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EFGrune

IPMS/USA Member
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Everything posted by EFGrune

  1. Two come to mind; Airfix and Frog. Both had bag-style packaging in their low-cost ranges.
  2. Dennis Kohlber[?] gave a seminar at the Nats a few years back on how he commission-built race subjects for specific points in a race, such as hour 16 at LeMans. References are a must to add the appropriate amount of road grime as well as damages and/or replaced items such as wings/spoilers. Correct tire wear?
  3. https://www.stripwell.com/qcs-model-safe.html#/ These guys showed up to vend at last summer's Scalefest show & contest. I bought a bottle. It is advertised as working well to remove enamel & acrylic paints, I asked about lacquers and they said it works well on them. I have used it on Colourcoat enamel and Vallejo & Scale Color acrylics with no problems. Not tried it on lacquer. They claim that it is safe to use on polystyrene and urethane resins. I did find that it was harmful to some 3D print resin, use with caution. After use, pour off the excess into a sealable jar for reuse. It has also worked to strip some household paint on a woodworking project
  4. EFGrune

    Stripe Decals

    Fantasy Printshop from the UK makes a set of missile warhead/motor bands. Check their catalog for other colors. Ive made the purchase of a single set from them and it was rather painless. With the exchange rate of less than 1:1 it may be a good time to look there
  5. Well, a half hour away is the location of three of the best BBQ joints in the State. Lockhart (no. not the IPMS President) is the home of Kreuz, Black's, and Smitty's. No trip to central Texas is complete without some real barbecue, cut to order in the pit room and served on red butcher paper. No sauce, or sauce on the side if you must!
  6. The Texas isn’t being pulled out until later this month or sometime in September, hurricane season allowing. They’re going to have to completely re-bottom her, plus structure. Can’t say that will be a quick - or cheap - job. Summer 2023 is unlikely. There are still negotiations as to where to put her once repaired. Beaumont is the latest to enter the fray. I fear that Beaumont may be on par or a slightly worse location than the current location in LaPorte. Orange, just next door to Beaumont, lost the destroyer Orleck which was even built there. No reason to go there unless to specifically to visit the ship. And few other reasons to go to or through Beaumont - other than driving from Houston to Baton Rouge. I think the speaker of the state house is from Beaumont - so the fix might be in. Putting her in Galveston, Port Aransas, or elsewhere on the mid-coast might be better choices (IMO) for long term support. Lots of beach and/or cruise ship visitors. Or my other option — dredge the Trinity River and put her in Dallas They say a boat is a hole in the water into which you throw money. A ship is a bigger hole.
  7. The 1:1 truck guys have a reference for several shades of Mack Green dating back to 1937 https://paintref.com/paintref/make/green_Mack.shtml Knowing your subject year, you can probably work backwards from one of these color chips on this page. To my eye there is some blue in it, making it a deep-dark teal
  8. If you are planning on driving to next year’s convention in San Marcos, TX, plan ahead and add a couple of days to your itinerary. About 2 hours west of San Marcos is Fredericksburg. It is the site of the childhood home of Admiral Chester Nimitz and is the home of the National Museum of the Pacific War. It is a wonderful museum with a good collection of hardware. IMO, the description of the roots of the war – the conflicts between Japan and China -- are better explained than at other museums such as the WWII Museum in New Orleans. There are also good food and drinks in the area. Fredericksburg is the capital of the Texas Wine Trail. There are numerous wineries, breweries, and distilleries in town and along highway 290 toward Johnson City. While the San Marcos convention will be offering a Fredericksburg tour, it really takes several days to do the area well. Perhaps that is why the museum’s entry is a two-day ticket. There are a number of hotels and B&Bs in the area. Speaking of Johnson City, it is the site of LBJ’s Texas White House. The last time we were there, the buildings were closed and undergoing conservation but driving tours and access to the grounds are available. Out back of the home is the Boeing Jetstar, Air Force One-half, that was used to fly into the ranch. If your significant other is a fan of Chip & Joanne, and all things Magnolia, Waco is about two hours north on I35. Plan ahead to keep SWMBO happy and allow you free rein in the vendor room at the convention. In addition to their Silos, Waco is also the location of the Texas Ranger and Dr Pepper museums and Baylor University. There is construction on the Interstate in Waco which the State says will be finished ‘soon’. (We’ve been waiting for 27 years for ‘soon’ to come.) About an hour east of San Marcos on I10 in Schulenberg is the Stanzel Model Aircraft Museum. Stanzel was one of the major manufacturers of wood and tissue flying aircraft models in the first half of the 20th century. The museum is at their former plant. The museum is only open M/W/F and Saturday so plan your trip accordingly. If you are entering Texas from the northwest at Amarillo, divert a bit south to the Palo Duro Canyon. It is located, appropriately, in the city of Canyon. Palo Duro is the second largest canyon in the US (see, everything in Texas isn’t the largest!) The eroded cliff formations called “Mexican Dresses” are spectacular. While in Canyon, check the Panhandle-Plains Museum on the campus of West Texas A&M University. It covers dinosaurs to pioneers, oil to wind energy, Route 66, and the High Plains. My wife and I found it very interesting and were there until they ran us out.
  9. Youtube video from Squadron TV, Loren Perry reminisces on how photoetched brass details for models came to be. Loren won several IPMS awards using the then new process of photoetch details. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufr_GoWt6es Loren Perry has recently announced his retirement and has sold the ship product line of Gold Medal Models to Squadron Hobby. Brandon Lowe at Squadron is committed to retain the quality of the GMM product and will continue to use the same etcher as Loren has been using
  10. Yeah. The NCC had an informal get together on Thursday before judging and one of the topics of discussion was Omaha room block reservation ‘feature’. One solution discussed was adding 10 rooms to the local staff & board block. That got Eileen’s pen working taking notes Len, did that suggestion get flowed up to you?
  11. The number given to the head judges as we sat around over a beer following the best-ofs was 2808 making it the third largest on record.
  12. Ship judges at Omaha after completing the Best Ship decision
  13. Mark Persichetti was saying last week that the Colorado (2013) show was looking like they were going to have a large shortfall in the required convention room nights at the hotel. The hotel staff worked with the local committee to get some attendees who were at the hotel but not in the convention rate block accommodated. They also got some people from overflow hotels rebooked into the convention hotel. They still came up short and it was going to cause the rent on the convention space to go from 5 grand up to 13 grand. The local committee bought 12 room nights at the hotel that went vacant to save the 8 grand upcharge.
  14. I have contacted my judges named Steve and have alerted them to your forum post and to respond accordingly Ed Grune NCC Head Ship Judge
  15. The 2024 show will be in Madison, WI. August 14-17. I believe, based on the size of the venue and the references to Badgers, it will be at the University of Wisconsin or associated property
  16. I'm sure that Ron knows, but to share some numbers with our viewers, the IPMS Bidding Information Packet (my copy is dated March 2018) gives guidance on space requirements as well as the calculations necessary to derive them. In 2018 the running average of tables required for the contest was 304. Given an average table dimension of 20 sqft and an 8 foot aisle space between rows of tables (64 sqft / pair of tables) the space required for the contest area is almost 16000 sqft. Additional space may be needed due to obstructions or additional fire marshal requirements. Vendor space requirement is similarly calculated. Based on 325 average table count, and noting that the vendor area is generally laid as a pod with a pair of tables , separated by a 4 foot sales gap, as well as the aisle requirement between pods, the estimated vendor table requirement is almost 18000 sqft. The total space required is approximately 34000 sqft based on 2018 numbers, and we may be victims of our own success. We have spaced ourselves out of smaller, less expensive venues. But at the same time we are too small for some of the larger metropolitan venues where the cost of space is more.
  17. The decal sheet includes markings for the Omaha class of Littoral Combat Ships, you know the trimarans which the Navy has problems with and are decommissioning them while they are still young. The problem I have with them is that while they included two distinct bow numbers and names for each member of the class (Yay), they only included one stern number for each (Boo). Yeah sure, you can cobble a pair out of the unused numbers, but ... Sometimes it is the International PLANE Modelers Society.
  18. James - No secrets. See the January eBoard minutes for the rough committee task assignment. Committee was formally established at the April meeting
  19. The Omaha committee deleted the scale explanatory information from each of the classes on their website. If you refer to the official category listing on the NCC page https://ipmsusa.org/sites/default/files/2022_ipms-usa_national_contest_categories-for_publication.pdf you will see that 1/32 refers to scales 1/39 and larger. You are in category 135
  20. --- and this black "screening" material is or is not the same as the single predominant material as the rest of the kit? We recently ran a local contest using BKB/Single Media rules fashioned after the NCC rules. Several armor entries with nylon screen were disqualified from the BKB category and moved to the regular categories over complaints of I didn't know.
  21. Loren Perry announced yesterday that GMM's ship line of photoetch details has been sold to Squadron. Stock on hand, masters, instructions, and similar intellectual property is being packed for shipping to Squadron in Georgia. The products will appear on the Squadron website in the near future and will continue to be trademarked as GMM. The announcement indicates that Squadron will continue to use the same etcher so GMM's quality will remain. GMM's railroad lines are not included in this sale Loren had previously announced his impending retirement and intention of closing Gold Medal Models. He had stopped taking orders earlier this week Brandon Lowe of Squadron will be at the Nats and you can get all the gory details there This is all-in-all positive news.
  22. Mike - your posting is lacking context. In the full text, Jamie explains that rising production costs are not offset by the poor sales of these colors. The cancellation of these is quite understandable, and many have alternates in other product lines. It would be great if it were otherwise, but it appears to be a sound business decision As with many others, we have faced multiple challenges as a business over the last few years. Uncertainty, increased administration and so on caused by Brexit, increasing raw material and base product prices, difficulties sourcing materials, vast increases in tin costs and difficulties with escalating costs of shipping flammable liquids have brought additional strain to the business. We have managed to contain most of these concerns by making small changes to pricing (only when applicable to new stocks) and rewarding our customers (free gifts last December). However, as a business we do have to evolve to the changing circumstances and as such as have taken the decision to discontinue 61 less-popular colours from our range. Typically, we only discontinue a colour when new research deems it inaccurate or when we are not happy with the quality of the product. This time however, we are streamlining our range to enable us to maintain better stocks of the popular colours. The colours we have discontinued remain accurate colours, however they are very slow sellers and we must accept these products are poor use of our limited cash, production capacity or storage space when we restock.
  23. Make it like a real one. A U-shaped bracket tall and wide enough to accept the wheel. I originally thought of sheet Evergreen, but on second thought some heavy duty aluminum, like a pie tin, may to just as well. A punch of sheet styrene on the top to replicate a swivel bearing. The caster wheels are a slice of Evergreen tube of desired size. In larger size you may need a piece of sheet styrene to close them in. Axle is some wire or Evergreen rod. I wouldn't try to make them functional.
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