Housekeeping at Plastic Model Mojo: Episode 162

Your bench time is precious, so when something starts sabotaging it, like CA glue fumes wrecking your sinuses or a half-finished kit stalling for months, we want fixes that actually work. After two big shows in three weeks, we finally do some much-needed housekeeping and burn down a mountain of listener mail with the kind of practical advice you can put to work immediately.

We dig deep into cyanoacrylate sensitivity and respiratory irritation, including why RC builders have been dealing with it for years, and what modelers can do right now: odorless CA options, simple airflow changes that keep fumes out of your face, using smaller amounts of adhesive, and when it’s time to step up to a real VOC-rated respirator. We also compare alternatives for photo-etch and light-duty parts, from thick PVA-style hobby glues to specialized water-cleanup adhesives that can still give you solid grab and a strong bond.

Then we shift into build documentation and project tracking, because remembering your last paint mix, the exact spot you used a color, or the next step you planned shouldn’t require detective work. We talk notebooks, Rocketbook scanning workflows, apps that track time and paints, and why even simple notes can save a project, or help you repair one after an accident. From there, we share recorded segments from HeritageCon and AMPS, including a lively tracks discussion, favorite show finds, and the best part of any contest: meeting the modeler behind the work.

We also chat with Aaron Skinner about his move to Round2 and what it’s like developing kits from the production side, including research, tooling realities, and why some projects take so long to reach your workbench. If you enjoy model shows, armor modeling, aircraft builds, hobby tools, and the wider scale modeling community, there’s a lot here to chew on. Subscribe, share the show with a modeling friend, and leave us a rating so more builders can find the conversation.

Brushrage App - As mentioned during the episode!
Super'Phatic Glue - The adhesive from Deluxe Materials mentioned

Model Paint Solutions
Your source for Harder & Steenbeck Airbrushes, Mixing supplies, and great advice!

SQUADRON
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KitMasx
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Bases By Bill
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Mike and Kentucky Dave thank each and everyone of you for participating on this journey with us.  

Transcript

Welcome And Why Housekeeping

The Voice of Bob (Bair) 0:11

Welcome to the plastic model module, a podcast dedicated to skill modeling as well as to news and events around the hobby. Join Mike in Kentucky Dave as they try to be informative, entertaining, and help you to keep your modeling module alive.

Mike 0:43

All right, Kentucky Dave, it's episode 162. It is indeed. And the theme tonight is housekeeping.

Kentucky Dave 0:53

The theme tonight is I'm tired.

Mike 0:56

Yeah, not so much because we're tired, though. That's probably a secondary excuse. But uh we got a lot of content from the two shows we've been to of late.

Kentucky Dave 1:05

Yeah.

Mike 1:06

And just haven't had time because we've been gone to put together the episode I was trying to put together for 162. So uh hopefully we'll revisit that in the future. But we're gonna just double down on some of the folks we've talked to at these last two shows and get the get the plu get the palette clean again, man, get the slate clean because uh we've recorded quite a bit and we haven't used any of it yet.

Kentucky Dave 1:30

Yep, that's true. Well, I mean, we've been to two big shows inside of three weeks.

Mike 1:36

I mean Well, that's true, we have. And on that on that line of thought, what's up in your model sphere?

Kentucky Dave 1:43

Well, as I said, whew, I'm tired. Uh two multi-day travels for for us within three weeks. Yeah. I'm not getting any younger. Absolutely. It it jars you up. You see great work, had a chance to pick up a few things, uh, supplies and and some kits. So I'm uh I'm I'm feeling good. The problem is the last 10 or 12 days I've had a lot of tax and other stuff to do, and and it's kept me away from the bench between that and yard work and and some other stuff. But I'm I'm fired up. I'm fired up to build. I've just got to get it.

Mike 2:36

Work on my models.

Kentucky Dave 2:38

Or I need to get that stuff done and then get get and go work on my models. Because that stuff, you know, the family counts on that stuff getting done. And if I don't get it done. Looks bad on you, man. It looks bad. So my model sphere is fully mojoed, anxious to go. I did get a little modeling in in the last two weeks, not a ton, but uh uh I'm ready to go. How about you? You're born ready. I'm born ready, that's right.

Mike 3:12

Uh yeah, we're just uh trying to well, I'm trying to decide I need to get in some better shape for me doing these rapid succession multi-day deals. Yeah. Oh, we were pretty good in at AMPS. We didn't get too crazy.

Kentucky Dave 3:26

Nope, nope, we did we did fine. We had a really nice time at AMS. The the social aspect of AMPS was really fun.

Travel Fatigue And Bench Time

Mike 3:35

Other than that, I guess while we were at AMPS, well, between these two shows, I'd spoken to someone who was giving me some mentorship and had some things I wanted to execute on while we were at AMPS, and I and I've I've done that to good effect. So it's not anything the listenership's gonna be aware of, but just to keep moving the keep moving the chain, man. That's it. That's it. So we got that going on. Um I'm ready to not go to shows for a little while. No says uh strange thing to say, but we're probably good. We're probably good to a national convention, at least I well no, we got Wonderfest coming up. Well, I can do that on an afternoon. That's a one-day thing. That's a day thing, but yes. We may go as pedestrians this year.

Kentucky Dave 4:19

Yeah. Well, that's my model sphere. Since we're back recording a regular episode, I'm assuming you have a modeling fluid in front of you.

Mike 4:30

Well, since we're housekeeping and we're behind on a lot of things, modeling fluid included, I had a warm-up and then I've got my current. Okay. The warm-up is from Wayward Lane Brewery in New York, courtesy of listener Sean Picard. This is this will rhyme because I'm gonna use the German pronunciation. Well, it's a Berliner Weissa, which is a style. It's called Merlin and Berlin. Merlin and Berlin. And it's Berliner Weiss. And I'll talk more about what Berliner Weissa is in the wrap-up. And currently, because that was really good, working on the Uncle Nearest I got from uh Bill Moore.

Kentucky Dave 5:08

Yeah.

Mike 5:09

A little bit of that. So we'll we've had that on here before, but I'll I'll recap it again at the end. What about you?

Kentucky Dave 5:15

Well, I'm glad to see you dedicating yourself to catching up on your modeling fluid.

Mike 5:20

I'm not gonna do it all in one night.

Kentucky Dave 5:22

Well, let's hope not. I also have a beer.

Mike 5:29

That's Bill Moore's favorite part of the show, right there.

Kentucky Dave 5:31

I know. Uh there we go. That's also courtesy of Sean. It's called Boondiga hazy IPA. Yeah, yep. That's uh it's a hazy IPA. This is again Wayward Lane Brewing out of Shoari, New York. So at the end of the episode, uh, you can tell me what a Berliner Vice is, and I can tell you how the how the boondiggo was.

Mike 6:03

I'll do that. And in the meanwhile, we got a big pile of listener mail to get through because that didn't wait while we were away. No, it did not. Most of this falls into two two piles. One being getting a sensitivity to cyanoacrylate glues.

Kentucky Dave 6:20

Yes.

Mike 6:21

And then a few of them fall into the note-taking and documentation bucket. So I think we need to get into this. All right, let's do it. Well, the first one from Kyle Williams is in neither bucket. He has gone through and provided a lot more prompts for uh chat DP. Sorry, chat GPT. Okay. And really takes it kind of to the next level that versus what I was trying to do. Now I don't want to go through all these because there's a lot to it, but I'm gonna bank this email and then it's probably gonna show up somewhere else in the future. Good. As uh general available information. So, Kyle, thanks for this. This does look a lot better than what I was trying to do, and it answers a couple of questions I had as far as workflow and doing this. So appreciate it. And uh thanks for the detail. He's put a lot into this email.

Kentucky Dave 7:17

Well, and you know what? That's amazing. That that episode was what, like three episodes ago.

Mike 7:24

Yeah, it just keeps coming.

Kentucky Dave 7:25

It still keeps coming. This area really seems to be an area of rapid development in in this technology. So thrilled with what we're seeing, and I'm anxious to see what we will see.

Mike 7:41

Well, you probably have this one in your list too, but he sent it multiple avenues. So I'm gonna go ahead and take it. And hopefully you've thought about it. You can talk about it a little bit. It's from David Poles in Ithaca, New York. Yeah. New York, Dave, as he calls himself. He is well welcome to that moniker. He says that CA sensitivity to sinuses, and I'll let maybe back up. This gets back to uh listener Frank Blanton in Richmond, Virginia's email about getting pretty severe sinus sensitivity, the CA adhesives. He says uh Dave Poles says this is a known thing in the RC playing community where CA glues are heavily used because you got a lot of foam and boss construction there.

Kentucky Dave 8:21

Right.

Mike 8:22

There'll be another use for CA in the RC community. They'll come up in a in a subsequent email, but we'll get to that one in a minute. He says there is an odorless CA available. It makes a huge difference for him. It's not as aggressive as the traditional CA, but but it's close and the kicker can still be used. And he says, see any uh radio control supplier on Amazon. There's a Bob Smith brand of this particular type of CA. In addition, touching on what I'd said earlier, he says if he finds a gentle breeze across the work area does wonders. It stops fumes from going right up your schnazz as you lean over your work. And he uses a low-speed fan that's made to push solder fumes off your bench.

Kentucky Dave 8:59

Got true.

Mike 9:00

Which is interesting because we've got some of these at work. And that's just what they are. They blow right across your circuit board you're working on so you don't get all that up in your face.

Kentucky Dave 9:09

Right.

Mike 9:09

So that's a good idea. But said any fan across the workbench is gonna do good. Doesn't have to be a gale force breeze. It just uh has to be something to move that immediate air somewhere else besides straight up in your face, because that's where it's gonna go otherwise.

Kentucky Dave 9:23

Yeah, and I was surprised the responses when we got a number of them regarding this issue. Jim Bates reached out and told me that there was a guy in their club who developed such a sensitivity. So it apparent and then as the as our our writer mentions, it's well known in the RC community. So apparently this is not uncommon, though I had never heard of it before it came up from Frank Blanton's email. I'm the same way.

Mike 9:58

I you know, it doesn't surprise me. No, it doesn't. But I I guess for the RC crowd, it's probably their principal adhesive.

Kentucky Dave 10:06

Right.

Mike 10:06

And they're using it a lot more often. We're we're kind of using small quantities less frequently. At least most of us are.

Kentucky Dave 10:13

Yeah, I use when I use CA, I use a drop at a time.

Modeling Fluids And Catching Up

Mike 10:18

And I've been pretty vocal, you know. I might mumble some bad words, but every time I got to break mine out because it's just it's not my friend, usually. But uh we've gotten some advice on that front too from listeners. So maybe I'll uh mend that relationship.

Kentucky Dave 10:33

There you go.

Mike 10:35

And another one on CA, Jonathan Bryan from the UK. He's using a CA alternative. Okay. And let me see, where is this? He says one option is an aliphatic resin type glue, and this was recommended to him by John Spud Murphy for glueing PE, which is interesting because I thought we were kind of stuck with uh soldering and CA with PE.

Kentucky Dave 10:56

So now you're gonna have okay. I'm an attorney, so you're gonna speak slowly. What is this glue again?

Mike 11:04

Aliphatic resin type glue, and I'm gonna have to look that up myself because uh I'm I might be familiar with the brand of this and not know that that's what it is. Okay, but he sent us a link, uh Deluxe Materials, who's Yes, and it's called uh Superphatic. Ooh, man, one more letter, and that'd be something completely different. Deluxe materials, and he sent a link. We'll put that in the show notes. He says the glue looks superficially like a PVA, and but it's much runnier, but it forms a really strong bond. And you let it go off a little bit before putting the uh parts together and get it get it to go tacky.

Kentucky Dave 11:42

Gotcha.

Mike 11:43

Improve the initial grab, and it's an excellent bond for of dissimilar materials, and before it sets, it's gonna be cleaned up with water. This sounds like a miracle material.

Kentucky Dave 11:51

Yeah.

Mike 11:52

I don't know, man. I may have to give this one a shot.

Kentucky Dave 11:55

Yeah, we may both may have to give this a shot.

Mike 11:58

And we may just find out that uh gator grip and uh eileen's craft glue are this exact same thing. I don't know. I'm just specul I'm speculating I'm probably wrong. But Jonathan, thank you, John. Appreciate the tip because I was completely ignorant of another good source. Now I mentioned those glues, the the the eileenes I I mentioned, I guess when we were talking about this, but it's it's never one I've used to put P E to P E together.

Kentucky Dave 12:24

Yeah.

Listener Mail On CA Fumes

Mike 12:24

But this may be something entirely different, so I gotta go digging, man. You know, if I just had more time, Dave. I hear you. I hear you. But we'll find it. Now this one's interesting. It's from David Pye, also from the UK. And interesting take, Dave. You know, you you you listen to folks, you watch all these videos, you do all this stuff, and and you do all these things and you learn more and more and more. But when he learns these all this additional stuff, he's got to apply it to the next thing he's doing.

Kentucky Dave 12:57

Yeah.

Mike 12:57

Well, it's slowing him down. Yeah. Because he doesn't want the last model or the current model to be less than the one before, at least not intentionally. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes that happens. That's right. Uh, so this has really slowed him down, but hopefully his modeling's improving. Anyway, one benefit though he's seen from this is increasing the satisfaction from conversations with fellow modelers along the way, because I guess now he's got a project he's spent a lot more time on and can talk in in-depth to other people about you know a single project. And he and he's he says at Telford 23, which is a few years ago, he he was happy to have spent quite a bit of time talking to folks just about a couple of models he had on the table instead of maybe more than that. But he's improving, he's learning more skills, and uh he hasn't put out the output he had. He says he went from he's gone from like nine to four over the years, but he's doing a lot more stuff to him. But he's but he's having a lot more conversations about the the reduced number that he does have, so he's calling that a success.

Kentucky Dave 14:01

Well, as long as you're enjoying it and as long as you're learning stuff along the way, I don't I don't think you can ask for for much better than that out of the hobby.

Mike 14:11

And he actually sent a second email, and it gets back to our question about uh, you know, we'd mentioned folks maybe start a blog or if you had a web page you were posting your stuff to to make it public. Uh he's got one for their club, members models at the IPMS North Somerset in the UK, there. And uh we can put that link in the show notes and see what his club's up to. So appreciate it, David. That's uh good on you. We'll uh we'll put that in the show notes, and it's just another example of folks sharing their work. So that's one way to do it. Up next, Dave, is Joel Munson. It's this one is in the documentation bucket. Okay. He wanted to offer a tool for all your hobby tracking needs needs. It's called Brush Rage. And I guess this one is kind of geared toward quote unquote fine artists, I guess. Mostly painters. But this thing lets you track the paints used. There's a huge library of paints from the big manufacturers already there, so I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe it includes the hobby stuff as well. In addition to that, you can track your time spent, you can put in photos and comments, etc. He thinks it's free, but it's been a while since he downloaded it. Again, it's brush rage, one word. Makes it super easy to pick up where you left off from session to session, even if they're weeks and months apart. You can even hide projects instead of deleting them. So if you start getting a little bit of guilt, you can uh you can hide that away and and not I have to write that down. Brush rage.

Kentucky Dave 15:40

Gotcha.

Mike 15:41

And uh I'll dig in that a little bit. If it's a link I can put in there, I'll put it in the show notes, but it might be uh probably Google Play or Apple App Store kind of thing. Brush Rage. So check it out. You can uh create a project and go subassembly steps if you want, and uh session by session photos and comments, do all the list tracking, palette tracking with specific paint numbers, etc. You can just you can apparently do a lot in this application, so very interesting. I guess again, I'm not surprised. I just didn't know about it. We'll take a look at it. Another one in the documentation bucket. It's from our friend Derek Post. Okay. Derek, when are we gonna see you again, man? I was thinking maybe we've seen you at HeritageCon once, and I don't know if I've seen you at Amps. I don't know if I've been at AMPS, seen you at Amps before or not, but uh it's been a minute. Yes, it has.

Kentucky Dave 16:32

Was he at Hampton? I can't remember. Hampton is such a blur, man. It's amazing to me.

Mike 16:40

Well, Derek's using a composition notebook and he's done this for years, super handy. Uh, he starts adding progress notes. Well, he's just started adding progress notes prior recommendation, just in case a project stalls. So that's kind of what started our conversation.

Kentucky Dave 16:54

Mm-hmm.

Mike 16:55

He adds the start and finish dates, any accessories, paint colors, and locations on the model. He says it's super handy when you want to uh repeat your efforts again for another model. Scalemates is handy too for the same stuff, but there's a lot of stuff I think in a notebook, it's a lot easier just to jot down real quick instead of pumping it into scalemates. But uh you can certainly do that. And he included some photos for us of of why you need notes. And uh every time I get one of these broken model by a pet, yeah, photo montages. Yep, it's invariably a cat.

Kentucky Dave 17:33

Hey, hey, hey. Well, that's let's face it, most dogs don't get up on counters and such.

Mike 17:40

That's a pup, that's a plus in my opinion.

Kentucky Dave 17:42

I hear you.

Mike 17:43

Uh we should all be thankful dogs don't have opposable thumbs, though, because then good good lord, we'd all be in trouble.

Kentucky Dave 17:49

Yes, we would. So would the where's the car? So would the dogs.

Mike 17:57

Well, he's got some notes that are gonna be able to let him repair and repaint his Betty Bomber in the original colors because it looks like the uh the tail blister got broken on it.

Kentucky Dave 18:07

Oh.

Mike 18:08

Not just broken off. Yeah. Broken.

Kentucky Dave 18:10

Broken. I hear you.

Mike 18:13

Well, sorry about that, Derek, but thanks for the uh comment on how you take notes and the the affirmation that it's it's working for you and it's worthwhile. Well, Dave, here's one from the last model show Spotlight. Okay James Morondino's written back after the show, like we asked him to. Yeah. I don't know if you follow the social media stuff on that show. Now, which show was it?

Kentucky Dave 18:36

This was the Wine Country Model Xbox. Gotcha. I I actually got uh DMs with two separate videos from that show. Okay.

Mike 18:45

Well, this thing was a huge success.

Kentucky Dave 18:47

Yep.

Mike 18:48

It looked like you know what they saw throughout the day was exactly what they hoped for. People actively seeking out each other, stopping to talk, asking questions, sharing techniques, forming new connections. And he said grouping east modelers work worked well with their name right in front of it, and everybody's wearing name tags, so it made it easy to find people. None of this the super secret probation fold the fold the tab over stuff. Right. So good on that. Different kind of energy in the room. Conversations were happening everywhere. I tell you, I'll I'm not gonna go through all his uh his bullet points here of why it was a success, but I tell you, this uh this echoes a lot of stuff that like uh Jake McKee was talking about with us uh offline for uh Scott Gentry's uh Rocky Mountain Model Expo.

Kentucky Dave 19:37

Yeah.

Mike 19:37

Which we're gonna feature in the next model show Spotlight. So there's gonna be another opportunity to attend a show like this, folks. But so but for this show, we are really glad this worked out. Among all the great people there, he had Martin Drayton, who we know pretty well. Uh Brett Prusso and Grant Mayberry, and their presence definitely contributed to the overall feel of the day. There's a bunch of great people there. James, that Grant Mayberry guy, I don't know. Did you check his pockets when he left out of there? I don't know about him. No, Grant's a good guy. I know. Well, good. I'm glad uh it was a success. And and James, thank you for for honoring our request to uh bounce it back to us once all things were said, all things were said and done, because we certainly want to hear about when things go right. Yes, yes, even wrong. There's value in that too. Yep. No, that's true. Which is coming up in one another listener mail. We got some good stuff. Up next, Dr. Paul Budget retired. Yes. CAs, again, contact dermatizer is not an issue. In fact, it's biocompatible and you know, right.

Kentucky Dave 20:41

Right, because it was made as liquid suture for Yeah, that's what he says.

Mike 20:45

Using surgery, sealing bone graft sites and oral surgeries, et cetera. I guess my comment was typically when folks develop a sensitivity to X, whatever X is, quite often it's a contact dermatitis kind of thing. Right. In this case, it's not, and for the reasons he says, he's right. He says every RC modeler keeps a bottle of CA in their toolbox to patch up their fingers from uh propeller wounds.

Kentucky Dave 21:11

Mm-hmm.

Mike 21:11

There you go. That's the other one I was talking about. As far as respiratory irritation, it can vary from product to product. And he would suggest to uh Frank Blatton that he try several brands and types. That is why he mentioned in one of his pro prior emails that not all CAs are the same. And uh that's why he uses PACER products. I don't know if it's for the respiratory inflammation issue or irritation issue, or if it's just because he likes performance better and the longevity better. But even with the PACER line, the formulation for whatever property you're using, you know, you got the gap filling, the black rubbery stuff, the the super thin, the slow dry, whatever. They all have different properties and they're all going to behave differently. You know, even an anti fogging one, right? There's a there's one that uh allegedly doesn't fog canopies.

Kentucky Dave 21:55

Right.

Mike 21:56

I wouldn't bet the farm on that. Neither would I. It doesn't It does exist.

Kentucky Dave 22:02

Right.

Mike 22:03

And also, how is he handling material? If he has a sensitive fumes, he would not dispense large puddles of cement to work from. I'm guilty of that. I wouldn't say large because the stuff's a I don't like using all up like that. But uh I'll typically put a drop or two on a on a I don't know, like a polyethylene or polypropylene, I don't know, margarine tub lid or something like that. That's what I use a lot. But uh less material is gonna offer less fumes. So a good piece of advice there from Paul.

Kentucky Dave 22:31

Yep.

Mike 22:32

Larry Donovan from uh New Brighton, Minnesota. His ears perked up when he talked when we talked about the listener's CA fume issue, and he says he too suffered in silence. He was RAC and a pulmonologist for another issue, and he brought this up. And he says the fumes are actually, you know, it's just CA and minute amounts that are floating through the air, right? It's vaporized essentially. The volatiles are coming off. It's not good for anybody's lungs or your, you know, your nasal membranes because they t tend to be a little bit sensitive. Right. His doctor told him, and coming from the the doc, uh you would expect this wants a fully certified VOC respirator mask.

Kentucky Dave 23:12

Yep.

Mike 23:13

And not to go cheap on this particular piece of equipment. Get the best you can afford. Yep. And he also uses his CA in his spray booth with the extraction fan on high. Well, mine doesn't have an adjustment, but uh I did I did mention taking the filter out.

Kentucky Dave 23:28

Yeah.

Mike 23:29

Uh because the filter is not gonna stop the fumes anyway.

Kentucky Dave 23:32

Right.

Mike 23:32

Uh they're gonna go right on through that. So he also limits the occasion to need CA. Again, that's kind of what I try to do. Again, less less is more if you're trying to not not breathe a bunch of this stuff. For for non-load-bearing stuff, such as instrument panels, he uses a white glue or you know, some of the brands we've already mentioned, the PVA stuff, the eye lanes, or the or the gator's grip kind of stuff. Even future or clear works well for cementing parts like that. I think you've done that before. Rocket brand has a photo edge glue that works pretty well many applications. I'm not familiar with Rocket Brand. Are you? Nope. But he also says that if it's photoed to photo edge, he's more likely to reach for a five-minute epoxy, which uh gives more working time than a CA and less need to fumble around with debonder for gluing his fingers together. We've all been there. So he says, yes, there are times you're gonna have to gear up and fire up the spray booth, but there are all our alternatives out there, and we've we've mentioned a few. So I hope this all works out for Frank. I mentioned to him at AMPS, we did see him there, that uh we got a lot of feedback on this issue, and we have. This is pretty heavy for a single topic, and hopefully he's gonna get something out of it. Yep. Well, speaking of wine country model expo, Dave, Bruce Binkson has written in again. He's from San Fran area, so he's he's gone to this show, and he just wants to reiterate everything that we've already said about it. Just a really good show, so uh good stuff. He also appreciated the seminars. P40 historian uh Carl Molesworth was there. Grant Maybray from the Plastic Posse did a seminar. Uh Brett Prusso was, we mentioned earlier, was from Hammerhead Model Making. And uh he uh almost missed uh Martin Draden's presentation, but he at least got to see him at the show and talk to him a little bit there. So good. That's a lot of good feedback from that show. So hopefully the powers that be in show planning out there in the future may consider one of these things because it sure sounds like a good time. We need to hop an airplane, man. Oh, and I failed to mention the the wine social after the thing.

Kentucky Dave 25:40

Yes.

Mike 25:41

Was a success as well.

Kentucky Dave 25:43

Oh, how could it be a failure? We could have some crappy wine, everybody like something tells me in Northern California you're not gonna have a have that problem.

Mike 25:54

True. I don't think any generalities, but uh yes, I I would think uh things probably went all right out there.

Kentucky Dave 26:00

Yeah.

Mike 26:01

Up next, Don Gilman from Texas.

Kentucky Dave 26:03

Our master brewer.

Tracking Builds With Notes And Apps

Mike 26:05

Well, he mentions that. He asks his request to you, Dave. Okay. Man, this is the second one in two weeks. Could you please kick the appropriate e-board member to send out a mailing list to the IPMS members in Central Texas?

Kentucky Dave 26:22

A mailing list of what?

Mike 26:24

I guess somebody who they want to know the folks in their area who might be willing to help support a new chapter.

Kentucky Dave 26:31

This this is something we can do, but we can't send a mailing list because of the fact that we can't give out people's information that they've supplied to us. But what we do do, do do. I like that. Oh, what we do is if you will send in your information either to me or to President John Nowak or the director of local chapters, and you give them an area and your contact information, we IPMS can send out an internal IPMS email to all of the people in that designated area, giving them your information to let them reach out to you.

Mike 27:23

Okay. I understand that. Yep. I'm a little bit surprised that when you signed up for your IPMS and membership, you didn't waive the ability to have your information sent to like-minded folks within the organization.

Kentucky Dave 27:37

Believe it or not, there's a significant minority of people who object to that.

Mike 27:42

Well, I'm not surprised by that, but a little bit, uh maybe I am.

Kentucky Dave 27:47

Yeah. But but we we figured out a workaround. Okay. So if Don will reach out to me or John Nowak or Scott Hackney, give him give them his contact information and give them, give him, give us the geographic area he's interested in, we can send out the email to all the members that meet that criteria.

Mike 28:13

Well, his statement is a little bit ambiguous. He sent a zip code list once or twice to the local regional rep and been asking him to send out a mailing to IPMS members in Central Texas. So it sounds like he's trying to do what you're suggesting. And it's not and it's not happening.

Kentucky Dave 28:32

And our RCs vary in quality. So that's why I recommended he contact me or these other eboard members because we can get it done rather than relying on an RC to tell us they need it done. So it happens. So if you'll reach out, we'll get we'll get that done.

Mike 28:55

And the other part of his email is uh it's kind of a topic thing. It's another one I'm gonna bank because there's a lot of good information here, and it might make a good segment in the future, but we're not gonna up next is from Paul Palazzazzolo, Dr. Paul Palazzolo. Yeah, and he was listening listening to episode 160 and heard a comment about how failure influences design. And the comment brought him to a memory of a book he used to ask his civil engineering students to read years ago. To Engineer is Human, The Role of Failure in Successful Design by Henry Petrovsky. And uh he took his class down to Ole Miss to hear him speak once. He was a much better writer than a speaker. Yeah.

Kentucky Dave 29:44

True of a lot of people.

Mike 29:45

That's true, but the premise is true. Success is built on a mountain of failure. And it gets kind of gets back to maybe we're what we're talking about 160. I don't remember. Probably these folks who think they're gonna build the uh Martin Kovac model after they buy $400 worth of Megan A.K. stuff and built their s build their second model, right?

Kentucky Dave 30:09

Yep.

Mike 30:10

So interesting. Somebody might want to check that book out. To Engineer is Human, the role of failure in successful design by Henry Petrosky. And then he's got a question for you, Dave.

Kentucky Dave 30:21

Okay.

Mike 30:21

People are calling you out. All right, that's it. Kentucky Dave, I was wondering if you went to the law school at the University of Louisville.

Kentucky Dave 30:28

Yes, I did. If you did, did you ever have a law professor named Ron Eades? Oh, God, yes, I had Professor Eades for evidence. Professor Eades was famous for in his exams having a duck question, a question featuring ducks in every exam. In fact, I have I have several books written by Ronald Eads.

Mike 30:55

Well, he grew up in the same neighborhood in south of Memphis and ran with the same people and uh says uh Dr. Eads is a really smart guy. He is indeed. And just thought he'd mention that. So there's a small world.

Kentucky Dave 31:09

Well, that's cool. That is cool because yes, I had him.

Mike 31:13

And finally, the voice of Bob, Bob Bear, is back from his boondoggle to France. Poor Bob living such a tough life. He had a crappy flight over, man. I don't know if you were copied that on email or not. It was yeah. Apparently, uh, climate conditions have made that run across the uh mid-Atlantic bumpier and bumpier over the years, and eventually it's gonna cause some uh redirection, probably, if it continues in that path. But he rode the Bob's Bob Sled course to uh France from uh the United States. Didn't enjoy the flight. This falls into the bucket of documentation. He's using a rocket book, 12 year 12-year-old rocket book, and you can still get them. So they're hanging in there, man. A rocket book is a reusable notebook. So it's a notebook and an app, and you can write in this thing, and then you can use the app to digitize it.

Kentucky Dave 32:10

Right.

Mike 32:11

Then you can take a wet rag and wipe it all out of the notebook.

Kentucky Dave 32:14

Yep.

Mike 32:15

And then it can go to whatever you want it to go to for digital storage, Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Slack, whatever. I I didn't know Bob was this high tech. Yeah, that is. Well, it's 12-year-old. I don't know. Yeah. Well, Bob, bring it to Nats and show us, man. Bring us your show us your rocket book, book, emphasis on book. Yes, thank you. And he got another question for you, man. You're getting all these sidebars, dude. All right. When you go sifting through decal sheets to purchase, do you have a plan? Like, are you looking for certain sheets or do you stumble upon others and you you might like and just so ooh pretty and buy it? I'm in the ooh pretty category. Well, you know what? You're also you're also in the honest category.

Kentucky Dave 32:59

Yeah, well. Um now there's sometimes you know, I see a sheet. In fact, our friend Stephen Ruey is picking up a decal sheet at Hannett's for me to go along with the new Edward 109K. There's a new Ames decal sheet out for it.

Mike 33:18

And uh God knows how you need that.

Kentucky Dave 33:21

Yeah, he he offered to pick it up for me, very kind. But most of my decal purchases are in the ooh that's pretty category or ooh that's neat. Yeah. Uh like up at uh HeritageCon, ran across that Hassar sheet of B-24 assembly ships. And I had seen that sheet before, but you know, I'd seen it advertised and I I wasn't pretty enough then, huh? But then, you know, I came across the show at a great price, and I was like, Yeah, I'm in. So yeah, most of them are ooh, that's pretty.

Mike 34:00

Could get expensive, man. At least they're not that expensive.

Kentucky Dave 34:03

It it I hate to think about the amount of money I have spent on decal sheets.

Mike 34:09

You gotta count them up and just throw a four-dollar number on all the sheets. That'd be about right. Yeah, yeah. On average, dollar cost averaging. Yes. Might be more like six. I don't know. I think it probably is closer to six. They're getting a little expensive.

Kentucky Dave 34:23

Oh, they're getting real expensive now.

Mike 34:26

Well, I'll tell you what else is now is we're out of listener mail from the email side of things. So you got any DMs other than one I stole from you?

Kentucky Dave 34:34

Yeah, well, that uh I I I didn't even put that one down because I knew you were gonna take it. All right. Uh first listener Martin Pieta uh was he sent a DM. He had only recently heard about glass files and had just has just picked them up and started to use it, use them. And he was wondering if anybody else out there is using these things and what their experience is. I told him I do have some, I have used them a little bit. To be honest, though, I'm I tend to stick with the more traditional padded sanding stick, but you know, there are plenty of people who use them and and really like them. In fact, I think Warren Dickinson may have given me mine. And I I've I have used them, but I don't use them extensively. I do not have any.

Mike 35:34

There's a time to use a file or something else that's rigid versus a pad.

Kentucky Dave 35:39

Right.

Mike 35:40

And typically I just use the various needle files or some kind of acrylic sanding block, like the Goodman blocks we've got. I've made a bunch of my own.

Kentucky Dave 35:50

Yeah.

Mike 35:50

Anytime something's cut on the laser at work and a scrap piece comes out that's a little rectangle.

Kentucky Dave 35:56

Yep.

Mike 35:56

Yeah, it goes in my backpack. Because it's too it's too small to make anything else out of except a nice sanding stick.

Kentucky Dave 36:03

Next, Agent 003, Brandon Jacobs, who we saw at Amps, reached out post-AMPS to tell me that he he he had gone fully intending not to buy any kits, because as you know, Brandon Brandon is in the secondhand kit business. Yeah, and he sees all these collections that he buys where the kits aren't even ever opened out of the shrink wrap.

Mike 36:33

That's like going to a model show and saying for a multi-day thing and saying, I'm not gonna eat any meals while I'm there.

Kentucky Dave 36:38

Yeah. True. But Brandon did break down and he acquired at least one kit. I don't think he told me what it was. Uh, he also got his model photographed by fine scale modeler.

Mike 36:52

Was pretty much uh Tamia M3 Stewart, he's been putting on the dojo.

Kentucky Dave 36:57

Yes. He actually the the fine scale table photography table was next to our table at Amps, and so he had mentioned that they had asked him and he had gotten his model photographed, which he was he was quite thrilled.

Mike 37:14

As an aside, that that was kind of nice. We've not talked that much to uh those folks, and it wasn't the regular folks, it was Aaron Skinner, actually, there pinch hitting. And we got a segment from him coming up a little later, but it was nice to to be in that close proximity to him and uh to have those conversations. We had we had fun talking to him the during the nice.

Kentucky Dave 37:34

While we were at Amps, listener Neil Gilborne was attending the Scottish Nationals and pointed out that Amps might be nice, but nowhere at Amps did you have a bagpiper come in and play to open the show. And he sent me a video of this. Yeah, I gotta admit, that's a nice touch.

Mike 37:59

It is. We have to mention that to Neil Stokes and the Amps.

Kentucky Dave 38:02

Yeah, there you go.

Mike 38:03

Get him a bagpiper.

Kentucky Dave 38:04

Yeah. Now we had a while we were up at Amps, we had a lot of listeners reach out and DM us about, you know, where are you, where you go be, etc. And there were a bunch of those, and I don't want to go through all of them, but uh I will mention Greg Williams. Yeah, we spent some time with Greg. Right. So who we saw at the show, and because of DMs, we were able to hook up at the at the bar in the Double Tree and had a really nice time. And so when we're at shows, if you're at that show and you can't find us or don't see us, you can always send a DM and we'll we'll we'll see if we can we can hook up. Where we we're usually not hiding. No, no, that's right. Uh yeah, especially with that shirt I'm wearing. Next is Paul Pendleton Brown from Beyond the Box Art. And this is related to the CA sensitivity. One of the things he recommends as alternative is the ammo ultra glue, which is a very thick PVA glue.

Mike 39:12

Yeah, and Eye Lane's craft glue.

Kentucky Dave 39:15

Yeah, except it's even thicker than that. It's almost almost a gel. And because of that, because of the the nature of it, you can put it on and then place apart, and because it's so thick, it will much like a CA bond, it will hold it immediately as it dries. Now it's not drying immediately like thin CA, but he recommends that as a good alternative.

Mike 39:49

Well, Frank's got a lot of stuff to try now.

HeritageCon Wheel Of Accidental Wisdom

Kentucky Dave 39:52

He does. Next is listener Eric Caprady. And he reached out because I'd been talking about how one of the limitations I have on modeling right now is with my tremor, especially if I'm doing detail work, I can only get in so much modeling before I have to stop. Just it it's exhausting and the tremor starts to really take effect. He's got the same problem. And the two areas he noticed it uh most was in decaling, particularly if you're putting on a lot of small stencil type decals, and in, of course, photo etch. I talk about that from time to time. I'm amazed at the number of modelers out there who are dealing with that. And I guess I shouldn't be because one of the things, uh, features of the essential tremor is as you get older, it gets worse. So there are apparently a fair number of modelers out there who are dealing with this and and looking for ways to to militate the effects of it. So I'm happy to to have people reach out and tell me their experiences and what works for them. And it was nice to hear from from Eric.

Mike 41:13

Well, that's good. Hopefully you can keep a handle on yours, man.

Kentucky Dave 41:17

Yeah, I'm trying. Now, you mentioned our friend Martin Drayton. Yep. And Mr. Drayton reached out because he heard us and the pod father, that's awesome. All complaining about long flights.

Mike 41:32

Yeah.

Kentucky Dave 41:34

Martin wants to point out it's even more difficult when you're working. Martin, of course, is a flight attendant and deals with the these long flights where not only are you on the long flight, but you're actually working that flight. And he points out that we need to stop complaining.

Mike 42:00

Yes, we'll stop complaining. Though my initial thought would be that having something to do besides sit there might pass the time, but then you're the downside is dealing with mucks like the rest of us. Well, not like us, but people who aren't like us on the flight that are finding things to be uh disagreeable about.

Kentucky Dave 42:19

Yep, absolutely.

Mike 42:21

It's just so much easier just to sit there and suck it up, man.

Kentucky Dave 42:24

And post-COVID, man, more and more. That's the reason my wife retired. Finally, Kyle Allrit. He mentioned that again, going back to the AI and 3D printing, he's another person who is experimenting with it, along with apparently both he and his wife. And he's managed, he was mentioning a photograph of, I think it was a troll, that he was able to successfully produce using just AI, a a STL file that did a pretty darn good reproduction of the source subject matter. So people really seem to be with the price of 3D print printers coming down, and with the the availability of this AI, people really seem to be experimenting in this area a whole lot. And I I'm here for it. I can't wait to see what develops next.

Mike 43:38

Man, I guess I thought I was engaged with this kind of stuff to some degree, but there apparently there are a lot more people out there than I realize are in the modeling community, even that are way more down the pipe than I am. So it's been interesting l hearing from all these folks. So it really has. We'll see what comes up next. Yep. Is that all you got, man? That's all I got. Well, folks, we love this segment. And this is a thick one tonight, which is always great. And especially when it's in the orbit of other subjects we've talked about prior, like the uh CA sensitivity and then the documentation, even for your for your modeling project. So we had a lot of that this time. Really appreciate it. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so by sending us an email at plasticmodelmojo at gmail.com, or you can use the Facebook Messenger system to send us a direct message. And I usually handle the emails, and Dave usually handles the Facebook stuff. There's also a uh feedback web link in the uh show notes of each and every episode. You can uh get on there and uh send us an email that way as well. So much appreciated. Keep it coming, folks. Well, Kentucky Dave, we called this housekeeping because we got a bunch of segments we've recorded during our time at HeritageCon and then just last weekend at Amps. And uh, we need to clear this stuff out and get on get on down the road with some other content. So we're gonna go through some of these segments. Again, our first stop was HeritageCon. We've talked about it before on the show already since we've gotten back. But while we were there, we conducted a live version of the Wheel of Accidental Wisdom. It ran about an hour, give or take. And I've pulled a few segments, three in fact, from that that were two things. They were the the more interesting ones, the questions that were provided, and they give our listeners a chance to hear from three different people who were involved in that with us as a third third microphone. Yeah. You ready to get into that a little bit? I'm ready. Who are we gonna hear from first? Uh, it's gonna be Evan McCallum, Panzermeister 36.

Kentucky Dave 46:05

All right.

Mike 46:11

On the third chair is Evan McCallum, Panzermeister 36, because an armor question came up. Uh yeah, all right. Evan's been a long time friend of the show, and we enjoy to get to see you when you when we come up here, man. So the question is tracks, rubber band, link in length, individual links, and then 3D print, metal, or whatever. You go first. What's your favorite?

Evan McCallum 46:31

My favorite, it's a tough choice between metal and 3D print. Now, I don't mind individual link tracks, I kind of prefer them to rubber band or link in length because I just think the detail is so much more crisp and they actually work like the real thing. So because I build the tracks separately and I put them on the model at the very end, it's much easier to actually put them on the model if they're fully workable and I can just basically drag them on like you would in real life versus a big like plastic blob I gotta kind of slot on as one big piece as Lincoln Length would end up being. Also, a lot of plastic tracks like Lincoln Length and individual link plastic tracks, they always just have ejector pin marks on them from the molding process somehow, and it's really hard to clean them up. But I really like a lot of the modern 3D printed tracks because they're done from 3D scans, so they are like 100% scale accurate and they just look super nice. And a lot of them now are are uh very well printed, they're already cleaned up in the in the in the box, so there's really nothing to do, no drilling out of the holes like you do with metal tracks a lot of the time. So my favorite was definitely like T-Rex and Panzerwork Design do excellent 3D printed tracks. Now, metal tracks, the benefit is they are metal, so you can actually chemically blacken them and weather them and then sand off the high points, and it looks just like the real thing because it kind of is the real thing. But a lot of them are actually kind of chunky and overscale, and they very often have to have all the pinholes drilled out because the molds are freel molds from like the 90s and they're just super old.

Mike 48:02

And they're both right-handed or left-handed.

Evan McCallum 48:03

Yeah, exactly. They're all the there's a hole on one side all the way through. So because I'm a masochist, I like to go with the crazy 3D printed tracks all the time. But some people don't like that and they go rubber band, and that's perfectly fine for them.

Kentucky Dave 48:16

And if you know Evan's channel on YouTube, he has done a series where he has examined 3D printed tracks from how many manufacturers? Probably at least 20. And at that point, they were more being produced, more different companies were being produced than he could keep up with doing them.

Evan McCallum 48:39

And a lot of them honestly weren't that good. A lot of them are very cheap and poorly printed, but there's a few good brands out there that are fashion projects, the guys who make them, and they're they're keen on doing like, like I said, like 100% scale accurate tracks. That would be Panzerwork Design, T-Rex Studio, and I think ET model would be my top three for 3D printed tracks.

Kentucky Dave 49:00

As an aircraft modeler, I say, what are tracks?

Evan McCallum 49:05

You did the flyhawk and BT7 with the Lincoln Length tracks.

Kentucky Dave 49:08

Yes, that's the the first. I don't ever deal with tracks and all, but I did, I am in the process of building the Flyhawk BT7, and it has length and length track. And I was surprised at how well that worked.

Evan McCallum 49:25

I think in 70 second scale, that's probably the way to go.

Kentucky Dave 49:27

Yeah, uh I will be honest with you. When I looked at them, I was like, there is no way this is gonna work. And I put them on, and one side went perfect. The other side, I had one small area where I had to do a little fiddling and adjusting, but I was shocked at how well they did.

Evan McCallum 49:48

And for people who don't know, link and length track is where you have most of the straight sections are molded as a big run, and then you've got individual links for the few corners and stuff, so it's probably 20 pieces of track instead of a hundred.

Mike 50:01

Well, since any individual tracks came out, I've never looked back. I've not used rubber band tracks since like fruit model first, or model casting even first came on the scene, just because they're they're so much better. But I built the heavy infantry gun on the Panzer 3. Oh, the Sturm Infantry Gush 33? Yeah, and it I used model cast and Panzer III tracks on that, which you have to put every guide horn on. So it was a plate, a guide horn, and two pins. Yeah, I would never do that again. I've used frull tracks, even the old lobster claw ones where you had to crimp them together. I've got a model with those on it. I've got frull tracks on the my PT-76, my little Russian big Russian amphibious tank. But I'd originally tried to use the trumpeter individual plastic tracks for that kit. Don't recommend those either. Those are terrible. Again, they're multi-part. The guide horns are separate. And if I'm not mistaken, there's two on the PT track. There's two of them. And it's hard to get them all lined up straight. And the mountings are terrible and they don't stay together. The pins are too short. And I like the new frulls, except you usually get the same-handed track for both runs, so the pins are exposed on one side, and you gotta do something to it. These 3D tracks, I've I've got 3D tracks I'm using on my my current project. They're all together. I really like them, but I think what is gonna be hard is like Evan was saying, you can use the burnishing fluid to blacken the metal tracks ahead of time, which is a big help. So what I want to try on these is to paint the tracks in a tamiya LP with LP11, the silver lacquer paint first, and then use an acrylic or a tamiya lacquer acrylic hybrid on top of that. And then you can take like uh 99% alcohol or or something like that. That won't take the lacquer off, but we'll take the hybrid paint off. Well, I'm getting ready to do the tracks on my KV-85. I've got them together, but I'm gonna try that paint trick I mentioned in the segment, man, and see how that works out.

Kentucky Dave 52:12

Now, these are 3D printed tracks?

Mike 52:15

They are 3D printed tracks. I'm gonna use one of the LP paints. I don't can't decide if I'm gonna use the silver or the or the more of the gunmetal color. I'm not gonna paint them entirely with that first, and then I'm gonna hit them with some different colors of straight-up tamiya mixes, and then do my weathering and then come back with uh the high concentration of IPA and uh wipe that Tamiya paint right off the high points and get it right down to the lacquer paint because the the alcohol shouldn't touch it.

Kentucky Dave 52:43

Yep. Yep. I'll be interested to see how you'll have to put that on the dojo as you do it in steps. I will.

Model Show Finds And Best Memories

Mike 52:51

And you know, we mentioned Spud Murphy earlier. Some some one of our listeners had mentioned him, and I think he did something similar to this on one of his big 16th scale projects. So I think it will work. Whether I can pull it off or not, that's entirely to be determined. Well, you can't do know that until you try. That's right. Well, up next, we're gonna hear from our friend Jim Bates. And the the topic for this next uh segment was our best model show find. What's the coolest random thing you found at a show? I know the answer.

Kentucky Dave 53:31

For you, for me. And friends I didn't know I had. I'm deadly serious about this. It sounds cute. Mike and I are big proponents of shows. And I'm here to tell you the least important thing about a show is the contest that's going on right now. The most important thing at a show is this people getting together and meeting, have common interests, you start talking. You know, you're already modelers, so you already have a common interest to begin with, but then there's some subject or whatever. Invariably at shows, I run into people, most of whom I've never interacted with before, and probably never would have, because they live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. But we meet and we start talking, or better yet, you you go into the contest area, and the best part about the contest is seeing a model that's great, or seeing a model where you're like, how the heck did he do that? And flipping the thing up, seeing the person's name, and trying to go find them to ask him. And we were having this discussion last night at dinner. I maintain that there are unpleasant people in modeling, but as a rule, it's a real small amount. I don't think I've ever encountered a modeler that I've walked up to and said, How did you do that? And they didn't spend 20 minutes telling me every every detail of it and answering every question that I and seriously, it's the best thing I run into at shows. It's it's the best thing about shows. If there wasn't a social interaction, I don't think I would come to shows, even though I love the vendors area. Mike? Let me get this back to where it was probably intended. Yes.

Mike 55:39

Okay. You take it back. Cool as random thing I found at a show. Everybody familiar with the Squadron Signal publications, the in-action series? Do you know who Uve Feist is? Yes. He was one of the early illustrators for the the first of those books back in the 70s. The Squadron has been reconstituted under new ownership, all that. But all that stuff was dispositioned several years ago. And if you come down to the shows in the U.S. of late last few years, the folks that ended up with all the original watercolors has been selling those. So I picked up it's a really early one. It's dated 1971. It's a it's a T-34, and it was the cover art for Soviet Panzers in Action. When they had the old white cover, white background, it's just a big T-34, but it's the original watercolor over pencil sketch from Uve Feist. He just passed away last week, so I don't wish death on anybody, but it got to be a more significant purchase for me. I was glad I picked it up because I bought that book at a hobby shop in Columbia, South Carolina when I was about 13. And it was old then. It was already been out of print forever. Early 80s is when I bought it. So the book was already 10 years old. So I've got the I've got a copy of the book and I've got the original watercolor. So and it wasn't that much, so I was glad I got it. Because uh now he's now he's passed on, and it's the only one, so that's kind of cool. Nothing, Jim. Okay.

Jim Bates 57:08

I don't I don't have a show thing. The best I would come up with is I bought a book I'd been looking for forever on eBay, and I get it, and it is the it's about P40s, and it was signed by one RCAF pilot, and clearly he'd bought it for a different RCAF pilot. So there's an inscription in the book to So and So by Stocky Edwards, and I just thought that was the coolest thing ever.

Mike 57:39

Well, your comment was friends you didn't know you had. Which is a great answer, by the way. Yep. And it continues to build.

Kentucky Dave 57:48

Yep. Well, speaking of friends, it was great to see Jim. I mean, yeah, because Jim lives out on the on the left coast, you know, we don't get to see him as often and we don't run him to him in shows in the region like we do with Inch or some of our other friends. And so it was really nice to to not only see Jim at the show, but to spend a couple of days with him. And I gotta say, it was a great time.

Mike 58:18

Our next segment is the best model building or model hobby in general. The the best, our best memory from participating in this hobby, regardless of whether it was a show or just growing up doing it or whatever. And it's from one of those new friends you didn't know you had.

Kentucky Dave 58:36

Exactly. That's what I was gonna mention.

Mike 58:38

Mr. Robbie Knuff. So uh let's get into that one. Fondest memory associated with building models.

Kentucky Dave 58:50

That's a good question.

Mike 58:51

Let's get somebody new up here.

Kentucky Dave 58:53

Yeah, yeah, come on. Introduce yourself.

Robbie Nauffs 58:58

All right. Uh hi everybody. Uh my name is Robbie Knoffs. You might also know me from my socials on Facebook and YouTube as The Model Guy. I've come all the way today from just outside Calgary, Alberta, to hang out to the show. So really appreciate the show. This has been great to be to and met a lot of people to talk to and been having a blast so far.

Kentucky Dave 59:15

What's your fondest memory associated with modeling?

Robbie Nauffs 59:18

So my fondest memory of modeling so far has been a couple years ago, I was contacted by a gentleman down in the States, and he asked me if I could do a build in honor of his great uncle who had flown what he thought was hurricanes in North Africa. So I got talking to him, I got his father's, or sorry, his uncle's name, his serial number, his service number for the RAF. And I did a bit of research and was able to get into the Imperial War Museum archives and find out where his where the uncle actually flew, the squadron he was with and the aircraft he was flying. So it turns out he was actually flying P-40s. So I actually did a build for their family of that aircraft and shipped it down to them, and they were really grateful to do it. And for me, it was great because it kind of elevated the hobby. It wasn't just something plastic, it was something that was going to be a memory for that family. So for me, it was really enjoyable because I love doing research and just be able to tie it all together was a blast for me.

Mike 1:00:09

Mike? Well, I go way back when I was a young kid at grade school. We used to I'd go to my friend's house and we'd we'd put together models, a lot of Corsairs and zeros and stuff, and just lighting the candle and unfolding the paper clip and heating it up and battle damage. Putting bullet holes all up and down the sides of it and stuff like that. From from childhood, that that's a good memory. It's a fond memory or not, just things that stick in your head. When I was a teenager, I'd built both the ESCI horse-drawn, the German ambulance and the German supply wagon. I'd built to me as a field kitchen. And I was gonna do this big thing, you know, when I was 14 and stupid. I had it on this long plank that was really narrow and about three feet long, and I'm carrying it. And it just tips a little bit, and it's like not a fond memory, but something it's definitely a vivid memory that all of them just like just went straight in the trash. Like just destroyed. I hadn't they weren't even painted yet, really. I dad got them all together and had all the reins on everything, and and i if anybody's ever built that to mea field kitchen, the horses weren't tacked, they weren't molded with the tack on them. They gave you this little sheet of 10,000 styrene, and you had to cut the tack from the styrene and glue it onto the horses, which was really interesting for Tomia, but uh that's that's another crazy memory, Dave.

Kentucky Dave 1:01:33

There are tons of them. I would say my youngest daughter is about to go off to college, and when she was oh six, seven, uh, she's very artistic and has a real talent for art and all. And she uh she saw me modeling and asked to participate, and so we got starting with Snap Together Kit and all that, maybe a year and a half, two years, where I got to model with her before she lost interest and went on to other things. And those are really fond memories of just sitting there watching her, really. I didn't help her that much because she really was good at it. But those are really fond memories that you'll remember, I think, forever.

Mike 1:02:35

Now we knew of Robbie from his YouTube channel and his uh pretty prolific social media presence, but I don't we had never met him in person.

Kentucky Dave 1:02:44

No, we had not. And I've got to tell you, it was really quite quite an enjoyable experience to meet him in person and to spend time with him, to break bread, to consume modeling fluid. And it just was a it was a a fun time to again friend you didn't know you had.

Mike 1:03:05

Well, I I second all of that, and then he ended up joining us for breakfast uh on the last day on our day on our way out, and his way out. So uh Robbie, is it great to meet you face to face? Thanks for hanging out at the dojo with us, and thanks for joining us for the meals. You're gonna want to check out Robbie's YouTube page, it's the model guy, and it's a good channel. He does a lot of variety of subjects out there, so you're gonna learn a lot of things, get to see a lot of things, and go subscribe and check out what Robbie's got going on. Well, Dave, that's it from HeritageCon. It was a fun time as always. So it was good to see Evan. It was good to see Jim. It was great to see and meet Robbie. And folks, if you're up that way or can be up that way next year in 2027, you're gonna want to check that show out. It's it's a good one.

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Mike 1:04:53

Well, Kentucky Dave, it's time for the bench top halftime report. And given our travel schedule of the last three weeks, I suspect I suspect, I don't know. I suspect that it might be a little light.

Kentucky Dave 1:05:06

It is a little light on my end, but I did get some modeling done. It was on the T33 that that I pulled off the shelf of Doom. And because this is gonna have a natural metal finish, you know, I really have to concentrate on the seams and I have to concentrate on making sure the the primer is polished very well. And I spent time doing that, also doing some re-engraving of panel lines that I manage to partly disappear. But it's all going good to the point where I've got just a very minor amount of additional touch up, and then I think at that point I can probably proceed to start putting bare metal, the bare metal finish on it.

Mike 1:06:00

I hope you don't find any surprises when you prime it again.

Kentucky Dave 1:06:03

Oh god, you you know how prime primer paint crack seams, you know that.

Mike 1:06:09

That bare metal, man. I'm I'm watching close 'cause uh at least one in my future, probably two. And in a on the obvious time horizon. So yeah.

Kentucky Dave 1:06:19

Well, I've got a couple of tricks I want to try.

Mike 1:06:22

You try 'em and let everybody know. I will. For me, it hadn't meant a lot. It's the KV-85. It's getting primed. I've got what have we got to prime? I prime the turret, I prime the return rollers, and I almost ran out of primer. So I didn't want to start the hull with uh the uh the tailings of my my current bottle. So you you help me out there.

Kentucky Dave 1:06:46

That's what I am, a hobby supply store. That brings up the subject, though. You gotta mention what you're talking about. For some reason, Mr. Surfacer in the Jar has suddenly become scarce.

Mike 1:06:59

I suspect they batch produce stuff.

Kentucky Dave 1:07:03

That would make sense.

Mike 1:07:04

And and when you do that, and then it's getting shipped in a container across the ocean and all the other shenanigans going on with international commerce right now. Yeah, particularly with our country, it's probably not as easy as it was, and it's just gonna have to figure out its new path to get here, and hopefully it gets here soon. And when it does, I'm gonna buy like three jars.

Kentucky Dave 1:07:23

Yep, exactly.

Mike 1:07:25

Well, I appreciate it though. I I need it, but I did finish out and do all the the drive sprockets, the idlers, and all the road wheels with what was left of my bottle. And man, I got just about everything out of that bottle I could get. You can see through the sides of the bottle now. Yeah, that's how clean I got it. That's how much of that primer I use. So I I didn't want to start the hole with not enough primer to finish it, which was kind of on the hair scary edge when I started these road wheels and stuff. It might have been okay, but it just seemed like a bad idea.

Kentucky Dave 1:07:58

Right.

Mike 1:07:59

I guess because if you were painting a model, the f the you know, the base color, you probably wouldn't want to do that. But this was primer, it probably shouldn't have mattered. But anyway, I chose that path. I did not prime it. But you got me some new primer. I'm gonna crack into that. I don't know if I'll get to it for the weekend or not, but I'm gonna prime the hull and all the little bobbles I gotta get that have to get attached to it as I as I paint and build the thing. So And then you're on to 4BO. Then I'm on to 4BO. In addition to the KV85, sorta kinda started a secret project. Uh-oh. I'm not gonna say what it is. I will say that it is a vintage kit, and I took out the hardest parts to clean up from the kit, and if I can get those cleaned up in due order, I will proceed with this project.

Kentucky Dave 1:08:50

All right.

Mike 1:08:51

That's all I'm all I'm saying about it.

Kentucky Dave 1:08:53

Well, I think I know what you're talking about, and I'm waiting for the big reveal.

Mike 1:08:59

I think I think you think you know, but I think you're wrong.

Kentucky Dave 1:09:03

Okay. All right. Well, that's good.

Mike 1:09:06

Uh because what you're thinking about won't be so secret because I'm gonna go I'm gonna go for it. But anyway, we'll see how that goes. I'm documenting as I go, too, so it can be used later. So that's what we got going on. So that is my bench top halftime report. I assume you're done as well.

Kentucky Dave 1:09:23

I am done.

The Voice of Bob (Bair) 1:09:24

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AMPS Nationals Recap And Travel Snags

Mike 1:10:06

Well, folks, now we're going to move on to part two of Plastic Model Mojo's uh housekeeping episode. We've mentioned it already, Dave, but we just got back from the 2026 uh Armor Modeling and Preservation Society's International Convention. Yep. And it was great. It was great. We had a good time. It was truncated a little bit. Kind of reminded me of that uh Chicago trip we always talk about. We had to quit before we had to race home to get uh our first dates with our future wives.

Kentucky Dave 1:10:40

Yeah.

Mike 1:10:41

Um the stakes were not so high this time. But uh I did have to get back for uh a dinner engagement with some old friends who were back in Lexington who had moved off about the geez, three years ago at this point. They were in town. So uh we had to leave early Saturday, but uh I think we got everything done we hoped to get done at the show, yep, and had a great time.

Kentucky Dave 1:11:04

The social aspect was really good. Oh yeah. The only downside of the whole thing was well, two one one elevator for the entire hotel, one functioning elevator.

Mike 1:11:17

Yeah, that was kind of bad.

Kentucky Dave 1:11:19

Made it a little fun, and then driving home, it was raining the whole way back.

Mike 1:11:25

So it wasn't terrible. I think the elevator was worse than the rain. Honestly. Yeah, it was. If I had to pick the worst, it was the elevator.

Kentucky Dave 1:11:31

Yep.

Winter Blitz Growth And 2027 Tease

Mike 1:11:33

Yeah, by the time I got to your house and got my car and went on to Lexington, the rain had pretty much stopped. So fun times. Just a great trip. Our our first segment here is we mentioned him already, is Brandon Jacob from Winter Blitz. And we saw him at the show, and we got a recap from him about uh how Winter Blitz went down back in January. Well, Dave, no surprise. We got Brandon Jacob here from Texas, Agent 003, back at Amps. How you doing, man? I'm doing good.

Brandon Jacob 1:12:07

Good to be uh good to be back here. I missed out on uh the big show last year.

Mike 1:12:11

Well, you just handed us a promo card for Winter Blitz 2027. No, we we had you on talking about 2026 back before the first of the year, and sounds like it was a big deal.

Brandon Jacob 1:12:22

I believe when I was on I made a a weather prediction, didn't I? Yes, you did.

Mike 1:12:25

Yes, you did. Yeah, you had to eat a little crow.

Brandon Jacob 1:12:28

Yeah, we had a reschedule because of the the Texas freeze, which certainly was a freeze, a real deal, and we held it on February 28th as a remake, and it was extremely it just it just went off without a hitch.

Kentucky Dave 1:12:42

So, how how many people, how many models?

Brandon Jacob 1:12:45

We were excited this year. We went up in participants and in models. Good. We had 89 participants, so 89 people who registered models, obviously, heck of a lot more people at the show. Right. And then we had 451 models entered into the contest, which was a hundred over the previous year.

Kentucky Dave 1:13:05

That's great growth. That's great growth, man. And I know I've talked to a number of people, John Bonani, some others who attended the show, and absolutely everybody was just super impressed by the show this year.

Brandon Jacob 1:13:19

That's good to hear. We we felt, you know, that was a fifth year, and it just seemed like a lot of the kinks, if you will, yeah, were ironed out. Except the weather.

Mike 1:13:31

Well, and we can't control the one you can't control.

Kentucky Dave 1:13:34

I tell you what, can you believe that you just started this thing out of the blue five years ago? It's hard to believe.

Mike 1:13:40

You know, it was that's that's a good uh line to talk about a little bit. What how does that make you feel now, five years in, that this thing is is kind of a big deal now?

Brandon Jacob 1:13:49

You know, it it it makes me feel good because you I do put time into it and I put a lot of a lot of create creativity into it, not supported by any one amps or IPMS, so it it's a lot of me, right? And it makes me feel good because you know, you you see people having having fun and having a good time, and it it certainly it's the it's the payoff.

Kentucky Dave 1:14:12

Well, and yeah, you're putting something on that people come and get so much enjoyment out of. I mean, you know, that's putting good into the modeling world.

Brandon Jacob 1:14:20

Yeah, and and it was funny because after the first year, you know, of course it it was raw and there were hiccups and not everything was you know the way it is now. And you know, it was even like, do we go through this again the second year? And and and you know, it's funny. A friend in Houston pulled me aside and said, You made so many people happy up at that museum, you have to continue this. So here, so here we are. Well, that's good. And you added helicopters now, and well, we we uh, you know, it's it the joke is everybody, a lot of people say, Well, don't you do tank busters, helicopters, which is more of an amps thing. Right. I I kind of you know, we did Vietnam helicopters the year before, so this year we did tank busters finally, yeah, and we had one entry. Oh well, but then again, nobody knows, you got to give it a couple of years. And what we just decided to do for next year, military helicopters. Yeah, you bring a military helicopter and well, and they're flying tanks. I mean, they really are. We are going to stick with armor or museum-related themes, and we do have a cobra flying above in the museum.

Mike 1:15:28

Well, you kind of have to because you're gonna hit a space limit there at some point, I imagine.

Brandon Jacob 1:15:32

And and I think we got pretty close to it. This year, their new building is gonna be done. Oh, I didn't know they were building a new building. And and and in fact, we even use the new building this year for the judges' meeting because they have a meeting room in a new building.

Kentucky Dave 1:15:46

And and the judge it, I think it helped the judging that we were able to get in a better, better spot that that's exciting to indicate that the not only are your is your show succeeding, but the museum is obviously really succeeding.

Brandon Jacob 1:16:00

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. So it's all good news. There's some logistics in in the new building, it's not connected to the old building, so we're not really sure how to you work it out. Yeah, we'll work it out, but there's gonna be more room.

Mike 1:16:11

Well, cool. Well, you've given us this info card, January 23rd, 2027. And you got a URL on here and a QR code. Again, it's winter hyphenblitz.com. And I'm sure we're gonna talk to you again when we get a little closer to this show, man. But uh we look forward to it, man. I I want to come, man. I was after this last one, I was actually looking for flights. What'd it take for me to get down there on Southwest? Yeah. Southwest goes into Austin or Houston. Brandon, we'll let you get back to the show floor, but thanks for the information. I'm glad it was a success, man. And thanks for letting us be a part of your show and the way we kept promoting. Thank you guys, man. Thank you guys. Always good to see the 003.

Kentucky Dave 1:16:51

It was, and it was great to be able to give him a little bit of heck about about the the weather.

Mike 1:16:59

It was, you know, the one thing you can't control.

Kentucky Dave 1:17:02

Yeah.

Mike 1:17:07

Cranking on the weather all the time.

Kentucky Dave 1:17:09

Yeah.

Mike 1:17:10

Uh good to see Brandon. You know, he's gearing up for Winter Blitz 2027. I'm I'm sure we'll have him back on the show to talk about that.

Kentucky Dave 1:17:20

But man, feeling gravity's pull to get to that thing, man. Yes. I'm the same way. I need to get to I want to get to Winter Blitz and I want to go out to wine country.

Mike 1:17:32

Well, for us, the winter blitz is the easier of the two for sure. Uh given the Louisville southwest connection.

Kentucky Dave 1:17:40

Well, not only that, we could drive it. We've done it before.

Mike 1:17:44

We could, but if we if we flew it, we would be back in plenty of time and we could minimize the collateral damage from being gone for three days.

Kentucky Dave 1:17:53

Exactly.

First Time At AMPS And Open Judging

Mike 1:17:54

So we're not committing to coming in 2027, but uh certainly on the on the possibilities of things to explore, and uh we'll get caught up with Brandon a little later in the year. We'll probably see him at the National Convention in addition. But uh probably come December we're gonna be hearing from him about 2027 uh winter blitz. We also saw another familiar face at AMS. We saw the inch eye guy, Jeff Groves, was uh who was attending his first AMPS. He was, and he doesn't live too far away. No, so it was good to get his take on seeing that for the first time because not only had not been to AMPS, he had not seen a show run. Gold, silver, bronze is a little different than the ones that are out there that some of the IPMS chapters are are are running, but he had not even seen that.

Kentucky Dave 1:18:43

So no, he had not seen an open system at all. He was all he was completely used to the one, two, three. Let's get to inch and see what he had to say about amps.

Mike 1:18:58

Well, Dave, we got one of our regulars here from our region, Mr. Jeff Groves, the inside guy.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:19:02

What's happening, man? Hi guys, glad to be here. You're in my own backyard now, the great seafaring state of Indiana.

Kentucky Dave 1:19:08

That's right. This is your first time at an Amps National, man.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:19:12

Yes, this is my first Amps ever.

Kentucky Dave 1:19:14

So, what what's your impression of the Amps National? You go, you've been to a fair number of contests over the years.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:19:21

Yeah, I've been to to just about every IPMS show in Region 4, at least in driving distance. Um, I'm impressed. I like I like the the layout, the facility here in in South Bend is just beautiful. It is a beautiful facility. Uh a lot of good vendors here. Yeah, I I like the way the judging is going with the gold silver bronze. This is the first time I've actually encountered that in person. Now I didn't enter any any models myself, but it seems like a pretty straightforward way to do a show.

Mike 1:19:51

Yep. Even the other the gold silver bronzes that exist at you know some of the IPMS shows isn't run like this one.

Kentucky Dave 1:19:58

No, this is completely different. So I'm surprised. Is nobody in region forward doing GSB? No, uh uh uh Pittsburgh does GSB. Okay, and they have for years, I mean for ages.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:20:10

And I've never been out quite that far east, so that's that's on the edge of Region 4. Yeah, that's my failing there. But I'm I'm impressed with this. A lot of good vendors, uh a lot of name brand vendors. I met Brandon from from Squadron for the first time. David Doyle Books is here. Yep, yep. Um Mike, I understand you have purchased several original artworks from the old Squadron signal book.

Mike 1:20:35

One of them in particular that keeps popping up.

Kentucky Dave 1:20:37

I'm telling you what, and downtown South Bend is really nice. We'll we'll go down to dinner later. There are just tons of places to eat, really high quality uh food choices right close to the hotel and the convention center.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:20:54

This is an ideal place to me. And another serendipitous thing that we were all discussing earlier is there is an esports tournament. There's an esports tournament going on right now.

Kentucky Dave 1:21:07

One of the other halls has a war game display going on, miniature figure historical war gaming.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:21:14

Very synergistic. I mean, it's a perfect fit with a model show. There's a lot of crossover there. I wish we could see more of that, and I think it would draw people into all the hobbies.

Kentucky Dave 1:21:23

Yeah, I do too. I I mean it was utterly serendipity. The Amps guys didn't know these other things would be going on, but they've all been welcoming. You can walk through their stuff and get to watch the guys playing the tabletop war gaming or duck into the to the amphitheater and watch the eSports being done up on the big screens.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:21:48

It's really cool. Yeah, we spoke to those war game guys and they are very welcoming. They're they're modelers. They're just exactly what you'd expect of as modelers.

Mike 1:21:57

Yep, they absolutely are. Well, have you taken any of the small-scale entries on the table yet?

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:22:02

I I have looked at them. There are there's a lot of fascinating work here. This the the stuff is high quality. The the the volume of stuff on the tables versus the judging queue is still out of balance, but uh uh hopefully there'll be more stuff out on the table a little later today. Now you said they normally don't get everything on the table until tomorrow. Is that right? That's true.

Kentucky Dave 1:22:21

Because judging goes through midday tomorrow.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:22:24

I think so.

Kentucky Dave 1:22:25

Yeah.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:22:25

So we're looking at half of the entries?

Kentucky Dave 1:22:27

Yeah. Well, less than half on the tables, probably less than half.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:22:30

I don't know how many is back there now.

Kentucky Dave 1:22:32

Well, I took a picture earlier. I went in and took a picture. It the the room was packed as far as uh entries yet to be judged.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:22:42

What's on the table is all top drawer stuff.

Kentucky Dave 1:22:44

It is great, it is absolutely high quality.

Jeff "Inch High" Groves 1:22:48

Well, we're glad to see you, man. I saw you buy some books. Good seeing you. Yeah, I managed to to finagle uh uh a good deal with one of the book vendors. I was able to trade some of the stock I'd been selling for some of the stock he was selling, and uh we were able to shake hands at the end and walk out. Uh David sent me a picture yesterday saying, Here's here's some of the books you're looking for, and I thought, man, I'm see if I can get a deal with this guy. And it worked out. Good. It did. Well, let's get back to the show, man. Well, thanks, and good to see you guys.

Kentucky Dave 1:23:22

Well, I think he had a good time. I think he did. It's always good to see Inch. Not only I'm glad we got to see him at a show at the show, we got to go to dinner with him and just had a really fine meal.

Inside Round2 Model Kit Development

Mike 1:23:38

We did, which was great because Brandon from Squadron had gone over there the night before, and I I think the beer system, now the Guinness was fine, it's on its own, right? It's on a nitrogen tap. But the the system that runs all their other taps was down. And then something else was going on. So we had the experience we had when we were there two years ago, which is great, because I was worried we were gonna it was gonna crap out on us, but uh we each had something different off the menu, and and like I said on the Facebook post, I think we walked out of there at least one belt notch further up on the belt. At least. And oh man. At least that was pretty good. And the waitress was really Irish. It was great. So that was uh that was a bonus. We had a good time. It was great to see Hinch, and I guess the next time it's in South Bend, he's probably gonna be inclined to go. May maybe with entries and stay more than a few hours. Or anywhere else in region four we might happen to get to before then, which we'll see. Well, finally, we'd mentioned before our table was right next to the Finescale photo booth, and at that booth was none other than uh former Finescale employee, editor, in fact, Aaron Skinner, who was supposed to meet some of his former colleagues there to hang out and run the booth, and they had obligations arise, and he took it upon himself to do it himself, and did a fine job. But uh we we got a chance to talk to him a a lot of about a lot of stuff, but we did get him in the seat for an interview, a short interview, a short segment, not about Finescale and what he was doing there, but about his transition over to his current position with round two, which is a model company right there in South Bend, Indiana, who's got a lot of legacy brands. They've got some pretty powerful licenses that they're leveraging to make some new stuff, and it's fun talking to him. Well, David, we got a surprise here.

Kentucky Dave 1:25:48

Yes.

Mike 1:25:49

Uh maybe not too much. Aaron Skinner's here on behalf of Fine Skill Modeler, but uh pinch hitting for his former colleagues. But you're a quasi-resident of this city now, working for round two. That's that correct?

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:26:03

Yes, I'm I'm the head of model kit development for round two.

Mike 1:26:05

Well, how's that been going for you? How's that transition gone?

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:26:08

It's great. Uh it's a different challenge. I'm still in the model world, so that makes me happy. You know, I'm a lifelong modeler, so working for Finescale was a dream, and this is just an extension of that. Um little bit different uh challenge, but it's fun to be. I was a consumer for so long, and now it's seeing the and in the consumer world for so long, now I'm seeing it from the other side of the coin, doing production and development.

Kentucky Dave 1:26:34

It's gotta be amazing to see the industrial side of the of the business, the the what goes into produ deciding and then producing a kit.

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:26:45

You always have an idea of what goes into a model kit when you open it up and look at all the parts, but seeing it from conception all the way through till the final product and being able to hold that the first test shots when you get them and you look you're looking at it going, wow, this is something we've been able to do.

Kentucky Dave 1:27:02

Well, what surprised you most about the transition? What surprised you getting into the production side that you never would have thought of on the consumer side?

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:27:14

I guess being at Finescale for so long, I had enough of an idea of how that developed that I didn't nothing super surprised me. Gotcha. The amount of work involved is always going to be a thing because it is, you know, if you want to get it right, you have to you have to do the front work. Right. Just like with modeling, you have to do all the front work and preparation to get the best looking model. You have to do all that prep work and research to get the best looking kits.

Mike 1:27:38

Are you involved uh, I guess from the from from the very front end of a new a new idea, all the way through getting the molds made and the test shots and and all that? Yeah. Um I've got an engineering background myself, so I'm kind of familiar with the injection mold process. Sure. And all that. But uh is round two doing most of their development in-house or or how's that working for you?

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:27:58

It's a little bit of a uh Split thing we do like conception's all done in-house, and a lot of the pre-design work and research is done in-house. We work with outside vendors for 3D development and that sort of thing, and and all of our production's done outside. Yes. Okay. So we we work with uh several different vendors for those kind of things and uh resources, particularly the production part of it, doing the tooling and all that stuff. Any particular lines that are your favorites? I'm a I'm a sci-fi geek at heart. Um, so we've we've announced these, but we have the 48-scale Tide Bomber coming out and uh as a kid seeing Empire Strikes Back for the first time, and that that ship is really on screen for maybe 30 seconds in the entire film. But I've wanted to build one since that um since that time, and now we're bringing the first all plastic injection model kid of that to market. So that's really exciting.

Mike 1:28:56

Now, was that one in the pipe before you got there? Or is that one you've had hand-in systems?

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:29:00

It was the they had done a lot of the pre-work, but they had never they had not gotten to the point of moving it into moving it forward. So we made a point of doing that. And the Land Speeder, we have a 12-scale Landspeeder coming out. Those things are like uh those are kind of close to my heart as a Star Wars fan from the get-go, so being able to do those things is fun. I wouldn't call myself a gearhead, right? I don't I don't work on cars, I can appreciate a good car, so it's been fun to kind of look at the car side of things and get to know more about the car end of the world and uh and have a hand in some of that development. Really nice.

Kentucky Dave 1:29:38

Something you said raised a question with me. So when you're developing something like a Star Wars kit, obviously you can go and watch the movie to see the item. But do you all have access to the original filming models, studio models?

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:29:54

How I mean we can only dream of having access to the original but we have access to a lot of photo material um so we can see all that stuff.

Kentucky Dave 1:30:04

A lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff.

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:30:06

Yeah, and and I mean, there's a lot of ILM stuff out there, Lucasfilm stuff out there that you can you we can get access to. And then there are people out there who spend a lot of time doing the research as to exactly what went into those kits or to those studio models, um, filming miniatures, and then you we can figure out a lot of the stuff based on what they've done and that sort of thing. So we it it comes from a multiple of sources, just like anything we do. Um sometimes we can get access to original 3D if it's new enough for certain projects. Um, even some of the automobile manufacturers, you know, we can get access to full 3D ones.

Kentucky Dave 1:30:44

That's amazing.

Mike 1:30:44

Are we gonna see you at Harry or not Heritage Comedy? We're just there. Are we gonna see you at Wonderfest?

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:30:50

Of course. Okay. Again, as a sci-fi fan for a long time, uh I had pushed for Finescale to get to when I was still working there to start kind of being at that show every year. We became a regular thing. I mean uh they'll they're still there. Uh I'm now representing round two. We always have a booth there, so we'll have stuff there. We've got some cool new things that we should hopefully be able to talk about when we get there.

Kentucky Dave 1:31:16

Let's see, last year at Wonderfest, you all announced what was it?

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:31:22

Oh gosh, I'm trying to remember what it was. We had we had mock-ups last year for the TIE Bomber and the Land Speeder, and also we also had the Shadow Mobile from UFO, the other Jerry Anderson live action thing. That is we're in the test shot process of that right now. Um, so we're we're refining the test shots and you know doing the having the factories do all that work. Uh that still do out in the summer.

Kentucky Dave 1:31:49

So I cannot wait to see your booth at Wonderfest this year. It's always up in place this year.

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:31:54

Yeah, and like I said, hopefully we'll have some even more exciting things that I wish I could tell you about.

Mike 1:32:00

We we understand. I've worked in that environment too, no skill models, but stuff you can't tell people about. I'm kind of working in now sometimes.

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:32:08

I mean the same thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But uh, there's only you know, only so much we can tell you ahead of time. Understand this.

Kentucky Dave 1:32:15

Well, it will we'll be at Wonderfest, and we will be sure to cover what's announced at Wonderfest.

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:32:21

Yep. I think everyone's excited for next year because it's the 50th anniversary of Star Wars. So you can expect us to have some exciting stuff to come for that.

Mike 1:32:29

Oh, fantastic. Yep. All right. Well, we'll let you get back to your photography and uh thanks for talking to us, Aaron, and best of luck with the new job, new new career track.

Aaron Skinner (Round 2) 1:32:37

Thanks, guys. Oh, you're welcome. Stay tuned. We'll give more as time allows you.

Mike 1:32:45

Well, that interview was interesting, and especially the part about uh it wasn't on air, but I made a suggestion to him. And he said I wasn't the first person to say it. Yes.

Kentucky Dave 1:32:57

Although I wonder wonder if he's thinking about the email he got from you.

Mike 1:33:01

Because I think it's a I think it's a great idea. So I do too, man. We'll see, and we'll catch up with him and the rest of the round two team, hopefully, at Wonderfest here in at the end of May, and uh see what see what these things are he was alluding to that might be announced at that time.

Kentucky Dave 1:33:19

Yep, I'm looking forward to it.

The Voice of Bob (Bair) 1:33:24

Plastic Model Mojo is brought to you by Model Paint Solutions, your source for harder and steam back airbrushes, David Union Power Tools, and laboratory grade mixing, measuring, and storage tools for use with all your model paints, be they acrylic, enamels, or lacquerers. Check them out at www.modelpaint solutions.com.

Kentucky Dave 1:33:49

When you're done listening to this episode, would you please do us a favor and rate us on whatever podcast listening application you you use? Please give us the highest rating. It helps drive visibility for the show and helps new people discover us. Also, if you know a modeler out there that isn't listening to Plastic Model Mojo, would you please recommend us to them? Uh, if they need help, show them how to download the podcast and listen. The best way for us to continue to grow is to have current listeners recommend us to potential new listeners. And we appreciate that if you do that for us.

Mike 1:34:36

And I'll mention there's also a rate the podcast link in the show notes. You can do it that way as well. If you don't have one in your particular podcast app, you can do it from the website. Yep. In addition, once you've done that, please check out all the other podcasts out in the model sphere. You can do that by going to www.modelpodcast.com. That's model podcasts plural with an S. It's a consortium website set up with our friend Stuart Clark from the Scale Model Podcast up in up in Canada. And there you're going to find all the banner links to all the podcasts currently active in the model sphere, and you can uh go check those out at your leisure. Subscribe to them, pick the ones you like the best, subscribe, subscribe to those, subscribe to all of them. Check them out. You need to get in there and figure out what you like and what you don't like and uh go from there. In addition to the podcast, we got a lot of uh blog and YouTube friends out in the model sphere. We got folks like Chris Wallace, model airplane maker. Been talking to him a little bit offline here of late. And uh he's got a great YouTube channel and a great blog, mostly 48-scale aircraft. Just released a new video. It's a really good video about doing uh wingtip lights, man. Wingtip lights. Good stuff, check that out. In addition to Chris, we've got uh Panzermeister 36, who we mentioned in one of the earlier segments. He's got a YouTube channel, a lot of armor weathering stuff, and a lot of HO scale railroad weathering kind of stuff, and he's just got a really good way of delivering his information, and you're gonna really like his channel.

Kentucky Dave 1:36:00

Yep, he's a natural teacher.

Mike 1:36:02

Stephen Lee, Sprue Pie with Fritz, 70 second scale blog, long and short form stuff there, both uh scale modeling and model railroading. Steve's always got something interesting to say on some of the current hot takes in the hobby, so you want to check that out. Along the 70-second scale vein, we just mentioned him, Inch IGuy, Inch IGuy blog, Jeff Groves. Great blog, 70 second scale content, aircraft, armor, with a little history thrown in to boot. You never know what you're gonna get from Jeff, but it's gonna be really heavy on 70 second scale. So if that's your scale, you're gonna like it. And finally, we got Dr. Paul Budzik Scale Model Workshop. You're gonna find that on Patreon, you're gonna find that on YouTube. Check out what Paul's got going on. He's always got a lot of wisdom behind what he put it puts out there and uh just a lot of great information.

Final Thanks And Modeling Fluids Wrap

Kentucky Dave 1:36:50

A lot of modeling knowledge stored up there. If you are not a member of IPMS USA, please consider joining the national organization. Same goes with if you're not in the United States, joining your national IPMS organization wherever you happen to be. Great group of volunteers who are giving up some of their modeling time to give everybody the a better modeling experience. In addition, the Armor Modeling and Preservation Society, AMPS, we just attended their nationals, a really good organization dedicated to armor and post-1900 figure modeling. Great group of guys. It was really nice to see a lot of them up there and to you know talk talk modeling and talk about a lot of other stuff besides modeling. So consider joining AMPS as well. Finally, IPMS USA Nationals are being held in Fort Wayne this year, Fort Wayne, Indiana. And trophy packages are available for sponsorship, and they can be sponsored by individuals, they can be sponsored by local clubs, organizations, loose association of friends. The national contest relies on selling trophy package sponsorships to help defray the cost of the awards, and the awards at the nationals are always really something special. Please consider uh sponsoring a trophy package at the Nationals this year. There will be a link in the show notes for that will take you to the website where you can sign up for a very reasonable cost to sponsor a trophy package for a category. Mike, we are almost at the end of the episode, and I'm almost at the end of the modeling fluid. How about you?

Mike 1:39:02

Again, I've got two. I've we took a break and I tapped off my other ones, got a little watery, my my current one. But uh I had a warm-up. The Berliner Weissa from Wayward Lane Brewing, courtesy of Sean Picard. A Berliner Weissa is a very refreshing kind of light drink. Typically they're they're they're built on a sour, but they have an infusion of really sweet fruit or something else on top of it. Uh when I was in Germany in high school, the the local Berlin brewer had one as a Berliner Kindle, Berliner Kindle visa. When you bought those, it was basically a a quote unquote white brew uh with this little packet of Kool-Aid, essentially, that you poured into the beer. So what this is, typically the the ABV is really low, like two to three and a half or something. Because they're they're made to drink and enjoy. And not get just gob just clobbered by, right? Right. This one from Sean is a little higher ABV, it's four, so it's kind of on the high end of what uh you know a German purchased Berliner Visa is gonna be. Not not outrageous, but it's a little on the high side. But it's got passion fruit and and I think blackberries. Let me double check here. Oh wow. This one's infused with uh blackberry and dragon fruit, so it's sweet, but it's not terribly sweet, it's really tart, it's really, really good. This thing was really, really good. I would like to have a bunch of these, honestly. This was really, really enjoyable. So, Sean, I appreciate that one. The Berliner Visa. We're gonna get the others in due order, but that one was for what it was brewed in North America, an exceptional rendition of a Berliner Visa. Enjoyed the crap out of that. That was just super. The other one I'm working on tonight that I'm almost done with is uh it's a Tennessee whiskey from Uncle Nearest. That was given to us by Bill Moore, the principal creator over at the World of Armor on Facebook. And he also sponsors our model show Spotlights, so you'll see that from time to time. Um and we got to have dinner with dinner with Bill and hung out with him a couple times after that. So uh always good to see Bill. Hopefully made it back to Tennessee. Okay. The uncle nearest is a Tennessee whiskey, which means it's got a process that bourbon does not have. Once it's well, once it's almost ready to be bottled, it goes through a maple charcoal filter that typical Kentucky bourbon does not do. It imparts different things on it. I won't get into the the details, but really smooth, really light flavor for the ABV. It's really good. Compared to the more pedestrian Tennessee whiskeys like Jack Daniels, it's it's it's a step change better. Uh it's just really, really good. It's it doesn't taste like a bourbon to someone who's enjoyed a lot of bourbons, but it's good nonetheless, and I really appreciate him giving me that and look forward to sipping on that for the next few weeks, hopefully. Not this week, but the next few weeks.

Kentucky Dave 1:42:29

Gotcha.

Mike 1:42:30

What do you what about you, man?

Kentucky Dave 1:42:32

Again, Sean, again, Wayward Lane Brewing, Boondiga, hazy India Pale Ale with New Zealand hops, six point six point oh on the ABV. Your classic fruity, hazy IPA. The fruity flavors are not overpowering. I mean, it still tastes like a beer, but the hops are muted somewhat. It just it's a really great beer. This I'll tell you what, this brewery, Wayward Lane. They're doing some good stuff because this is eminently enjoyable. Uh, get me through the episode with no problem whatsoever. I'm sure I'll be glad to hear that. Thank you, Sean. Well, we're now at the true end of the show, Mike. And do you have some shout-outs?

Mike 1:43:31

Well, as customary, I always want to shout out the folks who have chosen to contribute to Plastic Model Mojo via their generosity. Much appreciated. We we appreciate the support, and if folks would like to do that, we've set up several avenues to do that via Patreon, via PayPal, via Buy Me a Coffee. All those links are on the website at www.plastic model mojo.com. I it's it's really humbling to to put this show out there and to do it well enough that folks are inclined to to help us out along the way, that they they value it enough that uh they feel inclined to do that. So we really appreciate it and thank you, thank you very much for that.

Kentucky Dave 1:44:15

You got another one? I do not. Okay, well, I have two. All right, lay them on me. One is Kevin Kelly and Bill Moore, who both answered my call because I I didn't obtain an AMPS 2026 pin from from the nationals. And some people will remember I've actually got a collection of pins from the IPMS Nationals and the AMS Nationals that I keep uh displayed over in my pool room. And I I wanted that pin, and both Kevin and Bill volunteered to send me the pin. So I want to thank them. Additionally, I do want to thank Jeff Inchai Groves, who not only came to Amps for the first time, but he brought you and I both some really amazing things. He brought me a book that is rare and out of print, and if you could find it, it would cost you an arm and a leg. And he picked up, he saw it, picked it up for a very, very good uh price, and uh got it to me, and I really, really appreciate it. Anything else? That's it, man.

Mike 1:45:36

Well, Dave, we're gonna take a rest and not do a show for a little while.

Kentucky Dave 1:45:40

Yep. Maybe get some modeling done.

Mike 1:45:43

I'm getting some done. I need to get you going, man. You got a you're off to a bad start this year, man.

Kentucky Dave 1:45:48

Uh yes, I am. I will admit that.

Mike 1:45:51

Well, Dave, as we always say, so many kids. So little time. Let's uh get on out of here. You got it.