AMPS Atlanta Meeting
Saturday, January 7, 2011
AAA Hobbies
Attendees: , Dave Oswalt, Jim Rowell, Kevin Westphal, Joe Geib, Greg Mix, Jesse Naughton, Gregg Gaither, Tony Zadro, Mark Campbell, Joe Driver, David Wiggins, Jeff Adair, Bob Sigmon, Mike Reaves
Hello Everyone,
Great January meeting. We had a new visitor, Dean Oswalt; join us for breakfast and meeting. It was great to have him visit, and hope he can return soon. First of all, AMPS Atlanta is eight years old this month. Hard to believe it. We celebrated with a bit of birthday cake and the normal modeler geekery!
One last reminder that the guys in Chattanooga have their second annual show on January 21st. Please plan to attend if you can. Should be fun for one and all, and a sight warmer than last year. Also, a reminder that we’ll be having our club flea market table at the show again this year. Price your previously loved kits to sell and the club gets 10 percent of the proceeds. Finally, we will have two great seminars at this year’s show. Rob Ervin will be doing a seminar on Sherman Tanks and Gregg Gaither will be doing one on weathering with AK Interactive Products. The AMFS guys will also be putting on two very good seminars on diorama planning and groundwork.
Tony did a great demo on resin casting small parts. The demo was geared toward single sided RTV rubber molds. It was very informative. Thanks Tony. Gregg also did the semi-final installment on the T-55 project, showing how he did much of the weathering. Considering all the activities this month, I think Gregg will do a brief demo on some of the weathering techniques next month. He was able to show us the process for weathering the metal tracks with Blacken-it.
And now, on to the models. Tony had a Criel Models resin Lancia Truck with Italeri trailer. This wasn’t your average truck. It’s got a big ole gun mounted on the back. The vehicle was painted in British and U.S. Gulf Sand. As you might imagine, the vehicle was shown in a desert setting, complete with Dio Park Cactus. One very interesting effect was the sun baked and cracked desert terrain on the base. The cracks in the groundwork were very realistic and in scale. Turns out Tony used Crackle Paste from Deco Art spread thin on top of the normal groundwork to achieve the effect. Very cool.
Jim brought in a couple of books. First was Panzer Modeling by Tony Greenland. This one is a classic, and the models are still inspiring today. Jim also had the WWII Tank Encyclopedia by Jean Restyn. This book is packed with colored illustrations of Tanks from WWII. It would be very useful as a guide when choosing a color scheme for your next panzer, etc. The color plates are very realistic.
Dave Oswalt brought in his Polish version of the T-55, painted up in Khaki Drab lightened with some Deck Tan. Dave added a metal barrel to spiff up his T-55. Joe Geib had a veritable flock of Soviet armor. He brought in two Tamiya T-62’s. One was painted as a combatant in Chechnya and the other as it would’ve appeared in Prague in 1968. Joe also had an ESCI T-55 depicting an Afghan vehicle. Finally, to kinda balance things out a little bit, Joe had a Tamiya M1A1 that was preshaded in black and painted with Tamiya Buff and Deck Tan. And let’s not forget the Revell 1/32 Russian MIG 21P sporting a three color camo scheme and kit decals.
Mark Cambell had a couple of models to show this time. He had a Tamiya late model Jagdpanther sporting an Armorscale barrel. Mark also brought in a Dragon Ersatz M10 (Panther). He added an RB barrel with threads for the muzzle brake. I believe Mark preshaded with black and then painted the Ersatz M10 with Testor’s Olive Drab.
Jesse has his T-55 painted up in a Northern Alliance camo scheme of Nato Green, Black Green and Light Green. It looks like it will be crewed by some ICM Afghan figures. Jesse used Miniarm resin tracks and soaked them in hot water so they snapped together without breaking. Good tip. Finally, Jeff brought in his Trumpeter M1117 painted up in Model Master U.s. Armor Sand and a Hobby Boss Defender in the box. Jeff’s commentary was a bit brief because he was losing his voice. Hope he’s fully up to speed now!
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That’s about it for this time. Now go stick some plastic together!
Cheers,
Mike