice and some good honest feedback, and that is always appreciated. And that's one reason I like modelers as a species. Good, honest guys with not a lot of ulterior motives, and you can count on them to help you out if you ask them. So shout out to those guys.
Kentucky Dave:Those are all great.
Mike:Mike? Well, I always want to shout out our contributors, the folks who have uh chosen to support Plastic Model Mojo through their generosity. You can do that several ways. You could uh offer us a recurring contribution through Patreon, or you can uh give us a one-time contribution or manage your own recurring contribution through through PayPal. And we also have Buy Me a Coffee or Buy Me a Beer. It's it's mentioned a couple of different ways, depending on where you find it, but you can find a link to all these avenues in the show notes of this episode or the support the show link on the Plastic Model Mojar website. So uh folks, we really appreciate it. It helps keep the train rolling down the tracks. And do you have another shout out? I do. I want to shout out all the clubs and their representatives who have been reaching out to uh appear on the uh model show spotlight. It's been uh it's been fun. We've had a lot coming in, and uh I'm juggling a lot of those right now. We've got uh several we're gonna line up for this month, but appreciate it. And we'll remind uh clubs if you want to be featured on the model show spotlight, give us as much advance warning as you can because we can we only have a number a limited number of spots uh we can do that and keep it kind of manageable. So uh we like to pick and choose, try to spread out the uh geographies, and uh but we're glad to do it. It's a lot of fun for us, and uh that's kind of our uh mantra is supporting local shows. So uh keep it coming, folks.
Kentucky Dave:Agreed. Now, mine instead of a shout-out, is a recommendation. Have either of you ever seen the movie Cleopatra?
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Yes, I have not.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, Elizabeth Taylor.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, oh yes, the from the 50s.
Kentucky Dave:From the well, it's actually the early 60s. It was a famous production, it was the first production to really just have a runaway budget. I mean, there was a story which isn't true that it actually took the studio down, and it's a mess of a movie, and there's some reasons for that, but it's also very compelling. I will tell you that when I'm flipping through the channels, if I run into it, it's one of those movies I have to stop and watch at least a little bit of it. The movie was directed by a I think it was was it Joel Mankowitz, one of the Mankowitz. There are a number of people in Hollywood that related the Mankowitz family. And the name may be familiar to you because TCM, if you ever watch TCM, Ben Mankowitz hosts is one of the hosts on TCM. Well, of course, this movie and this story has a lot of family connection because it was his uncle that directed the movie and caught a lot of the blame for the failures of the the perceived failures of the movie. Now, all that to say, there is a podcast called The Plot Thickens that is put out by TCM every year. The season six is the making of Cleopatra, where Ben Mankowitz talks about and interviews many of his family members about their Uncle Joe, who was who had died, who was the director on the movie, who was also an Academy Award-winning director and writer. It's a really it's let's see, six, seven, eight episodes long, and but it is well worth your time to give you a picture into uh what movie making was like a today, but b in the 60s, uh and how things were and how that it's just a compelling story. You might not think that you would be interested in it, but I recommend you give it a chance. The plot thickens by TCM. It's a podcast, it's like six or eight 50-minute episodes, and is well worth your time. So David recommends you listen to that.
Mike:Okay. All right. Well, guys, Jeff, thanks for joining us this episode. We appreciate it.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Hey, I appreciate being on. It's always a fun time.
Kentucky Dave:Jeff, I'm glad you came on, and I'm looking forward to seeing you at Cincinnati, man.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":Likewise.
Kentucky Dave:Had such a good time in Louisville. I'm looking forward to it.
Jeff Groves "The Inch High Guy":We'll do it again under the wings of a B-25.
Kentucky Dave:That sounds great.
Mike:Well, Dave, as we always say, so many kids. So little time, Dave. And uh, Jeff, thanks again. Well, hopefully I'll see you in Cincinnati, but I don't know. So have fun with Dave coming up there.
