Thanks to everyone who made it to the meeting Saturday.

We started the meeting with Victor's wonderful 1/200 Bismarck.  I love these big models with the detail sets.  Details like vents around the gun turrets look like vents and not just a molded rectangle.  Victor summed it up.  When you're looking at it, you can literally take yourself on a tour around the ship.

I'll post more pictures in the photo pages.

Next John shared with us some new kits he picked up from Freetime Hobbies.  First a kit from a new supplier to the US,  IBG Models from Poland.  The WWII Hunt II Class Destroyer Escort.  I'm looking forward to John sharing this one with us.

Next was a China River Boat from Bigblueboy.  We're familiar with after market photo etch and resin sets that they have produced and this is one of their first ventures into resin kits.  This one is a real gem.  I'm looking forward to a future report on this one!  

For my part I brought some rigging materials.  First up was some tungsten wire that I purchased on eBay.  We had some fun with it because you can't see the smallest sample I brought which was .0005 diameter.  The larger of the two was .0015 diameter.  This is a more reasonable size to work with and for larger scales I would not hesitate to go larger.  This is some pretty tough stuff.  Some of the articles I've read say that you need special cutters although I found I could cut this with good quality scissors.  Larger diameters could be another story.

Next I brought some really amazing material from a company called Uschi which they call "Rig That Thing" rigging line.  They've designed it for model airplanes but the sizes I got .001 and .003 diameter are really nice for model ship rigging.  Another company makes this under the name EZ Line.  Watch this little video.  

This could be ideal for kit yard arms.  

We all decided that our next discussion will be on rigging.  I sent out a message to everyone asking for volunteers to demonstrate rigging techniques.  Victor has responded that he'll cover how he does painted fishing line.  I heard from Sam (yes, he's still out there somewhere.  :-)  ) that he's found some of that material John showed us and he's going to get it to Hugh to bring to the next meeting.  Maybe we can get John to demonstrate using it.  I'm going to work with the Tungsten wire.  Still would like somebody to talk about stretched sprue.  Anyone really good with it?   Finally if somebody would like me to send them some of this Uschi line to demonstrate let me know and I'll mail some to you.

Our flyer is complete thanks to help from Martin, Victor, and Blake.  I'm going to prep them for display in stores, etc. and we'll start getting the word out about our little group.

Finally Blake had an excellent suggestion for the group.  First we explore having some shirts printed up.  He also suggested that for the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor we all work on a project commemorating that event.  The idea being anything at all from that period be it ship, plane, whatever.  Every month we can get a progress report on how you're doing.  There seemed to be general agreement that this was a good idea so let's go for it.  I've got a couple of ideas already!  After we're all done we can display it during the club event that Rockler puts on every year.  

Next meeting will be Saturday, February 27th.  I look forward to seeing you all then.