Iron Modeler

On the Gustav Line

Howdy, all!

This is the article on the StuG IV project that took me a decade (!) to complete.  If you go back through the posts from the early days of this little slice o' the Internet, you'll see many references to the StuG project that finally got finished a few years ago.  Without further ado, here it is in all it's glory.

The StuG IV

The German assault gun known as the Sd.Kfz 167 Sturmgeschütz IV (StuG IV) was a result of the Krupp manufacturing firm’s desire to built assault guns for the Wehrmacht.  The vehicle was a lash-up of the late mark Panzerkampfwagen IV chassis and running gear topped with a modified StuG III Ausf. F superstructure.

At the time, the Panzer IV was being outperformed by the StuG III, and all Panzer IV production was scheduled to be shifted to building the Panzerjäger IV, a Pz.Kpfw IV/L70 “Lang” chassis and a fixed superstructure armed with a 7.5 cm/L70 gun, the same gun being installed on the Pz.Kpfw V (Panther).  However, Vomag also fitted a 7.5 cm/L48 gun to the vehicle, which became the Jadgpanzer IV Ausf. F. 

The Stug IV was beginning to fade into the files of “never built” vehicles until an air raid on the Alkett plant in November 1943 destroyed the StuG III production line.  Since the StuG IV could be placed into service faster than either the Jagdpanzer IV or the Panzerjäger IV, Krupp was authorized to begin producing them. 1,108 StuG IV’s were constructed, and an additional 31 were converted from damaged Pz.Kpfw IV chassis before production was ended by the German surrender.

Dispatched to the Eastern Front, the StuG IV became a proficient tank-killer.  It would be used on all fronts between 1943 and 1945, and some saw post-war use with the Syrians in their conflicts with Israel in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Four examples are known to survive, two in Poland, one in Latvia, and one in Australia.

Panzer-Abteilung 190

Panzer-Abteilung 190 was formed from the remnants of the first iteration of II./Panzer-Regiment 202 and sent to North Africa with 90. Leitche Afrika-Division.  Engaged in battles in the region, most of the unit’s vehicles were destroyed in the battles around Tunis in May 1943.  The remnants were then reformed with additional vehicles in July 1943 and attached to the 90. Panzer-Grenadier Division and garrisoned in Sardinia.  When the Allied attack began on Sicily, the unit was kept in reserve and later removed to the Italian mainland.  Initially posted to the area around Pisa, it would later take a place on the Gustav Line, one of the defensive lines around Anzio and Cassino.

The unit would ultimately see most of its war fighting ability again destroyed, and the few remaining vehicles would be re-distributed to other units.  The StuG IV’s of Panzer-Abteilung 190 would wind up going to the 34. Infanterie-Division in Northern Italy, where they would spend their final days.

The Project

Photo 1: The kit.

The project started as a “group build” project with the AMPS Central South Carolina “Wildcats” in late 2010, shortly after the Chapter formed--this coincidentally was a period in which I was laid off and only working part time, so I figured it would be an easy task.  The best laid plans and all that...

The group decided on the then-new (2009) Dragon “Early Production” StuG IV kit.  Along the way, Mike Roof did a lot of research on the kit, assembly sequence, and applicable features of the StuG IV, and provided the information to everyone in the group build.  The level of detail that Mike went into was incredible, and the fact that he broke down the various bits of the kit into what was used in which time frame, what parts could be kept, what could be tossed in the spares box…in short, it gave everyone a glimpse into Mike’s “style” when he builds a model.

Before I move forward, yes, this is another one of those models with very few in-progress photos.  Follow the text for the procedures I used.  Also, some of the sequences might be written in a different order in which I actually completed them.  Sorry, but this project stretched over nearly a decade…

Let’s get it on!

One of the first items to consider is zimmerit, the paste that the Germans applied to their vehicles to prevent magnetic anti-tank mines from sticking to the hull.  The early StuG IV’s got it, the later ones didn’t.  Since the model is an early vehicle, it needed to have it.  There are many ways to add it—textured acrylic gel, putty (either body putty or epoxy putty), photoetched brass, resin...and, of course, several months after this project started, Dragon issued a kit with molded-on zimmerit.  The aftermarket and kit alternatives are nice, but they tend to be too regular whereas the real thing was applied by hand, and one vehicle was different from another.  To get that “organic look”, the best thing to do is make it yourself with putty or another substance.

I tried the green putty route years ago, and it works, but you have to move quickly, before the putty skins over and becomes unworkable.  This time, I tried the acrylic gel method—apply the gel, then “comb” it out with a section of Campbell’s HO Scale corrugated siding.  It is easy enough to do, but after it dried it lacked depth and “sharpness” when compared to photos.  The corrugated siding left rounded ridges.  To address this, I had an old razor saw blade lying around, cut it into sections, and gave those a whirl.  I liked the profile, but the gel medium tended to relax as it dried, yielding sharper, but still rounded, peaks.

Looking around the workbench, I noticed a tube of Elmer’s Professional Wood Filler.  I tried a test swatch on some scrap Evergreen sheet, and it was promising.  It still wasn’t as sharp as I would have liked it, so on a whim I added a small amount of microballoons to the filler and gave it another test.  Bingo!  The rows were sharp, as were the peaks.  So, over the next few days I applied the wood filler and combed it out with the section of razor saw blade.  Hurdle number one, crossed…

If you’re a tool junkie, several companies offer zimmerit tools.  Trumpeter’s is a roller-style tool—apply the medium and roll it out—and Tamiya’s are photoetched “saw tooth” scrapers similar to a razor saw blade.  I actually acquired the Tamiya set through some wheeling and dealing a few years ago, so I believe I’m set for zimmerit tools for a while (not that I use them all that often, anyway).

I painted the inside of the engine compartment flat black to disguise the fact that it would be empty.  Some areas could be seen through the cooling louvers, so painting it black makes it less obvious that the area is empty.

Now we reach the part of the story where I went back to work in the corporate aviation world, complete with six-day, 16 hours a day work weeks.  The project languished.  I would peck at it every now and then, but for the most part it remained stalled in the “Projects in Limbo” cabinet.

I did develop several habits during the project.  The first was to remove all the parts I didn’t need from the trees and place them in the spares box.  I also used a highlighter to note which parts I was going to use on the instructions, and would cross them out with a pencil as I installed them on the model.  As you might know, Dragon’s kits are, as the Brits might say, “bitty”, with lots and lots of small parts—my take is that if the actual item consisted of four parts, Dragon will break it down into a dozen, no matter how teeny the parts will be.  By marking them out on the instructions—especially when you are picking up on the project after a week, month, or longer—helps keep track of what has been done and what still needs doing.  I figured this last one out after I spent the better part of an hour (!) figuring out where I left off after my last session on the model a few weeks prior.

As I pecked away, I continued to pre-paint some parts and subassemblies.  The superstructure interior was painted Testor Acryl Panzer Interior Buff and the details painted in their relevant colors.  I didn’t go whole hog here, since I was unsure whether I wanted to leave the hatches open—I did enough to make things convincing if it was seen through the hatches, and no more.

The wheels were given a coat of Panzer Yellow (PollyScale) and then assembled.  Road wheels were brush painted a few at a time with Acryl Aircraft Interior Black (it is a “scale black”, perfect for tires) until they were all complete and ready to be assembled to the suspension.  I kept them in a plastic cup until they were needed.

Be sure to follow the Prime Directive—make sure everything is straight, square, and plumb as you assemble it.  Nothing looks sillier than a model of what is nominally a 23-ton vehicle with half the road wheels floating up in the air.  I made a block for the lower hull—I set the hull on the block to hold it at the correct height, and then installed the suspension bogies.  As the glue dried, I checked to make sure it remained aligned properly.

When it comes to the tracks, I can offer several tips.  First, work on them throughout the process.  Clean the links up and place them into a container with a lid so that should it overturn you won’t be playing “Pick up the Links” for an hour.  The next tip is to assemble a few links at a time, even if that only consists of lining them up against a fixture and taping them in place.  It becomes less tedious by spreading the job out over several sessions.

Did I say fixture?  There are commercially available track alignment fixtures available, or you can go the DIY route.  I taped a section of square brass tubing to a picture frame glass.  The brass acts as a straightedge.  I would clean up a few links and lay them in place along the brass.  I used thin strips of tape to hold them together until I had the whole run completed.  I constructed the second run in the same manner.  Pay attention, since the Pz.Kpfw IV tracks were handed.  Dragon molded the links in slightly different values of gray to help out in this respect.  It may help to label them right and left to keep things organized.

When it came time to assemble them to the vehicle, I temporarily installed the road wheels, idler, and return rollers.  The sprocket was permanently attached and the glue was allowed to dry for a day or so.  This is important, since the final assembly will undergo a bit of tension—nowhere near as much as the old-school “rubber band” vinyl tracks, but there will be some tension on the sprockets because they attach to a raised boss and not an axle to lend stability.

Now, here’s how I ran the tracks—I doubt it is the best or most efficient way to do things, but it worked…

Apply some liquid cement to all the track joints and allow it to begin bonding the links.  Once the bond has firmed up but is still pliable, carefully wrap the run of tracks around the suspension.  Cement the loose ends together and use a small strip of tape to secure them, and repeat with the other side.  Set the vehicle on the glass surface and set some weight into the hull to keep it down.  The upper hull was taped into place, then I used cosmetic sponge wedges to set the sag between the fenders and upper run—simply cut a wedge and insert it between the road wheels.  Be gentle, since you don’t want to pull the track links apart.  Now, leave the model alone overnight—or longer.  The key to the whole operation is to allow the cement to cure fully and the plastic to re-set before handling the tracks.

Because the wheels were left loose, the wheels and assembled track runs can now be removed from the model.  Make sure you mark each track run so you don’t mix up left for right after you paint them.

The fenders were a bit fiddly, but with some careful fitting they got added to the hull.  The gun was assembled into the interior and the upper and lower hull was joined.  Once the major parts of the vehicle were together, it was a matter of assembling the smaller bits to it.  Use a good pair of tweezers, since some of the bits are tiny.  Some parts, like the tools and jack, were left off until they were individually painted.

When it came time to paint the thing, I was in a quandary.  I knew I wanted a vehicle that operated around Anzio.  My maternal grandmother’s family was from Naples, and some of them remembered watching as the abbey on Monte Cassino was bombed by the Allies.  I was meeting dead ends every time I looked.  I finally found an Italian website (http://www.dalvolturnoacassino.it/asp/n_main.asp) that gave some decent accounts of the battles in and around the Volturno River basin.  Since I still retain some of the Italian my relatives taught me, and since pictures are universal, I managed to pin down units and places in the area.

With an idea in my head, I began digging deeper, and eventually found a photograph of a StuG IV in an Allied salvage lot near Pontecorvo, about 8 miles southwest of Cassino.  Further digging turned up a link to the ADH Publishing book To The Last Bullet: Germany’s War On 3 Fronts (Part 2: Italy).  One of the photos of (supposedly) this vehicle shows General Albert Kesselring posing in the commander’s hatch before the battle, and others show it sitting derelict, although mostly intact, in the salvage yard with some U.S. dogfaces examining it.  Between the photos and color plates, I knew where I was heading…

Photo 2: The book.  If you have any interest at all in the land battles of the Italian Campaign, this is a must-have.

As I was researching, I noted that this vehicle was fitted with a cover where the mantlet meets the superstructure.  Apparently, the canvas cover leaked, so the crews would fabricate these covers from whatever they had at hand.  The cover that appears to have been installed on this vehicle appears to be either bent sheet metal or welded armor plate from a discarded section of Schürzen attached to the superstructure with hinges so it could elevate with the gun.  I fabbed a scale version up from an index card, soaked with CA, and attached with some quick non-functional hinges made from more CA-soaked index card and some fine wire.

Speaking of Schürzen, for some reason known only to Dragon engineers, the kit provides them in photoetched steel.  Attaching the brackets to them was an exercise in insanity.  The bond between the plastic hanging brackets and the steel panels kept coming loose.  Also, measure twice before you attach them or your panels will not hang correctly.  I omitted a few panels, as was commonly seen in photos.

The StuG IV was painted in the typical German scheme of Panzer Yellow with a pattern of dark brown and dark green painted over it.  Using some of the last of my PollyScale paints, I used the photos and color plates as a rough guide to paint the model. 

While I don’t usually recommend the use of color plates as references (they are, after all, an artist’s conception of what the original itself looked like), the plates were used simply because the photos depict the vehicle coated in dust which obscured the camouflage.  I took it on faith that the color plate would be close to what the vehicle looked like.  Given that common wisdom had the green and brown applied in the field, and given photos of similar vehicles, I took the chance and am quite happy with the results.

Photo 3: Base coat of paint applied.

 

Photo 4:  Squiggles

 

Photo 5: More squiggles

The paint was allowed to dry, and the next day a coat of Future was applied and allowed to dry overnight.  The few decals required (notably, the crosses) went on with little trouble.  They were cleaned up after they dried, and a coat of semi-gloss clear was applied to the model.

I went full-on old school with weathering.  I used artists’ oils to not only do pin washes and flood washes, but also to drybrush the model.  The joy of oils is that they stay workable for a much longer time than hobby paints, so you can go back and re-blend an area until you are happy with the way it looks.  From start to finish, the oil weathering took all of an hour. 

Photo 6: Decals on, weathering in progress.

Photo 7: The rear of the StuG.

 

Photo 8: More decals, more oils...I keep my weathering understated.

I then applied a few dings and chips to the surface.  I may have been too restrained, but I like to err on the side of “not enough” rather than “too much”—even the photos show a relatively well-kept vehicle.  I used a “pigment wash” to apply the dust to the lower hull and Schürzen—I mixed various colors of artists’ dry pigments with distilled water into a slurry, then brushed it onto the model.  A wet brush was used to control the wash, and later, after the wash had dried, the brush was used to “tame” the area.  By washing off areas, you can simulate areas that have been “cleaned” by the crew climbing on the vehicle or the vehicle rubbing up against vegetation or other objects. 

The tracks were painted with Vallejo Track Primer, and then given a dark wash with oils.  The raised areas were rubbed with a flannel rag and some SNJ polishing powder—find a dark smudge on the cloth and use that to impart a shiny—but not sparkly!—look to the tracks.  Do the same where the wheels contact the tracks—the constant movement will wear the dirt and grime away. 

To install them, work slowly and carefully to get everything installed properly.  I found the best way to do it was to install several road wheels and the return rollers, then carefully maneuver the tracks on to the hull.  Then install the rest of the road wheels and the idler.  You’ll soon find out how well those sprockets are attached—one of mine broke loose, and a few harried moments ensued until I got it solidly re-attached.  The wheels and tracks were further weathered by drybrushing and the pigment wash method discussed above. 

I gave the model a coat of matt varnish to blend everything together.  The kit-supplied tow cables were cut to length and annealed with a butane torch—it makes the wire easier to work with, and it also imparts a realistic “used” look to it, no paint necessary.  Attach the tools and other bits, wrap the tow cables, and it is time to put the display together.

The base

The base starts with a craft store plaque that is sanded to remove the tooling marks and given a few coats of Minwax PolyShades.  Felt was glued to the bottom for a “finished” look. 

The terrain module was made up by stacking and gluing foam sheets.  I used the commonly-found packing foam (the stuff made up with little beads of Styrofoam), and it really isn’t good for this purpose since it is difficult to shape.  I did my best, and then coated the module with pumice textured acrylic gel medium (you can also use plaster).  Once dry, I started on the actual road where the vehicle would be displayed.  The model was set on the road bed, and the contact patches of the tracks were marked out.  Pieces of Evergreen sheet were cut just smaller that the dimension of the contact patches and glued to the module.  These would give a flat area to attach the vehicle without a lot of fuss.

The road surface was simulated with Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty mixed to a cookie dough consistency.  It was spread on the area and smoothed with a wet brush.  Blend it so that the Durham’s is faired in with the Evergreen strips.  When dry, it was painted in a nondescript ground color and left to dry.  The sides of the module were painted black using craft paint.

The landscaped areas were covered with Celluclay that I mixed with a good dollop of white glue so it would adhere better.  Once dry, it was painted a dark brown and left to dry.

To texture the road, I went out to my driveway (a gravel driveway) and collected a few paper cups full of various sizes of gravel.  Using a sieve, I separated the various sized of gravel, and used the smallest size to represent the gravel road on the base.  Woodlands Scenics Scenic Cement was used to lock the gravel into place.  Take care to blend and feather the road surface into the plastic strips added earlier.  Some various “gravel road” colors were used to create several washes to tone the road down and look to scale. 

The landscaped areas were covered with various shades and grades of Woodlands Scenics grass, weeds, and turf.  Some of the larger driveway gravel was placed here and there to represent rocky outcroppings.  When all was dry, the same washes were applied to again tone the area down and give it a “scale” look.

While researching the Italian website, I found a period photo of a sign on the road between Itri and Pontecorvo.  Jodie converted the photo into decal artwork, and had it custom printed with one of her projects.  The sign boards and sign post are Evergreen sheet and strip cut to shape.  The items were painted tan, and then streaked with oils to represent wood.  Then I “whitewashed” everything with a thin mix of white in the airbrush.  When dry, the barber pole stripe was masked and painted.  The decals were applied to the sign boards, the sign boards attached to the pole, and the pole was installed on the base.  The “8” was applied to a white disk; it identifies the road as Strada Provinciale 8, presently the main road between Pontecorvo and Cisterna.

To attach the model, I used white glue.  I also used a little of the driveway gravel to tie the vehicle in to the base, and gave it the same wash I did on the road itself.  Make sure the vehicle looks like it weighs 23 tons—mind the floating road wheels and tracks (which shouldn’t be a problem since you followed the Prime Directive, right?).  You’ll need to once again blend the road surface around the tracks to make sure there are no gaps between the road and the tracks.  Do a walk around, and touch up any areas that might need some wash, paint, or clear coat.

I started to assemble and paint figures from the Dragon Panzer Grenadiers set, and at least one will eventually be added to the base, but by the time I reached this point (in 2019, nearly a decade after the project started!), I decided to make up a placard, attach it and the module to the base, and call it a day…

Photo 9: Playing around with placement of the elements.  This was early in the game, I actually reversed everything for the final product.

 

Photo 10: The final configuration.  The figure is partially complete at this stage and the vehicle has yet to be treated with the pigment wash.

 

Photo 11: From the other side.

 

Photo 12: The finished project (minus the figure), only a decade after it began!  The pigment wash is subtle, yet effective.

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 31^st Tactical Fighter Wing, was dispersed and later reformed at Aviano AB, Italy.  The Air Force Reserve unit, the 482^nd 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.

Tales from the Hangar, Part 2

Howdy!

 

Being located in Ft. Lauderdale, our customer base was quite varied and eclectic.  One of the more colorful characters we knew was a charter boat captain for hire who owned a Cessna 177 Cardinal.  The Cardinal was a sleek version of the venerable 172 Skyhawk—the windscreen was laid back and the design placed the pilot forward of the wing’s leading edge, the wing featured a laminar-flow airfoil, and it lacked the lift struts that were featured on the 172.  Intended to replace the Skyhawk, the Cardinal was only in production for 10 years.  Cardinal Owners are a proud bunch—they are quite loyal to the “swoopy 172”…

Our customer would come to us once every two years for the biennial transponder, altimeter, and pitot-static system certification.  If he brought it to us outside that, it had to be fairly serious, bordering on catastrophic. 

 

He was an Australian, and there were only three of us in the shop who could decipher his thick Aussie accent into American.  He called one day, and left a message.  By the time the boss heard it, the guy had called back several more times, in a bit of a panic.  It turned out that he had a power feed for some sort of portable device, the exact nature of which I cannot recall, that wasn't providing power to the device in question.  It was in the early days of GPS, but it may have been a hand-held COM radio.  Anyway, whatever it was wasn’t getting power.

The boss went across the ramp to investigate.  Sure enough, there was no voltage at the end of the cable.  He came back to the shop to get some tools—that usually meant he dragged me across the ramp with my tools, since he didn’t have his tool bag in the shop most of the time.  We grabbed a few bicycles and pedaled across the ramp.  The boss opened the baggage compartment door—a square opening with rounded corners that measured about 24” square—pulled the interior panel, and gained access to the battery to check things out.

The customer, who always referred to himself as “a poor boat captain”, wanted to help.  I guess he figured the bill wouldn’t be so bad if he pitched in.  As the boss wigged his way into the baggage compartment to look things over, our poor boat captain was in his hip pocket.  We had to remind him that there wasn’t really enough room for one, let alone two, in that compartment.  We finally got him to hang back as we went to work.

The boss’s hand poked out of the door, grasping a fuse.  I checked it with a meter, and it was good.  I handed the fuse back.  Next, I saw a short tail of a wire in his hand with a hand-written tape flag on it.  Before I could get close enough to see, our poor boat captain stuck his head inside.  I heard a muffled question, and the boat captain moved closer and asked to repeat the question.

“What does that say?” came the question.

“Wot?” asked the customer.

 

“What does that tape flag say?”

“Wot’s a tape flag, mate?” 

“The tape, it has something written on it!  What does it say?”  The boss was getting hot—literally.  It was late July in South Florida, so the temperatures were in the high 90’s outside.  Inside that battery compartment was probably closer to 105 degrees.

“It says ‘tab’”, our captain says.

I looked at the scene with a puzzled look on my face.  “Tab”?  What the hell is “tab”?

I heard the boss call for me.  I asked the boat captain to move aside.  The boss said, “Look at that tape flag and tell me what it says…”

“BAT”, I said.  “I guess it is supposed to the battery.”

It was connected to ground, as was the other conductor of the pair of wires. 

Apparently, our poor boat captain decided to install this by himself to save about $40 in labor.  He never connected the positive wire to the voltage source—in this case, the positive terminal of the battery.  Both wires were tucked under the battery's ground terminal...

From that day on, whenever he would call, the whole shop would put on our best “Crocodile Dundee” accents:  “We got one from the poor boat cap’n, mates!  Fosters all around!  Shrimp on the barbie later…”

“It says ‘tab’!” became an inside joke.  He was a good sport about it.  He would come by and be what we called a "hangar bum" every so often, even after the company started to send the piston maintenance work away so they could concentrate on Learjets.

Unfortunately, the airplane was destroyed one night when somebody broke into the maintenance hangar and set fire to it, using the Cessna as the closest source of an accelerant—the arsonist opened the wing fuel cocks and threw a match.  The airplane was disassembled for an annual inspection, and the only parts that survived were the wing tips and the cowling.  The rest was a pile of ash with a well-done engine block sitting on top.

As any true Cessna Cardinal fan would do, he bought another with the insurance money.  But he forgot to do one important thing—get a pre-purchase survey.  Had he done so, we would have told him to pass or renegotiate—it had a dated stack of Narco radios in it, and those radios took a fair amount of upkeep…

But that's another story for another time.

 

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****

As I type this, I am back among the ranks of the gainfully employed.  I am working remotely for a company that writes supplemental maintenance documents for a major airframe manufacturer.  So far, it has been a lot to absorb...

 

I’ve been introduced to the modern method of aviation technical writing, using tools like Adobe FrameMaker and XML.  As I told my trainer, the content isn’t the problem—I have used similar manuals for many years.  Figuring out how FrameMaker works and where to get the basic data I need to write from are the challenges.  But I’m doing well and actually having fun—I had been told FrameMaker is a bit of a nightmare, but once you understand how it is structured (and that it is structured, unlike the way most of us use MS Word), it works quite well and is easy to use.  Now, we have the frames templates (I believe in some conventions it is called "schema") already established, so I can’t say what it is like establishing the frames themselves, so…

My writing has come a long way since I first used WordStar, EasyWriter, WordPerfect, and AppleWorks back in the day.

 

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****
With the Phantom Menace behind me—the 1/72^nd scale 43 Squadron Phantom FG.1 got finished a few weeks ago--I’ve moved on to other projects.  The primary effort was intended to be the Aeroclub 1/48^th scale Gloster Gamecock Mk.I, I’ve had in progress since around 2016, but I also wanted a quickie. 

 

As I looked at the stacks, I remembered that I bought the Authentic Airliners 1/144^th scale Convair 440 kit a few years ago (I also bought their CV-580—I will probably have to draw the artwork myself for the livery I want to place upon it).  I also acquired the Vintage Flyer decal sheet that featured the Delta Air Lines airplanes, so I got started.

 

These kits are very nice, indeed.  Actual construction only took a few evenings—the joy of well-done resin kits is their easy and quick assembly.  Before I knew it, I had it in primer (Badger’s white Stynylrez—I have mixed opinions).  A few more short paint sessions, and it is now sitting in its drawer, waiting for decals.

 

The base is interesting—I’m using a genuine Delta Air Lines cutting board that I picked up at one of their surplus sales during the annual Airliner Collectibles Shows held at the museum.  I used my normal method of painting a section of mat board to resemble the terminal ramp—in this case, the ramp around the old Hartsfield jet terminal where the Renaissance Atlanta Airport now stands.

 

The Gamecock was ready for paint—at least, as ready for paint as it was going to be—so I primed it in preparation for final colors, too.  I decided that it would be marked as a 43 Squadron airplane, too (they named themselves “The Fighting Cocks” when they equipped with the type) so I laid out and cut the checkerboard markings with tape.  The airplane is now painted and clear coated, but is it nowhere near being finished.  I still have to make the wing struts, exhaust, cabane struts, and a bunch of other parts.  But it is one step closer to being completed, so that makes me happy…

I will probably try to paint all but the serials on this one.  I still need to dig up the closest paint matches for RAF roundel red and roundel blue, circa 1927, but the rest should be easy.  The serials are a unique type face, so I’ll probably have to draw them in Inkscape and print them onto decal film.

*****     *****     *****     *****

Reunion planning is progressing nicely. 

 

I've been asked why this one seems to be more important to me than the previous reunions.  I missed the previous events due to various instances of "life getting in the way".  This one, our 40th, may well be the last one many of my classmates will make.  Our class motto was "The Chosen Few".  Well, the laws of nature dictate that we will become fewer in the years to come.  We lost one classmate less than two weeks ago to complications of diabetes and COVID-19, and another is fighting Stage 4 colorectal cancer and the prognosis isn't good.  One of our reunion chairs has early-onset Parkinson's, and only through DBS surgery has she been able to continue a semblance of a normal life.

 

So, I'm planning to go this year.  In my advanced sentimentalism, I've realized that you don't go to see.  You go to be seen.  You go to reconnect with friends, and to (belatedly) make new ones.

That’s all I have for this installment.  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.

Christmas memories

Howdy, all!

As Christmas draws near, I get nostalgic.  I've waxed on about my occasional bouts of nostalgia, and they get especially strong in December.  My memories, in no particular order:

Going to the hobby shop.  I've told you several times that Christmas was about the only time we'd go to a real live hobby shop back in the day, with the purpose of buying a grass mat for under the tree.  Sometimes, we would pick up a little something for the train layout, too--a new structure kit, or a piece of rolling stock in addition to rail joiners and other required parts.  As my brother and I got older, we would get each other's gifts there, too.  It wasn't much of a surprise--we'd each pick something, hand it over to the other, who would buy and wrap it.  We tried to be surprised on Christmas morning...

Playing with the trains when we were little, and setting them up as we got older.  I still have both the Lionel O-Gauge set my parents bought in 1971 (our first Christmas in Florida) and the HO-gauge train set our Grandmother gave us in the late 1970's.  Perhaps I should find a place to put them up?  Of course, our Feline Justice Units will probably have something to say about that...

Slot cars.  After we moved from the apartment we rented when we first moved to Florida into a house, Santa Claus gifted us a genuine AFX by Aurora race track (you know, the ones Jackie Stewart used to advertise), and a few years later my brother got a Tyco TCR (Total Control Racing) set for Christmas.  I can't be sure, but I think my brother still has the TCR set, and maybe the AFX set, too.

Decorating the house.  We had what my Mom called "pixies" (some call them "elves") that were Elf on the Shelf before EOTS was even thought of.  We'd place them wherever they'd fit, and invariably forget one when we took the decorations down.  It wasn't uncommon for us to find one hanging out as late as Easter.

Decorating the house, part 2.  As kids, we'd watch Dad hang the lights on the house.  When we got older, we got to do it.  After a while, my brother took over the duties, and he could teach Clark Griswold a thing or two about external illumination.

Decorating the house, part 3.  Setting up the tree(s).  We had a large artificial tree and several smaller ones of various construction.  Mom made a ceramic tree in the early 1970's that we'd put in the Family Room, and my parents had this vacuum-formed translucent plastic tree with colored lights inside that randomly flashed.  It was definitely a product of the 1960's.  Eventually, I would be tapped to do the lights on the big tree, and we would all do icicle duty--until the family had a cat.  We stopped doing icicles for the most part when one year we noticed Samantha, the family cat, tearing through the living room with a shiny streamer coming from her hind quarters...

Getting the annual visit from our Grandmother.  Both of my paternal grandparents died before I was born, and my maternal grandfather died when I was six.  My grandmother would come to visit every other year or so, but after she married her sister's husband (her sister passed away from cancer in the early 1970's), she and my uncle would come down and spend a few weeks with us.  I had to give up my bedroom, but as I got older I learned to appreciate the time I could spend with them.  (Before I went off to college, between mid-December and late February I might get the use of my bedroom for maybe two weeks--as soon as my grandmother and uncle left, my father's sister and her husband--the Marine I built the models for--would arrive.  Again, I treasured every moment with them, although a younger me wasn't happy sleeping on the couch for the better part of two months every year!) 

Shopping.  Back in the day, it was slower paced and more relaxing.  During my college years, it was fun to be able to come home and cruise through the town to see what had changed.  It was always fun to listen to my grandmother joking about going to the mall to "push and shove" every year, too, especially knowing that she and my mother had finished their shopping.  It was usually an excuse to take us to lunch. 

Food.  My mother made cookies by the dozen (Toll House, Quaker Oats' "Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies", and Spritz), and cranberry nut breads by the pound.  Along with those, there were meringue cookies, and what we called "Five Cup Salad" (one cup each pineapple chunks, mandarin orange slices, miniature marshmallows, shredded coconut, and sour cream--add a garnish of halved maraschino cherries, nuts are optional).  One year, my grandmother and uncle decided they wanted to make pecan pies, and we must have made a half dozen pies, all from different recipes, between 20 December and just after New Year's Day.

Of course, once Mother Butler Pies became established in South Florida, they got our pie money and we moved on to other things.  It was truly a sad day when they went away...

One of the strangest items we made one year was a coconut pie that was as simple as tossing a bunch of ingredients into a blender, whirling them up for a minute, then pouring the result into a greased pie pan and baking it.  Sounds strange, but the pie was rather tasty. 

Eventually, once my mother bought a pizzelle iron, she added those to her repertoire, although she waged a constant campaign to get someone else to make them for her...

And when I say cookies you might think, "What's so hard about that?  The recipes are on the bag/container!"  You obviously never met my mother.  She would routinely add nuts and raisins to both the chocolate chip AND oatmeal cookies (she would have added them to the Spritz, but then the dough wouldn't pass through the cookie press!), and anything else she thought they'd go with (hence the nuts in the Five Cup Salad).  She'd always use walnuts, too.  She'd also play around with spices--she'd add cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, ground cloves, and ground mace to the cookie dough.  Those cinnamon-scented gewgaws you see in the stores these days had nothing on what our house smelled like during Christmas cookie season... 

These days, as I've chronicled a few times, I'll bake the Big Three cookies, pizzelles, and cheesecakes.  On occasion, I'll add more different types of cookies to the mix, and I really need to pester my cousins again.  My Aunt Madeline made spectacular Italian treats, and I want recipes!  The shame of it was that I didn't get them when she was still alive and visiting us every year...  

Christmas dinner was usually a ham.  Back before places like Honey Baked Ham arrived on the scene, Mom prepared it the old-fashioned way--pineapple slices, cherries, brown sugar, and Ginger Ale for the glaze, throw it into the oven, and let 'er rip.  We'd have turkey some years--a lot depended on what we did for Thanksgiving.  The sides--aside from stuffing and smashed potatoes, which tended to be turkey-only deals--were pretty much standard.  Baked macaroni and cheese, green beans almondine, cheesy broccoli, and some form of rolls were constants.  Dessert was pies, cookies, the aforementioned Five Cup Salad (a friend of the family called it "Three Prong Salad"), and whatever else Mom and Dad had received as gifts at work.  Of course, dinner was preceded by the snack trays--pepperoni, cheese, crackers, olives (green and ripe) and pickles (dill and sweet).  Yeah, it was a pretty big feast.  

After I moved up here, Christmas is different, but I actually prefer the way my wife's family does it.  Biscuits, country ham, sausage patties, bacon, chips and dips, sausage pinwheels, pigs in blankets, all served buffet style, and everyone helps themselves when they're hungry.  After we arrive, my cookies get added to the feast, too (but not the cheesecakes--they're whisked off to undisclosed locations as soon as they're delivered--and if you believe that...).  It's a fun time, and everything is easy to prepare.  No fuss, no muss...

Mom was a teacher, so she would always get food gifts.  Cookies and candy were common, although one year she got a rum cake--and the final glaze was more like a dunk in a vat of rum--you'd blow a 3.3 on the breathalyzer and get a DUI by just standing next to the tin!

A couple of the people Dad worked for would give out Christmas baskets, and, working in the insurance industry, he'd also get booze--this was before the days of corporate rules against such behavior.  I still remember the year he got this huge bottle of Amaretto in a wrought iron tilting pouring stand.  He'd get several bottles each year, and by the time my brother and I were old enough and in school, a bottle would usually go back to school with each of us.  One year, I recall a bottle of Cutty Sark (my folks, when they did take a drink, preferred bourbon or rum) that came to Daytona Beach with me.  I later came home for a weekend in February, and when I got back to the apartment that Sunday evening, I noticed that the bottle was empty.  Dry.  My roommate gave me some cock and bull story about some masked man who knocked on the door, told them he smelled Scotch, and held them at gunpoint and wouldn't leave until he watched my roommate pour the bottle out on the ground.  (I knew better.  The masked man held them at shot-glass point and made them drink the stuff!  I know this because I knew my roomie wouldn't waste free Scotch, even the blended variety...)

Christmas SWAG.  Oh, the stuff we would get.  From Life Savers Story Books (every year, you could bet on it!), to clothes, models, toys, and other stuff, we were fortunate.  Some years were leaner than others, but we never went without.  I recently came across a picture of our back yard, with two brand-new tents airing out.  One year, we received air rifles--but not Daisy's OfficialRedRyder200shotrepeatingactionrangemodelairriflewithacompassinthestockandthisthingthattellstime (my Mother- and Father-In-Law did, however, give all their young'uns each a shiny new Red Ryder a few years ago).  Nope, these were original, genuine pump action Crosman Model 760 pellet rifles!  Yes, sir, the Big Time!  Another year, we got Marksman air pistols that could shoot darts--you know the guns, the ones that look like .45 automatics and where you can literally watch the BB dribble out the muzzle.  We got pretty good at tuning them up.

Spending time with friends.  We had a family friend who we knew from Scouting.  He and his father had bought a house on Lake Istokpoga after their wife/mother passed away, and we'd head there with them on weekends.  Often, we would go  go to each other's place for a while over the holidays, too.  When his father died,  Bob would come and visit us at the house.  One year, we (Bob, me, and my brother) took a ride out to the then-new Markham Park range.  We spent the afternoon punching holes in paper and trying to educate the pair of young Hispanic gentlemen in the lane next to us how to feed and care for their veritable armory's worth of small arms--they go so bad that the Range Master had to show them the gate.  The funny part of the day came later, when we were cleaning the firearms.  We had some PVC-framed furniture on the patio, and the webbing on the chair I was sitting in failed--voom, and I went from looking across the table to staring at the bottom of the table.  Bob thought that was hilarious, and as he was laughing his ass off, his chair followed suit.  Yeah, who's laughing now...

When we were younger, we would visit a couple of other families we got to know through Scouting.  Both families were Jewish, and it was interesting to see how they celebrated their holidays.  One of the mothers was raised Catholic, so their family celebrated both.  We used to joke about whether it was a Christmas tree or a Hanukkah bush.  We lot touch with one of the families in the early 1980's, but the other family has kept touch with ours throughout the years. 
 
Spending time with family.  Yeah, as kids that was a given.  But as we got older and moved away, it was great to come home again.  My immediate family now is my brother and sister-in-law, whom I have seen once (for a few hours, tops) about six years ago.  My extended family (cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.), I haven't seen in a loooong time (my Grandmother dies in 1992, so it has been that long or longer!). 

I haven't even seen my in-laws (who live an hour away) since last Christmas. 

Once COVID-19 gets tamed, I'll have to change that.  Because without family and friends to celebrate with, Christmas just isn't Christmas, is it?

Thanks for reading.  I want to wish each and every one of you a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season.  As the old-timers say, Season's Greetings to all of you!

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

 

Tales From the Hangar

Howdy, all…

My Facebook feed is mostly pictures of cats and models, links to music videos, and history tidbits.  A few months ago, I noted the celebration of the first flight of the Cessna Citation.  In my narrative, I said “Cessna’s first jet flies”, and was taken to task by someone who corrected me—Cessna’s first jet was their Model 318, aka the XT-37 trainer. 

The Cessna T-37, designed as an economical basic jet trainer for the U.S. Air Force, featured side-by-side seating for the instructor pilot and student and was powered by a pair of Teledyne-Continental Aviation and Engineering (CAE) J69-T-9 or (T-37B) -25 single-spool centrifugal flow turbojet engines (license-built copies of the French Turbomeca Marboré).  Between the engine design and the inlet design, the airplane had a rather recognizable sound.  Because of the bulbous canopy and the high-pitched engine sounds, it was alternately called “Tweety Bird” (usually shortened to “Tweet”), “Screamin’ Mimi”, “Kerosene Converter” (it converted JP4, aka Jet fuel—which is basically highly refined kerosene—to noise), and “6,000-Pound Flying Dog Whistle”. 

Scanning the feed a day or so ago, I noted that it was the anniversary of the mighty Cessna Tweet’s first flight, which reminded me of something I experienced in my early days as a spark chaser.  Let’s get in the Wayback Machine and travel to 1989…or maybe it was 1990…

We got a phone call from the owner of a 1947 Beechcraft “Bonanza” (aka the “Fork-Tailed Doctor Killer”).  The gentleman told us he was having some problems with his COM radio, and asked us if we had time that day to take a look at it.  We told him to bring it on, and after he arrived we started to debrief him as to the nature of the problem.  He was an older man, jolly and friendly—he reminded me a lot of Burl Ives as Santa Claus riding a Norelco razor head as it slid down a snow-covered hill.

He said his transmitter was noisy—according to him, the actual symptom varied from “hash” (a low rush of static) to a low whistle any time he keyed the microphone.  Some further prodding yielded more of the story—it was a new radio, recently installed by a shop that had a monthly two-page center spread advertisement in “Trade-A-Plane” and “Aero Trader”.  These guys were sort of the “Crazy Eddie” of the avionics world, promising to turn lead to gold in an hour at a discount price.  He told us that they did the job while he waited, which raised all sorts of alarms—on an airplane that old, there were a lot of tripwires that could delay completion of even a simple job.  Anyway, he filled out a Work Order and we got to work.

When this airplane was built, it was built with no radios—that’s simply how they did it back then.  As time wore on, and more air traffic filled the skies, the need for radio communications arose.  Then came a need for some sort of aerial navigation system, then a secondary radar (aka an ATC Transponder), and pretty soon, avionics became a thing.  This airplane previously had an older NAV/COM and transponder installed (probably sometime in the late 1960’s), and they were both recently replaced with new radios, as noted above.  The transponder was working fine, the customer said, as was the NAV.  Only the COM transmitter was giving him problems.  Or so he said…

A quick visual inspection of the airplane indicated that the antennas were older types.  They weren’t the best antennas to use with a modern (well, “modern” for the late 1980’s) radio, but a quick consultation with the installation manuals and a quick phone call to the radio manufacturer in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania (you old time airplane guys know what that means!) allowed that yes, they could be used—they weren’t optimal, but they were allowable.  We checked them for good ground plane and electrical bonding, and they looked as good as 20-something year old antennas could. 

The airplane had only a COM and a NAV for audio sources.  The microphone wires were connected directly to the microphone jack, and the NAV and COM headphone audio—did I mention that this airplane didn’t have a cockpit speaker?—was controlled through an unlabeled toggle switch.  In the UP position, the COM audio went to the headphones, DOWN and the NAV audio was heard.  Not ideal, but workable.  We made a label for the switch functions, stuck it on the instrument panel, and continued.

We checked the airplane’s battery—a low battery level can cause some problems, even though modern radios were more tolerant of low voltage conditions.  The battery checked out, so we did some radio checks sitting on the ramp apron outside the hangar.  Calling the shop wasn’t bad, but a call to Ft. Lauderdale Ground resulted in a reply of “garbled”.  So, the problem varied with distance.  We decided to do some checks with the engine running.  Again, calling a hundred yards to the hangar was okay, but a call to Ground resulted in another “garbled” reply.  We varied the engine RPMs to see if the problem varied with power (indicating a possible generator/alternator issue), but it remained more or less consistent—the transmission was low level audio surrounded by hash.  Every now and then we’d note a low-level whine, too, but the hash was the main issue.

We also noted that the NAV indicator needle tended to “windshield wiper” at times, and the NAV audio had some noise in it, too.  These signs—the weak audio, the weak transmitter at distance, and the erratic navigation needle swings--pointed to bad shielding on the antenna cables and signal wires, and possibly defective antennas and antenna cables.   

We taxied back to the hangar and removed the radio for a bench check—as my boss hammered into my young head many times, “You have to know what you know”.  In other words, we weren’t to assume just because it was a new radio that the radio wasn’t at fault.  We handed the radio off to our bench guy, and he ran it through a functional check.  Everything looked good.

With the radio out, we examined the installation.  The hole in the panel had been enlarged with what appeared to be a chain saw.  The radio mounting rack (“can”) wasn’t very secure, and the forward end wasn’t supported.  We removed the can to get to the wiring.  The wiring—well, let’s say the wiring wasn’t tidy (“mouse nest” more aptly describes what we found).  The wires were stretched tightly behind the instrument panel, and the bundle—if you could call it that—was poorly tied and secured.

Audio lines are shielded wires—the conductors that carry the signals are surrounded by a metallic braid.  This braid acts as a sort of antenna that receives potential noise to keep it off of the signal lines.  The braid would be connected to an airframe ground at one end to shunt the noise to ground (these days, the shield is grounded at all ends, because radio technology has changed and requires stricter High Intensity Radiated Fields, or HIRF, protection).  The antenna feeds are coaxial cables--in this time period, it was RG-58A/U 50-ohm impedance cable with a single braid (more modern radios have low-loss cables with multiple braids and foil shields, again to combat HIRF).  We reasoned that the old cables were probably re-used with the old antennas, because aging cables could have multiple problems, from corrosion to deteriorating shield and/or dielectric insulator.   

The audio wiring in this installation may as well have had no shielding at all.  The audio pairs from the COM and NAV to the switch were unshielded twisted pairs.  The one audio wire that was shielded was the twisted triple conductor for the microphone audio.  The installer didn’t do a good job in terminating the shield—through chance or by sheer luck, he managed to get a few strands of one end of the shield tied to the radio’s power ground.  The audio selector switch was a low-quality switch of the type you might find at Radio Shack (or, as it was also known, “Tandy Avionics”).  The wires were also too short, and it was under tension as routed.  The first thing we thought was that we might as well have the whole mess removed and replaced with a proper harness and new antennas, but that would take quite a while to accomplish.  We showed the customer what we found, and explained just how poor this job was, and that it really needed to be re-accomplished from the beginning.  He wasn’t going for it.  His jolly nature was beginning to recede…

We were told to do what we could with what was there.  After untying the harness (such as it was), we found places where we could get a bit of slack in the harness.  The unshielded audio wires were replaced with properly shielded wires.  We extended the power and ground wires to further alleviate the banjo string tension of the harness.  Finally, we inspected the wires to the NAV indicator, and they looked acceptable.  Our senior installer had a look and gave his seal of approval.

After the wiring was addressed, we looked at the antenna cables.  As we feared, the cables were in bad shape.  The connectors were poorly installed (and these were new connectors installed on the old cables), so they were removed.  We noted some green corrosion between the braid and the dielectric, the jacket was hard and brittle, and the dielectric was crumbling, so we got approval to run a new antenna cables.  We reasoned that while we had everything open, now was the time to make it right. 

We finished our work and called for an inspection.  The shop inspector gave us a thumbs-up, and we closed up the work areas and taxied out for a final check.  The radio checked out good on the ground, all that was needed was an in-flight check.  We told the customer that he really needed to get those antennas replaced.  He said he would do that when he got to his home airport, he paid the bill (grousing about every last nickel we charged him, too!), and prepared to leave.  His jolliness had by now turned to grumpiness.

“What does all this have to do with the T-37?” you’re asking.

I’m getting to that. 

As our customer started up and taxied across the ramp, a T-37A was sitting at our FBO—we had the military fuel contract at Ft. Lauderdale, and this guy was on a cross country training flight and needed fuel.  As we headed out to the ramp to watch our customer depart, we heard the Tweet fire up its engines—an event difficult to miss, since even a deaf man could hear the banshee-like wail of the J69s.  As the Tweet pilot went through his preflight checks, the airplane sat there, whistling away.

We also watched as our customer taxied away from the hangar, rolled up directly alongside the jet, set his parking brake, and attempted to call the tower for his departure clearance.  After a few minutes, the customer turned back to the hangar.  We didn’t know what was going on, but we had an idea as to why.  Our bench guy confirmed our thoughts.  He had been monitoring the radio in the shop, and when the customer keyed his microphone, the only sound transmitted was the ear-piercing screech of two J69s at idle.  The controllers in the tower never heard his voice, only the sound of the jets.  Our bench guy came out of the shop and told us what was going on as the customer taxied up.

The customer shut the airplane down and climbed out—and boy, was he hot!  “You have no clue what you’re doing!  The problem is worse than it was before!  I want my money back!”  Frankly, I was worried that he would have a stroke or massive coronary right there on the ramp, he was shouting so loud.

The boss pointed to the diminutive jet trainer, by now taxiing out to the runway.  The noise was still ear-splitting—even more so with the increased power settings needed for the airplane to taxi.  “You were sitting right next to that when you tried to call the tower.  Try again!” the boss shouted to him.

Red-faced, the customer got into his airplane, started up, and departed without further incident.

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I’m in the middle of a belated annual sports let-down.  COVID-19, I don’t think I have to tell you, threw a large wrench into the sprockets of the major sports series.  Since my annual yardstick tends to be measured by the various sporting events and seasons, this year a lot got bunched up in the past six weeks.  So, instead of having a few months between events, they all came or are coming up in the space of about eight weeks.  The Stanley Cup, the U.S. Open (tennis), the French Open, The Masters, Sebring, World Series, NBA Championships, they’ll all be back to back this year.

Also, several events I like to watch were cancelled:  Wimbledon, the races at Watkins Glen and Pocono, some of the NHRA drag races…

After all this is over, I am hoping we can get a handle on COVID-19 and next year can reset to whatever the new normal will be.

                                              *     *     *     *    *     *     * 

Other events effected by COVID-19, and I’ve mentioned this in passing, have been scale model shows.  We were on the calendar for the Third Annual South Carolina Scale Model Mega Show in June.  In April, we decided to postpone until August, and in July we finally pulled the plug.  Most other local and regional shows were postponed or cancelled.  The two big shows in the U.S., the IPMS/USA National Convention and the AMPS International convention were also cancelled, the latter after being initially moved from Harrisburg, PA to Danbury CT and postponed.  Scale Modelworld in Telford as well as the Shizouka Hobby Show were also cancelled.

                                              *     *     *     *    *     *     * 

So, with all this time on my hands, I should be a model building fool, right?  Not so much.  As noted previously, I have managed to winnow my long-term project drawers (some may call it a Shelf of Doom) to one—the Aeroclub 1/48^th scale Gloster Gamecock.  I also have embarked on a few 1/72^nd scale F-4 projects.  But what has really eaten into my time has been research and writing—I’ve been working on four articles in association with the Phantom projects, as well as trying to put something together for our club newsletter and this blog. 

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Needless to say, my gripes are quite minor in comparison to folks who have been directly affected by this disease.  In my own extended family, my cousin’s husband died in February from what was most likely COVID-19—remember, in February, 99.9% of Americans hadn’t even heard of COVID, so there is no 100% confirmation, but the symptoms he exhibited certainly sound familiar—high fever, cough, shortness of breath, and pneumonia-like symptoms. 

Several other friends of mine have been infected, too, and are in various stages of recovery. 

Bottom line:  Wear a mask, maintain social distancing, and practice good hygiene.  These are simple steps that, according to science, works.  If we all do our part, we can put COVID out of business. 

Game-Changing Moments

Howdy, all…

Set the Wayback Machine.  The date:  July, 1982.  The place:  Warrick Custom Hobbies, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

The summer was winding down.  I had graduated high school in early June, and we went north for a few weeks to celebrate and visit family.  This was my one and only (so far) visit to the Air and Space Museum in Washington, and I literally could have spent a week there alone--as it was, we went twice because one of the other places were wanted to visit was closed.  I must have taken a hundred pictures with my new 110 Instamatic.  Yeah, I have no idea where any of those photos went.  To this day, I haven’t been able to find any of them…

A week or so after we got home, I went to my recently-discovered hobby haven to look at the latest kits.  On my previous visit several months before, I had previously spied a few kits that I might want to bring home with me.  So, I grabbed the car keys and set out.

I strolled around—I was only beginning to discover the depth of merchandise housed within the store.  There wasn't anything in the stacks that grabbed me on that day (I know, right?), so I went to the magazine rack and started looking at the books.  The first to call to me was Sheperd Paine’s How to Build Dioramas.  Having pored over his diorama sheets from the Monogram kits for a few years, I decided that I probably should pick this up.  Back in the day, it was only about 9 dollars American, about the same as one of the Otaki kits of the day.  Next to it was Hints and Tips for Plastic Modelers.  I flipped through it, and there was quite a lot of information packed into the book.  Four bucks—yeah, I can swing it.  Then, as I turned the rack, a magazine cover caught my attention:

Image:  Kalmbach Publishing

I gave the magazine a quick once-over, verified that I had the extra two and a quarter (plus the 4% for Governor Bob Graham), and took my finds to the counter.  The guy at the counter—who had previously saved me from buying a Nichimo Avenger, noting it was nothing more than a re-box of the Marusan 1/50 scale kit, itself a poor copy of the Monogram kit—told me he liked the new magazine, and thought I would, too.  I settled my tab--so much for that $20 bill--and drove home.

When I opened the magazine at the house, the following words greeted me:

 

Image:  Kalmbach Publishing

As I scanned the articles, I noticed the editorial in action.  Unlike the previous scale modeling magazines I had read in which the articles were text-driven with a few shots (mostly in black and white) of the completed models, the articles in this magazine actually took time to show me what the process looked like.  There were detail drawings.  Color references.  Notes about where to find the stuff they used to build the models.  Also unlike the other magazines, the history of the prototypes was mercifully brief—a paragraph or two, tops, but the meat of the article was the model and how the builder made it look that way.

At the time, I was still an airplane geek—sure, I built a few tanks and ships, and more than a few cars—but I found myself reading and re-reading all the articles in the issue.  The scratchbuilt 1/76th scale Abrams captivated me—I thought the Abrams was a neat-looking vehicle, and the MERDC color schemes (which I found quite attractive) were just coming into vogue, and were certainly more interesting that straight green.  But the color scheme was only the tip of the iceberg—the way Steve Zaloga wrote the article was almost begging me to try to do the same.  All along the way, he made it sound like any modeler could do this, and he did it without treating the lesser skilled modelers like imbeciles or idiots.  The tone was advanced, but the undertones were inviting everybody to give it a try. 

The only article of a subject in my area of interest was Ernie Pazmany’s Fw-190 conversion, and I certainly learned a great deal from his model.  The same holds for Richard Stazak’s vacuum-form kit article—I had only seen one vac kit to date back then, and I wondered how you built it.  Now I knew.  And, true to Bob Hayden’s word, I managed to take something away from every article in the issue, even though I didn’t build armor, or Navy jets, or space ships, or boxed dioramas.

I must have read and re-read that copy a dozen times before I decided that I needed to subscribe.  I had to scrounge for the twelve bucks (introductory rate, IIRC—the ad in the first “real” issue said $15) for eight issues, or two years, but to me, it was well worth the price.  Twelve dollars would have bought a nice model kit and the paint it needed, but I could buy them any time.  As I matured (ha!), I reasoned that it was like the parable about men, fishing, and eating.  I could have bought a model that kept me busy for a few days—and yeah, I would have learned something, I’m sure—or I could buy the magazine that would teach me how to build better models for years to come.  I would still subscribe to that other magazine, but it paled in comparison to FSM. 

Of the early issues, I remember most of the articles, simply because I read them over and over, extracting as much knowledge as I could from each page and every image.  To this day, I can still remember the sense of amazement I experienced when I read Boh Boksanski's article on combining a vacuum formed and injection molded kit into a fabulous model of an airplane I had only read snippets about (the B-50D) that was painted with...dope?  Pactra Silvaire Aluminum dope?  Yep.  Dope.  Wow. 

Or Mike Dario's conversion of a vacuum-formed F-89D to the earlier cannon-nosed F-89C, painted with what to me seemed to be a strange concoction of Floquil's Crystal Cote, Dio-Sol, and Pactra Silver.  I would later rely on the recipe and alter it to come up with a home brewed acrylic metal finish paint many years later, a recipe I used until Vallejo's Metal Colors made their debut.

My all-time #1 modeling article of all time is still Bob Steinbrunn's cockpit detailing article from the October (Fall) 1983 issue.  My original copy of that issue became so shop-worn and dog-eared that when I found a mint condition copy in the late 1990's, I snapped it up. 

To give you an indication of how much I ate this stuff up, my first copy of Shep Paine's book on dioramas that I bought with that Test Issue of FSM was likewise (as they say around here) "slap wore out" by 1984 or 1985...I finally bought a new copy, as well as the Second Edition, in 2000.

I would go off to college shortly after I read that first “Test” issue, but I would look forward to reading the new issues when I would go home for the occasional weekend.  Since it was a quarterly back in the day, and since I wasn’t at the house but three or four times a semester, the wait wasn’t too horrible.  And once the new issue arrived, I was off to read it from cover to cover, several times.

Through FSM, I learned of IPMS, and of local clubs.  After I graduated and came home, I would spend more time at the hobby shop—doubtless looking to buy all those kits I had read about in FSM.    I started to meet fellow modelers who said I should start going to the IPMS/Flight 19 meetings.  I went to one in late 1989, and as the story goes, was a bit gun shy to bring anything, but I did—I had a Nichimo Ki-43 Oscar in 1/48^th scale that I built a few years earlier.  I had dipped my toes into weathering on that one—I used a Tamiya silver marker to check seams, and added a few patches here and there for good measure.  I would swab the paint on with the paint marker, and then wipe off the excess with toilet tissue.  When I applied my finish colors (Polly-S in those days), I let them dry for a few minutes, then used a tight roll of masking tape to pick off spots of color to reveal the silver underneath.  I thought it was merely okay, but by the number of questions I got from the other guys you would have thought I had invented beer. 

As I looked at the other models on display, I was impressed by the scope and quality of the work and it seemed like everybody was there to help each other.  That was my kind of group, and I was a member from that night in 1989 until I moved away in 2001.  For some odd reason, I got roped into serving as the club President from around 1993 until we moved. 

A funny story about that first meeting—I knew the guys from the shop, and as I was socializing and meeting the rest of the gang, I bumped into an old high school friend.  I hadn’t seen him in seven years, and had no idea he built models.  He had, like me, been building since he was a kid.  Without clubs, that’s pretty much what model building was in the day…a lone wolf hobby.

Between discovering FSM (and the Kalmbach books) and joining IPMS/Flight 19, I was on the way to being a better model builder.  What I learned back then has become the foundation of the skills I use to this day.  Further, and I’ve already discussed it, I met people who are friends to this day.  For what can be a solitary pastime, that speaks volumes.

*     *     *     *     *     *

One of the hobby manufacturers who was noted as introducing a line of paints matched to Federal Standards in Mr. Hayden’s editorial was none other than Testors, through their Model Master line.  In fact, the ad inside the cover of the next issue was for Model Master products.  In the nearly 40 years since then, the Model Master line was expanded to include the Metalizer products (bought from the originator), new colors, acrylic colors, brushes, blades, knives, tools, clear finishes, and a whole raft of modeling “stuff”.

Republic Powdered Metal (now RPM International) had acquired Testors a few years previous, along with Floquil/Polly-S, and were in the process of acquiring Pactra.  They also owed or would eventually own Zinser, Bondo, and Rust-Oleum. 

Testors got into the airbrush business in 1991 when they first marketed the Aztek airbrush as the “Model Master Airbrush”.  I bought one, sight unseen, as soon as Warrick Hobbies could get them in stock, and I used it until the early 2000s.  Aztek was a UK-based manufacturer of airbrushes and within a year of Testors marketing the Aztek, RPM (Testors parent company since the early 1980s) would buy Aztek and expand the line.

That 40-year run is coming to an end.

RPM has announced that all Pactra, Floquil, and Model Master Products have been discontinued.  Apparently, they are contracting the line back to where it was in 1978—square bottle enamels, their original tube and liquid cements and putties, and the inexpensive brushes.  It seems like several big steps backward, but apparently RPM had to answer to the shareholders, so they have moved the focus of their efforts to the craft scene.

There has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over this decision, but as I wrote on one of the online forums, there is nothing Testors made or marketed that you cannot obtain replacements for elsewhere.  The bite comes when you will have to order it, since the local stores might not carry it.

*     *     *     *     *     *
In related news, Revell has announced they will be marketing their paints and finishing materials in the U.S., including enamels, acrylics, and spray lacquers.  They should be hitting the stores before the end of the year.

*     *     *     *     *     *

The 2020 AMPS International Convention, initially planned for Harrisburg, PA in May and moved to Danbury, CT for late September, has been cancelled.   Given the resurgence of COVID-19 in some states, and the quarantine orders several of the Northeastern Governors have enacted for folks traveling to their states, it came as no surprise that it, too, has been shelved.

*     *     *     *     *     *
I have a few model-related research projects underway.  One is fairly straightforward and will probably become an article on the F-4J(UK), the surplus U.S. Navy Phantoms purchased for the Royal Air Force and put into service by No. 74(F) Squadron in 1984.

The second project is more complicated.  From the time I first saw one of the photographs of a 340^th Bombardment Group B-25 buried under ash after the 1944 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, I wanted to recreate it in miniature.  The sharper ones out there will see the problem right away: the lack of good, comprehensive documentation of the Twelfth and Fifteenth Air Forces in Italy.  It has been a bit of a hidden treasure hunt so far.  The books that are out in the world are either rather dated (Kenneth Rust’s books date back to 1975), limited in scope, or are nothing more than picture books.  The websites, too, are disjointed and scattered.  I even sent one of the webmasters an e-mail suggesting that the various sites join forces, like the old Web Rings. 

We’ll see how that pans out...

That's about all for now.  Thanks for reading!

Stay safe and healthy! 

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

Fujimi, Fujimi, wherefore art thou, Fujimi? (With apologies to The Bard)

Howdy, all…

I’ve been reading a lot of back issues of modeling magazines lately—way, way back issues, from the early 1980’s.  I was reading FineScale Modeler, to be precise (and if you are a fan of the magazine and haven’t yet bought their 25 years, 1982-2007  and 10 years, 2008-2018 DVD’s, what are you waiting for?), especially the early issues between the initial Test Issue in 1982 until around 1987 just to look back and remember how it used to be.  Incidentally, a lot of tools and products that modelers today seem to think are “new” actually date back to pre-FSM days.  (I’ll cover the early days of FSM in a later post—I’ve been trying to write it for several weeks now, but always find something lacking.)

When the magazine first came out, I was a 1/48 scale WWII airplane modeler.  If it did not fit that collection, I wasn’t interested.  A few years later, my tastes changed—well, they didn’t change, per se, I just grew my areas of interest.  In the Fall of 1986, I embarked on a 1/48^th F-111 using the Monogram rework of the Aurora F-111A kit.  I had recently discovered the Detail and Scale series, too, and after reading the reviews, looking at the photos, and comparing them to the actual plastic, I saw nothing but a major fight with the kit.  I was at a crossroads.  While at one of the Daytona hobby shops (most likely Sky, Ltd.—HobbyCraft Junction had closed, and Ace RC had only a small selection), I spied the Monogram 1/72 F-105G.  Having been a fan of the Thud since I saw a picture in the family’s Collier’s Encyclopedia (again, this was when most families actually owned an encyclopedia set), and having built the Monogram 1/48^th scale kit in 1983, I was intrigued.  I bought the kit, and quickly liked the idea of jets in 1/72 scale.  (I gave the ‘Vark to a college friend, who finished it respectably, showing that it *could* be done—and if you wanted a 1/48^th scale F-111, this was the only way at the time.) 

I reasoned that a 1/48^th F-105 is almost the same length as a 1/48^th B-25, and I realized that doing jets in the smaller scale did two things: saved display space—well, it didn’t really “save” space, since there were now more kits to build, the smaller kits just allowed for more models to be shown in the same space—and opened up a vast variety of subjects to my collection. 

Sticking with the 1/72 scale theme, I would buy and build the Monogram EF-111A in the Spring of 1987, a Hasegawa F9F-2 Panther in the Fall of 1987, and a Monogram F-4D in the Spring of 1988, rounding out my years at “The Harvard of the Sky”.  Later, after I graduated and joined the real world, I would build Fujimi’s AH-1J, and ESCI’s F-104C and Mirage F.1.  As I started building for other people, I would build several copies of the Heller C-118, Hasegawa’s F-14, S-3, and F-16A+; Monogram’s F-4J and F-105G; and Revell’s F-89D.  My journey to the “Dark Side” was complete—almost.  I still build WWII fighters in 1/48^th scale.

At about the same time, I also started to shrink my WWII bombers to 1/72 scale, and for the same reasons.  I would find the Italeri B-25’s, Airfix A-26 and B-26, Revell’s A-20, B-24, and PBY, and Hasegawa’s B-17’s while I was in college… 

Of course, I had also begun dabbling in ships, cars, armor, and miniatures (“figures”) by then, too…

(I once had a fairly convoluted collection breakdown.  As I’ve progessed in years, I have started to re-think a lot of things, and am slowly going through a “fleet rationalization”.  But that’s another story for another time…)

Anyway, I need to steer us back on track…

In the early to mid-1980’s, Fujimi and Hasegawa were leading the pack in 1/72 scale with a new generation of kits.  Sure, the Italian firms of ESCI and Italeri had a few new goodies, and the Koreans were ramping up some kits of their own, but the folks from Shizuoka were standing head and shoulders above everyone else, including U.S. domestic stalwarts Revell and Monogram. 

Fujimi, in particular, began releasing “families” of kits based on a common tool with inserts and optional parts to get as much mileage (read: as many variants of the type) from a mold as possible.  Among this new series of 1/72^nd scale kit families, we had:

• A-4 Skyhawk (from the A4D-1 on, including the TA-4’s and some of the export versions)
• A-6 Intruder (including the KA-6D)
• A-7 Corsair II (all single-seat variants from A-7A to A-7E)
• F-4 Phantom II (eventually the F-4B through the F-4S, including the RF-4B and C and the Spey-powered British Phantoms)
• F-86 Sabre (the F-86F family, including the F-40 and RF-86)
• F7U “Cutlass”
• Ju-87 Stuka (D, G, and R variants)
• D3A “Val”
• B6N “Jill”
• D4Y “Judy”
• B7A “Grace”
• Ki-36 “Ida”
• Ki-15 “Babs”
• F1M “Pete”
• A5M “Claude”
• CH-46 Sea Knight
• H-60 Blackhawk

Later in the 1980’s and into the 1990’s, Fujimi continued with a 1/72 F-14A, F-16 series, MiG-21 series, and F/A-18 series that were on the same level as the contemporary releases of the same subjects from Hasegawa.   In addition, they offered a 1/72^nd scale Ki-43 Oscar series, the J1N1 “Irving”, some late marque Spitfires (they only managed to do the XIVc and FR.19, according to Scalemates), and also got into 1/144 scale with a series of B-29 kits.  Later, they would add Japanese WWII fighters to the 1/144 collection, and after Nitto went bankrupt, they would add some of their military vehicles to the Fujimi catalog.

If you built modern subjects, when you add to these their earlier SH-3 Sea King, E-2 Hawkeye, Kaman Seaspite, Bell UH-1N, Westland Lynx, CH/HH-53, and AH-1J Sea/Sand Cobras, there was a lot to choose from.  And, when you coupled Fujimi’s jets and helicopters to the Hasegawa kits of the day (F-14, F-15, F-16, S-2, S-3, etc.), you could amass quite a collection of modern airplanes.

The WWII guys had a lot to choose from, too, especially stuff that had either not been made before as an injection molded kit, or the only kits available were older, less accurate and less detailed kits, some of which were in odd scales.

Now, I had already purchased and perused (and stashed) the older Fujimi 1/48^th scale Bf-110C/D, late Bf-109G/K,  the Aichi D3A “Val”, the 1/50^th Fw-190D-9; and had actually built their 1/50^th Spitfire Vb in 1983.  The fact that some of their kits were in “odd” scales (1/50 and 1/70) for their earlier kits didn’t really bother me at the time, and by the time I was getting into the smaller scale, the kits that interested me were in the more common scales.  Even the older kits were nicely done from a molding quality standpoint, only the accuracy and detailing needed better execution.  Still, most were the only games in town at the time—for example, the Dora was “it” in anything near 1/48^th scale unless you converted the Monogram kit with Bill Koster’s excellent vac-form conversion.  We had to wait until 1987 for Trimaster to put a state-of-the-art injection molded 1/48^th scale Fw-190D-9 kit on the shelves.

Even in 1/48^th scale, they had a few older kits of modern subjects, including an F-14A, an F-15, the Mitsubishi F-1 and T-2, and a 1/50^th F-5B that also masqueraded as a “White Mosquito” T-38.

But these new tool kits in 1/72 scale were something else.  Petite recessed detail, good fit, fairly decent details, and they were not astronomically priced.  I believe Testors had the U.S. market distributorship agreement back then, which kept the pricing fairly low.  Some of these would also appear in Testors boxes along the way.

And then, they were gone.  It seemed as though Fujimi kits on hobby shop shelves had evaporated overnight.  When you could find them, the prices had soared.  What happened?

Apparently--and I’m going by what I know about the plastic model industry from my days working at hobby shops here, since most Japanese model manufacturers keep a close lid on their internal goings-on--is that when Testors’ importer agreement with Fujimi ended, for whatever reason, no other importer picked them up OR Fujimi decided not to replace Testors as their importer into the U.S.  Or, perhaps things weren’t as rosy as we had hoped—after all, with all these superb kits coming out, it was a virtual license to print money, right?  We couldn’t keep their kits on the shelves for a while.  Did the Testors re-boxings divert money?  Were they not hot sellers elsewhere in the world?  And it wasn’t as if all Fujimi had going for them were these airplane kits—they made cars in 1/24 (Porsches, the Ford GT-40 series, racing Ferraris), waterline series ships in 1/700 scale, military vehicles in 1/72 and 1/76, and recently, they produced some 1/350 scale ship kits, too.

Whatever happened, Fujimi is still around.  Their website shows 232 airplane kits in the aircraft line—most of which are marked as “sold out”.   Recently, they offered kits of the F-22A and the F-35B (VTOL version).  As you run through the line, you’ll see just how extensive the Fujimi catalog is.  The fact that there is no U.S. importer means that instead of going to the local shop, you need to go online.  Hobbylink Japan, Hobbylinc, PlazaJapan, and HobbySearch all carry the line.

If you’ve never had the pleasure, get a modern (post-1982) Fujimi kit and build it.  I’m sure you’ll enjoy the ride.  As I promised last time, I’ll document the construction of one of Fujimi’s Sea Kings in the next post.  The Fujimi Sea King kit pre-dates the others by a few years (it appeared in 1980), but it was marketed as a “family”, including the SH-3D/G/H, JSDF HSS-2B, and RAF Sea King HAR.3).  It was a good indication of what was to come from Fujimi Mokei.

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Here in the Greater Upper Midlands Co-Prosperity Sphere, things are going as well as can be expected.  Both model clubs (AMPS and IPMS) have gone to Zoom meetings, since both clubs normally meet in county libraries that have been closed since March.  Zoom meetings work fairly well for those who join them, but some of the folks just don’t have the technical know-how and equipment to participate.  Several people have offered alternative meeting locations, but they aren’t big enough to practice social distancing, so we’ll stick with Zoom for now.  It isn’t a perfect solution, but it works well enough.

Of the model show “casualties” of COVID-19, our June show had been postponed until August, but last week the committee decided to cancel it.  There were many reasons, all of them valid, but the cherry on the sundae was the Governor’s Executive Order than limited the number of people allowed in any government facility to no more than 50.  Since that would barely accommodate the show staff and vendors, we were left with no other choice.

Of course, IPMS/USA cancelled their 2020 National Convention in San Marcos, Texas as the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 spiked in that state.  The San Marcos crew was awarded the 2023 convention after IPMS/USA renegotiated the deal with the venue there.  It was the right thing to do, especially when it has come to light that a convention hall close to the venue has been opened as an overflow hospital.

The only show that is still “Go!” (for now, at least) is the rescheduled (from May) and moved (from Harrisburg, PA to Danbury, CT) AMPS International Convention, although given the traveler quarantines in place in the Northeast, I expect it to be cancelled in the upcoming weeks.

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Speaking of AMPS, our Chapter’s long-term project for the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum was moved into place and completed in March.  The museum has an announcement, and the Facebook page we established has now been opened to the public.

We kept things under wraps during construction, but since it is now on full display, here’s a thumbnail:

The 8’X12’X5’ diorama represents Fire Support Base RIPCORD circa mid- to late June, 1970.  RIPCORD was a pivotal battle during Operation TEXAS STAR, yet another attempt to shut down the movement of men and material down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  It was for all intents and purposes under siege from 1 July 1970 until it was “closed” and evacuated on 23 July.  It was the last battle led and fought primarily by U.S. troops.

If you want to know more, check out the RIPCORD Association website.

We built the diorama in 1/72 scale, with a good 95% of it being bespoke—only a relative few items (helicopters, howitzers) were built from kits.  It is located in the atrium between the South Carolina State Museum’s ticket desk and the Relic Room; to view it costs nothing.  It is supposed to remain in place for at least two years.  If you are an AMPS national member, Part One of a three-part article appeared in the latest issue of the AMPS magazine “Boresight”.

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That’s all I have for now.  Thanks for reading.  Stay safe and stay well, and, as always, be good to one another.  I bid you Peace.

Interesting things you find online...

Howdy, all!

I trust this finds all of you well and healthy.  The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all of us in one form or another—family gatherings are on hold, all sorts of shows have been cancelled or postponed, meetings have been cancelled or gone online, stores have closed, and many are either working from home or not working…

Please be safe.  COVID-19 strikes in many forms, and it is a matter of chance if you get a mild or severe case, should you contract it.  Take precautions, follow the latest reliable news and directives, and we'll get through this together. 

Personally, I’m using the down time to work on models.  I have finished the Special Hobby Macchi C.200 (the article on the project was recently posted to Internet Modeler), our diorama project for the museum is completed and delivered (but not unveiled--the COVID-19 shut down meant the museum had to postpone the event), and I’ve done a little more work on the Aeroclub Gamecock.  I’ve also started work on what I hope is a quick project—converting Fujimi’s classic 1981-vinatge 1/72 scale HSS-2B/SH-3H to a U.S. Nave SH-3A from HS-5 using the Cutting Edge “Sea Kings #1” decals.

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In the “The More Things Change” files, I found this while searching online for some information on Challenge Publications' Scale Modeler magazine.  It was posted, with commentary, to one of the many modeling forums (sorry, I forgot which one!) on the internet these days.  I have removed the original poster’s comments and added my own—some things had changed since he initially posted it a few years ago. 

What is it?  In October 1966, the magazine printed a survey—you know, one of those “What kits do you want to see?” surveys.  They printed the results in the March 1967 issue, and I present them here.  I’ve left the original as it was, so the spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors are not mine. 

I thought it might be interesting to see what was going on back then, and compare it to what we see online these days.

My comments are in [RED]:

The Readers Speak - Results Of Our Modeler’s Survey

The letters continue to pour in but out of the chaos that five thousand plus survey returns can produce, Scale Modeler [S/M] has been able to draw several significant and far reaching conclusions.

First and foremost, is the informed caliber of today’s modeler.   As we have pointed out before, he [It was, after all, 1966/1967—how many girls were building models back in the day?] is neither twelve years old nor is he gullible.  On the contrary, his knowledge of what he is modeling is usually extensive.  [And thus began the never ending quest for better, more accurate, more intricately detailed models.]

He is discriminating in his purchases and, if the kit warrants it, he is willing to spend quite a bit more to get something extra.  Quality impresses him and he is quick to spot the hackneyed and the inferior.  [Might this be the advent of “unbuildable” kits and “rivet counters”, maybe?]  For this reason, the manufacturing of scale model kits has become a very competitive as well as hazardous business.  Guess wrong or underestimate the modeler’s selectivity and a firm, even a big one, can go out of business fast. 

Although our survey is only some six weeks along as this is written and we still are receiving letters at the rate of five hundred per week, a consensus has been building and it has taken the following form.

Fully half of those who replied to our questionnaire opted to write letters, going far beyond our brief listing.  We appreciated this and we read them all. Preliminary among the comments after the perennial one that the survey was a good idea, was the thought expressed in many ways, that his was the first time the modeler had been asked about what he though and wanted and that it was hoped the manufactures would take heed.

We would like to reassure our readers that several companies, all of which well known, have already expressed interest in what they though and want to see the results of our survey as soon as it is completed.  Two have already begun tooling up their plants for the production of models which, heretofore, they never realized were so wanted by the modeling public.

In addition to getting their thoughts of their chests, many readers also took the time to both praise and criticize some of the features in Scale Modeler.  A few issues back, we told you that S/M was to be your magazine, and you lost no time making your opinions known.  We must add however, that the majority of your points were well taken and although you got us right in the ego, we will try to adopt as many of your ideas as possible.

Getting back to your kit selections . . . we found the following comments particularly noteworthy.  In fact they were voiced so often that we feel there is a definite trend to the thing of our readers.

1. Most modelers are tired of the same old standbys.  Unless the kits are superdetailed, much larger, or depict a different model previously unavailable, they would rather say bye bye to Mustangs and Zeros et. al.  [Where have we heard this?  Yep, on pretty much every modeling forum or Facebook modeling page when Company X decides to release a new kit of the Me109, P-51, or Spitfire.  However, many these days ignore the caveat listed--it isn't that modelers don't necessarily want these kits, it is that the new kit needs to be better--measurably better--then the extant examples.  And, with each new release, that goal becomes more difficult, given the talent of some of the modern kit manufacturers.]

2. Every modeler who wrote to us generally admitted that he would be willing to pay a little more to get a little more.  All would rather have one or two well done plane, car, ship or armor kits than a hose of inaccurate, poorly researched models.  [How much is too much?  People clamored for these better, more detailed, well-fitting kits, but when the price point became too much, the screaming began.  Hey, quality costs money, gang!]

3. Almost everyone evinced a keen interest in the neglected between-the-wars plastics which encompass the period 1920 to 1940, and include military, civilian and racing planes.  [Some of what the modelers are asking for already existed in 1966/1967-- this seems to be a repeating thread in this survey.  On the civil side, Pyro released a 1/32 Gee Bee in 1953; Williams Brothers would release their 1/32 racer kits in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.  ITC’s 1/32 Staggerwing appeared in 1960; AMT graced us with a 1/48 kit in 1977.  So, there were kits available at the time—I will make the assumption that the respondents merely wanted more and better.]

4. Our readers also wanted to see a section devoted to readers’ submissions, a feature we begun with our sixth issue and intend to sustain.

Before going into the selections chosen by you, one more market reaction was noted, possibly the most important one.

Every reader took the survey seriously.  Many wrote us that they had tried repeatedly in the past to promote several kits that they wanted especially to see.  Some have even gone so far as organize clubs for the purpose.  Unfortunately, their requests have been ignored or turned down with a polite reply. That is until now.

We at Scale Modeler take great pleasure in announcing that many of your requests will soon be in the works.  The model industry is waking up. Competition from overseas has been a major spur [The emphasis is mine—Airfix, Revell Japan, Tamiya, Hasegawa, FROG, and other foreign kits were making an influx into the United States; this was also about the time frame when the West started seeing more and more kits from the likes of Czechoslovakia and other Eastern Bloc countries.], but the resounding response from readers like yourselves has made the big difference.

For too many years scale modeling was thought to be in the same category with “hobby toys”, particularly by the manufacturers themselves.  It is only now that many manufacturers have learned that scale modelers are serious people.  With the emphasis away from pleasing the kids and focused instead on building an authentic replica, we can expect to see great strides made in accuracy, quality and the range of models available.  [Indeed, it was around this time that Monogram started deleting the working features from their kits, and when Revell decided to get serious with 1/72 scale.]  If Scale Modeler has done anything to further this trend, it would be gratifying indeed. 

[For those not familiar, S/M was the best American modeling magazine we had—they started in 1965, and were all most of us had (Sure, there were a few European magazines, but out of reach for most kids back then!) until 1981/1982, when Kalmbach started FineScale Modeler.  S/M would hang on until the mid-1990’s before it ended publication, but it was many modelers’ first taste of seeing other people’s work.  I know what I saw on the pages of S/M certainly opened my eyes!  Putty?  Airbrush?  What is this Solvaset they keep talking about?  Microscale system?  Huh?  They were my source for what was going on in the model world, the place where I learned there was more than just Revell, Monogram, MPC, and AMT—in my early days, Airfix kits were exotic!]

[A few notes.  For those of you who have never heard the terms “quarter-inch scale”, “quarter scale”, or “1/4 inch scale”, they’re talking about what we know as 1/48 scale—1/4 inch to the foot.  Some people get torqued around the axle when you use “quarter scale” in conjunction with a 1/48 scale model—they say that “quarter scale” is one fourth the actual size, a common RC scale.  The term probably originated as a slurred version of “quarter inch scale”.  My answer to them is that they are just as lazy, claiming that ONE-quarter scale and “quarter scale” are the same thing.  It doesn’t just apply to scale models—“quarter scale” also comes from the dollhouse builders—1/48 scale is one-quarter the size of the standard 1/12 dollhouse scale.]

And now the results of the survey in order of preference:

AIRCRAFT

[Note the depth and detail--such as it is--that this portion of the survey gets in to.]

A Kingfisher by Monogram in ¼ inch will be reviewed in next issue of S/M [June 1967].

First Place: Tie between Vought Sikorsky Kingfisher and Douglas TBD Devestator.  The former will be out within a few months in 1/32 scale [A typo?], the model, an OS2U-3 type was made from a three-view drawing appearing in our sister publication Air Classics.  Meanwhile, preliminary work is underway on a model of the later.  [It appears both were close to market.  Monogram’s 1/48 kit was released in late 1966; Airfix produced their 1/72 OS2U in 1967.  Airfix’s 1/72 TBD would debut in 1968; Monogram’s 1/48 kit was released in 1974.]

Second Place: Martin B-10.  A fine aircraft ignored by manufacturers, no plans are in the works for its production, bet we have made contact with a forward looking firm which is giving the matter strong consideration. [Were they referring to Williams Brothers, perhaps?  So far, they’re the only game in 1/72 scale with their 1974-vintage kit.  In 1/48, Lone Star Models did a 1/48 kit originally produced in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s.  Special Hobby has made noise about a new tool kit in 1/72, nothing yet.]

Third Place: Savoia Marchetti 79.  We knew this one was in production [Artiplast of Italy was on the verge of releasing a 1/50 scale kit; Airfix would follow suit with their 1/72 kit around the same time] when we ran our survey and therefore omitted it.  However, we got so many requests for it, we thought we would include it to prove that not all manufacturers are stuck on the same kits.

Fourth Place: Seversky P-35, another of the forgotten classics of the thirties, which many wanted super-detailed in 1/4” scale.  [Williams Brothers would release their 1/32 kit in 1970;) fans of 1/48 scale would get a vacuum-form from Aeroform in the mid-1970’s, but had to wait until 1993 for Hobbycraft to release their injection molded kit.]

Fifth Place: Curtis C-46 Commando, virtually submerged by the Goony bird’s publicity, this World War II workhorse was the biggest non-combat vote getter. [Williams Brothers released their 1/72 scale kit in 1976.]

Sixth Place: Waco 10.  All respondents wanted a big, super-detailed model of this bird with moveable controls ala Monograms F3F and Gulfhawk. [The world still waits for this one.]

Seventh Place: Bell Airacuda, also in quarter inch scale, although collectors of many models complained that 1/72 was the only to keep models from taking over the entire house.  [RarePlanes released their 1/72 vacuum formed kit in 1971; Valom released their injection molded kit in 2006.  Other than limited run and obscure kits, nothing in any other scale.  Also note that in many surveys today, the pendulum has swung the other way, towards larger subjects and bigger kits.]

Eight Place: Tie among Mitsubishi Ki 21 Type 97 “Sally,” Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” and Kawanishi H3K1 flying boat “Emily.”  The first two will eventually be brought out by L/S, the Japanese firm which did the Peggy that appeared in the issue Number 6 [L/S’s Peggy kits were closer to 1/75 scale].  Since L/S and Nichimo are perhaps the two finest companies in Japan, these should be winners.  [Funnily enough, L/S didn’t release kits of either the Sally or Betty, and Nichimo didn’t kit any of them.  The 1/72 Sally was released first by Revell Japan in 1975; MPM released theirs initially in 2001 followed by an improved reissue the following year.  The Betty was released in 1/72 scale by Lindberg in 1970.  Still no injection molded 1/48 scale Sally, but Tamiya came through with a 1/48 scale G4M1 in 1996.  Hasegawa did a 1/72 Emily in 1967; L/S did one on 1/144 scale in 1980.]

Ninth Place: Heinkel He 177 Grief.  Aircraft will be out next year by Faller, a German Maker, but may be hard to come by.  [Scalemates doesn’t list a Faller He177 at all—most of their models were in 1/100 scale, anyway.  Oddly enough, Airfix released a 1/72 He 177 in 1967.  How S/M missed it is still a mystery.  Revell (Germany) released a superb 1/72 kit in 2000.]

Tenth Place: Curtis Shrike.  Again the call was for a super detailed model and readers called for extra parts to make model variations with, thus giving them a wider range of types, and were willing to pay more for same.  [The question in my mind is which “Curtiss Shrike”?  Curtiss used the “Shrike” name for different models of airplanes they built for the Army, from the A-8 to the A-25 (the USAAF version of the SB2C Helldiver—incidentally, the name “Helldiver” was also a common name Curtiss used on their airplanes delivered to the U.S. Navy).  RarePlanes gave us a 1/72 vacuum-formed A-8 in 1969 and an A-12 in 1987; Czech Models released 1/48 scale kits of the A-8 and A-12 in the early 2000’s.  Monogram’s original 1/48 scale SB2C kit came along in 1961; Airfix put out a 1/72 SB2C in 1967 and Matchbox released a 1/72 SB2C in 1973.  In more recent times, ProModeler (Revell-Monogram) made a new-toll SB2C in 1997; in 1/72 scale, Sword (2001) and Academy (2005) are the most recent.]

Eleventh Place: Tie among Boeing F4B, P-12, P-26 all in quarter inch scale.  It was felt the models now on the market of these ships were just too inadequate.  Again super-detailing and size was the big feature, with lots of accessory parts for variation and prime attention paid to exacting detail. It was also found that in conjunction with these inter-war ship types Monogram’s treatment of the Grumman F3F should be extended to these classics also.  [Aurora’s 1/48-ish scale kits were released in 1955 for the P-26, and 1958 for the F4B-4 and P-12E.  They were okay for their day, which is probably why the respondents to the survey wanted newer and better kits.  Again, sound familiar?  It wasn’t until the 1990’s that we saw modern kits of all three—Classic Airframes released their P-12/F4B series in 1999, and Hobbycraft’s P-26 came along in 1994.]

Twelfth Place: Lavochkin LA-5, included with these votes was the comment that most Russian WWII aircraft have been ignored by the manufacturers. [In the larger scales, this is still somewhat true.  Things are getting better with the new Ukrainian companies.  There were vacuum formed 1/48 scale kits of the La-5 by Falcon in 1980 followed in 1991 by Hobbycraft’s rather lukewarm injection molded kit.  In 1/72 scale, the Russian/Soviet types were gaining notice--Airfix released the Yak 9D in 1963, Ilyushin Il-2 in 1964, Petlyakov Pe-2 in 1968.  FROG released the Tupolev SB-2 in 1969, and had a Lavochkin La-7 planned for 1977, but the firm went insolvent before it could be released.  Italeri’s La-5 came along in 1971.]

ARMOR

[Note the general lack of detail when it came to armor kits.  Aircraft were then, I suspect, as much a "majority" subject as they are now.  Plus, reviewing scalemates.com, it became apparent that even though Revell, Adams, Aurora, and other domestic companies were making armor models, it wasn't until Monogram's 1/32 kits and the Tamiya 1/35 scale invasion a few years later that the field really got going.  The smaller scales were dominated by, at first, Airfix's HO/OO (1/76) kits until the Japanese firms started producing 1/72 armor.  By the time ESCI got into the 1/72 armor game, they were producing superb kits in the smaller scale.]

First Place:  General Stuart M3A1 light tank used by British in western desert and christened “Honey”. [Tamiya’s classic Stuart kit in 1/35 arrived in 1974.  Hasegawa’s Braille scale kit in 1/72 arrived the previous year.  Since then, we’ve had more modern kits.]

Second Place:  General Grant with 75 mm gun also mainstay in western desert, early phase.  [Tamiya’s 1/35 scale Grant and Lee kits came along in 1974; like the Stuart, Hasegawa issued 1/72 kits in 1973.  Better kits have come along in recent years.]

Third Place:  German half track armored personnel carrier . . . sd.Kfz 250/1. [How odd is this?  One of the most-used German half-tracks wasn’t kitted in 1/72 until ESCI’s 1974 kit; a 1/76 scale kit came from Eidai in 1972; and Nitto gave us the first 1/35 scale kit in 1968.]

Fourth Place:  American M-10 Tank destroyer with 76 mm gun.  [Academy had a 1/35 kit out in the 1970’s; the smaller scales seemed to have had nothing until the early 2000’s.]

Fifth Place:  British Mk.I “Mother,” variation which first appeared on the Somme in 1916.  [Airfix 1/72 scale in 1996; still nothing in 1/35.]

Sixth Place:  Renault FT tank WWI.  [Nothing until the mid-1990’s MB resin 1/35 kits and the early 2000’s 1/72 kits from RPM.]

Seventh Place:   Christie T3 Tank, pioneer of the early thirties and forerunner of Russian designs.  [Still not thick on the ground—conversions exist in 1/35 scale, and Kora did one in 1/72 scale—all in the 2000’s.]

Eight Place:  Russian T/34 76.  Only model of this type tank is T/34 85 mm gun model by Revell which is no longer in production. [Tamiya’s original 1/35 scale kit came out in 1965.]

Many requests for Japanese tanks were received but these are now available from Japan in any store that stocks Japanese kits.  [I wish they would have elaborated which Japanese tanks.  As an example, Tamiya did a 1/35 Chi-Ha in 1975, Aurora kitted a 1/48 Chi-Ha in 1964, Fujimi released a 1/72 kit in 1974, and Airfix did a 1/76 kit in ’74 as well.  Nothing I’ve seen in 1966/1967 time frame.]

SHIPS

[I'm sure there were more ship requests back in the day.  The Waterline Series wouldn't appear for a few years, but certainly there were holes.]

First Place: RMS Titanic.  The famous liner won by ratio of nearly three to one over its nearest competitor.  Rumor has it that the Cunard White Star Lines would take dim view of a model being produced, as it would revive unpleasant memories.  This seems a bit much when you consider the movies and bestselling books written about this historic steamship.  At any rate, two firms are definitely interested in this project, as a group of modelers who form the Titanic Enthusiasts of America (that’s the name) have collected all the photos etc. needed to do a comprehensive job.  Model would be made in the three ft. overall class. [G-Mark released a 1/350 scale kit in 1975; Revell did a box scale (1/570) kit in 1970.  In the 1990's, Academy released their kits in various scales.]]

Second Place:   German WW I sub (U-9), Kapitainleutnant Otto Weddigen commanding.  Early sub sank three British battlecruisers in first weeks of WWI.  Readers asked for clear plastic hull-half to reveal detailed interior.  One firm has already undertaken the project. [Nothing yet.]

Third Place:  Carrier Enterprise Big “E” a scratch built model of which appeared in previous issue of Modeler.  Kit will appear early next year.  [Assuming they’re talking about CV-6, Tamiya had a Waterline Series 1/700 scale kit out in 1974, and Aurora had their ~1/600 kit out in 1959.  If they mean CVN-65, Revell had a 1/720 kit out in 1969; Aurora’s 1/400 kit was out in 1961.]

AUTOMOBILES

[Once again, note the quick take that gets done with autos.  Perhaps it was (and is), as the article states, that cars were well catered for.  Perhaps, but why is the automotive world still waiting for some of the classic musclecars and cars of the 1950's and 1960's?]
 
Of the thousands of questionnaires received all but a handful checked Hitler’s Mercedes Touring Car which was the biggest single vote getter in any category.  Of all the models available the car manufacturers offer the widest range.  Therefore, many classics ignored in other fields are already available in the car category.  However, in addition to the Mercedes, numerous requests were made for Craig Breedlove’s “Spirit of America”.  [ICM did the Mercedes a few years ago in 1/35 scale.  Only a 1/43 Spirit of America from several manufacturers was ever released.  Part of the reason cars had a wide range in the States comes from the promos and annual kits being produced by AMT, SMT, Jo-Han, and MPC.]

In closing, we wish to thank all those who took the time to write to us.  Time and space do not allow us to reduce all your requests and it must be noted that particular aircraft such as the McDonnell Moonbat and Japan’s Rita, a four engine bomber, will probably never appear except as scratch built projects.  [Funny they said that, since a 1/72 G8N1 arrived later in 1967 from Hasegawa.  The XP-67 kits released in both 1/72 and 1/48 are vacuum form or resin, and came along much later.]

However, many fine models which are out were requested by readers who in all probably, did not know that they were available.  We are speaking of the Douglas A-20 Havoc, the Me. 410 (reviewed in last issue) [November 1966] and now the Arado 196. [How can this be?  How can fans of certain subjects not know kits exist of their favorites?  For starters, we only had magazines—monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly—and word of mouth, either through clubs or the guy at the local hobby shop to go by in the day.]  Others will be coming out shortly and if your local hobby store does not carry them, write to any of the specialist outfits which advertise in S/M; chances are they’ll have what you want.  [I love the shameless plug--Syd Chivers was never one to miss an opportunity, nor was Ed Schnepf.  These guys were the powers-that-be at Challenge.]

***************

So there you have it.  We've come a long way, for sure, since the late 1960's...

Thanks for reading.

Please stay safe.  Check up on your neighbors, won't you, especially elderly neighbors.

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

The Ideal Hobby Shop

“At Warrick Custom Hobbies in Fort Lauderdale, kids who peek in the window of a sidewalk display often will be surprised -- the staff inside will turn on the train shown there to amuse them.  ‘We have a lot of regulars who like to come in and have a cup of coffee and chew the rag,’ Warrick manager Bob Fivey says. ‘That's a very important part of a hobby -- it wouldn't be a hobby if you couldn't share it with someone.’” -- Ft. Lauderdale News and Sun Sentinel, 24 January 1987

Howdy, all, and Happy New Year!

The quote above was from a former manager of the hobby shop I would visit most often when I lived in Ft. Lauderdale, the shop I would later work for.  I never worked for Bob Fivey--he had retired or moved on by the time I went to work for Peter Warrick (not the football player!)--but I did meet him several times over the years.

I couldn’t have put it any better than Bob did.  As I’ve said time and again, the hobby shop of my youth was more than a place to satisfy my modeling needs—it was a place to meet other hobbyists, talk about what we were working on, and to show off our latest works.  I extend those sentiments to model clubs, too, for the same reasons—they are outlets for the same social aspects of what is otherwise a lone-wolf hobby.

Unfortunately, those days are well behind us now, but I remember my first visits to the local shops in Ft. Lauderdale.  None of them were very large—then again, that was true for almost every hobby shop in the day.  What I do recall:

Warrick Custom Hobbies had an enclosure out front of the store in the middle of the covered sidewalk—that was where the train the story talks about was located.  Inside, it was cramped—and crammed.  If memory serves, the shop was maybe 15’X30’.  As you walked in the door, to the right was the cash register and counter space, and to the left the models were stacked like cordwood—the area was partly next to a stairway up to the mezzanine that served as the office space for the store, but on the wall next to the stairs, there was always product on sale on pegs.  I distinctly recall seeing some 1/48 scale New Hope Designs metal figures among the pegs, but since they were expensive and lacked detail, I never bought any.  Later, I recall my friend Rick calling them "No Hope Designs", so I'm glad I passed on them...

As you ventured further into the store, the paint racks were next to the models.  Pactra, Testors, Polly-S, Floquil, Scalecoat, Humbrol, and the remnants of an IR paint rack—they were all there.  As you went further still towards the back of the store—past the book and magazine racks--you were firmly in the land of model railroading.  Trains and train accessories took up perhaps a good portion of the store.  As you reached the back of the store, there was the RC counter.  At times, the store actually filled part of the space in the next storefront to the right—the owner would sell car stereos, scooters, or other goods out of the front of the space next door, and the hobby shop would occupy the back half.  This was usually where the items such as doll houses were—in my years going to the store, I rarely ventured past the paint racks, but I do recall how packed that little store was!

My other part-time haunt (although less and less after I discovered Warrick) was Universal Hobbies in Plantation.  Much like Warrick, it was small and packed full of goods.  Universal had a showcase up front where they displayed people’s models, and I still remember seeing the Hawk U-2 in 1/48 scale, resplendent in the PAVE ONYX “Sabre” camouflage scheme, residing there.  Universal seemed to have less of a plastics selection than Warrick, and didn’t have as many paint lines.  But they were still a good stop every now and then, just to see what they might have.

One thing the two stores had in common (and I’ve waxed on about it before) is what I call “the hobby shop smell”.  Old school hobby shops had a peculiar smell, a mix of volatile organic chemicals—mostly paint thinner, glow fuel, dope, and Castor oil--and musty, moldy, mildewy wood and cardboard.  Once you smelled it, you never forgot it.

Over the years, Warrick would move “out West” from Davie Boulevard in Ft. Lauderdale to Griffin Road in Davie, and later to University Drive in Plantation.  With each move, the stock would change a bit—it would grow to fit the new (larger) store space, and would change with customers’ (or owner’s) tastes.  Over the years, in addition to model railroading, plastic models, and radio control, the store sold doll houses, cameras, and collectible ceramic villages.  In their final location, they added paintball, too.  The one thing they couldn’t move was the “hobby shop smell”.  Each move would diminish the smell until it was no longer a feature of any visit to the shop.

Universal, too, would see change.  They would eventually add the adjacent store front to their space before changing hands and moving to Lauderdale-By-The-Sea in the mid-1990’s.

Both would open second stores in the 1980’s, Warrick in Coconut Creek and Universal in Coral Springs.  Neither was particularly long-lived—if memory serves, they opened in 1984 or thereabouts, and by 1987 or 1988 both were closed and everything reverted to the “Mother Ships”.

There were other, smaller shops in Broward County, and when I was in the neighborhood, of course, I would visit them.  East Acre Hobbies (Plantation), Gateway Hobbies (Ft. Lauderdale), and, when it opened, RC Hobbies (Tamarac) would be on the rotation.  There were numerous smaller (if you can believe it) stores, too, whose names are long forgotten. 

Of course, once I graduated college and was back in the area on a full time basis, I would visit Orange Blossom Hobbies.  I shared my memories of “OB” a few years ago.

In those days, you could also buy models at Discount Stores and 5-and-10 stores (Woolco, Zayre, Ben Franklin, K-Mart, The Treasury), toy stores (Lionel Playworld, Toys R Us, Toy King in Daytona Beach), arts and crafts stores (Pearl Art and Craft, Zak’s, Michaels), convenience stores (7-11, U-Tote-Em, Little General), and a curious hobby store called The Hobby Box—these stores opened in Florida in the mid-1980’s and pretty much all of them same the Sunrise and Coral Springs locations were closed by 1989.  But none of those places offered the refuge a hobby shop did—they were retail establishments and nothing more.    

While I was in Daytona Beach for college, I had a few favorites there, too.  HobbyCraft Junction was an odd little store with an eclectic mix of stuff.  No trains or radio control to speak of; mostly models and crafts.  Ace RC was the radio control headquarters for the area—if Lou didn’t have it, it wasn’t made or you didn’t need it.  Dunn Toy and Hobby was the second floor of Dunn Hardware during my years in Daytona, and they tried to have the latest and greatest in stock.  The last shop, Sky Ltd., opened in ’83 or ’84 and carried a nice assortment of kits.

They’re all gone now.  Whether one sees them as victims of the Internet or of changing tastes, it is a shame.

I face the same issues here in South Carolina.  When I moved here nearly twenty years ago, there were several shops and we used to frequent most of them.  Now, there are really only one or two shops I would consider patronizing out of the shops that are within driving distance. 

A few months ago, a few modeling friends and I started to talk about the state of the local shops.  The HobbyTown that I used to work for has gone pretty much entirely to radio control cars and trucks—they share space with an indoor race track, so it follows they would do heavy business in that particular hobby.  However, they have all but ignored the scale modelers, model railroaders, and radio control flyers.  As the discussion progressed, the question was asked—“What would you do if you owned a hobby shop?”

My suggestions: 

Start with the employees:

• If you are the owner, your job is that business.  In other words, you need to be present at the store pretty much all the time.  When you aren't at the store, you need to be doing something to promote the store, whether it means you go to Chamber of Commerce meetings, hobby club events, or trade shows.
  
  You can't sit at home and wait for the bucks to roll in through the door.  I suppose I learned from one of the best.  Pete started several businesses, and he was ALWAYS involved with them.  When he wasn't at the hobby shop, he was at one of his other businesses, and, rest assured, he knew exactly what was going on at each of them.  He hired the right people, and he expected them to do their jobs. 
  
• Have a knowledgeable staff. When I went to work for Pete in the mid-1990’s, I was told I needed to know more than just plastic models (and more to the point, I needed to know more than just Monogram airplane kits).  My years of building scale models of all types, and a working knowledge of model railroading helped me get “in the door”.  The other guys in the shop, likewise, could converse in several different areas.
  
  When I first went to work at HobbyTown, the owner liked the fact that I knew how to solder, understood batteries and electronics, and was mechanically inclined.  He figured that I could figure out radio control items that would come in for repair.  While I never really enjoyed RC repairs (especially nitro-fueled stuff), I did it because I could.  I’d much rather have been building a model instead of tearing down a near-totaled RC truck.
  
  This brings up another point about tribal knowledge—make sure you have more than one person in the store that has similar knowledge.  Hearing, “Well, our only model guy is only here on Saturday” does the customer no good if they come in on Tuesday.
  
  Finally, having a staff that knows multiple hobbies saves you from having to send business to your competition.  That’s akin to throwing money out the window.
   
• Be friendly and greet everyone who walks into the store—acknowledge their presence and remind them that you are there to answer questions. The staff should also be paying attention to the customers instead of chatting among themselves, other customers, or constantly scanning their smart phones.  This is not to say the staff shouldn’t be involved, but they should have enough foresight to break off their conversation when another customer needs help.
  
  A word on the “Hard-Sell”.  Personally, I don’t like it when a salesman follows me around like a puppy, trying to sell me everything that I touch.  Greet me at the door, ask me what I’m looking for, point me to those items, and let me browse.  If I have questions, I will find you.  I have bought more stuff at a hobby shop by simply wandering the aisles without a salesman in tow.  In fact, if I feel that I’m being given the hard-sell, more times than not I will walk out and buy nothing.
  
  
• Be clean and well groomed. Nothing turns customers off more than a smelly and disheveled salesman.  Pete went so far as to have a personal appearance standard—he wouldn’t allow men to wear beards, and, truth be told, I think he really didn’t like facial hair at all. 
  
  Get shirts for your employees--there are several online shops that can work with you and produce custom shirts at great prices.  Make sure your employees keep them clean and wear them. 
  
  Have a dress code.  The standard uniform at Warrick was a store shirt (we had nice button-down oxfords embroidered with the store logo) and slacks (navy, black, or khaki) or clean blue jeans (with a preference for slacks). 
  
  At HobbyTown, we had polo shirts and were allowed to wear shorts on any day where the daily high temperature was forecast to be above 70 degrees.
  
  
• Your staff needs to be punctual. A good rule of thumb is to arrive 20 minutes prior to opening or start of shift.  In those 20 minutes before opening, the staff needs to go through the store and clean/straighten the merchandise.  This is an ongoing process, and needs to be done several times a day, every day. 
  
  Merchandise in general:
  
  
• Stock as many paint, tool, and finishing product lines as you can, and make sure they remain full. Nothing chases a potential customer away like half-filled paint, Evergreen, and K+S racks.  Likewise, keep the glues and chemicals—glues, dopes, oils, fuels, etc.—stocked.
  
  
• If you cater to model railroaders, have staple items in stock—sectional track, spikes, road bed, ballast, rail joiners, etc. are things all model railroaders will need at one time or another. Stick to the common scales/gauges—HO, N, and O—unless you have a large clientele who are active with G, Z, or S scale/gauge.
• A landscaping selection is also helpful, and to more than just the railroader. Scale modelers use the same products when they landscape a display base.
  
  
• The RC car and truck guys will want spare parts, wheels, tires, tools, and bodies, at the very least. Having the latest hop-up parts is a plus.
  
  
• If you have a magazine and book rack, keep it organized. Older issues get removed and returned for credit, not put on deep discount because someone “forgot” to fill out the form.  Make sure people understand to handle the books carefully—they aren’t cheap, and people generally don’t buy books with creased or torn pages and covers.  See item #4.
  
  
• Other items should be dictated by the local market. If you sell five paint-by-number sets in two days, perhaps you ought to stock more. If, however, you’re sitting on the same pair of gaming dice after a year, sell them at cost and find another line.   
  
  Now, for the scale modeling specific items:
  
  
• Keep up with the new kits, at the very least. You don’t need to buy a case of every new kit that comes out, but at least bring one or two into the store.
  
  If you know you can move it, keep up with the aftermarket, too. The same caveat listed in point #10 should dictate whether or not you do aftermarket as a regular stock item.
  
  If you need to open new accounts with new distributors to get merchandise, DO IT.
  
  
• Keep a good selection on hand of the older kits (staple items like Sherman and Panther/Tiger tanks, P-51 Mustangs, Corvettes, etc.), and don’t forget to have some of the simpler kits for newbies (snap and easy assembly kits).
  
  
• Unless it is a particularly odd item with limited appeal or a big bucks item that you’re not comfortable bringing into the store on speculation, refrain from telling your clientele that you are “happy to special order anything they want.” They can already do that from the comfort of their homes. Oddball and high priced items should be paid special order items, but if you’ve paid attention, much of the store inventory should be easy to order when you follow point #14 below.
  
  A good shop can always sell one or two of most anything.  We never gave a second thought to ordering a pair of the latest Tamiya, Academy, or Revell kits into the shop.  We would also get one each of the more expensive Trumpeter, Meng, and Eduard items in the store, unless customer demand dictated we order more.
  
  Dealing with your clientele:
  
  
• Maintain ties with the local clubs, and cultivate relationships with your regular customers, whether they are club members or not. In order to figure out what to bring in (see #11, #12, and #13), you need to hear from the people who are most likely to buy those products.
  
  If they have a show, sponsor it.
  
  
• Have a soda machine and a coffee pot. Let the customers hang out and, as Bob Fivey put it, “chew the rag”. However, remember point #2 listed above.
  
  
• Offer classes and seminars. In the scale model arena, airbrushing, working with photoetched brass or resin, basic scratch building, all are good subjects. Better still, allow the clubs to have a day in the shop where THEY can offer the classes.  This becomes a win-win—the club or group can use the event as a recruiting session, and the increased traffic should result in increased sales IF you have paid attention to keeping the shelves full.
  
  
• Get to know your customers—find out what they buy and why they buy it. Let them know that their input is appreciated. Ask them if there is anything they’d like to see in the store.  Tell them (better yet, show them—see #18) how much you appreciate their business. 
  
  
• Offer a discount to your regulars. It need not be huge (usually 10%, but I’ve seen some stores offer 15%). Within reason, this should negate the need to price match every item in the store.  Part of that comes with how you buy and price your merchandise, so you need to be vigilant.  Most people know that the online retailers also have wholesale operations, and we used to work the pricing so that someone could buy a kit in the store for about the same price as they could online.  The benefit of buying in the store is that the customer has the product in their hot little hands and doesn’t have to pay shipping or wait for the item.
  
  If you don’t at least try to match online prices, guess what?  They’ll buy online.
  
  
• If you say you will do something, DO IT!

People in the know have an additional suggestion.  They'll say, "Want to make a small fortune in the hobby business?  Start with a large one..."

In other words, it ain't easy to become a hobby tycoon.  But a conscientious person can make a go of a hobby shop IF they work hard and treat it like any other business venture.

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