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Featured Discussion: Dealing with dust!
Twelve people attended. There's no Tuesday Zoom next week; the in-person
meeting is Friday, the 20th, at the Community Center in Brooklyn. It's
the first Quarterly Contest and Show Us Your Tool night.
Lou reported AFV Club's 1/35 M51A2 Gun Truck and Academy's 1/144 Boeing 737 E7 are available.
We saw Erasmo's Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet and English Electric
Lightning, Mr. K's 29 Ford Woody, Wildcat crop sprayer conversion, P-51
air racer, B-25, and 3 Soviet submarines, Simon's HP 52 Hadley Page
Hamden, Kevin's Ekranoplan and Yak-36 and Gil's 3D printed
hubless 3-wheel motorcycle.
The acquisitions keep coming: F-101C, Z-37A Cemelak crop duster, M 2128
Bradley, MS-06 Zaku 2 Thunderbolt, A4 E & A4 M Skyhawks, books and
too many aftermarket sets to mention here (see the BPMS Facebook page)
and Battledroid Valkyrie VF-1S (with more aftermarket
stuff).
This week's tool was a wire bending jig. Gil uses the simple tool to
bend coat hanger wire into pretty much any shape he needs. Doesn't take
up much room in the toolbox, either. Michael C showed us some tools he
uses for dust control, a blower/vacuum, and a
dust collector designed for manicurists but useful for modelers. He
sent links to these, and other, products to everyone on the group email.
Thanks, Michael. Gil warned us that "Dust Off" is too highly
pressurized to use on models. He has a refillable aluminum
cannister that he can fill to a pressure suitable for delicate
cleaning. I'll forward the link. Thanks, Gil.
Fortunate modelers have cabinets to keep dust away. Slightly less
fortunate ones use any (preferably) transparent containers they can get.
Joe likes the scrapbook boxes at Michael's. You can repurpose
containers, too. Russ likes the ones Ferrero Rocher uses
for the holidays; Kevin recommends the lidded, plastic containers
restaurants use for leftovers. Purpose built (not cheap) dust covers are
also available commercially.
If your models are kept in the open, do like Mr. K and spray them with a
50/50 mix of water and Murphy's Oil Soap, let sit for a few minutes,
and rinse with water. Jimmy does something similar, putting a model in
sink, running water with a little dish soap
through his hands and over the model and letting it dry.
Lou had the most interesting method of the night. He recalled a story in
FSM where a guy said he used dust mites to clean his fully rigged USS
Constitution. I don't know, maybe it was their April edition?
The next meeting is Friday, 2/20/26, in Brooklyn. Doors open around 5pm and the meeting starts around 7:30.
Bring your tool, your contest entry, your pledge model, and, most importantly, your 2026 dues. Hope to see you there.
~Russ
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