03/11/2021 BPMS Zoom Meeting Report

First, many thanks to Frank C. for preparing this report. 

Twelve people attended the March 11 Zoom meeting of the Brooklyn Plastic Modelers Society and showed the Club’s usual variety of pandemic work-in-progress (WIP), plus some interesting tools and insightful techniques. 

 

Mark N. revealed his varied WIP with a 1/35 scale Tamiya R35 French tank, Trumpeter T62 Soviet-era tank with reactive armor, Meng 1/35 Bradley armored personnel carrier, Dragon Hetzer anti-aircraft vehicle, Tamiya Panzer D tank and Meng Rolls Royce armored Car from early WWII North Africa. To add a little variety, Mark is also building a Revell 1/32 Spitfire. Mark showed the group how steel 1-2-3 blocks work like a vise to help align wheels and other vehicle parts.  

 

Frank C. finished his Dragon 1/72 MiG-17 Fresco in Angolan markings with a helpful Cuban conscript figure glued in place to keep the tail-sitting jet fighter on its nose wheel. 

 

From his Connecticut workshop, Gil showed a 1/24 scale Mad Max/Road Warrior interceptor made from the Aoshima kit.  Gil also recommended using plastic parts the Tamiya 400-Grit diamond file made to clean up photoetch.  His tip of the week was that he scans decals sheets from any model over 10 years old to keep a ready-to-print replacement in his decal library.

 

From the not-so-deep South, the always-productive Bob K. showed off an Amiot 351 pre-war French bomber nicely built from the “unbuildable” Mach 2 kit and an Italeri C-47 Dakota finished in olive drab.  Bob also told the club the best way to ensure a totally flat finish with Testors DullCote is to pour off the standing thinner from the bottle and replace it with fresh lacquer.

 

Vaughan continued to make progress on his 1/48 Hasegawa SH-3 helicopter and showed his almost-finished wood model of the America racing schooner with cloth sails rigged by hand. He confided, “I learned how to sew. I now have a sewing machine.” Vaughan also showed how ParaFilm stretch plastic can be used to mask models for painting. 

 

Steve continues his work building 1/72 wargaming tanks to represent the Battle of Kursk in mid-summer 1943. He showed how simple Pegasus T34s can be spruced up with generic sandbags, tools, and stowage items from Value Gear. 

 

Jimmy reviewed some recent mail order acquisitions including the Meng 1/48 Super Hornet, AFV Club 1/35 Dragoon, and numerous tank accessories. His tool of the evening was a Tankraft aluminum base to keep spill-prone glue bottles upright on modeling benches. 

 

Bobby continued to show off the improving quality of 3-D printed figures, this time with a rookie Judge Anderson from the movie Dredd smoothly printed in one piece and a heavily armed Joe Pineapples from the UK comic book series 2000 AD. 

 

Angelo meanwhile showed of a less-than smoothly molded 1/48 P-24B from MisterCraft and an enigmatic Scithian Warrior from Black Dog.

 

The night’s discussion focused on kit instructions, and why even the most seasoned modelers should still look at ‘em.  The quality of assembly instructions varies with the kit manufacturer.  Frank C said the instructions in the otherwise excellent Kinetic Mirage III/5 kit left some small parts out altogether. Nearly everyone has found ways to make assembly easier and cleaner by changing the assembly order in kit instructions. Mark reminded the group of those unfortunate instances when aircraft need holes drilled out before wings are assembled, and Vaughan confessed that he masked and painted areas on his Sea King only later to find the markings were on the kit decal sheet.  More embarrassments are likely at the next BPMS Zoom meeting on March 18. Invites to follow. 

 

~Russ