Schmitz

Pete, If you look at a population density map (try this one: https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/maps/2010popdistribution.html)you see that while Los Angeles and San Francisco have a lot of people, the north east corner of the US has even more. LA has the 2nd largest population in the US, but 4 of the 5 biggest cities are in a narrow corridor between New York and Chicago. And because LA and SF are so dense, prices for everything are going to be higher. That said, Phoenix is a prime spot for a Nats; you have to look at a map to see its drivable from LA, Las Vegas, Salt Lake and Albuquerque (and if you were a really hard core driver, SF and Denver). And its a Southwest Air hub for those coming from the east - I'm hoping they get one of the next slots. Denver was also a really nice Nats and I'd like to go back there, but it isn't really driving distance from anywhere... Don

Wikipedia says Ford restyled the car to look like this in 1998, and they didn't change it much after that. I think they didn't start pushing it as a fleet vehicle until mid 2000s, so best guess for this car would be 2005-10.

Kevin, Yeah, its pretty easy to find pictures of Goodlin in his Israeli days. There is a lot of information about the RCAF squadrons online, but Goodlin doesn't seem to be listed in any of the online registries. The article about him flying Spitfires with the RAF was a small-town newspaper piece that interviewed a few of his surviving family members when he died (2005); a lot of details in that article conflicted with other sources. His relatives would have been pretty old at that point, and the newspaper probably didn't put their star reporter on this, so I'm not sure how much to believe it. I did find mention that early in the war it was possible for RCAF pilots in England to end up in RAF units, and some of the RCAF units did fly Spitfires (although most of the RCAF units seem to have had the early Mustangs). Info and pictures from Goodlin's days in Africa seem nonexistent - too bad no one had camera-phones back them :) Don

I've become obsessed with the story of Chalmers "Slick" Goodlin. Before he was an infamous Bell Aircraft test pilot, he was a western PA kid who left for Canada on his 18th birthday to join the RCAF. He would become the youngest pilot in the RCAF and his unit would ship out to England before his next birthday. From what I had read, due to his age he was made a flight instructor, but I recently came across an article on the Internets that suggest he did fly Spitfires in combat missions in England. Of course I'm thinking it would be cool to model one the planes he flew. I'm not much of a WWII expert; I was wondering if there are any official sources, books, etc I could check to see what units he was in and where they served during 1941 and 42? Any hints would be greatly appreciated! Don Schmitz

Very nice build! I rarely see these actually get built. I've bought a couple of these kits at shows recently for very reasonable prices. At one show a friend of mine wanted to see how far he could haggle the price; when he was done he had had his fun and gave me the kit! By the way, Revell offered a Grand Sport kit that looked just like the Accurate Miniatures kit about a year ago - rumor has it those were left over AM kits - Revell doesn't have the molds and won't be able to reissue it. I have dreams to build car #4 as it was raced by the Grady Davis/Gulf Oil team when it was first built - before all the flares and scoops and vents were added. So many plans, so little time... Don

Bob, I don't know how you would ever enforce such a contract; I can't imagine a chapter taking a vendor to court. The only leverage the contest has is to black-ball a vendor from future contests, and at least here in western PA its getting hard to fill up the vendor tables - (presumably a lot of kits are going direct to ebay). The shows need the vendors as much as they need us, might as well try to work with them. Don

There is no way to stop a buyout; if we try to restrict it inside the show the buyouts will just move to the parking lot. In places where this is a problem, I think it would be fine to ask the vendors and re-sellers to wait until noon before starting the buy-outs. It couldn't hurt to point out to the vendors that the modelers at the show are probably going to pay more for stuff than the re-sellers. Don

Just a reminder to R4 folks - TRICON - the Three Rivers (Pittsburgh PA) show - is next Saturday, March 12th. There are still a few vendor tables available - just contact me if you're interested. Don

James, Just to be clear, when Atlanta did display only, it was only open to registered entrants, right? My concern was that if we offered a lower-priced "display only" registration then then many of the people who regularly come and don't bring models will take that cheaper option. I don't think Atlanta offered such a lower-cost option, did you? For the record, I agree with Mike and the Soup Doctor; start out with a few display-only tables, open it up to just registered attendees, and see how it works. I'd suggest recruiting a few guys who are good modelers and good at holding court (IPMS must have a few extroverts somewhere...) to bring some models and spend time there talking to people just to break the ice. Have plenty of chairs, and locate it as close to the bar as possible :) Don

David, I tend to agree with your suggestion of starting small, but I don't think it is bad to think beyond that, even if its just a handful of us un-officially shooting the breeze on a weekend with neither the NFL or MLB on TV. A friend of mine is a draftsman; he has a saying that "paper is cheaper than steel", meaning its better to find and fix problems on the drawings instead of after the machine is bolted together. I can point to a few attempts to make changes in the Nats that fizzled largely because no one thought about the unintended consequences; having more people thinking and talking up front seems like a good idea. Don

Rusty, I agree with you in principle, the problem is there are already lots of registrants who aren't entering the contest (40% according to an earlier post). There are also members who enter the contest knowing they have little chance of winning an award just to display their work. If you give members (or are we talking non-IPMS members too?) a way to participate without paying full registration, how many of that 40+% will take the cheaper option? I have on occasion registered, knowing I wasn't taking any models, for the privilege of paying still more to go on a tour or buy a banquet ticket so I could have dinner with friends. I have also had just 1 day to visit the Nats and paid for general admission, and went to seminars and even once judged (that was before the shows started announcing that you had to be registered to do those things). Compared to the cost of travel, a hotel room and restaurant meals the cost of registration was not a big deal either way for me, and I tried to follow the rules, but I can imagine there are members on tighter budgets who are mostly coming to shop the vendors and look at models who will save however they can. Maybe its time to think about an even more ala-carte pricing structure, where the base registration gets you a goodie-bag and admission to vendors/models/seminars and lets you judge, with extra fees for the banquet, display, and contest? This might be a way to keep the base-price of registration low enough for those on tight budgets (e.g. retirees on fixed income), while keeping up with ever rising event prices. I don't know if this is a good idea or not; setting prices is more black-art than science. Who would think something this simple could be so complicated? Don

I'm a little confused as to what is being suggested by the "display only". Can we clarify it a bit? If the idea is just to have a group of models in the contest room that are entered by registered attendees but are not judged, then it seems like we could just treat "display only" as a category that the judges would skip. Actually, I think there should be separate categories for "Display Only - Aircraft" , "Display Only - Auto" , etc. just to keep similar subjects in one place. It would make sense to keep track of the numbers to help with estimating table space from year to year, but beyond that I don't see any reason to have an extra fee or any kind of special registration. Since the models aren't judged, we could relax the restriction on "work in progress" models - which would give those of us with "completion issues" a chance to bring something. If the idea is to have SIGs and chapters put on more coordinated displays (like I hear they do at Telford - e.g. "How many Phantoms can we lineup in a row?") then it will take a bit of organization just to have the table space and get the word out to the right groups. I like this idea as a way to strengthen the idea of SIGs, and I think it could create some cool displays which would be another attraction of the Nats. If the idea is to let IPMS members bring models without registering for the Convetion, then I'm not sure I like the idea; we should give people a reason to register. To be sure, people could easily sneak models into the display-only space (who would ever check?) but I don't think we should encourage it. If someone wants to champion this, I'd suggest sending a proposal to the E-board, which I think is one of the more open-minded in recent history. Just think about how to promote it; something like this has to make a good first impression if you want people to get excited about it. Don

In Pittsburgh we use GSB style judging, which in theory means every model entered can take home a medal. The first few times we did this, we had a flat fee for unlimited models, and found there were a few people bringing dozens of models, most likely everything they had ever built. We suspected some people were bringing the same models back year after year (keeping track of who brought what year after year isn't really practical). It doesn't take too many people doing that to make GSB unworkable for the hosts. So we lowered the entry fee but made it for 3 models, and charged $1 for each extra model, and as if by magic the average number of models per entrant fell to 3! And the number of modelers stayed about the same (its actually been slowly growing over the years). There are still some prolific builders who bring 10 models with them and happily pay the extra few $, and we're happy to have them even if they take home 10 medals - but the averages are a lot more predictable and we can make the budget work. Point of all this is, a fee structure that charges $X per model will reduce the number of models entered, but probably won't affect the number of entrants very much. That said, most of the Nats I've been to in recent years have had a fair amount of empty space on the contest tables, just because we can't predict the turnout for all the categories. If we could figure out how to handle the variability better (and I don't have any great ideas), I think we could free up space for display-only areas without needing more space in the contest room. Seems like something we could try in a small way. Don

Pete, I spray in the garage too, but I have to disconnect the spray booth to get my wife's car in. In the winter the garage gets too cold to paint in and my modeling grinds to a crawl (and if I don't paint for a while, that corner of the garage starts to accumulate junk until the next spring cleaning). I would like to get insulated garage doors in hopes it would get warm enough to work in there in the winter, but I don't think they seal well enough to really get the garage to shirt-sleeve temperatures when its 20 degrees outside :( Maybe I should think about SoCal for my retirement years... Don

It's a gas dryer, although it doesn't have a pilot light. The gas furnace is just across the room and does have a pilot, but it's about 2 feet above the floor. I mostly use acrylics, but sometimes can't avoid lacquer. Don

I've been taking advantage of the spring like weather in Pittsburgh this weekend to clean out the garage and basement. I realized I could have a more permanent home for my spray booth in a corner of the laundry room, right next to the dryer, but I'm worried about the dust it generates. I was wondering if anyone has tried this and managed to deal with the dust monster? Thanks! Don Schmitz

I'd guess there is no one answer as to what people are looking for in the Nats. I have taken advantage of the great room deals the Orlando folks made to take my family to Disney twice, and on the first trip we learned that when we're combining a family vacation with a Nats we have to add a few days for family time because there are going to be 2 or 3 days when I'm at the show and they're not going to see me. Aside from Disney we haven't done any more doubling up, mostly because the locations haven't been all that exciting for my family (I think we considered a double-dip for Virginia Beach once, but it fell through due to some family emergency). I have to admit the last few Nats I rarely made it out of the hotel except for a short trip to a restaurant for dinner. Occasionally there is a good modeling-related tour (e.g. the Shelby museum in Loveland), but I rarely see any of the local touristy things there just due to lack of time, as without the family being there I'm unlikely to take extra vacation days to see the sites. At this point in my life easy travel and a nice venue (big display and vendor rooms, lots of nearby restaurants and snack bars, reasonable priced rooms) are more important than the locations, but if I were retired or had young kids again I'd probably have a very different take. I think that's a good reason to rotate the show to appeal to everyone at least every few years. Don

Kimbo, I can't help you, but the person who probably can is Mike Mackowski. He is a member of IPMS, but I don't think he participates on this forum very much. You can find his contact info on his web site: http://www.spaceinminiature.com/contacts.html Good luck - sounds like a fun project (a lot of modelers would love to meet the people you've interviewed - when you're done please post your report here!) Don

Three Rivers IPMS is holding their annual show on March 12th (Sat). Same location as the last few years: Beattie Career Center (map) 9600 Babcock Blvd Allison Park PA 15101 Doors open at 9AM. Show website: http://www.tricon.tripms.org (should be updated soon if not already) I'm the official-vendor-guy, 6-foot vendor tables are $25; you can get in touch with me at dnschmtz@gmail.com. Feel free to ask me any questions you might have. Don Schmitz

George, Years ago I had picked up a roll of this tape at a hardware store and tried to figure out how to do this. I never got very good results and eventually gave it up; the job you did on this plane is just amazing! I'll take a look at the video and give it another try. Thanks! Don

Are "Metal Work Panels" a product? can you tell us how they work and where you get them? There are some polished-aluminum sports cars that should be this shiny... Don

Try (just a little) goo-b-gone on a q-tip. I think its citrus based and I haven't had any problems with it removing paint. It is a little oily; follow up with mild soap and water. Don

Thanks guys. I googled a bit and found some of the high-end diecasts and professionally built models (some with 4-digit price tags!). The Model Factory Hiro kit is tempting as 1/20 always seemed like a good scale for F1 kits, but I'm hitting a real psychological barrier at paying (a lot) more than $100 for a kit - I think I'll hold out hopes that Ebbro or Tamiya do an injection kit some day...

I was passing through Indianapolis last weekend and stopped in the hall-of-fame at the speedway. They have a special display of Gurney's AAR cars. First time I had seen this F1 car, and it is gorgeous. Had anyone ever kitted this? Seems like a natural subject for Ebbro...

The earliest kits I remember were birthday/Christmas presents (around 1965) - first kits included a nameless 1/72 biplane (it was green), dinosaurs, a Batman figure, a Batmobile and the Revell Mercury-Gemini capsule double kit. When I moved up to spending my own money, my home town had two 5-and-10s, a Woolworth and a McCrory's, and both provided a steady stream of car kits. I wasn't allowed to bike into "town", so I would have to wait until Dad needed something at the hardware store and tag along. At the end of every summer, we would make a special trip to the "city" of Greensburg (PA) - population about 20,000! - to buy new school clothes at a discount department store called GeeBees, next door to an actual hobby shop (I think the name was Peterman's Hobby - a name that just popped into my head after 50 years). I would grimly endure trying on an endless stream of pants and shirts to earn 15 minutes shopping for models; I think I got the AMT Star Trek Enterprise kit there around 1969. Don