It's a spring thing

My local modeling club, the Phantom Phlashers, holds their annual show and contest the first Saturday of April every year.   It's a nice opportunity to see the work of modelers around the region and have some extended social time with a bunch of guys with a lot of overlapping interests.  This year's show included a record 467 models from 93 different modelers.  One of the highlights of every show is the vendors.  It's often an opportunity to pick up a few new products, especially tools and paints, and always allows a glimpse of plastic modelling history as folks try to empty out their closets of old (and often superseded) kits.  Although the vendor turnout for those tools and supplies was thin, I did get to visit with one of the first kits I recall building, the Aurora P-61 Black Widow.  I especially enjoyed Aurora brand kits in those pre-teen years because they went together easily.  Their lack of detail didn't bother me, because I could go from a box of parts to an airplane hanging from the bedroom ceiling in an afternoon. 
Aurora P-61 from memory lane, ca. 1970

Things have changed a bit since then...

As is often the case, I had grand aspirations for all the models I would complete for the show and competition.  And, as is always the case, pesky grown-up responsibilities of family and work took priority and only a small box of aspirants made the trip an hour east to our venue in Anniston, Alabama (a location chosen to make it easier for our colleagues in Chattanooga  and Atlanta to make the show).   I entered two models in the category of 1/72 single engine propeller aircraft.  The first was a Marine Corps AU-1 Corsair in gray over white, the last of many color schemes worn by Corsairs in US service.  The other, honoring some local history, was a P-47D Thunderbolt in the markings of the US Army Air Force's 332nd Fighter Group, a Tuskegee Airmen unit serving in Italy.

USMC AU-1, Quantico 1956

USAAF P-47D; 332nd FG, Italy 1944
I also brought a couple of small vehicles, including the HMMWV featured in the last Smaller Things blog entry.  I did not finish the RAF Crash Tender mentioned in that last posting, having been distracted by another conversion opportunity in the Airfix Modelling RAF Vehicles book, an RAF Mobile Photography Lab truck (ahem..., lorry) based on the Matchbox 1/76 kit of the Leyland Retriever in their "Monty's Caravan" kit.  The HMMWV competed in the 1/48 scale and smaller military vehicles category, while the Mobile Photo Lab went into "Conversions and Scratchbuilt" class.
USMC M1114 HMMWV
RAF Leyland 6x4 with Mobile Photo Lab body














The Photo Lab seemed like a good opportunity to expand my scratchbuilding skills.  The Matchbox kit supplied cab and running gear, but I built the box body to match the plans in the Airfix book.  First, I cut and glued balsa wood shapes to the proper length and width (minus 20 thousandths of an inch to accommodate the styrene sheathing).  I then added styrene quarter-round strips to form the roof-edge curve, and some .040" strips to support the roof.   Next, I wrapped 2 layers of .010 styrene sheet around the formers and clamped them in position.  I used acrylic Gator Grip adhesive to bond the layers.  I chose the Gator Grip because past experience taught me that solvent cements will wrinkle the thin styrene. I have also found that CA superglue is hard to work with in this context.  I cut the windows out of slightly oversized end pieces and after adhering them to the body, trimmed them to shape.   I used the floor of the kit's caravan body as the base of the new parts; that provided easy alignment between the kit and scratchbuilt parts.  The doors and frames on each side of the body were cut from .005 sheet plastic.  Stretched sprue provided hinge and handle details.  One other small but important detail is the louver panel at the forward end of each side.  I made those from Archer textured decals intended for model railroad use.  I had a lot of fun bringing it all together. 
Adding the outer sheathing



Balsa Core and Plastic Framing for the Photo Body 















In the end, I was rewarded with a First Place award in the category.  As an added bonus, the HMMWV took third place  in its group.


1/72 airplanes were well represented on the competition tables, with surprisingly few 1/32 aircraft entries.  I've included sampling of 1/72 models that caught my eye.


USMC DH-4 1918 (2nd place rigged A/C)

RAF Captured Bf109 (1st in single engine 1/72 prop)




Eduard F6F (2nd in single engine 1/72 prop

Airfix USN OS2U Kingfisher (3rd in 1/72 single engine prop) 


US Captured Bf109


Airfix USAAF P-51D 


Tamiya Salvadoran FG-1D


Tamiya USAAF P-47D

Airfix RAF Beaufighter


Italeri USN JD-1 (A-26)

Italeri USAF YF-12

Revell Luftwaffe RF-4E

A Dragon and a Salamander

A pair of Tweets



Italeri LA Sheriff S-58T conversion

Italeri USN Antarctic R4D-5L

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How the Kamado saved Christmas.

Image
The Grand Dame at Christmas My blog header says that it will cover many topics, but so far only scale modeling has come to the fore.  It's time to break the mold.*  Hence, a Christmas story should be told. The Grand Dame's lonely single oven. For many years, I have been responsible for the protein phase of our Christmas feast.  This has typically centered on a standing rib roast of beef, prepared in the manner I first learned from Alton Brown on his Food Channel show 'Good Eats.'  While I don't do the whole over-the-top clay flowerpot thing that Mr. Brown espouses, the start-low, finish-high, "reverse sear" approach has served us well.  Still, the method has its deficiencies, including occupying the oven at otherwise unhelpful, i.e., too low and too high, temperatures through most of the day.  The high temperature finish also creates a greasy smoke that permeates the house and lingers in the oven for weeks, or at least until it's cl...
Read more

I'm gonna blame the medications

Image
So the shoulder story continues.  I have not really regained any function in my arm north of the elbow and with the pain, lack of motility, etc., modeling progress has been glacial. Fortunately, alcohol - usually bourbon ( Bower Hill  of Louisville, Mr. Knights should be pleased to know) - has proved an effective way to augment my evening analgesia without moving up to narcotics. It is a genuinely fine Bourbon but it has not in any way assisted my productivity.  Sleep is pretty sparse these days too, and only really possible with a little bit of narcotic dosing at bedtime. In the meantime, my MRI came back reading like a horror film script with quaint little phrases like, " full-thickness, complete tears ," " edema and irregularity ," and " degenerative fraying ."  Surgery is coming up this Monday, and I anticipate a couple of weeks of rocky times during recovery. I have already cut back on my time at the office and have been working from home when pos...
Read more

When the muse calls...

Image
Sometimes a muse calls and you don't see it coming. It's a story worth telling as a New Year opens. I am often self-conscious about my geeky-nerdy interests in things like old railroads, airplanes, wonderful foods, and craft beers. I certainly post less about the scale modeling experience on open media like Facebook and share those thoughts more often with like-minded folks through other avenues like modeling clubs, e-mail blasts, on-line forums, and, more recently, t his blog. Fall 2017 Railroad Heritage Cover Art I came to a better understanding of my urge to write about my experiences when I read an article last fall, published in the Center for Railroad Photography & Art 's Railroad Heritage magazine by fellow academic Richard Koenig. He wrote: But photographs, regardless of the subject matter, are inert by themselves - they need to be viewed and interrogated by an audience to take on and impart their meaning  Koenig wrote about his engagement ...
Read more