Season's Greetings! This month's holiday meeting will, of course, feature our annual pizza and wing fest for the membership.
Thanks to Tony G. who has been doing all of the work on ordering and transporting the feast for several years now. When you see
him, please give him a well deserved thanks and a rousing clap on the back!
Also, members of the United States Marine Corps will be attending the party because it's our annual Toys For Tots drive. Thanks to all of you who donate a new, unwrapped, unmarked gift and bring it to the meeting. I know it will definitely brighten up Christmas for those children less fortunate than our own.
For those of you who wish to participate, we will also be having a Christmas "Secret Santa" gift exchange. The idea is to bring a new model kit, wrapped in Christmas paper but, without a name on it. It will, hopefully, be a pleasant surprise for participants in receiving a model kit from a fellow enthusiast. It may not be your first choice of a building subject, but may be a topic to build to get you out of your comfort zone.
At the January, 2015 meeting, our annual club dues will be collected. To keep your membership current, please see treasurer Tom Faith with $10 (cash or check). An exact amount of $10 is always appreciated if you can do it.
Due to the monster November snow storm and with this month being the party, we will forgo the regularly scheduled demonstration until the January meeting. Justen Hanna will show us how to best judge aircraft models.
However, please bring in any World War One topics that were to be featured in November, and this month is dedicated to remembering the Pearl Harbor attack from 1941. So if you have any models (started, or not) and would like to show them off to the masses, please do so, along with the usual round table subjects that we usually do.
On behalf of the entire E-Board, I am wishing all of you a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukha and a prosperous 2015.
Best regards,
John R. Zaranek
President
IPMS Niagara Frontier
IPMS USA No. 47993
Model Table Round-up from the November meeting
Meeting night was the beginning of the "Snovember" storm, so the turnout was very light. President John Zaranek
was unable to make it, and First Vice President Justen Hanna was also indisposed, so Second VP Larry Osolkowski filled
in at the last minute. We still had a few intrepid souls bring some models to the tables, but the information forms we
usually rely on were not available, so here's my best recollection of what we had.
In keeping with our WWI theme for tonight, Jim Wolfe brought in a nice figure of a WWI soldier.
Dan Marafino showed us his Junkers J.1 in progress, for the WWI exhibit. Dan said it was another Bernicki/Marafino
joint project, using a Wingnut Wings kit which is excellent, but with lots of fiddly little parts.
Larry Osolkowski displayed his Glencoe Spad XIII again for the WWI group, along with a much nicer kit of a
Nieuport 28c1 from Roden, to be built at a future date.
Larry also displayed a few other items, including an excellent photo book from the Smithsonian Air and Space
Museum, his progress on the Porsche 956 "Spirit of America", a new 1/43 kit of the 1980 Monaco Formula 1 race winner,
and a selection of thin wall stainless steel tubing in various small metric diameters that were obtained from
Stradasports.
The eboard has had recent discussions about how to include diecast models in the categories at BuffCon, and Larry
brought in an old diecast 1/24 Packard kit to show that these kits belong in the regular categories. Pre-finished
diecasts (with modifications) are another matter, and will be getting their own category at the next show.
Finally, Larry took a photo of the 0.5mm nut and bolt (with washers) set that he brought to the last meeting. Pretty
amazing.
Tom Mooney showed us several items, the first of which was a departure for him - a figure of The Passion. Tom said
he used Testors primer followed by oil paints to finish the model.
Tom's next model was a 1/32 Messerschmitt BF-109E. It was painted with Model Master Acrylics. He mentioned that some
of the parts were a bit too fragile, but he built it to do something different.
His final kit on display was a 1/24 Zero by Trumpeter. Tom described his painting approach, using a primer coat
followed by a couple layers of aluminum, then finished with the green top coat. This allowed him to lightly sand through
the color coat to expose the aluminum underneath for weathering effects. Tom said he used Model Master and Tamiya
acrylics, and the kit was built out-of-the-box. He liked the larger scale with its additional detail, but some of the
detail was a bit over the top.
Our next model was an in-progress piece of armor, but unfortunately, I didn't catch the name of the builder or the
information on the kit (sorry!). It does look like it's coming along nicely. I hope we can get more information next month.
Finally, Paul Hines brought in his monthly collection of automotive paintings for our enjoyment. Paul has included some
additional interest in his compositions by incorporating some people into the backgrounds.
Thanks to Bill Borkowski for the photography.
