noelsmith

I will have to have a look at the Airfi x snap kit. Have seen some of the others they do since your reply and they look a lot better than expected. Will have to get one to play about with. The Hiro Chiron, nice but expensive. They do the prototype Geneva Show car as well, that I think was named Vision.

Pete, the Dusie engine I think was ran just once to prove it out before going into the model. Gerald Wigrove is now retired and living in Spain. He emailed me some time ago to say that he still keeps his hand in for his own pleasure now. Maybe the Craftsmanship Museum should approach him?

Pete, as my main interest is classic cars, particularly from the 'Golden Age' I have followed Louis Chenot's Duesie build with great interest. What a fantastic model. I think it is in 1/6th scale from what I can remember. I also seem to remember that the engine is a fully working miniature of the original and there may be a Utube video showing it being tested. What a remarkable model. Just out of interest there is a picture somewhere that I have seen where the late Dr. Park was visited by famous model maker Gerald Wingrove.

Pete, having looked at the Joe Martin Craftsmanship Museum may times in the past, all I can say is that it any model maker wants to be inspired, regardless of subject interest have a good look on there. The late dentist from Hawaii who made those aluminium skeletal aircraft models, wow! Rusty, Sherline has a good website with many links. I expect you may have looked it up already.

BBC ran some drama trailer titbits and in amongst them was a few seconds of footage showing a tripod machine. No indication of release yet though.

I believe that the SHAZAM movie being released soon will feature who I recognise as the original Captain Marvel (i.e. Billy Batson shouts 'Shazam' to change into the legendary super hero. What are they naming him in it?

You got some nice equipment there Rusty. Sherline has a good reputation in the mini machine market. Although now made stateside, did you know that Sherline originated from Australia? There are some nice little machines for model makers by Emco, Proxxon, Peatol and Cowells to name a few more as well.

For very fine gap filling I use Artists Acrylic Paint...……...Agree with Ralph and Pete, fitting is better than fiddling!

How did Marvel Comics get away with naming their female character Captain Marvel when the character was originally male and created originally by DC comics? When I was a kid back in the 50's I used to read the DC Captain Marvel Comics along with the Marvel family characters Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Junior. I can remember a Saturday morning children's cinema matinee when they ran a Captain Marvel serial in black and white. Marvel Comics did not create their character until years later.

Things do move on, but it would be sad if totally hand crafted models get dismissed because something could be made accurately and repetitively on a CNC machine. Modifying a drawing to remake on CNC is easier than scrapping a part and having to make it again by hand. The only machinery I use is a small Emco Centre lathe and milling machine (both manually controlled) but most of my work is done by hand from raw materials. Compared to kit building and detailing it gives me more satisfaction and pleasure having to get my head around the numerous problems encountered along the way when scratch building. At the end it is nice to look back and think ' I made that, every bit!'

The classes at the USA nationals and SMS Telford out of necessity have to reviewed and changed from time to time. Sometimes it is forced by developments in technology that has to be embraced. Sometimes it is due to the amount of support (or lack of) for that class on the table. A good example is that over recent years I have been scratch building classic cars and there was a class in civilian vehicles for this. Not many scratch builds were entered over the years and scratch builds have now been grouped with detailed kits such as the stuff from Model Factory Hiro and Tamiya used as the basis instead of making all the parts yourself. Although from my point of view this decision was a tough one as going up against detailed kits will be difficult, I can understand the rationale behind it.

Every organisation has their own contest stipulations so it is up to the entrant to comply rather than compare!

Nick, one of your earlier threads mentioned that IPMS USA judges use a guidance handbook. I judge at SMW so it was interesting to learn this. The UK approach is a bit different as we just have a judges briefing beforehand and are then left to get on with it.

The computer and the printer are just tools! The printer just prints and the computer just follows you (the writer's) instructions. After 3D printing the next discussion in years to come may be about how Artificial Intelligence will be influencing our hobby.(Just Joking)

There are many differing opinions on the use of 3D printing in our particular realm, so it is very much a matter of each to their own views at present. I expect that things will settle down sometime soon when IPMS USA finally makes a decision about what way forward to go when more and more people use this technology. Hasn't been discussed much by IPMS over here in the UK so I guess that we will probably take a fairly pragmatic approach to this subject. My take on this is that as the process of developing 3D drawings and also that 3D printing is comparatively slow, end users (model builders) will find it very expensive compared to buying injection moulded kits that we are all used to.