July 2017 Canada Remembers - Armed Forces Day 2017 Photos courtesy of Cam Tetrault. This Meeting Wednesday July 5 th Next Meeting Wednesday August 2 nd Spare Parts is a monthly publication of the Saskatoon Chapter of the International Plastic Modellers Society (IPMS). Articles and comments should be submitted to Mike Reid, Editor, 41 Moncton Place, Saskatoon, SK S7H 4M6 or by email at minreid@shaw.ca. 2017 Scale Modellers Association of Saskatoon
THE EXECUTIVE PAGE PROGRAMME FOR THE JULY MEETING 6:30 pm Socializing, bring and build, etc. 7:30 pm Business Agenda (no reason not to continue building at the same time). Visitors & Introductions. Old Business: Finalize list for Dundurn; Bridgecon - comments, etc.; more suggestions for future Club Theme Nights. New Business: Set date for SMAS BBQ. Reports and Updates: Treasurer. Models on the Display Tables. 2017/2018 EVENTS CALENDAR July 5 th : Regular club meeting. July 15 th : Workshop at Greg Burke s - air brushing & resin casting. August 2 nd : Regular club meeting. August 26 th : BBQ hosted by Sue and John Giesy. September 6 th : Club Meeting Theme Night. #1: Made in Germany. #2: Only in Canada, eh? October 4 th : Fall Swap & Sale. November 1 st : Annual General Meeting. 2018 February 12 th -March 18 th : Display at the Centre Mall. COMMENTARY So you spent the weekend at an army base being interrogated eh? In many Third World countries that would denote a pretty serious situation. But for some SMAS members it was quite a different experience. Perhaps interrogation is a bit too strong a word; it was more answering queries from spectators during the Festival for Heroes at Dundurn, than it was trying to stay out of a prison camp. The organizers give us all the space that we wanted in the base gymnasium. In fact we could easily have had double the number of models on display. The only problem was that on Saturday many people did not realize we were there. So on Sunday we were able to rig up a club banner outside to attract more attention. That seemed to help to the point where Bill Cromwell spent much of the afternoon talking about the AFV collection on the tables. In fact he was impressed by the knowledge of many of the kids about armoured vehicles, apparently because of time spent playing World of Tanks on the internet. One surprise for me was to find out just how many people did not realize all of the models were hand-built. Many were not aware that significant work was required to assemble and paint all the parts that come inside a kit box. On Saturday while working on an Italeri Sunderland, some observers (who had obviously built kits in the past) were surprised to see many detail parts being pre-painted before assembly. Just another way of getting the message out about what skills are involved in our hobby. The weekend after Dundurn saw the first Saturday Workshop of 2017. Nothing very structured for that one although we did get into the availability of various acrylic fluids. Not only paint but things such as acrylic varnishes ranging from high gloss to matte. The use of acrylic mediums and varnishes to change the appearance of acrylic paint was discussed. We did not address the same subject for oil based paints because fewer model builders are using those. Also there is a much smaller range of additives available for oil based paint. There was also a look at typical tools used for dealing with photo etch frets, courtesy of Dave DeBack. Although specialist pliers are available in hobby stores, pliers with smooth (not serrated) jaws can be had at some hardware locations. Dave says the critical thing is that the jaws meet together along their length with no gaps....continued on page 3 CLUB MEMBER DISCOUNTS Ph: 306-954-3434 Email: info@expresshobbies.com Web: www.expresshobbies.com 411-34th Street East Saskatoon, SK S7K 0S9 10% Ph: 306-749-3606 Email: mailorder@group2hobbies.com Web: www.group2hobbies.com P.O. Box 339, 279 Bellamy Avenue Birch Hills, SK S0J 0G0 10% Toll Free: 1-877-574-6229 Email: jp.hobby@shaw.ca Web: www.jphobbies.com 300-13th Street West Prince Albert, SK S6V 3G3 10% 2
...Continued from page 2 There will be another Saturday session in July with two topics front and centre. Moulding and casting resins has been requested, while a repeat of the care and feeding of air-brushes will definitely be another. As always, exactly what we achieve is dependent upon who can turn up to do demos etc. The Dundurn display was the last significant show before summer. At the moment we have not heard anything further about displays at Harris and Humboldt, both of which are likely to happen later in the Fall. According to Wes there was some talk about the Harris event being a larger, two day affair. Not sure how the organizers would accommodate that if the intention is to use the same building as the previous show. At Humboldt it will probably be the same as last year, so Dave Hill is keeping tabs on that situation. - Mike Reid WORKBENCH - GOOP It is not often that cultural differences could be blamed for things that do not work properly. But I suspect that is likely the case for my failure to make GOOP using white glue and borax. First of all, why would anyone want to make GOOP? The write-up that came with the formula offers hints that it may be useful for a flexible mask amongst other things. So what was the cultural problem; simply a matter of naming dinnerware! The formula (recipe?) is written in pioneer terms, using spoons for measurement of volume. Unfortunately a table spoon in Canada is not the same as a table spoon where I grew up in England. There the same thing is called a dessert spoon. You would think that since the proportions, if not the actual amounts, are the same then GOOP should result. But it did not so, back to the kitchen. One change to be made will be substitution of acrylic floor wax in place of water. Hopefully that will result in something a bit stiffer than regular GOOP, maybe to the point where it could be used for simple mould making. The Internet has various recipes for making one type of GOOP or another. Some use cornstarch as a basic material, others revolve around Borax. Please let me know if you happen to find one that would be useful in the hobby. - Mike Reid TIP TIME - LOOK BEFORE YOU FIX One project advancing slowly on my workbench is a Revell Airbus A380 in 1/144 th scale. When dry fitting the wing sections they looked like something out of Willy Wonka s Aeroplane Factory, warped and mis-shaped. Those were put on one side until a practical method for straightening them came to mind. Each piece is so large that the conventional steaming method probably would not have worked. They were on the verge of being put into a warm oven when my sub-conscious must have kicked in. Perhaps a reference check would be a good idea before proceeding with any straightening procedure. Turns out, after finding head-on photos of the A380, that Revell got it pretty close. The wing does have a wavy appearance and when top and bottom halves were glued together, it looked pretty good. - Mike Reid 3
CHRIS PARSONS HERCULES PROJECT (Editor s Note: Chris sends me lots of photos and commentary on his projects, so I try to pick the most interesting and amusing material). This is a mock up of the wing to fuselage joint to test the fit and function of the steel rod I m using as a wing spar, nothing is glued together. You can see by the pictures the spar works to take the weight off of the fuselage joint as it is still held together with tape. The CC130 almost came to a smashing end, all because of silvered decals and Vallejo flat clear. The decals, in an act of desperation were mostly fixed by using lacquer thinner as a setting agent and misting Tamiya XF 53 over top of them in light coats to blend the shine out. The final coat of Vallejo flat varnish must have gone bad in the bottle...actually 2 flat clears must have went bad in their bottles. I shook the paint well before use, then squirted a small amount into the airbrush and started flat coating the model. At that point something nasty happened, a clot of paint clogged the gun briefly then sneezed out onto the model...remaining calm (quite out of character for me) I set the wing down and waited for it to harden before removing it with a knife tip. I thought to myself, OK I ll add a little Vallejo airbrush thinner to the paint cup and carry on. This I did; immediately the airbrush sprayed a snot like substance onto the model. I dumped out the paint cup and cleaned the airbrush. I then removed the little eye dropper top from the bottle of Vallejo and used a stir stick to give it a good stir, then a shake and a re-try (this time not on the model though). The problem recurred with the paint clogging the gun. I tossed the paint bottle in the garbage (nearly full) and took a new (another new) bottle of the same flat clear and not making the same mistake twice this time (that same mistake), popped the eye dropper insert off of the bottle and gave it a good stirring, re-inserted the eye dropper and gave it a shake (the paint bottle I mean). I loaded the airbrush and confidently (ignorantly) went ahead and started spraying flat clear onto the model...it happened again, snotty stuff shot out at the model and gobbed spit balls onto the wing surface...this is where the model, the Vallejo varnish and the airbrush all nearly went to see Jesus. I have a bit of a Hulk temper, it takes a while to spool up but, when it does something will almost always get wrecked, (Dave and I jokingly call it the happy dance). I surprised myself and set the airbrush down, gathered up all the Vallejo varnish I have in stock and threw them in the garbage (2 flat 2 gloss and one satin, I ve sworn off Vallejo varnish for now). Then after cleaning the air brush with Alclad airbrush cleaner, the model was finished using Alclad flat aqua varnish. I ve included pictures of the model being unmasked and a chunk of the Vallejo booger the airbrush sneezed out. Final picture is the CC-130 finished up with a 1:1 RBF (Remove Before Flight) flag to show the size of this model...big! - Chris Parsons...Continued on page 5 4
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SHOPPING CART Let Me Make One Thing Perfectly Clear! That is another phrase from an American President that will go down in history; but it has absolutely nothing to do with model building, although this next piece is relevant. Some of the applications we have need clear and colourless filler of some sort. One example would be such things as small, cabin windows in 1/144 th airliners. I am not sure how other builders approach this because generally speaking, clear parts are provided in the kit. Those parts are intended to be installed prior to the fuselage halves being joined. That means a lot of masking needed before painting. Me, being the lazy type, decided that required too much effort. Applying liquid masking to the windows before putting them in place was not 100% successful. Although Microscale Kristal Kleer has been in common use in the hobby for some time, I found some of the clear acrylic finishes to be superior. Intended for artists, they provide a better answer since they are water resistant. Now another non-acrylic product has surfaced. When a product label for clear glue states washable, it catches the eye, even when identified as school glue. In fact I almost walked by the display stand that had this DARICE product (Photo 1), together with other regular school glues. Right now just how large an opening can be filled with it has yet to be determined. I suspect it will not be that big, but certainly big enough to fill the windows in a 1/144 th scale Airbus A380. So now my procedure will be to paint the fuselage, put the windows in with Darice, then clear coat with acrylic before applying decals. Tests showed that once the window film was dry, it was not affected by clear coating with acrylic. So that will take care of small windows but what about larger openings? That is the point where artist s acrylics come into play. Self-levelling clear gel (Photo 2) provides the answer for many situations. Similar liquids will do close to 10mm openings (with a steady hand). The dried film is waterproof and will take a coat of clear acrylic no problem. What was found when comparing these two products was that the Darice school glue was less messy when it came to really small openings. Keeping a damp tissue handy is a good idea to clean any liquid that gets away from the opening. Putting the glue into a window opening is achieved using a mechanical pencil with special tip (Photo 3). The tip is a piece of shish kebob stick (bamboo I suspect) that has been shaped. For the smallest windows an oval shaped end is best. Bamboo is hard and can be shaped using a sharp knife and sandpaper. For larger openings a paint brush handle can be just the ticket. Note that the gel is self-levelling ; there are others which do not have this property, in fact they are designed to retain brush strokes and shaping. Acrylic gels with those other properties can be very useful for dioramas. They can be used for reproducing various surfaces on water, mud and the like. So in what other areas could the products highlighted here be useful? For aircraft that would be places such as navigation lights, warning beacons, landing lights and so on. Many kits provide clear parts for many of those items, but over the years I found many to be a poor fit. It may be that it will take clear multiple coats of gel to get the right effect, especially with landing lights. The beacons mentioned are generally those on the spine and belly of airliners and cargo aircraft. Typically those are amber so food colouring will be needed to make them look right. Being able to produce translucent finishes means the possibility of applying similar techniques to automotive subjects. Signal and tail lights are the first things that come to mind since not all kits provide them already coloured. Are there other areas or parts where these materials can be used? If anybody comes up with ideas for their use please let me know so it can be publicized here. - Mike Reid Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 7
NEWS FLASH - THIS JUST IN Tamiya has just announced a brand new modern main battle tank in three (count em, 3) scales: 1/48 th, 1/35 th and 1/16 th scale. Information gleaned from their FaceBook page and Track48 website. This feels like Christmas in July! - Ken Kolenovsky SMAS WEBSITE Need to find SMAS newsletter back issues? Check us out! You can find them at: www.smasonline.net Colin Kunkel - President Ph: 306-652-8491 Email: modelairplaneguy@gmail.com SMAS Executive Ray Moskowec - Vice-President Ph: 306-491-8651 Email: ttmoskowec@hotmail.com Mike Reid - Newsletter Editor Ph: 306-477-1927 Email: minreid@shaw.ca Rick Hales - Treasurer Ph: 306-933-2938 Email: richale@sasktel.net Printing Courtesy of 1-306-934-7575 619-8th Street East Saskatoon, SK Canada SMAS meets on the first Wednesday of each month at the Parkridge Centre, 110 Gropper Crescent, Saskatoon (off Fairlight Drive), officially starting at 7:00 p.m. Any suitable material received for the newsletter on the Sunday before the meeting, stands a very good chance of being printed for that issue. 8