Schmitz

I'm pretty sure Ollie's contracts for special runs of kits - a friend pointed out that for whatever reason the kit boxes have the retail price as part of the box art, under the shrink wrap.

Ron, I think this one sentence answers your question. You can have events without a "parent organization", and because those events are for-profit the organizers tailor them to what makes the attendees happy. Aside from the Journal that the internet has made increasingly less valuable, what advantage does membership provide? The one time I looked at IPMS finances, its almost as if it was two separate organizations. On one side, the individual memberships roughly pay for the Journal, the Reviewer Corps, the website, and the cost of having an office (mostly just paying the Office Manager's). The Chapter Charter fees roughly pay for the insurance policy. On the other side, the Nationals. Registration, vendor fees and various sponsorships pay the bills for the event, with a small "surplus" left over that is shared with host chapter. The National's share of the surplus basically covers the rising cost of putting on the event for the coming years. To participate at the Nats we make you pay for the Journal, Reviewer Corps, Office Manager, etc - but none of that money goes to making the Nats better; it just props up the Journal that has become less and less relevant. For an example of how IPMS could operate without the Journal and without individual memberships, look at Wonderfest. It is a two day show (Sat&Sun) that focuses on SciFi and Fantasy subjects - it is sometimes called the "SciFi Nationals" and is basically the size of a big IPMS Regional. Last year they had slightly over 1000 models in the contest. It is held in the same place every year (Louisville). Their pricing is (roughly) $50 for a two day ticket; that gets you in to the vendors and presentations, and lets you spectate in the model contest. If you want to enter models, that's another $30 for up to 10 models (technically you can enter just 1 model for $15, but most people bring multiple entries). So entrants are paying the same $80 for 2 days that they would pay for a Nat's registration + 1 year membership, but all of that money goes into the show. They have the funds to bring in a few guest speakers - often movie FX folks - and that attracts non-modelers who are still paying the full $50 registration fee - no family membership deals. Now think about what happens if we eliminate individual memberships. The Journal goes away, and with it the need (and cost) of managing memberships. What remains of the organization would exist largely to keep the insurance policy in place, and coordinate chapter-level events, and plan and organize the Nats, and it could be funded by the Chapter Charter fees - which could be raised a bit (and still save the Chapter's money since there would no longer be a requirement to have 5 IPMS members on the roles). This may not be a feel good answer, but I think the "invisible hand of capitalism" will eventually push us to something like this.

As one of the much maligned IPMS/USA FB moderators I want to bring a little reality to this conversation. The IPMS FB group is a very small piece of modeling on Facebook. As mentioned above, the group has about 14,000 members. For comparison "Doogs Models", a popular group run by a single individual has 19,000, "Starship Modeler" is run by a mail-order company and has 95,000, and "I Love Scale Models" has 186,000 members. There are easily 100s more groups all related to various aspects of the hobby. Modelers are not breaking down the door to join our group - they have lots of alternatives. The IPMS group is - by Facebook standards - heavily moderated. A moderator must explicitly approve every member the first time they try to post or comment, and we review their profile and their answers to our "security" questions to try to weed out scammers and trouble makers. We also approve (but not always read) every post before it appears. When the rare T-shirt seller or "middle aged woman looking for love" manages to post, that post is deleted, the person who sent it is blocked, and it is never seen. Facebook does not let us see comments before they appear, and if they did we don't have the manpower to look at them all, but when scammy stuff slips through it will be reported and the person who made the comment blocked. When I say "we", I mostly mean me; a few other folks have become moderators but mostly lose interest. Most of the posts are modeling related: photos of completed models, research photos of interesting subjects, how to questions. Commercial posts - mostly from small aftermarket/speciality companies - are allowed at a rate of 1/week. Local and regional club shows can advertise as much as they want, and some do. A large fraction of the most active members do not seem to be IPMS members, although we have no way of knowing. Personal names are not unique, and FB makes has no requirement that you use your real name (and many people now use "handles" - like "Iron Wulf" or "Tex Modeler"). There are a fair number of members from foreign countries (there are IPMS societies around the world, and they are all welcome and often come to the US Nats). Posts and discussions that are critical of IPMS but civil are allowed. This is a very small fraction of the posts made, and is little different from the same discussions about IPMS that are held here on the IPMS forum. Because of this there seems to be an assumption that the IPMS FB group is a hotbed of anti-IPMS conspirators; I get the impression some think the whole "flying tank" and "sharpie judging sheet" controversies were launched on the IPMS FB group. The truth is that both of those posts appeared first on other groups and social media, and I did my best to verify that they weren't hoaxes before approving those posts. I paid close attention to keep the discussion on those posts from raging out of control - deleting comments and suspending individuals. I know this policy is not popular with some in IPMS. As a moderator, I refuse to outright censor posts and comments only because they point out problems in the Society, mostly of our own doing. If the group is limited to putting a "happy face" on IPMS, FB members will recognize that the group is propaganda and ignore or discount it. If the EBoard decides that's what they want, they will have to replace me. What does IPMS gain from having the group? We get the IPMS name in front of modelers who may not even know it exists. They see contest announcements, can ask questions about modeling and IPMS, and can be encouraged to join a chapter, join the National organization, or come to a National Convention. Post pandemic there was a lot of buzz around the Las Vegas and Omaha Nats on the FB group, and I have to think that contributed to the turnout at those events. When controversial issues do pop up, we (mostly me) can respond as the voice of reason, correcting misinformation and explaining why things work the way they do. There is also an opportunity for IPMS to "take the pulse" of the hobby by following and participating in the discussions on the group, although there doesn't seem to be much interest in that. I have seen suggestions that this group is a thing of value that should be for "IPMS Members Only". Aside from the technical aspects of enforcing members only (remember, we have no way of knowing who member "Iron Wulf" is, or if they are an IPMS member, or if they let their membership lapse), the IPMS group is little different from the many other groups available to everyone on FB. There is nothing special in the way of how-to information, and EBoard members rarely (ok, never) come to discuss issues. It doesn't cost anything but the moderators' time. I've also seen suggestions that discussions of IPMS business should be done in a "Members Only" group to hide our "dirty laundry". Consider that with 5000 members anything discussed in such a "Members Only" group will immediately leak to social media, and nothing will stop the greater modeling community from trash-talking IPMS in all of the other FB groups and social media forums.

Models are usually moved without being picked up - if its not on a base by sliding the model on its registration form. Some judges are quick to pick models up, but the last few times I judged it was discouraged and latex gloves were passed out to those who felt they "had" to see the bottom.

The general rule is that if a model can go into more than 1 category, it is up to the modeler to decide. However it really comes down to what the head auto judge decides the policy is, and it changes from time to time. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that despite what the description says, a lot of judges and modelers see "curbside" as a sort of beginners category. Alot of judges would like to do away with curbside just because of the confusion it causes. I've seen models in that category pooh-poohed for consideration of best auto. If you've gone all out detailing and painting your rally cars, I'd put them in the competition category. If they're closer to out-of-the-box, I'd put them put them in Curbside.

A friend uses one of the commercial products, he uses it to track any aftermarket he has for the kit and reference photos (in case he ever gets around to building it).

I've had some luck stripping tamiya spray paint with 90+% isopropyl alcohol from the first aid section of the grocery store. Let it soak a while. Seems to get most of the paint off, but always a little left behind.

Modelers have been abusing the term "acrylic" for a long time - "acrylic" does not mean they're non-toxic water-based, its just the chemical family that the paint resin is drawn from. Out in the real world, there are "acrylic enamels" with petroleum-based solvents and "acrylic lacquers" with even more aggressive petroleum based solvents. Read the labels, if it comes out of a spray can you almost certainly need to wear a respirator if you're using it indoors.

For the curious, there are financial statements online for the 2016 and 2021 Nats: https://ipmsusa.org/sites/default/files/minutes/files/2021nationalconventionstatementofactivity10092021.pdf https://ipmsusa.org/sites/default/files/minutes/files/ipmsusa2017businessmeetingpresentation.pdf Remember that the 2021 Nats were unusual in many ways (no 2020 Nats and in a higher cost city than typical); the 2016 Nats (in Columbia SC) are probably closer to typical.

Quite a few medals fit in the kind of cardboard box many of us already have stacked in our basement/attic/etc - they are a small part of the contest supplies our club officers already have stashed somewhere in their homes.

About 1-foot square is pretty common; any smaller than that gets hard to include enough to "tell a story" and is more likely to become a vignette (or whatever we're calling small dioramas these days).

I heard "if it ain't broke don't fix it" from my Dad starting about age 12. He was a mechanic and that was his frame of mind: cars either worked or were broke, and if they were broke you put them back the way the manufacturer built them. He sent me off to engineering school, where we learned that the people who designed things were constantly innovating and making tradeoffs trying to make things work better, because their competitors were doing the same thing. It's not obvious to me that everyone who didn't win would leave on Saturday morning. Many attendees would have already made travel plans, bought banquet tickets, raffle tickets, tour tickets, have non-refundable hotel reservations, be waiting for the vendor clearance-sale, or want to take one more circuit through the contest room. A modeler with vendor-money left in their wallet isn't about to leave. As long as there is stuff to do on Saturday afternoon there is no real reason to pack up early. There would be a tendency for non-winners to start packing up around 3-4:00 PM Saturday afternoon to beat the rush, but you could minimize that by having some "big event" about that time: a big name seminar or a pre-awards happy hour that was already included in the price of registration, so that people would want to stay for what they had already paid for. I'll be the first to admit trying this would be an experiment; we wouldn't know if it would work or not. That is the nature of innovation: you study it as well as you can and make contingency plans, but in the end you don't know if it works until you flip the switch and see what happens.

If you like the thin elastic thread, it is available on a spool under the brand name "EZ Line" - check a hobby shop or type that into google/ebay/amazon to find an online seller. Don

In the old days, I used Krylon Dull Aluminum - about $3 for a big spray can at WalMart - to paint anything that was supposed to be non-polished aluminum. It went down smooth - even on bare plastic, dried hard, looked like cast aluminum, and and it took washes extremely well. Then Sherwin Williams reformulated the whole paint line - probably took out all the chemicals that gave people in California cancer - and now the Matte Aluminimum that took its place looks just like silver paint (I'm pretty sure the new stuff has the same part-number as the original - 1403). I've weaned myself from the other Krylon paints, but I would really like to find something as cheap and easy to use as the original Dull Aluminum. Any chance its still available under a different name, or someone has old stock? I'm ready to order a case, but I want to be sure I don't get a case of the new stuff... Thanks! Don

The hardware store paint thinner is great for cleaning brushes; whether it works to thin hobby paint (like Testors) is hit or miss; sometimes it will turn the paint to goop. In general its not a good idea to thin a whole bottle of paint at once - even if it doesn't immediately turn to goo it can happen a few days/weeks later. Don

Monogram tooled a 1:24 scale '65 Convertible and a 65 Shelby fastback back in the 1980s. These two kits are basically the same except for the body, and you can swap the parts around to build a stock fastback or convertible Shelby if you wanted. The convertible kit I remember had Indy-500 Pace Car decals. At some point (15 years ago?) Monogram was bought by Revell, so you may see the same kit in Revell and Monogram boxes. The fastback kit seems to always be in production (it comes in at least 3 versions: GT350, GT350R (with Torque-thrust wheels, front air dam and special rear window), and a GT350H (molded in black plastic and with gold stripe decals). If I remember right, the only difference between a 65 and 66 would be the chrome trim in the side-coves; you could make those with a bit of plastic strip. AMT does have a kit of a 66 Coupe (notchback) - in both 1:25 and (bigger size) 1:16th scale - but you'd have to cut the roof off and find/make a boot to get a convertible out of those kits. All of these kits were re-released recently for the 50th anniversary of the Mustang, so they should be easy to find - probably even at your local hobby shop. I typed "revell mustang convertible kit" and "amt mustang kit" into ebay and got a few hits - mostly for under $20. Good luck... Don

Bill, have you seen this website (with pix): http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=156950 The guy who built it sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Then google found this (looks like a painful scheme to mask and paint!) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/World_War_II_US_Navy_dazzle_camouflage_measures_31,_32_and_33:_cruisers Don

The Embassy Suites makes for a really nice venue - the hotel is attached to the contest/vendor rooms, and the room rate includes a really good breakfast bar (omelettes to order) and free-drink happy hour, perfect if you don't want to waste any time traveling between models and food and drink. That probably makes the Embassy a lot more in demand than the overflow locations - I knew a few people making plans to book as soon as the rooms went on sale. Don

John, I'm not sure how to answer you without trying to answer the "meaning of life", and I'm not up for that this early in the morning... A more practical answer is my chapter, which got an infusion of SciFi modelers a few years ago when it was showing definite signs of withering away. I really think that breathed new life into the club. Now our meetings have more people and more models on the show-n-tell table. One of those new guys helped us get our show into a good location and has taken over cooking the burgers at the club picnic. Its nice having younger backs to help set up tables and schlep vendor boxes at the show (our yearly show is still going strong when some of the neighboring clubs have given up). And it turns out the SciFi guys have a lot of the same interests in things like history and sports cars and action-movies (not to mention beer-and-pizza) that fuel a lot of conversations at club meetings. Some of them even build the occasional airplane or armor piece, and now some of our "old-guard" may build a space-ship from a movie or TV show they like. If you look back, the hobby and IPMS has already changed a lot - just so slowly that you probably haven't noticed. At Columbia it seemed that SciFi and Figures and Dioramas were way up in popularity. I can remember when resin and PE were exotic stuff only the "pros" used, and now its everywhere. Modern kits have more parts and (mostly) better fit making a lot of the "plastic surgery techniques" we learned less essential to building a good model. Like everything else, modeling keeps changing but at its core its still the same as when IPMS sent out its first mimeographed newsletter. We used to think of the SciFi guys in our club as "the young guys", but they are getting a little grayer too. I'm wondering who the next new wave of modelers will be the next time we need a kick in the pants. I hope someone is there to pick up the torch, regardless of what they build. Don

I just looked through 200 or so aircraft models that took an award (1st, 2nd or 3rd) at the Columbia Nats (you can see the slides starting here: http://svsm.org/gallery/columbia2016-awards/100_G) There were maybe 5 that I'd call "heavily weathered", and most of those were WWII subjects (mostly Japanese), I think there were maybe 2 post WWII planes that I'd call weathered, and none of them were the extreme "dipped in mud" look you see now and then. IPMS judges can usually tell when weathering has been done to hide mistakes, and it rarely fools anyone. Maybe 10% of those 200 winning models had darkened panel lines and shading that seemed a little heavy handed in photographs, but probably looked better in person. I know real aircraft don't have black panel lines, but I see it a little like stage makeup on an actress - it isn't realistic but it helps compensate for lighting. The fact that most of those models had much more subtle panel-lines and shading suggests that judges don't really like the heavy handed shading either. Its hard to say what the judges at a local model show might like or not like, and there is no way IPMS/USA can really control that, but at least at the Nats it doesn't seem like weathering on planes of any era is common or helps in taking an award. Don

I'm trying hard not to come off as callous and negative. I'm all for members and chapters being family friendly. It would be great if they came up with some sort of outreach program, or worked with scout troops or Big Brothers/Sisters, etc. I don't think a lack of cheap kits is preventing that. There are modelers going into old folks homes with 100s or 1000s of kits in the basement, and their families are selling them for cents on the dollar just to get rid of them. I'm pretty sure if we asked for kit donations at my chapter for a youth program we would average at least 1 decent, buildable kit from every member. Interestingly, the value of those kits would probably be more than my chapter's members send IPMS in dues every year. Look at the business meeting presentation; last year IPMS spent $22,000 more than they brought in. IPMS doesn't have the money to buy make-n-take kits or otherwise subsidize a youth program. IPMS membership today is the result of 10s of millions of kids building models 30 years ago. There is no way IPMS can reach out to 10s of millions of kids. The other ugly truth is that a lot more members would donate a kit than their time. Based on my chapter, most IPMS members are 50+ years old. Many have raised their own kids, they have already been Little League coaches and Scout leaders, and they have taken care of sick parents, and turned around and raised their grand kids because their kids are in two-job families trying to make ends meet. They are not looking to babysit someone else's kids, especially on the 1 day a month they go out with friends. So by all means put together a chapter youth program. Post here how you did it. But don't be surprised if everyone doesn't jump up to help you. Don

GIL, you're right that the hobby will never be the same, but what is? You said that "hot rods" died in the 70s. As a long time "car guy", that's what we believed would happen in the 70s, but it didn't. Kids figured out how to hot-rod Hondas and VWs and other efficient little cars, and adopted technology like turbos and computers to build cars even faster than the big V8 cars of the 60s. And other kids came along and realized how much fun it was to drive those old V8 cars and now there is a second generation of hot-rodders restoring and modifying those old cars (and they have pushed the prices to insane levels). There are car modelers out there building model Hondas and RX7s, and low-riders and other esoteric subjects, but we see such a small fraction of all the car models at most IPMS shows that its easy to think they're not there. Think about the models at Columbia: 20 years ago would there have been nearly that many figures, sci-fi and space models or dioramas on the tables? Were there as many small-volume kits and detail sets and completely scratchbuilt models back in those "golden days"? The hobby has already changed, and it will keep on changing. Revell may go out of business in the next 10 years, but I'm willing to bet there will still be people building models of something - maybe not B17s and Sherman tanks - but something (although they may be stamping out kits on their desktop 3-D printers and stuffing them into their desktop painting robot). Something else that has changed is the path adults take into the hobby. Its taking young people longer to find good jobs and they are starting families later. That means there aren't as many little kids pulling their parents back into the hobby, but it also means those young people have more time and less money for hobbies - a good fit for modeling. There is an opportunity there. In the future, it may be that parents are the modelers first and their kids pick it up from them. Like hot-rodding, building models is too much fun to just disappear. The hobby will change, but I think there will be room for us old-guys for as long as we're likely to be around. Don

Anything IPMS can do is spitting in the ocean: we have 4,000 National members, add in chapter members and we maybe get to 50,000 IPMS modelers vs. 25,000,000 American kids age 10-15 (prime modeling age) It will be a lot easier to reach 1-2000 new young-adult (30-something) members than 25M kids, and I think that's where we should put our limited resources. Sure, we can have outreach programs, but we shouldn't kid ourselves into it thinking we're saving the hobby. I'd bet most chapters could get their members to donate 1 kit a year to run a local make-n-take, and by making it a chapter activity we could probably do a better job of teaching the hobby than slapping a snap-kit together in 30 minutes at a contest. But again, we're just out-numbered as far as having any real impact. Don

I've been to Las Vegas a couple times (once with my family on the way to seeing relatives in AZ, and once when work was paying for it) and I'm sure it will work. I'm not much of a gambler, so the casinos didn't really excite me (and the shows and restaurants outside of the casinos were not all that cheap). As you said, one of the great things about places like Vegas and Orlando is that there are lots of venues that can hold a convention, and lots of restaurants and attractions, and that competition keeps the prices down. I'm not sure that truly makes for a good convention as the theme-parks and casinos distract people from the show. I've taken my family to Orlando for a Nats twice, and I spent less time at the show or talking models at the hotel bar just because I was spending time with my wife and kids. I get it that combining a Nats with a family vacation is the only way a lot of people can make it, but I have to say I really liked the Loveland show where the hotel (and a small shopping plaza) was all you could see in all directions. Don

Pete, not sure what happened with the link, it was to a Census Bureau page, I'll try again: https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/maps/2010popdistribution.html There are some better maps out there, but be careful if you go web surfing, as a few of them seem to be used as bait on spam sites. Take a look at your list of metro-areas and consider that Boston-NewYork-Philadelphia-Arlington-DC is basically one big metro-area, and that is 4 of the top-10 on your list. Chicago is the #3 metro area, and comparable to LA all by itself. More importantly, in between are a few top-25 cities that are better places to actually hold a Nats; LA/SF are handicapped by having nowhere big to draw from except each other (guess we could shoot for a Nats in San Luis Obispo). Don