The next IPMS Niagara Frontier Chapter meeting will be held at 7 PM on Monday, November 19 at our new home at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 2736 Union Road, Cheektowaga, NY 14225. We will meet in the BuffCon contest room. I'm looking forward to seeing you all.

As I mentioned in a previous Dizpatch, we've had several requests that we make the club roster available to all members, as we used to do. At the last meeting, we passed around a copy of our membership roster so everyone could cross out any information that you prefer not to share with the club at large. A number of people elected to delete their home address but leave phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Based on that, we elected to delete all the street addresses from the public list, along with whatever you specifically asked to delete. We'll have the lists available at the November meeting and again at the December meeting. Thanks to Steve Weller for getting this going.

Also, the review of BuffCon categories by focus groups during the October meeting was quite useful. The comments and changes have been collated and incorporated into a revised list. We'll have copies available for review by the focus groups at the November meeting. The categories seem to be more clearly defined now. One automotive category was added. The changes should make our BuffCon contest categories more easily understood, particularly for first time entrants and ease some recurring registration problems. We won't institute any changes until BuffCon 2014, but that's not all that far away.

See you Monday!

John Zaranek
President
IPMS Niagara Frontier
IPMS USA No. 47993

Model Table Round-up for October 2012

Jerry Fuglewicz offered his 1/144th scale Revell B-52H model kit that he picked up partially built at a garage sale. He's currently re-working the previous modeler's work and is up to filling gaps with Tamiya White Putty (which he highly recommends for the ultra-smooth finish).

Justen Hanna showed off his recently completed Eduard 1/48th scale German Albatross D.II biplane from the Great War. What stands out on this model is Justen's beautiful rendering of a simulated plywood finish on the fuselage of the aircraft. I won't attempt to describe his technique in this paragraph because Justen has agreed to do a live demonstration of it at the next club meeting. He has simulated the rigging/flying wires with "invisible" mending thread and devised a clever way to align the wing by using Lego blocks.

Tom Brown Jr. brought in a nice collection of Warhammer fantasy figures which he painstakingly hand painted using Citadel acrylics. The figures are made from white metal and he has amassed a truly menacing looking fantasy army.

John Doerr brought in an impressive collection of 1/700 scale US battlewagons from WWII. Included were two versions of the USS Arizona and the USS Pennsylvania in a variety of camouflage schemes.

Renaldo Hanna kindly demonstrated the conversion capability of his Transformer "Hot Shot". He gets high marks for innovation! (Sorry, no photo.)

John Zaranek brought in a kit he's been building and setting aside for a while... the 1/48th scale Grand Phoenix Fairey Firefly aircraft representing the Royal Navy's Far East Fleet in WWII. It is a mixed media kit featuring injection molded plastic, resin bits and a small amount of photoetch. At this point, the model is being prepped for paint. He expects it to be completed by next club meeting (yeah, right.)

Mark Gadek showed off a work in progress... his 1/35th scale Trumpeter Mi-4 helicopter. He says it's a really nice kit, but is getting frustrated from filling in all of the ejector pin marks. He plans on finishing it in Polish Air Force markings.

Jacob Gadek once again arrived with an impressive Frankenstein figure. Jacob said he base-painted him in olive drab with a brown wash to bring out the shadows. He mounted the figure onto a wood base with glue and added grass and a club made from a stick found in the garden. A very "frightening" effort!

Tom Faith arrived with a mixed media work in progress... a German field oven from the WWII era. He took the basic kit parts and reworked them with Evergreen stock and sheet brass to refine and improve the kit-provided details. These are scratchbuilt modifications at their finest.

Mark Budniewski arrived showing a "new release" 1950 Oldsmobile. He has not yet started the kit but it appears to have "nice details". He also showed his Porsche Carerra 1950's era car kit. The kit did not include any clear parts and the headlights are molded in "chrome" plating. He's going to attempt the glass by vacuum forming his own parts out of clear stock.

Alan Gryfe brought in an interesting garage sale find... a 1950 Ford wind-up toy model car. He noted that he drew his interest because of the "New York State Society of Professional Engineers" markings on it.

Tony Gliszczynski showed us his Testors 1966 Dodge Truck Tractor of which he started in 1972... that's 30 years, folks! Tony said that this is "the worst fitting kit EVER". What stood out was that the truck is at least six scale inches too high in the rear and required some surgery to lower it to an appropriate height. Good luck, Tony.

Larry Osolkowski brought in some really neat aftermarket car accessories and an update on some of his works-in-progress. First, there is his BMW 318i British Touring Car of which he has painstakingly scratchbuilt the shocks and springs, used polished aluminum rod and has even modified the kit brake rotors and calipers. He also showed a Tamiya 1/20th scale Formula 1 kit, currently in parts. He is experimenting with a faux fabric from Scale Motorsports and some other accessories from Top Studio... more outstanding examples of what one can do with scratchbuilding details.

Last but certainly not least, Frank Blonski offered some resin car bodies. Frank is experimenting using different resin compounds to get the most out of making his own components. In fact, one of the resin bodies shattered when it was removed from the mold. He vehemently refused to divulge the manufacturer of this dubious product... it must be a "national security" issue.

Thanks to all for your efforts and showing us your completed models and works in progress.

Thanks to Larry Osolkowski's smart phone for the photography - Bob should be back with a real camera next month.