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Plastic modeling


Butch Had Not

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Yeah, I dropped the prices I had for kits on eBay just a little and sales really took off. You still get the guy who offers 13 bucks for a kit that will cost 12 in fees and postage, but whaddayagonnadoo.

I just got through doing another 2 square feet of WW2 game minis for a friend, 1/56 scale.

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On 1/7/2021 at 10:17 PM, Braff Zacklin said:

I suspect it's a bit of a manufactured shortage, a la the semiconductor industry, but I'm a cynical ass, so the truth might be elsewhere.

I don't know - I would imagine that ramping up production of plastic scale models is not easy.  It's not insurmountable, but the issue is that most models are not in constant production - they may do batches of like 10,000 or so at a time.  They probably line up what their production runs are going to be for several months in advance, so if a model sells out, they may not have room in their schedule to re-issue it for quite a while.

I've seen more of it on the RC side of things - I farted around and found out, and didn't get a couple of re-released buggies for less than MSRP when they were released last year, and they are now running at $100 over (or more) MSRP.  Then again, RC is a helluva lot harder to ramp up and down.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 7 months later...

Had a hell of a lot of important things to do today, but they got SNAFUd by situations outside my control. I was in a frenzy sending messages to try to get it sorted out.

Then I said Fuggit.

Now I am happily puttering with a 1/56 scale M3A1 Halftrack kit, putting it together for me.

All that alleged real-world stuff will be just fine later.

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Several more days into it, 4 halftracks assembled. They are 1/56 scale models from Warlord Games for their "Bolt Action" rules set, which is a beer and pretzels Sgt. Rock Saves Pvt. Ryan sort of thing with 28mm toy soldiers.

I am attempting to build a fairly realistic version of a US Armored Infantry Platoon with whatever they really had at hand.

The kits are better than my modeling skills. I used Gorilla Glue because these are game pieces that will get handled. I plan to cover the fingerprints and mismatched seams with liberal applications of "mud" and maybe a strategic tarp or two.

 

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In addition to the Warlord Games figures, I have some Wargames Factory ones in the same scale. They are in less dramatic poses, many of them just standing around, so I am dragooning some of them to be vehicle crew. This fellow's right arm originally held a BAR, but I cut off the weapon and now he'll be holding a Lucky Strike.

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The .50 cals are fiddly and one of the barrels broke. To fix this one I cut two thin strips of card stock, then stuck one to what was left of the barrel, let the Gorilla Glue soak it. When that dried, I added more glue and lined the broken piece of barrel where it was supposed to be. Once that dried, I glued the second piece of card stock on the other side of the break so they'd act as a splint.

Probably next I'll take a small square of normal paper, soak it in white glue, and mold it over the gun like a tarp so just the end of the barrel peaks out, paint the "tarp" olive drab after it dries, and it will help hold the barrel together.

I guess I could chop the whole barrel off and replace it with wire, but I know I'll get stabbed by my own gun if I do.

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Getting reinforcements. A resin and metal Trenchworx White Scout Car got here in the mail, very little flash, nice detail. The only thing off is the shallowness of the crew compartment, I guess so the resin floor would be thick enough to hold up. I did have to carve off the Warlord Games driver's legs so he'd fit, but now he is a Scout Car centaur.

Another thing you can do in this scale is find toy vehicles for conversions. Here is a Disney/Pixar "Sarge" jeep that cost a fraction of a model kit. I converted one mostly with a paint job. The blue windshield doesn't really get the reflection effect I was going for, but it's less freaky than those eyes.

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  • 3 weeks later...
3 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

Been doing a little scratch-building using linoleum, balsa, copper wire, and scraps from the bitbox. Finished a .30 cal MG and a 60mm mortar to support my 1/56 scale toy soldiers.

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guy on the left looks to me like Gunny Hartman, demonstrating the proper technique for strokin' it in the Marine Corp.

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  • 11 months later...

It's not a necro bump if it's been less than an entire year.

All that stuff upthread, ain't none o that been touched. Got busy doing other stuff and forgot it. In the meantime, an old friend asked me to do some more painting for him. 10 years ago when I was broke, he sent me enough work to pay off my wife's new car. So sure, I'll do a little more.

The kits arrive and, instead of simple resin or metal pieces like before, minimum assembly, these are 1/100 styrene plastic kits. Fun but slow.

Got 5 knocked out, gonna wait a couple of days for all the tiny finger-tip stabs to heal.

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  • 2 weeks later...

One of my fb friends builds incredible large scale Star Trek models as a hobby. He recently purchased a C8 Corvette and made a model of it. The level of detail is beyond my comprehension! Every bit is made by him, nothing purchased. He built a vacuum form for the windshield and the rest of the “glass”. Just phenomenal work!

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02ey6FCoc8F6dwn6swBZbypf3hsPQWzP1RrRZAsQv74w5uoZdAuLYwcX53vEQpsriel&id=1547600689&mibextid=qC1gEa

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  • 1 year later...

So I’m letting my kid do models on his own, and the Hobby Boss kits are good for that. We were at a model  shop (the only one in Austin it seems) and I was talking to somebody at the counter and my kid came up with a Mig-15 and asked “what’s a fagot”

shocked steve harvey GIF
 

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On 3/12/2024 at 6:03 PM, atomheartbevo said:

So I’m letting my kid do models on his own, and the Hobby Boss kits are good for that. We were at a model  shop (the only one in Austin it seems) and I was talking to somebody at the counter and my kid came up with a Mig-15 and asked “what’s a fagot”

shocked steve harvey GIF
 

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Tell him that a fagot is a bundle of sticks.  That has been its usage for far longer than the other.

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On 3/12/2024 at 6:03 PM, atomheartbevo said:

So I’m letting my kid do models on his own, and the Hobby Boss kits are good for that. We were at a model  shop (the only one in Austin it seems) and I was talking to somebody at the counter and my kid came up with a Mig-15 and asked “what’s a fagot”

shocked steve harvey GIF
 

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I was at The Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson Saturday. They had a couple of these on display with the nickname on the plaque. I imagine that there were a lot of parents that weren't pleased to answer the question.

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On 3/12/2024 at 6:03 PM, atomheartbevo said:

So I’m letting my kid do models on his own, and the Hobby Boss kits are good for that. We were at a model  shop (the only one in Austin it seems) and I was talking to somebody at the counter and my kid came up with a Mig-15 and asked “what’s a fagot”

shocked steve harvey GIF
 

101299-11185-pristine.jpg

Uses a Rolls Royce centrifugal (not axial, which is odd for a turbojet powering a fixed wing aircraft) turbojet that the Brits literally gave to the Sovs. Otherwise they’d have been powered by some shit ass BMW 003 development.

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8 minutes ago, elfenix said:

Uses a Rolls Royce centrifugal (not axial, which is odd for a turbojet powering a fixed wing aircraft) turbojet that the Brits literally gave to the Sovs. Otherwise they’d have been powered by some shit ass BMW 003 development.

This is why Surly is awesome.

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1 hour ago, elfenix said:

Uses a Rolls Royce centrifugal (not axial, which is odd for a turbojet powering a fixed wing aircraft) turbojet that the Brits literally gave to the Sovs. Otherwise they’d have been powered by some shit ass BMW 003 development.

The centrifugal-flow Nene was superior to the axial-flow BMW 003 or Jumo 004 in terms of power and reliability, but in terms of future growth and technology in the aviation industry, ze Germans und Hans von Ohain took the better path.

The Brits were terribly naive in donating a Nene, imo.

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7 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

dammit.... Busting out my 1/72. Want to do eastern front. Seelow heights.

Anyone want to drink beer and paint?

I remember when I last assembled a 1/72 plastic fighting vehicle. Some little German tank. It had 8,000 individual road wheels, and they would bounce way up under every piece of furniture in the room.

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1 minute ago, RDCanecutter said:

I remember when I last assembled a 1/72 plastic fighting vehicle. Some little German tank. It had 8,000 individual road wheels, and they would bounce way up under every piece of furniture in the room.

And if you lose any more than a bit of glue they melt. So they get blackened and a blow out.

 

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