Chris Bucholtz

Answers to Gil: I did paint the propeller, but the tail trim was a decal, and a nightmare to apply. I had to touch up the edges but they were kind enough to make the red an exact match for MM insignia red.

This is the Eduard 1:72 Albatros D.Va, finished at Lt. Walter Wolf's Jasta 5 plane from June-August 1917. The kit is OK but it's 20 years old and is missing some details (tachometer and gun mounts in the cockpit, radiator inflow and outflow pipes, etc.). I dressed up the details a bit and then used Print Scale's decals sheets (separate ones for the individual markings and for the Bavarian pattern). If you've ever hung wallpaper, you have a leg up with that Bavarian pattern - not fun applying it across a compound curve, and the entire Albatros D.V fuselage is a compound curve! It's rigged with .1mm nickel-silver "rod" from Albion Alloys, and features some Cooper Details wheels and Mini World Spandaus (although darned if you can see 'em in there!). An article will be in the Journal at some point.

Actually, more detail parts in a kit makes it HARDER to compete in contests, because there's more things you need to get right. Judge enough and you'll see plenty of anti-gravity photoetched seatbelts, resin sidewalls pulling away from the fuselage sides, and badly-cut vacuformed canopies. Detail parts give you more ways to screw up.

Here's my latest completion: the FROG re-pop of the Academy F-16C Block 52. The kit's overly-pointy nose was replaced with a Wolf Pack nose. Also lending a hand was a Wolf Pack burner and tailpipe, Aires cockpit, CMK main gear bay, and Master Models pitot, AOA probes and static discharge wicks. To get a Night Vision Goggles-compatible canopy, I swapped the tinted kit canopy from one from an old Hasegawa kit. The paints were a mix of ModelMaster and Humbrol enamels. Weathering was applied with a Payne's gray sludge wash, followed by the application of fluid leaking with a Staedler .05mm pigment liner, and finally pastels once the flat coat was on. All the ordnance - save the Hasegawa ACMI pod - came from the kit. The decals are from TwoBobs for 91-0362, which has served at Nellis AFB (right by Las Vegas!) at the USAF Weapons School for its entire career. This is how it appeared in 2006.

Oh! Oh! I know how to do this! 🙂 The optimal length for an article is 2500-3500 words. Your editor often goes over that, much to the consternation of the art director, but generally, if the words tell a good story AND there are enough good photos to support it, we make it work. The rough ones for us are short articles with a ton of great photos, or long articles with a paucity of photos. As a writer by trade, I suggest you make an outline. It makes it really easy to write without forgetting things during the process. You want an introduction, something to explain why you chose to build the subject. That might be something historical, something about your relationship to the kit, something about what you hoped to try out, etc. Then, maybe a bit about the kit, then the build. While you're building, take plenty of photos. Take them at the highest resolution you can; print is unforgiving to low-res images. You don't necessarily need a professional camera - my last several articles were shot entirely with my iPhone. (Richard Marmo's tutorial on model photography that appeared in the Journal is great if you have a better camera and a tripod. I learned to use my expensive Nikon by following his instructions.) I strongly recommend including things that went wrong. My article on the MiG-15 in this issue is an over-the-top version of this. We're modelers, and we like the process of modeling, so the pitfalls, faux pas, mishaps and mess-ups are both educational and entertaining. The secret to being a good modeler is learning how to fix your mistakes! Write it up (preferably in Word or some other mainstream application - don't make us hunt for compatible software!), and send it off via email to either John Heck or me (we can coordinate between ourselves). If the photos need help, John will make suggestions. If the words need help, I'll handle it. Generally, there's no need for me to send it back for a re-write - I think I've done that twice in 13 years. Writing is a team sport, and I'll do my part in the editing phase. Expect an email from me with seven questions - I use that to create the bio. That's about it. We want a good mix of subjects in the Journal, and we always especially need more cars, ships, sci-fi and figures to keep the mix reflective of the membership. So, write, everybody! And thanks!

Oooh! This would make a great article in the Journal! (Not just saying that because Niki Lauda is a hero of mine or anything!) -_Chris

Not to speak for the e-board, but the DLC and regional coordinators had a Zoom meeting last week that helped firm up the candidates. So draw from that what you will. 🙂

Your metaphor is faulty. If you suffer lung damage from inhaling too many paint fumes, it's terrible - but it isn't contagious to others. Wearing a mask in a pandemic is less to protect you than to protect OTHER PEOPLE. If I have to explain to you why it's important to care about other people, we really don't have anything to talk about.

"Why being required to wear a mask upsets so many, ....is such an unbearable burden....I will never understand." Agreed. It's meant to protect others, in case you're infected and don't know it. To me, not wearing a mask is like purposely farting in public, only with possibly fatal consequences.

I started this just after my daughter was born. It was fraught by so many frustrations she's six now (and she herself nearly totaled the model just after painting started!). All the gory details will be in the Journal at some point. This is a historic plane - the first mount of Sergey Kramerenko, the first pilot to score five victories over enemy jets (so, the first jet ace).

This is the Platz 1:72 kit with Eduard photoetched interior panels, modified control columns, and True Details seats. I added wiring the seats, scratch-built the canopy piston housing and the canvas cover over the rear panel from CA-impregnated tissue paper, and cut the kit canopy. The wheel wells were detailed and the airbrakes were re-built and their bays were detailed. Anti-torque scissors were stolen from an F-80 photo etched sheet. The decals were sourced from 14 different sheets from Iliad, SuperScale, Fox One, AeroMaster, an Italeri B-66, and even a MicroScale railroad sheet. Weathering was limited to a wash and some scuffing on the non-skid panels. I finished it just in time for a club contest - but, since only four or five people finished their T-33s, the contest was moved to March!

Well, there's this...

Wilhelm Hippert greets the pilot of his seventh victim - Roden Fokker D.VIIF with Mini Art Spandaus, PART photoetched parts and decals from Print Scale. The figures are a mix of 3D-printed items, Quickboost and W+D Models. Built as a gift for a friend - I'm carrying the diorama cross-country to Washington D.C. on Sunday!

This is the fifth Tamiya P-47D I've built and I may soon start to get them right. This is the plane flown by Gene Martin, 379th FS, 362nd FG; the decals came from the Barracudacals sheet. The plane has the correct flat floor for the P-47D-30 (from Obscureco), compressibility flaps and re-located landing light (via Quickboost) and a Curtiss Electric Asymmetrical Propeller (pilfered from the Revell kit). The guns came from Quickboost, as did the engine, and I swapped an Eduard instrument panel for the kit's part. A resin gunsight and scratch-made mount are under the windscreen. I know Gene, so this is a special addition to my collection! --Chris

If so, the Journal has an offer you can't refuse. I have the Master Details He 111 cockpit set siting here and you can have it if you can do a write up (650 words!) of the cockpit, or if you'd like to do a full build article for the Journal (which would be super awesome). I got it as a review sample and, since I don't have the kit, I'm not the guy to review it. But if you build 1:32, you may be the one. First come, first served. Postage paid!

Here's the Tamiya 1:72 F4U-1D Corsair MOSTLY finished (missing details like the spine antenna, underwing landing light, position lights on the upper wings, photoetched control actuators - y'know, stuff only we modelers would spot!): I finished it at 4:15 before the 5 p.m. set up for the Aces Symposium at the Oakland Air Museum last week, featuring Alex Vraciu, Archie Maltbie, Ted Crosby and Dean Caswell, whose plane this is. There are no decals for VMF-211's 183; I made the numbers from two SuperScale sheets that had "33" four times on each sheet in the proper stencil size. I cut the middles out of a third set of "33s" and flipped it over, and inserted it into the first three to make an eight. The one was "stencil-ified" with a sharp knife. :) At the symposium, the pilot got to meet the plane: I now have three models which have been held by the men who used the real items - Vraciu's Hellcat (10 years ago!), Andy Anderson's 379th FS S-1 jeep, and now Caswell's Corsair. I really hope I can have a few more of these items in the collection before time steals these great people away. --Chris Bucholtz

I've been researching and writing about the 362nd Fighter Group since 1997 or so, when we used Damon Rarey's archives to create a sheet for the 1998 Nationals of the planes featuring nose art painted by his father, George Rarey. The group association is disbanding, so I started this page on Facebook: http://www.facebook....2ndFighterGroup To perpetuate their memory. A new decal sheet will be coming out shortly with two schemes that were on that 1998 sheet and three new schemes ("Bonnie Lynn," "Super Rabbit," "Kentucky Colonel"), and I have a book all written and awaiting additional photographs to be completely done. If you'd like to keep abreast of these developments - and to see remembrances about what was truly a remarkable fighter unit from family, historians, and fellow modelers, please join up! (Oh, that avatar of mine? Painted by George Rarey, 68 years ago...)

Here's the gory details: Those are PART photo-etched dive brakes, with scratch-built actuator mechanisms inside them. Themodel has Quickboost elevators, an interior made with PART, Jaguar and Tom's Modelworks components, Pavla sliding canopies, Quickboost wheels, Aires machine gun barrels, and some scratchbuilt details, like the pilot's single wide lap belt (shoulder straps didn't arrive until August 1942!). I wired the kit engine, and added the generator from the top of a control column from the spares box. The decals are from Starfighter (B-8 from their F11C sheet and the LSO stripe and fuselage roundels from their TBD set), Aeromaster (fuselage and lower wing insignia) and Iliad (the roundels on the top wing were intended for a B-17!).

An update - my wife (!) went over to the Hornet and cajoled the ship's staffers - the models are now aboard, and I will go in at oh-dark-thirty Saturday to formally set up the display! Modelers make things come together...

Here's the SBD-3 Dauntless I wasaiming to have finished by today for the USS Hornet Midway display: Hey! It's done on time! Only problem: the people on the ship who contacted me about this and were supposed to set it up for installation today are apparently on vacation. Ugh...

\ Yep. It's in the One True Scale. :) When I had it in gray, I thought, "man! The Japanese figured out that aerial camouflage thing early!" Then I put on the bands and the Hinomarus and thought, "man! Those Japanese were just SPOILING for a fight in 1942...!"

Here's my latest: an A6M2b flown by Lt. Iyozoh Fujita at the Battle of Midway: This is the nicest kit I've ever built. The fit's excellent, and there are provisions for variations in the A6M2b production run. I just wish I had another one! The engine isbashed together with the kit crankcase, an Engines and Things set of cylinders and a scratch-made ignition harness. The cockpit was jazzed up a bit with extra wiring and a Quick Boost Type 98 reflector gunsight. Brake lines were added to the gear, and some screen and a strut were added to the scoop under the nose. The decals came from AeroMaster's Pearl Harbor sheet (Fujita moved up to inherit Lt. Iida's code after Iida dove his Zero into a hangar on Dec.7), and the blue bands were masked and painted.

I was pleasantly surprised a couple of weeks ago to get an e-mail from a trustee from the USS Hornet Museum, based in my home town. He was reaching out to Silicon Valley Scale Modelers, which is based about 35 miles away, and he himself was pleasantly surprised to find out I lived 1000 yards from the ship! Anywa, they needed models for a tribute to Stephen Jurika, specifically a TBD-1 Devastator and a B-25B Mitchell, both in 1:48. I now have TWO TBDs on my desk awaiting delivery, built by a modeler who had Jurika as a teacher (!), and I'm picking up the B-25B at the Stockton contest on Sunday. Here's where it gets really neat, though. The ship also wants to do a MIdway display. At first, the idea was a Dauntless, a Wildcat and a Devastator from Hornet. I said we could do better than that and deliver a representational collection from the entire battle in 1:72 scale. It has to be installed on June 1; it'll be on display for a limited time, then the models will go back to their builders. (After that, we may enter into a permanent rotating exhibit arrangement with the museum, much like the Northwest Scale Modelers do with the Museum of Flight in Seattle.) I sent the news out to Region 9 and received a bunch of volunteers, and I have some volunteers from parts east - as far away as Virginia and Wisconsin! Here's what our linup looks like right now. If the subject has a name and a builder (in parentheses), it's been spoken for and markings have been selected. If there's just a builder (in parentheses), the type and unit has been selected but specific markings have not been chosen: Hornet Aircraft: Bombing 8: SBD-3 Dauntless #24 flown by ENS Clayton Fisher (Chris Bucholtz) Scouting 8: SBD-3 Dauntless Torpedo 8:TBD-1 Devastator: (Thomas Naugle) Fighting 8: F4F-4 Wildcat #17 flown by ENS Stephen Groves (Randy Ray) Yorktown Aircraft: Fighting 3/42: F4F-4 Wildcat #16 flown by MACH Tom Cheek (Chris Bucholtz), #13 flown by LT Bill Leonard (Mark Rezac); #1 flown by LCDR “Jimmy” Thach (Ed Ingersoll) Torpedo 3: TBD-1 Devastator Bombing 3: SBD-3 Dauntless Scouting 4: SBD-3 Dauntless Enterprise Aircraft: Fighting 6: F4F-4 Wildcat: (John Carr) Torpedo 6: TBD-1 Devastator Scouting 6: SBD-3 Dauntless Bombing 6: SBD-3 Dauntless Midway Aircraft: VP-23, VP-44: PBY Catalina VSMB-241: SB2U-3 Vindicator (Brian Sakai) VSMB-241: SBD-2 Dauntless VMF-221: F2A-3 Buffalo MF-15 flown by Capt. William Humberd (Laramie Wright) VMF-221: F4F-3 Wildcat 24 flown by Capt. Marion Carl (Laramie Wright) 69th Bombardment Squadron (Medium), 38th Bombardment Group; 18th Reconnaissance Squadron (Medium), 22nd Bombardment Group: B-26A Marauder 431st Bombardment Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group; 394th, 31st and 72nd Bombardment Squadrons, 5th Bomb Group: B-17E Flying Fortress Torpedo 8 Detachment: TBF-1 Avenger Japanese Aircraft: Mitsubishi A6M2b Navy Type ”Zero” Carrier Fighter: Lt. Iyozo Fujita from Soryu (Chris Bucholtz) Nakajima B5N2 Navy Type 97 Carrier Attack Aircraft: Lt. Joichi Tomonaga/Ens. Saku Akamatsu/PO1c. Sadamu Murai (Daisuke Nakabayashi) from Hiryu; Lt. Yoshitaka Mikami and crew from Kaga (Mark Schynert) Aichi D3A1 Navy Type 99 Carrier Bomber: (Bill Ferrante) Yokosuka D4Y1 Experimental Model 13 Carrier Bomber Aichi E13A1 Navy Type 0 Reconnaissance Seaplane: (Jim Priete) Nakajima E8N2 Navy Type 95 Reconnaissance Seaplane This is turning into a great way to help the museum, work together and strengthen ties within IPMS, and build some things that are outside our usual comfort zones. Here's the first one done - MACH Tom Cheek's F4F-4 from VF-3/42. (Okay, I finished this in 2002, so I had a head start on everyone. But still...)

Hi, Chuck! I'm the regional coordinator for this part of the country - hopefully, I'll see you at a show out here soon. If there's anything I can help you with, let me know! --Chris

Just to amplify what's already been said: be proactive with security. If you ask them to be extra-gentle, and explain to them what's in your carry-on and where you're going, you'll be very surprised at how accomodating they'll be (and how interested, too - I almost missed a flight once because the TSA folks all had to see what wa in my bag). Don't make things adversarial, and generally things are easier. For the record, I've flown to 14 of the 15 nationals I've attended. Building 1:72 means I can get four or even five models in a medium-sized athletic bag (purchased in the UK 16 years ago to lug back extra purchases!) which fits in the overhead - where I've had few issues, mainly because I again speak up and try to enlist the flight attendants and my fellow passengers in my battle against breakage. :) This year, I'm sending my models down with friends who are driving, since I'll be coming directly from New York and a business trip. Perhaps I should have been working on larger subjects for the 2010 event... Oh, well. I've had few broken models on the way to the nationals - only the one I successfully got across the country, only to drop while entering the display room at the 1996 Virginia Beach nationals. I could not find a way to blame the airlines for that no matter how hard I tried.