Seasons greetings to one and all! I can't believe it's December already, and this year seemed like a blur. In a few days, that jolly ole elf will be coming to a house near you sooner than you think, so I hope that everyone has been good and you've got your Christmas modeling wish list ready.

IPMS Niagara Frontier Meeting Agenda - December 21, 2021

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, December 21st, starting at the usual 7:00pm at the usual meeting room in the rear building. Here are the safety guidelines we will be following:

• The Knights Hall currently requires that everyone wear masks during the meeting, except for brief periods while eating or drinking.

Our annual collection for Toys for Tots will be held again at the December meeting. Please plan on bringing new, unwrapped toys to that meeting. Representatives of the U.S. Marines will be there as usual to collect our donations. If you haven't paid your $5 for the pizza party, see Tom Faith at the meeting. If you want to bring a side dish or dessert, it would be greatly appreciated.

Speaking of Toys for Tots, if you are part of an organization that would be interested in supporting the Toys for Tots program, you can find information at Toys for Tots. Click on the "Get Involved / Volunteer" link on the menu at the top of the screen.

Here's a quick report on the Fulton model show from our Syracuse member, Bruce Mathes: Just a line to let you know I attended this show on Nov. 21 in Fulton, NY. Nice show, with lots of vendors selling just about anything for the car modeler. Over 250 entries, and some people came from as far as Rhode Island for this contest. Well run, pretty well judged, and over by 4:40 PM. There are even people from Canada there, Montreal. I took an Aircraft diorama 1/48th Tamiya Gas Truck fueling a P-39. Didn't win anything but it sure got a lot of close looks from people. My poor little (1/72 scale) Hasegawa German Fire Tender/Crash Truck simple got lost among all of the 1/25th BIG RIGS! Little thing looked like an ant amongst GIANTS! But it was fun.

The BuffCon 37 website is now up, and can be viewed HERE.

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 the 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.

The Links page on the club website has recently been updated with information contributed by members. If you have a favorite website for modeling info, forums, etc., email the information to larryo@ipmsniagarafrontier.com.

A NOTE TO NON-MEMBERS

Our Secretary, Al Germann, was unable to attend the November meeting, so we have no minutes this month.

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.

December 13th - President Mike Butry led the meeting.

• Old Business:
  • December pizza party was discussed.
  • Tom Faith reported he sent a check to IPMS for the club charter membership.
• New Business:
  • Collection of member dues will start in January.
• BuffCon #37, 2022:
  • Reported that 13 vendor tables are sold leaving 32 available. This is up from 6. Tom Brown Jr. has action item to contact Jeff Keenan (vendor coordinator) for status.
  • Need to make a drawing for the layout of vendor tables. Action item owner TBD.
  • Briefly talked about security with regards to theft in the vendor room.
  • Mike Butry has action item to contact Ed Button (trophy & sponsorships coordinator) for current status. Mike stated he had some additional ideas or leads for sponsors.
  • Mike Butry has action item to contact John Zaranek on club's extra stash of kits that can be used for a raffle. We will need a raffle coordinator.
  • Printing and distribution of flyers was discussed. More to follow.
  • Al Germann suggested that supplies should include hand sanitizers, some quantity of masks if required.
  • Tom Brown Jr. stated an inventory of supplies should be reported at next E-board meeting.
  • Tom Faith stated a financial report will be presented as usual.
  • The club's Facebook page was discussed as it needs to be updated with the latest and applicable content for BuffCon.
  • Tom Brown Jr. spoke about the club's graphics and the Spruester logo as he is the point of contact for this.
  • Advertising beyond standard publication was briefly discussed. More to follow.
  • BuffCon will also be on the agenda for the general meeting.
• Miscellaneous:
  • Tom Brown Sr. suggested that for future years, alternative groups to Toys for Tots should be considered, such as there is one related to the U.S. Army.

Bruce Mathes sent in photos of a number of his latest models. The first group included a resin Piper Tomahawk; an Air Show 1/72nd Stearman with 650hp engine, not the Revell airshow kit, paint is masked and sprayed, rigging is guitar strings; a Brewster Buffalo - this is the plane that Chennault originally wanted for his AVG, but they sent him P-40's instead; and a Waco CG-4 glider marked from 1st Air Commandos in Burma.

Bruce's second group included several models in 1/72 scale. Bruce's comments: "Just thought I'd send these, all 1/72nd. VFR Grumman-American 'tiger' computer generated resin kit for $50!; a Grumman Model G-550 Gulfstream with presidential flight markings; Sword P-47 diorama from Ie Shima 1945; the fire truck is a Hasegawa Science Series 1/72 Rosenbauer 'Panther' Fire Tender I got at SYRCON - threw out kit decals and painted for Syracuse Fire Dept. Airport fire truck decals are from my laser printer, SNOOPY is a decal from spare decals, as per actual Syracuse Fire Dept. truck."

Dave Armitage sent in a photo of a recent project, a 1/24 scale model of the Adler. This was the first passenger locomotive in Germany, in 1835. Dave said it was a wood and metal kit from Ocre, but the rest of the diorama was scratch built, except for the figures.

New member Gregory Fox brought in a large model of Godzilla. He said his uncle Bob gave him the model, which he built in 2013. Gregory used Tamiya paints with drybrushing.

Bob Heiss (Gregory's uncle) displayed a collection of monster figures built from the Playing Mantis Frightening 4 Pack. Bob said he found these models in his attic last week, and they were built in 2000. He used Tamiya paints, and mentioned that he wanted to build these classic Aurora models he had as a kid.

Ilya Grinberg showed us two new models in his usual 1/72 scale. The first was a Zvezda T-34, with added photoetch engine deck by OKB Grigorov and other photoetch parts by Armory, finished with AKAN paints.

Ilya's second model was a GAZ-67, finished again with AKAN paints. He added a photoetch grill and windshield frame, resin wheels, and suspension from an S-Model kit.

Tim Grieve displayed his 1/72 Lindberg Fairey Flycatcher. He used a variety of Model Color paints, and added some thread for the rigging. Tim said the kit decals were excellent, but the spring wire was a pain.

Dick Schulenberg brought in another new collection of 1/72 aircraft. The first model was an AZ Model Douglas X-2 that was actually built by Bell Aircraft to prove out swept wings at supersonic speeds. Dick built it out-of-box, using Tamiya white primer for the basic color. He said he'll use Vallejo Model Color to finish it off. Dick mentioned some issues with the kit: some parts shown on the instructions but not actually on the sprues, and vague instructions in places. On the other hand, he said the fit was pretty good and the decal choices were really nice. Dick chose the subject because of the local connection, and he likes the early (1950's) experimental aircraft.

Dick's second model was an AZ Models P-26A Peashooter with Starfighter upgrades that included resin cockpit details, engine and prop, photoetch rigging and decals. Dick also added a scratch-built pitot tube and gunsight, and used Polyscale blue and yellow paints over Tamiya gray primer with a Vallejo satin finish. He said the Starfighter cockpit that he used was made for an ancient Revell P-26 kit and was way too wide to fit, so he used the AZ floor and bulkheads with Starfighter side walls, instrument panel and seat. Dick mentioned that he's liked P-26s since he was a kid, and the AZ kit is way better than the old Revell kit, and the Starfighter add-ons really make a difference. He added that he dithered for weeks about using the PE rigging, but it turned out to be pretty easy, though delicate. He used Elmer's glue to attach them and cleaned up with water and a brush.

Dick's last model was a Hasegawa F9F-8 Cougar. He used Vallejo Glossy Sea Blue over Tamiya gray spray can primer with a Vallejo Satin final finish. Dick said he built it out-of-box with the kit decals, and it took him weeks to get up the nerve to try the nose decals. He said the nose gear was very scale-like and fragile; it didn't last long, so he replaced it with brass wire and salvaged parts from the kit gear. Dick said the decals (most of the light blue areas) were a challenge, especially over the nose; they worked well and fit pretty well, but needed some touch-up with some home mixed Vallejo Model Color.

Larry Osolkowski had a few items for us to see. The first was his progress on the Bobby Unser 1/25 AMT Penske PC-6 Indycar that he's been working on for a while now. The upper body piece from the kit was pretty bad; it was taped to the lower body to spread it out so it would fit, and the seam was then glued. Larry said he used some of Frank Blonski's magic goo (styrene sprue bits mixed with thin liquid glue to form a paste) to reinforce the seam from the inside, which worked really well. The part still needed a lot of putty work to get the shape right. He also got some Alclad aluminum on the seat and radiators, and some putty on the rear wing end plates along with primer on those parts and the lower tub.

Larry's second item was the progress on Ilya Grinberg's 1/72 resin car model. It turned out that the 3D-printed master had some visible lines from the printing process that spoiled a smooth gloss black finish, so Larry is working on removing these faults.

Larry's last item was a display base for the Tamiya 1/20 Leyton House Formula 1 model he's been working on. He's using a wood plaque for the base, and decided to 3D print some blocks to lift the model off the base. He found some thin plastic mirror sheets on Amazon that come with adhesive backing, and applied one to the wood plaque. This will show off the carbon fiber decals that are on the underside of the model.

Paul Hines displayed three new paintings: a blue 1933 Dodge Pickup truck, a '29 Model A Sedan with flames, and a 1932 Ford Roadster which in Paul's opinion "represents the ultimate beauty in hot rods".

John Doerr brought in four models. The first was a Tamiya 1/72 Bf-109E-3 from the spring of 1940. John used Mr. Color RLM65 and light blue, Polly S RLM70 and RLM71, and Tamiya rattle can clear gloss and flat. He added weathering using a Model Master black wash for the cockpit, and a water-based acrylic wash for the exterior. John was attracted to the subject because of the evolution of camouflage.

John's second model was another Bf-109E-3, this one from Hobby Boss again in 1/72. He used Polly S RLM02 and RLM71, and a variety of Tamiya colors to finish it. John said he converted an E3 to an E1, cut off 20mm gun barrels, ground off the ammo drum blisters, and used Print Scale decals. He mentioned that there were issues with the canopy frames. John picked it because it was an unusual subject with unusual camo.

We somehow managed to lose John's third model info sheet, but here's a photo.

John's last model was a Tamiya 1/48 A6M2. It was finished with Tamiya cockpit green and IJN gray, along with Model Master flat black and Aotake. The model was displayed on a resin deck, and had Eduard cockpit photoetch and seat belts added, with weathering done with tempra paint. John said the subject was from Pearl Harbor, flown by PO 1c Tadeo Kimura, in the 2nd wave.

Mike Butry showed us his Tamiya 1/48 P-47D Thunderbolt. He said it was finished with a mixed bag of Vallejo Model Air and Tamiya paints, with no weathering done yet. Mike mentioned that the build was mainly out-of-box except for the tires, which will be resin, and he used aftermarket decals by Super Scale. Mike's final comment was that "it shouldn't have taken me almost six months to do this build!"

Steve Weller brought in some Korea Navy Vet War Zone photos. Steve said a family friend, the late Paul Van Duzer, left him these photos from CV-36, USS Antietam. Most are from Korea around 1950-1952.

Someone displayed a collection of aircraft models made from paper, but no info sheet was provided.

Tom Faith presented a demonstration on the use of oil-based pastels.

Finally, some around-the-room shots.

Photos provided by Larry Osolkowski.