Greetings and salutations to one and all. I just can't believe in a blink of an eye, half the year will be gone - crazy!

IPMS Niagara Frontier Meeting Agenda - May 20, 2025

NOTE: CANNOT ACCESS FACILITY BEFORE 6:55PM

7:00 PM to 7:10 PM - Place models on tables with description forms.

We would like to encourage all club members to join the national IPMS. Help support your hobby on a national level. IPMS provides the insurance that allows us to have our events, and membership includes a nice monthly magazine. The website can be found at: IPMS, and an application form can be found HERE.

The monthly general club meeting will be on Tuesday, May 20th at the Williamsville Youth & Recreation Center, 5005 Sheridan Drive, Williamsville, NY 14221, starting at the usual 7:00pm. Please note that we are renting the facility from 7:00 to 9:00pm. The facility is NOT responsible for opening the doors before 7:00pm, so if you get there early, please be patient. Parking and entry to the building is in the back. The annual BuffCon pizza party will happen at this meeting, and there will also be a 50/50 raffle held at the meeting to help raise funds for the club. Directions:

To keep our club mailing list up-to-date, if you are a member of IPMS Niagara Frontier and have recently changed your email address or are not receiving the club newsletter and meeting emails, please contact our website coordinator, Larry Osolkowski, and pass along your email information. Thanks!

A link to the current Sprue and Glue News has been included in the Newsletter Blast emails provided by National IPMS. For those readers from other chapters, and anyone else who might be interested, our website has a Newsletter page with buttons to select any of our newsletters from the current year. There is also a button on that page to access the Archive page, which has links to all of the newsletters published since September 2007.

A NOTE TO NON-MEMBERS

The minutes from the April 2025 general meeting are included below. Thanks to our Secretary, Al Germann, for the meeting minutes.

April 22nd - President Mike Butry led the meeting.

• Old Business:
  • The financial summary for BuffCon was presented with very good results and above the last three years for net profit.
• New Business:
  • The general meeting in June will be a swap meet for members. The business part of the meeting will be brief allowing time for member to sell or swap any model kits or supplies they bring in.
• BuffCon #40, April 6, 2025:
  • Thanks to all the members that helped with the show.
  • A count of 354 models were entered and 66 vendor tables were sold.
  • Judging went very smoothly. This was in part the number of judges participating and starting on time.
  • As a thank you to the club members, we will have pizza and wings (and beverages) at the general meeting in May. Members are encouraged to bring a side dish or dessert.
  • There was some feedback from attendees on the show that was discussed, that being category splits if overcrowding is an issue. Also, with "sweeps" in a single category, the policy for this year was one person can only win 2 of the 3 awards in a single category.
  • Some discussion on trophies versus plaques.
• BuffCon #41,TBD 2026:
  • None.
• Miscellaneous/Open Floor:
  • 50/50 raffle was run at this meeting with an $85/85 split.
  • A demo was presented on gap filling by Tom Petkovsky.
  • There was a suggestion for painters (paint on canvas) in the club to consider displaying or entering some at the Erie County Fair.
  • The discussion for the models on the tables went around the room where people sat.

To promote greater transparency regarding the operation of the club and the EBoard, action items from the current month's EBoard meeting will be published in the newsletter. These will not be detailed minutes of the meetings, but highlights that the general membership should be aware of.

May 12 - President Mike Butry led the meeting, held at Section 8 Hobbies.

• Old Business:
  • Tom F. reported a financially successful BuffCon. The club treasury is currently in excellent shape.
• New Business:
  • Discussion on investigating purchase of a small enclosed trailer for storage of club materials in one place. Justen H. at Section 8 has offered space on his property for keeping the trailer.
• BuffCon #40, April 6th, 2025:
  • Larry O. reported a mismatch of category award sponsors between Dick Schulenberg's list and the judging sheets from BuffCon. Chief Judge Justin S. said the judging sheets were carried forward from last year, and were accidentally not updated; this will be corrected for next BuffCon.
  • Larry O. mentioned that the list of award winners was posted on the BuffCon website.
  • There was a discussion of an anonymous letter sent to the IPMS Regional Coordinator complaining about admission charges to the show, claiming that they were not on the flyers (they were). A decision was made to create a "family" admission of $15; children under 12 are and have always been free.
• BuffCon #41, Sunday (April 5th) 2026:
  • N/A
• Miscellaneous:
  • Discussion on investigating a show or display at Galleria Mall.
  • Additional discussion on participation at the model train shows, and possibly at the Erie County Fair.
  • Preparations were made for the upcoming pizza party at the May meeting.
  • Dick S. presented a revised category list for the next BuffCon. It was approved with minor corrections.

Ron Mikol displayed his Willys Drag Set, which was a big winner at BuffCon.

Paul Hines displayed two new nautical paintings. Paul described the first: "I saw this photo of two hydroplanes racing and thought it would make for a dynamic painting. Something different for sure."

Paul's second painting was "a converted marine lobster boat into a pleasure boat. A great summer day on the water, very colorful to paint."

Tom Petkovsky brought in his Encore Models 1/235 USS Olympia, a Revell 1959 kit re-issue. He used Mission Models and MiG Ammo paints, and added a scratch-built block & tackle for the rigging. Tom said the 1959-based kit had lots of flash.

John-Allen Price displayed a pair of aircraft models. The first was a 1/72 Airfix He-111H-6 bomber, KG26 Lion Geschwader. The model was finished (by best recollection) with Polly-S paints. John-Allen said the model was originally an H-20 model, and he used an Air Model aftermarket set to convert it to an H-6. He mentioned that in order to repaint it as a night bomber, he used a black wash to subdue the upper fuselage and wing camouflage; the underside, except for canopy framing was repainted matt black. Wear marks were added to the upper wings. John-Allen said that using auto body putty to fill in around the new gondola was a chore. He picked the subject because he wanted a model of the He-111s used in the "Battle of Britain" movie.

John-Allen's second model was a 1/72 A-6A Intruder, a "Frankenstein" model using parts from Revell and Hasegawa A-6E kits. He used Model Master, Polly-S and Humbrol acrylic and enamel paints, with no weathering added. John-Allen used parts from both Revell and Hasegawa A-6E 1/72 kits, plus 3D-printed Snake Eye Retarded 500lb. bombs. He mentioned that kitbashing a model out of two kits was interesting, but he won't do it again. The subject is part of his ongoing "Jungle Cats on the Flight Deck" series.

Jim Greenfield had a couple of items on the model tables. The first was a Games Workshop Tyranid Biovore Bio Weapon converted to a Tyranid Reaper. Jim used Citadel paints and washes with drybrushing. He said he used an Alien Attacker from Independence Day as the main body and went from there. Jim said he picked the subject "because I'm crazy".

Jim's second item was a Renwal M552 Sky Sweeper Anti-aircraft Gun. He used Tamiya, Citadel and Mission Models paints along with AK pencils, and added drybrushing. Jim modified the breech and loader positions. He picked the subject because he brought a Sky Sweeper shell (live round) with a V.T. fuse (also live) home on his bicycle.

Justin Schroeder brought in a 1/72 Haunebull by Squadron Models. He primed it using Pro Acryl matt black, and used matt gray by Monument Hobbies, along with Vallejo paints. Justin said he added some greebles in the bridge, but had a difficult time gluing the top and bottom sections together. The model scored a gold in the What If category at Heritagecon and a 2nd place at BuffCon in the Science Fiction category.

Larry Osolkowski had three items on the table. The first was his work-in-progress Monogram 1/25 Porsche Indycar race car. The body side pods were masked and painted with MCW Quaker State Green, and had decals applied. Larry is in the process of masking the rest of the body, which is difficult because of the boundaries between the green and white being defined by the decals. He made a copy of the decals on regular paper and is using them as guidelines.

Larry's second item was his ongoing progress on the BBR 1/43 Ferrari F310B 1997 F1 race car. The red paint has been applied to all of the appropriate parts, and most of the decals have been applied to the wing parts and body. They then received a few coats of gloss clear, which will be polished.

Larry's last item was another new kit, a 1/20 Colton Herta Indycar from Salvino's JR Models. This is the latest release in the series, and Larry was motivated to get this one after having a nice chat with Colton Herta at Sebring last year. It's the same kit as the other Salvino's Honda Indycars with new decals, and looks very nice in the box.

Mike Butry displayed his brand new Tamiya 1/48 MSAI Stuart. It was airbrushed with Tamiya paints, and he added a couple of tarps made from tissue paper and some stowage bags from the spares box. Mike also used sheet stock and photoetch to make a front deflection plate. Weathering started off with a wash from AK Interactive, then switched to AK's weathering pencils. For chips and scratches, Mike used #2 and #3 drafting pencils along with a silver Prisma pencil. He said it was a straightforward build with no issues. Mike mentioned that he picked the subject because he wanted a quick build and wanted to try out an assembly idea which worked out well.

Al Germann showed us his progress on his nuclear blast house used during tests in the 1950's. Roofing has started and the smoke effect is actually dryer lint. It's an interesting scratch built subject that he enjoys. He also had another item on the table that really nailed it.

Ted Szczesny displayed his latest work-in-progress, a Hornby/Pocher 1/8 Lotus 72D F1 race car. He said it was a partial build displaying some of the future hidden detail. The model comes pre-painted, but he used a Sharpie and some Tamiya acrylics for touchups. Ted said some pre-painted parts are removed from sprues and bagged; lots of labeled bags with these and other parts resulted in what's been described as a "parts treasure hunt". He mentioned that the kit had poor building instructions, with many wrong parts and screws in the wrong place errors. He said that's typical of Pocher kits no matter what vintage, but upgraded and (mostly) corrected instructions are available online. Ted described the kit as a challenging "glue and screw" model. It's a multi-media kit, and parts include die-cast, ABS, soft rubber, hard rubber, metal, micro screws, clear plastic and some small cloth. Parts are located in foam trays, on trees, in bags, etc. Ted also displayed some of the adhesives he used: B7000 small tube jewelry glue with a pin-point applicator tip, which tacks up in a minute or two but takes 24 hours to fully dry; G-S Hypo Cement was another option. Tamiya Cera-grease was also used to allow micro screws to self tap with less force required.

Dan Marafino had several aircraft-themed paintings on display.

There were some unidentified items on the tables.

Tom Petkovsky presented a demo on gap and seam filling using an interesting material, dry wall spackling compound. It's really inexpensive, and Tom says it holds up well under paint, and can be shaped with damp sponges, Q-tips or brushes to save on sanding and access tight spots.

Finally, some around-the-room shots.

Thanks to the members for handling the model tables, and Larry Osolkowski for the photos.