Quad-Cities Scale
Modeler Society’s
The meeting minutes:
I’m back; I’m back in the saddle again. It’s been a few months, but I am back at the
helm and cranking out the newsletter again.
Thanks to the folks who stepped up while I was gone. It’s been quite a ride; I’ve been to
The Dates:
April 10-12, AMPS National contest and
Show. World War 2 Victory museum,
5634 County Road,
April 12: Chapter meeting.
April 12:
IPMS/West Des Moines Plastic Surgeons;
14th Annual Surgeons Contest;
Point of Grace Church,
305 NE Dartmoor Dr.,
Waukee, IA;
contact Robert Folden, [email protected]
May 3:
Alexander Lippisch
Chapter show on
New
Contact Charlie Kucera, 319-389-0877.
May 10: chapter meeting. Club photo shoot
May 16-17:
Omacon ’08 (2008 IPMS/ Region 5 Convention);
I-29 at I-80,
contact [email protected]
June 14: chapter meeting. Club barbecue and annual club contest.
July 12: chapter meeting
August 9: chapter meeting
September 13: chapter meeting
October 11: chapter meeting
November 8: chapter meeting
December 13: chapter meeting. Christmas party, Annual “What if?” contest and gift exchange
Gooood Morning Region 5 ! (My best Robin Williams impression)
I was just visiting the IPMS USA website and noticed some interesting threads
on the Discussion Forum. Two threads were of particular interest, one
about the Out of the Box Category and the second about creating a National
Database of vendor contacts. Allow me to ramble here. For the record, our
DLC has been encouraging us RCs to create a vendor
list for each region. So for those who may not be aware, many of the IPMS
officers have continually been working to aid our Society. On being named
RC, which is one of the things Dick Montgomery suggested that I try and get
together. I have been working on it, believe it or not. At the
Regional, I requested their list of vendors. I have also spoken to a
number of venders about such a list. One thing that I noticed was that
the vendors seemed very supportive of the idea. They generally seemed to
feel that they would be able to keep up with more events as they figured that
they would receive emails/mailings about more shows. I have spoken with a
few different members from a couple of other chapters and found that there
seems to be a belief that ‘so and so is our vendor, we found him”. It
appears that by sharing vendor lists, some folks fear “losing” a vendor to
another show. Both concepts have some merit. Sooooo……..
What do you guys think? Especially, those who host shows, would you share
your list of vendors? I will be happy to create and maintain the
list. I can even post it to our Region 5 Coordinators webpage. Contests. I don’t know how many of you visit the IPMS
USA website. They have a very lively and vocal group who express their
opinions of the Society. Although there are only about 600 or so who have
signed up for the forum, there are quite a few who are, shall we say
passionate, about their opinions. Currently there is a lot of discussion
about the changes that the NCC made to the Out of the Box categories. I
highly encourage you folks to visit the
Boy it was a real shock returning to
Enough for now....
Mike George
R5 RC
Something from Bob Horton:
Hi, my name is Carol Fisher. I am the owner of
AeroplaneBooks.com. We supply thousands of modelers across the world with
reference material for the models they build, so I thought this might be of
some interest to the people in your club. If you agree, please pass it
along. We are trying something new at AeroplaneBooks.com,
something we hope will become a regular feature. It's called "Ask
the Aviation Author." Lynn Ritger,
who has written two books, Modeler's Datafile #9 and
#10, The Messerschmitt Bf 109: A Comprehensive Guide
for the Modeler, Parts 1 & 2, has kindly agreed to be our first
author. The Bf 109 is one of the
biggest selling topics at Aeroplane Books, so we
thought this would be a great way to start off our "Ask the Author"
series. Here's how it will work: You can submit any questions you might
have about the Bf 109 through our website. We will choose a number of
questions to give to Lynn, who will answer them to the best of his
knowledge. Then they will be put into question and answer form and posted
on the website. People who submit a question will also automatically have
the final Q&A e-mailed directly to them. You can start asking right
away by clicking on the link below:
http://www.aviationauthorsqanda.com/
Thanks
Carol
http://www.aeroplanebooks.com/
Press Release
Meteor Productions Permanently Closes.
This is not a joke. After fifteen years
of serving the modeling community with superior
decals & resin conversions, Meteor Productions, Inc., will cease business
operations at
Good luck and good modeling!
Dave Klaus
AFA Daily Report
Wednesday March 5, 2008
Fighter Ace Lopez Dies: Donald S. Lopez, an Army Air Forces flying ace of World
War II, engineer, test pilot, author, historian, and a longtime leader of the
Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum, died March 3 after suffering a heart
attack. He was 84. After winning his wings, Lopez was sent to
Tigers, flying P-40s and later P-51s. He later wrote of his experiences in the
war in a critically-acclaimed memoir, Into the Teeth of the Tiger. Lopez also
flew early jet fighters as a test pilot at
Subject: Nationals Update - 6 months to go
(note: This update came in last month,
things have picked up since then)
Well Nationals 2008 is creeping up on us - just 6 months to
go. We have 93 vendors lined up with 323 tables sold. Dragon
Best regards and see you in August!
Charles Landrum
Chairman
IPMS-
www.ipmsusa2008.org
Vendors
Vendors to date - 93
323 of 344 tables
sold/reserved (90%). We are still shy on
car, sci-fi and figure vendors and are looking for assistance lining some up.
Hotels
Doubletree - 589 of 850 room-nights booked so far, with 145 for the peak
nights; this up from 400 room-nights less than a month ago. We have a verbal
commitment from Doubletree to make more rooms available as necessary, but the
max number is only 250. Doubletree is working on an online registration page.
Howard Johnson's - 11 rooms, 44 room nights (pending update)
Ocean Front - 13 rooms, 75 room nights (pending update)
Convention Activities
Confirmed or pending displays:
NORAD
Great White Fleet
Large Nimitz Class Carrier Model
Monster trucks
Re-enactors
RC vehicles
Race Cars
We are in the process of lining up military vehicle displays, so far we have
13-14 and some artillery pieces. Dragon is helping out with space and is
working to get more vehicles and militaria
displays.
We are finalizing prices for tours and will have those
posted soon.
Fighter Factory BBQ. Tickets are moving. Just found
out that the Fighter Factory has acquired military vehicles for display
including: A Bren Carrier, a Dingo, a 1938 Hanomag and a 105mm Howitzer.
Dragon EXPO08 - continue to coordinate with Adrian Leung at Dragon
Hasegawa
Italeri (Strong interest)
Mini-art
ICM
Zvezda
Fujimi (strong interest)
Masterbox
Tamiya (perhaps)
Kit Review—Ed Mate
Modeling notes for Monogram’s
1/48 F-86D Sabre Dog
Courtesy Will-Cook
Newsletter
This kit started like many of my kits do – cutting parts off of the sprues late one evening while keeping my wife company while she does something she wanted to do after the kids have been put in bed. I started it shortly after it was released and it languished on the shelves for a while. Somewhere along the way I picked up an Eduard detail set for the kit. While going through some old kits in my collection I found my old Entex F-86D and discovered a Superscale decal sheet inside. The “Big Viv” markings matched a color profile in my F-86 Sabre in Color book, so things started coming together to complete the kit. I started assembly in the cockpit per the kit instructions. I ground off the seat belts from the seat to prepare it for some photo-etch replacements. I also filed away all of the instrument panel detail to prepare that for a photo-etch replacement from Eduard. I painted everything FS36231 dark gull grey per the instructions, and then painted the instrument panel and side panels black. After a little dry brushing, I detail painted per the illustrations in F-86 Sabre in Color. Finally, I gave everything a wash of dark brown oil paint and then put all of the cockpit pieces together. One of the less pleasant tasks of this kit was cleaning up the ejector pin marks on the insides of the intake trunk halves. I filled mine with putty, followed by tedious sanding, Mr. Surfacer, and more tedious sanding. After gluing the halves together, it was on to more Mr. Surfacer along the seam and even tighter tedious sanding. Once everything was smooth the inside was airbrushed silver. Then I glued the intake to the nose piece and filled the nose with BBs and epoxy so the model would sit properly on the landing gear. Both the intake and exhaust assemblies were glued to the right fuselage half. Once all of the detail painting of the cockpit was done, the instrument panel was added and the assembly was fitted inside the right fuselage half. Now I was ready to put the fuselage together. This went very easily without any of the issues I had with my Hasegawa F-86F [editor’s note: see this review on the F-86F in the June 2007 issue of the Newsletter]. After the glue was dry, I went to work with sandpaper to make the seams disappear. I brought the kit with me to a club meeting and rescribed all the panels across the center seams. I used very little filler, just a little Mr. Surfacer on the bottom fuselage seam behind the wing. This kit fits together very well. One spot that is the downfall of many Sabre Dogs I’ve seen built is the large air scoop on the right fuselage side (these are the parts that are glued into the holes). It could be on both parts, but I’ve seen it on a few right side scoops – sink mark! Take a little time and fill this sink mark – it will definitely show up with a natural metal finish.
The wings are nice moldings.
The kit provides for extended leading edge slats and dropped flaps. My parts had a slight warp, so when I glued
the top half of each wing to the bottom piece, I sandwiched the wing halves
between a chunk of lead on top and my workbench underneath to make sure they
dried straight. The wheel bays are made
up of several parts and all of them fit well.
After a little sanding of the seams, I added the wing pylons and
electronics box. Now I was ready to join
the wings to the fuselage. This went
very easily; this kit fits together very well.
I slipped a rubber band over the nose and slid it down to the wing. I pulled it back and hooked it over some of
the wing slat rails and had the right tension to close the wing to fuselage
gaps. As a well-engineered feature of
the kit, the stabilizer tabs pass clear through the fuselage and engage the
slot on the opposite fuselage side. This
virtually assures properly aligned parts.
I started the painting process with Gunze acrylic white paint. This is the surface primer I used for the Alclad II metallic paints and serves as the white trim
areas on the model (which were masked with masking tape prior to painting the
various silvers). The base color is Alclad aluminum.
Various panels were masked with Parafilm,
post-it notes, and masking tape, then painted with
other Alclad colors.
Again, I had cracking paint problems, and the seam between the canopy
and fin showed up once silver was on the plane.
Not too bad at first, so I solved both problems by spot sanding down to
the plastic, fixed the seam with super glue, and primed the plastic again (this
time with Alclad grey primer since I had it out for
the F-86F). However, while I was
completely re-doing my F-86F, more and more cracks showed up until the F-86D
was a total loss. Out of frustration I
put the model in the box and put the box back on the shelf for a while. After the appropriate amount of time (about 6
months), I took out the kit again and started removing paint. I experimented with Pine-Sol to remove the
paint on the drop tanks. The paint came
off, but there was a softening of the plastic that rendered them useless. I built some replacements from another kit
and cast some new, resin, tanks. A small
0.010” plastic wedge added above the tank fin on the right side of each tank
will make the mold mismatch disappear.
On the airplane I used wet 400, then 500, then 600, then 800 grit
sandpaper to remove the paint and polish the surface scratches in preparation
of new Alclad grey primer. After all of the sanding, two missing panel
lines on each fuselage half became more apparent, so I scribed them to match
the rest of the kit. Just in front of
the stabilizer is a vertical panel line which appears as a small ridge on the
original moldings; this is where the mold change takes place for the two kit
versions (with and without para-brake housing). Also, a diagonal panel line from the cockpit
to wing is depicted the same way (why? …Was Monogram
planning to give us an F-86K but never completed the project? …if so, too bad). Now, the painting started all over again
starting with the primer. After sanding
the primer coat with 800 grit sanding pads I was getting excited about finally
finishing the project. I started
thinking that the red and white stripes on the rudder may be better to paint
rather than use a decal over the trim tab and its actuator. Then looking at the decal, I noticed it
wasn’t going to be wide enough to cover the entire trim tab; hmmm, why would a
decal not be designed to fit? Then I
started looking closely at photos of the rudder of F-86Ds, and I realized I
never noticed a trim tab that stuck out farther than the trailing edge of the
rudder – hundreds of photos, no trim tabs like the kit! The kit’s rudder trim tab is too wide (it
should not stick out farther than the trailing edge of the rudder, and it is
too tall (it should end before the lower hinge). I cut the chord to size and filled the hinge
line with stretched sprue in preparation of scribing a correct size tab. After this small detour, I re-primed the
area, re-sanded, and painted the stripes.
The stripes marking are a representation of the
Italeri 1/35 MTM “Barchino”
MSRP: $35.00
Imported by Model Rectifier Corporation (MRC)
Cortesy IPMS Tacoma Green Dragons newsletter
Background:
The MTM "Barchino" was a touring boat modified by the Italian Navy to be run into the sides of enemy vessels at the water line and explode, either sinking or severely damaging them. This was not a suicide boat as the operators ejected themselves off the back of the boat just before impact. The most successful operation for these small boats was the sinking of the Royal Navy heavy cruiser H.M.S. York and the Tanker Pericles on the night of 25-26 March of 1941. Six MTMs participated in the operation and all six operators were captured; in fact not one single MTM driver ever lost his life during any of these operations through out the war.
Contents:
The kit consists of 44 plastic parts molded in light grey
with a decent amount of detail for Italeri, a one piece figure, and a
photo-etch fret containing 40 parts, 30 of which are tiny butterfly nuts. It
all comes packed complete with a reference manual containing some great museum photos
of the MTM and a box sized "poster" of the box art very suitable for
framing. Unfortunately the box art shows a red-hulled MTM speeding across the
water but yet I can find absolutely no reference indicating any MTM had a red
hull. The figure is a very nice treat considering it is a one piece mold with
no assembly. References:
The only reference I used was the Photographic Reference Manual that Italeri refers to as the RPM series of kits.
Construction:
This was a very easy and quick build. It took me longer to detail and paint than the basic construction did. Parts fit was generally good for an Italeri kit, but I did have to add some scratch built spares to the interior where the explosive drum was stored as it is a very visible area if you leave the cover off. Piece 5 is a bulkhead that separates the engine compartment from the stored explosive compartment and in photos it shows to be a solid wall and that's about the only serious modification I made. I also added a throttle quadrant and all the wires and hoses that I could see in the reference photos from the manual that is provided with the kit. The most time consuming item was the 28 photo-etch butterfly nuts that were supplied. Italeri gives you 2 extra so don't lose more than that. I probably spent somewhere around 10 hours on the entire project.
Painting:
The entire kit was sprayed with Model Master Light Ghost Grey and then Dark Grey pastels were added in all the recessed areas, followed by a flat coat and then dry brushed with an extremely light shade of Humbrol Grey. Except for black on the bottom of the hull, the only other color used was a light Blue-Grey used in the cockpit area. The stand the boat sits on has more colors on it than the boat does. I decided to add a little contrast to the stand by painting the colors of the Italian flag before applying the only decals used on the whole kit, which was the "MTM Barchino" logo. For the review I have used the stand, but I've also started on a diorama base that will be used for the craft sitting dockside in the water.
Conclusion:
I hope this is the beginning of a new era for Italeri exploring subjects that are sort of "off the beaten path" for 1/35 scale modelers. It's easy to complain about the lack of detail on a kit that probably didn't have much detail to begin with. The big disappointments is that Italeri could have supplied the Alfa Romeo 90hp 6C 2500 six cylinder engine with the kit and if a manufacturer is going to supply a "Reference Manual" with the kit than they should look at it before producing molds. Thank you to Italeri for making g the kit, to Akiko and Bob at MRC (importers) and to IPMS for allowing me to build it.
Subject: Sturmgeschutz (Stug IIIB)
Author: Alex Valz
Courtesy Spare {Parts newsletter, IPMS Richmond
Model Type: Injected Molded
Manufacturer: Tamiya
Scale: 1/35
Recommended: Yes. This is an attractive model when finished.
Problems: The biggest problem with this model is that Tamiya includes four small coiled wires that attach to the front and back bogie wheel axles inside of the vehicle. This enables you to pivot the front and back bogies. This isn’t entirely satisfactory as I found when I stretched the one piece vinyl tracks over the entire suspension and found that both front and back bogies were slightly higher than the rest. I partially solved this problem by building a base with a slight incline so that the front bogies were elevated and the back bogies sat flat. I would suggest that anyone building this model consider leaving the springs off and super-gluing the front and rear idler arms even with the other idler arms. A set of individual track links is also an option. There are the usual sink holes on the rear interior wall of the crew compartment and some major seams on the bogies, which you will spend some time scraping and filling. I found that there was a gap between the superstructure and the lower hull after I assembled the two parts. However, this filled in nicely with Mr. Surfacer. At about $45 retail, this model is a little pricey for what you get as there is only one figure and no additional stowage. Comments: Introduced early in World War II, the Sturmgeschutz IIIB (Assault Gun) was intended as an infantry support vehicle and was considered artillery rather than a tank. It was a modification of the Panzer III with a low superstructure housing a short barreled 75 mm howitzer in place of a regular tank turret. This gave the vehicle a low anvil-like appearance. The kit comes with a small photo-etch fret including grills, headlight covers, and some other small parts. There is also a nice turned aluminum gun barrel. The model could benefit from some metal cables to replace the one piece plastic coiled cable that attaches to holes on the back of the vehicle. If you don’t want to use this piece, you will have to fill the holes, of course. The instructions include a very pretty full color layout that serves as a color and decal placement guide. The decals are quite colorful with a choice of three skull and crossbones insignias for the Totenkopf Division in white, yellow, and red. Decals for several other units are also provided. I chose to make the Stug a “pirate tank” with the white skull and crossbones. Everything fit together well with the exception of the things mentioned previously. I painted the Stug III interior with Tamiya flat white and the exterior with Tamiya dark gray. I used white, gray, and burnt umber oils to simulate rain and rust streaks on the exterior and mixed European Dust MIG pigments with lighter fluid to make a wash for the wheels, suspension, and fenders. I put the vehicle on groundwork made with celluclay and added an assault gun ammo loading crew from Dragon. This is a nice set of figures and I would recommend it too. This is basically an enjoyable weekend build and a welcome break from the sometimes overly complicated Dragon kits.
First Glance: Kinetic Models 1/32 F-86F-30 Sabre
By: Brian D. Casteel,
I have the first offering of a 1/32 scale F-86 in my collection,
It is the Hasegawa kit first released in the early 1970s. It's not a bad kit,
but it does have raised panel lines. I think it’s been a long time coming for a
second offering of this fine aircraft from American aviation history. I believe
this is Kinetics second offering, the first being the F-84 Thunderstreak
a few months back. This is their first 1/32 scale kit. This kit is comprised of
164 parts molded in the standard model grey and clear. There are two decal
sheets one of mostly stencils and then another of everything else. The decals allow you to build one of two
variants, "Beauteous Butch II" or "Mike's Bird" Two well
known aircraft from the Korean War. The instructions are comprised of 10 pages
of well illustrated steps. The exterior detail is bountiful; even if a bit soft
in a couple of spots, but it is all recessed. There are many rivets present to
accentuate the detail. The kit comes with a metal nose weight. The kit can be
built like most Saber models out there with the plane split in half so that you
can show off the engine detail. Other detail includes the gun bay and plenty of
ordnance for display. The cockpit seems to be a bit sparse but perhaps the Avionix guys (formerly
A Blonde's Year in Review
Sent in by Mike Valentine
January: Took new scarf back to store because
it was too tight.
February: Fired from pharmacy job for failing to
print labels..... Helllloooo!!!....... bottles won't fit in printer !!!
March:
Got really excited.....finished jigsaw puzzle in 6 months..... box said '2-4 years!'
April: Trapped on escalator for
hours ... power went out!!!
May: Tried to make
Kool-Aid.....wrong instructions....8 cups of water won't fit into those little
packets!!!
June: Tried to go water skiing.......couldn't find a
lake with a slope.
July: Lost breast stroke swimming
competition.....learned later, the other swimmers cheated, they used their
arms!!!
August:
Got locked out of my car in rain storm..... car
swamped because soft-top was open.
September: The capital of
October: Hate M & M's.....they are so hard to peel.
November: Baked turkey for 4 1/2 days .. instructions said 1 hour
per pound and I weigh 108!!
December: Couldn't call 911.
'duh'.....there's no 'eleven' button on
the stupid phone!!!
THE BEST BLONDE JOKE OF THE YEAR - SO FAR
A man was in his front yard mowing
grass when his attractive blonde female neighbor came out of the house and went
straight to the mailbox. She opened it then slammed it shut and stormed back in
the house. A little later she
came out of her house again went to the mail box and again, opened it,
slammed it shut again. Angrily, back into the house she went. As the man was getting ready to edge the
lawn, here she came out again, marched to the mail box, opened it and then
slammed it closed harder than ever. Puzzled
by her actions the man asked her, 'Is something wrong?'
To which she replied, 'There certainly is!'
(Are you ready? This is a beauty...)
‘My stupid computer keeps saying, 'YOU'VE GOT MAIL!'