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Keep one thing in mind. Our convention in it present format is not suffering. Attendance and model entries are at all time highs. Let's work to plan for the future but lets not waste time "fixing" stuff that isn't "broken" about it.

Ed, The usual reply to holding the national convention in months other than the summer is that many people either cannot get off work other than in the summer or have children in school and they can't get away. The complaints when the convention is held "too late" in August due to the start of schools is a constant reminder of this. As to bringing in a professional company to run it, we could do that but the cost of attending would soar as such companies have high rates and some even get a share of the 'gate'. And as to having one steady location, a large part of the attendance at these shows is from either local modelers who come for the day or those that can drive in if the show is within a reasonable distance. Holding the show in one location over and over would effectively exclude all those who don't live within a reasonable driving distance of that location. Couple all this with our lopsided space needed/room night ratio and the choices narrow down quickly.

North Central Texas has never recovered from the 2000 convention in Dallas and have no desire to try it again. I had already been working on the show planning since ‘97. The show doesn’t happen by magic. IMO the other clubs in the DFW Metroplex would feel the same. Bring in a professional company to run it. Go back through this thread and note the top tier concept. Dallas is a top tier city, as is Arlington, Plano, McKinney, Grapevine, and FtWorth. Get up to Frisco and you still have to pay handsomely for the privilege of using JerryWorld North. Other locations will not support the size/density of the Nats. And, once you have toured the Frontiers of Flight museum what would bring you back in successive years? My recommendation to whatever powers that be are to get rid of the requirement to hold the show in the summer months. That would open more locations which are currently cost prohibitive ‘in season’.

This is the 1/32 C&H resin conversion, along with parts from the Hasagawa 1/32 F-86F kit to make the last Saberjet variant, the F-86H Saberhog. The conversion kit gives you the deeper resin fuselage, the ribbed rudder and tail planes, as well as later model ejection seat. You also have to convert the Hasagawa kit canopy frame from the original sliding type to the later clamshell type. The nose gear also needs to be extended 3/8". The fit for the resin fuselage was marginal to poor, the worst area being trying to get the rudder to fit smoothly. The Hasagawa late type 6-3 extended wingtip slatted wing (perfect for the "H" model) actually fit quite well. The model was primed with Alcad Gloss Black. The NMF is AK Aluminum overall, with the lighter varying panels being done with Tamiya TS-30 Bright Silver. The trim colors were painted in Testors Green (the small bottle) thinned with lacquer thinner. The kit decals performed very well despite their being over 20yrs old. However, the shamrocks and nose "swooshes" were printed in a green with a slightly blue tint, so they were carefully repainted by brush with some Apple Barrel acrylic green. Overall, this was a pleasure to build, though it did give my right arm some strenuous sanding exercise, especially filling and smoothing in that rudder! Critiques, questions, and comments are welcome, as always! Gil

Got the 1/48 Hobbycraft T-33A Shooting Star done. The build started as the HC RT-33 kit, which was converted to the T-33A by grafting a spare Hawk kit Shooting Star nose onto the HC kit. I also added a Verlinden interior, simply because it was in the box. The markings are for a T-33A in Korea using an Aeromaster sheet. I should have had one of the USAF's most important trainers on my shelf long before now, but glad one's finally there now! Gil

This one took a lot longer than I expected, but here it is, done. I used the Tempest Mark 5 Eduard kit and with the conversion kit converted it to a Mark II. I do not remember the vendor name of the conversion kit. I removed the engine cowling of the Mark 5 from the kit and grafted the Mark II radial engine assembly into it. I noticed that Eduard introduced a complete Mark II version (late WW2) with the markings of Charles Dyson, Wing Commander, RAF just recently. It featured a red lightning bolt draped on the port and starboard cowling and extended backwards toward the cockpit area. It’s not perfect, but after a series of setbacks it will do.

After three long years, it is done. A lot has happened in my absence and I apologize for my lack of modeling activity. It isn’t perfect, but at least it’s finished. Happy Modeling, Mark Fiedler IPMS # 14333

One of Revell's later ship kits, this one is pretty good. it was re-released many times and even once as a British DE the HMS England. Fit is fine and detail is good. No molded in railings, but the stanchions are so you need to provide the railings. I did this 100% OOTB. I Like these old Revell ship kits. They put some fun bakk into modeling.

Or losing a harddrive. I had all my stuff on scalemates, and my account messed up, so I had to redo all my I save copies of my stuff in multiple locations now.

Awesome scores guys! Recently I received some late birthday money, so I set out to get a few things I'd been putting off. First was these two kits I picked up on sale at Hobbylink Japan: 1/72 scale Scimitar Mk.2: ...and this 1/72 scale Ford Model A car: And since my compressor went on the fritz and I was afraid the repair cost was going to be high; I bought something I wanted for awhile: a more powerful, longer lasting portable airbrush from Spraygunner: I got that on sale, and they even threw in an extra airbrush cleaning kit! Then at Hobby Day Monday this past couple days, a friend of mine who realized he was not going to be building and painting models anymore brought in all this for me. All of this was given to me for FREE!! First is this old school Dremel and old school soldering iron: Next was something I had been wanting for quite some time now: I finally have a decent spray booth: Oh, did I mention it was collapsible and portable? That was the booth in the closed, portable condition, here it is all opened up: Brand spanking new, never been used. Speaking of never been used, He also gave me a big box containing in part, these three airbrushes. One is a single action external mix suction feed brush like a Paasche. It has a .8 needle in it. The next one is a double action, gravity feed with a .3 needle in it, followed by another double action, gravity feed brush with a .2 needle in it! All are still in the original boxes! This also included an extra air hose and an instruction booklet on how to airbrush. Yes I will be keeping that and reviewing it occasionally. Each airbrush also includes an adapter to attach to any air hose available: The other part of that big box contained this brand new, never-been-used compressor, along with a an instruction booklet and an airbrush holder that fits on the compressor. An extra addition not in the box is the airbrush cleaning pot that he gave me, along wit a couple things not shown: a large bottle of airbrush cleaner and a smaller bottle of sewing machine oil: Wow, Maddog Manufacturing got quiet the upgrade thanks to a great friend! I can't wait to finish organizing the Hobby Room so I can break in all these fantastic new tools! God is good!!

This is the very rare Attack Squadron resin Grumman F2F-1 Barrel; the smaller engined forerunner to the more famous F3F Barrel series. This is a very well engineered kit. The interior is cast as one piece except for the seat and stick, which slides into the completed fuselage. The cabanes struts are molded as part of the upper forward fuselage. It has pe parts, including the main IP which is backed by film instruments. The engine is finely cast with the exhaust tubes on the back, and fits perfectly into notches cast inside of the cowling. The only fit trouble was the upper forward fuselage section to the fuselage. I just made sure the cabanes were aligned correctly when I glued it in place, and then filled and sanded as necessary. The only other trick to the kit is with the main gear. The instructions would have you glue the pe triangular support struts to the gear leg, and then glue the assembly to the fuselage. It's much better to glue the legs to the fuselage at the correct angles, and then glue the gear supports into place. Care must be used since they are pe parts and somewhat flimsy. The pe gear doors need a bit of concave shaping before adding too. The main gear legs are wire reinforced and quite strong. I added wire "pins" to the bottom wings to strengthen the butt joints. The fit of the wings and the tail planes was good enough to paint and add them all afterward. The green trim colors were all painted. The green fuselage strip had to be pricesly measured to be JUST wide enough for the "-F-" in inside of it. I used the kit white strip decals on the top wing chevron, but painted the rest. I used the kit decals, which worked quite well. Glad to have this rare subject in 1/48 on my shelf! If I ever get my Grumman FF-1 "FiFi" built, I'll have the entire Barrel family! Comments welcome as always! Gil

I was glad when this kit came along and I was able to add to my classic Hollywood figures and busts. This is Marlon Brando as seen in On The Waterfront. Looking for any color image of the character, I only came up with the colorized movie stills, and of course he's not wearing the same jacket. So I did my best to assign a color to the different hues of B&W. Here's a pic of Brando from the movie. The kit is 1:4 scale and Miguel Zuppo once again does a very nice rendition of the character.

This is a nice 75mm kit from Mercury Models, and st in a fine gray resin. I figured any wood would have been dried and weathered, so painted the walkway and railing as if it had been out in the sun for decades. The total height including the base made from a wooden coaster and some Sculpt-a-mold is 150mm. I included a US Quarter with the last image as a size comparison. Thanks for looking. 🙂

This was done just for fun and wound up with just as much heartburn as any other kit. Now mind you, it dates from 1955 so you can't expect too much and they delivered..not much. Zero interior, two figures that look more like construction workers than military pilots, LOTS of rivets and raised panel lines and decal locators, immovable turrets molded into the fuselage, no nose gear well and on and on. However, and surprisingly, with a little care the fit was pretty good requiring a minimum of putty and the clear parts were quite good. I sanded off all that raised detail, but that's pretty much all I did. The NM finish is Alclad. I put a coat of DullCoat over the gloss on the control surfaces, cowlings and gear doors. That way when you apply the Alclad it has a different finish there than on the rest of the plane. Kind of breaks up the monotony. The decals were excellent and went on very easily. Now, mind you, there are many many flaws in this model most of my own making. That's why there are no close up photos. Anyway, here's a blast from the past.

Really smart move by using a photo as a model ... for your model.

Maybe it wouldn’t happen with ships, or aircraft, but there are restrictions on figures in armor because of the entry that would have 15+ figures on top of it so you can’t see the top of the vehicle. Same with the rule that nothing on the base can be higher then the model, came about because of the entry with a canopy of trees over the model, or the vehicle on a street with two story buildings on both sides, makes it impossible to just judge the model when you can’t see it. I understand the intent (I was there when it was coming up as an issue) I think it is a little ridged, “nothing on the base can block the judges view of the model” or something like it might be more appropriate and avoid kicking an entry into vignette/dios for something on a base that is non obstructive to the judges when the modeler didn’t want it there anyway. Great to see this rewrite, sorry I don’t know enough about ships to really add/critique anything, but kudos to Ed for asking the membership (and your senior judges) for suggestions and ideas!

Seeing this just makes it more sad it is OOP... R/ Robert

Thanks Carlos! I got more since these: I apologize for being so absent lately; so many things have happened: so much has been suffered; a game convention out of town was worked; and some extra work came my way; all of which has kept me away from these boards and way out of the loop. I haven't stopped building though, so progress will hopefully be posted soon. Meanwhile, here are some of the things I picked up, or were sent my way... First is these decals for M113 APC's from Vietnam so I can dress up a few that I have, or possibly use them on other vehicles: Here's more decals so I can make a Marine Corps M48 Patton too: Now to find another 1/72 scale M48A3..... Another acquisition is this speed control for my Dremel. This also came with a nice engraver and some extra fuses too: An added surprise was these two 1/72 scale Spitfire fighters, different marks: These were a most unexpected and highly pleasant surprise! Finally, almost four months later my Christmas order from Hobby Easy came in! These are what I ordered, all in 1/72 scale: Orange Models Bulldozer D-7: Trumpeter Russian SA-4 Ganef: Trumpeter Russian FROG-7: And another Dragon M1293 Stryker Dragoon. I had already gotten one in another order from another company because I forgot that I'd ordered this from Hobby Easy so it went to a friend: Finally, after another job paid me, I was able to order this Takom M1070 Gun Truck that I wanted: And that is all I got from the end of April till now. Hopefully soon, I'll be able to post some progress pics of some of the models I've been working on in between all the craziness I've been going through this past month. Thanks for understanding guys!

That is a real beauty of a build! Such an iconic aircraft! Your NMF work is excellent. Somebody around here has a real one at the local airport, and every now and then you can catch sight of it when he decides to take it up for a flight.

Thank you Gil. The kit I used was from Eduard, with a aftermarket conversion kit to convert the model from a Mark 5 Napier Sabre liquid cooled engine to a Mark II, powered by the Bristol Centaurus radial engine. I do not remember the name of the aftermarket vendor. The Bristol Centaurus radial was a sleeve valved design and very difficult to detail so I chose to employ the cowling and conversion parts, such as the oil cooler. The landing gear was very fragile, and difficult to mount, and ditto for the landing gear wheel covers and tail wheel covered as well. Eduard just came out with a Mark II version, with markings from Wing Commander Charles Dyson, RAF, with a red lightning bolt draped across the port and starboard cowling. Colorful, but I think one is enough for now.

SCENE FIVE: Five weeks into Intruder and just like in the movie, I am doing the first run “downtown”. It has been a busy week with my career job and with spring here I have been taking care of things around the house so my time on the bench has been limited this week. I was able to get the fuselage masked and sprayed the white areas then turned my attention to painting the other parts. The resin triple ejection racks were painted and then the decals that came with the set were applied. Since the boarding ladders will be in the down position I had to fill the mold marks with putty and then added the photo etch details to the ladders. I also used some 30 gauge red wire for the handle. These were then painted red. Next came all the painting of the landing gear doors. I pre-shaded the edges and will finish these with some post shading prior to installing them. I also painted the edges the safety red. I also painted the splitters on the intakes red. The bombs were all painted as well. Finally, I base coated the rest of the aircraft. As mentioned previously the paint scheme is not accurate to the time period however it matches what they used in the movie. The underside was painted using Light Ghost Grey, the topside was painted with Dark Ghost Grey, and the area between nose and windscreen was painted anti-glare black. I am now working on installing the landing gear and all the other parts as well as preparing for making and adding the custom decals to match the movie scheme. You can see many more photos and details from the start in my build log at: https://davidsscalemodels.com/build-log/1-48-a-6a-intruder-flight-of-the-intruder/

I never met Jim Sullivan but I still call him a friend. We first got in contact with each other back in 2012 due to a question I asked about F4U-1's (Go figure, Jim answering a question about Corsairs!) in GSB. He also helped me in picking up one of these -5's in a trade (For a Hasegawa P2V7 he was going to convert to a P2V5)....then proceded to ask what unit & markings I was going to do. Of course he had almost every pic. I could hope for. We kept in touch due to him answering WAY too many of my questions and not just about F4U's but also my PBY, AD-6, SBD among others. We both swore to never build another Monogram 1/48 PBY and yet, strangely enough, we both had another in the stash! I was informed that Jim passed away on Friday the 12th and to say I was shocked is an understatement. A few pics I'd like share are the three Hasegawa F4U's Jim helped me with...if only I could build like him, they would look better. You will be missed, rest in peace my friend. F4U-5N F4U-5NL F4U AU-1 This is Jim's 48th PBY....unique marking scheme. And Jim's 32nd Matchbox SBD that he scratched out an interior!

Those are some great looking builds! Sorry for your loss of a friend. But he lives on with his contributions in your modeling work.

Wow... to start with, the models look great despite what you said! Jim will indeed be missed! One of the greatest treasures in my life are the friendships I've been blessed enough to form through IPMS for over 40yrs. While most of the closest came through my local clubs, I also have friends that I'm lucky to see once every couple of years at the Nats. That doesn't keep me from saying we've been friends for those 40+yrs! And there's a few I've yet to meet face to face too. Looking forward to that day, if and when it happens. It's hard to convince non-members of such an intangible benefit to being in IPMS. To me, it's THE biggest benefit of being a member, though it takes time to realize it and gain from it. Unfortunately, we're a graying society for the most part. My local club has lost no less than 8 people in the last 15yrs. There's at least another 5-10 who've passed that I only knew from local and regional shows, as well as the Nats. Thanks for your post. It goes to the heart of how we should all feel; grateful for the time that we are given to be friends with people like Jim! Gil

Thank you Gentlemen. I hate decals so this has been a fun skillset to learn. My goal is to build as many as possible. I just ordered 5 sets of Quinta cockpit stickers directly from them in Russia, as no one else has them in stock (I may have bought them all lol). I hope they arrive quickly. 77 days....

I've got a bottle that has to be at least 20 years old and has not yellowed. Just down in the basement with all my other modeling supplies.

Hi Kip Wow, that is a bummer. I do have a few extra Skyvan kits as my name is listed as an acknowledgement in the kit for helping do some research on the NASA decals in the kit. I'll only build one so I'll be happy to sell you my spare. I'll see if I can send you my email address using PM and we can carry this conversation on without tying up the forum. FYI, I may be out of contact for a few days as I go in for surgery on my hand (yup, it is modeling hand!) and I might not be able to get online a quickly as I would like. I will respond as soon as I can type with one finger! Have fun modeling! Mike

Maybe not get rid of the July/August bit, but add June to the mix? October would be great, as that is a slow "season"

Not to mention the burden on the local members who would be working the event every year.Sure you could "ask" for volunteers as most locals do now bit I would bet the turnout would be low plus you need people who know what to do in each respective job. from vendor coordi ator, to model registration to convention registration, collecting monies for admission to onsite registration. Then there is the coordination of the raffle and seminars. There is alot of behind the scenes stuff that happens with the convention that alot if people don't think about, and that's assuming IPMS had a contract with one facility and hotel year in and year out. Jim

While that sounds good, its is moire difficult in reality. The headquarters needs to be where the National Office Manager is for her to be able to do her job efficiently, and in this case that's Florida. There are also tax implications as to where we are headquartered. Then there is where all the inventory is stored (past issues of magazines and other "stuff") I wish it was all just that simple, but it never is, is it?

Here's an idea that'll get feathers ruffled: Move the IPMS headquarters back to its place of origin (Dallas, Texas/DFW area) and hold the nationals at the US headquarters each year. It's centrally located, accessed by major East/West and North/South interstates, huge airline hub, plenty to see and do for families, has a robust modeling community, and would be ane excellent location to establush a museum dedicated to model making.

SCENE FOUR: For the fourth week of the Intruder was spent mostly working on the nose issue. First I sanded down the fuselage side down a little bit as close as I could to match the nose. I then taped the windscreen with kapton tape as the putty does not adhere to the tape very well. I tacked the windscreen down with some Elmer’s glue to hold it in place and I applied the putty. Once the putty had dried I carefully remove the windscreen and wet sanded the putty down. I had to add a little more putty occasionally to aid in blending the nose to the fuselage. The kit has a small fret of photo etch which included the hinge brace for lifting the nose for access to the radar. This was attached and I then taped off the aircraft nose, flaps and rudder so these could be sprayed with the white base coat. I used one layer of Tamiya white primer then Vallejo matte white for two coats. Once dry I removed the tape and had a slight accident. The tape pulled the ejection seat upper handles. I will re-attach these later after I spray the base coat on the fuselage. While the putty was drying I was able to assemble the Eduard TER’s that will be used. The cables were molded on but they were very fragile and broke easily when attempting to trim the inside of the loop. I decided to remove them and use some wire instead. I adjusted the mounts for these to match the mounting holes on the aircraft. The Eduard set has photo etch details for the bottom of the rack mounts as well. I also built up the Flying Leathernecks resin MK-83 bombs. I also added photo etch details to the landing gear doors and had to fill in some mold marks. I still need to add the panel lines around the nose and some rivet details on the fuselage side after all the putty and sanding. I will be making the boarding ladders in the down position and it looks like these will need some work as well. There are mold marks that need to be filled and then there is a lot of photo etch details that need to be added to the them. I am hoping to get all these little details completed so I can start base coating the fuselage. I have been reviewing the movie multiple times. The paint scheme is kind of weird. Normally the Viet Nam era aircraft were gull grey top and white underside. The movie aircraft was painted light ghost grey with a dark ghost grey around the cockpit and spine. The flaps were only painted white on top. The nose, rudder, rear stabilizers, and topside flaps were all painted white. The only other issue is in the movie they note they are using the 1000lbs bombs and the flight scenes show them with the normal free-fall tails on the aircraft. But the scenes where the bombs drop they are using the MK-82 snake eye tails. I will be using the free fall tails as shown on the loaded aircraft in flight. You can see many more photos and details from the start in my build log at: https://davidsscalemodels.com/build-log/1-48-a-6a-intruder-flight-of-the-intruder/

Back around 2002, I picked up the Micro-Mania Geometric kit “The Fly,” based on the 1958 movie. I also picked up the scenic base. I’ve often considered assembling and painting it, but never got around to it. Some time ago, I decided when I did, it would need special paint for the eyes, similar to the chameleon paint used on custom cars. A few weeks ago, I finally pulled it out and put it at the front of my queue and decided to try painting it in glorious black and white to match the movie, but with the eyes in some sort of iridescent color. I found the paint at the local Michael’s and got to work on it. I found to original movie on one of the streaming services and sat down to watch. As the credits rolled, up came “Color By DeLuxe!” I guess I saw it originally on a black and white TV and that’s what was lodged in my memory. (The two sequels were, however, in B&W.) Well, I chose to not let that deter my plans. As it turns out, most of the laboratory and costumes were in shades of gray, and the figure would have had only its right had in flesh color. Using mostly Vallejo’s Black and White paint set, tried this new technique. To fill out the base, I made 5 copies of a page of math equations, a calendar and the cover of a science magazine and an appropriate back cover ad (Marlboro) form 1958. I used a square of paper towel moistened with white glue to represent the head covering the creature wore most in most of the scenes with his wife. This was draped over the edge of the computer. I processed the photos in Lightroom but did not do any adjustments to the colors. The black and white tones were all achieved with paint.

Do you know where I can get a 1/249 scale Robert Mitchum?

Just finished this one up for the Review Corps. Very nice kit of one of my favorite aircraft.

This is basically what I do, except that it's all digital, tracked in a spreadsheet (extra bonus statistics!), and grouped into subfolders (by category and subject) along with links to online references, photos I've copied, scans of reference material, etc. I find it easier to manage than a stack of paper. But that's me. Normal people probably wouldn't go that far. mas

EXCELLENT suggestions for everyone, but especially if you're just getting started! I have a simple logbook where I only listed the kit manufacturer, scale, subject, and date competed; and have done so for the last 40yrs now. It's useful, enjoyable, and sometimes astounding to go back through to see how long ago a model was built or see how many you've been averaging each year. I think my last build was #361 since I began keeping records. I've only occasionally written the purchase date on a model box, but as David said, I was recently astounded when I pulled one out to start it last month that I'd recorded as bought at the IPMS Nats in 2002! And sadly, I know it's no where near the oldest in my stash...... Making some notes of your build is a very good habit to start, especially if you use any aftermarket parts. A few years from now you may forget exactly what was used and your notes will be there to refresh your memory. You can do it in your logbook, or simply on the instruction sheet (which I usually keep). Taking pictures of your "babies" is also a great way to add to your hobby. You'll find that over the years you'll lose some of your builds, either to breakage, giving as gifts, or even selling them. But, you'll still have a pic of your build to remind you and to hold its place in your model building journey. And, as David points out, it'll enable you to share your work with others outside of your ability to show them to friends, fellow club members, and at shows. Gil