noelsmith

Show of hands judging where fellow judges could be 'swayed' by someone with a forceful personality.

For car modellers As we see another Ferrari, another Porsche 911 derivative, and yet another Lamborghini. YAWN!!!! The fastest supercar in the world, the Bugatti Veyron has not been kitted yet! Pocher would have been a lot better to kit this than the Lambo Aventador, and other manufacturers in smaller scales. The latest Revell GMBH offerings are well up there now with the Jap stuff we all take for granted, and much more competitive on price. Their Audi supercar was superb, if they would only do the Veyron? I guess that similarly, die hard ship modellers get the same tired old subjects over and over. Some justify a retool of course. Many of Revell's sailing ship kits have been re popped for 40 or 50 years. But it was nice to see a new kit of the Vasa released a couple of years ago.

I have recently obtained the excellent Revell Vasa Kit and will be looking to use Lloyd McCaffery's ideas for making rigging from wire. Beading wire is readily available in different gauges from Craft Jewellery specialist and maybe from haberdashery stores. Lloyd describes how to make miniature rope from wire. He uses a power tool but a hand drill held in a vice could be just as effective.

The 'Future' and 'Pledge' floor polish. Was this previously known as Johnsons 'Kleer'

I generally blast neat cellulose thinners through my airbrushes after each colour has been used, and using an artists brush to clean up the tip area. Just keep going until it sprays out clear and then follow on with a dedicated airbrush cleaner. This normally works well for me. I rarely have to strip the airbrushes out, but every now and again I will take them to bits for a 'deep clean' maintenance.

Hi Greyhound I think that this may be of interest to you. A Scratchbuilt Steampunk Monocycle with female figure won best of show at IPMS Scalemodelworld at Telford UK last year. Go on to the IPMS UK Website to see photos of the category winners.

A Boeing Kaydett Stearman would be nice in 1/32nd or 1/24th scale.

Nothing wrong with Bourbon Bill. My particular taste is that lovely peaty golden nectar from the Western Scottish Isles........An Islay Single Malt!

Basically, styrene is not a stable product, so unfortunately models will degrade with age. I discovered some styrene sheet that was tucked away in a drawer for about 20 odd years or so that I had forgotten about. Despite being stored well it had gone brittle and was unusable.

Funny old hobby isn't it? If the kit swap at the UK ScaleModelworld is anything to go by. We buy the Kits, Photo Etch, After Market Parts etc. Realise one day that the stash is becoming enormous! Do the Maths........Life expectancy against building all the kits bought mostly on impulse = too many kits and bits. Decide that they will outsurvive us and will have to be reduced drastically. Resell at a loss (unless kits are rare). Spend the money made on........You guessed it............More kits and bits to resell again at a loss when the stash increases again! Are we less than clever or what?

Don, your comment about Metric Threads being a crap shoot depending on the country of manufacture surprised me a bit, as the Metric system threads should all be made in accordance with I.S.O. (International Standards Organisation) specifications. Possibly this happens with items that are not of European origin and from countries where quality standards are questionable. Also your mention about machines dating back to the war. When I started my engineering apprenticeship back in 1960, many of the machines were wartime issue, and some were of American origin. I can remember working on Le Blond and South Bend Lathes and Cincinnatti Milling Machine back then. That was before Metrication took place in the UK in the 70's. Although I was brought up on Feet and Inches from early school days through to the 70's, I did find the Metric system far easier to use once used to it. Also, engineers working in metric just use Millimeters on the drawings for most things. Pete, you mentioned a passion for buying quality tools. I second that! I still have many of the tools that I bought whilst I was an apprentice way back in the early 60's.

Hi Pete, Funny thing that you mentioned roadsigns......Everything else went Metric here in the UK except for the road signage. It is all still in miles and does not look like ever being changed either! Probably the cost would be too much I expect. All the other stuff such as weights, volumes and measures were changed to metric, so all the government had to do was set up a standards board and and sit back as it was left to industry and commerce to make the changes. We had a bit of a laughable situation for a while where Inch drawings were being converted to metric by many companies. it would have been better just to carry on with the old drawings until new designs were required and done in metric at the outset. Is the 'standard' thread you refer to the the American National Fine and Coarse thread pattern?

Automotive Documented Replicas.....looks good in theory......but. Ring binders containing proof of provenance may take up more space than the models on the tables. e.g. A 1/24th scale car model takes up about half the space of one 3 ring binder, Also...how would the tables look dominated by ring folders with models looking lost between them? Should judges really have to wade through loads of folders? Are they not chosen because of their expertise at this level? Competitors will give extra infomation about their models on their entry cards to highlight extra work done for the judges anyway. Having judged at UK Scale Modelworld I am not sure whether what is being proposed would really be workable, as having to check folders for authenticity, as well inspect each model will take a lot of extra time. Also, some judges may be put off by having to look at folders as well as the models, and decline. This is just a personal view, looking at it from a judges perspective. I can empathise with what is trying to be achieved, but feel it needs to be thought through a bit more.

I believe that you guys in the States still work in Feet and Inches. The UK went metric back in the Seventies. When I was an apprentice in the early sixties I was brought up on feet and inches. We used all sorts of imperial threads like Whitworth and British Standard Fine and coarse, as well as UNC and UNF that I believe were originally American threads. Since Metric standardisation things are a bit easier with everything divisible by ten and it is a lot easier to work with. Mind you I can still even now visualise 10 feet in my mind easier than 3 metres! Hope that this little snippet is helpful......Inch to Metric Conversion is as follows......One inch equals 25.4 millimetres. Any full size conversion and subsequent scaling can be worked out from this.basic formula.

There is a book by an American ship Modeller Lloyd McCaffery. I think it's title is Building Ships in Miniature. He describes making ships rigging from soft wire. A search on the internet should find it.

I have to agree with Kevin. Pochers look fabulous when built to a high standard. The older ones are definitely not for the faint hearted, and need a hell of a lot of work done to them. Only highly skilled car modellers need apply! There must be shedloads of part built Pocher kits all around the world where the owners with, shall we say lesser skills, have given up on them due to the indifferent quality. It was a big leap of faith by Hornby by resurrecting the Pocher name and making the new Aventador kit. Hopefully by using the expertise of Airfix who they now own, the parts on this new kit should fit quite well. I understand that the body will be pre painted die cast metal so hopefully this will see a great improvement over the old Pocher F40 and Testarossa kits. Not sure what the retail price will be, but it was rumoured that in the UK it would be £500.00 sterling. We shall see.

When Hornby took over Rivarossi, they also gained the assets of Pocher. There has been speculation about the big Pocher kits being produced once again, and which of the Pocher kits would be released first. There will be an announcement made at the 2013 Nuremberg Toy Fair in Germany from what I have heard, and rumour has it that it will be a newly tooled up kit of the Lamborghini Aventador, and not one of the previous kits released before their demise. If indeed this is true, maybe the new Pocher will be looking towards modern supercars rather than Vintage Classics. Hornby are the holding company that includes Airfix, so I guess that they may be using their expertise to make this new kit. Will it be the traditional 1/8th scale favoured by the Pocher of old, or will the new kit be in a different scale? Lets see.

I was looking out some of the old professional car scratchbuilders on the web and came across Henri Baigent. He was a Frenchman, living in England and a superb model engineer who passed away back in 1971. What I came across was an article that he wrote about making model tyres that was copied from an old Model Maker Magazine from the 50's. If you key in his name you should be able to access the article from one of the entries about him.

Hi Ron Many thanks for coming back to me with further information about the IPMS USA 2014 Nationals. Kind regards Noel Smith

Thanks for the heads up on that Ron. As I read it, I take it that the registration fee is the entry fee for the convention. I have never been to an IPMS USA convention and it is one of those things that I have wanted to do for ages! So the IPMS USA 50th anniversary in 2014 would be very apt for a visit. Kind regards Noel Smith

Thanks for the further info Don. Just out of curiosity, are IPMS members of overseas branches allowed to enter the competitions at the USA Convention, in a similar way to the IPMS UK Scale Modelworld? If so, do they have to pre enter their models at an earlier date to get an entry card posted out?

This thread has made very interesting reading from a UK car modeller's viewpoint and a long standing member of IPMS UK since 1974. To a certain extent within IPMS over the years Automotive modelling has always been a bit overwhelmed by the aircraft modelling fraternity. This does not denigrate Auto Modellers within the IPMS, it just reflects that the majority interest in the hobby is, and always will be aircraft in a general modelling society, followed by AFV's. We are getting more and more car, truck and motorcycle models entered each year into our Scale Modelworld Show, and this can only be a good thing. A non military car or truck model has never won it yet, but for the first time ever a science fiction model won best of show, so things are changing! Car modelling generally is much bigger in the States than it is here judging by the number of specialist regional car model club competitions you have throughout the year, and is well supported. Earlier posts discussed what constitutes a good model and some judging guidelines discussed. Having judged at Scale Modelworld myself on a few occassions the first thing that puts models straight out of contention is lack of some of the fundamentals of basic good building. ie Sink marks not filled in, mould seams not eradicated, orange peel paint, finger marks in the paint, if the car fails to sit square on all four wheels, chassis out of alignment....the list goes on. Putting a model in be judged at that level when some of the basics are a bit lacking will only lead to disappointment? I don't know what IPMS USA does but at Scale Modelworld the best model from each of the categories..Aircraft Ship. AFV, Automotive,Science Fiction etc are placed on a separate table and then judged again for Best of Show so a model from each category get a fair crack of the whip. This year a Steampunk Monocycle took best of show from the Sci Fi and Fantasy section... Brilliant model.. Look on the Scale Modelworld website.

Thanks for the travel feedback Ron, Gil and John. Washington DC looks to be worth considering for a visit, as besides the convention I would like to lose myself in the Smithsonian for a few days as well as do the touristy things like see the White House and the Capitol building. Kind regards Noel Smith

Beautiful models Pete! I tried to reciprocate by attaching a few of my jpegs for you to see but it kept kicking me out. Kind regards Noel

Thanks for the feedback Ron and John about the nearest international airport. It was 2014 info that I was looking for so I should have made it a bit clearer when asking for information on my original post. Newport News/Williamsburg then Norfolk? Could you clarify? Would I fly into Newport News/Williamsburg from the UK and then have to take an internal flight to Norfolk? Or can I fly directly to either from the UK? How far are each of these airports from Hampton VA if I look to hire a car?