Greetings and thanks to everyone who was able to attend the September meeting in person, and virtually. Here's a recap along with all of the references we discussed.
Here's the recording of the meeting on Zoom.
CORRECTION: During the meeting I speculated that the deck of the USS Tennessee should have been natural prior to December 7th. In fact there is excellent research on Modelwarships.com at this LINK indicating she was in fact painted in Measure 11. This was an experiment including the Nevada, Lexington, and a few others as well. Great to know that beautiful model of the Tennessee was both well done AND accurate. Nice work! So happy to be educated!
I was unable to do a slide show during the meeting so I decided to do a recording on Zoom of the tour of ships. Here's the link to that recording of the models. Forgive the editorializing, but I'm opinionated about what a well done base will do for the presentation of your model. We'll be talking about water bases in upcoming meetings.
Okay, so here's a recap of our meeting! Most of our time was discussing our experience at the IPMS Nationals in Las Vegas, NV. Given the circumstances of requiring a mask in all the venues, the show went off very well. The folks at IPMSLV did a great job.
MODEL ROOM: Take a look at the video I put together of most of the model ships. I know of one I missed for sure, and there may be a few more. But I think I got most of them. General impression of the models is that the quality of work on the ship models had improved from previous shows. Because of the location of the show there were not many large models. The reason for this is that most people had to fly and were limited to the size of models they brought. So we saw mostly smaller subjects in 1/700 and 1/350 scales.
Overall I think there were more than 3,000 models entered into the competition and with the displays I think that number jumped over the 4,000 mark.
VENDOR ROOM: There were many notable absences from the vendor room this year due to COVID. Always there is Tom's Modelworks/White Ensign and Richard did not disappoint us. He shared his upcoming kit release of the Pennsylvania and Oklahoma in 1/700 scale. The hull is cast resin. The dark gray parts are all 3D printed by Richard and his son. The photo etch is made from one of his suppliers, and the orange 3D printed parts are made by 3D Model Parts. Richard is still working on the markings and instructions, but this kit should be released in the next couple of months.
The show did a good job of finding vendors that filled those gaps. New was Andy's Hobby Headquarters who do a lot of YouTube promotional videos of new kits which they credit to the success of their store. Andy will often build an out of the box a model to feature in their store. Here's a link to Another new vendor to the show. The gentleman who owns this company is the same person that was running Squadron before their demise. It is called Jef V's Corner Store. Another big presence was Spray Gunner out of Florida. They are an excellent source for all things airbrushing and have a strong customer service reputation. Spray Gunner has a line of products they marked under their trade name of "No-Name". The compressor shown below was quite nice. It is a piston compressor with small tank. It had a water trap and was very quiet when operating. It developed good air pressure as well. It ran throughout the show during demonstrations and the guy using it liked it very much. They were selling this for $127 delivered. Out of stock right now but if you're in the market for a compressor, this may be a good choice for you. The young lady shown below was quite the sales person. She was very active demonstrating and telling us all about the great products they have.
Here's how the folks from Spray Gunner travel around the country doing shows and demos. Pretty nice rig! They also tow their personal vehicle around with them.
Merit International was there as well. They are a manufacturers rep for companies like AFV Club, Hasagawa, HK Model, and a new line called Fore Models. They were showing off their new kit of a 1/72 WWII German Schnellboot, which is spectacular. I ordered one for myself and showed it at the meeting. If this model builds as well as it appears, it will be a winner for this upstart company. Here's a review of this kit from the Modeling News passed along by John DuGene. Thanks for sticking with us, John!
Another interesting company, but not ship related, was Vargas Scale Models. They make 3D printed WWI subjects. Everything from tanks to fuel carts in a variety of scales. There were the usual suspects that we see at every show. There were also many people who set up tables to sell personal collections. Some offered great deals and others went home with what they brought.
Jerry and Roger shared information about some of the items they bought. One was the Tamiya electric drill. The tool is actually a kit that you have to put together. It's geared down to turn at low speeds. It came with a couple of collets as well. These sell for about $25.
The guys also bought one of these. It's a cordless rotary tool that recharges with a USB cord and turns at 5,000; 10,000; and 15,000 RPM. It came with the set of tools shown below. These units sell for about $20 online.
I bought a set of Goodman Models, Super Sanding Blocks. I wasn't quite sure what to make of these and if I would need them. But after looking at them I discovered that they will be very useful. Jerry printed some submarine hulls for me that are broken into three sections. These were incredibly handy for flattening off between the sections to assure a clean and precise fit. What's nice about these is that they wash clean after use. You can also buy replacement self adhesive sheets after you wear them down. They cost $23 at the show.
SEMINARS: There were a couple of really good seminars that we attended. Here are a few of them...
John Miller from Model Paint Solutions gave a presentation painting which is excellent. He was prepared and delivers well.
Bruce MacRae gave a three part presentation over three days on making models for the movies. Bruce has an extensive background in movie props and had many of his subjects on display protected by a heavily armed guard. Movies you may have heard of such as Star Wars series, Titanic, Top Gun, Hunt for Red October, etc. Great stories of his experience and how he made the models.
John Bonanni gave his usual excellent presentation on weathering armor. John is moving to Colorado and looking forward to hooking up with a local modeling club, most likely Rob Wolf. He'll be a great asset for our local modeling community.
Tom asked about a submarine he saw during the show. It had a heavily weathered hull and Tom was curious about submarine hulls and if they weathered like this. You can see the hull of the Virginia class sub in the photo below.
Here's a nice tutorial on how to weather a modern submarine model. In fact modern submarines get heavily weathered under the water line. Like many vessels they sit around inactive between missions.
There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to ship weathering. Here's a photo of the USS Tennessee in dry dock, ready for a good cleaning. As you can see the red is still visible at the lower portions of the boat. The nose retains it's gray color. But it looks like most of the rest of the boat below the waterline is a mossy green. Upper sections are heavily weathered shades of gray. When they go back to see they are quite clean and freshly painted. In short, you have a lot of choices when it comes to weathering submarines.
A discussion item that came up during one of the seminars was the use of a food dehydrator to dry and cure your paint and decals quicker. The presenter suggested that it takes as much as a week for decals to dry off completely, and for some paints as well. We were told that these units will dry and cure your painted model and decals in hours instead of days. The video is convincing.
We'll talk more about this in upcoming meetings, but I reached out to John Miller at Model Paint Solutions to find out if this is the correct way to cure paint. Here's the response he came back with.
Hey David,Drying (the loss of water) will be accelerated by the dehydrator. Curing is a chemical reaction that starts after drying and is more effected by specific wavelengths of UV light than it is by heat or evaporation. In fact, some guys use UV light (grow lamps) to promote the curing of Mission Paints. I don't see how a dehydrator could increase the rate of curing after the drying phase.
A little more research about UV curing paint proved this to be correct. But not just any UV light will do. Certain parts of the UV spectrum work better to "cure" paint. For example beauty salons use UV lights to cure nail polish. Some parts of the UV spectrum don' help paint cure at all.
Now I work in a basement with no UV lighting at all. I'm nowhere near a window. I have been thinking about building a drying booth, but mostly have been thinking about keeping dust off the paint as it dries. Now I'm thinking a little differently. Perhaps a filtered booth with the right UV LED's would be a better choice? I'm working with John on this and will report back on what I learn. This could be my springtime project for next year.
3D Printing
Jerry and David Angelo are working on 3D printed ship kits. David is taking a similar approach to what we saw with the new kit from Tom's. Once the hulls are completed they will be used as masters for casting in resin. Some of the parts will also be 3D printed resin and not cast. Exciting times in model ship design!
Brian purchased a Kinetic Tractor kit
Kinetic was one of the manufacturers that attended the show. Brian picked up this very nice tractor kit from them. Nicely molded and comes with excellent instructions and marking options.
Brian also 3D printed this terrific modeling stand. The file came from Thingaverse and the Lazy Susan base painfully came from Ikea. I've never been but it sounds like an adventure!
This photo shows the parts that were printed.
This photo shows the foam added to the supports to protect the model. Great idea!
These are typically designed for aircraft models, but Brian pointed out how a ships hull would fit nicely into the "V" shaped supports. The brackets can be adjusted in and out and also up and down as needed.
As mentioned before the water bases on many of the models at the show left a lot to be desired. So often you see an incredible model with a horrible base which distracts the viewer when they look at it. I mentioned several examples in the model room video. Sam has asked me to come back to this subject again and I will be doing that. A new technique that I'm interested in and going to experiment with is covered in this video by a modeler in Korea who has a YouTube site called Blue Blue Ocean. I first came across this modeler while researching deep pour resin. He has an interesting technique of using a 2 part epoxy putty for his ocean surface and foam board for the sides of the base. His painting techniques are also excellent. Give it a look and we'll come back to this shortly.
Tom also asked about paint extractors. This gets pretty complicated. I made my own. It comes down to where you want to put it. Keep in mind that the longer the exhaust tube, and the more turns it takes, the more powerful the blower motor you need to overcome the pressure in the tube. Best solution is a short run out the side of the house, either built in or through a window. What I like about mine is that I can use commercial furnace filters to capture the particulates. Most commercial units require that you buy their filters which can become expensive. Another thing to keep in mind is what you're spraying. Some paints can be volatile when atomized. Some of my favorite commercial extractors are the following...
Paasche makes an excellent unit with a good reputation. These run about $300 and up. Filters are about $7 to $13.
Another excellent booth that uses commercial filters is from Pace. These are excellent booths that run between $300 and $750.
Here's an interesting unit from Mr Hobby. You can buy this from Spray Gunner for $190.00. The filters aren't horribly expensive ($7 each).
Wow! A lot transpired putting this one together. Let me know if I forgot anything. Enjoy and we'll catch up to you at the next meeting in October!
