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
Conquer Fear By Doing, with Tim Nelson: Episode 152
What if the fastest way to level up your modeling wasn’t waiting to “get better,” but picking a fear and building straight through it? That’s the heart of this episode, where we sit down with Seattle modeler Tim Nelson to explore an intentional, cross-genre approach that turned anxiety into momentum. From smart starter ships and museum deadlines to vacform methods and CAD-assisted conversions, we share practical systems that help you finish more models and have more fun doing it.
We open with show travel, stash-thinning honesty, and some cottage-industry collabs that could turn obscure fasteners and conversions into real products. Then we dive into Tim’s roadmap for facing “big scary” subjects: choosing a stepping-stone container ship before tackling USS Tennessee, curating rotating Museum of Flight displays that reward clarity over micro-perfection, and using mentorship to demystify vacforms with repeatable techniques. You’ll hear how disasters are normal, how to hide mistakes well, and why museum quality and contest quality are different—in a good way.
There’s also a love letter to weird and wonderful subjects, like a 1/72 “Old Bill” London bus converted into a WWI pigeon loft, complete with delicate 3D-printed birds. Tim explains how small, story-rich builds strengthen composition, finishing, and research skills that transfer across aircraft, armor, ships, and figures. We round things out with a first foray into CAD and resin printing—a custom bullet nose for a Lockheed Vega—and big ambitions for RMS Olympic in dazzle camouflage. Along the way, we tackle club-building tips, listener mail from Bali to Terre Haute, and a few favorite new releases (plus a gentle rant on 3D-figure accuracy).
If you’re looking for a spark to get back to the bench—or permission to try something you’ve always wanted—this one’s for you. Hit play, subscribe, and share your next “fear target” with us. What bold build are you starting this week?
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Mike and Kentucky Dave thank each and everyone of you for participating on this journey with us.
Welcome to Plastic Model Mojo, a podcast dedicated to skill modeling, as well as to news and events around the public. Join Mike in Kentucky Days to try to be informative, entertaining, and help you to keep your modeling module alive.
Mike:Well, we're at 152 Mojovia in Kentucky. Dave, I've been looking forward to this all day because it's the first time I've gotten to sit down.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, it's that time of year, man. That time of year. And especially you have to take advantage when you get a halfway decent weather day in the late fall because you gotta get what you can get done outside while the while you're not doing it in 35-degree wind blasts.
Mike:Well, did you get your lights up today?
Kentucky Dave:No, I did not, but we've got the tree, but we normally put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving. We got the tree up uh almost a week ago, got the lights on it, and I actually spent part of the day decorating it.
Mike:You should start it outside, man. You're gonna be pushing a bad position now.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I know. I know. You you are not wrong. You are not wrong. Although the weather looks decent for tomorrow.
Mike:Well, you better get out there because it's gonna tank.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, it is.
Mike:It's gonna get cold, and then next Saturday it's gonna rain.
Kentucky Dave:So yeah, it's not gonna get Minneapolis cold, but it's gonna get cold.
Mike:Well, if you're out there and hanging lights, it don't have to be too cold to get cold.
Kentucky Dave:You are right about that.
Mike:Well, enough about that, man. What's up in your model sphere?
Kentucky Dave:Well, my model sphere is doing good. Not great, but good. I went to Murfreesboro. I had a grand old time, didn't buy anything. I sold uh some stuff. I found some good homes for some of those books that we've been talking about since March. And I got to see David Gelbacher and have a very nice steak dinner with him after the show. Got to see Bill Moore, got to see uh any number of people who you and I have interacted with as listeners, and everybody was missing you.
Mike:Yeah, Bill gave me a hard time. I said he should have got cheap on my appearance fee.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the funny thing is, I was surprised. The the sh the contest is. Do you remember the last time we went to Murfreesboro?
Mike:Barely, but yes.
Kentucky Dave:Has to be what, 15, 18 years ago at least? Something like that. Do you remember the facility was out in the middle of nowhere and we had to run up to that uh cheap gas station?
Mike:Yeah.
Kentucky Dave:Man, it's all held in the same facility, the exact same place. And man, you would not believe in 18 years or 15 years or whatever it was, the sprawl that has grown around it. I mean, it is just it's in the middle of suburbia with all of the grocery stores and and restaurants and traffic jams and everything. The game, it was amazing. It took me a minute to realize, yeah, this is the same place, you know, the same facility in the same place. Because wow, when you when we all were there, it was uh it was completely different. But I had a great time, and that inspired me to come back. I've I've started a project of thinning out my my model paints and cataloging the ones that I'm keeping. Going to do a New Year's resolution on getting my supplies thinned and organized.
Mike:Can't wait to hear it.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah. So how about you? How what what's your model sphere been like?
Mike:Uh it's been pretty good. I've been talking to a couple people out in the cottage industry world. The first one is with a guy at uh his company's called Firma 49.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, yeah. I saw those, I saw those recently.
Mike:Popped up on Scalemates recently, and he's doing a bunch of fasteners and stuff. So I was like, well, if he's printing fasteners, maybe do those those Polish fasteners that are on the turret of the 7 TP that IB didn't didn't quite get get right and nobody else makes.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:He seemed open to it, so I sent him uh it's not much cad work just to have it as part of your line, right? Right. Just something else to sell, anything and everything. Sure. You know how you know how the 3D print stuff is.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah. That's the beauty of it, is that you can have tons of inventory, but no inventory.
Mike:That's right. And we'll mention him again in faves and yawns, but he well, I told him I I would I sent him a a scaled photo of a scale drawing from one of my seven TP books, and then a photo of one of the photos in that same book.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:And I I told him these things are drawn on the scale drawings to about six-tenths of a millimeter, but I'm not real sure what the real size is. And the dome on them is very sh very slight. Yeah. But they are dome-shaped. So I don't know. I gotta search for some information to hopefully help him. Uh the other similar situation was uh a post on the dojo from RTM, ResinTech Models. Jan, the the creator there, does does fabulous work, but he's doing a lot of Soviet experimentals and and things like that. Stuff that's it's clearly his jam, but it's really not mine. So I made the suggestion about doing maybe the last version of the T26 series, a conversion for one of the hobby boss kits, and uh he's like, send me information, I'll look at it. So I gotta I gotta get back on that one. What do I do? I don't want to send him my books. I probably would if I could just replace them really quick. Right. But I don't know, it was fun talking to these people and uh look look at you, you're becoming Mr.
Kentucky Dave:Research Resource for the cottage 3D industry.
Mike:Maybe one of these will get some traction. Sure. I'd love to see Rt RTM do it because uh his his kit design philosophy is not unlike the way I if I was doing that, the way I would probably do it. You know, there's not they're not real heavy on the print and place stuff.
Kentucky Dave:Well, and if you can if you can get them, if you can't reach out to a 3D company and get them interested in doing something that you would be interested in having, and as part of that, you supply them with the research so they don't have to go do that themselves, that's win-win. And yeah, and again, the the beauty of 3D is that you don't have to have tons of inventory.
Mike:Not really. Uh yeah. I s I I saw he had done on the SMC show in Nijmegen, so he he took some physical stuff with him there. Sure. And but you know, you you order the kits and he sends kits. So he's you know, he's I don't know if he's keeps a small inventory or prints on demand or whatever.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:Well, that's that's what's fresh in the model sphere. Good. It's fun stuff.
Kentucky Dave:Well, we're sitting down on a Sunday night recording, and I'm hoping that means you've got a modeling fluid close at hand.
Mike:I do, but it's a repeat, Dave. I'm still kind of working my way through the basil Hayden.
Kentucky Dave:Well, that's okay. Hey, listen, there's a lot of things worse than working your way through a bottle of basil Hayden.
Mike:So I usually just keep one around. I don't collect bottles like some people do.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:So, you know, I've had this a week and a half, probably, so I'm taking my time.
Kentucky Dave:Sure. Sure. Well, we kind of know what that's gonna be like. It's gonna be anaclimactic, but I'm glad you got a good drink.
Mike:Um maybe I'll get something new for Christmas.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, maybe.
Mike:Uh-oh.
Kentucky Dave:I have from a listener, and I don't remember who, and Mike doesn't remember who. Mike and I are just terrible at when people give us this stuff not writing it down. And we gotta do something, man. We gotta, we gotta talk about New Year's resolutions. We gotta do a New Year's resolution.
Mike:We need some like blank, blank stickers, like avery labels, yeah, blank address labels, just so we can put it on the bottle and write names on it or something.
Kentucky Dave:What I've got is Suffolk Pride Amber Ale from Muldoon's brewery in Suffolk, England, obviously. And if you're the one who gave me this, please let me know, and I apologize for forgetting. And I'll let you, it's a it's a nice big bottle, 500 milliliters. So I'll let you know how it is. It ought to get me through the episode.
Mike:I'm trying to remember, man. I should, because that was an unusual one.
Kentucky Dave:Well, as soon as the person hears this and reaches out, I'm gonna kick myself because I should have remembered it.
Mike:It'll get sorted out, I'm sure.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I'm sure.
Mike:Well, speaking of sorting, we got some listener mail, man. Oh, okay. Is it in the sorting hat from Harry Potter? It is not. It's in my email inbox. No, it's not in the in mail. It's not in the inbox, it's in the listener mail folder. Okay. Well, let's get to it. Stephen McDonald. And Stephen is from uh where's he from? He's in Terre Haute. Okay, Indiana. Not too far. Not uh it's pretty good ways. Well, yeah, but it's Indiana, so he uh sent us an email from Sweltering Hot Bali, Indonesia.
Kentucky Dave:Now that is a far way away.
Mike:They planned to get married in 2020 and did, and then a lot of bad stuff happened and they couldn't have a honeymoon. So they're going on their fifth wedding anniversary on their honeymoon.
Kentucky Dave:Wait a wait a minute. Are you telling me a guy emailed us for a modeler emailed us from his honeymoon?
Mike:Belated honeymoon house. I mean Yeah, no doubt.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, thank you for thinking of us, but there are other things you should be thinking about.
Mike:Well, based on the contents of the email, I think he's uh I think they're over there for a while. Apparently his wife had a spa day, so uh Oh, okay. Yeah, he's been looking for hobby shops and stuff.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:Well, the only one he could find on the island there per well, that they could find, I guess, period, was the Bali Gundam Hobby Hobby Corner. Gundams are everywhere, man. Well, this place was stacked to the gills, he said, with Gundam. And taking the win in Rome approach, he picked one up and he's looking forward to building that someday when he needs a pallet cleanser. So there you go.
Kentucky Dave:Eve even if you if Gundam isn't your thing, you ought to buy one and try it just to see what it's all about. Just as I would encourage any Gundam modeler, even if armor or aircraft or cars aren't your thing, buy one, try it, see what it's all about. If nothing else, you may learn something, and ultimately you may learn that it's an area you're interested in.
Mike:Well, he's found some mint some modeling fluid down there. Oh, good. Says a stark mango ale. Says it tastes like an orange cream sickle.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, I love that.
Mike:And Bintang Rattler, it's an Indonesian beer with the lemon twist. So a good rattler's not too bad.
Kentucky Dave:I think I thought we were gonna get a Bali bourbon there for a moment.
Mike:I don't know about that. Well, he's been trying to improve his model skills and do a lot of mental modeling while he's been on his trip. And uh he's found himself, well, now he's back in Terre Haute lamenting the the lack of an IPMS chapter near him. You know, he knows about Doonlan and Roscoe Turner. Yeah. But nothing up that way.
Kentucky Dave:Hey, take a look at starting a chapter. Contact IPMS USA.
Mike:They'll that's his question. Any good tips to tap into the modeling community with not an IPMS chapter nearby?
Kentucky Dave:Well, two two of them. One, reach out to IPMS USA, because one thing we can do is we can supply information on nearby individuals. Now, what we don't do is disclose people's private information, but we can take someone who's looking to form a chapter, and we can send their contact information to to folks in the general area, which will help form a chapter. The other big tip I would I would suggest is make up a flyer, and if you've got a local hobby shop, put it in the local hobby shop with your contact info. It doesn't take much to find four or five interested guys and gals and start a club.
Mike:You could also post on the dojo affairs. Any other members of the dojo that were within, I don't know, 20, 25 miles of Terre Haute.
Kentucky Dave:Dang, I wish I'd thought of that. That was great. Yes, that's something else you should do.
Mike:You should do that, and I would slow roll it. I don't know that I would necessarily have a club in mind as the initial kind of introduction to all these people, but maybe get together a few times and see how that works and maybe get to some shows together and see where it goes from there. Yep, I agree. Well, and he's hoping to get down to our show and the Roscoe Turner show and the national convention in 2026. So that's ought to be pretty easy from Terre Haute.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, from Terra Haute. Yeah, that's gonna be a hop, skip, and a jump. And you can also go to Ampson South Bend. That's another one that's gonna be close by.
Mike:It is. And Dave, he's helping me meet your IPMS goal 6,000.
Kentucky Dave:Thank you. I cannot tell you how many people have reached out. I'll I'll get to that later.
Mike:Now, Stevens email and this next one came in right under the wire for the last episode. So, well, Stevens did for sure. The other one's Mike Mikowski, our real space friend. Yep. Who's an early guest of the show and well he pitched the Model Zona show for us on their model show spotlight last time. Yeah. And episode 150 resonated with him a little bit too. Mm-hmm. He says he's no youngsters of the hobby. He's been doing it for over 50 years, and he's got a fair stash and a lot of full display cases. And he's kind of narrowly focused. He's he's got uh several categories of aircraft and spacecraft uh he models.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Mike:Uh mostly most exclusively in 70 seconds scale. And you know, he's getting to this point in his life, too, that he's been selling off a lot of unbuilt kits. He sold a few dozen through uh Jeff Garrety at Rareplane Detective. Mm-hmm. And then in addition to getting rid of some, he's been building some over the past couple, three years. He's been building some of the larger, more complicated things he bought 30 years ago. The stuff he would think that uh, oh, I'll build that when it's better, when I'm better, or I'll get to it later. Well, now is later.
Kentucky Dave:And it should be for everybody.
Mike:And he's got a lot of these monsters, as he calls them, done the XB 70, EC 121, DC-130 drum drone controller, and several others. A lot of those are all great kits. Yeah. And uh he does have concern, like we mentioned, about uh the end times, and he's written instructions to his family to help contact the local club and the national space uh SIG group about the disposition of his collection. He's made some early overtures to museums, but found they rarely want scale models, but he's at least tried. Yep. And apparently there's a new museum at Edwards Air Force Base, and he's wondering maybe they'd like his lifting bodies someday.
Kentucky Dave:And one other thing I'd suggest if you've got some close modeling friends, pick out one of your completed models and give it to your modeling friends. It's a way to preserve your completed kits after you're gone, at least for a while. You'll remember the club at the Nationals that one year who had a member die, and everybody took a partially built kit that that member had done and finished it. And it made a beautiful display. Same thing can happen with your club if before you pass on, you distribute out models to your modeling friends in the club. And then once you know you're no longer modeling or above ground, the club can put together a display to remember you by. And that's it's kind of a nice thing to do.
Mike:Well, he's got two closing thoughts on planning ahead. He says he rarely buys kits anymore. He has a hundred or so still in the stash after getting rid of a lot. I wish I could say that. He might buy something new if it fits one of his kind of narrow themes. Yep. You do that, you'll buy the new latest, greatest, and get rid of the dogs, right?
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:I'm in the process now. And he says he's won a few awards over the years, so lately he just builds for the enjoyment. He's not into the competition thing much anymore. And if it looks good on a shelf, that's good enough for him.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:She says perfectly finished is better than finished perfectly.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:Well, thanks, Mike McCowski, for that. And thanks for the tips. Yep. Man, we got another modeling fluid one, Dave. Oh, good. Spencer Talmudge is written in again, and he mentions Northwoods Brewing, Landlocks, and Brookie's Pale ale. And they're out of Hampton and Northwoods, New Hampshire. Hazy IPA, very smooth and citrusy, almost too drinkable.
Kentucky Dave:There's no well, yeah, I get his point. I understand what he's saying.
Mike:Yeah. Oh, and he got a three-floys glass at Goodwill for a dollar. So there you go.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, wow. That's fantastic. That's the find of the day. Yeah, we've got a number of members who either post on the dojo or send us DMs or emails with modeling fluids. And we really like that. You know, obviously Mike and I are limited to what we're exposed to, just like everybody else is by geography. And it's really nice to have people come in and tell us about stuff from their area so that either, you know, that we're exposed to it and keep an eye out for it when we go to our local big box total wine or whatever. Or if we happen to be traveling in the area, we know to look out for that. So we really appreciate that. Keep it coming.
Mike:Eric Simmelmare has written in again, Dave. He's a longtime listener. And uh he proposed a solution for our swag dilemma. Okay. So I'm looking into that. So I do appreciate the tip there, Eric. Uh and I'm looking at that. Thank you.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, and on a more general note, guys, if you have tips for us in relation to the podcast, things you want to hear talked about, suggestions to make it better. Same goes for the dojo. We're open to suggestions. I mean, we want people to enjoy this, what we're doing. And so we're always, we may not take every suggestion, but we're interested in every suggestion you got.
Mike:Oh, you'll like this one, Dave. Okay. William Crisman, he also found 150 very enjoyable. He's a longtime uh modeler who's grown old, and lots of what Paul was talking about was very relatable. Yeah. And talk about stashes and manages them in 151 hit home. So, well, glad we're helping people.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mike:We'll probably move on from this particular topic soon.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:But it's been a real popular one. I'm I guess I'm given the demographic, I'm not too surprised.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:Uh he started modeling when he was 14, 72nd scale aircraft mostly. Yay. He had the father of a friend, was a military veteran and uh and was an amazing modeler and helped him get started, got him into his local IPMS chapter and helped improve his skills. Always good to have a mentor, I think. Yeah. As long as they're a good one, right?
Kentucky Dave:Right. Well, uh, you've you've talked about Mike Ida Cavage and and you know what he meant to you for your growth in the hobby.
Mike:That's true. He lost the script somewhere and didn't build anything for decades, and then during some kind of stressful life stuff, he kind of flipped the switch in his head and started recollecting the aircraft and vehicles he'd loved from the past. And he'd built up a big pile of what wasn't really building much. He's just getting himself set up for later. And then now he's pushing 60, he was gonna look at that stash and wonder how the heck he was gonna build everything he had. So another guy's trimming down and giving away. Yep. Keeping only ones he vowed to build. Yeah. Yeah, you can't vow to build all of them. Just not gonna work.
Kentucky Dave:Well, hey, I plan to live to 250. I'll get it done.
Mike:Well, here's the good part for you, Dave. Okay. Uh his very first model was a KP72nd scale L29 Delphin. Oh, I know the kit. He built that as a kid and he built another one, enjoyed it, warts and all.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:And he decided he's gonna buy as many of those KP models in their original boxes as he could find. And he ended up with about eight or nine Delphins. He's gonna build these all in different color schemes.
Kentucky Dave:There are a lot of color schemes that was very popular, particularly in Africa.
Mike:Well, the thing about those KP kits, Dave, I'm sure you know. Not exactly state of the art. No. Even in the 70s, they weren't state of the art. They were behind the wall. They were coming from behind the wall. So those eight to nine dolphins he had to build, he ended up cannibalizing most of the eight boxes, and now he has three full planes with decent fits and decals. Yep.
Kentucky Dave:No, that that that's that's one of the things with building older kits, particularly older kits from Eastern Europe, but even some frog and air fix and matchbox kits. Quality control is not what it is, and quality generally was not what it is.
Mike:Oh yeah. Well, he's built a Czech, a Czech one, a Ugandan one, and an Egyptian one.
Kentucky Dave:I knew he'd do Ugandan. That's just a great color scheme and a great set of markings. And as you as you noted when you did that that little air fix kit, it it nostalgia builds can be quite enjoyable.
Mike:Especially you don't remember something being as bad as it is. Yeah. Oh man. Well, he's moved on to 48th skill, unfortunately, Dave, for you.
Kentucky Dave:Oh no.
Mike:But he's retired now and he spends a lot of time at the bench. So uh good on you, William. Thanks for sharing.
Kentucky Dave:Absolutely.
Mike:Well, Dave, last episode, Michael Pye from the UK had written in about uh using AI prompts to to help plan his diorama basis. Right. And he did respond back. Good. And I really there's so much here I really can't spend a lot of time discussing it here, but he's gone through and used AI to not just do the base, but the aircraft color scheme, the landscape, the colors of the earthwork, and just goes on and on and on. So he's he's he's really put this to the test and task to see exactly what kind of stuff he could get out of it. So I'll limit this to just uh saying, Michael, I appreciate you taking time to paste that all that into an email and send in the photographs you did. Really interesting. So I'm gonna read through all that, Dave. I'm gonna give it a try. Maybe I'll have more to report later.
Kentucky Dave:And if you're listening, please post some of that info to the dojo.
Mike:Yes, that'd be good too. Yep. Ken Beckler from the uh Jack Wisley Polis Coast Watchers in Peoria, Illinois. Yep. Well, he went to Telford with our friend Tom Choi. Yes, they and had a good time.
Kentucky Dave:And were kind enough to post pictures on the dojo of their journey.
Mike:Especially Tom. Now Ken claims in his email he's gonna catch up to some degree and post some of the 784 photos he took. Wow. At the show and at the museums. But uh sure. Was really impressed. Just three huge rooms of vendors and clubs, and each club had their own table and and with a theme, and we're usually had cookies of candy or stuff to munch on while you're checking out their work, and just hundreds of clubs from all over Europe, and you know, was equally impressed by the competition room. And uh we look forward to seeing all this. That's that's a show we'd love to get to sometime.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, it it is. That's uh that's a bucket list show.
Mike:Well, Dave, the other emails I got are related to model show activities, and we're gonna do something special with those a little later toward the end of this month. So I'm gonna save those. So that's gonna be my last one from Ken Becker there. So uh what's going on on the direct message side of things?
Kentucky Dave:Well, we've got a number of direct messages with a number of them being recommendations. Bob Bear, the voice of Bob, reached out. There is a four-book series by an author named Jeffrey Cox on the Pacific War. And Bob reached out to recommend this four-book series. He's on the last book and he's enjoyed it so much. He's sad it's coming to an end. And I understand that man. Again, librarian who builds models, so I understand exactly what he's talking about. But he did share that that these are really, really good books, and he highly recommends it. The author is Jeffrey R. Cox, and it's a four-book series on the Pacific War. So it's got the the endorsement of the voice of Bob, so take that to the bank. Our friend Mr. Her Hedrick from up in Canada, Mr. Kit Mask, reached out because, like a number of other people who sent me DMs, he's joining IPMS USA, even though he's in Canada. And I appreciate that. And you know, he he's he's an awfully nice person. And he also asked, what's on my build of genuine agenda for 2026? And do I need some masks? So that was that was awfully nice as always. And he also thinks he has solved the importation problem, so the selling into the United States. So I'm awaiting details on that.
Mike:Yeah, me too. So Kevin and Janelle, let us know because uh I was talking to Janelle uh last week, I think, and uh yeah, they they were thinking about something. I don't know if that's what they're doing or or uh or if they got something new, but whatever it is, yeah, we'll let them tell it. So uh looking forward to it. Well, maybe you know, we'll see what's going on. Might be an opportunity to have him back on. I don't know. We'll see.
Kentucky Dave:Yes. The next one is Jeff Groves, Inch High Guy. One of the great things about having so many friends who are modelers is you end up starting talking about modeling, and then you find other areas that you have in common. And one of the things that Inch and I have hotly debated is Bob Lazar and UFOs and all of that. We it's inevitable at a at a at a model contest, if we've got a table and we're sitting there, the conversation will will circle around to that at some point. And he DM'd me to let me know that there is a new documentary on Amazon Prime called Age of Disclosure on this subject, with all of the people who have recently who were mostly people in the government who've recently come out and made claims about what they've seen and uh, etc. And so he he he DM'd me to to let me know. So I'm gonna definitely watch because I've been on the more skeptical side, and if it turns out that there's an alien body somewhere in a in a freezer, I'm gonna have to eat a bunch of crow. So we'll see. But again, Inch recommends age of disclosure on Amazon Pron.
Mike:Yeah, I was actually talking to him about that myself. I think it's a paid thing, but be interesting. Interesting stuff. We'll talk to him about that at a show sometime.
Kentucky Dave:I'm sure. And speaking of recommendations, Dr. Dave Geldmacher, happy happy birthday, Dr. Dave. It is his birthday today as we record. He and I also have a common interest in cooking. And there's a YouTube channel called Tasting History by a man named Max Miller, and it is just a fascinating. Channel where he cooks a particular dish from history and then tells you the history about it. He's got a whole series on the home fronts in World War II for the different countries. He's got sauerkraut soup and black bread from a World War I U-boat menu. Just a really fantastic. And so Dr. Geldmacher DM'd me to let me know that Max had a new one out on Indian pudding. And now this is not India, India. It's the American Indians made a very simple pudding at the time of Thanksgiving and the pilgrims and all of that stuff. And Max Miller had a recipe for it. And it's a really good episode. And next heard from a listener and a person coming into modeling named Lino or Lino, I don't know how that's pronounced, Martins. And he's out in Washington State. And he was big into Legos and doing Lego construction. And that caused eventually him to drift over into modeling both cars and creature kits. And so he's another member who A just DM'd us to let us know that he was a new listener and et cetera. And also is another listener who told me I'm joining IPMS USA, et cetera, et cetera. And again, I want to thank everybody who has heard me and has responded by joining IPMS USA. It's I want to go out on top. I'm a big believer in the organization, even with the flaws that it has. I thank all of you and thank you, Mr. Martins, for letting me know. Finally, Ethan Eidenmill has been doing the same thing you mentioned. Every time he tries, or every once in a while, when he tries a new modeling fluid, usually a beer, he'll, particularly if he likes it, he'll take a picture of it and DM it to me. And the most recent one he had was a blood orange beer. Now, I didn't have the one he had, but I have had several blood orange beers, and man, they are good. They have been really good. And he recommended this one to me. I want to encourage people to continue to do that because Mike and I both we really have an interest in that stuff. And it's interesting to us when people contact us and let us know. So that's all I've got from the DM side.
Mike:All right, folks. If you want to contact the show, you can do so by emailing us at plasticmodelmojo at gmail.com. That gets us the email to me typically, or you can direct message us through the Facebook messaging system, or you can use the contact link in the show notes of this episode. Any any of those avenues will get us get us your message. And we hope to hear from you, folks. We love this segment.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, we do. Yes, we do. One we've been wanting to have on for quite a while.
Mike:Yeah, no excuse for not having him on until now. Yeah, I know. Folks, we've got Seattle-based modeler Tim Nelson as our special segment tonight, as our guest, and just a super guy, a really well-rounded cross-genre modeler that just tends to impress Dave and I every time we see his work.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:And uh we look we had a good time talking to him, so hopefully hopefully you folks enjoy listening to it. Dave, we finally managed to get one of our favorite modelers on the West Coast. We've got a lot out there.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:But one of our favorite models from the West Coast who we have managed to see at most of the national conventions that we started the podcast. Mr. Tim Nelson from the greater Seattle area in the Pacific Northwest. Tim, how are you doing tonight?
Tim Nelson:Doing great. How are you guys?
Mike:Fantastic. Like we talked about ahead of the recording. It's kind of rainy here, but good modeling weather, like you said before.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, and Tim, Mike and I have been trying to get you scheduled in to do this for at least two years. So I am super excited that we finally got you to record a full-blown interview because there's just so many topics we want to talk about.
Tim Nelson:Well, it's a pleasure and a privilege.
Mike:That's mutual. We always enjoy your company at the National Convention and uh look forward to this next one. So we'll hopefully see you again, man.
Tim Nelson:Yeah. Yes, sir. What's the phrase? Lord Willing and the crick don't rise. I'll be there. Yeah.
Kentucky Dave:Although the crick is rising right now, man. I'm telling you.
Tim Nelson:It's got time to subside before August.
Mike:Let's hope so. Well, Tim, probably the thing that has always impressed me the most with you and your modeling is the sheer diversity of subject matter that you put your toes into. It's just a lot of stuff. And now you sent us a little material ahead of time, and in browsing that over the last day or so, I mean, I see standard military aircraft, a lot of eclectic kind of historic aircraft, air racers, test beds, science fiction, all kinds of stuff. Some real space or prototype space. Just it goes on and on and on. Ships, yeah. I remember in Las Vegas you had a little ship that blew me away.
Kentucky Dave:And not only that, but you work in every medium from standard injection molded kit all the way to resin and to even vacform. Your was it the Blackburn Kangaroo?
Tim Nelson:Yes.
Kentucky Dave:Oh my gosh, just absolutely an amazing model. And just thank you. You don't seem to have not only do you have a wide breadth of what you're willing to build, but you don't seem to have any fear of the new challenges that a particular genre or a particular medium might bring you.
Tim Nelson:Well, that that's a little bit of an illusion. Believe me, I've got fears just like the next guy. But I think it was during the pandemic, the early stages of the pandemic, that you know, we're all sitting at home wondering how we're going to get through this. And that was kind of when I made a conscious effort to, you know, what can I do to, you know, rekindle the mojo, motivate myself, maintain the interest level as as high as I could. And so it was sort of a systematic effort to list out the fears that I had in modeling, and and then write down next to those, each one of them, what could I do to try to attack those fears? And you know, just over time start chipping away at that. And you know, you know, I would dabble in in multiple genres before the pandemic, but I think that was really the the crucible where it it became a real intentional thing for me.
Kentucky Dave:That's the word I was gonna use, intentional. I'll be honest, it surprises me that it was, well, no, knowing you probably it doesn't. Very, very it that that it didn't just happen, that there was a lot of thought behind it.
Tim Nelson:Well, we all had a lot of time on our hands. Yeah, true. Umfortunately, that was when we could we could start listening to you guys about the same time.
Kentucky Dave:Uh I was gonna say we had time on our our our hands. You built models, we did a podcast.
Tim Nelson:Right. But you know, it's all synergistic goodness. Um but you know, I've I have you know many modeling friends, some of which are departed now, but and I've seen so many of them just paralyzed with hand-wringing about doing a model or attacking a subject that they really like, and there's always some reason why I can't do this now. You know, I'll wait till I get better. So, you know, figure out what you need to do to get better, and once you've checked those boxes, just get cracking, you know. I I've had a a sticker in my hobby room for over 30 years. It's an old Nike sticker, it just says just do it.
Mike:Right.
Tim Nelson:You know, you remember the old ad campaign. It's just a hobby. They're just models. So don't let fear of failure keep you from you know, reaching for something you want to do.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I'm worried that on my tombstone is gonna be the phrase, he was waiting until he got better.
Mike:Let's hope not, Dave. Yeah, well. Well, Tim, that kind of parallels a little about approach I have to picking subjects. I'm not quite as diverse or have an eclectic taste as you do, but I will pick a project that's gonna force me to do something quite regularly. I do this. So I was gonna ask before you went into the pandemic explanation of this, uh, you know, without giving your I'm all as a kid, then I took off time in my teens for girls in cars and college and beer and all that, and then I got back into it, you know, the the typical story, but you know how you got to where you're at, but you already answered that very well, outlined these fears. Fears and challenges. I I think this is a really interesting approach, but you know, I'm looking at these subjects that you sent us, and oh man, I can only imagine what what some of these things what the fears were in some of them. I see a lot of really high gloss finishes. I see maybe one that might have some like maybe plywood fuselage or something like that, maybe one of those.
Tim Nelson:Well, you know, what you don't see are the failed projects whose pictures I didn't send you. You know, that's that's part of it.
Kentucky Dave:And and Tim, that is an excellent point. You know, we talk about fear of failure and and and challenging your fears and making an intentional decision. I'm gonna do stuff that's outside my comfort zone. And, you know, we look at you and all these beautiful models that you've managed to turn out, and I'm sure that leads many people to believe that there weren't failures along the way. And and I think that's an important thing to emphasize to modelers is to say, you know what, when you do something like this, when you intentionally go to stretch your boundaries, when you intentionally try to learn a new skill, it's okay. You you may fail, and that's okay because you learned something even there.
Tim Nelson:Yeah, I would say it's more than okay. I would say it's it's probably necessary to fail.
Kentucky Dave:What would you say your failure rate was? Put a number on it.
Tim Nelson:Uh just straight up. Sometimes the failures are at the micro level.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Tim Nelson:And you screw up a a part or a subassembly and you can kind of recover from it.
Kentucky Dave:Right. You do it again.
Tim Nelson:I can't put a number on it, but I do that a lot. Yeah. I think one of the most valuable modeling skills is is hiding mistakes and disaster recovery. But you know, you know, uh I have models that I am absolutely not proud of. They're still in my case, but you know, I don't take them to the nationals and I don't send pictures of them to you guys or post them on Facebook, but they're absolutely there and they're they're part of the journey.
Kentucky Dave:Sure. You learned something with each one.
Mike:Well, give us an example of one that was a big skill advancement for you, or something that you wanted to try that you you had been well fearful of before.
Tim Nelson:I would say something that I feared for years and years was ship modeling. And, you know, going to the nationals year after year, uh I find even though I'm uh fundamentally an airplane guy, you know, and that was my working career as well, I would probably spend more time at the Nationals looking at ship models than any other genre. Yeah, they're beautiful, and I got so motivated and excited talking with Brandon Lowe and his family, you know, back in the free time hobbies days. So knowledgeable, so enthusiastic, and I accumulated kits and aftermarket. And I finally decided, you know, I gotta get off the schneid and do one of these. So we do the our one of our local clubs does these displays for the Museum of Flight. And we we were planning an 80th anniversary display to commemorate the Pearl Harbor attack back in 2021. And the guy that was putting that display together, his name is Neil Macar, he wanted to put a different slant on it and feature more than just the aircraft, even though it's at an air and space museum. So he wanted to represent all the ships on Battleship Row. He wanted to represent the Japanese carrier strike force, et cetera, et cetera. And I thought, damn it, this is it. This is my moment. So I signed up for the USS Tennessee. It's my home state, it's where I was born.
Kentucky Dave:Where where in where in Tennessee?
Tim Nelson:Little town called Lawrenceburg in Middle Tennessee.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, know where it is.
Tim Nelson:Um anyway, uh, I knew though that the USS Tennessee could not be my first ship model. I was just more of a step than I wanted to take. Right. So I came across this Revell container ship came out a few years ago.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Tim Nelson:And it's still got the superstructure and the PE railing and and that sort of stuff that's the bane of the new ship modeler. But the it was a small part of it, and most of it was just painting the millions of containers, and that I I could deal with. So that was my my first step into ship modeling, and I found, as I usually do, trying something new, that you know, the skills they're the same skills, it's just a matter of emphasis, really, when you go into a different genre. But, you know, I could get my feet wet on the photo edge railing, read what I could in books by ex experts and talk to friends that have done ship models and find what works for me. And having done that, I felt way more confident about a more complex model like the Tennessee. And yeah, it takes a lot of time. They're not weekend builds when you do a ship, but it it immediately was much more comfortable. You know, you don't just like in life, you don't expand your comfort zone unless you go outside your comfort zone.
Mike:Mm-hmm. True enough. Now, was the Tennessee the one we saw in Las Vegas?
Tim Nelson:Yes, it was. Yeah.
Mike:You came up the curve pretty quick.
Tim Nelson:For for anyone out there that is a a ship model admirer and uh and wants to give it a whirl, but you're afraid. Uh I wrote an article for John Miller's site on what I learned as a neophyte ship modeler. It's called a polywog's guide to ship modeling or something like that. You can find it on his website, and hopefully that might be of use to help encourage new ship modelers to take the plunge.
Mike:So that's a great resource. Well, let's talk about the museum of flight for a little bit. I you forwarded me the uh the display schedule. Let's let's back up. Wouldn't you explain to the folks what the club's involvement is there? We'll tell what the club is and your involvement there and and what the museum is.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Tim Nelson:Yeah. Northwest Scale Modelers is one of the two really big general purpose modeling clubs in the Seattle area. IPMS Seattle is the the real big kid on the block. And back in the 80s, Northwest Scale Modelers began as a, I guess you'd call it a splinter group, you know, pissed-off modelers wanting to break off and do their own thing, you know, that never happens anywhere else, I'm sure.
Kentucky Dave:No.
Tim Nelson:But they met in a local hobby shop in the 80s, but then in the early 90s, due to some personal relationships, it worked out for this club to host themselves at the Museum of Flight. And the Museum of Flight is huge, privately run, you know, it's a nonprofit foundation that runs it Air and Space Museum based at Boeing Field in Seattle. It's a fantastic museum. We're we're lucky to have it. I I volunteer there two days a week, but uh the club meets at the museum on the first Thursday evening of every month. And the museum happens to be open late on the first Thursday. So after five, admission is free and they're open till nine o'clock. That's when we have our meeting. And the museum graciously lets us use a room for our meeting, and in exchange for that, we we put on a big show in February, we help them out with little projects here and there. And the last 20 years or so, we have staged these rotating displays in the lobby. It's kind of a quid pro quo. That's a legal term, Dave.
Mike:Yeah, yeah.
Tim Nelson:But it works great. You know, it's a it's it's a win for everybody because the club uh gets a platform to show our models. The visitors get to see fresh content on a regular basis, and the museum, like many museums, they don't have to, they don't want to handle the models, and they don't have to handle the models. We do that. We generate the signage and placard information, and the museum creates the physical signage uh based on that that goes in the the cases. But it it's been a great collaboration. We, the club, generally every four or five years, we come up with a brainstormed list of displays or themes that we want to feature. We present that to the museum, and they usually they they approve it. Sometimes they'll make some suggestions. Back in 2016, the museum wanted to observe the centennial of the Boeing Company, and they came to us and said, uh, we'd like you to drop everything and give us four successive displays on the Boeing Company. So we pivoted and and did that. But in general, they give us a lot of autonomy. I think we've we've earned their trust over the years, and uh, it's been a great partnership.
Kentucky Dave:How how often do you change the display?
Tim Nelson:For a long time, we were on a quarterly cadence.
Mike:Yeah.
Tim Nelson:So you know, every three months we'd put in a new display. That was that was beginning to wear us out. Uh because the last thing you want for something like this is burnout. So we we negotiated with the museum to back off to a three-a-year cadence, and that has worked quite well. It's it's much more relaxing. Uh and you know, it's good the museum likes it too, because it's a little less workload for their graphics folks.
Kentucky Dave:Okay.
Mike:Well, what I thought was interesting when I went to the Northwest Scale Modelers web link you gave me is that the displays are I don't know how in stone this is. You said you had to pivot once before, but these things are planned out three times a year from 2026 to 2031.
Tim Nelson:Yeah, we try to give ourselves as much lead time as we can because you know a lot of a lot of us pick and choose things that are near and dear to us, and we want to have the opportunity to to build for them. Each one of those displays gets an assigned curator, we call them. Sounds a little pretentious, but it's the person that organizes the display, and and that person is sort of the gatekeeper, kind of has a vision for the display, generates a list of what they want in it, does outreach to recruit modelers, develops the signage and all that. It's been a good system.
Mike:It's pretty impressive. Given the uh the forward planning, I might could even build something for one of these. We had something like that around here.
Kentucky Dave:Hey, Mike, Mike, you can start your 2031 build now. You'll be done just in time.
Tim Nelson:You guys were talking, I think it was in just the last episode, about inspirations and motivations and where they come from. And I have found, and I am not alone in this, that these displays that we've done over the years, they have really motivated me with the with an eye toward it's an opportunity to educate the public on some of these things. And this this thing existed. This is why it's important, this is why you should care about it. And it's a motivation that I never had previously. You know, if you you're building for shows or or whatever, it's a different motivation than when you're kind of aiming for the greater good, so to speak. And I think others have found that too. Yeah, they are deadline builds, but they're they force you to make decisions during your build about what's really important, and you don't have time for hand wringing about it. You just gotta make a decision, move on, and get it completed. And for some reason, this this educational motivation doesn't stress me as much as other motivations in modeling or other deadlines, put it that way.
Mike:I I wonder if it's the your own you you you are your own worst critic phenomenon.
Tim Nelson:Yeah, it could be. It since it's not necessarily for a contest, you know, and some of us have had this discussion about how museum quality is not the same as contest quality.
Kentucky Dave:Um especially if it's in a case.
Tim Nelson:Exactly. And so uh, you know, I'll admit I I will frequently take shortcuts on some of these builds because if you think about the audience for them, which is many thousands of people over the course of four months, it's the opportunity to provide a little education on this little niche of history that uh is what I find exciting about it.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, I have to ask what's the next one coming up?
Tim Nelson:The next one. Well, let me tell you the current one. Okay, yeah, all about the uh MesherSmith 109.
Kentucky Dave:It's a mod sponsored by Barry Numerick.
Tim Nelson:Well, it'd be a problem because this is all 148 scale, and I think Barry's pretty pretty strict about 72. He is but it's a monograph on the 109. We've never done one on the 109 before. Very cool. You can see pictures on the website, which is nwsm.club. The next one, which installs in February, is on RAF Bomber Command.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, it's a good one.
Tim Nelson:Exciting. The one after that is I don't want to go through all of these, but the one installing in June is a real challenging one, but but also a lot of fun, and that is about celebrity and band aircraft. Some of which are fatal accidents, some of which are just colorful and fun. I signed up for the Buddy Holly, Big Bobper, Richie Valens of Beach Bonanza for that one.
Mike:Yeah, yep, and that's a good one. What was Leonard Skinnard flying on?
Tim Nelson:Well, uh they were in a Conver 240, and I have suggested someone do that, but the only Conver 240 kit that I'm aware of is Mach 2. Nobody needs someone.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I was gonna say nobody needs that in their life. Although you could do Ricky, Ricky Nelson in the C47.
Tim Nelson:That's true. I and I think actually, I think that's on the list.
Kentucky Dave:Is it good?
Tim Nelson:I'm not putting that one together.
Kentucky Dave:I was gonna ask you on the 109, does the museum actually have a 109 at the museum?
Tim Nelson:They do. Okay. They do. They have a World War II collection that most but not all of which came from the old Doug Champlin collection that was at Mace, Arizona for many years. So his 109 is it's sort of a Franken plane. It originated as a Spanish-built bouchon.
Mike:Right.
Tim Nelson:And Mr. Champlin was determined to make it look like a 109 E, so he he cobbled some parts together, and it it looks like an E, but it's it's kind of not.
Kentucky Dave:Now, when you do these themes, that's what I was was getting to. Is there always something in the museum that is tied to a particular display or to what's in the case?
Tim Nelson:No, usually there is not. Um on rare occasions, the museum will request something that does tie in, like that year of Boeing displays, for example. That was a big one that came to mind. But that no, they give us a lot of free reign on putting these together, and it's worked well.
Mike:Well, let's let's pivot back to your own modeling, Tim. As we said, and you've outlined as well, you've you've approached a wide variety of subjects. Kind of what's your your build meth methodology and how do you incorporate kind of the learning new something into that and and just at a high level kind of take us through one of your projects? Because I think there's always something to learn from somebody who's cranking out the quality stuff that that you are.
Tim Nelson:Well, I think if it's truly a totally new genre or medium, well, let's take vacuform kits as an example. I I think I've built five of them now. But yeah, the the first thing I do is try to learn from the experts, you know. So we had a couple of guys in our local clubs here, one of whom was Terry Moore, who passed away a couple of years ago, unfortunately, but great guy, kindred spirit in terms of modeling. But he had built, I don't know how many vacuform kits, and he he graciously answered my questions and demystified aspects of it for me. And that's kind of the first step in chipping away at the fear or paranoia, is just understanding what you need to do. Um once you can sort of visualize a roadmap, whether it's a model or whatever you're doing, once you can visualize that roadmap to where you want to go, all of a sudden things kind of open up. But if there's this cloud of mystery, like, where do I even begin? That's a recipe for putting it away and moving on to something you're comfortable with.
Kentucky Dave:When you built your first vacuform, did you have a subject in mind? And did you do what you did with the Tennessee and build a I don't want to say simple vacuform, but a test build of a vacuform that wasn't going to be your ultimate subject? It was your dip the toe in the water thing.
Tim Nelson:No, I I kind of dove right in on the vacuforms the we did an initial Boeing display in the early teens, and I wanted to do a prototype of the Boeing B9 bomber. Oh that was an open cockpit. I know what it is. 1931 vintage uh airplane. The only kit that ever existed of it is by Formaplane.
Kentucky Dave:Oh god, that is the deep end of the vacuum vacuform pool, my friend.
Tim Nelson:You know, they're they're one of those like several vacuform brands where you can actually see the grain of the wood forms in the styrene. Yeah. But you know, it's the only kit. So I wanted to do it, and the shapes, yeah, you could tell that the shapes were all fundamentally sound, and there was no horrific fit problem, you know, like one side of the fuselage being half an inch shorter than the other. So that was not going to be a problem. So it seemed like a good kit to just focus on the unique vagaries of vacuform kits. And it and it was. And I ended up really enjoying the experience. And like I tend to do when I try something new, I will write an article about it because I you know, I just want to demystify some of these things. If if I agonized about it for several years and then found, hey, that it wasn't that bad, I'd like to accelerate that process for other folks. So I wrote an article in the IPMS journal. I think it came out in it was spring 2017. It was actually the cover story. They had a big they had a big stack of those at San Marcus, I remember. I thought, hmm, why do they have so many extras?
Kentucky Dave:No, that no, that has nothing to do, has nothing to do with the popularity of the issue. We do a run for the current membership, and we always do an overage so that we will be able to replace when the post office loses them, but also we can use them to uh promote IPMS. So actually, the fact that they had a bunch of them is an indication that they liked that issue, so they made the overage a little larger to use it as a promotional material.
Tim Nelson:Well, good. That's a that's the answer I wanted to hear.
Kentucky Dave:There you go. Don't feel bad. That was that's a that's a compliment, not a dig.
Tim Nelson:Well, I appreciate that. Uh I will say that article, in my humble opinion, is one of the finest on how to build a vacuform kit. So if if there's a kit out there where the subject matter doesn't exist in any other form, and you really want to do a vacuform kit, that article should help you immensely.
Kentucky Dave:Well, and if you're a current IPMS USA member, you can actually email the Historian Publications Director and they will email you a PDF of that particular article. So even if you don't happen to have that issue of the IPMS USA journal, if you're a current IPMS USA member, go ahead and reach out to the historian's publications director. They will send you an email or a PDF of that particular article from that particular issue.
Mike:So you're immortalized now, Tim.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, it's right.
Tim Nelson:I believe the title or subtitle was something like Don't Fear the Vac or Cure for Vacu Phobia or something like that.
Kentucky Dave:Gotcha.
Mike:Well now I've got to go check it out, but I know if I do, I'm gonna get the itch. So Dave can give me one of his vacuforms he's got laying around.
Kentucky Dave:Actually, yeah, I do actually have a couple, not many, but a couple.
Mike:Well, Tim, let's talk about uh a recent completion of yours. We'll link the article because uh John Miller, Dr. Strange Brush, posted it recently on uh his website and linked it to hyperscale and the plastic model dojo. So hopefully it's getting some getting some airtime, buddy. Uh the little bill bus-based pigeon pigeon loft. Now looking at the looking at the photos, and you know I don't know about how big the the bill bus is and the scale I'm modeling. Actually, I just bought a vintage airfix one in 30 seconds scale one at our local show. Yeah. This it's not very big. And there's a lot going on in this model.
Tim Nelson:I should have taken the photo. I forgot I just forgot to take at least one with a penny or a quarter, but yeah, that that model is no bigger than your balled-up fist.
Mike:And I know who made it, but I'll let you talk about it.
Tim Nelson:So well, it's a it was a case where you know the the multiple genre thing was driven, in this case, simply by cool subject matter.
Mike:Yeah.
Tim Nelson:Um, I was on a trip to England a year ago this week with a buddy, Will Perry, and you know, we went to Telford and a bunch of museums, and we went to the Hannon's shop, and uh I saw this kit, and I didn't know there was a kit of it. And I guess I was vaguely aware that these pigeon lofts existed, but you know, I pulled this thing out and said instantly, you know, I knew I was gonna buy this, and I knew it was gonna move pretty quickly to the top of the queue. And to further reinforce that, the very next day Will and I went to Duxford, and they have an old bill. In fact, I think it's the old bill, the one that got that name in its London city markings, which just reinforced the cool factor. So, you know, we've all had this experience where sometimes something gets your attention and it's just a rabbit hole, and you gotta follow it.
Mike:Well, I think I think this subject is really interesting because and and you you talk about it to some degree in in your article, but first off, the the whole bus and building on it the way it's done is like the most British looking thing in the world. And but uh it's it it's a first world war subject, so it is it's a touchstone for the technology of the time. Yeah. Which is kind of insane when you think about what we've got now. So won't you tell us a little bit about the history of this vehicle and and what uh what's going on here?
Tim Nelson:Well, I wouldn't call myself an expert on the history of it, but as World War I sort of engulfed the continent and these large mechanized armies entrenched themselves, they had to figure out a way to communicate between the front lines and the rear. And you know, armies have been using homing pigeons for centuries, and so it was a method readily at hand, and they recruited the British Army, basically pressed into service hundreds of those old bill city buses, mainly as troop transports, but some of them were converted to be these pigeon lofts, you know, communications hub back in the rear, as I understood it, to communicate out to various units up on the front lines. But you know, it's just fascinating. And when you see pictures of the real thing, they're always just covered with pigeons, dozens of pigeons. So you know that the model's gotta have tons of pigeons or it's not gonna look right. So, you know, down the rabbit hole.
Kentucky Dave:So, where did you find 70 second-scale pigeons?
Tim Nelson:Well, I scoured the interwebs, and you know, there's there's people 3D printing almost everything now, and there's an outfit in the UK that along with many other subjects, they th they 3D print farm animals and other animals, you know, diorama accessories, whatnot. And you can, you know, like all these 3D places, you can choose your scale, and they they had 72 listed, so check the box. And it's unbelievable how delicate the feet were on these birds. Mm-hmm.
Kentucky Dave:What's what's the name of the 3D print company? Because when somebody has a good experience, we try to put the name out there just like if they have a bad experience, because there are so many of these 3D print companies now, right? Unless you've dealt with them before, you have no idea whether you're going to get quality or not quality. So if you found somebody who did a good job, I want their name so that we can put it out there.
Tim Nelson:Yeah, for sure. The it was scale 3D. Okay. I was just trying to see if their website came up, but well, I can figure that out.
Mike:Yeah, we'll figure out the link. Yeah. Yeah, and we'll link the article too, because you do you do have photographs of them in the article in their in their raw state, and just uh just wow. And this was the Roden kit. Um is that correct?
Tim Nelson:Yeah. Uh you know, Roden has done more than their share of World War I military vehicles in 72nd scale and 30 fifth scale too, yeah. They just have there's a fair amount of cleanup you gotta do, which I won't I won't say is that I enjoy, but just part of the part of the process.
Kentucky Dave:It's modeling.
Tim Nelson:Exactly.
Mike:Dave and I say you get a lot of enjoy modeling enjoyment for your dollar with those type of kits.
Kentucky Dave:That's right. You absolutely do. Okay, so I've gotta ask, how do you paint 70 second-scale pigeons?
Tim Nelson:Oh, with great care. I I mean I tried because of the feet on these things being so delicate, I I decided I wanted to leave them on the bill plate uh until the last moment. So fortunately, there was no real cleanup to speak of. They were resin printed. I didn't notice any striations, and for that matter, pigeons kind of have striations. So I primed them on the bill plate. Uh if you read the article, you can see how I tried to mix up the paint palette a little bit to make them look different, but needed to do some hand painting toward the end and kind of a dry brush technique for that mottled look on the tops of the wings that that pigeons have. I did not paint the eyes, that was a bridge too far. Um that's next time.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's right.
Mike:Uh it's a brilliant little model, and I hope I hope look forward to a chance to see it.
Tim Nelson:Oh, thanks. It was at Hampton.
Mike:Oh, yes, it was. I have seen it.
Tim Nelson:Yep.
Mike:It it was. I probably didn't know it was yours. Just like the Tennessee.
Tim Nelson:It's it's awfully little if you're walking down the aisle.
Kentucky Dave:It it is, but you know, uh I'm one of the many joys that I have as far as contests go is the growth in 70 second scale armor that has occurred.
Tim Nelson:Yeah, I agree.
Kentucky Dave:And so now you don't have 70 second scale models buried in among 35th and 48th. You know, you'll have complete tables of nothing but 70-second scale armor, 70 second scale soft skins or artillery. And that's really nice because you can stop and take the time to focus in on just like your old like your old Bill Pigeon carrier. You can actually spend time with those models.
Tim Nelson:Yeah, I agree.
Mike:Well, what's on the bench currently? Where what's the next fear to conquer?
Tim Nelson:Yeah, I was afraid you were gonna ask about that. Um I didn't my standard practice is to have two going at once, selected to have to share some commonalities. But for the most part, I'm a serial builder. I like to I like to start and finish before I move on. It's how I avoid a shelf of doom for the most part. But with a confluence of several factors, I actually have seven going right now. Um finding myself a little stressed, but I'm doing three Caudron Simoons, the old Heller kit.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Tim Nelson:Beautiful little French monoplane.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, it's a beautiful airplane, and the Heller kit's not awful.
Tim Nelson:No, it's it's a product of its time, you know, circa 1980, but nothing nothing has surpassed it in 72nd. Dora Wings has recently done one in 48th, but I'm also doing a kit by SBS of a Caudron C600. Oh gosh, what a beautiful French monoplane. And if you've never built an SBS kit, they're a small company in Hungary. They are the tamiya of limited run kit makers.
Kentucky Dave:Well, yeah, resin, their resin is comparable to most injection molded, fine injection molding. Their G50, their Fairman 190, they're oh, they've got a series of little trainers, and they're just beautiful models, one and all. Mike actually knows the the SBS, some of the SBS folks.
Tim Nelson:Yeah, they're they're great guys. I've met some of them myself, but they just make little jewelry highly recommend them if you want to try something different.
Mike:Yep.
Tim Nelson:If you if you've never done a resin kit, theirs is an excellent way to start because uh they're just exquisite.
Mike:I completely agree. They're 35th skill armor related. They do a lot of Hungarian upgrades for some kits that are out there that are just they're all just super.
Tim Nelson:I'm also working on a Lockheed Vega, one of my favorite airplanes, you know, from the 20s and 30s. But it's I'm doing an early bullet nose version on skis, and uh this has been the motivation to delve into another scary aspect of modeling, which is CAD design and 3D printing. I've had to come up with a new nose section, and one of our local modelers, John McAvoy, who is a listener, uh graciously has helped me with quite a few hours of tutelage on auto desk fusion. I've I got a long way to go, but he's been a great help in doing what I've done so far.
Kentucky Dave:Is this your first experience with 3D printing? How long have you had a 3D printer?
Tim Nelson:This is my first end-to-end little project. Uh so John helped me with CAD design and using the free version of Autodesk Fusion. Far more than I probably ever need. And I bought an ELAGU 3D printer, resin printer during the summer, during a sale they had.
Kentucky Dave:So this this year.
Tim Nelson:This year.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, you are brand, brand new to it.
Tim Nelson:Yep, yep. And set up a space in an upstairs bathroom that vents to the outside, because you really got to be cautious with that resin.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Tim Nelson:But I've done the whole process end to end with this nose section, and so many of the mysteries have been peeled back. Uh, like I said, still a long learning curve on the fusion design, but at least the fundamentals of the process I'm starting to come to grips with. So, you know, it's liberating, it opens up possibilities.
Mike:Yeah, I I'm to the point now when when I'm you know, like the KV-85 I'm working on, it becomes a it's for me, it's become another another option, another tool and toolbox as the cliche goes. I could do it this way, or I could do that way, or I can, you know, maybe I could print print all of it or print part of it, or it's just it's become another a tool to do things with, to to maybe do part of a model, not necessarily the entire thing.
Tim Nelson:Yeah, it changes your your thinking. So the wheels start turning about little ways that it can help you solve a problem.
Mike:Yeah, I'm I'm to the point. I don't think I have a personal grievance with the the the the complete models that are are done 3D print where it's only like six parts and all the d delicate fiddly bits are are printed right onto the things. You don't have to. Do you it's just that's for armor. I think they're handling nightmares. This is my opinion. But uh to each their own. I can understand if you want to get something done till you break it, it may be a good way to go. But I it's not it's not the kit design paradigm I would follow for sure, but uh that's just me. But again, it's it's a great tool. I'm be real interested to see this plane get done and show us show us what you did with the 3D print aspect of it. That's really cool.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, so that's that's six. There's one left.
Tim Nelson:Uh that I think that was five. There's two more that I just started. I'm doing for this Aria bomber command display. I'm embarking on the the Airfix recent tool Armstrong Whitworth Whitley.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, one of my favorite airplanes.
Tim Nelson:And I'm gonna do one of the BOAC civil transport schemes. And Airfix gives you all the parts to do that. But they do. It's it's a great kit. I really enjoy those new tool airfix kits as palette cleansers. For the most part, they go together easily, they're reasonably cheap.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, yeah. The and the airfix, the modern airfix kits are really not for val value for your money modeling. I don't think you can beat them.
Tim Nelson:Yeah. Well, airfix has always been that way.
Kentucky Dave:Yep. And and the modern kits are very, very good kits. You know, they're not the airfix of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Yep.
Mike:But it's it's it's good to see them pick some subjects that are a little less mainstream like that. Yes. Uh that that kind of harkens back to the old airfix line where they were doing, you know, all kinds of crazy planes.
Tim Nelson:Yep. Absolutely. And the last one on the bench is a a fairy fulmar by AZ model. Another another purchase on that Telford trip last year. So and then I chose it for some parallel commonality with the the Whitley and a few things.
Kentucky Dave:So well, my my friend Skippy is doing a fulmer right now. He's doing one out of Salon from 1942.
Tim Nelson:Same kit.
Kentucky Dave:He's got the is his the special hobby? I think his might be special hobby. I'll have to look. I'll I'll have to to shoot him a text and ask him. But uh, yeah, he's he's plugging away at that, and it's just you don't see Fulmers built very often.
Tim Nelson:No, you don't.
Kentucky Dave:Probably for good reason, but it wasn't one of the more successful designs that the fleet air arm ever came up with.
Tim Nelson:No, but uh that's not my criterion. I'm just looking for cool factors.
Kentucky Dave:Sure. Again, the wit same thing with the Whitley. It's just it's almost so ugly, it's pretty.
Tim Nelson:Exactly. Yeah, and these these projects I mentioned are are postponing some ships that I really want to get back to.
Kentucky Dave:Oh my.
Tim Nelson:For years, and I have been girding my loins for a build of the RMS slash HMT Olympic, and it's World War I Dazzle.
Kentucky Dave:Oh the de the Dazzle camouflage?
Tim Nelson:And and lo and behold, Hobby Boss comes out with a kit.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Tim Nelson:That's you know, right down the alley, and they even include things like the deck guns that they installed.
Mike:Yep.
Tim Nelson:So that's one that I'm gonna really work hard to get done in 2026.
Kentucky Dave:That is awfully cool.
Tim Nelson:It actually, the Olympic had more than one dazzle scheme, but uh the the later, I guess the last one in 1918, I think is my favorite.
Mike:Those guys had a thing. What do you mean we gotta paint it again?
Tim Nelson:Yeah, and you know, you talk about subjects that send you down a rabbit hole. Have you guys ever been to the Imperial War Museum in London?
Kentucky Dave:I sadly no.
Tim Nelson:Well, the cafe there is probably my favorite museum cafe because the entire cafe is devoted to Dazzle ships of World War I. Oh, cool. And they have it, they have a display on the wall of the actual wooden models that were used in 1917 and 18 to evaluate candidate dazzle schemes.
Mike:Yep.
Tim Nelson:These are the actual models that were photographed in different aspects and different lighting.
Mike:Right.
Tim Nelson:And they they just have a giant case of them. And uh ever since I saw that, I've kind of been obsessed with Dazzle.
Kentucky Dave:Yep. So have you have you seen that the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy have both started painting some of their modern ships in they're not the harsh black and white dazzles, but they're doing some of the the multicolored dazzles, modified dazzle schemes, and they're really cool.
Tim Nelson:Kind of uh more of World War II style dazzles. Right, exactly. Yeah, I have seen those and I love them.
Mike:Well, a final question would be is there is there a fear yet, Concord, that you still want to put on the schedule for the for the near term?
Tim Nelson:Oh, uh there's always fears. I I will say I've done a couple of auto subjects. I I did a Corvette a few years ago, which I'm not super proud of. I did do the Texaco Doodle Bug tanker truck uh a few months ago that turned out all right, but I'm still a little bit afeard of those high gloss auto finishes. So that's that's something I need to work on. And you'd be surprised at the number of cars in my stash, especially vintage NASCAR kits. Yeah.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, okay.
Tim Nelson:Like the 50s and 60s.
Kentucky Dave:Okay. That is truly vintage.
Tim Nelson:It is, but the cars were were actually still kind of stock cars then.
Kentucky Dave:That's when yeah, that's that's my whole problem with NASCAR now. You know, I want to go back to to the era where you have to have sold 500 of them and to qualify for NASCAR, and then they took the stock car and stripped out all the stuff, put a roll cage in it, and sent you down the road.
Tim Nelson:Yeah, no fun. My interest ended when Richard Petty retired.
Mike:Yeah, I hear you. Well, I bet we'll see an article about how you realize it wasn't that much different than your glossy air racers.
Kentucky Dave:Well, wait a minute. Does that mean you want to do a super bird at some point?
Tim Nelson:Oh, absolutely. That was my dream car as a eight-year-old boy.
Mike:Yep, me too. All right. Well, Tim, thanks for joining us tonight, and it's always a pleasure to talk to you, man. And we really look forward to seeing you at the National Convention and hanging out with you some more. It's always good when you show up in the hotel room or the Airbnb, wherever we happen to be.
Tim Nelson:That's right. The pleasure was mine. Appreciate it.
Mike:Interesting approach during the pandemic there, Dave, to just uh write out things that he called them fears or challenges or what have you. It's not unlike the way I kind of pick a new project sometimes. One of my bigger projects. Usually there's something about it that I want to do. Right. Uh but folks, if you're at the National Convention or any of the shows out on the West Coast that Tim gets to, check out his work because it's just really good, especially considering that uh it's not all the same kind of stuff.
Kentucky Dave:No. You never know what you're gonna see, but you know it's gonna be amazing.
Mike:And then I was thinking back, Dave. A lot of times when modelers stick primarily to to one genre, they kind of develop a style. Yes. Or, you know, a signature look that they're there's something they're doing that that if you look at theirs versus everybody else's, you can start to pick out their work on the table, right?
Kentucky Dave:You can walk down a table and you go, even if you've never seen it before, you can go, that's so-and-so's model, that's so and so's model, because you recognize the style of not only the modeling, but a lot of times the base and presentation as well.
Mike:I don't think his does that.
Kentucky Dave:No, I agree with you. And and I think at least in in large part, that has to do with the cross genre aspect.
Mike:I think so too, because you know, a filled and polished air racer is not gonna be painted, probably not weathered at all, but certainly not gonna be painted and weathered like oh, like his his pigeon coop.
Kentucky Dave:Right. Or uh a 700 scale battleship.
Mike:Yeah. So I just thought that was an observation worth mentioning.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, I think that's absolutely true.
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Mike:It's another installment of the bench top halftime report, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:Well, unfortunately, I've looked back on it and I've been keeping kind of a mental record. And in the past 14 days, well, no, it's actually, I guess, about 10 days. I think I've only gotten about two and a half hours at the bench in the last 14 days. Family stuff has taken precedence, and you know, it's always got to come first. But I'm motivated, and I have gotten a little bit of progress on both the SAM and the F6F. The SAM is within spitting distance of the end. The F6F is not that far behind. And I'm taking my time with the F-6F to do some paneling to try and break up the overall glossy blue look. And so far I'm enjoying it a lot. And, you know, that's really what you got to judge it by. If you're having fun doing it, even if it's taking longer than you intended or whatever, as long as you're having fun doing it, that's the point of this hobby, to help you relax, to get away from the whatever your troubles are, and to sit down and that part of the brain that you have to, that you have to devote to doing all those things that you do, be it work or family or household or bills or whatever, you can park that all on the side and you can kind of get that zen-like modeling. And while I haven't gotten a lot of hours in, I have gotten some quality time in. And now I'm gonna strive for more hours, but I'm gonna try and keep the quality part of the time.
Mike:You're on the threshold of the dark time.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, I know. That worries me. It's three days away. Yes, it is. That worries me. Well, it both worries me and and and brings joy because Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. You know, when you're a kid, Christmas and getting presents is real important. To me, eating a bunch of really good food and watching footb NFL football all day, that's my holiday. And then having the day off the next day. That's my kind of holiday.
Mike:Well, you need to build a model that day.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, that's right. I'm gonna try and and work through the dark time a little better.
Mike:So have you been building at all? I've been trying, man. Okay. I'm not gonna take 10 minutes to tell everybody I didn't do anything.
Kentucky Dave:Hey, I'm being honest.
Mike:I know you are. Well, all that mesh bought filter mesh arrived. Mm-hmm. And I did kind of a proof proof of concept to make sure that was gonna work for me, and I think it's gonna be you've you found a size that works for me. I found I found a size that when it's painted, it gives me enough transparency into the radiator radiator intakes on the KV85. Like I like I said on the group chat, I think the juice is worth the squeeze.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah. Well, and you are going to reveal to all of us on the dojo with a photograph exactly what this product is and where you got it, right?
Mike:Yeah, I can do that. Good. Field drum straps are still eluding me. I know what I want to do. I just haven't been able to get my head around how to do it yet. What is it that that's what's the challenge? I need a way to form a material from a thin, narrow strap at the ends that needs to be formed into a C channel. And the problem is the material's so thin. I got a couple ideas, and I don't know if it's gonna work or not, but I'm gonna have to try it.
Kentucky Dave:In the real world, I assume these things were metal straps made out of a thin, thin sheet metal, yeah. And then at the end they were crimped up to form a channel.
Mike:A C channel, then a a a length of threaded rod stock was welded into the C channel.
Kentucky Dave:Gotcha. So And then what they did was they sl they that came over the fuel drum and then went through an eyelid or something.
Mike:It's a cleat, so we talked about it last time. Okay. Yeah. There's some nuts on the threaded rod that clamped to the bottom of the cleats on the on the mounts, on the saddles. Gotcha. Pulls the strap down. It'd be cool if I could find a way to do it like out of thin brass or something, but working with with thin metals like that, other than like photoets, is is a skill that still kind of eludes me. God, you remember that guy used to be on like early modeling on Facebook or even the forums that used to build all those 35th scale vehicles out of brass.
Kentucky Dave:Yes.
Mike:That kind of nutso stuff.
Kentucky Dave:Well, if any of the listeners out there can picture in their mind what Mike's talking about and have a suggestion, either post it on the dojo or email him. If it's in regard to the material or how you form it or whatever. Mike, you might want to post a photo on the dojo of the real item. I assume you have a couple of photos of the real item.
Mike:Yeah, I think I've got one or two in that KV book that'll show it. And I've also generated a CAD model of the strap that's flat. I was trying to see if I work through that, maybe I could think while I was doing the CAD model, something would come to me. Yeah. A couple of ideas have. I just haven't tried them yet.
Kentucky Dave:So now were these straps common across Russian tanks? In other words, would you find the exact same strap on a KV-1 or KV2 or T-34?
Mike:No, it's just for the drums. I no, I don't think so. Okay. They're probably unique to the late KVs. Maybe the JS series. I don't know, honestly. Okay. Well, that's where the KV-85 is. This Musuru build, this Miata little roaster I've been working on as well. I've got some priming and painting that's underway. That's right.
Kentucky Dave:And you should you shared some ideas among the I did. Our little Canadian group, and man, I love your idea. We're not going to talk about them.
Mike:No.
Kentucky Dave:But I love your ideas.
Mike:I'll there'll be teasers like uh the custom decals for this project have been designed, and I gotta get those off to the to the decal printer.
Kentucky Dave:Now you're you're gonna utilize the decal printer in India?
Mike:I'm gonna try, yeah. Okay. I gotta send that off to them. Right. And and then there's a 3D printed part that I've gotten printed and cleaned up, and that's ready to be primed and painted too. So uh uh we'll see how it goes.
Kentucky Dave:I I really like your idea, man. I really like your idea.
Mike:All right. Well, that's my bench, Dave. Okay.
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Kentucky Dave:Mike, a lot of announcements going on, man. Just a ton bloody ton of announcements. Yeah, it's quite a bit. I can see my wallet getting broken next year, but before we we break the wallet, we have to figure out what's been announced and what are our faves and what are our yawns. So I've got quite a number of them this time. So you want to start?
Mike:Yeah, we'll see if we double up on any of them. Because I've got three faves and uh uh a yawns kind of a generalization, but we'll get there at the end. Okay, I'm I mentioned in the model sphere segment this company Firma 49 out of the Czech Republic or Czechia. What caught my eye is they're offering these Soviet wire spoke wheels too. Yeah. And they're not a Russian company, so it's gonna be a lot easier to get. Right. So those I'm probably gonna be talking to him about getting some of those, and then of course I recommended these Polish fasteners to him as well. So hopefully. Yeah. Um he just they listed a bunch of stuff. I mean another one of those huge scalemates dumps. Right. I mean, just stuff all over the place.
Kentucky Dave:We're getting about one every two days from a 3D company that's new to you that just dumps an entire product line onto scalemates, and you're scrolling through a hundred new products. What's your first one? My first one is there's a company called Arma Models. That is not Arma Hobby out of Poland. This is Arma Models, and it's out of either Ukraine or Russia. I do not know which. Perhaps one of the listeners can tell me. And they have announced a T a Russian T4, and there was exactly one of these built. It basically the Russian version of the XB 70, except it was in bare metal. And but it looks very similar. Somebody sometime it might have been in fine scale, it might have been on a forum once, built one of these things out of a VAC form kit. And it was really, really impressive. And it's a big model, and if Arma Models is doing it 70 second scale, it's gonna be huge, and I'm here for it because I unlike my podcast partner, I like weird Russian stuff.
Mike:Well, I'll have to look that one up.
Kentucky Dave:I'm not familiar with that plane, but yeah you'll you'll recognize it when you see it.
Mike:I wonder if they didn't paint it because the paint adhesion problems the uh 270 had during some of his first test flights.
Kentucky Dave:I suspect that's exactly why.
Mike:Blowing the paint off the thing.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:My next one's uh Dynamo Models out of France.
Kentucky Dave:Okay.
Mike:Now, several episodes back, I mentioned they had made a they had a new tool, a little French 20 millimeter anti-tank gun. Yep.
Kentucky Dave:Like the old Heller kit, but yeah, but 20 or 25. I think it's 25.
Mike:It's a little bitty thing. Yes. They've got a new one. It's a SA37 uh 47 millimeter anti-tank gun.
Kentucky Dave:Ah, true.
Mike:Which is I don't know, none of those French guns are that well known, honestly. Right. We know the the small one because of the old Heller kit, but this is brand new. Again, it's a an injection molded kit with I think some 3D printed bits and bobs, and there's the the the kit you can buy in three tiers, a basic, an intermediate, and advanced, and the advanced one has a a metal barrel. The mid one just has the I think the 3D printed stuff and a plastic barrel, and the other one's just the plastic parts. So interesting subject. I'm probably I'll probably end up with this one.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Mike:I'll probably end up with the other gun too, but well, and it's amazing.
Kentucky Dave:Those French guns, not only did the French use them, not only the Poles use them, a lot of other smaller countries used them because France sold pre-World War II to a lot of European countries. And then not only that, but after the fall of France, the Germans got a hold of a bunch of them. And man, they utilized the heck out of those things in fortifications, in police units, and and stuff like that, anti-partisan units as well. So those things really deserve more love than they've gotten up to now, and I'll be interested to see how how these kits are.
Mike:Got another one?
Kentucky Dave:Yep. My next one. You're you're familiar with the company First to Fight, right?
Mike:Yeah, they make a lot of 72nd scale stuff. Right, and a lot of almost exclusively, I guess.
Kentucky Dave:Right, and a lot of Polish stuff.
Mike:Right. Hence the name.
Kentucky Dave:Hence the name. They have announced a KM12, which appears to be an armored riverine craft, an armored river patrol boat. It's armored, it's riveted, uh it's got a machine gun kicked uh out of the wheelhouse. Just I was never, I I have no idea what these things are. I've never was aware of it before before I saw this announcement. And the box art is great. It's got you know those classic Polish multicolor schemes. And yeah, I this is this is an I gotta have it.
Mike:This is one I think this is one I think we might overlap on. Okay, go ahead. Uh, it's from Red Iron Models.
Kentucky Dave:Okay. I actually didn't put this on my list because I'm sure I was sure you were going to.
Mike:Okay. Yeah, because I texted you this one. Uh it's a Russian kit, unfortunately. So, you know, too bad for availability or you know, how you feel or don't feel about that sort of thing. It's uh Soyuz uh four and five.
Kentucky Dave:And what's interesting to me is the scale they chose.
Mike:Yeah, it's in 35th scale, so I don't I still don't think it'll be huge. No, but but it's but it's not it doesn't jive with much of the other real space stuff out there, exactly.
Kentucky Dave:And that's that's why I found it so interesting. Now, they do either a 12th scale or a 24 scale Sputnik, which I have. I have that kit. So, you know, they're not a slave to a particular scale. So 35th scale, it's an armor scale, and maybe they figured it was about the right size. It's you know, there is that Revell 72nd scale Soyuz.
Mike:Yeah.
Kentucky Dave:And, you know, that's about the size of the palm of your hand. Yep. So in 35th scale, this thing's actually gonna be pretty impressive. It will attract your attention just because of its size. And it's not white. And it's not white. That's right.
Mike:So it could be an interesting model.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, it could. My next one is the one I thought you and I would overlap. There's a Ukrainian company that I have never heard of before. It's called Spala, S-P-A-L-A-H.
Mike:I thought I've mentioned them in the past uh have you? Past uh phasing yons.
Kentucky Dave:Okay. Uh well then if I don't remember it, I'm getting old, so I apologize. They just recently announced uh Zis III, and you you had previously done that Zis 2, and I I think the Zis 3's the prettier gun of the two. I know you know people can differ on that.
Mike:They're almost the same except for the gun barrel.
Kentucky Dave:Exactly. Different to different caliber, different size, different length. But I just thought it's nice to have a new entry in that particular Russian artillery category or Russian anti-tank category, and I'll be interested to see if it's a significant upgrade over currently available models.
Mike:Yeah, that's what that's what I thought when I saw it. I was like, why did they pick that? Because mini arts is pretty stinking nice.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah. Well, that's that's my question is is this thing gonna have 3D parts? Is it is there something that's gonna be different that makes it an upgrade over those mini art kits?
Mike:It could be. So I'm interested. How about you? It's it's probably got less parts. I don't have any more phase, but I've I've got a generalized yawn. Okay, go ahead. Uh it's still it's it's 3D print again. Yeah. The current crop of World War II Soviet figures from various 3D print firms. I'm I'm not gonna throw any one company under the bus. Right. Just the poorly researched uniform details, and then like the normalization of some rare or uncommon uniform features across a whole swath of figures. Right. Gosh, and one of these companies was Russian.
Kentucky Dave:Well, and what really galls you about it is this information is not only readily available through some very good reference works, but there are any number of people like yourself who have this information and would be happy to share it with anyone who sent them an email and asked. And instead, they well, this reminds me of a conversation I was having with Dr. Geldmacher at at Memph at Murphy'sboro. And we were talking about decals and the accuracy of decals, not only color, size, shape, everything, but fonts. Well, that led me back to reference to him. One of the better one of the better seminars I ever attended was a guy named Dave Klaus, who used to run a a modeling firm. Uh they made details and and full kits and and some uh and a lot of decals. And he did a seminar on decal making, which was interesting to learn what the process for making a decal was. But what came out of it for me that was really interesting was his frustration that modelers don't seem to care about those details, that they don't seem to care if the fonts right or you know that the d decals are wholly accurate. And it drove him up a wall that people didn't modelers didn't seem to care about that, because he went to the trouble of doing the research and and all of that to try and make the stuff very accurate, and it just it drove him nuts.
Mike:Well, I'm not gonna let it drive me nuts. I'll just move on and get some different ones.
Kentucky Dave:So anybody any of those 3D companies doing that? If you're listening to this, reach out to Mike. He can give you a lot of advice. And he's he's a very happy sharer too, because he wants to see accurate stuff.
Mike:I do, especially on the figures.
Kentucky Dave:I've got one last one that's a fave, and it's not a particular item, it's a particular series of items. There's a company called DP Casper who makes really excellent decal sheets, and they have a different approach. Instead of theming a decal sheet to a particular aircraft subject or tank subject or whatever, they theme it to a particular conflict or operation or whatever, release a sheet with a bunch of markings for a bunch of different aircraft that participated in that particular operation. And they've been releasing sheets left and right now to the point where I have to go and look at their catalog and see what they've released lately and then buy more decals, which is sad. But I'm gonna do it. I will admit I'm gonna do it. It's sad, but because I don't utilize them enough, but I I'm a decal holic, that's all I'll say.
The Voice of Bob (Bair):Plastic Model Mojo is brought to you by Model Paint Solutions, your source for harder and steam back airbrushes, David Union Power Tools, and laboratory gray mixing, measuring, and storage tools for use with all your model paints, be they acrylic, enamels, or lacquer. Check them out at www.modelpaint solutions.com.
Kentucky Dave:Folks, when you finish listening to this episode, please go and rate the podcast on whatever podcast service you listen to us on. Also, please recommend us to your modeling friends. We continue to grow. We want to continue to grow. And the single best way we can grow is for current listeners who enjoy the show to recommend to their modeling friends who don't listen to listen to us. And we appreciate it if you do that.
Mike:And after 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 Stuart Clark of the Scale Model Podcast up in Canada, and he's uh aggregated the banner links to all the podcasts in the model sphere, so you can go there for one-stop shop and check them all out. In addition to podcasts, there's a lot of blog and YouTube friends we've got in the model sphere. We've mentioned Jeff Groves, the InchI Guy, 72nd scale blog. Stephen Lee, Sprupai with Fretz. He must not have been listening because I didn't get that manuscript from his rail model craftsman Argley's doing on those uh rail cars. We'll have to send him a DM. But in the meantime, folks, check out his blog. Some good uh information there and some interesting reads. Chris Wallace, model airplane maker, great YouTube channel and a great blog. Yeah, lots of good aircraft projects there for your enjoyment. Evan McCallum, Panzermeister36. If you're into armor modeling and the occasional rail car, you can get some great uh build reviews and weathering tips and painting tips there from Evan. He does some good work. And finally, please check out Paul Budzik's Skill Model Workshop on Patreon and YouTube. Check out all he's got going on and support his endeavors on Patreon over there for his video program. It's good stuff.
Kentucky Dave:It is. Finally, if you're not a member of IPMS USA, please consider joining. I'm the retention and recruitment secretary for IPMS USA. This is the last two-year term that I will be serving in that capacity. We've continued to grow every year since I took over in that position, and I would like to go out with IPMS USA's membership being at a number larger than it's ever been. Thank all of you who have joined. Please consider joining if you haven't. I will tell you that the last eboard meeting that I attended a couple of weeks ago was very encouraging regarding many things that IPMS is looking at doing for the modeling community. So please join and be a part of IPMS USA or whatever national IPMS organization exists in your country. Also, if you are into armor or post-1900 figures modeling, the Armor Modeling and Preservation Society, great group of modelers, very dedicated to the craft of armor modeling. Mike, we're at the end of the episode or almost the end. I am not quite at the end of my Suffolk Pride amber ale, but I'm getting there. It's a 500 milliliter bottle, so it's 4.8% alcohol by volume. It's an amber ale. It's very smooth, very drinkable. There's almost a hint of barley to it, but it's it's not heavy like a scotch ale. I I really like it. Uh unfortunately it comes from England, so the chances of me finding it, finding it locally are are low, but I'm gonna enjoy it while I've got it. How about you? Well, we know you're drinking basil Hayden. You can't hate that.
Mike:I can't hate it. 80 proof, good entry into bourbon if you've not experienced it before. It's got a good flavor, but it's not gonna knock your socks off if you're sipping it responsibly. So have some. It's good.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, now we are truly at the end of the episode. And uh I've got one shout out and one recommendation. My shout-out is to Bill Moore, Dr. David Gelmacher, and the gang who put on the Murphy's Boro show. You did a great job. It was a wonderful show, wonderful time. You all were very, very kind to me, and I thank you for it. And I would recommend anybody. They have that show mid-November pretty much every year. I would highly recommend if you're in the driving area, that you go to the show because a great time was had, and I can guarantee you you'll have a great time as well.
Mike:Do you have one, Mike? I do, as I often do, Dave. I want to shout out the folks who've helped Plastic Model Mojo via their generosity. We've got a lot of folks who are helping us out every month. And if you'd like to join the folks helping out Plastic Model Mojo, please check out all the avenues for contributing to the show and supporting the show. It's uh greatly appreciated. You can find those links uh in the show notes of each and every episode or the support the show tab on the webpage at www.plasticmodelmojo.com. And folks, we really appreciate it. We've had a few new folks join up and help us in recent months. And Dave, we got to get back on throwing something back the other way to those folks.
Kentucky Dave:Yes. Yeah. Well, in fact, I have an idea. So I'm gonna talk to you, and in December, maybe we're gonna do a giveaway.
Mike:All right. What's your other one, Dave?
Kentucky Dave:I have a recommendation. A few a few episodes back, I recommended the podcast We Have Ways. They did a series on the Battle of Britain that was really, really excellent. And now they have done another series, it's either six or seven parts, on the Siege of Malta from 1940 to 1943. It with the one of the two hosts, James Holland, the fur he's a historian and author. The first book that he ever did as a World War II historian was on Malta. It's it's a great show. There are, like I said, six or seven episodes. Each one's about 30 to 40 minutes and super entertaining.
Mike:I'll have to check it out. Yep, you will. It's great, great for driving to work. Well, folks, thanks for joining us again at Plastic Model Mojo. We're gonna do a little short about some local club activities coming up a little later in the month. We're about to run out of month. Yep. But until then, Dave, as we always say, so many kits, Mike. So little time. Hope it don't get many for Christmas. Yep.
