Schmitz

I like the improved navigation and cleaner look. Personally I think the sections on the home page look a little too similar and tend to run together - I'd like some borders or shading just to visually separate the sections, but I know this super-sparse style is in fashion on the internet. Oh yeah - I like red buttons too - the blue buttons tend to blend in with the menu-bar and text, but again a matter of taste. Major comment: The home page doesn't have any pictures of models! Nothing to suggest what the hobby or the organization is all about. This is the main public facing page for the organization; it should "sell" a little bit (we can have an internal page for members to bookmark to get them to the top level sections). For examples check out http://www.nmra.org/, http://www.tripoli.org/ or http://www.nar.org/ (model railroad and model rocketry organizations). Thanks for all the hard work! Don

I think there a couple different techniques for figure painting; a friend of mine that swears by using oil paints put this how-to article together long ago. Don

My wife was asking if I could make our Christmas lights blink to music like the outrageous displays that show up on the cable channels at the Holidays. I did a quick internet search and found that many of the folks who do this are using something called an "Arduino", which is a little hobbyist computer you can program from a PC to turn things on and off (you need some circuitry so it can actually turn house current on and off, but the Arduino provides the brains). I worked with similar hardware back in the 1980s when this sort of system would have cost a few $1000, so I was a little surprised to see you could buy a working system for less than the price of a Tamiya kit... I did a quick check and found that Amazon sells these things, so I added the starter set to my "wishlist". My wife refuses to buy me more kits that just end up in the stash, but this gadget showed up under the tree and I've been having great fun with it: you can make it flash lights in any pattern you can program and connect buttons and simple sensors to control what it does. It also came with a tiny RC plane servo that you can control to make things move. The programs are C/C++, but you don't need to know much to do interesting things and you get a little booklet with lots of example programs (there are also lots of how-to/dummy books and websites out there). This would be a great way for teenage kids to get into programming. Anyways, I'm thinking about how to use this in some sci-fi projects I've had in mind for a while. Just wondering if anyone else is using these things in their models? Seems like this might be a good way to get more of the "internet generation" interested in modeling. Don

Everyone on this thread seems to have an IPMS number - start a thread...

Prices and wages don't always go up uniformly. My daughter is a newly graduated Graphic Designer (a fairly technical job in the internet age). She was lucky to find a job fresh out of school. She makes 2x as much as I did as a newly graduated engineer in 1982, but she pays 3x as much in rent. If I hadn't helped with tuition, her school loans would have been about 5x what mine were. She can't afford to buy a car, and if I helped her with the down payment she couldn't afford the gas and upkeep. That's a long of way of saying disposable income is not what it used to be for young people, including the 30 somethings that are traditionally the new comers to our hobby. I don't think the costs of kits are a big barrier to getting into the hobby - a much bigger problem is that few if any toy stores still sell kits - but I don't think its negligible either. Don

Robert, Maybe what you're really asking is whether in a few years there will be anyone left with the disposable income for a hobby. That isn't a philosophical question any more; we're awfully close to having technology to automate a big fraction (50-60%) of existing jobs, including a lot of professional positions. For example, self-driving cars are getting pretty good: there are something like 20M commercial driving jobs in the US. The entire US economy is built on the assumption that families have a 40 hour/week income, but soon (like before we die) there may not be nearly enough jobs (at least the kind of jobs we have today) to go around. That's sort of like the population growth problem; something has to "give". It makes no sense for half the people in the richest country in the world to be homeless or living in poverty, but I don't think anyone knows how it will shake out and the transition could well be painful. Still, I'm betting on human nature: there will be leisure time and disposable income and people building models. Don

Robert, I don't pretend to understand economics, but projecting trends very far into the future (or past) generally doesn't work. Over the long term money shifts back and forth between countries, generations, and social classes. Exponential growth is never sustainable: for example, world population can theoretically double every 25 years and it has roughly done that since 1950, but if we keep that rate up for another 2-300 years humans will make up all the living material on the planet - clearly that won't happen. Sometime in the next 50 years something will "give" (we're already seeing signs that population is leveling off). Kit prices are more complicated than exchange and inflation rates. The cost of a Tamiya kit includes the cost of developing the tooling plus the cost of the styrene and kit boxes, the cost of running the molding machines, the cost of shipping the kits, a cut for the distributor and a cut for the hobby shop. The $43 you pay for the new Toyota Phaeton kit gets divvied up among people in various countries, not just Japan. According to HLJ, the Japanese retail price is 2400 Yen - about $20 - so there is nominally another $23 involved in getting the kit to the US. HLJs discounted price plus the cheapest shipping makes the total price about $23. But in the US it is rare to pay full retail price for anything; many retailers automatically knock off 10-20%. Tower Hobbies has the Toyota kit for $33 and claims $2 for their budget shipping to my door, which means the real cost of these kits isn't quite as extreme as it first seems. In the big picture, supply and demand takes care of setting reasonable prices. If kit prices are too high, sales will go down and the kit makers will set more reasonable prices - or some other company will come along and offer similar products at lower prices. I think what we're seeing now is a generation of modelers hitting their prime earning years (worked our way up through the ranks, kids have moved out, mortgage is paid) so we're indulging in pricey kits. It won't last forever, so enjoy it while you can! Don

The two main adjustments on any camera are shutter-speed and aperture; once you figure out how they interact it will give you a pretty good starting point. Except on the simplest point-n-shoot cameras, there are usually two modes - "shutter priority" and "aperture priority" where you can set one of those and the camera will pick the other for the best results. Try looking through the knob settings and menus for "aperture priority". If you can find that mode/setting (it might be a capital "A"), turn it on and look for a knob or menu where you can set the aperture (or it might be called the f-stop). Try picking the biggest number - probably around 20. Then put your camera on a tripod or set it on something so you don't have to hold it steady. Get as much light as you can (sunlight is good, with the light coming from behind the camera), line up your shot and when all is ready, push the button. If you can't keep the camera really steady, try the button that delays the shutter so you can take a picture of yourself; hit that then let go of the camera so it has a chance to stop shaking before it takes the picture. If the camera has a zoom lens, try backing up and zoom in with the lens. The great thing about digital is that you can try 10 or 20 different things and keep the best pictures and delete the rest. When you find something that works, write it down so you can do it again. The other great thing about digital is once you get the picture in the computer, you can use something like photoshop or some other photo-editor to tweak the color and brightness and such (real photographers are probably cringing, because photoshop can't do magic - it helps if you take a good picture to start with - but it can often make things better). Hope that helps.

If you look at a population map (like this one: http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/) you get an idea of how seriously skewed the population of the US is to the eastern half of the country; I think the center of population of the country is still somewhere close to Ohio (maybe Indiana). That probably argues for weighting the rotation towards the east. I like Dave's choice of cities, although Dallas is (surprisingly) on the edge of the "great western emptiness". Phoenix is actually in driving distance of most of southern CA, and Denver is the only western population center that is not on the pacific coast. All of these places have also had multiple successful Nationals, so we know there are reasonable venues and transportation available. Rather than completely abandoning individual bids and rotating the location, how about making these our "safety locations". If we have no bids, pick one of these that is available and (hopefully) not too close to the previous year's location and go into fallback mode. Any attempt to limit locations will probably mean farming out some of the work to non-local chapters (for example, one chapter could bid to organize the seminars, another the tours, another the advertising, another the vendors). I'm also thinking if we do this we should make the bid-cycle a year longer to give more time if we need to go use a fallback location.

Pete, in one of Bob Lutz's books (maybe Car Guys vs. Bean Counters ??), he mentions that GM once had a requirement to invent so many completely new types of vehicle per year. The example I remember was an SUV with a rolltop rear hatch that would open up into the roof to let you haul really tall things (grandfather clocks? small trees??). These "inventions" typically required lots of engineering and suffered from unusual proportions and awkward styling so that they generally turned into expensive failures. But if you were a middle manager hoping to be promoted you had to make sure your department met their "innovation quota". That has to explain the Aztec; either that or hallucinogens...

Yep, I like it. One thing: before you have a brass name plate engraved, I'm pretty sure it should be "fire for effect" (not "affect"). Don

The Edsel was more a failure of product planning and marketing than design and engineering. It was intended to be a "step up" from the standard Ford sedan, but it largely overlapped the existing Mercury product line (Mercury was another Ford brand). It also had the misfortune of debuting in the middle of a recession; a bad time to convince people to buy a luxury product. What really killed it was that Robert McNamara (yes, that one) - a man who understood statistics but not automobiles - was running Ford at the time, and he didn't like it... Back around 1980 I had an after school job washing cars at a Ford dealership; for some bizarre reason they had taken a pristine Edsel wagon in on trade and parked it in the middle of the showroom. One of my jobs was to dust this thing and clean the fingerprints off the windows, and I got to look it over real close. Under the hood and inside it looked much like the '62 Ford Galaxie that had been my first car, so I don't think the engineering went to waste. If you want a real automotive "what the heck?" consider the Chevy Vega or the AMC Pacer. Don

Hasn't it already happened under the current system? Isn't that why we have moderators?

Could someone (Eric A?) tell us the actual cost of hosting images? From looking at the A2 hosting page (I think that's who hosts this forum), if I'm reading it right 100Gb of disk storage costs about $40 a month. That's about 2,000,000 web-quality images. I'm guessing we could also impose limits on users to keep individuals from abusing the storage (which they can get for free on Facebook). All of the expenses of IPMS - the Journal, Make-n-Take, insurance, etc - are borne by all of the members, whether we think those expenditures are a good idea or make use of the benefit provided. Do we really have a chance of competing with Facebook/Google+/etc. if we make it hard for people to post pictures on our site when its free and simple on the others? To paraphrase, we have to pay to play...

Mike, Mary Jane Kinney, the IPMS office manager (the only IPMS employee) has had health problems recently (heard about it at the Nats) and is probably way behind on processing memberships. If you don't hear anything soon, I would try contacting Bruce Briggs, the Membership Secretary - at bcbriggs248@cox.net Don

If you want to do something with a Neil Armstrong theme that you don't see very often, how about Gemini 8, with the capsule just about to dock with the Agena target vehicle and title it "about to hit the fan!". I think the 1/48 Revell Mercury/Gemini capsules were just reissued, and RealSpace has an Agena. Or if you really want a "big" project, do it in 1/24! On a side note, it would be cool if people posted the story behind whatever made them pick a particular subject; the history behind some models is often fascinating. Don

Ed, The ALPS printers did have gold ink cartridges if you can find someone who still has them. Bare-metal foil does sell gold decal paper (http://www.bare-metal.com/Experts-Choice-Decal-Film.html), or maybe just spray gold paint onto decal paper. You might be able to cut thin strips with an Xacto (maybe try the trick of sandwiching a piece of sheet styrene between two blades to get parallel cuts), but those will be really thin stripes in 1/25, then you have to get them parallel on the model. Another wild idea: start with the gold film, then print a black stripe on clear film and apply it over the gold, then cut the gold parallel to the black, leaving just enough gold on either side. Since the black stripe won't be touching the black paint hopefully you won't notice if the color doesn't match exactly. There are some places doing custom decals for hobbyists - I've heard good things about http://www.tangopapadecals.com/ - they may be able to do metallics using professional printers or maybe even making a silkscreen stencil, but probably not cheap. Let us know what works! Don

Hi John, Welcome back! Good to have more car modelers here! I have a daughter who lives in Philly; we drive out from Pittsburgh to see her a few times a year. Whenever we get there I try to sneak in a trip to the Simeone Museum; I always thought that would be a perfect place for a model car contest... Don

I tried this - put the model in plastic take-out food container and dumped in a whole bottle of 91% isopropyl from the grocery store. It looked good; after 1 night about half the paint bubbled up and came right off when scrubbed with a toothbrush, but a week later the remaining spray paint is still hanging on. It is a little softer; I can now clean the paint off with fine steel wool, but there are little bits of paint hanging on in the nooks and crannies. I'm guessing brake fluid would work a lot quicker and decisively, but the alcohol is a lot less of a hassle (how do you dispose of paint contaminated brake fluid?) Does the alcohol loose its kick after a while? Would switching to a fresh bottle help with the remaining paint? All suggestions greatly appreciated! Don

I think the last time we checked was at least 5 years ago; I can believe that has changed as home computers have trickled down to parents as their kids have upgraded their equipment. My father is 78; he swore he would never use a computer until my sister gave him an old Dell XP system - now he is hooked on ebay and webmd (I'm not saying its a good thing). But for all that, I still can't get him to use email... Don

I needed a mid-gloss paint job on a 1/32 race car (Airfix DBR9) that was supposed to be a "quickie" build. A friend told me he had gotten amazing results using Tamiya spray cans; he said he just laid down a few coats right out of the can and got a nice smooth finish. I gave it a try and and ended up with a pebbly finish; I even tried color sanding with a coarse micro-mesh pad and shot another coat and got the same results... So I pulled out the trusty can of oven cleaner (not EZ-Off but a generic knockoff in a similar looking can), soaked it down and let it sit for a few days - and it had no effect! Whatever is in those spray cans is tough stuff! Anyone have success removing this paint? Suggestions much appreciated! Don

I think the deadline for the banquet is still 4 weeks away (it said July 27, not June). At least I hope so cause I planned to register this week. Usually going to the banquet gets you a better seat for the awards, but everyone without a ticket still gets in to see the presentation. Don

There were 3 Mustang body styles in '65, the notchback (also known as a coupe), the fastback and the convertible. And then there was the '65 Shelby GT350, which was a lightly modified fastback. The '66 models are very close to the '65s, most notable differences are a bit of chrome trim in the side-coves and the color the engines were painted. Monogram did a 1/24 fastback, convertible and several variations of the Shelby; they seem to have been in constant production since they came out in the mid 1980s. Not bad kits, and you can mix and match parts to make specific versions. MPC/AMT did a 1/25 and 1/16 '66 notchback; these are pretty old (I remember seeing the 1/16 kit in a hobby store window around 1978); I've seen the 1/16 kit built up and out of the box its not super detailed. Since 2014 is the 50th anniversary of the Mustang, these all seem to have been re-issued in the last year. Revell did a 1/12 '65 Shelby (a fastback body), but I don't think I've ever seen one (I think this was before their merger with Monogram, so its probably not just an up-scaled version of the 1/24 kit). I think you'll need to go to ebay or the collector channels for this one (here is one on ebay now). There were lots of options available on the Mustang; if you're building a replica of a particular car you should get as many references as you can. I'm not an expert, but I've got a few books I can check if you have specific questions. Don

I heard this news story on NPR last week. The problem isn't just aircraft, but trucks too: both are being filled up long before they run out of gross weight. Think about the last thing you bought from Amazon: most likely it came in a cheesy cardboard box that was 3 times bigger than it had to be, filled with styrofoam peanuts or air-bags or bubble wrap. Amazon does everything by the numbers; you can be sure they've studied the shipping rates, cost of boxes and bubble wrap, and chances of shipping damage, and have figured out this is the cheapest way for them to ship things. They are basically taking advantage of loop-holes in the shipping rates to minimize their total costs; it was only a matter of time until FedEx and other carriers set rates that better reflect the true cost of shipping a package. Part of the problem is that Amazon and other online shops want to sell you more and more of the stuff you'd normally schlep home from WalMart. Diapers, razor blades, cereal - anything you buy regularly - is perfect for selling you a "subscription" that saves you money and squeezes the brick and mortar stores even more. Trouble is, the shippers don't have the capacity for that, and as long as there is a shortage the shippers get to set the price. By the time the rates change Amazon will figure out the new cheapest way, which will probably mean smaller sturdier boxes and less packing. Other shippers will raise their rates, but probably not as much as FedEx in hopes of stealing away some of their business. Eventually the shippers will have more planes and trucks, and competition will eventually push prices back down to something more stable. Model companies will do the same to the extent they can. Basically just the "Circle of Life" as applied to business.... Don

Low tack masking tape can be had at hardware stores and even the paint aisle at Wal-Mart. Not as sticky as regular making tape, more like postit note glue. Green Frog brand has a low tack tape (yellow in color) that looks a lot like the pricey Tamiya tape. Don