A President's Comments

Hello, everyone!

     I'm sorry this is a bit late, but it does give me the chance to give an update on our recent trip to the Madison, Wisconsin show.  The Mad City Modelers host this show, with major support from a few Madison hobby shops.  It's a smaller show than NIMO, which was not held this year.  The competition was pretty good, though, with some very skilled builders in the area.  Some familiar Chicago-area faces were there, too.

     Jon 'Vir' Kunatz won best-in-show with his 1/16 scale Soviet T-34 tank.  It was displayed opened, so everyone could see the interior bits.  Neil Prentice won a first and third in 1/35 armor and a second in 1/35 soft-skinned vehicles.  I won a first and third in 1/48 multi-prop aircraft and a second in 1/48 single-prop aircraft.  Neil Butler and Larry Johnson also attended.  Neil Prentice won a First Place in Science Fiction with his hovertank.

     The Vendor's room was OK, featuring the aforementioned local hobby shops, but was pretty small.  A couple of guys liquidating their stock featured the best values of the show.  The raffle was undoubtedly the richest I've ever seen.  You could pick your winnings, instead of relying on the luck of the draw.  I won at least $200 worth of models and books.

     There are a couple of complaints you might have read in a Modeling Madness editorial, and they're pretty much true.  One is the lack of non-sweep rules led to guys like Neil and I winning two awards in one category.  That's a matter for the organizing club to consider.  The second is the raffle venue, which blocked much of the vendor room during the final hour of the raffle.  They'll need to re-think this, as it was the first year in this particular venue.

     All-in-all, it's a good show and I think worth attending in lieu of NIMO.  We did meet up with our Northwoods Techmage, Zog.  Yes, Clyde showed up and walked away with an award in Science Fiction.  We also met a Starship Modeler forum member, Kevin, aka Corsair (up from the Quad Cities - now that's a hike! -- Ed.).

Now, on to the meeting notes:

     Larry Johnson has begun collecting donations for the IPMS National Convention Make-and-Take.  This is a vital activity to help kids become interested in the hobby.  A few members will attend the Region V meeting, hosted by the Quad-Cities modelers.
http://www.geocities.com/qcsms/

Now, on to the show-and-tell, the real star of the show:

     We drew a new member, who is getting back into the hobby.  That's a pretty common situation as most of us know.  Roger brought Testor's die-cast Model A hot rod which he’s re-working.  That can be tricky, but it looks good so far.  Roger is a musician, the first in our group to my knowledge.  Welcome to the club, Roger.

     Joe Suttie has been working on the big mech Wonderfest project.  He's been making a big mech and doing a lot of casting.  He's also built molds for Tony's Death Star tiles.  Some of these he's done with this metallic powder which looks good but gets all over everything.  Thanks, Joe!

     Ken has been obtaining Yamato kits, including some of the fighters and more obscure ships.  He's bought re-issued kits from the Nausiica movie, I've got those kits and they're pretty nice and definitely stand out as unusual.

     Larry Strickland clued us in to another material to help the limited run modeler.  Durham's Water Putty is an inexpensive filler for weak areas and architectural areas.  It's strong enough for structural support and sticks well to most surfaces.  I've used the material to replicate a paved surface -- after sanding.  Larry used it to provide structure in his big mech.

     Brian, another recent return to the hobby, has been very active.  How he does it with a young child, I don't know.  He's working on a Middle Eastern diorama, featuring a stucco building made from foam core, coated with Durham's Water Putty and using cut cork as bricks.  There are bits of stucco missing, revealing the bricks beneath.  It looks really quite good thus far.  Brian also brought the Captain Cardboard Studio-Scale X-Wing.  Brian must have plenty of display space!

     Jon K. brought Monogram’s original-issue Battlestar Galactica Viper kit.  I'm not sure whether it was built way back then or recently.

     Alex brought along some Wave 1/144 scale kits, plenty of fun there.  He's working with Alclad metal finishes, so we can expect some interesting things from him in the future.  He's also building an '83 Camry for a friend.  For you younger guys, who grew up here in the upper Midwest, these cars rusted into obscurity years ago.  They can still be found in warmer climes which haven't been choked by salt and swallowed by potholes.

     John Lester is also working on the big mech project, and that's a lot of work.  He brought a couple of items soon to be available at the Starship Modeler store.  The Tritium Freighter, a wedge-shaped 3-nacelle Star Trek design.  A set of well-printed Gundam decals might be interesting to everyone who builds SF subjects, as it contains many logos, emblems and labels.

     Neil Prentice brought a kitbashed model rocket.   Neil's good at making a kit look better by sawing bits of it off, and sticking other things on it.  The little all-plastic rocket boasts a new cone, and landing pads.  Now it looks like a Disney style spaceship.  Put it on a Mars base and take it to a show!

     I brought my finished 'Trading Cockpits' project in which we traded the P-47 and Corsair between the USAAC and Marines.  Mine is Johnny Godfrey's Corsair, in the very early markings.  I also brought a bunch of finished AoG Centauri miniatures I've painted for Tracy at Federation Models.  In a few more years I'll have finished all his minis.  Finally, I brought the almost-finished Beechcraft model 18 passenger aircraft in USN SNB4 markings.  I did finish it for the Madison show, and it took first in multi-prop aircraft.

     So, better late than never, there's the April meeting notes.  As of this writing, there's only about a month left to Wonderfest.  Are you going to be ready?  I'm not so sure I will.

-- Terry Miesle
ter

Zog's Note:
     HEY!  I also took a second place in "trucks" at Mad City!  (Well 'miscellaneous automobiles' anyway.  It was the Clampett's RV & outhouse trailer...)  Terrible thing, cross modeling like that...

AND I sent John a CD of pickletures.


     Wish the rest of youse guys could have made it.  (Heck, wish I could make it down to the Techmages meetings....)


Hail Vir!

Z

Image: Good Turnout

Image: Good Turnout

Image: Update contact info

Image, Clip: Solveset

Image, Clip: Wow decaling on the fly

Image, Clip: You could use vinegar

Image, Clip: The Other wing

Image, Clip: You can use Mr. Future to move the decal after it settles

Image: The Applied decal

Image: The Applied decal

Image: A decal with the dull-coat

Image: Same plane & decal pre dull-coat

Image: New guys first model (back into the hobby)

Image: Yep those are scratch brass keys

Image: Lots of machining

Image: Mech shoulder upgrade

Image: Shoulder and back flap

Image: Working the cockpit

Image: Estes' X Prize mini-rocket kit

Image: The rocket, cut here

Image: Sleeping on the job

Image: Estes' Model rocket to model

Image: A Mega-blocks nose cone

Image: Trimmed fins with pod feet

Image: The Rockets' Engine

Image: Base of Space station habitat dome bases & Star Fury engine

Image: Head on

Image: Side

Image: A Battleship Yamato Fighter

Image: Fighter's sprus

Image: Nassica of the Valley of the Wind, Nassican Gunship

Image: Power Planet

Image: Power Planet

Image: Wow the mechs taken some damage in the hind

Image: Mech Cockpit

Image: Triton

Image: Centari B5 minis fleet

Image: Primus, Vorchan, Maximus

Image: Primus

Image: Vorchan

Image: Primus

Image: Maximus

Image: Studio scale X-wing

Image:The building wall proper

Image: Cork Brickwork

Image: The interior

Image: Irresponsible Driver from Anime