(Or: Hey, Grandpa, tell us a story...)
As the Cajun Chef Justin Wilson would say, "How y'all are? I'm so glad for you to see me some more!"
Since we last crossed paths, a lot has happened. Our Mesa Project is over, ended prematurely by our customer. So, no more treks cross-continent--which is a good thing and a bad thing, because as long as it wasn't in the summer months, I enjoyed the time I spent in Arizona. This also means that I've been between projects since January, which means I have time on my hands--and time that isn't always spent in the best of manners.
I guess that's why I volunteered to "un-retire" and ask the guys in the local IPMS Chapter to trust me to run the club for a few years. "I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one..."
So, having time on my hands and something that I need to spend time on has got me writing articles for our club newsletter. I've done a few so far, and I have two or three more lurking out there amongst my research materials on projects near and dear to me. The first I wrote was a short piece on the various Army missile sites situated in and around South Florida during the aftermath of the Cuban Missile crisis and how those spots look today. Since we're in South Carolina, and I have never seen anyone in the club do so, I also did a two-part history of the 169 Fighter Wing, the flying unit of the South Carolina Air National Guard. Waiting in the wings? I'd like to do a short piece on the 321st and 340th Bombardment Groups, two units that were assembled and trained here at what is now the Columbia Metropolitan Airport. I've also been refining my "Model Building 101" seminar that I first presented at the 2016 IPMS/USA National Convention. And, while all this has been fun, it has caused me to do some digging in back issues of old magazines--where I'm greeted almost every time with some sort of "Blast from the Past"...
The first thing I recalled were the Alpha Cyanoacrylate Cements (ACC, also known as CA, "Super Glue", "Krazy Glue", and a host of other trade and nicknames) that we had available to us in the day. Dad would usually have one of the syrette-type tubes of Krazy Glue hanging around, and every now and then he'd bring home an expired bottle of Eastman 910, the great-granddaddy of all ACCs from work--he worked at a bio-medical company for a while and they paid strict attention to dates. The glue was still perfectly fine, except the date on the container said it couldn't be used.
A few years later, I found Satellite City's "Hot Stuff"--the original bottles were flat-topped and used the little piece of Teflon tubing as an applicator nozzle. And, boy, did it work! I first discovered it when my brother was building a Dumas tunnel-hull radio control boat. I happened to be building my one and only "real" model (according to Dad), a Guillows large scale Spitfire. I used Titebond for most of the construction--I wasn't concerned with weight, since I was building it as a shelf sitter--but when I needed to lock something into place NOW, I'd hit it with Hot Stuff, and pow, it was secured. I tried it on some of the plastic models I built later on, and found that it worked fairly well on them, but that I was still a bit lacking in my technique--so what I usually wound up with was a misaligned bit of model that took a while to sort out. But it was good stuff, and it is actually still available. In the years since, I've used the Pacer "Zap" line of ACC, Carl Goldberg's "Jet", the "Krazy Glue" formulations, and the Bob Smith Industries products, but if it was still as readily available as it was in the early 1980's, I'd probably still be using Hot Stuff...these days, Bob Smith is what is usually available, so it is what I use...
Another product from days gone by are fillers. Back in my formative years, there was only one readily available hobby filler worth using, and that was good, old, Squadron Green Putty. And boy, did I use it by the metric ton. I'd glue the parts together, and once the glue was dry I'd smear a nice bead of putty on every seam. I guess I liked sanding for weeks back then, I dunno. As my technique improved, and as I realized that I didn't need to use the whole tube on just one model, I started to use less. At some point, I used Duratite putty, and later tried the Dr. Microtools' red putty--nice stuff, but if you are painting something white, it was a huge pain in the hinder. About the same time, Squadron introduced their White Putty. I've used it ever since, at least as far as solvent-based putties go. I've added a few to my arsenal--namely, CA, Deluxe Products' Perfect Plastic Putty, and Apoxie Sculp. That last one reminded me that I originally used Duro's E-Pox-E Ribbon--you probably remember it if you used it, it has a blue and a yellow component, and when it cured it was this garish green color. Once I discovered Milliput, thought, I switched. And, when Apoxie Sculp debuted and I could get it easier than Milliput, I switched.
But of all the products I look back on, the one that I always come to is paint. In my kid days building models in the neighborhood, you were either a Testors fan or a Pactra kid--a lot depended on where you shopped for paint. It seems to me that the drug store closest to the house (as well as the local K-Mart and Treasury discount store) carried the Testors Pla Enamels, and the drug store across the street carried Pactra 'Namel. Back then, we only knew we needed paint, we weren't particular, but I was always under the impression that the Testors bottles held more paint that the jewel-faceted 'Namel jars did. I used the Testors Flats, mostly, and continued to use them when I transitioned from using the hairy stick to using the airbrush for my final finishes. That is, until about 1981...
Remember my stories of the Otaki Corsair, and how it became my Great White Whale, and how I so thoroughly botched my first attempt that I had to wait until the shop got another kit? Between those two, I built the Otaki Hellcat, and since I had already bought the paint for the Corsairs, I'd simply use them on the Hellcat, too. These were different--these were the square bottles of Pactra's Authentic International Colors. And boy, how I loved that paint. I had discovered that using Aero Gloss Dope thinner really cut the Testors flat enamel paint and made it lay down well and flash quickly, and it held no surprises when I did the same with the Pactra stuff. Of course, my luck being what it is, a few months after I discovered the stuff, it was being discontinued. No matter, as I was in for a change anyway...
When I started college, I was trying to be considerate to my roommates, so I tried the original Polly-S. For those of you younger than 30, this was the original hobby "acrylic"--actually, it was latex paint. It hand brushed very nicely, but to airbrush it was a bit of a crap shoot. See, you could thin it with water or alcohol, neither of which was 100% reliable with any given bottle of paint. Some bottles would do well with either, other bottles would only work well with water, and some bottles would curdle into a tight little ball if you tried alcohol. I got real good at troubleshooting paint in those days, and I used it until it, too, was starting to pass from the scenes. When I couldn't get colors like RLM02 and Non-Spec Sea Blue, it was telling me that I needed to find a new paint. It actually found me...
About the same time Polly-S was sinking, the gang at Floquil had begun to produce the "re-formulated" military colors, in the form of their "new" (for 1992-ish) line. Now, I was quite content to use Polly-S (as well as the Tamya and Gunze/GSI acrylics), but given the range of colors, I just had to try the new Floquil line. I did. I liked it. I used it. Well, until the advent of PollyScale...
There were other acrylics that I tried back in the day, too. I liked the original Tamiya acrylics. They were an absolute joy to use. They then started to fiddle with the chemistry of their paints, and for several years I simply could not get it to work, come Hell or high water. I also liked the Gunze Aqueous line to an extent, but I found that it didn't give as good a coverage as the others did. Along the way, I also tried the Testor Model Master Acrylics (the line that preceded the Acryl colors we have now), and found them to be the most useless model paint I ever encountered. The experience I had with them colored my opinion of the later Acryl line until I tried them.
Then there was "Niche"/"Red Paint". They came out in the early 1990's with these supposed hyper-accurate paints formulated for late war Luftwaffe and Soviet colors. I have actually had good results with the one bottle of "Soviet Dielectric Green" I bought (check out the MiG-21 I built--the antennas are all done with this paint), and wish I had bought more when it was available.
I tried the ProModeler paints once, too--the less said, the better. They weren't as useless as the Testor Model Master Acrylics, but they came pretty close.
Coming full circle, one of the last of the "others" that I really liked were the Pactra Acrylics. And, as my luck runs, it wasn't around long once I discovered it.
Back to PollyScale. Bar none, this is the best acrylic I have ever used, before or since. I liked it so much that I simply gave away all my Floquil enamels. If this stuff was still around, I'd be using it. No question. But, as we have seen from RPM (the parent company of Testors, Bondo, and Rust-Oleum) a few times, well, they just couldn't bear having "sister company" (as Floquil was at the time) show up the Home Team. Yep, they discontinued the PollyScale colors in favor of the Acryls...
Since PollyScale went away, I have re-learned how to use Tamiya colors, I have liked the Acryls, and I have adopted a new favorite in the form of Vallejo Model Air. Sure, it isn't PollyScale, but as I have been experimenting and getting used to it, I like the stuff. I've been able to pull off some pretty nice paint jobs--see the Hasegawa F-111F, the pair of Corsairs, and the ER-2 as proof. They make the best, to my mind, acrylic metallic colors, too, as the MiG-21 proves. So, while my winding road through the world of hobby paint has been long and slightly tortured, I think I'm where I need to be.
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And this doesn't even scratch the surface of the list of the kit manufacturers we had back in the day. We had Otaki and Nichimo, neither of which are around any more, although Arii picked up the Otaki line for a while--it is now marketed by Micro Ace in Japan. We had Fujimi, kits from whom have only recently started to hit these shores again. We had Life-Like, Inpact, ESCI, SMER, VEB/Plasticart--none of which have survived to today.
And, the latest additions to the list: Monogram and Revell. They were victims of the Hobbico bankruptcy. Hopefully, the new owners of Revell Germany--who now own the entire Revell and Monogram catalog--will re-establish some sort of U.S. branch, but I'm not holding my breath.
On the other hand, due to the efforts of Round 2 Models, the likes of AMT, MPC, Lindberg, Hawk, and Polar Lights...
Perhaps next time, we'll take a look at those manufacturers.
Until then, thanks for reading. Be good to one another, and I bid you Peace.
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