New Tech And Better Shows For Modelers: Episode 164

A hobby can feel timeless right up until the moment it changes under your hands. We start with the real-world catch up: Wonderfest, the sprint toward the IPMS Nationals in Fort Wayne, and the listener mail that reminds us why this community is so strong. Along the way we share show intel, a clever “Squadron Catalog Challenge” idea, and what one contest recap teaches about entry growth, online registration, and the tricky problem of judging without shutting viewers out of the model room.

Then the conversation turns into something bigger: the technology shift hitting scale modeling right now. AI and 3D printing are colliding in ways that were barely on the radar a year ago, and we wrestle with the messy middle ground of AI-generated images in hobby spaces, credit, and why clear labeling protects trust. From there we jump to the most jaw-dropping bench-adjacent find: a prototype Optivisor-style headset that snaps into focus wherever your fingertips are, instantly, at multiple working distances. If you build small, scribe fine lines, or just want your eyes to stop fighting you, this is the kind of tool that can change everything.

We also get practical with paint prep and process: mixing, note taking, storing formulas, and whether you should batch-mix custom colors or mix fresh for each session. Finally, we talk model show features we want to see more of, including keeping tables accessible during judging, bringing seminars back, and the promise of exhibition-style formats that make it easier to meet the builder and learn face to face. If you care about the future of plastic model kits, scale modeling tools, and better model shows, hit play, then subscribe, share the show with a modeling friend, and leave a review.

The self-focus eyewear mentioned by Kentucky Dave in this Episode...
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Transcript

Welcome And Life Getting In The Way

The Voice of Bob (Bair) 0:11

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

Kentucky Dave 0:44

Kentucky Dave, are your socks dry? My socks are dry, but that may be the only thing that is. What do we get? Rain, rain, rain. Yes.

Mike 1:15

Looks like we got a little bit for a while. Hey man. 164, finally, folks. Thanks for bearing with us. But man, when it rains, it pours both literally and metaphorically.

Kentucky Dave 1:28

Yes. Yes, it does.

Mike 1:29

Some crap's been going down, man.

Kentucky Dave 1:31

But this is like a whole regular episode, right?

Mike 1:36

Yes. This is feature episode 164.

Kentucky Dave 1:40

Okay. I'm not sure. I can't can't remember the last time we did one of those.

Mike 1:45

I think we said some of this similar kind of stuff at the front of the zone because we had been a little off schedule too. But uh hey, but we're trying. We're getting it done. We're getting it done.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Yeah.

Mike 1:56

That said, man, what is up in your model sphere?

Kentucky Dave 1:59

Well, let's see. About a week and a half ago, I went to Wonderfest and hung out with uh Warren Dickinson. I just on the uh yet just today posted on the dojo all the pictures that I took. Yeah, I saw that. Took me a while to get them, get them off my camera. Meanwhile, Nats planning is in full swing talking to a bunch of people about the Nats, different things, and I'll mention some of that later on. My model room renovation is going strong. It's not that's good. Um it's it's not moving as quickly as I want it to, but there's some certain things that I'm not gonna talk about quite yet coming up that may accelerate a whole lot of things model-wise. So uh keep your eyes on this space. There may be a lot of posts in the dojo coming up soon.

Mike 3:04

Skippy coming to help build all your models?

Kentucky Dave 3:06

No, no, the Lord knows that is the only person could come help me and actually slow me down.

Wonderfest Recap And Nationals Planning

Mike 3:16

I knew that.

Kentucky Dave 3:17

So, what's up in your model sphere, man?

Mike 3:20

Uh, a lot of the same kind of stuff, man. I've been uh thinking ahead to uh the national convention and uh fact Brandon called me yesterday about some stuff and uh got that squared away, and he texted me again today and got something else squared away. Looking forward to it, man. We had our our model show Spotlight featuring the cats from the National Convention, and they're all excited, and I think they're gonna have something good for us. So uh looking forward to that.

Kentucky Dave 3:46

And you don't realize how quickly this thing, I mean, it two minutes ago it was January, and the Nationals seemed like forever into the future, and now here we are, and it's already June, and the Nats are gonna be here before you know it.

Mike 4:05

Other than that, it's not been much else model related, modeling adjacent, just uh living vicariously through you, Dave, at Wonderfest.

Kentucky Dave 4:15

Well, we you were you were well missed. Hopefully, you'll be there next year, and looking forward to seeing you at the Nats, if not before.

Mike 4:25

That's right.

Kentucky Dave 4:26

So, Mike, now as is traditional with a regular full episode, do you have a modeling fluid?

Mike 4:33

I do. I do have a modeling fluid, but I'm on the Dave Knights plan there for a little while. Uh-oh. No particular reason other than you're doing it, so I'm seeing seeing what I can do too.

Kentucky Dave 4:45

All right.

Mike 4:46

So we got a little cranberry juice and ginger eel. That's about it. That's about it tonight. A little mock tail.

Kentucky Dave 4:52

Nothing wrong with that. And you know, uh, make sure that you don't get your UTI or or any more of those, uh, any more of those stones, man.

Mike 5:01

I'll probably have to get up twice tonight.

Kentucky Dave 5:03

Yeah, well, that's that's well welcome, welcome to getting older.

Mike 5:07

What about you?

Kentucky Dave 5:09

Well, I am still uh a teetotaler right now and will be for about another two, two and a half weeks. Had an MRI today, which was not as bad as people make it out to be. I I found it relaxing, but apparently most people don't. But in that vein, since I am still on the soft modeling fluids, and speaking of teetotaling, I have Kroger Decaf sweet tea. So no alcohol, no caffeine, which will hopefully help my tremors a little bit. And you know, it's summertime, so sweet tea is the thing, man.

Mike 5:56

When you come out from under this umbrella, we'll have to get something good and feature something. Yes, we will. We'll be back. We'll be back. If that's the modeling fluids, uh are a little reserved this time on both our parts. BLister mail's not bad, man. No, no, it's coming in. The DMs are very active. Well, let's rock and roll. Let's get into this. You got it.

Modeling Fluids And Listener Mail Starts

Mike 6:19

First up from uh State College, Pennsylvania, is our friend Scott Huber. And speaking of Brandon, he's he's got an idea he wanted to share with Brandon from Squadron or any club who might be interested. It's the Squadron Catalog Challenge. This is a theme or a special award category he's he's cooked up. Pick a catalog from any year squadron printed them, which there's a lot, and build any kit listed in that catalog. The special awards uh could use accessories and decals listed in the catalog, or another possibility would pick one of the they used to do the uh model kit of the year on the cover of the new catalog.

Kentucky Dave 6:53

That's what I thought he was gonna go for.

Mike 6:55

Well, he's gone for both of them, and I think I think that last part, that modification is probably the the winner here. I think that's an interesting idea. And uh It is. I'm gonna forward that one on to Brandon. The other one's not a bad idea either, but there's just been over the years, there's been more in squadron catalogs than have not been in squadron catalogs. Exactly. So I don't think that's you can basically if you pick a standard kit that's been sold in the world through major markets in the last since 1968, man. Yeah. 58 years. Um it's probably been in the squadron catalog.

Kentucky Dave 7:30

It's some of them quite continuously. Yeah.

Mike 7:34

Some of them under two different labels at the same time. Exactly. That's just the way the world works. So yeah, uh Kid of the Year, Squadron Kid of the Year builds, because there's some crazy ones. Yes. Isn't that thing that Chris Wallace built for you? Wasn't that thing kid of the year one time? Or am I mistaken about that?

Kentucky Dave 7:53

It might have been that that 48 scale F-19.

Mike 7:57

Yeah, the fake spake stealth. Yeah, the fake stealth. Fantasy stealth from who made that? Italarie?

Kentucky Dave 8:02

Italari. Okay. And that might well have been kid of the year one year. I'd have to go back and find the catalogs and look. You got them? No. I listen, I save a lot of stuff. I am a pack rat, but I drew I drew the line at squadron catalogs.

Mike 8:22

Up next is uh Will Timberwoods. I think he's up in Saskatchewan, if I'm not mistaken. And and his his email, his internet provider, part of his email address seems to indicate that that might be true as well. But that's an aside. He wanted to say that one thing he's discovered about people selling their stash is that you meet new modeling friends. Yes, you do. There are people that live in your community that you never knew existed. Absolutely true. And he's trying to switch to all 70 seconds scale and still has some 48 to 30 seconds in his stash. Not just gonna be able to pull the trigger on on letting any of those go, but I I can't decide if he's been buying from people in in in the neighborhood he didn't know existed, or if he's sold a bunch and now he's at the ones he's just have having trouble.

Kentucky Dave 9:11

I suspect he's been doing both.

Mike 9:14

Maybe he has. Well, that's that's good. Yeah, you know, you you can meet people in this hobby through all different avenues.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

Yeah.

Mike 9:21

I'm I'm sure I've met people selling stuff that I've I'm still friends with.

Kentucky Dave 9:25

Yep.

Mike 9:25

I mean, if you're honest about it, that's the way you keep them as friends. True. Drew Savage wrote in.

SilverCon Results And Show Logistics

Mike 9:33

Now he they just hosted SilverCon out in uh California.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Right.

Mike 9:37

And he sent this end of May. At that time there were 10 days post-contest. It's a little longer than that now, but he thought he'd give us some feedback because we kind of asked him to. He says it's not easy to track the metrics on advertising, marketing, social media's impact on the show, but he can tell us that one other longtime listener, Ethan Eidenmill, told him that the reason he came by their show was because he had heard it on Plastic Model Mojo and happened to be in town for other reasons. So he made a point to come by the show and check it out. So there's one.

Kentucky Dave 10:06

Listen, that's if we can bring one modeler who otherwise wouldn't have been at a show to a show, that's a win for us.

Mike 10:16

Yeah, and we've talked. That's was kind of the we thought was the primary reason we were doing those things, but it's turned out to be a showcase of a whole bunch of other cool stuff. So we'll keep doing it, and I'll close and saying we've got an interesting one I want to throw by you sometime this week, see if you think we ought to host it or not. All right. In addition, he says the number of entrants stayed roughly the same as 2025, which is about a little more than 100 people. But the actual physical model entries went up from 427 to 532.

Kentucky Dave 10:48

I think more people are finishing models.

Mike 10:50

Except us.

Kentucky Dave 10:52

Well, I wasn't gonna go there. You and I have had a rough, rough last two months. I was gonna give us a little slot.

Mike 11:01

We came out of the chute too hot, man. We our wheel, we gotta change our tires. Exactly. Pit stop. The dad jokes were a mix b mix bag, he says. Uh-huh. Could have been his delivery, or they don't just don't like dad jokes. You know. Most people don't like dad jokes. Yeah. But a good face palm and eye roll from somebody. Yeah, you you know, it's okay. I would sweat that. Uh people are liking the metal coins instead of the plaques for awards.

Kentucky Dave 11:31

Yep.

Mike 11:32

Take up a lot less space.

Kentucky Dave 11:34

Exactly.

Mike 11:35

And he says for their first time doing online registration, they managed to net about 25% of the entrance doing it that way, and they hope to expand on that going forward.

Kentucky Dave 11:44

So I think that's one of the waves of the future, man. I really do.

Mike 11:50

Yeah. Uh wave of the future in quotes, because it it's it should shouldn't be that hard at this point. Maybe everybody should be doing it. Right. Maybe the modeling community is actually catching up with everybody else. Yep, exactly. They had split the room, vendors on one half, contests on the other, so they could could coordinate off. And he does mention that that kind of was a bummer for folks who were only at the show for a couple hours there at the end. And we've mentioned that before that maybe that needs to be revisited. Revisited, and maybe it's not the best way to do it. Yep. Yeah, I don't there has to be a compromise between closing it completely off and then just having a free-for-all in the aisles.

Kentucky Dave 12:31

Yep.

Mike 12:32

So maybe there's a ta table layout situation there that could should render a solution. And I know other clubs are doing it, so yeah, I might revisit that one. Car modelers came out in force and the vendors were happy, and he saw lots of clusters of modelers and their families chatting about. So he thinks uh it was a success. They'd have some small glitches in the awards tabulation process, which they'll address in the coming year. 98% of experience was good.

Kentucky Dave 12:59

Good.

Mike 13:00

So good on him, man. He's looking forward to see us at Fort Wayne. So, Drew, glad the show is a success. I'm glad you're uh considering things that went well and things that didn't, and looking to improve in the future. So we'll be curious to talk to you at Fort Wayne and see what you got to say about some of that stuff. Yep. Yeah, we got an email. This was pre-Wonderfest from uh Dwayne Ayer, and he says we met in the MMSI hospitality suite, and he bumped a de bumped into you at Wonderfest last year. And he was saying he's gonna seek you out at Wonderfest and hope to see you there. I don't know if he found you or not.

Kentucky Dave 13:35

No, I don't think I did see him this year. But and again, it Wonderfest is getting more and more crowded every year. Wow. So you and you and I have talked for the last couple of years that Wonderfest's one big challenge is that they're at the limits of their space.

Mike 13:54

Yes, they are. I don't know what they'll do. They'll either raise the price and drive people off or they'll move.

Kentucky Dave 14:00

Right.

Mike 14:02

I don't know where they'd move, though. I really don't.

Kentucky Dave 14:04

I don't know.

Mike 14:05

It's gotta be a bigger place somewhere. That's not the fairgrounds. Oh my god. Yeah. That'd be terrible. Well, we've heard from Agent 001, Michael Ratsky. Oh, how's he doing? He's doing good. And let's just say he is hot on the task of finding us some cool places to check out while we're in Fort Wayne and not at the model show. And I think I'm gonna work those into the next uh model show spotlight. Good. Got some good suggestions. All right. One of them we may not tell anybody, just so it's not crowded on the game. That wouldn't be very nice, would it?

Kentucky Dave 14:37

No, that wouldn't be. But then again.

Mike 14:41

All right. Well, we'll we'll hit that one a little harder next time. Derek Post from Los Vegas. He's fine. He said he'd see us at Nats, and he was listening to the Wonderfest episode and sent me a picture of a car from Nevada with custom license plate that says Dojo. I don't know if it's his or not. Looks like a Tesla. I don't know if that's Derek's car or not, but it does say dojo.

Kentucky Dave 15:04

Oh, I like it.

Mike 15:06

And Tom Choi's written in. And he's Tom. He's good. He's talking about talking about contests and what he kind of he's sympathetic to the point that he's kind of kind of over that part of model shows now. And he just had an interesting story that, you know, he's he's usually entering to support the shows now.

Kentucky Dave 15:26

Yep.

Mike 15:27

And another one he uh he uh continually does enter in is the Roscoe Turner show in Indianapolis because that's uh his old club before he moved.

Kentucky Dave 15:36

Yeah, to the first place we saw Tom, I believe.

Mike 15:38

That's I think that's true. But he will say that, you know, we uh we all like to get some recognition, but he had entered in the 2024 IPMS National Convention. Mm-hmm. And not to build for the contest and enter with uh any expectation to win. But he and one of his travel companions both accidentally, he says, placed third in the categories they're entered into. Again, weren't building for the contest. In fact, they had not were not even in attendance at the uh awards ceremony. They'd gone back to the Airbnb or roasting hot dogs and drinking beer when they found out they'd actually won something.

Kentucky Dave 16:17

Yeah. That's the best way to find out, man.

Mike 16:20

So you never know.

Kentucky Dave 16:22

Yeah.

Mike 16:22

Well, Tom, we hope we hope to see you at Fort Wayne as well, man. Looking forward to it. I mean, you can do better than hot dogs.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Yeah, really.

Mike 16:32

Let me hit a couple of these. I'm gonna come back because some a listener sent us two, and I'm gonna bundle them up. Uh Ron Smith shared this through our feedback link on the on the website and in the show notes pertaining to episode 162. He wouldn't need to leave a scale model on the moon because he built part of the lady that's already there, and uh he's got stuff on Mars in as well, as well as in orbit and uh in interstellar space. So guess you wouldn't, man. You're in a small fraternity. That's right. And he is retired from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. And that makes sense, yeah. And Huntsville, Alabama as well. So there you go, man. We got there's a lot of space industry folks in the community. Surprisingly considering how small of a group of people it is collectively. Um it's uh it's interesting.

Kentucky Dave 17:31

It is. It is. I think that a lot of a lot of them are engineers, and a lot of engineers are drawn to the hobby.

Mike 17:39

Up next is also from the the link on the webpage, the feedback link. And this one just had a first name. This is from Steve. I don't know Steve who or where Steve's from. He gave us an interview possibility, which I really like, so I'm gonna look into that and I'll share that with you too, Dave. Uh but he was saying you were wanting to use your cutter more for mass into something you wanted to do. And he's got a device and an app that's made by a company called Shaper Tools. It's a actually for CNC for woodworking. But they've got this thing called a shaper tool trace, and it's a frame and an app. And basically what you do is you put your sketch inside this frame and then you use the app and I guess I don't know if the app's on your computer or your phone, but we can look it up and see. It creates an SVG file your image. Oh, really? Which is not limited to the woodworking part of it. It can be used by any software package that can use an SVG file uh for your your source file.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

Yeah.

Mike 18:40

And he's provided us a a web link for that. And it looks interesting. Not real sure how it works off the top of my head because I've not quite looked into it. And he's it's he also says that using the frame part of this ensures you properly scale the file.

Kentucky Dave 18:54

So well, it and this remind me of this because this will come up later in our episode.

Mike 19:02

It will. John McAvoy is has written in again, Dave, and he's given us a topic, and again, I'll keep it under cuff a little bit, but I've got a question for him. John, if you're listening, I'm sure you are. I don't know much about this genre you're you're referring to as far as how it plays into the modeling scene or what. So give me a little more information. I've looked and I've found something that's in the scale you're talking about, but uh it's kind of scale modeling adjacent a little bit, but I didn't see it as a traditional kit build kind of thing. I could be wrong. I could have only looked briefly and missed it, but uh it's an interesting suggestion. So looking forward to hearing from you again and give me a little bit more meat there or context to to work with. And then generally, folks, if you've got a topic you want

Tools Tips And Interview Leads

Mike 19:52

to send in and ask us about or suggest to us, let us know. All right, well, this next one is from Mark Casiglia down in Sydney, Australia, down under.

Kentucky Dave 20:04

Mm-hmm.

Mike 20:05

And a couple things that he wants to talk to us about since we said we like contrary opinions.

Kentucky Dave 20:13

We do.

Mike 20:14

Listen, I I my mind is always open. Well, this one both of these are good, and we'll have a little discussion here. He didn't like the advice that you gave about well, to a novice modeler, which was to do a practice run on a kit before actually committing to the actual build. He sees it a waste of time and a waste of kit. Instead, just commit to whatever you want to choose, and if the techniques need rehearsal along the way, do it on something else. Scrap styring or whatever. He says nobody has enough spare time to get through the kits they have, let alone adding a practice product into the mix. And and we've said this too. The worst scenario is worst scenario is you screw it up, uh, you just go get a second copy. Uh he's done this, but it's more the exception than the rule. He's not wrong, but I think there's a little nuance here because I think the person who we made this suggestion to, we may have blurred the lines between a true novice and a listener who had written in talking about not wanting to mess up a project that as a plane and a family member had flown on, I believe it was a B-17. Um I think with that nuance, if you're already building, it may make a little more sense. It may not be a waste. If you if you really want to get out the the warts of a kit and learn the backbones, and then if you really want to do a bang up job, it's a way you could do it and get a little practice along the way. Right.

Kentucky Dave 21:34

And I I think it was in the context of okay, there's a thing you've always wanted to build, but you were afraid to start it, to mess it up, that you know, you wanted to go all out on a kit. And I think it was in that context that that the suggestion was go ahead and build one of the basic kit out of the box just to see. Where the traps are, so that when you go, it'll give you it'll build your confidence a little so that you can then say, okay, I now know this kit. I'm gonna throw myself immediately into the Magnum opus that I've always wanted to do, but been afraid of.

Mike 22:20

Yeah, it's it's a suggestion. Uh it's an option. Maybe it's not even a suggestion. Because I don't know that either one of us would do this. Yep. I don't know. So it's a good point, and you will get practiced along the way, even if it's not the right subject. So yeah. And maybe we're misremembering it. Maybe we're talking about a novice. I don't quite recall completely, but I was thinking it was that B-17 project. And to me at that time it made a little sense. It kind of still does, but I I get Mark's point here too.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

No, I agree.

Mike 22:49

Slog on and get get stuff done, and you'll you'll get there. That's true. Build faster. His next point is on AI.

AI Posts And Dojo Guidelines

Kentucky Dave 22:57

Mm-hmm.

Mike 22:57

There's been some posts in the dojo that are AI generated or AI modified. And there was one in particular that was kind of tagged, and it was uh a piece of artwork that's done as a pen, ink, and watercolor. When I saw it, it was it was AI. I mean it and I'm not sure the the creator was trying to pass it off as a real pen, ink, and watercolor. Right. Uh but Mark saw it as possibly passing off work that wasn't really yours. And then they had a little bit of back and forth there in the dojo about it. And we're kind of in opposite camps of this. And man, this is really interesting because it's gonna feed in something I'll get to in a little bit later, but uh with this email. But yeah, I can I can see both their points. I I think I'll say that going forward with this topic and then with another one he brought up a little later, that uh it might be time for some guidelines on the dojo about some things. I've been seeing a lot of folks going hardcore no AI on some of the other pages. I don't know that I want to go quite that scorched earth, but maybe we're gonna ask that it starts to be identified as such.

Kentucky Dave 24:12

Yeah.

Mike 24:13

I don't think I I don't know if that's unreasonable.

Kentucky Dave 24:15

No, I I I'll be honest with you. I I am not blanket anti-AI because I again from our previous discussions and future discussions here later in this episode, I think it has its uses. But I do think just as if you had a mo a friend who built a really spectacular model and you took a picture of it and you wanted to post it on the dojo for everybody to see because you liked the work and you thought it was interesting and and useful, etc. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but I think we'd all expect you to identify the modeler. And I think the same thing probably applies to AI.

Mike 25:10

Well, I think where this gets squirrely is as AI gets better and better, this just gets grayer and grayer.

Kentucky Dave 25:19

Oh, yeah.

Mike 25:20

No, I I could I've got an analogy here, and folks can tell me if I'm full of crap or if it makes sense. Because there's kind of two camps. There's folks who say, you know, this is just a tool to augment what I'm doing in my own creativity, and there's ones that say, well, you're really not doing the work, right? Right. So we come into some money, we're gonna build our dream house, we hire an architect, right? Yep. We'll throw Steve Hustad under the bus. We hire Steve Hustad, world-renowned architect, extraordinaire, retired, yeah. Or whoever. And we have the initial interview with our ideas, what we want in our dream house, and they go off and they do a preliminary, and three months later they come back and we have another session with more input and more feedback. Then they come back again in six months and say, Hey, that's great. And then we build the house and it's our dream house. Who designed the house?

Kentucky Dave 26:20

Exactly.

Mike 26:21

If you're if you're at a dinner social and then somebody said, Who designed the house? What would you say?

Kentucky Dave 26:27

Well, I you would you would say the architect.

Mike 26:30

That's right. Yeah. So now you want to build a dream house, you prompt an AI, it gives you a floor plan and some elevations. You prompt it again, it changes them. You prompt it again and it changes them, and then you go build that house. Who designed the house? The AI did. I don't know if that's a good analogy or not. Again, I'm not sure. Now you could you could have some nuance. Hey, well, I designed it using AI and prompts. Okay. Right. All right. Okay. Maybe that works. I don't know. But you can say the same with the ar about the architect, too, you know. Right. Through my input, the architect designed the house with my input or whatever.

Kentucky Dave 27:09

Right.

Mike 27:09

But it on a on a cold question at a dinner party, you'd probably just say the art to the architect. The architect.

Kentucky Dave 27:15

Yeah.

Mike 27:16

And I guess that's what I'm getting at. So folks, uh, you can agree with that or disagree with that. I don't know. But there's gonna be some changes, a few guidelines. I think if we're getting big enough, we're just gonna have to do it. Yeah. Um, for things like this. And then the other one was apparently we had have the dojo set up to other pages can't join as a member.

Kentucky Dave 27:36

I don't know that that's us or that's fake Facebook.

Mike 27:42

It's probably a box we haven't checked in Facebook. That may be. This can be done. Yeah and Mark's one of those guys who's got, you know, he's got his life, he's got his modeling life, and the the the circles on the Venn diagram don't intersect too much. He likes to not inundate folks who aren't interested with that kind of stuff on his personal social media. But he'd like to share on a dojo and places like that. So as soon as I figure that one out, we're probably gonna make that change as well. So Yeah.

Kentucky Dave 28:09

No, I've got I don't see any reason not to allow if Facebook allows it. I don't see any reason not to allow pages to join.

Mike 28:18

Or yeah, I think they do. I think I think it's allowed, and I just it's it's probably a default that it's not allowed. Right. Um, because our podcast hosts, our host provider for the podcast, their social media page is that way. It it won't allow.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

Oh, okay.

Mike 28:39

But others are but others will. We will look at that. Yes. So see what we can do, man. We'll add it to the list. Add it to the list. But the good points. You know, and back to the AI thing, real quick, before I hand it off to you for the direct messages. Gosh, who was it? Somebody just made a put a hard line in the sand. Oh, it was Chris Maddings with the inside the armor, not doing any AI generative design work for his products.

Kentucky Dave 29:10

Oh, yeah, I he he does not.

Mike 29:12

Well, I mean, if this is an emphatic statement.

Kentucky Dave 29:15

Yeah.

Mike 29:16

So that's his that's his his take on on it as far as it well with regards to his own business, which is fine. It's if that's the way he wants to do it, that's why you should do it.

Kentucky Dave 29:25

Well, and I I certainly see an argument to be made for the human touch. The the the intentionality and creativity that a human brings to a project is possibly qualitatively different.

Mike 29:42

For now.

Kentucky Dave 29:42

Although, although yeah, I was gonna today. Yeah you you you beat me to it at the present moment. The problem is, or the well, I don't want to even call it a problem. The thing is, technology all always evolves.

Mike 29:57

Yeah. Well, Dave, that's it for the email side of things. What's going on?

Kentucky Dave 30:01

Oh, those were fun. That was fun. Those were good.

Mike 30:04

What's going on with the direct messages?

Direct Messages And Hobby Friendships

Kentucky Dave 30:06

We've got a lot, we got a lot. Again, they tend to build up when we don't do a feature episode as often as we should. Um, first, I want to mention Tyler Leversage out of Invermere, British Columbia. He messaged me out of the blue because he saw a new book from casemate publishers called Baptism of Fire about the pre-World War II Hungarian Air Force and the border skirmishes that they had just prior to World War II. And he brought it to my attention because he thought it would be something I'd be interested in, because apparently he's a mind reader because I had already added it to my Amazon wish list. Uh-huh. So it's pretty good. He's pretty good at uh at knowing what I was interested in. But again, it's one of those things where just out of the blue, I get communications from listeners, and they're like, hey, have you seen this? And now in this case I had, but in many cases I haven't. And it's it's like having a thousand eyes and ears out there. You guys are fantastic doing this stuff, and and it's just wonderful. So, Tyler, I really appreciate you uh reaching out, and clearly you you know what I'm interested in. Mike, the next DM is from our friend Michael Grisabian, and I'm relying on you for that pronunciation. So, Michael, if it's wrong, it's Mike's fault.

Mike 31:54

I think you got it this time.

Kentucky Dave 31:55

Good. Michael did this the thing that I do more than I'd like to admit, which is he bought two copies of the same book. And it happens to be a book on the Japanese float plane version of the Zero, the roof.

Mike 32:16

Yeah.

Kentucky Dave 32:16

And because he had a spare copy, he DM'd me and asked me if I wanted it. And of course, it well, first of all, I didn't actually have that book. So of course I told him yes, I did. And the great bonus is it comes with decals for roofs in three scales.

Mike 32:39

Ah, there you go.

Kentucky Dave 32:41

Yeah. So thank you, Michael.

Mike 32:44

That worked out.

Kentucky Dave 32:46

Yes, it did.

Mike 32:47

I assume you have a roof or two.

Kentucky Dave 32:49

I I do, but I am waiting for somebody. I mean, the best roof kit is the old Hasegawa kit.

Mike 32:57

Oh, okay.

Kentucky Dave 32:57

Which is which is not bad. But it is a 1990s kit. So I'd be real thrilled if Tomia or Fine Molds came along and did a roof. So we'll see. I'm holding I'll hold my breath and see if that happens.

Mike 33:18

Well, just because I don't know how how early in the zero lineage did that plane first get fielded.

Kentucky Dave 33:26

It was it was early. It was concomitant with the model 21.

Mike 33:31

So that's the series Fine Molds is doing, right?

Kentucky Dave 33:34

No, well, Fine Molds did the early series way back when, okay, which they're re-releasing, but the ones that they're currently doing are the late model zeros, the model 52s. All right. So somebody, anybody, I don't, I don't care who, somebody do a roof. Next DM again was one part of a continuing conversation. As you know, I'm a fan of the lighted Xacto handle that Xacto made for a number of years.

Mike 34:10

Um yeah, I remember this.

Kentucky Dave 34:12

And they stopped making it. And I had mentioned that I was looking for one, and and Sean Hurt up in Columbus, Ohio, had DM'd me and said he had one, a spare one. It was on his bench, and he'd send it to me. Well, kind of like me, he got derailed by some health issues. And while clearly he had much more important things to think about than getting me an Xacto handle, yeah. He very kindly did remember, and so he shot me a DM to let me know that indeed the reason he was delayed was health issues, but that he would send it to me. So I want to thank him for in all that more important stuff, keeping me in mind. That was very kind.

Mike 35:05

You know, we've had trouble giving those knives up. You you've better than me, but I've still not gone full scalpel. I just haven't done it. I need to do that.

Kentucky Dave 35:13

I but I I use both depending on the job. Yeah.

Mike 35:19

What I was gonna say though is that the lighted handle is not the only thing they gave up on. Sometime, I don't know how long ago, it's been quite a time ago now, but they stopped manufacturing the regular aluminum handles with a four-jawed chug.

Kentucky Dave 35:31

Yes, they did.

Mike 35:32

And I don't think the two jaw works as well.

Kentucky Dave 35:35

I agree.

Mike 35:36

And it's less versatile because sometimes you could stick other things in that little four-jawed knife handle that weren't they were round, maybe because it had I'm not gonna ask. Oh, pen vise drills and crap like that, Dave. I knew what you meant. Or a piece of wire or a sewing needle or something like that. But uh I have pen vises for that too. So uh I I just don't think it works as well as the two, even for their own blades.

Kentucky Dave 36:03

I agree. All right, I agree. Next, our friend from Tennessee, Bill Moore, reached out because, again, as we mentioned earlier, the gnats are coming up quick. And Bill reached out because he wanted to A, make sure that we were going and B, find out our general plans. So we had a nice conversation about, you know, getting to Fort Wayne and and doing different things. So he's gonna be up there, of course, and looking to looking to get together. So I told him we would most definitely, we enjoyed our time meeting up with him at Amps and definitely gonna do it at the Nationals as well.

Mike 36:48

I didn't get him a gift. Yeah, you need to. You've you've you've seen his truck, right? That he his custom truck.

Kentucky Dave 36:55

Yes.

Mike 36:55

Have you seen the little micro mini bike he's got in the back of it?

Kentucky Dave 36:59

No, I had not.

Mike 37:00

Well, it looks like something the Shriners would wear.

unknown 37:03

Right.

Mike 37:03

Or wear a wear, yeah. I guess you'd wear it. It's that small, but ride.

Kentucky Dave 37:07

Yeah.

Mike 37:07

I told him it was going to get him this little bitty cowboy hat to wear to wear while he rides it. Or a Shriner's fez.

Kentucky Dave 37:17

There you go. Oh I actually have some connections with the Shriner, so I'll see if I can get him a Shriner's fez.

Mike 37:23

No, it's got to be like a miniature one.

Kentucky Dave 37:26

Oh, okay.

Mike 37:27

Can't be regular size.

Kentucky Dave 37:29

The next DM. All I'm gonna say is Ian Kaiser of On the Bench is helping me with a special secret project. And he he he really came through for me. And so, Ian, if you're listening, thank you very much. That's exactly what I wanted. Mike, the next DM is from, and forgive me if I butcher the name, Heinrich Danforth Klein, who is out of North Carolina, of all things. And he shot me a DM because he was recently listening to our podcast as he was traveling up to the ODO, the Old Dominion Open, and really appreciated the podcast, wanted to let us know. But it's inspired him enough that he is going to attend his first Nationals this year at Fort Wayne. Well, cool. So I have told him, and this is true of every listener out there, if you're at the Nationals, come find us. Mike and I are gonna be, we're gonna have a table, we're gonna be in the squadron area. And uh we we want to hear from listeners. The interactions we get, particularly at the Nationals, are some of the best, best interactions that we have. And so I really, really want to encourage you to come over to the squadron area, find us, and visit with us. And while you're there, who knows, you might find something you want to buy. Odds are.

Mike 41:46

And brought the brought the material to uh to Wonderfest. Yes. And handed over in person. So yeah, yep. That was that was nice to see, man. That's the way you do business right there.

Kentucky Dave 41:58

Exactly. And I just wanted to mention it. First of all, it's great to hear from Tom. Tom, if you're listening, please send in more communications. We love it. But also, and I don't know how many times I've said it, but I'll say it again. The people that we talk about and promote, the industries, folks in the business that you hear about on our podcast, we're we're proud to have them on the podcast because these folks are really, really customer-oriented. They care about the hobby and they care about the hobbyists. And they will go all every one of them. In fact, uh Dr. Geldmacher just was DMing me a few days ago about interaction with Kit Mask up in Canada. Oh, good. All and he was was praising the customer service and the immediate responses, etc. All of the folks that that we promote on the podcast are really, really good business people and good people, and they bend over backwards to help the modeler. And we're proud to have them all as as sponsors, as people who are willing to be interviewed, etc., to come on to the podcast. So I just wanted to bring up Tom's DM because it was just it was a great example of someone in the hobby business going above and beyond in order to help out a modeler.

Mike 43:40

Well, is that all you got, man? That's it. Well, that was a lot and had some good ones in there, man. Yes,

How To Reach Us

Mike 43:46

we did. If folks would like to communicate with us, there's several ways you can do that. You can send us an email at plasticmodelmojo at gmail.com or a direct message via the Facebook Messenger system, or the feedback link on the webpage or in the show notes. Of each and every episode. Uh, we'll take them any way we can get them and send us some. We love to hear what you got to say.

Kentucky Dave 44:06

Keep it coming. We really, really, this Mike Mike said it before, but this is our favorite segment of the show because again, we really love the interaction with the listeners.

Mike 44:41

Well, Dave, we kicked around some shop talk topics a few days ago, a few weeks ago. I don't remember at this point. Uh it's uh it's all blurring together. But we've got three that hopefully uh folks will get something out of. Usually they do, but you never know, man. Yeah. All right, let's get on to the first one, man.

Tech Shifts In Scale Modeling

Mike 45:10

Well, I'll tee it up and let you hit it because uh this one this one was uh definitely yours. There's been a lot of tech development in the hobby, not just of late, but I don't know, since we've been doing the podcast and some of it's been going on a lot longer than that. So where'd you want to go with this one?

Kentucky Dave 45:25

Well, I you know, I I say that we are in the golden age of modeling, and we most certainly are.

Mike 45:33

And that's usually just talking about kits and books and decals and stuff.

Kentucky Dave 45:36

Right, right. And and I don't want to ignore the technological developments there. Kits now with CAD rendering and three, you know, and you know, machine cut molds and all. The kits are so much better that they than they were even 25 years ago, much less 45 years ago. And many of us have kits in our stash that are that old or older. So I'm I don't know as far as kits themselves, I don't know if tech has advanced as far as it can and it can't make much more gain. But then again, we're starting to see these developments of all 3D printed kits or kits where only the main structures are injection molded and everything else is 3D printed. So I'm not sure, even as far as kit development goes, that we're not gonna see further enhancement. Although I I struggle sometime to imagine how, but I do think we are.

Mike 46:51

At least you'll be surprised. Yeah. I you know, the kit one is interesting because uh, in my line of work, historically, I've been pretty close to injection molding for a long time.

Kentucky Dave 47:03

Yeah.

Mike 47:04

Um a lot of the technology that these even the newest kits are using is not necessarily new.

Kentucky Dave 47:15

Right.

Mike 47:16

Uh I just think that the cost of equipment and the cost of labor has come down to the point. I'm gonna say this is the only reason. Uh certainly there's been some improvements in the technology, but I just I think a a large part of it is the the cost of the labor and the cost of the equipment has come down to a point where people can put that kind of attention and machining time and electrode burning time to cut the molds into something as as I don't know, as what's the word?

Kentucky Dave 47:49

Esoteric.

Mike 47:50

Esoteric as a model kit, and I don't think that's the word I'd use, but esoteric subjects within the model kit.

Kentucky Dave 47:55

Well, exactly. That was my thought.

Mike 47:59

But but as banal as a plastic model kit, maybe is the word I'm looking for.

Kentucky Dave 48:05

Well, and and uh you know what? That's something that I don't think that we've thought about. That the development is not only all these new technologies that makes kits nicer and better developed and all of that, but you're right, and I I'll be honest with you, I hadn't thought about it until you just mentioned it. The cost of the technology has now fallen far enough that we're getting kits of things that we never that that 20 years ago would have been completely uneconomical to manufacture. Yeah. And now, because of the these technologies, the labor, the labor portion of it is so reduced, is so small compared to to everything else, and all those costs have fallen that that you can get the fairy fruit bat or you know the the whatever kit that's been your heart's desire that is so one-off that you wouldn't think that a manif manufacturer would ever do it.

Mike 49:22

And that's just kits.

Kentucky Dave 49:24

Yes. Well, and we've talked about in the last couple of episodes about this whole thing with AI and using AI in conjunction with 3D printing to be able to come up with 3D files for particularly figures, is where we have mostly discussed it in these last number of episodes, but it's not limited to that at all. But really, I think there's an area where it just came completely out of left field. I mean, nine months ago, nobody was really talking about it, nobody was doing it, nobody was thinking about it. And now, and again, these are two technologies, neither of which are technically modeling focused. They have much larger applications, but these two technologies collide. Some modeler out there goes, hey, you know what? I bet I could do this, and they start playing around, and sure, the the first few times not that good, and then the AI makes another generation or two, and then you get a new generation of 3D printers, and then before you know it, there is a whole addition to our hobby that wasn't there a year ago.

Mike 51:08

We've talked about it. We had Jake McKee on to introduced it to us and to a lot of other people for the first time, and then it wasn't long after we put that episode out. There was a couple other people in the dojo and said, Oh, yeah, I've been trying this too. And uh so he wasn't alone. Right because it's the first one we met that was doing it. Then a couple more came came out of the out of the back room to show that they've been doing it too. And now Robbie Knopfs, the model guy on YouTube, has just put out a video recently. I haven't watched it yet. But uh I was gonna mention that. Um, so I'd be curious to see what he's doing with it and how I'm gonna have to watch that video because you you know he's he's no slouch as a modeler.

Kentucky Dave 51:50

No. But it also in in my mind brings to the to the forefront the question of well, if that happened a year ago and now we're here where we are, what's what's around the corner that we don't even see that's gonna be coming? And I'll tell you one thing that that may be that. I was at Wonder, and that's really what kind of sparked this discussion. I was at Wonderfest, got to hang out with the crew that we interviewed from the Fort Wayne convention, got to see Warren Dickinson, got to briefly talk to Brandon, who was very, very busy. But while I was there, there was a company, and they're not manufacturing yet. They're they're developing the technology, and they're uh they're gonna do a Kickstarter, and I will I will put a link on the the in the show notes for this. This is it's an amazing piece of technology, and it really startled me. What it is, is an optivizor. Okay, just it it looks a little different than your standard optimizor, but it you'd recognize it as an optivizor if you walked up on it. And you put it on, and it has lenses. You put it on, you keep your glasses on if you wear glasses, and then you you bring the the swing arm of the optivizer down, and it puts two little lenses in front of your glasses, and then you hold your fingers out in front of it, like you would if you were manipulating parts in a model. And no matter where you hold your fingers, this thing snaps into focus. The focal point becomes wherever your fingertips are in front of your face, whether they're six inches, eight inches, twelve inches, whatever. It's a constant autofocus, almost like you you'd get with a DSLR camera, except it's it's not that thing where the motor moves and it slowly comes into focus. This thing snaps into focus. And I've been thinking about this thing ever. I spent five minutes at this booth playing with this thing. If they'd have sold me their prototype, I'd have bought it right then and there. And I can't wait till they start making these, and when they do, I will buy one, I'll be first in line to buy one. And I still haven't figured out exactly how the technology works, but it is freaking amazing.

Mike 55:05

It's gonna end like the jerk.

Kentucky Dave 55:08

Yeah, exactly.

Mike 55:09

The optograb. Yeah, everybody's gonna go cross sue you and sue the company. But I read the material you sent in the link, man. That's like, wow, that's kind of crazy. It is. Um I kind of sort of think I know what's going on, but I don't know how it works fundamentally.

Kentucky Dave 55:30

Um well, I'm sure as an engineer, you could spend 15 minutes looking at it and you'd figure out.

Mike 55:35

Well, I suspect they've got some kind of distance measurement on it somehow.

Kentucky Dave 55:40

Oh, they they they clearly do.

Mike 55:42

They've got some sort of They're running current through some kind of material in the lenses that that changes based on based on that feedback. And I I I'm just making crap up, but I don't know what else is if nothing is mechanically moving on them, that's gotta be something like that.

Kentucky Dave 56:01

Right. Uh and and it just it it's flat amazing, and I can't wait for them to actually sell these things because I'll buy one. And I spent five minutes minutes at that table, and I was just mesmerized. And again, that brings up that larger issue. Well, if this thing is out there and somebody's taking the technology, which clearly had to exist somewhere else, and is now bringing it into the hobby space, what the heck else is out there that we don't even that that we don't even see coming.

Mike 56:48

Yeah, you're right. So we'll have to put that link out there and see if this this these glasses interest anybody else because Yeah.

Kentucky Dave 56:57

Well, and and to go back to the to the email that you read earlier about the the app that does the tracing.

Mike 57:06

I don't know what the app actually does, but uh, well, well that turn turns it into an SVG file.

Kentucky Dave 57:12

Right. Uh I call it tracing, but I I haven't seen the app, I don't know how it works. But there's a hundred things like that that are coming along and that are going to simultaneously make our life a whole lot easier and a whole lot more complicated. I think there's there's going to be more of a learning curve, but by the same token, we're going to be able to accomplish things that we'd we'd only dream about five years ago.

Mike 57:49

Well, uh, this kind of goes on the same vein as cost and the the uh reduction in in price of technology for entry point for doing certain kinds of projects. Um kind of in that same vein, we're just getting a flood of relatively inexpensive tools that are pretty high in quality at a decent price point, right? That are like just for one particular task. Yes. And now some of those are machined and some of them are you know real pretty machined aluminum and anodized, like some of the space stuff. Some of them are have 3D printed components with some standard off-the-shelf hardware in them, like one of the Liang tools that that I got from with the help of Adam Coleman, who's the Liang rep for North America. It's just for the task of it does two things and two things only. It lets you put a starter hole in the end of some kind of round stock, small roundstock, so you can drill it through. And you can change the orientation of the way you put the material in it, and and you can drill one that's dead center perpendicular through the through the crop through the cross section of it.

Kentucky Dave 59:09

Which came in handy when you made those uh what were they, turnbuckles?

Mike 59:14

Yeah, those turnbuckles. And it's you know, it's just little stuff like that. And then you know I'm starting to get getting a small collection of these little things. And used to stuff like that, like if a machinist had it, either they made it themselves or it was really expensive.

Kentucky Dave 59:31

Right.

Mike 59:32

So I don't know. That's kind of another way tech development is has kind of changed things in our hobby.

Kentucky Dave 59:39

As you well know, being an engineer, if you have the right tool for the job, it makes the job so much easier. A lot more fun. If you hadn't had that little tool from Liang, you'd you'd have probably done you'd have made 10 runs trying to make those turnbuckles instead of being able to do it right the first time or the second time.

Mike 1:00:04

Yeah, possibly. I don't know. It was I was certainly had to create something on my own to do it with, but now I got this thing and and I don't have to go do that. But again, it was it was made possible by 3D print advancements and and somebody's and and the and the proliferation of uh inexpensive CAD too, I'm sure.

Kentucky Dave 1:00:25

Mm-hmm.

unknown 1:00:26

Yeah.

Mike 1:00:26

Anything else on this one?

Kentucky Dave 1:00:28

Nope. I think that's uh that's at least scratching the surface. If listeners out there know of new tools, new technologies, want to talk about any of this, please email us or DM us because again, used to be in the 80s, I knew every 72nd scale kit that was made because there weren't that many of them. I mean, there were only X number of manufacturers who released X number of kits. Now it's like drinking from a fire hose as far as all these new tools and technologies come. So, you know, the listeners can be our eyes and ears. If you see something or utilize something or use something, think it think we should know about it. Please DM us, email us, let us know.

Paint Mixing Notes And Storage Habits

Mike 1:01:30

Well, this next one was mine.

Kentucky Dave 1:01:33

Yes, it was, although I agreed with it.

Mike 1:01:37

It came about because I'm in the in this phase of the my KV-85 project, we'll talk about a little bit more in a few minutes. But it's just what kind of paint procedures and preparations do you do? I'm I'm not talking about actually applying the paint. I'm talking about mixing, storing, taking notes and stuff like that. So, and this one came to mind because somehow, well, let me back up. I took a couple things out of my military collection and brought them over to my workbench under my good light, and I spent a big chunk of a Saturday morning about a year ago, maybe a little longer ago, monkeying around with Tamiya Paints to get a a match for the 4BO that was on these helmets. And it varies a little bit, but it's not quite the anything goes that gets propagated in the hobby about rushing green. Gotcha. Um and I'd had it in a notebook and I'd shared it with Evan McCallum, and he used it on a fairly recent project, one he's got going on still, I think. I don't know if he's finished it or not. I can't remember. And then Hustad, Steve Hustad had used it on the little Flyhawk B17 or BT7 he'd built.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:50

Right.

Mike 1:02:52

And I started scratching around and I was like, well, I I didn't have it committed to memory, so I was looking for the notebook that I had it in, and I couldn't find it. So there's that. I'm not sure how I fixed that. So I was like, hey, Steve, hey, I can't find my notebook. Message it back to me. And he sent it back to me, and you know, once I saw it, I was like, oh yeah, I forgot how ridiculously simple it was. It's it's three different Tamiya standard colors in their XF line, and it's equal quantities of all three. So there's no drop counting really, unless you so my plan is to buy a bottle of each and just make a big batch of it at once.

Kentucky Dave 1:03:34

Right.

Mike 1:03:35

Just to have. Because the stuff will last a long time if you don't thin it in the bottle, right?

Kentucky Dave 1:03:40

If you don't thin it, in theory, and get a good seal. Yeah. You get a bottle with a really good seal. In theory, it should last like any other to me a jar XF paint.

Mike 1:03:54

I've got a couple of bottles of XF paint that the only thing in English on them are the name of the color. Yeah. And maybe the name of to me it might be in English, but all the rest of it is in Japanese. So those are probably from the late 80s. I don't have many left. I've got one or two. And the paint's still good. Oh yeah.

Kentucky Dave 1:04:15

Oh yeah. I mean, I've got some old Model Masters that have never been opened. It's some enamels. They're they're absolutely good.

Mike 1:04:24

So I guess my point is in the past I'd not done much of this, and it always came back to bite me, the bulk mixing at the front end of a project, if I wasn't using a standard color. Because I'd either run out and have to spend a bunch of time trying to match it, or I wouldn't write it down and have to spend a lot of time trying to match it again. This time I've since then I've just gotten in the habit of writing more stuff down, and I think we're gonna go ahead and uh mix up what are the bottles. Yeah. 23 milliliters. It's at 69 ounces or 69 milliliters total by the time it's all said and done. Well, I'm not gonna get 100% yield, it's gonna stick to the sides of the jars a little bit, but you know what I'm saying. I I have plenty of paint, and this model's a little bigger than the E16 Paul, the flip plane I did. I'd I'd prep some paint ahead of time for that thing, too. The topside green was a standard color, but I had a panel shading color I mixed up quite a bit of ahead of time. I just didn't want to run out. Right. You have you got any newer old habits that you like to stick to when you're get to the painting phase?

Kentucky Dave 1:05:38

I have a newer habit that is first of all, as you get older, write more notes. And this app that a listener recommended that I'm still playing with called Brush Rage gives you an opportunity to do that and have it in your build. So that you can just go find it and it's in there in that build. And then if you want to, if you're doing something else and you want that color, you can just go back and look at that build and it'd pull up the note. I mean, it's it really looks like it has a lot of use for that. But what I was gonna say is I have now gotten, I used to mix up paint and use some of it and try and keep the rest of it for the rest of the build. I don't do that anymore. I mix up enough paint for the paint session that I'm currently having, and then if there's any little remainder, I throw it, I throw it into my waste jar. And when I go to paint again, even if it's the same color I was painting three or four nights before, I mix up a fresh batch because particularly if you're using like MLT with lacquers, but it's really bad with enamels. Enamels will, once you mix them, now you're talking about reducing them for airbrushing. Right, reducing them for airbrushing.

Mike 1:07:17

Not custom colors.

Kentucky Dave 1:07:19

Well, mixing c I sometimes I may mix some custom colors, but I won't mix up a big batch of custom colors. That's what I'm gonna make. I mix up just enough for that night session. And and this may be superstition, there may be no actual science behind any of it, but I seem to get better results with freshly mixed paint. Whereas if I have a jar, even an unthinned jar of a custom color that I mixed up a week ago, and I go back to it, pull some out, thin it to airbrush it, it just doesn't seem like it sprays quite as nice. Yeah. Goes down quite as smooth.

Mike 1:08:14

The first part about the thinning, the thinned paint, I believe, but that that last bit, if it's not been reduced yet, I don't I don't buy that. That's superstition.

Kentucky Dave 1:08:22

Well, and you may it may be total total superstition on my part. I'm just telling you, I've had enough bad paint sessions, I've had enough things go wrong that this is what I'm doing now. And so far, doing it that way, I haven't had any problems. So it works, and so I'm gonna keep doing it, even if it's the equivalent of a lucky rabbit's foot. Even if there's no science behind it at all.

Mike 1:08:58

And I could be wrong. I mean, one of those colors, something might happen. There could be some kind of interaction there that I'm unaware of.

Kentucky Dave 1:09:06

Right. And it might only happen with two particular colors.

Mike 1:09:10

Yeah, one of the pigments might cause something to happen to the other one. I don't know. But seems a bit wonky to me. I've never had that problem with the paints I use, but I've been using uh I I've been using Tamiya for a long time.

Kentucky Dave 1:09:22

Well, not only that, but you're an engineer married to a chemical engineer. You've got all your bases.

Mike 1:09:28

She's never helped me with paint formulations.

Kentucky Dave 1:09:32

How could you not? Well, no, I never mind.

Mike 1:09:34

She insisted on the spray booth, though.

Kentucky Dave 1:09:37

Well, smart woman.

Mike 1:09:40

Anything else you do?

Kentucky Dave 1:09:42

Nope. Nope. That's the one that I wanted to mention. And like I said, it's it again, listeners tell us what you do if you're in the Mike camp or the me camp, or you do something different. It's what I've been doing lately, and I think it works. And I don't know if it works because of any real science, or I just think it works, and therefore it works. But I'd be interested to hear what other people have experienced or what they do.

Mike 1:10:14

And again, it's the front end work, it's not the actual spraying it, applying of the paint. It's the front end you do uh for your mixing and keeping and storing and all that to uh keep things going smooth and consistent on the on the front end.

Kentucky Dave 1:10:28

So that's kind of particularly if you're making custom colors. That's right. So what do you do?

Mike 1:10:33

Best practices, that's what we're after. There you go. Things to try. This one's you again, man.

What Makes A Great Model Show

Kentucky Dave 1:10:45

Yep. And this has been brought up by so much of what Mike and I have done with this podcast is stumble into things that turn out to be really interesting or really great. And we started doing the show spotlights because we want we're both big fans of shows and we want to promote shows and promote clubs so that they have successful, successful shows. But what that's developed over time is us discovering all these little I don't want to call them quirks because that sounds dismissive. All these different ways to put on a show and the different things that are featured, the different stuff that individual shows have that make them unique. And that's been Mike and I now talk about this a whole lot, not when we're recording like this, but when we're texting or DMing each other or when we're actually talking on the phone or whatever. We we actually talk about this a lot because this has developed into a really interesting area that just developed naturally out of our doing these little show spotlights. So, what I wanted to address in this particular segment was what are some of the features of shows that you particularly like that, not necessarily talking about the one, and I can mention one or two things at shows that generally I don't like, but I'm really wanting to talk about more about the things that are unique features that I like and that I'd like to see more shows experiment with. So, Mike, do you have a feature, a particular feature that comes to mind of a show, of shows, a particular?

Mike 1:12:54

Well, it's it's catch it either way, the a like or dislike, uh, depending on your opinion. But Drew Savage mentioned it in his SilverCon recap that he's submitted to us through listener mail. I really like it when a sh a the host club finds a way to not cordon off the model area during judging.

Kentucky Dave 1:13:19

Yep, I agree. I think that's gotta go. That is for a number of reasons. The the number one is that you get people who show up at a show after registration is closed, and they may have to leave before the show's over, and they never get a chance to see the models, but maybe at a distance, you know, if they're all in the same room. And I I know why clubs do it, yeah, and I understand why, but there's got to be a in I am pleased that clubs are trying things to mitigate or eliminate that, such as, you know, maybe closing one aisle at a time.

Mike 1:14:08

Or working from one side of the table.

Kentucky Dave 1:14:11

Or one side of the table, or or or just uh judging while while people are going through and just asking them to give the judges room as they're working a particular area on a particular table. You know, AMPS obviously has now that their style has some issues of its own where some models don't get out until later on Saturday. But, you know, they pre-judge everything and then get it to the table. So you never have a time where the model display area is closed.

Mike 1:14:55

Right.

Kentucky Dave 1:14:56

And that's ideal if I think if you can accomplish that, ultimately I think that's the platonic ideal. Now, what the Nationals do is different, but it accomplishes the same thing because what they do is they judge late in the evening on fr on Friday evenings. So the model room is closed for judging, but it's closed only late on a Friday night when you know people going through would be few and far between. Yeah. So that by the time Saturday comes, the doors are opened, and the model room with every model entered in the contest is on the table for the entire Saturday. Yep. And that's that's the platonic ideal to me. What about you? What do you like? Well, uh again, I'm gonna mention something that I've mentioned before, and I'm happy to start seeing make a comeback at local shows, and that is seminars. As everybody knows, I'm a huge fan of the seminars at the nationals. If you're going to Fort Wayne, go online, look at the schedule. When you get to the show, get the seminar schedule and circle the ones you're interested in. It's it's the it's the hidden gem of the nationals. It used to be back in the 80s, and this was before YouTube or much of the internet, when you went to even local shows, there was usually a seminar or two, because A, you wanted to fill some time for people while judging was going on. And it was one of the few ways to disseminate modeling information outside of your own local club. Because basically, you learned from the other modelers in your club, and going to a show where they were putting on a seminar in Indianapolis or Dayton or Cleveland or wherever was your one opportunity to get input from modelers from another club. And I think that with the development of the internet and YouTube, that started to fall away. But it seems to be making a comeback now. And I'll be honest with you, I'm thrilled about that. Because even with YouTube and all of those other exciting internet tools, you know, the technology we were talking about before, a seminar has the unique feature that you can sit there, observe the seminar, ask questions, and get immediate back and forth input. And you can talk to the guy putting on the seminar before he puts it on, or when it's done, if you have questions, you can go up and you can get much more than you can get from just watching a YouTube video. And so now we're starting to see seminars come back, and and I'll tell you, I'm pleased as punch about that because I really do think it's a it's a a good feature of shows.

Mike 1:18:33

It is, and I enjoy them too, and looking forward to some at the National Convention. And it's, you know, when we talked to to Scott Gentry about Rocky Mountain Expo, they had a skull docket, and you know, we've gotten some feedback in our own little social circle about uh the seminar Jim Bates had put on while in attendance there. And just uh, you know, if if the goal is the the the the betterment and furthering of the hobby, say art of scale model building.

Kentucky Dave 1:19:03

Yeah, and that's what it is.

Mike 1:19:05

Seems like a no-brainer, right?

Kentucky Dave 1:19:07

Yep. And and I would urge you, if your club comes and asks you to put on a seminar, please do it. I mean, a lot of modelers are shy, a lot of modelers are reluctant, they don't think that they've got something to contribute. They do. You you've got something to contribute, and you may not even know it. So if your club comes and asks you to put on a seminar, please do it. Speaking of seminars, I'll tell you one that is memorable to me to this day. And it's not one, it's actually two. At the first HeritageCon that you and I attended, Chris Sieber and Evan McCallum both put on seminars. Evan put on a weathering seminar, and Chris put on an aircraft weathering seminar. And I remember both of those to this day because of how impressive both of the presentations were. Both of those guys, A, are amazingly talented modelers. Okay. They're no question, they're they're at the top of their game. But they're also, they worked on their presentations, they really put the effort into them. And they are such good teachers and communicators that even just sitting in the audience watching the presentation, I learned a ton out of both of those seminars. So that's just one example, but that's one that that I don't think that that I'll ever forget.

Mike 1:20:51

I want to say a thing I like about shows, and it's it's still kind of half baked because I've I've not been to anything other than MMSI that's kind of in this format, but I'm real curious about the dynamic around these exhibition style formats.

Kentucky Dave 1:21:09

Me too. Um, I I want to see that grow. I want to see more clubs take a shot at that.

Mike 1:21:15

The the positive bucket is overflowing from what feedback I've heard. And honestly, the the negative takeaway bucket is is empty. That's the way I see it right now.

Kentucky Dave 1:21:25

So no, I I have not heard anybody who's attended that style show who who had anything bad.

Mike 1:21:34

I don't know what what you would say. I mean, unless you unless you're some dying-a-wool curmudgeon about you know well, there are those people.

Kentucky Dave 1:21:42

There are those people who never want anything to change.

Mike 1:21:45

Kudos to the folks that are exploring that option in their show formats or creating a new show like Scott did.

Kentucky Dave 1:21:52

Yeah.

Mike 1:21:52

Real curious. I think I would like that a lot.

Kentucky Dave 1:21:55

Is anything I I think I would too.

Mike 1:21:57

Anything else out there you you liked as a show? I agree with the seminars.

Kentucky Dave 1:22:02

Actually, that that ties into the one of the things we both talk about the social aspect of shows. And one of the things that that format that you were talking about, the exhibition style, where all of a modeler's models are grouped together rather than it categories, et cetera, and all, it really does the way that Rocky Mountain and Wine Country and some of these others are doing it, it promotes the social interaction because with big name tags and big signs telling you whose models they are, you can find those modelers and ask questions. And at a normal show, it absolutely, when I walk up and down the tables, I see models, and I'm like, okay, what how did you do that? What where did you get your information for this? What did you do here? And in a normal model show, finding that modeler is really, really hard. Even figuring out who they are. I mean, you know, you gotta try and lift up the paper that's assuming that the club has folded that information under. And with online, a lot of clubs aren't even you know don't even have that anymore. So that particular style of show, I think promotes something that you and I both love about shows, which is it encourages social interaction.

Mike 1:23:41

And again, for us, it's outside of MMSI, it's anecdotal. This is what folks are folks we respect are telling us this. So bring it east. Bring it east. Yes. Anything else, man? Nope, that's it. Well, folks, we'd like to hear what you like about a show. Even dislike, I guess, because we can kind of work with that too. But uh tell us what you think.

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Bench Updates And Build Progress

Mike 1:25:09

Well, folks, it's the bench top halftime report. And almost scared to ask, Dave.

Kentucky Dave 1:25:17

No, I'm I've I made a little progress, not not a ton, not as much as I hope to in the upcoming next two weeks before we record again. But the T33 is sanded, engraved. I've applied, it's gonna have a bare metal finish. And one of the things that I do, I use Alclad for my bare metal finishes. I'm not Chris Wallace has me interested, but I'm not going to try his tech his techniques that he did in his video recently on this one. I may do it on the next one.

Mike 1:26:00

Yeah, he was using the vallejo metal paints.

Kentucky Dave 1:26:02

Yes, he was using the vallejo uh acrylic metals. And I'm not that brave quite yet. I'm gonna have to experiment. I'm sure he'd help you out. Oh, he would. Um he's got a video. Yes. But uh before I apply Alclad to put down a bare metal finish, after I've finished sanding and engraving, what I do with any model where I'm going to put that bare metal finish on, I give it a quick coat of future. Because what the future does is A, it gives you a rock hard surface to apply it to. It levels and fills any scratches that you didn't manage to get out. So bare metal applied over a future-coded model tends to give you a much nicer finish. And I forget where I learned that. Uh though. What?

Mike 1:27:08

I just heard a couple of heads explode.

Kentucky Dave 1:27:10

Yeah, and that's right. But I've done this before. It works for me, and I forget who taught me that, but it was some model or somewhere. Who knows? It might have been a seminar at a show. Yeah, maybe. Um, but it really does work, and so in fact, when we're done recording tonight, I may start actually applying the bare metal finish. Rock on, man. So, and my Hellcat is is sitting off to the side for the moment, but I'm bringing that up back in because I'm gonna get that finished as well. Hopefully, both of them for Fort Wayne. So we'll see. But progress is being made, not as much as I want. Also, I'm it's still in the middle of tearing my model room apart. I'm moving a lot of The library that has resided in my model room out into the other areas of my basement. There you go. So I'm getting a lot more room. You are. Yes. I've seen it. So um I've seen the library. That's that's my bench top halftime. Well, you're doing the same, or at least you've been planning to do this.

Mike 1:28:21

Yeah, I've been planning that since we started this podcast, too. So no progress yet.

Kentucky Dave 1:28:28

Maybe it will come to fruition this fall. Ah, I hope so.

Mike 1:28:33

Not hold my breath, but it has a chance.

Kentucky Dave 1:28:36

So what's your bench top look like?

Mike 1:28:38

Got back to the KV85 and I cleaned up some of the fuzzies that were in the primer. And I've got that all re-sprayed again. So that's and you've rediscovered your 4BO formula. I've got my paint formula, so I gotta mix up some paint to start that with. I've been kind of planning my process by looking through some of the books I've well, some of I had a long time. The other one's one I picked up when we went to HeritageCon. I picked it up at Michigan Toy Soldier. It's got a Soviet light tank in it. That's kind of got some stuff I may try. Um had a little negative modeling, nothing major. The straps I made for the the fuel cans, I damaged one of them, so I gotta remake it. That's not terrible.

Kentucky Dave 1:29:24

It happens.

Mike 1:29:24

It happens. They're fragile anyway, so it's yeah, it may be foreshadowing of what's to come. So uh let's hope not.

Kentucky Dave 1:29:31

Well, when you when you make them, make a couple of extras.

Mike 1:29:34

Yeah, I thought I had, but it turns out I did not. So apparently I'd thought about it, but never followed through. I tell you though, one thing I've not primed yet, and I'm kind of glad I didn't just trudge on through it. You may have seen a post on Evan McCallum's Facebook page, uh, Panzermeister Models Facebook page, where he had had like three different, he was showcasing the three different 3D printed engine screen sets into for the KV80 or KV KV1 series and KV2 series.

Kentucky Dave 1:30:06

Yes.

Mike 1:30:07

And there was quite a bit of discussion on those about, you know, he's kind of asking which one looked the best, and he had asked me to post and I farted around on it, but finally, finally got to it and posted after some folks had already said the the constructor stuff already. The one that most people thought looked the best had had the finest pitch on the on the mesh and the finest, I guess, diameter of the wire within the mesh. And I believe it was Chris Mettings who said, that looks like that's just gonna get clogged with paint. Looks great now, but how are you gonna paint it? Basically is kind of where it was going.

Kentucky Dave 1:30:46

Right.

Mike 1:30:46

And I was like, you know, I need to be real careful when I start painting mine because mine's pretty fine too.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:57

Yeah.

Mike 1:30:58

Um I guess my biggest contribution was saying they all look like somebody ended up putting my thumb through and they just crumble, right? I think mine are a little more robust than 3D printed ones. Well, do you have a spare that you can no, I don't. So if they get fouled, it's gonna have to be a real careful clean and redo.

Kentucky Dave 1:31:19

Gotcha.

Mike 1:31:19

Yeah, that's giving me nightmares thinking about it. I think what I'm gonna do is probably get a green primer. Or maybe, or maybe no primer. I I'll probably use a black primer for sprayed from the bottom. Very thin and light. Right, just to create shadow. Just to create a shadow and get the back side of the white nylon mesh that's in these things. And then come back over the top with the same thing in uh well, I don't know. If the black on the back side looks like it's going okay, I may just go ahead and prime the fronts as well. Or I may just prime the the frames, the parts I can get to. Yeah, the one that Evan was showing that was I'm not I'm not gonna name the names. Folks folks can get out there and look, but that there was one that was probably a good compromise between scale fidelity and and just general robustness. But the mistake, I say mistake, the thing the designer did was the the pitch of the mesh was exactly the same width as the the spine and the and the cross supports in the in the underframing of the of the intake cover. And I just kind of postulated that man, you paint that, that's gonna be real apparent.

unknown 1:32:38

Yeah.

Mike 1:32:38

And it's gonna look like it's solid across all those things when it's really not. There's a mesh hanging over it. So that was kind of something I avoided doing the way I did it. But uh so I I guess the verdict is those all look pretty good, but I don't none of them are home run, in my opinion. But uh it's amazing they can even be printed, honestly. Yeah. Mesh that fine. Yeah, yeah.

Kentucky Dave 1:33:02

That's that's the thing that amazed me on all of them was man, how did they get that fine?

Mike 1:33:08

That's right. Well, that's the that's kind of where the KV85 is. I've not messed with much else. It's just been one thing after another. One thing after another. The the same the monkeys have been throwing stuff on the fan around here. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:25

I hear you, brother.

Mike 1:33:26

Hopefully, hopefully we're progressing through that. And man, I just need a good solid. I've been missing the workbench. I need to get back to it. But I've got a little bit done, just not much. Yep, you and me both.

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New Purchases And Stash Talk

Kentucky Dave 1:34:18

Mike, have you been adding to the stash?

Mike 1:34:21

No, I have not been adding to the stash.

Kentucky Dave 1:34:25

Are you saving your money for the NAT?

Mike 1:34:27

Uh I just I've been so disconnected lately from the hobby enjoyment that I've just not spent much money. Now, I've I'd mentioned the the paints for the 4BO mix. I I forgot I actually did order those today. Um those are on the way. And I'm there's something else I bought, but it was pretty inconsequential. So no, no new kits for me, not yet. There's a few that are hopeful, but we'll talk about those when we're doing faves and yawns here in the future.

Kentucky Dave 1:35:00

Yeah.

Mike 1:35:01

What about you, man? You went to Wonderfest, so I know you spent some money.

Kentucky Dave 1:35:05

Yes. I actually have been holding up the honor of plastic model mojo by stimulating the hobby economy. I went to Wonderfest, and at Wonderfest, one of the dealers had AK third gen paints, the the true water water-based acrylics that AK came out with a number of years ago in the dropper style bottles. I I really like this paint. I think it's a step above vallejo or life color or any other of the true acrylics that I've I've used. And so what I've been doing is I've been acquiring bottles here and there, and to the point where I'm packing up all my vallejos in a box, and next time I see Mike, I'm just gonna give him all my all my valejos, most of which I don't think are dried out. I think some of a lot of them have been not been opened.

Mike 1:36:16

They still could be dried out.

Kentucky Dave 1:36:18

But I'm going to committing to the AK Gen 3 line, and at at Wonderfest, a dealer had the entire rack, and so I bought a significant number and was able to work out a pretty nice deal, but I got about 40 bottles of paint. And uh you're trying to get them all? Huh? You're trying to get them all? Uh eventually I'll probably get most of well, I'll get all of the aircraft related ones. And then probably a lot of the basic colors that you know that you use that that aren't particularly model or military related. I also bought a kit. I have a soft spot in my heart for the F5, particularly in the aggressor schemes. And for the longest time, Etelary was the only game in town. And that kit is not a great kit. I mean, for the time it was it was fine, but that's that thing was made in the eighties. Sure. And then a few years ago, Hobby Boss came out with one, which is an improvement over the Etalary, but yeah, it's still a little bit blocking. A lateral move. Well, uh, a a step-up lateral move. But then about a year or two ago, I think it might have been a little longer, I'm not 100% sure. Dr a company called Dream Model released a 72nd scale F5, and I had meant to pick it up and never had. So I went ahead and bought it. I bought a couple of books thanks to Jeff Inchai Groves, who always forwards me Hamilton books whenever they send out an email regarding sales and blowouts. And I picked up a German reconnaissance aircraft book and a book on the B-29s in Korea. Both of those are areas of interest for me. And then finally, the company Steady, S T E D I, I had picked up a couple of their tweezers a couple of months back. They also make scribing tape. And having just finished re-scribing the T33, I realized that I needed some scribing tape or that it would be helpful. So the the scribing tape Steady Produces actually is marked on the tape every millimeter. So it makes cutting, measuring, and placing when you're trying to do something accurately, uh it makes it a little bit easier. So I picked up some of that.

Mike 1:39:47

Well, not too bad.

Kentucky Dave 1:39:49

No, I I spent some money. Now I am trying to save for the nationals because I've got a list at the nationals. It could be ugly, depending.

Mike 1:39:59

So we'll I'll be there to cheer you on, man.

Kentucky Dave 1:40:02

Uh yeah, well, right.

Mike 1:40:06

I'll find you some stuff to spend your money on.

Kentucky Dave 1:40:08

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, you're gonna live vicariously through me. Thank you.

The Voice of Bob (Bair) 1:40:13

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Ratings Sharing And Modeling Resources

Kentucky Dave 1:40:39

Folks, if you haven't rated the podcast in the podcasting app you listen to us on, would you please do that? Also, if you know somebody who's a modeler, a friend who's not listening to Plastic Model Mojo, would you please recommend us to them and help them figure out if they're technology challenged how to how to download and listen to our podcast? We'd appreciate it. Mike and I keep thinking at some point we're going to run out of new listeners, but so far that has not happened. We continue to grow, and you all are a big part of that. There is nothing more that you can do for Mike and I that is a favor more than telling somebody else and getting a new listener for us. So please, please do that.

Mike 1:41:41

In addition to that, please check out all the other podcasts in the model sphere. You can do that by going to modelpodcast.com. That's model podcastplural. It's a consortium website set up with our friend Stuart Clark up in Canada from the Scale Model Podcast. And uh he's aggregated the banner links to all the other podcasts in the model sphere there, and you can go for one-stop shop and check all those out. In addition to podcasts, there's a lot of blog and YouTube friends of ours. We'd appreciate you showing some love too. Uh Evan McCallum, Panzermeister 36. Please check out his YouTube channel. He's got a lot of stuff going on there all the time. Chris Wallace, model airplane maker, great blog, great YouTube channel as well. He dropped one fairly recently as well.

Kentucky Dave 1:42:24

Yes, he did.

Mike 1:42:25

The En Chai guy, Jeff Groves, all things 72nd skill. If you're into 72nd skill, you're going to want to check out what Jeff Groves has got going on. He's got some crazy batch builds going on, usually all the time. So always something there. Russian World War II themed of like okay. Well, let's check that one out. Yep. Stephen Lee, Sprue Pie with Fretz. We talked a little bit last week, maybe the week before, but he's got a pretty insightful blog, Sprue Pie with Fresh. You're going to want to check that out. And finally, of course, we want to check out Dr. Paul Buzzick's scale model workshop. And you get to that, some of it's on YouTube, some of it's on Patreon. So if you're not a member there, you might want to consider joining. He's got some good wisdom there all the time.

Kentucky Dave 1:43:07

Also, if you are not a member of IPMS USA or the national IPMS organization in your country, please consider joining. It is a collection of modelers who give up some of their modeling time to try and increase your enjoyment of the hobby. In addition, if you're into armor or post-1900 figure models, the armor modeling and preservation society is an organization of some extremely talented armor modelers. And Mike and I were just at the at their nationals not that long ago. And we had a great time. We had a fantastic time. And they're a great group of guys. So I highly recommend joining if you've got any interest at all.

Support Shout Outs And Organization Request

Kentucky Dave 1:44:12

Mike, we're at the end of the episode, and that is our modeling fluid wrap-up. And I'm gonna I'm gonna break the four, well, not break the fourth wall, but I'm gonna give the listeners a slight behind the scenes peak here, because at the beginning of this episode, you heard that my modeling fluid was Kroger Decaf Sweet Tea. Yep. What you don't know is Mike and I had to record this particular episode in two sessions on consecutive evenings. And so I am finishing the podcast drinking a McDonald's fountain cup.

Mike 1:44:56

Oh, okay. Well, for day two, I've got nothing but the crayon and ginger ale. You know, it didn't get me up. I think I finished it early enough that uh I slept through the night as best I could.

Kentucky Dave 1:45:08

Good. And hopefully it'll ward off stones.

Mike 1:45:12

I don't want to do that again.

Kentucky Dave 1:45:14

No, absolutely not. Okay, Mike, we're at the actual end of the episode. This is where we do shout-outs. So do you have any shout-outs?

Mike 1:45:30

Well, I would still and will always shout out the folks who have chosen to support Plastic Model Mojo through their generosity. We picked up a few more. Unfortunately, I didn't get that information collected, so we'll drop some names next time. So my apologies for that. But uh if you'd like to join the ranks of these folks who are helping us out month to month or one at a time or however, you can do so through several avenues. We got a Patreon, we've got PayPal, buy me a coffee. All that's available in the support links on plasticmodelmojo.com. So you can do that there. So, folks, we appreciate it. It's it's always humbling, man. But every time the month rolls around, it's it's just nice to see some new folks come on board every now and then. And for the ones who stick around for the long haul, we appreciate you very much.

Kentucky Dave 1:46:19

We do, we do, and I I second that. I've got a shout out and a request and actually a request. The shout-out is to all the listeners over the last year or or a couple of years or whatever, who have taken the time to DM me on whatever issue you wanted to talk about. I've said it before and I will say it again now. Nothing brightens my day, especially if maybe after I've gotten off the phone with a client with a tough situation, and I'm sitting in my office and I'm, you know, I've just had a real tough phone call conversation, and and it wears on you. Nothing brightens my day more than out of the blue getting a DM from a listener on whatever modeling topic, whether they listened to something and they wanted to contribute, whether they agreed, whether they disagreed, whether they wanted to tell me about a kit or a technique or whatever, it it never fails to make my day better. And so I want to shout out all of the listeners who've done that. And I want to impose on you by making a request. As you've heard, I am tearing up my model room and redoing it. I want your suggestions for your organizational paradigms for paint, glue, uh, tools. One that I really struggle with is metal tubing and plastic stock. But whatever organizational things that you have done in your model room that has made your model room better, please send those to me because I want to pick your all's collective brain to try and make my model room as welcoming and as efficient as possible.

Mike 1:48:33

Sounds good. We can do a big segment on that, man.

Kentucky Dave 1:48:36

Yes, we will.

Mike 1:48:37

If we get enough feedback.

Kentucky Dave 1:48:39

If we get enough feedback, I will I will definitely do that.

Mike 1:48:43

Well, another one for me is going to be the collective uh listenership. This is about the roughest stint we've had in getting content out since we started this podcast. Yes. And for the most part, we've done pretty well. This this episode's been a long time coming for no other reason than just life. And it doesn't seem to have affected much in the listenership. I've had a couple people ask me, hey, is everything cool? What's going on? Uh, because we keep dropping hints that you know there's been some suck to embrace in life here of late for both of us. Uh for both of us. Um, but we appreciate you all of you listening to the show, and hopefully we'll get 165 kicked out a little faster this time.

Kentucky Dave 1:49:27

I promise we will.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:30

Is that it, man? That's it, man. Well, Dave, as we always say, so many kids. So little time. Let's write this shit, man. You got it.