I apologize for the late follow up from our meeting.

We started the meeting off going back to Patriots Point with a terrific tour of the USS Laffey from Roger.  I can't tell you enough how much fun it was walking around Liffey with Roger and also with Jerry as they relived their experiences on the sister ships USS Borie (DD-704) and USS Ticonderoga (CV014.  Hugh also provided us with photos from his travels with Sam.  Special thanks to Roger's wife, Peggy, who saved the day with the images!  Here's the link to Patriots Point.  If you can get back there it's well worth the visit.

https://www.patriotspoint.org

USS Laffey

Vietnam Experience Exhibit

I told you all that I contacted Brandon at Free Time Hobbies to see what the status was of the 1/700 Normandie.  A number of you have purchased this kit.  $250 but it's a big chunk of resin with all the parts you could need.  Except of course all of the after market figures that Free Time is producing.  :-)  Brandon told me that they have made a couple of changes on the hull and photo etch and are waiting for the new parts to come in before they ship.  I noticed yesterday that Brandon has the Normandie on pre-order on his web site.  This is a remarkable kit.

John of course never disappoints and provided us with a good discussion on using Tamiya and Vallejo washes to weather decks.  These are interesting washes.  The Vallejo is water based and Tamiya is an "acrylic" or alcohol based.  The Vallejo wash will work great over a Tamiya paint base color.

I brought back my project working with water color pencils.  Starting with the wood deck.  The base color was Tamiya XF-78 Wooden Deck Tan.  Correct me if I'm wrong Victor.   If you can imagine the 1/3 of the left side was covered with a clear gloss (Future), The middle section was coated with Micro Flat, and the right 1/3 was the basic color with no top coat.  I added combinations of complimentary colors but also through in some black on the right 1/3.  I was really pleased with the result.  

The other test I made was on the 1/700 U-boat.  I did not find the water color pencils very useful as a wash where you want a color to get into panel lines, flood holes, etc.  There are better choices for that.  I did find that it creates a very soft effect much like a filter.  It's very forgiving.  If you don't like it then wash it off with water.  

The other technique I tried was adding rust colors.  Again, very easy to use and forgiving.  I experimented with using salt.  Water color artists use salt to draw the paint.  I dabbed on some wet color and then sprinkled salt over it.  Made for a very nice effect.  Daniele made a very good point.  The traditional salt method would call for you to spray the base color over the salt and after it dries knock the salt off.  This gives you the effect of rust bubbling up underneath the paint.  

I followed through on the pencil scriber.  Modelers have been using needles in pin vices for a long time as a good scribing tool.  For this test I used a .75mm mechanical pencil that I got from Target.  I bought a couple of different sized straight pins from Michaels.  The larger pins worked perfectly in this mechanical pencil.  No drilling out of the pencil was required.  What I really liked about this setup was that it was very comfortable to hold and easy to control.  Better than a pin vise by far.

I compared it with my favorite scriber which is from UMM Models.  I still like my UMM scriber the best but this is an excellent choice as well.  

I have a bunch of these needles.  If you guys want to get the pencils I'll be glad to bring you some pins.  But make sure you tell me or I won't bring them to the meeting.  

3D printing continues to amaze.  Bill brought in his 1/72 torpedo tubes that he bought from Model_Monkey on the Shapeways web site.  I was blown away by the detail and the quality of the print.  The walls are amazingly thin so you could model these empty with a very realistic look.  I sure wish I had these when I built my PT-109.  Let's see if Bill succumbs to the dark side and builds another Revell PT boat!  

I'm going to follow up later with some information about the shirts Blake worked so hard on.  Look for a follow up posting in a couple of days.

Thanks for a great meeting guys!