rcboater

Dak, This auto-correct-induced typo is gold- too good to ignore! ”Carnage Hall” would be a great name for my modeling room. I’ve certainly butchered some styrene along the way!

While thinking about the OOB rules, a question I haven’t seen asked before came to mind: What are the rules in regards to repairing damaged parts? For example, the recent Airfix 1/48 Sea Fury is arguably the best available kit of the subject, but a bunch of the first releases had an issue with a slightly short-shot rudder. Am I allowed to fix it? If so, how? Penalized if I don’t? (What about the Meng 1/32 Fokker Dr.1? Lots of buyers got kits with a damaged middle wing, I hear.) The idea behind OOB is you are building a model with what came in the box. But I think cherry picking the best pieces out of multiple copies of the same kit is OK? What if the same molds have been used by multiple companies? (Another OOB slippery slope?)

Nick said the number of entries shows that OOB is popular. Two thoughts on that: 1. That isn’t evidence that DAK’s position is wrong, or misguided— that replacing OOB with something less complicated, rules-wise, more relevant to modeling in the 21st century would be less popular. I’d submit that to some degree, that statement is irrelevant to the discussion about “Is there a better way?” 2. Is there any analysis done on who is entering OOB? The “but it’s popular!” argument seems pretty weak if the majority of contestants are people just doubling down with two Tigers, as in DAK’s example. Conversely, the argument is strengthened if the data shows the majority of entrants are first-timers or those who enter OOB only. My personal perception is that a lot of OOB entrants (and winners?) are people entering as a second chance to win with their Favorite subject/ kit build. But absent any real data, I won’t claim this gut feeling as a “ fact” ......

Another idea: Instead of trying to change three convention dates and contracts, just change one. Leave Vegas and Omaha as they are. If 2020 gets cancelled, move it to 2023. If the hotel is forced to cancel 2020, that gets us off the hook in San Marcos. That “ get out of contract free” card is only applicable this year, so can’t be played in 2021 and 2022. We keep those dates and contracts, and are free to sign a new one in 2023.

I’m wondering—. Where is the data that leads you to say “clubs don’t have webpages anymore”?? Here in New England, I don’t see it. There are 8 clubs within a couple hours driving distance for me. All but one of them have a website, some are on bookface too. (The exception is IPMS Central Connecticut, a club that formed in 2012, and is only on BookFace. ) I do get the sense that the Region 1 (Northeast) event isn’t as popular as it used to be. But I also don’t recall any cases where R1 clubs were “competing” to host the event in the last 20 years. In the last 10 years, several clubs (mine included) have decided that it isn’t worth it. We are already hosting a very successful annual contest, and no one has the appetite to take on a second, larger show, one that will be significantly more work and carry a larger financial risk. I also would challenge your statement that “10 years ago IPMS members and clubs used to be so enthusiastic.” I”d say they are still as enthusiastic as ever, just not about hosting Regional Events, for all the reasons others have mentioned. Our club is growing— because our focus isn’t on IPMS Competition.

Thanks! The kit was a real pain to build, but I like how it came out. It looks great in my display cabinet with the rest of my 1/72 scale USCG models....

Just wondering: Which Revell Constitution are you building? The big 1/96 scale (3’ long) or the smaller 1/196 scale kit? In any case, I have two resources to recommend: 1. The ships forum at FineScaleModeler. That seems to be a place where builders of plastic sailing ships seem to gather. There are some amazing build threads for Constitution, especially for the big kit. 2. Modelshipworld.com. While primarily a wood “sticks and string” ship site, there are a lot of build threads for plastic models, too. And your rigging and modeling questions are equally applicable to both wood or plastic sailing ship models. I’m sure your specific question has been discussed there many times... It was not uncommon for ships to stow their sails ashore when in homeport for an extended period. Getting them out of the weather prolongs the life of the material, and allows the sailmakers to make repairs, etc. If you decide to show furled sails, you don’t need to start with a full-size sail. Any material you use will be thicker than scale— so you only need about a third to a half of the sail to create an appropriate “furled” look. -Bill

The ancient Monogram HU-16E Albatross, built OOB. Markings are USCG early 1960s, from the Print Scale sheet. The mold dates from 1957, kit was real pain to build. I glued the “moveable” gear in the down position to make it sturdy, and added some lead shot to keep the nose down. Paint is Tamiya white and some of my hoarded MM “Coast Guard Red-Orange” from their discontinued Marine colors line. All the orange bands and black stripes were painted- lots of masking there! I was impressed with how well the Print Scale decals went down over the big rivets... DUKW is the Italeri kit, in USCG colors from the same period....also OOB. Photo courtesy of Pip Moss.....

I really enjoyed this build- It was more fun than any other recent build, by far. When you start with such an old kit, there’s no worry about screwing it up. Pretty much anything you do to it is an improvement. For example it is a hard to scratchbuild an item to the same level of detail as the rest of the model when you’re working on the latest “state-of -the-art” kit. But replacing “deck blobs” with new items that look more like the real thing has a big impact, even if the new item isn’t perfect. (The 80/20 rule kicks in here big time!)

Nice breaker! These old kits can really look nice with a few well-placed upgrades....!

First mod was to cut off all the solid wall “ railings”, for later replacement with PE. I also replaced the main deck and scratchbuilt the gear on the foc’sle, and converted the kit whaleboats to USCG Motor Surf Boats. I also scratchbuilt a new tripod mainmast and radar room.

I built the old Revell Secretary-class Cutter as the USCGC Duane for our club’s Vietnam war theme. The kit was originally released in 1957 as the USCGC Campbell, in her post Korean War fit. Since the early 80s, the kit has been has been sold as USCGC Taney. I converted the kit to her sister ship Duane as she appeared during her deployment to Coast Guard Squadron Three in ‘68.There is a full build thread over on ModelShipWorld: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19370-uscgc-duane-by-rcboater-bill-finished-revell-1305-plastic-ca-1980/?tab=comments#comment-591280

Go look at the ships forum on the Fine Scale Modeler website. There is a terrific build thread on the Revell Cutty Sark there.... It seems to be the place to go for plastic sailing ships....

My pet peeve are tanks and figures in a diorama that were apparently “beamed in”, because there are no tracks in the snow/mud to show how they got there.... or the aircraft on the grass at the edge of the taxiway - apparently not even the wheels of a 10,000 pound aircraft can flatten that tough grass!

Seems to be a lot easier to get than 501 (c)3 status.... A description is posted here on the AMA website. It obviously talks about AMA-chartered clubs, but seems applicable to any hobby club...., https://www.modelaircraft.org/sites/default/files/505-a.pdf Does IPMS track this info, perhaps as part of the rechartering process? I’m hoping to hear from some who have already been down this road....

Yes I do.

No, I don’t think I’m being insulting to judges, as I think we’ talking about different things. I’m talking about local events, you’re talking about the Nationals. I would agree with you that it there’s no reason to hide the entrants’ names at the Nationals. All the contestants are members, and know the drill. It isn’t so cut and dried at local events - where maybe 15% of the entrants are IPMS members.... there, the perception of the non-members matters. We brought it on ourselves, as we have conditioned them to expect this over the decades. That makes it harder to convince the (local) Show Organizers they need to change anything now......

I don’t think a concern for adherence or conformity to National rules is a concern here. Every club show I’ve ever been to has one or more unique rules they use. (And I’m lucky- there are six IPMS clubs putting on annual contests within a 2 hour drive radius from the Boston area.). By Risk/Reward, I meant “ Return on Investment”, or are the results worth the effort to make the change? If you are the only club in the area to make the change, you are exposing the show to a potential loss of perception of impartiality, even though it is basically unjustified. ( Perception is reality, unfortunately.). The benefits are difficult to quantify- I rather doubt anyone is going to thank the club for making the change. And some would likely contend that it doesn’t matter much - that knowing the builder’s name only makes a small difference, as most of the names aren’t people you know who they are anyways. So there is little real incentive to overcome the FUD factor to make the change - the risk/reward. And personally, to me, it isn’t something worth fighting for.... there are bigger fish to fry.

Can’t anyone just turn the sheet over to answer that question...? And it isn’t like you need to flip the whole thing over, just lift the front edge enough to see the folded under part. And if the model is parked solidly on top of the sheet, you could always go to the registration desk and and ask “ Who is contestant #37?” While it is a bit silly in reality, it does reinforce the illusion of anonymity. I think It would be hard for a local club to be the first in the area to make the change to stop doing this, if all the other clubs do it the old way. I can’t see how I’d convince my fellow PatCon committee members that this was something we needed to do — the risk/reward proposition seems out of whack... -Bill

Gil, Thanks for a very well articulated response! Too bad something like it isn’t posted on the IPMS USA website....!

Following up on this.... How would a prospective group of modelers know this? My point is that the AMA makes it easy to find this info out— we don’t. We shouldn’t make it harder than it needs to be for people to charter a club. -Bill

I wouldn’t consider that a big problem- normally I’d say “no” to pop ups. (Does your Firefox automatically suppress them? ). But I did it to give you a more complete report. I suspect the pop up was from your web hoster? Bottom line, your page came up without any scary warnings....

Used your link using Safari on an iPad, I got an alert the site was trying to open a pop up. I allowed it, and a new tab opened, then eventually errored out with a “server not found”. But the original page loaded just fine, with no malware warnings.... -Bill

I’m with Rob- building those older, yet still very buildable kits can be fun. I do that a lot. But I also accept that not every kit I choose to build is worth the effort to try to turn it into a contest winner. Even in an OOB category, a 30 year old kit won’t be as detailed as a new “super kit” is. Yes, the superkit has a lot more opportunities to make an error, but it provides a canvas to showcase a wider spectrum of skills if done correctly. Given that “no sweeps” is the rule, I’m not going to waste my one shot at being competitive in 1/35 WW2 armor with a 30 year old kit. Doesn’t matter whether it is in an OOB or non-OOB category- same thought process applies, at least for me. Around here, all but one of the local clubs dropped OOB a long time ago- in part because they realized that having two categories for the same subject (OOB and not-OOB) was just giving the same “Ace” builders two awards instead of one. -Bill

“Yes” it is obsolete, at least in terms of the original objective. Modern kits make it downright silly. (An Eduard Profipack Kit is eligible, but the same Weekend addition kit, with the addition of just some of the same Eduard accessories is not! ). Most of the clubs around here have dropped it. Of the six contests held each year in this area, I can only think of one still holding on to OOB in any form. It seems to me that, at the Nationals level, anyways, the primary benefit today for all the OOB categories is to significantly increase the number of categories, and hence, awards given out. Taken to an extreme, how many people would bother to enter if we only had 5 aircraft categories to give the current out 1-2-3 awards in? ( I know this is a perfect segue to the GSB debate- but that topic has already been beaten to death elsewhere.) I’ve never been to a Nationals- I was a bit surprised to hear there are no Vignette categories there. All the local shows have them, and they seem to be popular. IMO, it is a great way to dip your toe into the Diorama pool. But adding vignettes categories would not be enough to replace all the OOB categories getting eliminated- you ‘d need other new ones to fill the gaps.