Schmitz

David, This seems like a contradiction. How can there be a dialog if IPMS doesn't (officially) say anything? You said yourself you had "heard nothing but horror stories". I think IPMS (the officers - not just the rank and file hoping to get more car modelers to their shows) need to say something to counter that negative image. Don

David, Since you seem like a new name in these discussions (some have been going on in fits and starts for years) I wanted to mention a recent development. After lots of discussion here, a few months ago I sent Dick Christ a proposal for changes to the Automotive categories (you can see a near-final draft here). It addresses some of the problems you alluded to (e.g. the difference between a Hot Rod and a Street Machine). Hopefully there will be some discussion of this in Orlando. In general, I think IPMS needs to do some fence mending with auto modelers: First make some good faith attempt to address known issues (like tweaking categories); then reach out to auto-modelers, making them feel welcome and asking them to join IPMS to drive future change; and then set up a task-force of well known auto-modelers to suggest and review changes. This would be a largely symbolic act; most of the real issues have already been resolved, but the hard-feelings from long-ago live on and need to be addressed before everyone will be ready to move on. However I think you'll find a lot of resentment within IPMS to the "fence mending" idea, as a lot of long-time IPMSers see it as an admission of guilt or a sign of weakness. Don

Have you seen this at hlj.com ? I was already to order one until I counted the zeros on the price. Even in Yen its a bit too rich for me. But yeah, add a Cheetah to my wish list! Don

Modern 1/24 injection kits of: - C, D and E type Jaguars. To dream for: a 1:12 E-type from Tamiya. - a Lotus Esprit. - Mclaren F1 (the supercar) - Austin Healey 3000 - Chapparal 2E - Cobra Daytona

Mixing the two parts makes it harden, so you can't pre mix it. Some epoxy comes in a double syringe applicator that makes it easier to mix small amounts. Don

If you've got two big flat surfaces to mate - or you can arrange for that by gluing sheet styrene to the bottom of the base - I'd use hardware store 5 minute epoxy. This has the advantage that you don't need to run the glue along the edge of the base and have it ooze out on the wood. Or if you can hide it somehow, run a small flat head wood screw through the base and into the wood. Don

Dave, I was curious about this so I searched a bit too. I grew up in a family of mechanics and auto-body men, so most of my knowledge of paint comes from (full scale) automotive paint from the 70s and 80s. If you go to the Duplicolor (autopaint company) faq you'll see they agree with my definitions of enamel and lacquer. An important difference at the time was that the solvents used in lacquer paint were much stronger than that in enamels - enough so that painting lacquer over enamel paint would melt the enamel and cause it to wrinkle. However as you say, both terms have come down through history with no strict technical definition. I think most modern paints are weird hybrids of what used to be considered "enamels" and "lacquers", which may be why you can get away with using lacquer-thinner (at least in small amounts for thinning) in other types of paint. In my experience most modelers aren't very technical: if its water based paint its "acrylic", if its oil based paint from the hobby shop (Testors or Humbrol) its an "enamel", and any paint with a strong smelling solvent is a "lacquer". Don

I'm no paint chemist, but I think this is because what we call "model enamels" are fairly low-tech paints: they take a long time to cure completely (weeks) and the material that forms the paint-film (alkyd ?) is not as tough/hard/solvent-resistant as acrylic even after it cures. If you use a modern "oil-based acrylic enamel" - like Krylon spray paint - you'll get a very hard finish that cures in a day or two. Unfortunately you don't have a lot of colors to pick from... I keep hearing about people using the "wrong" thinner with various paints and getting good results - for example using lacquer thinner in Tamiya and Gunze water-based acrylics. There is a semi-famous car modeler (has a how-to-DVD out) who gets amazing results using lacquer thinner with Testor's enamels; he says the lacquer thinner works like a catalyst to make the enamel dry harder. I don't know how the chemistry for this works - I'm guessing modern paint is a lot more complicated than it used to be. Don

My understanding is that "polymerizing" or curing (a chemical reaction after the solvent evaporates that eventually turns the whole paint film into a single and hopefully tough molecule) is what defines an "enamel" type paint. What modelers call "acrylics" are technically "water-based enamels", and what modelers call "enamels" are "oil based enamels". "Acrylic" just identifies the material that forms the paint film. Note that across the pond the term "acrylic" sometimes refers to "acrylic lacquer" (automotive touch up paint) - which can lead to all sorts of misunderstandings on the web... I've heard, and seen it happen enough to believe, that adding thinner to a bottle of enamel can cause a mostly full bottle of paint to cure rapidly (a few days) even with the lid tightly sealed. I haven't been scientific enough to know if its all enamels and all types of thinners, but I try to avoid doing that on general principle (I mix the thinner and paint in a separate container). Don

We have, and many of us are "car guys". Some of us have tried very hard to address the real problems that IPMS has with respect to car categories and judging. I have also heard the car modelers whispering about how IPMS doesn't know anything about cars or how to judge them and how stupid the rules are - while they have models entered at an IPMS show. Almost always the guys bad-mouthing IPMS have no idea how what the rules actually are or how IPMS judging works - they're just making stuff up to impress some newbie about how they're so talented that no one else could possibly appreciate their work. I don't think there will ever be any support within IPMS for the idea of ignoring glaring errors in construction to appease modelers who will never join anyhow. Just out of curiosity - do the cars that win at GSLMCC have bare plastic and ejector pin marks showing? If they do, the magazines do a very good job of hiding that in the photos... Don

The main complaint is that some of the car categories at the Nats are different than you would find at a model car contest. Mostly they're more generic - IPMS has "Competition Open Wheel" when that might be broken out into 2 or 3 more specific categories (F1, Sprint Car) at a car-only contest. This mostly reflects the reality of IPMS shows having fewer car models, so they can't be sure there are gong to be 10-15 F1 cars show up to fill out a full category; the IPMS-way is to have a more generic category and split it if necessary based on what subject matter actually shows up. There are a few other common complaints wrt IPMS judging, the main one being a perceived IPMS bias towards models being true replicas, whereas many model cars are what would be considered "hypothetical" in other categories - that is the modeler builds a model of a real car that doesn't exist but could. Because of this car modelers (at least in some categories) expect judging to reflect some of the creativity that went into the model as well as basic construction. Often when there is some questionable outcome in the car categories, car modelers will jump to the conclusion that "since IPMS has no car modelers" they must recycle armor and aircraft modelers who don't understand automotive subjects to judge the cars. Its an uphill battle... Don

Tim, There is certainly some truth to what you say, but there are some signs of progress. Dick Christ - is the new IPMS president - is a car modeler and former head auto judge at the Nats. Mike Hanson, who seems to be running a big part of the Orlando Nats also seems to be at least a partial car guy. A few months ago we had a big discussion here about how to improve auto categories, and I wrote up a suggestion for some changes and tweaks to the categories and sent it to Dick Christ (hopefully the car modeling judges will at least talk about those suggestions at Orlando). These are small steps, but again at least they're going in the right direction. I'm surprised if there won't be a judges meeting at the Nats; is that confirmed? I just looked at the Nationals website and there doesn't seem to be any calendar of events listed yet. If you're going to be there, I'd bet you could find the Head Auto Judge (does anyone know who replaced Dick Christ?) and ask him to set up a meeting, even if informally in the bar or something. I'd certainly be up for attending. By the way, if you're interested in what was said the last time we had this discussion, you should be able to find it here and here (at least if I figured out how to insert links correctly). Don

If you click the links on the ugly-dog page you get to the ARC pages - I'm guessing someone made a mistake when they updated the page, or some misguided April Fools joke...

A good hobby store should have super-glue debonder in case you have to take things apart (its not perfect, but lets you recover from disasters). You can also find (relatively) slow-setting super-glue there that can be combined with "kicker" that will make it harden instantly. This is good for attaching small parts: apply the glue, get the part in the right spot, then spray the joint with "kicker" and its "stuck". Using kicker doesn't give super strong joints, but sometimes its all you need. You can also use it to tack big assemblies together, then go back with liquid glue or regular CA to make the joints solid. Don

Every time I visit the left-coast I'm amazed at how well engineered the roads are to handle the ridiculous amounts of traffic flowing, and equally amazed that so many people want to live there and deal with those roads every day!

Gary, I don't know of any one source. For popular cars like Mustangs, a Google search will turn up lots of info on paint and interior color codes. Here is one: http://www.themustangnews.com/content/2009/08/1969-mustang/ But its hard to know which interior/exterior combinations were offered and which were actually produced. Even if you found a brochure telling you which combinations were available, it wasn't unheard of for dealers to special order options that weren't officially available to make customers happy. Probably the easiest thing to do is a Google or BIng image search and see what you can find pictures of. BTW, if you're worried about contests, judges are not going to know what is correct either - whether the interior color is accurate pretty much never enters the consideration. Don

In "In the Line of Fire", the rogue secret agent trying to assassinate the president (John Malkovich) is a modeler. Clint Eastwood as the secret service agent tracking him down buys a bunch of model mags including a copy of Scale Auto and refers to modelers as "some kind of weird subculture". When the movie first came out, rumor had it Clint is an occasional builder... Don

I have the same relationship with paint :) Just wondering if you've tried using basswood and shaping it with sandpaper (the real 150-200 grit stuff meant for woodworking). A 1 inch wide x 11 inch long strip of sand-paper used like a giant flexifile works great to create curved surfaces. The basswood works a lot faster/easier than even white-pine and is sturdier than balsa - its a lot more like fine-grain styrofoam than wood. If you've already tried basswood, then never mind... Don

Question about pixilation: Even if a vector-based program tells the printer "Red No.499124", or whatever, isn't there gonna be some intrinsic pixilation in the image, based on how a printer "mixes" and applies a field of that particular color from the Cyan, magenta, Yellow & Black inks? You may see some halftoning (i.e, a dot pattern resulting from the way the printer mixes the basic colors to achieve the desired result), but this is not the same as pixelation. There are no pixels in a vector-based program because the objects created in such a program are described for the printer mathematically, much like a CAD program. I think the point was that the printer itself will introduce pixelation because it generates fixed-size ink dots, and in fact must use multiple dots to generate colors that aren't pure ink colors. I know in general an ink-spot of a pure ink color is too small to see with the naked eye, but I'm not sure about half-toning; presumably the printer driver decides how to render a particular color (and this must be a pretty tricky thing to do if its trying to render a varying color/intensity. I'm curious about the vector programs - how good of a job do they do of importing a scanned raster image and vectorizing it? I'd guess its at least a semi-manual process. , Can they represent color/intensity gradients in the vector-data? BTW, for basic scaling to adjust the size of an image I've found Word does a surprisingly good job (of course you wouldn't want to use it for serious image editing). Don Don

"Wishes" from the sports car world (echoing Pete's caveat of mainstream, full detail, reasonably priced) - type C, D, XKSS, E Jaguars (any of these in 1/12 scale would be awesome) - Daytona Cobra - McLaren F1 (street car) - Austin Healey 3000 - most any Maseratti...

Have you ever seen the 1/48 Saturn V that Revell produced for museum displays back in the 70s (I've been told Revell is where they came from)? The Pittsburgh science center has one - and it was in pretty sad shape the last time I saw it - it looks just like a double-size version of the kit I built as a kid sometime around 1971. Wonder if Revell still has the molds? Don

I remember having a conversation a lot like this many years ago after GT 40 #1075 - one of the few cars to win LeMans twice - sold for some enormous amount of money. I said "if I had the money to buy it, I'd race it", and a friend said "but if you stuffed it into a wall, how would you feel?" (I guess assuming I lived to feel something) and it made me unsure. There are a (very) few things that are important enough as history that keeping them safe seems the right thing to do. I recently got to see the Enola Gay at the Air&Space, and the eerie feeling I got from just standing next to it was something that everyone should get to experience. But an old model kit isn't quite the Enola Gay; if its in my closet and I feel the need, it goes under the knife. If I don't build it, my kids are probably going to put it in the trash about 15 minutes after I'm dead, so I might as well enjoy it now Don

I'm not an expert by any means - I just use mine like a glorified spray can. I think the only adjustment on spray pattern is by changing the whole needle - my set (20 years old) came with 3 different sizes - although I think I've always just used the middle one. Don

Mark, You can use automotive spray can primer (krylon, duplicolor, plasticote) that doesn't take any special setup. Do the prep for a big batch of parts or even whole sub-assemblies, and then primer them all at once - working outside, in the garage with door open, etc. and still use a respirator. This stuff dries very smooth right out of the can, and if you do manage to get dust or texture in the finish it can be fixed with a little wet-sanding. Then take all your primered parts back to the bench and use your airbrush and acrylics at your leisure. I know several guys that use this basic system, and I'm moving that way myself. Don

I recently came across this picture on the web: http://image.corvettefever.com/f/corvette-news/rip-donna-mae-mims/32273055/donna-mae-mims-don-yenkos-girl-friday.jpg I was intrigued by the "Squirrel cage" name on the front fender - which is the nickname of an (in)famous Pittsburgh bar frequented by college students (myself included) and anyone else with a high-tolerance for cigarette smoke... In researching the picture, it was taken in Cumberland Md. in 1961, and is most likely a "59 fuelie" corvette, maybe painted pink *I've found conflicting accounts on the color, both told by ms. Mims). Does anyone know of better pix or info on this car? Anyone know what the logos are on the fender? Any info/leads greatly appreciated! Don Schmitz