Greetings and salutations to one and all! Ah, summer has finally arrived (I think?) and like me, I am sure that your bench time has decreased big time. Since none of us want our benches to feel lonely and unloved, last month we began our annual Tony Bartozek "I'm Not a Modeling Loser" club challenge. As of this date, we have 13 club members that have joined the challenge, which runs 'til our September meeting. So, you have plenty of time to join, and if you'd like to partake, just have Larry take a pic of you and your kit of choice.

Last month we also had our after-Buffcon pizza/welcome to the club's new general meeting place party! It was great to see everyone and I hope everyone liked the new location. In my opinion, I think it's a really great venue, with good lighting and the acoustics are a lot better than the old location. As for the table configuration, we'll keep it the same, but at this meeting, we'll place a few tables in the center for our table discussions instead of having our project(s) in front of us. We'll try both ways, then we can take a vote on it.

IPMS Niagara Frontier Meeting Agenda - July 18, 2023

NOTE: CANNOT ACCESS FACILITY BEFORE 6:50PM

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, July 18th at the Williamsville Youth & Recreation Center, 5005 Sheridan Drive, Williamsville, NY 14221, starting at the usual 7:00pm. Parking and entry to the building is in the back. There will also be a 50/50 raffle held at the meeting to help raise funds for the club. Directions:

Bruce Mathes, our long distance member from Hastings, NY, north of Syracuse is starting a scratch-built 1/48 scale Martin P4M Mercator US Navy patrol bomber. He's looking for the landing gear, wheels and possibly the top turret from a Monogram 1/48 B-24 to simplify this big project. If you can help, please connect with Dick Schulenberg at 716-934-2161 or at the next meeting. Dick can get the parts to Bruce.

We received a phone call from a non-club member recently, requesting some help with selling off his collection of unbuilt models. His name is Paul Rados, and he has around 180 kits of 1/48 aircraft of various types and various model manufacturers. Paul can be reached at 716-694-8626 or by email at: psmrados@aol.com.

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 added in recent months to 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 June 2022 general meeting are included below. Thanks to our Secretary, Al Germann, for the meeting minutes.

June 20th - President Mike Butry led the meeting.

• Old Business:
  • This meeting is at our new location at the Youth Center on Sheridan Drive near Evans. This included the post-BuffCon pizza party.
• New Business:
  • Start of the Tony Bartozek "I'm Not a Modeling Loser" challenge starts today.
• BuffCon #39, April 2, 2024:
  • Tom F. stated he sent the Knights Hall the deposit for BuffCon 39.
• NorEastCon 51, Saturday, April 29th, 2023:
  • None.
• Miscellaneous/Open Floor:
  • 50/50 raffle was run at this meeting, with the tickets sold resulting in a $60/$60 split.
  • Some feedback on the recent TORCON show: it was a very good show with around 300 models.
  • Bob C. led presentation of members' models on the tables.

To promote greater transparency regarding the operation of the club and the EBoard, action items from the previous 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.

Eboard meetings are suspended for the summer months of June, July and August. Meetings will resume in September.

Al Germann sent in some photos of work he did on some kit bicycle wheels. Al's comments: "I re-spoked the wheels on that Schwinn bicycle model. Huge difference. I have two motorcycle kits I will have to build soon. I use guitar string on the front wheel. When I got to the rear wheel, I used a softer wire but same diameter. I made a fixture to hold rim and hub and super glued each spoke at both ends."

Moving to the model tables, John Doerr brought in his progress on his Trumpeter 1/144 F-86F. He used Tamiya Gloss Aluminum spray, acrylic German Gray and Model Master enamel Steel paints. John mentioned that the decals were extremely difficult to apply. He said he likes F-86s.

Bob Conshafter showed us his LTD Dewoitine D.520 in-progress build. He's using Testors Model Master acrylics in RLM 74, 75 and 76 shades, and said he's working on perfecting the free-style mottle technique of German weathering. Bob also added True Details resin wheels and a prop spinner from a Tamiya Chauvere. Bob said the model is a short run kit, which he's never built before, with nice subtle recessed details.

Bob also had a display of painted spoons for color testing.

Mark Gadek displayed his 1/32 AZUR H75 Hawk. He used Italeri paints with a final coat of Alclad Matt Clear. Weathering was done with a Tamiya pin wash, and Mark added some resin and photo-etch detail bits. He said the resin cockpit parts did not fit, and the cowl halves were not the same size and didn't fit around the engine, so he had to add plastic card to widen and reshape. Mark picked the model because it was built in Buffalo at the Elmwood Plant. He mentioned that it was a short run kit with not many parts, so he thought it would be a quick build, which it was not. It took a lot of cleanup and modification to make things go together.

Tim Grieve brought in a War Eagle Hobbycraft Canada 1/48 AR-234C. It was finished with Model Master paints in RLM 81 Brown Violet, RLM 76 Light Blue, RLM 82 Light Green, RLM 02 Gray, RLM 23 Red, Black, Black Metallic, Light Brown and Aluminum paints, with a Testors Dull Coat top coat. Tim added Fast Frames AR-23UB/C Blitz 41030, swasticas from Techmod, and a pitot tube. He said this was the first four-engine jet bomber/recon. Tim also mentioned that the decals were great.

Tim also displayed his current progress on a Monogram 1/24 Mercedes 300 SLR. He used Testors Extreme Lacquer, Flat Black, Flat White, and Model Master Red, Aluminum and Wood, along with Model Color Silver, Natural Steel and Gray paints, and added decals for the seats. Tim said he likes Mercedes.

Jeff Belling displayed a couple of aircraft models. The first was a 1/72 Testors/Fujimi F-86 Sabre Jet. He used rattle can automotive silver, with other silvers used with a brush to pick out other panels. He added foil seat belts, and some weathering with washes and pastels. Jeff said he broke the windscreen, which complicated the build. He said the model represents John Glenn's F-86 which he flew near the end of the Korean War.

Jeff's other model was a Hasegawa 1/72 P-51D Mustang. It was also painted with rattle can silver, and other silvers brushed on to accent selected panels. He again added foil seat belts, and some weathering with washes and pastels. Jeff noted that the invasion stripes look odd; photos show that the outer stripes were black, which is unusual as almost all were WBWBW. He said this aircraft was flown by Lt. Otto Jenkins; after his last mission, he decided to beat up the base and was killed in a crash.

Paul Hines had three new paintings of automotive subjects this month. The first was a black 1929 Ford Model A "Tub".

Paul's second painting was an orange Lamborghini LP400 Countach from 1975. Paul described the car as "Batmobile cool and bat-outa-hell quick, with a top speed of 175mph. Only the rich bad boys could afford it."

Paul's last painting was a red Ford Model A Coupe from 1930. Paul also mentioned that he changed the background on all three cars to make it his own artistic expression.

Tom Brown Sr. showed us his progress on the Iwo Jima Monument. The model is based on GI Joe figures from flea markets, and uses a cleaning rod for the flagpole, and scratch-built weapons, pouches and helmets. It's painted with brushed-on bronze paint, and a lot has been added since last month, including work on the base.

Tom also displayed some USMC memorabilia.

Tom also had a suggestion for an interesting use of what would normally be trash - the plastic banding material used to hold large irregular objects together for shipping. It turns out that with some silver paint, the stuff looks like a very convincing diamond plate for trucks, etc.

Larry Osolkowski displayed some modest progress on the Wicked Models 1/24 3D-printed kit of a current Porsche 963 GTP race car from the IMSA Weathertech Sports Car series. He stripped and repainted the tires, adding a clear coat to the sidewalls before applying his homemade decals. They got touched up around the edges with Tamiya LP-65 Tire Black lacquer, and clear coated with Scalefinishes Matt Clear, after which the wheels were installed. The wheels had previously been painted with Tamiay LP-40 Metallic Black, and had machined aluminum valve stems installed. The interior received some Scale Motorsports carbon fiber decals, and the dashboard was detail painted. The seat was painted with Scale Motorsports Faux Fabric black textured paint, decanted and airbrushed. The interior will be complete when the seat belts are added.

Jeff Keenan displayed his Dragon 1/72 Flakpanzer turned into a "what if" Ukranian drone-killer. He used Vallejo, Ammo by Mig and Tamiya paints, with pastel powder for exhaust stains and drybrushing and panel washes for weathering. Jeff added a stretched sprue antenna and a scratch-built range finder. He said there really weren't any issues with the kit, although the tank wasn't sitting right so he loaded it with BBs so it would look "scale heavy". He picked the subject because it was a double "what if" - a paper German WWII Panzer turned into a fictional Ukranian vehicle. Jeff said he had fun with it and it was a quick build.

Ted Szczesny showed us his Pocher 1/8 Ferrari F40 Rivarossi. This kit came with pre-painted parts, so no painting was done; Ted said the original paint on the diecast parts was still in good condition on a decades-old kit. The age of the kit did pose some problems, however, with brittle aged plastic, broken plastic parts, a cracked windshield and weak adhesives on transfers. Ted mentioned that he picked the subject because his wife still won't let him buy a real one.

Maryann Germann showed us her completed Airfix 1/12 figure of Henry VIII. She finished it with Tamiya paints, and added brown flocking to the fur collar and used thinned paint for multiple washes. Maryann said she bought the kit at BuffCon, and did the matching Ann Bolyn last year.

Maryann also started a figure model of Odd Job from the James Bond 007 movie Goldfinger. She found this Polar Lights kit from the 1999 reissue hidden in her basement. Painting is brushed with very thinned Vallejo paints over high contrast white and black primer to help with highlights and shadows. Building is simple and allows Maryann to concentrate on painting.

Al Germann is continuing to build vehicles he once owned with this being a 1980 Ford F150 in a two tone blue and silver. The model came from a Monogram kit in 1/25 scale back from the original release. Given the body panels and the straight lines of the two tone, masking and coating with Testors spray paint was rather simple. Al did add some pieces of linen to the very basic bench seat, attached it with some white glue and color from a mix of Tamiya paints. The sliding back window was also a simple addition to replicate one of his high school vehicles.

Al also brought in a model he had finished since the last meeting, with that being a Revell 1956 Chevy Del Ray in 1/25 scale. Basically looking similar to the box art, it was modified to install a 3D-printed Tesla crate electric motor from eBay. With the addition of some random electrical boxes and wires, Al is satisfied with the conversion. That is why the grill is blocked off and rally lights fitted as it didn't need the radiator. On the back side, there is a third back light that somewhat matches the factory brake lights. Al added a scratch-built rear spoiler along with another one for the front. Mounting the front bumper upside down facilitated the installation. Interior now has a large center instrument panel to make it more convincing for modern technology. Underneath had the gas tank removed and the car is "exhaust delete". With some Bare Metal foil added, Al is satisfied and had fun with the build.

There were a few unidentified objects on the tables.

Finally, some around-the-room shots.

Thanks to Bob Conshafter for handling the model tables. Photos provided by Larry Osolkowski.