Thanks to everyone who attended our meeting Saturday. Here's a rundown on what we covered..
Soldering
We talked about equipment and where to buy them. I brought my high end Weller iron, but showed some alternatives that will do the work just as well. Prices for irons range from $45 to $200 or more.
We talked about alternatives to irons. Torches are for soldering larger pieces. They heat to 2500 degrees. A torch like this sells for $48.
Tim shared with us another soldering tool. These are called Rework Stations. They put out hot air, enough to melt soldering paste. Here's a combination iron and hot air tool for $69
We discussed solder. TIX is very popular with jewelers and is an excellent lower temperature solder. It comes in 3in sticks in a variety of quantities.
Other solders are available from places like Amazon for very little money ($5 for 250 inches).
We discussed flux. Some solders have flux already. Others are treated separately. We also discussed Anti-Flux which blocks solder and flux from running where you don't want it to go.
So where do you get all this stuff? Some good sources are...
We also discussed some soldering techniques. But we're going to come back to this at a later date with another presentation by Rodrigo.
Next we talked about a complete 1/700 kit available on-line at Shapeways. This is created by Darius Lipinski of Paper Labs. For about $70 you can order a 3D printed model kit and Darius will send you the photo etch separately. Probably similar in quality to a resin ship kit. We've talked about this being the future of the hobby and here it is.
Sam shared some valuable information with us about model paints and references. We compared some model paint to some references such as paint chips from Snyder & Short. We're going to come back to model paints at the next meeting.
Blake shared with us his experience selling kits on Facebook. There are several different Facebook sites where you can sell your models. Blake had two rounds selling more than 40 kits. It's pretty simple. List your kits, post photos if you like, and have a fixed price or bid. The advantage of this over eBay is that it is more focused. Blake got almost instant results. Payment is generally managed by PayPal. However other options including meeting the buyer, swapping, etc. are possible. To find these sites just type in the names below into the search function in Facebook.
Here are the different sites Blake shared with us...
Sell & Buy Plastic Model Kits
This is a US based selling site. This is the site Blake said he used to sell his kits
All Plastic Scale Modeller Kits & Accessories Buy,Sell & Swap Group
This is a UK based selling site.
Veteranus, Buy, Sell & Swap Plastic Model Kits
This is also a UK based selling site.
Plastic Model Ships Buy and Sell
This is a ship only site. If you're looking for a kit that might not be available at the usual places you might consider advertising for it here. I signed up for this one and we'll see how it goes.
