Just in case some of you don't know me, my name is Michael Butry and I've been in the private sector of US Customs for almost 20 years now. I have been a member of our club since roughly around 1998.

Last month on the 15th, I became our club's President. I still can't believe it and I'm sure I'll be waking up as this is a dream. Since joining the club, I've had the honor of being under some great leadership. If memory serves me, the list includes Bob Collignon, Mike Miodonski, Tony Gliszczynski, John Zaranek and lastly Mr. Rich Bernecki. I know with these gentlemen I have big shoes to fill and I'm honored to do so.

IPMS Niagara Frontier Meeting Agenda - June 15, 2020

From our latest information, it appears that the Knights hall is still closed, so there will be no general club meeting this month (June). The new EBoard is currently hoping that we will be able to hold a general meeting in July. We'll get the word out as soon as we know. Stay safe.

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.

Club member Brian Yurko has started a group on a new social media app called Telegram. This app will allow club members to join and chat about modeling and club activities. The app can be found at Telegram, and is available for PCs, Macs and Android and Apple phones. If you install the app, visit this page to join the IPMS Niagara Frontier group.

A NOTE TO NON-MEMBERS

There are no minutes from the May 2020 general meeting, since the meeting was cancelled due to the Coronavirus Pandemic group restrictions.

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.

There are no minutes from the May 2020 E-board meeting, since the meeting was cancelled due to the Coronavirus Pandemic group restrictions.

Unfortunately, we've run out of material for member profiles, and haven't been able to get photos due to meeting cancellations. We'll get back on track when meetings start up again.

My Projects For the June Meeting

The big push, so to speak, has been to figure out the gearing that drives the front and rear wheel sets. It's a differential setup which was supposed to allow the locomotive to traverse tight radius curves by allowing the left and right side wheels to rotate independently under power. This meant that each axle was split at the gears. This became the Achilles Heel for the locomotives. They were just too fragile by comparison with their competition and the differential gearing really wasn't needed.

The picture shows the nearly complete trucks, lacking just the universals at each end of the drive shafts and outside brakes. The cast in wood putty wheels I showed last month were a failure. They looked OK but were too fragile, as I found when I dropped one on the floor and it shattered. Frank Blonski (FAB Resinworks) cast new wheels in resin from my master to resolve that issue. They look great and will last forever. The side frames are all Evergreen plastic strips and tube, built on a simple jig. The fake gears are also Evergreen strips and tubes and built on another simple jig. The picture shows both jigs.

The big bevel gears are built on some left over drive wheels from a 1/35 French EBR armored car. Gear teeth are just 0.040" x 0.040" strips placed by eye and give a reasonable impression of real teeth. I also got a little farther on the cab itself and the boiler backhead details. This has been a really enjoyable project.

As an aside, the 3/4" thick wood blocks I used for the base of the two jigs mentioned above come in very handy as a support for sanding and filing small parts. It gets them up off the work surface and allows you to hold the file at a comfortable or flatter angle.

The waterline hull was carved from laminations of bass wood to prevent warping, with thin paper strips for hull plating. Layers of heavier paper made up the deck hatch covers. Deck details are bits of plastic. The deck houses are balsa wood blocks wrapped in paper with sheet plastic decks. I got hung up on the deck houses because they didn't really fit the correct era and did them over again. I was lucky that the plans showed all sides of the deck houses, so I copied them at 4 times my finished size, neatened up the copies and then colored the walls, doors and window frames and "hatched" the windows to give an impression of reflections. Finally, I color copied these colored sheets at 25% to get walls to wrap and paste on the prepared deck house blocks. That's where this project stalled. I couldn't come up with a good way to do the typical hull lettering so I dithered for a long time. Finally, I settled on 1/16" high Woodlands Scenic dry transfer alphabet pressed on to clear decal sheet to apply in place on the hull. There is a high scrap rate associated with this method, but easier that rubbing individual letter in place on the model. The different details on the top of the aft deck house are made from bits of wood, wire and plastic sheet and tube. The only purchased parts are the anchors and the yet to be added Tom's Model Works railings and ladders. I'll finish this yet!

Dick Schulenberg

Since the May general meeting was canceled, members have sent in photos of their current projects and posted photos on the club Facebook page. Here's what we have this month.

Nick Carluccio's made some progress on his current project, an original AMT 1961 Corvette that he found on eBay.

New club president Mike Butry has been busy working on a couple of models. His comments: "This is Tamiya's new 1/48th Bf109G-6 that I started back at the old house around mid April of 2019. With packing that needed to be done, this build had to be placed on the back burner. I finally got back to this around March of this year and now I'm happy to say, she's complete.

This 109 is in the colors of the 6/JG53 while in Sicily. Soon afterwards, the 57th FG grabbed a handful of these 109's either for testing or joy rides for the mechanics when JG53 left Sicily.

The decals are by Delta1 which is a sheet that gives you enough markings to complete 8 US captured 109G-6's."

Mike's comments on his second model: This is one of the first builds that I started at our new house and so far, I've hit a lot of snags along the way. The kit is Hasegawa's 1/48th A-4F that was used as an Aggressor with VF-126. I used the Aires interior aftermarket set and to be honest, not one of the best choices. The instructions, or the lack thereof, were 'very useful'. Very vague all around in regards to placement of resin and what kit detail(s) needed to go. I also added plumbing to the main gear as well as the nose gear and re-scribed the panel lines. This is where my scooter stands right now and what she'll look like in her color scheme."

Bob Butry (Mike's dad) is working on a new project, Hasegawa's 1/48th F-104G that will be in NASA markings and will be wearing the blue and white scheme. He added an aftermarket interior by Avionix and will be using decals by Caracal. This is where he is at at the moment. The paint scheme has been applied and it's now waiting to put on the decals.

Bill Borkowski sent in his progress on his current project, a 1/24 scale Tamiya Porsche Boxter. Bill is using Tamiya acrylics, and mentioned that he is having trouble mixing the Boxter Red color for the interior. He said "the mixing instructions come out dark brown - it's supposed to be red. So far the colors I have mixed come out very bright red or orange!" Bill said he picked the subject because he likes sports cars.

Al Germann has been working on some new projects. "1970 Chevelle: I am building a 1970 Chevelle from an AMT kit in 1/25 scale for my wife as it was her first car and was originally purchased new by her father. I have to convert it back from SS trim to a Malibu. That requires changing the hood, bucket seats to bench seat (2 attempts) and vinyl roof. Along with skinnier tires wearing hub caps. I experimented with a couple textured paints to simulate the vinyl top and settled on Plasti-Kote Velvet Touch. $0.99 at Ollie's but I bought it a long time ago. I will top coat it with the correct color later."

Al describes his second project: "Douglas C-54 Skymaster aircraft: hoping for somewhat of quick build is this Minicraft kit of a 1/144 Douglas C-54 Skymaster aircraft as the famous "Candy Bomber" of the Berlin Airlift in 1948-1949. I scrounged up a pedestal and yes, I will make candy bars and little parachutes. It did go together very well. I repositioned the flaps, Krylon silver (because that is what I had) and some Tamiya silver for the control surfaces. Started laying down the decals which are a great set."

Al describes his third project: "Testor's Weird-Ohs: And now for something different, I am building Testor's Weird-Ohs Flameout Freddie. One thing I am changing is cutting out the solid plastic windscreen to change over clear. Planning on some extra weathering to match the comical nature of the subject."

Maryann Germann is making good progress on her armored Knight Archduke Ferdinand II. A good amount of paint layering was done with Tamiya and Testors and Valejo paints, topped off with a Krylon satin dull coat.

Larry Osolkowski made more progress on his Tamiya 1/20 Leyton House Formula 1 race car. He started adding some ignition wiring to the engine, and put the number decals on the front wing. He finished adding the carbon fiber decals to the lower rear wing elements, but the upper rear wing elements broke apart before the decals were added to the underside. Larry decided to wait until the whole rear wing assembly was put together before adding those decals. He applied the sponsor, number, and carbon fiber decals to the front and rear wing endplates.

Larry also got some work done on the Star Trek Deep Space 9 station. He started working on another section of the main ring (there are 3 sections), opening up space for the LED wiring, and decided to add some small yellow LEDs on either side of the main docking ports. He also started assembling the detail bits for the top of the inner ring and did some priming.

Unfortunately, no around-the-room photos this month.

Thanks to everyone who contributed photos. Hopefully, we'll be able to get back together as a group soon. Stay safe.