Greetings and Salutations to one and all! Summer is upon us and I hope that everyone is enjoying the weather for the most part.

IPMS Niagara Frontier Meeting Agenda - July 20, 2020

From our latest information, it appears that the Knights hall is still closed, so there will be no general club meeting this month (July). The new EBoard is currently hoping that we will be able to hold a general meeting in August. 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.

There is some sad news for the automotive builders in our club. Scale Auto magazine has decided to cease publication, effective after the October 2020 issue. The magazine has been owned for some time now by Kalmbach, who also owns Fine Scale Modeler, and they say that some Scale Auto content will subsequently be included in Fine Scale magazine. If you have a subscription to Scale Auto, the remainder of it will be honored with issues of Fine Scale.

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 June 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 June 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 July Meeting

I also finished up the 1/32 Miss San Bernardino Formula 1 midget air racer. It carried several different names over the years but this model depicts the 1960's name and colors when flown by Art Scholl in the National Air Races. It's a resin kit by Civilized Models that I found online. The last time you saw it, it was in white primer, waiting for new decals because I changed my mind for the markings. They finally came in, so I polished the primer, remasked the canopy with School Glue and gave the whole thing another shot of Tamiya Fine White Primer and a coat of Tamiya Clear from warmed up spray cans. I think this gives a nice solid white finish ready for decals. The decals are kind of strange and took some getting used to. They are printed back to front so the glue side is out and the finish side is against the paper backing. Apparently this is so the white parts can be printed successfully with the process they used. I'd already decided to mask and paint the red leading edge areas to avoid mismatched colors for the inevitable touchups at the edges. I would have had to do this anyways because the decals didn't match the wing shape and were too short to fit. The rest of the decals are sharp and went on almost fine, but I'm glad I had some "training". I say almost because some of the black countershading on the racing and registration numbers disintegrated but I was able to touch it up with a .01 Micron archival marking pen (from Michaels) after spray can coating with Tamiya Semi-Gloss Clear. The picture with the 1/32 Avia S-199 (postwar Czech built Bf-109G with a Junkers Jumo engine), a small plane in itself, gives some idea of how small these midget racers are.

I made some more progress on the scratch-built 1/24 Dunkirk geared locomotive. The trucks are now complete with outside brakes and I've started spray painting them with Vallejo Model Air NATO Black for their base coat over Tamiya spray can gray primer. I fitted out the steam cylinders with the valve gear that controls the steam flow and added all the stuff that mounts to the bottom and ends of the frame. I started the frame decking up to the point where it interferes with permanently installing the steam cylinder assembly and am working on the steam piping. There is still a lot to do but I really enjoy the scratch building. I'm not so sure about enjoying weathering this thing so it's not too black though.

Dick Schulenberg

Since the June 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 finished his original AMT 1961 Corvette that he found on eBay.

Club president Mike Butry reports on his latest work. His comments: "From our last news letter, I am at a standstill on my 1/48th Hasegawa A-4F. It's mostly due to the fact that I am blending in the gun fairing covers and well, the fit is not quite like Tamiya's quality. The only thing that has changed is the position that the kit is lying in :-p. Hopefully by the next newsletter, I'll have some color on her."

Mike's comments on his second model: "Since the scooter is on the back burner temporarily, I decided to tinker with Tamiya's 1/48 British Universal Carrier. With this build, I just decided not even to think of what I wanted to do but just to go with the flow. So far, this is how the Bren carrier is shaping up and yes, that's a captured 3.7mm gun in tow. I added some Verlinden stowage bags and made some tarps out of aluminum foil. In the front, I used thin Evergreen sheet stock to represent a 2x2 that was used as a brace for equipment secured by two branches shoved in the eye hooks near the fenders."

Bob Butry (Mike's dad) made a lot of progress on his 1/48th Hasegawa F-104G NASA Starfighter. The decals are in place and all he needs to do is put on a light coat of semi-gloss and he'll be able to call this one done. She's looking really sharp in this scheme.

Bill Borkowski sent in his progress on his current project, a 1/24 scale Tamiya Porsche Boxter. Bill's comments: "My 1/24 scale Tamiya Porsche Boxter project is complete! I had trouble mixing the Boxter Red color for the interior and finally settled on a red. It's not Boxter Red and its a bit too bright but it looks ok. Picking up the project after having shelved it a year ago caused some problems. The worst mistake was cementing the rear body section to the main body before I had 'married' the body to the chassis. It was difficult to combine the two after the fact. I should have spent more time reviewing the instructions and should have left myself some notes. All in all it was a fun build and I am happy with the results."

Bill also had another model that he's getting back to. His words: "My next project is a Mini Cooper kit I put aside three years ago. I had horrible trouble with the body paint job. It needed to be stripped and repainted. I finally got it stripped and I'm ready to try painting again."

Al Germann made some progress on his current projects. "1970 Chevelle: Making some progress as I have the body in paint and polished with vinyl roof and chrome trim complete. This is the best finish on a paint job I ever did. I used Krylon spray can for the correct color and also because it was easy. Also let it fully dry for about a week. Then used varying grits up to 6000 and Novus polishing to finish it. The vinyl roof was some spray can texture/velvet with Tamiya with a satin clear coat. These are the colors of my wife's first car. I have some aftermarket door handles and photo etch detail to install. The modification to a front bench seat is almost complete."

Al describes his second project: "Douglas C-54 Skymaster aircraft: Progress made on this Minicraft kit of a 1/144 Douglas C-54 Skymaster aircraft as the famous "Candy Bomber" of the Berlin Airlift in 1948-1949. Decals laid down nice and topped it off with a clear satin. After I cut and repositioned the flaps, I added some pieces of plastic to look like the actuator rods. It is mounted on some old stand from another aircraft kit as I will be adding the candy bars on parachutes. I am very happy with the way it's turning out and a nice story behind it. I bought this kit at the show in Cleveland a few years back."

Larry Osolkowski made more progress on his Tamiya 1/20 Leyton House Formula 1 race car. He finished clear-coating and polishing the front and rear wing end plates, and got the front wing assembled.

Larry used some polishing sticks from Scale Motorsport for polishing the front wing end plates. These are great for polishing small and irregular areas that are hard to do with regular polishing sheets or pads.

Larry also got a little more work done on the Star Trek Deep Space 9 station. He got the wiring started on another main ring section, and got the main docking port wired and installed. He also got more filling and priming done on some other bits.

Lastly, Larry got another project started. This was motivated by a good musician friend, who stopped by recently to show Larry his 1966 Mustang Hardtop that used to belong to the friend's grandfather. Larry found an old AMT kit on eBay, and started working on it. He also found a resin kit from Model Car World for a Ford six cylinder engine as found in his friend's Mustang. Larry plans to give it to his friend when it's finished.

Clint Keidel had a couple of projects to report on this month. The first was a 1/48th scale Hobby Boss P-47D. Clint said it was a super easy kit to build. He added: "I wanted to try my hand at a natural metal finish. I had a blemish here and there hence the D-day stripes. It didn't turn out to bad though; I still need to add a few small details, but it's pretty much done."

Clint described his second project as follows: "This is a complete mishmash of scratch building and home resin casting and spare parts. It's a slow go but I'll get back to it soon. Stay safe everyone, hope to see everyone soon."

Jeff Keenan was busy this past month, with four new projects. Jeff describes the first model: "First up is Bandai's 1/350 Millennium Falcon. I used a variety of paints but this is one of the first times I've used oils for weathering. It came out a little more yellow in spots than I hoped but the overall effect looks good. I'm happy with how this tiny project turned out and it's a nice addition to the rest of my Star Wars models."

Jeff's second model: "I've started pulling half-finished models off the shelf and trying to complete them. The first is a Tamiya 1/35 Ford Amphibious Jeep. It still needs some touch-up, weathering, and a base but it's coming along nicely. I had to repaint a lot since the original paint job had faded over the years. I'm trying to come up with a catchy title since it looks like the driver is asking the other soldier if he wants to grab a drink later."

Continuing with Jeff's third project: "I'm also trying to wrap up a (really, really) old Airfix 1/72 Uhu. It's a mess and I remembered why I shelved it - tons of flash, parts that don't match up, poor instructions, etc. It needs another coat of paint, some touching up, and the decals but I'm ready to call it quits on this one."

And finally, Jeff's last model: "The last one is a 1/72 Italeri YF-23. I've always loved the look of the plane and preferred it to the F-22 (sorry, Raptor fans). Various pieces broke off during multiple moves so it needs some putty, a fresh coat of paint, and the decals. I'm looking forward to scratching this off the list, too."

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.