Iron Modeler

Category: A little bit of this and some of that

  • Welcome to the new digs!

    Howdy, everybody!

    For those not in the know, the former host of the Iron Modeler blog, TypePad, shut down at the end of September.  I had a choice–shut down the blog entirely or migrate the content to a new host.  Since I had experience working in WordPress, and since I know someone who had some bandwidth, I decided to migrate over.

    The good news?  The URL is the same, so you can’t get lost.

    The bad news?  Most of the images didn’t make the trip.  In time, I’ll upload some of the photos to a gallery.  Will I re-embed them into the blog articles?  Stay tuned.

    Wait, did he say “gallery”?  Blogs don’t have galleries, do they?

    That’s the other bit of news.  This blog is now part of a website.  Which is good.

    Why, you ask?  Because I can do more within the structure of a website than I can with a simple blog.

    I’m still cleaning things up from the move, but I have some ideas.
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~
    As far as actual hacking of plastic goes, I finished the 1/72nd scale F-16/101 using the 1976-vintage Revell kit and Caracal Models’ wonderful “F-16 Viper – The Early Years” decals and the exhaust nozzle from a Tamiya Block 50 kit.  It goes nicely with the Revell 1/72nd scale F-15A model (from the original 1974 issue) likewise decorated as an early aircraft during flight tests (and again using a Caracal Models decal sheet).

    I also finished a first-issue Kinetic 1/48th scale EA-6B Prowler.  The kit came to me from a friend at work, with the only constraint that I use the kit-supplied decals for VAQ-140.  It was a fun project, and a challenging project at times.  But isn’t that part and parcel of model building?
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~
    So,what’s next, you ask…

    As discussed once or twice, I was born within an hour’s drive from where the USS New Jersey (Geek Stuff: Iowa-Class battleship, BB-62) was built at the Philadelphia Navy Ship Yard and where she sits in her retirement in Camden, NJ.  I have had plans for a series of models of the ship as she appeared between her launching in 1942 and her retirement in 1990.  At one time, I figured six models would do a good job of visually telling the story of the ship’s history.  Well, I’m doing this in 1/350th scale, and in order to maintain my sanity and have sufficient space to display the models, I’ve pared it down to three–one as she appeared during most of World War Two using Tamiya’s 1985 WWII-era USS Missouri kit with a Tom’s Modelworks enclosed round nav bridge, one as she appeared off the coast of Vietnam in 1968 from a combination of parts from the Tamiya Missouri and New Jersey kits, and one as she appeared a year or so after her final modernization and recommissioning in 1983.

    I’ve started on the later fit first, using the venerable Tamiya kit from 1984.  I’ve also procured an Eduard photoetch set and a Pontos Detail Up set.  I’ve removed parts from the trees and cleaned them up, and now I’m at the “eating an elephant” phase–assembly by assembly, I’m removing molded-in details that will be replaced by photoetched, resin, or wood parts from the detail sets.  So far, so good…
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~
    In the meantime, we’ve also been adopted by another cat.  This one turned up under the hood of my wife’s car in August.  She kept hanging around the house, so we contacted one of the local Trap-Neuter-Release organizations and scheduled a trap date.  In the meantime, she began to warm up to us.  Oh, yeah, and one of her friends showed up.  Her friend is still kind of spicy–feral cats do that–but the original cat really started hanging close to the house.  In order to get them into a routine for the trap date, we’d put food out.  Every morning, as we fed the first cat, she would come closer to us and watch.  By the end of October, my wife said, “I bet if we left the door open, she would walk right in.”  And, on October 26th, we did just that–we left the screen door open, and she walked right in.

    The funny part of the whole thing is that Smokey, the self-proclaimed Mountain Lion, melts when he sees the new cat.  Gilda isn’t so enamored of the idea of a little sister–yet, but we’re sure she’ll warm up in time.

    The new kitty is named Tabitha.  When I was in college, my parents adopted a black tabby that we named Samantha, after Samantha Stephens from the TV show Bewitched.  Later in the series, they had a baby daughter that they named Tabitha.  At the time, I thought it was a shame that she couldn’t have kittens.  Well, 40 years later, we have Tabitha.  I’ll post some pictures of her at some point, you can be sure of that…
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~
    That’s all I have for now.  Thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and, as always, I bid you Peace.

  • Stormy Weather

    Howdy, all…

    Every now and then during the day this past Wednesday and Thursday, I would check the progress of Hurricane Ian.  As landfall approached, my heart went out to the people in Southwest Florida.  Ian came ashore near Cayo Costa and Punta Gorda—nearly the same place Hurricane Charley landed in 2004.  Watching the TV coverage, my heart sank further.  The area is devastated.  We used to have family friends in North Ft. Meyers, and we used to take boat rides on the Caloosahatchee River in that same area.  Photos and footage after the storm show some extent of the devastation—a lot of what was there is gone and will never be the same.  Ever.

    Ian wasn’t through with Florida, though.  He plowed across Central Florida, bringing heavy rains and flooding to Orlando, Daytona, and St. Augustine before taking his leave of Florida (as a Tropical Storm) near the Kennedy Space Center.  He meandered out to sea, regained strength, and took aim at the South Carolina coast.  Thursday night’s forecast had Ian making a second landfall in Charleston and basically following I-26 on a path that would have taken the storm over our house.  Ian had other ideas—he meandered north and east before making landfall near Georgetown, causing damage in Charleston, Pawley’s Island, and Myrtle Beach.  Currently, what’s left of Ian is soaking Virginia and West Virginia and is headed to New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

    I’ve lived in South Carolina for 21 years.  Ian was only the second tropical system I’ve done any sort of prep for—Florence in 2018 was the other.  However, I’m no stranger to these kinds of meteorological events…

    1972:  Hurricane Agnes was the first time I experienced a hurricane—only I wasn’t in the Southeast.  We were vacationing in New Jersey when Agnes blew through, dumping a lot of rain on the area. By the time she hit, she was a strong tropical storm.  Agnes was one of two events that keep the summer of 1972 vivid in my memory.  The other?  I came down with chicken pox while we were there.  Chicken pox and tropical rain—not a combination I can recommend to anyone…

    1979:  Hurricane David was projected to make a direct hit on the Broward County coast on Labor Day weekend.  David reached Category 5 strength when he came ashore in the Dominican Republic.  After that passage, David weakened to a minimal hurricane, but gained strength.  My brother and I spent the weekend at a friend’s house in Sebring, since David was supposed to be past Ft. Lauderdale by Labor Day.  Yeah.  We drove home as David made landfall in West Palm Beach.  David would skim the Florida coast, barley on land, until he went to sea near New Smyrna Beach.

    Honorable Mention for 1979:  Hurricane Frederic.  David was supposed to be a major storm when it came ashore in Florida and Frederic was supposed to be his weaker brother.  Sure.  Frederic would  intensify to a Category 4 storm when it came ashore near Dauphin Island, Alabama.

    1981: Tropical Storm Dennis would come ashore in South Florida in August.  He dumped a lot of rain on the area.  I know this because I was camping that week.

    1986:  Hurricane Charley came ashore near Apalachicola and  traveled east, finally leaving via the Carolina coast.  I remember it because for a while it was predicted to cut across Florida and pummel the Daytona Beach area.  Embry-Riddle cancelled classes for a few days…

    1989:  Hurricane Hugo.  While Hugo only briefly brushed the Florida coast, he hammered South Carolina.  Friends of the family in Savannah and Hilton Head suffered some substantial damage.  Hugo would be a harbinger of future storms—he came ashore near Sullivan’s Island as a tightly wrapped Category 4 storm, and actually accelerated after making landfall, carrying hurricane force winds as far north as Charlotte.  The path of destruction was easily traced through the state, as it appeared someone took a 40-mile wide buzz saw and cleared a path from Charleston to Charlotte.

    1992:  Hurricane Andrew.  Andrew didn’t seem like he would amount to much in his early days.  But as he approached the Bahamas, Andrew rapidly gained strength and passed the Bahamas as a Category 5 storm.  Once clear of the Islands, Andrew made a beeline for the Southeastern Florida coast.  Initially predicted to come ashore in Ft. Lauderdale, he jogged to the south and made landfall near Homestead, south of Miami.  Andrew was a tightly wound and very dry storm—some likened him to a 30-mile wide tornado.  The damage Andrew caused made him the most expensive storm to hit the United States at the time.  After wrecking South Florida, Andy zoomed up the Gulf of Mexico and made a second landfall near Morgan City, Louisiana.

    Andrew brought a lot of issues to light.  The housing boom in Florida through the late 1970’s and 1980’s saw housing developments spring up seemingly overnight.  One such development, Country Walk, was leveled.  It was discovered that there were some construction anomalies—the roof trusses were only tenuously attached to the house, and the roof sheathing was likewise poorly attached.  In one study, one out of every ten staples meant to attach the sheathing actually hit the truss—the rest missed entirely.  The building codes were reviewed and reworked after Andrew.

    The insurance industry took a huge hit from Andrew.  Several companies went bankrupt.  The Florida legislature enacted several joint underwriting groups in response.

    Homestead Air Force Base was heavily damaged, and expected to be closed under BRAC.  However, the base was repaired under an austere budget.  The active-duty unit, the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing, was dispersed and later reformed at Aviano AB, Italy.  The Air Force Reserve unit, the 482nd Tactical Fighter Wing, remained at the renamed Homestead Air Reserve Base.

    In addition to all this, there is a very real psychological effect on people, as they see their homes and everything they ever had swept away.  South Florida saw a marked upswing in divorces and suicide attempts.  I went to Homestead a few times to help my boss at the time rebuild his mother’s house.  I had been there before, and I could not find any landmarks.  The area was more or less devoid of trees.  Roofs were torn off.  It was not a pretty sight, and I can see how stress would take a very large toll on people.

    There was a rash of looting after Andrew, too.  It took President Bush to activate the National Guard and impose curfews to slow the crime wave.  Imagine—you’ve lost pretty much everything, yet here comes someone who wants to steal what little you have left.

    FEMA was slow to react—they had never dealt with anything of this magnitude.  Relief supplies were slow to arrive on site.  This issue afforded me a ride on an Army CH-47 Chinook.  The Florida Aero Club started a relief drive, and a week after the storm a friend and I went to help them at North Perry Airport.  As we loaded carts of water bottles and dry goods, a UH-1 Huey would land, we’d load it, and the helicopter would depart.  Another one came in, loaded, and left.  Then the Chinook landed.  We packed it per the crew chief’s instructions, and then we looked at him.  “Who’s going to help you unload?”  He looked perplexed.  We both volunteered.  So, that afternoon I found myself following I-75 south to Homestead General Airport.  We unloaded, and took a quick look around.  I looked into a hangar.  The doors had been blown in, and in the far corner of the hanger stood a mountain of airplanes.  As we departed, we flew east and then north along the coast, where I got a good look at the damage along Cape Florida and the Miami Bayfront area.

    After Andrew, people started paying attention to warnings when the National Hurricane Center started tracking storms—and this not just in Florida.  As history has shown, Andrew set records.  Records are made to be broken…

    1998:  Hurricane Georges.  He was supposed to make landfall in Ft, Lauderdale.  I was in an apartment that was little more than a double-wide, so I went to stay with my brother in his apartment—a concrete-block-and-steel (CBS) building.  As it turned out, Georges remained south, and came ashore in Key West.

    Georges would be the last tropical weather system I would, by necessity, need to track to see if it would hit close to where I lived in South Florida.  I did follow the 2004 season, where Charley, Frances, and Jeanne criss-crossed the state, and 2005, when Wilma came ashore late in the year and wreaked havoc in South Florida.

    Of course, everyone watched as Katrina devastated New Orleans, much as Harvey did in Houston and Maria did in Puerto Rico.  Andrew’s crown as “most expensive disaster” has been given away several times since 1992.  I believe Ian will now wear that crown.

    Each of these events made impressions on me.  When Florence looked like she would be a strong storm and head inland, I did full-on hurricane prep—I stocked up on batteries, bottled water, provisioned with non-perishable foods, filled my bathtubs, and was ready for a bad time.  Florence stayed near the coast and dumped lots of rain over the Pee Dee region of SC and Wilmington and Fayettville in North Carolina.  As with Ian, we dodged a bullet…

    To my friends who have been affected by Ian, my heart goes out to you.  I’ve contacted most of you directly, and if you need anything, anything at all, please get in touch.  I may only be able to lend moral support, but every little bit helps.  For those who want to help who are able, the American Red Cross is one of several groups who are taking donations.  Again, every little bit helps.  Some things will take many months or years to recover.  Some things will never recover.
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~

    As a further point to my last entry, I want to recommend several YouTube Channels to my scale modeling peeps.  These modelers do great work, and each of them will be the first to tell you that in some cases they don’t know if what they’re doing will work, but are willing to try and deal with the results rather than throw their hands up and say “I can’t!”

    The first is David Damek, aka PLASMO.  If you look through his history, you will literally see him try new things as he makes an effort to expand his horizons.  He’s gone from basic kit construction to 3D printing and resin casting his own parts.  https://www.youtube.com/c/idaemonplasmo/videos

    Armor modelers, here’s your guy.  Martin Kovac, aka Night Shift.  His results are stunning, and he’s very much a teacher.
    https://www.youtube.com/c/NightShiftScaleModels/videos

    Another guy who covers a multitude of subjects is Metodi Metodiev, MM Scale Models.
    https://www.youtube.com/c/MMScaleModels/videos

    Greg Phillips will plainly tell you that he does what he does–and he does it well.
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3uGdoOTmEsyn7m3ewRVDeQ/videos?app=desktop

    Jen Wright, aka Jenesis, is another modeler who shares how she does things.  She reminds you, like all the others I’ve referenced, that SHE does things this way, but it might not necessarily be the way YOU would do them.
    https://www.youtube.com/c/JenesisDesignsandModelcraft/videos

    Scale-A-Ton also shows some interesting techniques, such as using kitchen plastic wrap to texture fabric.  He’s another jack-of-all trades, and I enjoy his presentations.
    https://www.youtube.com/c/Scaleaton/about

    Finally, if you build ships, you need to follow Ebroin Song.  He does everything using hand tools, and isn’t afraid to rebuild assemblies to fit his resources.  His sculpting work is excellent, and all in all his work is exquisite.
    https://www.youtube.com/c/EbroinSong

    Take a look at these channels.  There are literally thousands of scale modeling channels on YouTube, and I’ve found these to be the ones I go back to time and time again.  Some of the others are fun to watch if you want to get the ASMR feels, but for learning content, these are my go-to channels.
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~

    That’s all I have for now.  Thanks for reading, and if you can, please consider making a donation to help the victims of Ian.

    In other words, be good to one another.  As always, I bid you Peace.

  • “I Can’t”

    Howdy, all!

    I’m going to discuss something I have noticed more and more over the past few years.  My discussion (as usual) will pertain to the hobby of scale modeling, but I see it elsewhere, too.

    It usually begins like this—someone displays their model at a club meeting, online, or at a show.  As people file by and look at the work, I hear the comments: “I could never do that.”

    Why is that?  What is preventing anyone from doing similar work?

    For the tl;dr crowd, my reaction towards this attitude can be summed up thusly:  When you say “I can’t”, it usually translates to “I won’t”.

    Let’s get back to the discussion.  In many cases, the answer comes down to curiosity, time, budget, and the desire to do what it takes.

    Lets look at several categories:

    “I do not have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do that.”  There’s no crime in this.  Take the time you need to learn the techniques and skills to “do that”, whatever “that” is.  Learn basic scratchbuilding.  Take time to perfect your assembly skills.  Practice using the airbrush wherever you can.  Be curious.  Be willing to try new stuff.

    “I don’t want to spend the time it takes to do that.”  Fair enough.  I know a good many modelers who simply do not want to fool around with advanced techniques, and most of them are happy to knock kits together in a few nights, apply basic paint jobs, and use the kit decals.  That’s fine.  The issue I have comes when someone verbalizes their desire to make their models better but refuses to acknowledge that it does take additional time, both practicing the technique and applying it to the model.

    “I don’t want to spend the money to do that.”  Again, this is a fair comment.  Some modelers lack the financial wherewithal to go and buy ready-made detail sets.  However, there’s always a way.  When I started adding details to my models, the materials came from stuff lying around the house.  My mother’s sewing box provided thread and other “soft” materials.  Dad’s workbench provided scraps of wood and metal.  Packaging provided thin plastic sheet.  When the Bell South guys did work on the lines, we could usually talk them out of scrap wire.  Add to these paper clips, staples, foil pie pans, and other stuff that was usually thrown away, and you have a trove of stuff to make details from.  The garden provided dirt and gravel for groundwork (for as often as I did groundwork—which was almost never).  So, you don’t have to dump a ton of dough on special stuff—look around.

    When it comes to assembly materials, instead of buying dedicated “hobby” putty, there are alternatives.  I learned early that I could use Hot Stuff (our standby CA back in the day) and baking soda as filler.  In fact, I still use CA—but not the baking soda.  Instead of forking over a few bucks for a 2 oz tube of Squadron Green Putty, for a few dollars more I could buy a tube of automotive scratch filler that was twice the size for a buck more.  I could buy those little tubes of Krazy Glue for a buck, and it worked the same as Hot Stuff.

    The two areas I didn’t skimp on were paint and cement.  I would be wise in what I bought–$2 for a 2oz bottle of Plastic Weld vs. $1.98 for 1oz of Micro Weld—and I would do my best to make sure it didn’t get wasted.

    Oh yeah—if I wanted something, I’d save my money.  I knew that there was no such thing as instant gratification.  My parents would chip in from time to time, but only to an extent.  So, yeah, I learned to plan and budget.

    “I don’t want to be criticized/shown up/embarrassed.”  Aha!  Now we’re getting closer to the truth.

    I have only once in 45 years witnessed someone belittling someone else’s work.  Modelers are generally helpful people.  Ask a dozen modelers a question; you are likely to receive a dozen equally valid answers to that question.  We all want to be told we’ve done a good job.  We all want acceptance.  But with that territory comes being counseled.  Most modelers I know want to help you, and my best advice is to listen.  If you ask a question, listen, then take the advice to heart and try the techniques you’ve been taught.  That’s how we learn.  Making mistakes is part and parcel of everything we do…how we deal with those mistakes is what can encourage or discourage.

    “I don’t want to.”  The truth for a lot of this is that some folks simply do not want to vary their routine or get out of their personal rut.  They love looking at the results of these techniques on other people’s models, but they don’t want to make the investment in time, practice, and learning to apply it to theirs.  Which is fine—again, there are as many ways to enjoy the hobby as there are people enjoying it.

    Notice I said “investment”—that’s what one needs to make in any endeavor.  Decide what it is you want to do, take some time to learn and practice until you get where you want to be.  As you achieve each goal, find new goals.  They need not be huge goals—in fact, small steps are more desirable than major goals.  Write them down.  And know this—some of these goals will take some time to achieve and may stretch over several projects.

    Perhaps the one goal I cannot stress enough—Finish the model you are working on.  Don’t worry that there are issues with it.  Why?  Finishing a project is a goal in and of itself.  And honestly, many of the issues you know exists on the model will probably not be seen by most other modelers.  I’ve seen several instances of someone going back and forth on one model for years, reworking minor issues so many times that they become large issues.  Do your best, and move on.  Do better on the next project.

    By all means, if (more like “when”—I make mistakes on my models all the time) you make a mistake, take some time to analyze what went wrong, what you need to do to fix it, and make an attempt at rectifying the problem.  Tossing a model into the wastebasket teaches you nothing.  Yes, there are times when the solution to the problem is to bin the model and start fresh.  But don’t automatically think that is the solution.  Set the model aside.  Let it sit for a week.  Then take a look at the model.  You might be surprised at how easy the fix is.

    As I tell folks in Model Building 101, there isn’t a whole lot you can mess up that cannot be fixed.  You simply need to be willing to be patient and spend the time it takes to do the job.  There are no secrets—most techniques you will learn are out there in the world, in magazines, books, online articles, YouTube videos, at the local hobby shop (if you are fortunate enough to have a good one), and at club meetings.

    Most of what we do—in any endeavor—is fairly simple.  It just takes a little curiosity, small investments in time and money, and the desire to make it happen.

    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~
    Work continues on the F-16’s.  I’ve spent the last few weeks working on the 1/32nd Hasegawa kit.  It has some issues—most of them stem from the fact that the basic molds date back to 1978.  The cockpit tub is probably the worst example of the kit’s problems—the consoles are way too short, and short of replacing the cockpit, you have to deal with what you get.  Going back to what I said earlier, I used scrap plastic to fix things to the best of my availability without having to resort to a complete re-build.

    I also cut out the trailing edge flaps so they can be shown in the lowered position, and cut the leading edge flaps to show them in the +2° position as shown in F-16’s on the ground.

    Some of the small bits were missing, and some weren’t provided.  I scratchbuilt the beer can antennas on the leading edge of the wing and the two antenna fairings on the nose from scraps of Evergreen styrene.  I also reconfigured the gun covers to better match photos.  I also had to revise the way the gun barrels got installed—revising the covers required the rework.  I think I got everything looking good…

    The kit canopy was missing the aft fixed portion, and someone had thrown in a spare Tamiya canopy (at least I think it is Tamiya).  I did a little work to revise the hinge area and fit the Tamiya parts to the Hasegawa kit.  The result will be a lot better than the original kit canopy.  It is another one of those areas Hasegawa didn’t quite get right back in the late 1970’s.

    Next up will be revising the bomb’s fuses.  The kit parts look like they have the transport suspension plugs installed.  I think some Evergreen rod and sheet will fill that bill.  Photos are out there, and I think I can do a creditable job.

    The two 1/48th scale F-16’s are ready for paint, and the 1/32nd scale kit will be to that point soon.

    I’m still trying to figure out if the decals I have for the 1/32nd scale kit will be viable, or if I should finally pull the trigger on a plotter/cutter and design paint masks.

    Stay tuned.

    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~

    The shadows and the sun’s angle in the sky are changing.  The temperatures are starting to moderate.  I believe autumn has arrived.  I’ve always loved this time of year.  I can’t explain why—maybe the change of temperature, I dunno.  But I’m enjoying it.

    That’s all I have this time.  Thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and, as always, I bid you Peace.

  • Some Insight

    Howdy, all!

    Last time out, I made a comment that my hobby of scale modeling led to my career/vocation paths.  To refresh your memory, they were (in no particular order) history, aviation, research, writing, and hanging out at the hobby shop.

    This is one of those “about me for myself” pieces I talked about last time, but I thought this one might be fun to share.

    When my father brought home a Revell 1/32 scale Wildcat model kit, I don’t think he realized the vast worlds he was opening up to me.

    I was an early reader.  I’ve been told that I could read before I was four years old.  As I got older, I loved to read.  I would read pretty much anything I could get my hands on.  When we started building that model, I was only concerned about the three-dimensional puzzle in the box.  However, one night, as I waited for Dad to come to the table for our modeling session, I started to read the side of the box.  Then I noticed that the instruction sheet contained more than just how to get the parts together—the front page had a capsule history of the airplane and its exploits during WWII.  Before I read it, I just thought the little pudgy airplane looked neat, but as I read about how it was the Navy’s front line fighter airplane in the early days of the war, and how it was flying against faster, more maneuverable enemy airplanes, my interest grew.  I looked for books in the school library about the war, and learned about the Battles of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, Wake Island, and the Solomons.  Each new discovery led me to learn more.  I’d find one nugget that would lead me to three more.

    That’s research, kids.  I do a lot of research to this day—most of what I do uses what are known as secondary sources, so it is technically “Research Lite” (Less Filling!  Tastes Great!), although I did start to use primary sources when we were up to our necks in the Fire Support Base RIPCORD project a year or so ago.  What’s the difference?  Primary sources are from either official accounts from the units involved or from the guys who were actually there and participated.  SITREPS, diaries, After Action reports, first hand witnesses—those are all primary source materials.  Secondary sources are what you find on the shelves at the local Barnes and Noble—books written about events where the author may (or may not) have used primary sources.  (As “true” researchers know, you take all secondary sources with a grain of salt…)

    As I researched things, I’d write about them.  I wrote a lot of book reports, sure, but sometimes I’d write just for myself.  They were more a collection of notes, but every now and then I would collect those thoughts into an article for the local modeling club newsletter.  I laid off writing for a while, but with the COVID shutdown I’ve managed to get a little of my groove back, and have once again been pumping out modeling articles, and they’re now being published in the national organizations’ magazines.

    The more models I built, the more I wanted to build.  Unfortunately, like most things, it takes money to acquire and build models.  By the time I hit high school, I was at the age where I started to take my modeling more seriously.  A long-time modeler and author, Roscoe Creed, made mention of it when he “wondered where all the cracks went?” in one of his books  a book that I still refer to from time to time.

    I wanted to get rid of the seam lines.  I wanted to make it look like the pictures of the actual item.  As I learned of such things, I began using putty, decal setting solutions, these new-fangled super glues, and an airbrush.  Like the kits themselves, that stuff isn’t free.  More experience led me to discover the then-emerging world of the aftermarket—decals were the first thing I think most modelers encounter from the aftermarket, but later things like photoetched brass details, white metal and resin parts, vac-form kits, and other additions and conversions also became part of my repertoire.

    Of course, by doing so, I was honing my skills as a craftsman and, dare I say, artist.  I was learning how to solve problems.  I developed a sense of spatial relationships–how stuff goes together.  It goes without saying that I developed a good eye for small details.

    After I graduated from college, I started to visit the local shop more frequently.  I became a regular, and eventually I was asked if I wanted to do some fill-in work.  Before long, I was a regular part-time employee, and would remain so until I moved out of state.  During a layoff period about 10 years later, I got a job at the local hobby shop here.  I was only there for a few months, but when my next full-time employer picked up and left, I went to work for the shop again.

    What helped me get the job, I think, is that I was familiar with all the stuff one needed to complete a model.  I was also interested in going the extra mile when I built my models, and I knew what that took, so I could guide others when they came looking for hobby stuff.  Many see retail sales as a drag, but I saw it as a chance to get paid while playing with toys.  Hence, my days hanging out at the hobby shop…

    Now, how about the aviation thing…

    I have no idea what first got me hooked on airplanes.  Perhaps it was the Wildcat model.  More likely, it was reading of the exploits of the men who flew them in the war; the Wildcat model was merely the first step on the path.  For many years, I wasn’t interested in a book if (A) it was not related to aviation; or (B) the word “fiction” was not preceded by “non”.  I have to believe it was that—the more I read, the more I learned, and the more I wanted to be part of that world.  Interestingly, I never really wanted to be a pilot.  I can’t say why, I just never saw that as where I would be.  More on that shortly…

    In my day, teachers were almost always matronly ladies in their late 30’s to early 50’s.  However, my fourth grade teacher was an exception.  I guess she was in her late 20’s–I seem to recall she had only recently received her teaching credentials at that time.  She was a pretty, petite, energetic lady, blonde with a deep tan, and was always smiling.  Her name was Miss Gerstle (Nancy, if I recall correctly).  Her last name rhymes with the chocolate company’s name, and we often called her “Miss Nestlé-Gerstle”.  From the little bit I managed to gather on her by listening to her, she lived with a few roommates and they all worked on the weekends as flight attendants (we called them “stewardesses” back in the day) for Mackey Airlines, a small scheduled airline that flew from Ft. Lauderdale to the Bahamas, in order to earn a little extra money.

    I don’t know if she lined it up, but one day we took a field trip to Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and got to walk around some airplanes.  I seem to recall a Mackey airplane, maybe a DC-6, and it sat next to an Eastern Airlines (IIRC) 727 which was powered up, and we could walk through it.  We spent a few hours walking around the airplanes, asking questions, and talking with the pilots and “stews”.  I loved it.

    An interesting tidbit—when I graduated from college and landed my first “adult” job, I worked from that same ramp, by that time occupied by the National Jets/Florida Aircraft Leasing facilities.  Small world, right?

    I don’t know what happened to Miss Gerstle, but wherever she is, I hope she is still smiling brightly and doing well.  She was a breath of fresh air for me…

    Later, while going through the steps to earn my Aviation merit badge, somehow I got what we call today a “Discovery Flight”.  We went to the airport bright and early, got the whole briefing, got to do the preflight on the airplane, then we went out for a flight over Ft. Lauderdale.  Sitting in the pilot seat, I couldn’t see over the glareshield! I enjoyed the flight, but decided that while it looked like fun, I wasn’t interested in being a pilot.

    As I started high school, I was shunted into what we would call a STEM program—back in those days, it didn’t have a name, but it put me on a track that emphasized math and science.  We only had to take two science and two math classes over four years, but I had four of each.  Somewhere along the line, it was intimated that I should become an aeronautical engineer, but as I related a long time ago, that didn’t work out so well.  But I never abandoned my interest, and eventually went back to school and earned two degrees from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University that said I had what it took to be a genuine wire stringer, smoke wrangler, electron herder, and spark chaser—I became an avionics technician.

    For most of my 30+ years chasing sparks, I worked in the world of corporate aviation—Learjets were my bread and butter, along with Hawkers and Citations.  From time to time, I also worked on General Aviation craft—the little Cessna and Piper “puddle jumpers” that you see at your local airport—and business class turboprops like the Beechcraft King Air and Cessna Conquest families.

    It was a demanding career, to be sure.  I worked in 100+ degree heat and 20 degree cold.  I worked in the sun, the rain, and sometimes even snow.  Many times, we worked from “can” to “can’t”—we did what we needed to do to keep ‘em flying.  It was hot, dirty, demanding work at times—especially at my last stop, where I was also the airframe electrician.  If something provided electrical power or had a wire or air data line leading to it, it was in my wheelhouse.

    I was always acutely aware that if I failed in my job, people could be injured or killed in a most loud and grotesque manner.  I accepted the challenge.  Not everybody is cut out for such a critical job, and as I began to supervise others, that would be my first question to them.  If they were cavalier or flip, I wouldn’t hire them.  If you wanted to work with me, you had to not only be aware of the consequences of your actions, you had to accept that any little deviation, a nanosecond of inattention, and you could possibly kill someone…

    Incidentally, I don’t really like to fly.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that 95% of the flying I have done in my lifetime has been done because I *had* to in the line of duty.  Flying for me was almost a mandatory thing, and much like running on a treadmill—we made a lot of noise and expended a lot of effort to basically go nowhere–it quickly became work.

    For most folks, flying is a way to get from what you know to an unexplored exotic location on the other side of the globe, some sort of personal adventure, and flying is merely a gateway to that adventure.  It is quite different when you know how the sausage is made and have to do it every day.

    When the folks I was working for picked up stakes and left in 2016, I stayed put.  I decided that my days of crawling around on hard hangar floors or cramming myself into ever smaller spaces were behind me.  Since I had done a lot of the documentation that aircraft modifications required, I decided to use my writing skills and my avionics knowledge to start down the path to being a Technical Writer.  My mother, who taught Latin, always said that I had technical hands and a liberal arts brain, and this seemed to be the best of both worlds.

    And that’s how scale modeling made me who I am today.  A gift from my father awakened an interest in history, and also fed my reading and research habit.  What I learned through my reading led to an interest in aviation, helped along by a teacher and a merit badge.  The technical aspects of the hobby sharpened my problem solving skills, helped me develop good hand-eye coordination and spurred me to develop a keen eye for small details and a sense of craftsmanship and artistry.  The marriage of all this led to where I am right now.

    And it started with a model airplane.

    Thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and look after each other.  As always, I Bid you Peace.

  • 1984

    Greetings!

    Now, before you get all excited and start running about, I'm not referring to George Orwell's vision.  Rather, I'm looking back 30 years and remembering some of the things that made 1984 a sort of comeback year for me…

    For starters, I found myself unemployed and not in school for the first time in my life on New Year's Day in 1984.  I had taken my leave from the Harvard of the Sky–engineering physics and I didn't get along, especially when physics had backup on the beat-down in the form of Calculus 3.  Between those two courses, I had a dismal GPA for the Fall 1983 semester and decided that engineering as a career for me wasn't in the cards.  I went down to the AFROTC Detachment (I had an AFROTC Scholarship at the time) and spoke a bit with my advisor.  He and I talked for about an hour, and both came to the conclusion that all the summer terms in the world weren't going to suddenly make me a mathematical genius.  My math skills were pretty good, but not good enough.  So, I didn't register for spring semester and came home.

    Funny how things can happen–I went looking for a job on 2 January 1984 and was hired almost immediately as a parts driver for a local HVAC parts house.  After a week or so of that, one of their systems engineers found out that I wasn't just doing this because I didn't know any better, and I would sometimes be called in to watch how home and industrial HVAC systems are engineered–so many square feet of space called for so many tons of capacity, so many BTUs were required to heat X amount of space, etc.  It was all pretty neat stuff, and I appreciated all they were doing for me.  Between parts runs, I learned quite a bit–and was tempted to pursue a career in that.  But aviation, once it wiggles down into your blood, tends to have a strong pull…

    I worked there all summer.  One day I got a phone call from one of my advisors at Embry-Riddle, wanting to know what I was doing and what my plans were.  At the time, I was still trying to just chill out a bit and leave the stress and, well, disappointment of engineering behind me (and earn some coin, but that should be obvious).  I let them know what I was up to, and that I had several things banging around in my head, and that I'd let them know when the time came.  That time came in June–I took a Friday off work and drove back to Daytona Beach.  I met with some folks, and found out how easy it would be for me to come back–I never formally withdrew from the school, so I was still carried on their rolls.  I first visited my AFROTC friends.  We spent a few hours speaking with some of the other Department Chairmen, and after speaking with the man heading up the Avionics program, my mind was made up.  I would return in August.

    With my future now decided, I went back to work.  I don't say this to be self-congratulatory, but I was the hardest working parts driver/stock man/all around helper that location had.  I know this because the higher-ups told me so.  They were especially let down when I gave them my notice, but when I told them that my two choices were to learn–unofficially–from them, or go back to school and learn aviation electronics, I think it got them to understand.  I was told that if I needed summer work, they would be there.  So, I ended my employment with them in mid-August.

    Remember that 1984 was an Olympic Games year, too–back when Winter and Summer games were held in the same year, no less.  The Winter games were held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.  I paid little attention to them, because work and the time difference made keeping track of the events a bit difficult.  What saddens me know is to see what has become of the venues built for the Games–most of them are crumbling, the result of the unrest, fighting, and other issues between the ethnic factions that finally led to the break-up of Yugoslavia into its constituent Republics.  Sad…

    The Summer games, on the other hand, were different–they were held in Los Angeles in 1984.  The overshadowing news was that the Soviet Union, acting in response to the West's boycott of the 1908 Games, had decided to sit 1984 out.  They, along with the majority of Eastern Bloc countries, sat at home while the Games went on.  The reason I remember it so well was than coverage of most events came on right as I was getting back to the house after work, so I could pay attention to all of them.  It was the last Olympic Summer games that I really paid close attention to.  Since then, various reasons have kept me from watching…

    On the modeling front, I actually started to keep a log of kits I completed.  The first for 1984 was the ESCI 1/48 scale Fieseler Storch.  It was an easy build until I got to the part about sticking the wings to the greenhouse.  I used 5-minute epoxy, and got a fairly decent result–I amazed myself that I didn't wind up with epoxy all over everything! 

    I next turned my attention to a Tamiya 1/48 Brewster Buffalo.  It was probably the quickest "serious" model I had built to that point–everything just clicked together.  I was tempted by the early Navy scheme, but I settled on the Dutch scheme, because my metal finish techniques were sorely lacking and I didn't want to ruin the model.  My impressions of Tamiya airplane kits would be reinforced soon…

    Next on the hit parade was the Nichimo 1/48 scale Ki-43 Oscar.  If you read opinions on this kit, they're all almost universally positive.  And for good reason–the kit packs a lot of detail into a small airplane, the fit is superlative, and this all in a kit dating from the late 1970's.  I tried some weathering techniques on this one–I used a silver Tamiya paint marker to prime seams back then, and I would paint the seams and rub the excess paint off with a paper towel.  I reconed that if I added blotches of silver here and there, I could "chip" the Polly S paints I was using for the camouflage.  It worked out fairly well, I think, and I kept trying to expand my horizons from that model on to the next, and the next…

    This was also the summer when I attempted to build Monogram's 1/48 scale F-84F.  For a reason or reasons lost to history, I cannot recall why I never finished the model.  All I have from that model is the dolly and a few bits and pieces.  After that, I wound up building Monogram's 1/48 scale F-100D in Arkansas ANG colors.  I did that because, as I said before, my metal finishes at the time looked like dog poop…

    Last for the summer, I decided to refinish a Monogram 1/48 scale B-17G that I had built in the late 1970's, maybe 1979.  I had airbrushed it, but it was one of my first airbrushed models and looked the part.  There were visible seams and some other issues with the model, so I took it down from the shelf and started working on the bad areas.  Within a week, it was ready for paint again.  I had used a Microscale sheet to finish the F-100 and was suitably impressed–first time using them, you know.  So, I went in search of a sheet for the B-17.  I found one I liked (unit and aircraft are again lost to history–I didn't log how they were finished, just that I finished them) and set to work.  I used a combination of Polly S and Tamiya acrylics for the finish, and this one was the best, to that point, airbrushed finish I had ever laid down.  The model went back on the shelf, an old girl in a new dress.

    (That Tamiya Buffalo would also get a re-work in the early 1990's–which is how it still resides, hidden away in a box upstairs…)

    I returned to good old Humpty Diddle in August.  I had to register for classes.  I had remembered to change my major and catalog at the Registrar's office when I was there in June, so half my battle had been won.  Then I get to the registration lines.  I think it is a universal college policy that beginning of the semester registration is meant to be as huge a pain in the ass as possible to all involved.  See, during my engineering days, I had to re-take a few courses.  As far as the Aeronautical Studies/Aeronautics courses were concerned, I was through with all of my math classes by virture of my Calculus I and Calculus II courses.  During those engineering semesters, I had managed to complete all but maybe one or two Humanities/History courses, too.  I was only looking to register for the required Physics and first semester Aero Studies courses.  I couldn't get into any of the Electronics courses since all the sections were filled, so I settled for what I could get.  After I got through that, I had to go play housing lottery.  After about two hours of back-and-forth, I managed to get into Residence Hall 2, aka Dorm 2, aka "The Embry-Riddle Holiday Inn".  I had lived here through my engineering days, so I know what to expect.  I met the roommates and suitemates (two rooms to a suite, three people to a room), all of whom were Aero Science guys (they were all working towards pilot certificates)–except one.  He was in engineering.  He was a quiet kid, and engineering wasn't any kinder to him than it was me.  I kinda felt sorry for the kid…after all, I'm now the older, wiser me…

    Classes were literally a breeze.  By the end of that semester, I would have all my prerequisite courses behind me and the next three and a half years would be solid electronics and avionics courses, along with the Aero Studies courses.  See, there was no single avionics major, you took a major and added avionics.  You could take an Aviation Maintenance major and avionics (you wound up with an Airfram and Powerplant certificate and the avionics degree) or Aeronautical Studies with avionics, which is how I went.  Basically, you took all the ground school courses for flight, but no flight courses.  So, I learned basic aerial navigation and meteorology to go along with my electron theory.  Over the years, the school changed how they treated avionics until finally phasing it out a few years ago in favor of an Electronic Engineering degree program…

    More modeling?  You bet–I had spare time, so I decided to build a Tamiya 1/48 A6M2.  This was another fall together kit, it was done in a week.  Yep, a week.  Needing something else to occupy my time, and figuring that the ESCI Storch was a cool kit, so I decided to build ESCI's 1/48 scale Hs-123.  Now that one was a challenge–first serious biplane, first masked camouflage scheme with Polly S, and the kit was rife with minor warpage–typical of ESCI's kits of that era.  Well, I managed to beat it into submission, and painted it up as a Spanish Civil War machine.  I may still have it in a box here somewhere, too, and I was sure to pick up the AMTech "enhanced" reissue of the kit a few years ago.  After all, who else is likely to do an Hs-123 in 1/48 scale?

    The best part of the year?  Going back to school.  I never had any intention of *not* going back to school–my father wouldn't abide it.  He was always pushing for education-I guess it stems from the fact that he had a GED when he started working, and worked hard in correspondence classes to earn a degree.  Dad was a self made man, and he did so through hard work and trying to better himself.  I was thinking about these "good old days", and once again realized what my parents did to make sure my brother and I were ready to face the cold, cruel world–the sacrifices they made to put us both through post-secondary education, the hard work they put in to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table, and lights on in the house.  So, by going back to school–even though I wasn't overtly pushed–I was doing as they wanted. 

    On reflection, maybe I should have worked for a year after high school, then gone to college.  Maybe I should have examined engineering closer and realized that it was a bit beyond my abilities.  You can reach for the brass ring, and if you grab it on the first try, great.  I seem to reach for the ring, get a light grip on it, and then lose that slight grasp.  Rather than giving up, I'll take a breather and try again.  I usually grab that sucker for all I'm worth on the second go around, and once I have it in my grasp I never let go–I seem to cherish it more when I do that.  It has worked for me my entire life…

    Oh, yeah.  The Apple Macintosh also goes on sale in 1984, Constatin Chernenko succeeds Yuri Andropov as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Pierre Trudeau steps down as the Canadian Prime Minister, and Marvin Gaye's father shoots and kills the singer. 

    Musically, Van Halen released their "1984" album, giving us "Panama", "Hot For Teacher", "I'll Wait", and "Jump".  Duran Duran were touring, suppoting "Seven and the Ragged Tiger", which gave us "The Reflex", "Union of the Snake", and "New Moon on Monday".  Meanwhile, Prince and the Revolution topped the Billboard Top 100 with "When Doves Cry".  What was #100?  "Yah Mo Be There", by James Ingram and Michael McDonald…

    (I can't poke too much fun–my beloved Jethro Tull released "Under Wraps".  Not one of their best albums ever.  By far.  Even Tull's then-bassist Dave Pegg said the songs cut from 1983's "Broadsword and the Beast" would have made a better album.  Trivia time–it was the only Tull album with no live drummer–drum machines were used instead.  Doane Perry would be hired shortly after this album and was their full-time drummer until 2011.  He still occasionally tours with them.)

    The big news items in the United States for 1984, though, were generated by President Ronald Reagan.  In August, during a sound check for a radio broadcast, he says "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever.  We begin bombing in five minutes".  He alos is re-elected (with George H. W. Bush as his Vice President) in a landslide victory in November, beating Democrats Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro, carrying 49 states and 59% of the popular vote.

     Oh, and as an aside:  When you get an ROTC scholarship, you are basically sworn in as enlisted personnel.  Because I vacated my AFROTC scholarship, a Review Board convened.  It was decided that I wasn't vacating the scholarship for any reason other than it would be a waste of money to have me keep banging my head against a wall as an egineering student.  For my troubles, I received a package from the United States Air Force sometime in April.  Now, some fellow scholarship recipients were receiving orders to attend basic training at Lackland AFB, Texas.  I was slightly concerend until I opened the envelope.  I was granted an Honorable Discharge from the United States Air Force.  As an Airman Basic.  No orders.  One of my roommates at the time wasn't as lucky–his orders appeared a week after he got home in December, 1983.  He showed the Air Force, though–he went down and joined the Army before the Air Force caught up with him.  Many who knew this guy swore he joined the army only so he could get a good, up close look at an M1 Abrams tank so he could build a superdetailed model of one…

    I hope this finds all of you in good health.  Thanks for reading, and be good to one another.  I bid you Peace.

     

     

  • Ain’t that worth at least one “Hot-Diggety Damn?”

    The airplane we've been dealing with at work made the test flight this afternoon.  You know you've done a good job when a factory test pilot gets off the airplane and tells you, "That airplane flies really nice."  Remember, this is a production test pilot who probably last flew this particular airplane when it was originally built and certified about 12 years ago…

    The back story is this–Learjets require a major inspection every 12 years and another one every 12,000 flight hours.  This is in addition to other phase/time inspections on a more frequent basis (6 months, 12 months, etc.).  The 12-year, though, is a biggie.  The interior gets removed, the antennas get removed, even the instruments and instrument panel gets pulled out, all so the airframe can be X-Rayed and tested in other ways (eddy current, ultrasound, etc.).  Then, once you know what you have, you effect repairs.  During this inspection, you'll find cracked windows, cracked structural members, corrosion, and all sorts of other issues that need to be dealt with.  There are other time items to do–certify the air data computers so the altitude and airspeed readouts are correct, calibrate the fuel quantity system, check the Emergency Locater Transmitter (ELT), service the emergency batteries–you get the picture.  You also remove the leading edge panels on the wing.  Now, a Learjet is a high-performance aircraft, and how the air flows over the wing is very important.  Removing even two adjacent screws from the leading edge panel, if you read the maintenance manual, requires a test flight along the lines of what we had done today, since you can change the flight–and stall–characteristics of the airplane drastically.  Even having too much sealant on the panel joints has been known to adversely affect the stall of a Learjet, so it is important that the work gets done properly.  That being said, you can only do so much on the ground to certify the systems.  The only way to know how the airplane will perform in flight is to fly it.

    What's a stall?  Well, in aerodynamic terms, it is when the airflow over the wing gets so disturbed that the wing stops generating lift–in other words, the wing is no longer flying.  You enter a stall by pitching the nose up, pulling the power back, the airplane may (or may not–depends on the airframe) start to buffet and growl at you, the stick shaker (a little motor and eccentric weight that makes the control yoke vibrate) activates, lights flash, and…then it seems like the sky has literally dropped you.  The nose drops, and if all goes well, the airplane maintains a level flight attitude.  As the airplane regains forward motion, the wing starts flying again.  Easy, right?  Well, some airplanes behave as they should.  But sometimes, you'll have one that snaps a wing down into a roll after the stall.  Or enters a spin.  Bad news.  That means that something needs to be re-adjusted, re-worked, or re-rigged, and the airplane needs to be flown again.  Fortunately, today's flight went extremely well, and we're about ready to deliver it to the owner so he can put it back into service.

    Not bad for three months' work.     

    On the miniature aviation front, progress is being made on the 1/72 scale FineMolds Ki-100b, and, just as a quickie for comparison, I started a 1/72 Hasegawa Ki-61 to show the differences between the radial-engined Ki-100 and the in-line Ki-61.  The two of them should make a nice display–the Ki-61 is being built strictly out of the box (I didn't even add a stick, since you can't see a whole lot once the canopy is stuck in place) with kit decals–more than likely, I'll do MAJ Kobayashi's airplane.

    The StuG IV is progressing, too.  I've finished the Zimmerit and have to squirt some flat black paint under the engine deck so I can button that area up.  The fenders are on, I hope to start putting the gun and fighting compartment together before too long.  For this one, I decided to go OOB (well, OOB plus the Zimmerit) and concentrate my efforts on the finish, since I can rarely get a convincing finish on an armor piece. 

    The other projects should pick up, too.  I'll give you updates and photos as I'm able.

    Thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and I bid you Peace.

     

  • Let’s revisit the whole niche retail thing, shall we?

    I've been reading with great interest some of the comments on one of the larger modeling forums, in which a modeler goes to a few hobby shops, asks for a particular kit, and gets different answers to the same question.  The groundwork:

    The kit in question is the Airfix 1/48 scale Spitfire XII, which is only now starting to hit the sunny shores of the U.S.–apparently, they've been available in the UK for a few months.  Several have been built and photos posted around the modeling sites.  But the fact remains that it is only now becoming available on our side of the pond.

    One shop told the person that he couldn't possibly want the Airfix kit, as all Airfix kits are "crappy".  They also didn't make an attempt to order said kit for him.

    Another shop told him they didn't carry Airfix because the distributors didn't carry Airfix.

    The third shop promised to order one for him.

    Let's break this down.  First, I can tell you from experience that it has been quite a wait for these kits–I've been trying to order them for our stores for a month or so.  It appears that they've finally started to come in at the distributors, so I'm hoping that they'll be able to fill the orders.  Why is this an anticipated kit?  Nobody else does a mainstream kit of Spitfire XII in 1/48 scale.  There are a couple of conversion kits, but no full-blown, everything included kits.  Until now, that is. 

    So, from the modeler's standpoint–he comes into the store looking for a particular kit.  This should have been a clue to the personnel at Shop #1.  He knows what he wants.  You don't know him, you don't know what he builds, you don't know what he's capable of doing.  Apparently, you haven't even tried to get to know him, since you basically told him "Tough Darts, Farmer Brown."  Do you ever think you'll see this guy again?  Probably not.  And, were it the loss of just one sale, it might not be a big deal.  But, since you decided you didn't want to try and win his business, you didn't bother to find out that perhaps this gentleman spends a bit on his hobby.  I don't know whether he does or not, either, since he doesn't live near our shops–but in the retail game, you assume the guy spends millions every year, and you do your best to get at least part of that.

    Also, for a shop to dismiss all kits from a particular manufacturer as "crappy" is ignorant.  Every manufacturer–well, save maybe two–have great kits, so-so kits, and kits that were either best not made or date back to the Truman administration.  Sure, Airfix has some dogs in their line, but for each dog they have a nice kit.  It shows that the shop personnel are not aware of the fact that this kit is one of Airfix's latest and greatest. 

    Shop #2 committed one of the biggest sins in the hobby business–they lied.  See, back in the day, you might have been able to get away by telling a customer that you can't get it since your distributors don't carry it–most customers didn't have the foggiest notion of who the distributors were.  But in this day and age, the Internet is the great equalizer–a customer can tap a few keys and get an answer almost immediately.  Now, there are truly some things that we don't carry because the main distributors we use don't carry it–usually, these products are aftermarket bits 'n' bobs that cater to a small protion of the market.  In order to get stock on some products, we'd have to open an account, usually with the manufacturer, and place what is sometimes a rather large stocking order.  If we had three or four customers a week asking us for one of these products, we'd look into getting set up with them.  But Airfix kits are widely available–I can think of at least four distributors that we deal with that carries Airfix kits.

    The last shop seems to know what they're doing.  But they need to be sure to follow up–order the kit, and then contact the guy when it arrives.  Cultivate the relationship from there.

    Now, from the standpoint of the various shops, here are some thoughts.  It pains me when I read a post from a person I know to be a local that starts out with "My local shop doesn't have anything."   Have you been one of those?  Well, my reply is usually, "How do you know what we carry?  I haven't seen you in the store but once, and that was when we were having a sale."  We can't read minds.  We also can't stock two of every kit, decal, and aftermarket detail set in the hopes that sooner or later we'll stock something that interests you.  Let the folks at the store know what you're waiting for, or seeking.  In this day and age, most people working in hobby shops are only vaguely aware of what a model kit is, let alone what there is out in the world.  Help them, help you…

    Also keep in mind that just because you have a deep interest in the Farleigh Fruitbat Mk.I, you might be the *only* person with such an interest that shops at that particular store.  I am of the mind that I can sell one of anything, but when it comes to the truly obscure, my record isn't great.  So, if you want that new Tamiagawa Fruitbat kit, tell the guys at the store you want one–they should be able to special order it for you.  Don't be upset, though, when they request payment–read what I just said about truly obscure subjects.  Merchandise that sits on the shelves represents cash flow that's not flowing.  When the merchandise is fairly pedestrian (P-51's, M4 Shermans, Tiger tanks, Corvettes, etc.) the store tolerates it since that inventory does turn over fairly frequently.  But that hypothetical Fruitbat kit–which retails for a hypothetical $150 US Dollars, may well sit there for ages if you decide that, yes, the kit is everything you wanted and then some, but you decided to order instead from the online retailer because his price is $15 less than MSRP, well…

    I've told you about my time working in the hobby shop in Ft. Lauderdale.  Most weekends, we'd have a sort of unofficial club meeting, since most of the gang would stop in on Sunday to see what was new, hang around a bit, and look through the stock of whatnot we kept behind the counter.  One friend sticks out in particular, since I can't remember one time when he didn't buy *something*–a bottle of paint, a decal sheet, some glue.  If every customer did that, imagine the possibilities…

    And, the last item–one not brought up on the other forum–is discounts.  If you get a store discount, that's great.  But does the face behind the register know that you're a local club member and eligible for said discount?  Speak up.  Tell them that you're a club member.  Don't be an ass and throw a hissy when the clerk doesn't automatically know you and take the discount.  See "We can't read minds" above.  Also, consider the discount as our gift to you.  We don't have to take anything off MSRP.  We do this in appreciation for your business. 

    Some stores (ours included) offers a Rewards card.  The catch is–in our store, at least–you can either take the club discount or participate in the Rewards program, but not both.  We're trying to help out here, but we're a business and still need to turn a profit…if you do use the Rewards program, once again, you'll need to let the smiling face behind the counter know.

    Niche retail is a two-way street.  Stop in, say hey.  Stay a while, if you can.  If you don't see it, ask.  Let us know what it is that you're looking for.  You might be surprised at what we could do for you.

    Thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and I bid you Peace.

     

  • “I think that tree needs a friend…and here he is.”

    I don't recall the circumstances that led me to discover that there was more to PBS that "Sesame Street" and "The Electric Compnay", shows that I watched as a kid.  I was in my last year of college, and one Saturday I was up early–well, early for me at the time, as I had a bad head cold and the runny nose wouldn't let me sleep.  My roommate and I had a small TV, and the cable did work–but the same old lament, nothing good on.  I flipped through the channels (all ten or so that we got), and finally stopped on the local PBS station (WMFE, Channel 24 from Orlando, if you must know).  It was the top of the hour, and I was greeted by a man with a reddish-brown afro streaked with gray, a gnarly beard also streaked with gray, a huge paint palette with a few smears of oil paint, a canvas, and some brushes.  He spoke in a soft voice, and let me know that today he was going to paint a mountain. 

    The man, of course, was Bob Ross, the show was "The Joy of Painting", and paint a mountain he did.  I was mesmerized–he took a blank canvas, a handful of brushes, some oil paint, and a half hour and painted a landscape.  After that show, I was hooked.  I would tune in every week to watch as Bob would take that same old blank canvas and turn it into a nice little scene, all the while commenting on how "we need trees in our world where the critters can live" and "we don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents", always in that same soft voice.  Every now and then, he'd have one of his rescue critters on the show–a squirrel, or maybe a fox–and he'd tell us how he rescued them and was getting them ready to go back to their homes.  His son also painted, and every now and then he'd let Steve do a painting.  Of course, Bob Ross became an enterprise–he sells more books and painting supplies now that he's gone than he ever did while he was alive, I'm sure.  He has certified instructors that travel the country, teaching people how to use the "Bob Ross wet-on-wet method" to create their own masterpieces.

    Bob Ross' mentor, William Alexander, also had a painting show that would air during the week.  Perhaps the most interesting of the painting shows was the one featuring Gary and Kathwren Jenkins–Gary was a hoot.  I guess you have to have a shtick, and Gary certainly did–he and his wife would paint many different subjects, from landscapes to florals.  I must say, these were all very entertaining.

    As I watched more PBS, there were other shows–"This Old House" was nearing their 10th anniversary.  I remember watching them work on the Weatherbee Farm with a couple who's sweat equity didn't really seem to be making the cut.  Again, though, I was taken in by the craftsmanship of Norm Abram and the "Hey, can I do that?" interruptions from Bob Vila.  Through the years, the main host has changed a few times (Bob got fired, Steve Thomas took over and did a fairly decent job–he's since left and been replaced by Kevin O'Connor, a decent host in his own right), the projects have changed (they went big for quite a few years before going back to what made them great–renovation older houses with owner assistance), but the gist is still there–you can do this, and we'll show you how.  After a while, I also started to watch "Hometime", back when Dean and JoAnne Liebeler were playing like they were married.  Now, JoJo wasn't Dean's first partner–Peggy Knapp was, and I remember watching that first season and was amused when they changed co-hosts and the format following that season.

    In Ft. Lauderdale, we also had Chef Jean Pierre, he of the Left Bank bistro.  Another fun to watch chef, he taught us all what tomato concasse is, and there was always the mother of TV chefs, Julia Child.  I never tired of watching Julia cook–she was entertaining and funny.  There was also the "Great Chefs" series where you would hear about a few chefs and listen to them cook.  Nathalee Dupree was also on, cooking her Southern dishes…

    Along with the cooking and painting shows, every now and again you could catch an episode of "The Hobby Shop" and "Adventures in Scale Modeling". both produced by South Carolina ETV, and both hosted by Mike Lech.  Bless his little pea-pickin' heart, Mike tried.  His shows were fun to watch, because you never knew what that week's episode would bring.  The intros to "Adventures" were sometimes hilarious–"The F-14 Tomcat is the Navy's Top Gun.  Today we'll build a model of a 1969 Camaro…"–and the show itself had some moments, too.  Mike would enter the workshop by descending a staircase that, if you looked closely, ended at the studio ceiling.  He'd try the Bob Vila "Hey, can I try that" and meet with an epic fail on purpose so the guest would correct him and his technique.  In later years, the projects grew more ambitious–I recall Bruce Radebaugh's kitbashed B-25G–and the editing got better, but by that time the writing was on the wall. 

    But my favorite PBS show, by far, was "The Frugal Gourmet" with Jeff Smith.  I knew how to cook by the time I was 13, but I learned a lot about cooking and culture from watching Jeff.  I learned how to stir-fry, I learned about exotic (for the time-remember, this was 1987) spices and seasonings and how to use them.  I got to watch as he travelled the world, learned how different cultures ate, and then showed you how to cook the dishes.  He made me want to try his recipes.  I did, and they worked.  Unfortunately, the show met a very quick demise after molestation and sexual abuse charges were made against Mr. Smith–the cases were settled out of court, and he largely disappeared from the public eye.  His books have been out of print since then.  The shows have not been re-broadcast in any way, shape, or form.  I doubt that you'll ever see DVD boxed sets of the show  As another of my favorite TV chefs, Alton Brown, said about Smith:  "Unfortunately Smith became embroiled in a sex-abuse scandal in the mid-1990s involving young men who had worked for him. Not only did his career screech to a halt, but his earlier work was also tainted in the process. And that's a real shame, because were it not for Smith, I know of at least one would-be cook who'd still be on the sofa ordering takeout."  Amen.

    Most of those shows are gone.  These days, we'll still watch "This Old House".  Roy Underhill's "The Woodwright's Shop" is also a hoot–how he hasn't lost a limb by now amazes me.  "The New Yankee Workshop" was also a favorite, until the series ended last year.  There are some new PBS shows we watch, but it seems that the type of shows I liked are a dying breed, at least on PBS.  Wth the advent of satellite, digital, and cable TV with 600 channels, if you can't find it, it ain't there…

    Thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and, as The Frugal Gourmet would tell us, I bid you Peace.

     

  • 300 channels…nothing on

    Does anyone remember what "UHF" and "VHF" meant on a television set?  If not, you probably don't remember life without cable TV and/or MTV.  But I grew up in that generation of over-the-air, broadcast TV, where you got (if you were lucky) the three major networks and several local channels on the UHF dial.  In South Florida, Channel 4 was the CBS affiliate, Channel 7 had the peacock, and if you wanted to watch ABC you tuned to Cahnnel 10.  The UHF channels were 23 (which was the Univision channel), 33, 39, 45, and 51 (which handled the Telemundo duties).  The two we got best were 33 and 39, although when we first moved to Ft. Lauderdale, we would watch Channel 51 because that's where you could see Tarzan (the Ron Ely version), "Championship Wrestling from Florida" (loved Gordon Solie, the MC), and "Creature Feature".  Later on, we would also catch an episode of "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" or two…

    Sunday mornings were CBS mornings–one of the local TV celebrities was Chuck Zink, aka Skipper Chuck.  On Sundays, Skipper Chuck would read the funnies from the Miami Herald.  We didn't get the Herald, but the funnies in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel were the same funnies–that's when we learned what syndication was.

    During the week, we'd get to pick between reruns of "The Three Stooges", "Gilligan's Island", or "The Mickey Mouse Club".  A few years later, we'd get "Flipper" and "The New Mickey Mouse Club" to add to the playlist.  Lest you think we were children of the Idiot Box, we didn't watch too much afternoon TV–we had to do our homework and chores before we were allowed to watch any TV.  We also had a canal out back–part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' drainage projects in South Florida–an more often than not we'd go fishing in the canal.  Before the hydrilla got out of hand, there were a lot of fish in the canal–bluegill, catfish, largemouth bass, and even cooters.  When we weren't fishing in the canal, we were riding bikes or paddling canoes up and down the canal.  After we were done, though, the TV would go on…

    Sunday evenings were always the same–We'd watch "The Wonderful World of Disney" and "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom".  That changed as we got older–we'd watch "60 Minutes", find something else to watch for an hour, and then it would be time to get ready for bed.  Of course, if it was football season, we'd watch the Miami Dolphins play…

    Funny thing, though–when I was a sophomore in high school, my father had to have back surgery.  The occupant of the other bed in his hospital room watched the soaps–so, as a result, so did Dad.  And, when he came home, he got the whole house hooked.  Funny thing about soaps–the last time I saw an episode of "Days of Our Lives" (about 1994), it was no different from what I saw in the 1980's.  

    When I was in college, we had our nightly rituals.  In particular, Tuesday nights were "The A-Team", "Riptide", and "Remington Steele"; Thurdays would find us watching "Magnum, P.I." (or "The Cosby Show" and "Family Ties"), "Simon and Simon" (or "Cheers" and "Night Court"), and "Hill Street Blues"; and Fridays playlist would be "Hunter" (or "Crime Story") and "Miami Vice".  Other favorites from the era include "Kate and Allie", "Newhart", "The Golden Girls", "Facts of Life", and the final seasons of "Quincy, M.E."–actually, "Quincy" was a favorite before I went to college…     

    Once cable came along, the options grew.  You could watch Morton Downey Jr. on WWOR from New Jersey.  You could watch more wrestling from Georgia on WTCG (later WTBS and "Superstation TBS").  And, after August 1981, MTV was there to bombard you with music videos.

    Since my college days, I have had very few "Must See" shows.  I would catch "Mystery Science Theater 3000" every Saturday, I very seldom missed an episode of "ER" (up until it became as much a soap opera as "Chicago Hope" had been).  The early years of "South Park" would find me on the couch, watching to see what trouble Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman would get into.  "Law & Order", too, was regularly watched–even reruns on A&E.  For some odd reason, I'd also stop at The TV Food Network.  Their early shows were fun–some intentionally, some not.

    Lately, though, I don't watch much network TV.  NBC's Thursday night lineup is a favorite (that would be "The Office", '30Rock", "Community" and "Parks and Recreation").  We'll also watch "Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain" on Sunday nights to keep us up on the week in motorsports.  Other than that, we're pretty much surfing.  We'll find something we like, watch it until it goes back to reruns ("NCIS", "Bones", "Wings", "Major Dad")…

    Our most recent indulgence has been "The Smoking Gun Presents: The World's Dumbest…" on truTV.  Why?  I have no idea…TV has indeed become the "vast wasteland" that Newton Minnow warned us about…

    Next time, I'll tell you how I discovered PBS, Bob Ross, and "This Old House".  Until then, be good to one another.  I bid you Peace.

  • You can’t rush perfection

    Working on corporate jets is challenging in many ways.  An airplane on the ground does an operator no good, as it costs the owner money.  The airplane doesn't like sitting, either–when an airplane sits, stuff breaks due to lack of use.  But the biggest challenge is making the delivery date after a large maintenance event or modification.  You can only estimate things like that, for the most part.  Experience tells you how long that inspection should take if all goes well, and that same experience tells you how much additional time you need to add when a discrepancy comes to light.  When everything is being done in-house, it can be relatively easy.  But when you deal with outside vendors (Non-Destructive testing technicians, engine shops, interior shops, paint shops, etc.), you are sometimes left to their mercy–you can only tell them what your time line is, but you can't make their schedule for them, too.

    We're in the middle of a fairly large inspection at work, one that involves taking the airplane down to component parts, replacing worn and time-limited parts, inspecting and having the lot X-Rayed, etc.  We have a small crew, and only three of us have extensive experience on the make and model of airplane–the other full-time guy we have has very little experience on this type, and the three contractors we used had little to none as well.  So, the heavy lifting is being put on the shoulders of three people, and all in all, the entire crew is doing a fine job.  However, we have those outside forces at play–both engines needed heavy maintenance which required their removal, and the interior is likewise away getting refurbished.  Well, we're at that point where we need to get everything back in the same building and back on the airplane.  There's still plenty to do, yet some things are not going to get done until we get the other components.  Think of it this way–you've disassembled a puzzle that someone else put together, and then you have to put it all back together again–four weeks later.  You have to remember not only what you had for breakfast yesterday, but you have to know where that odd-shaped panel that only has a label reading "R/H LAV" on it actually fits.  Fun, yes?

    When a job gets this close to the end, the customers get antsy.  You can only tell them what's going on and hope they understand.  For instance, once we get this airplane back together, we have several days worth of functional tests and ground checks to do in order to make sure everything is working as it should be.  Then we have several known issues we need to troubleshoot and repair yet.  And, when you take an airplane apart this much, invariably other issues get introduced that need to be addressed, too.  Add to it that this particular inspection on this type of airplane requires not only a post-inspection test flight, but said flight must be done by a factory test pilot.  So, there's another scheduling kink to factor in–after all, you don't want to pay any contractor–let alone a factory pilot–to stand around and wait.  If you tell him the airplane will be ready on a given day, it had better be ready.  In the best scenario, the flight will go well and the airplane will be ready for final spiffing–clean the interior, touch up the paint, clean the airplane, and call the customer.  But sometimes small things are discovered during the flight–and they too will have to be addressed before we can put our stamp of approval on the airplane and send it out the door.

    The old saying, "We will sell no wine before its time" comes to mind at this point.  As much as we would love for the customer to come by, pay the bill, and fly away tomorrow, the fact remains that we will not release the airplane until we are satisfied that it is ready to be flown and delivered.  It will be ready when it is ready, all we can do is offer an estimated completion date.  I would hope the customer understands…

    Thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and, as always, I bid you Peace.