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Meeting Minutes:
The August meeting was held at the Rock
Island Arsenal Museum. The Director, Kris
Leinecke, gave us a tour of the facility, to include the
research area and the museum itself. Following the meeting we
added some models to the new display cabinet at the museum and
then we headed out to memorial park to look at the tanks and
artillery pieces. We need more models to add to the display
cabinets at the museum. If you would like to add some models,
please let me know. I would like to personally thank Kris for
coming in on her day off to give us a tour. I think presenting a
plaque to the museum would be I order, what do you guys think? We
had a nice surprise during the meeting, Christopher Broman showed
up at the meeting. He was home on pre-deployment leave. He
departed for Kuwait the following week and will be in Baghdad by
the time you read this. He plans to find the Baghdad model club
and let us know what kind of kits and supplies they need. Anyway,
the museum tour was great, the research area is a great asset and
Bob Horton explained the long term project he is working on at the
museum to preserve microfiche records. Christopher also explained
one of the projects that he did to photograph all of the
confederate graves on the island and load them to a database. It
was a great meeting. Coming up in October, Sergeant Major Dan
Bowman from the 123rd Field Artillery in
Milan, will give a presentation on his
tour in Iraq. Thanks to Bob Horton for setting that up. Nothing
special is set up for the September meeting; I know we have a few
members heading to Kalamazoo for the show that weekend, but for
everyone else, we should just have a relaxed weekend sitting
around and talking models..
The Dates:
September 8: Chapter Meeting
September 15: IPMS/Gateway; Gateway to the
West Invitational; First Baptist Church of Harvester, 4075 Hwy. 94
South, St. Charles, MO; contact Chris Merseal
at
CRM@InlInk.com
October 13: Chapter Meeting. SGM Dan Bowman
will be our guest speaker
November 10: Chapter Meeting – at the Butch
O’Hare show
November 10: IPMS/”Butch” O’Hare; 25th
Annual Open Model Contest and Swap Meet; Lakeview Junior High
School, 701 Plainfield Rd., Darien, IL; contact Marco A. Fernandez
at
mfchi@sbcglobal.net
December 8: Chapter Meeting.
Christmas party and annual “What If?
Contest. The $20 challenge will also be held. Bring in the
completed kit you bought for $20 from Ed and get your money back.
I have not heard much at all about the
National convention, but here are the special IPMS awards:
Regional Coordinator of
the year – Don Kehrer, for outstanding
leadership to Region 10 and IPMS/USA.
Newsletter of the year –
Spare Parts, edited by Mark Elder of IPMS /Richmond.
Webmaster of the year – Mike
Gilsbach, IPMS/Austin Scale Modeler’s
Society. IPMS/USA Chapter of the Year – IPMS Ocala
A little humor submitted by Paddy
Mcgannon:
When NASA was preparing for the Apollo
Project, it took the astronauts to a Navajo reservation in Arizona
for training. One day, a Navajo elder and his son came across the
space crew walking among the rocks. The elder, who spoke only
Navajo, asked a question. His son translated for the NASA people:
"What are these guys in the big
suits doing?"
One of the astronauts said that they were practicing for a trip to
the moon. When his son relayed this comment the Navajo elder got
all excited and asked if it would be possible to give to the
astronauts a message to deliver to the moon.
Recognizing a promotional opportunity when he saw one, a NASA
official accompanying the astronauts said, "Why certainly!" and
told an underling to get a tape recorder. The Navajo
elder's comments into the microphone were brief. The NASA official
asked the son if he would translate what his father had said. The
son listened to the recording and laughed uproariously. But he
refused to translate. So the NASA people took the tape to a nearby
Navajo village and played it for other members of the tribe. They
too laughed long and loudly, but also refused to translate the
elder's message to the moon. An official government translator was
summoned. After he finally stopped laughing, the translator
relayed the message:
"WATCH OUT FOR THESE ASSHOLES -- THEY HAVE COME TO STEAL YOUR
LAND."
Congratulations and thanks
to Tom Meyer, on retiring from the Air Force. Tom submitted the
message below:
A veteran - whether active duty, retired,
national guard or reserve, is someone who, at one point in his or
her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States
of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life." That
is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no
longer understand it.
-- Author Unknown
Diary of a scratch build project. Part II,
June 2007 -- August 2007.
By Bob Hortob,
IPMS Quad Cities
The Revell/Monogram
Peterbuilt 359 kit conversion/build is progressing slowly.
The main portions of the conversion has been completed and what
remains is finish assembly; some minor detailing; painting the
chassis and installation of the engine, hood and cab unit. The
cab is going to be a little dicey as there is a good deal of
chrome work attached. For the moment, then, I want to leave that
aspect of the project and return in time to about late January or
early February when the initial work on the layout of the trialing
units was also begun. Before we get into the
nitty gritty details of building this huge load carrying
trailing unit it might be well to discuss the full size rigs a
bit. We have all seen the rather large single unit flat bed
trailers on the road. They can vary in size and design details
but basically are single units behind the tractor. They usually
have two or sometimes three sets of rear dual wheels. In our local
area we see them traveling thru with large pieces of construction
machinery or farm implements. There are strict laws, from state to
state, governing the dimensions of the load and amount of weight
allowed on each axle. When this is exceeded the only answer is
to add more axles. With the largest units consisting of multiple
“jeep” units and overall length sometimes exceeding 100 feet it is
necessary that these units must be steerable.
To this end, also, these large trailers are designed to be coupled
up to distribute this additional weight. I had only been able to
personally examine the original unit that came into our plant.
Very recently I have been able to check out, locally, five other
units traveling the I-80 interstate. One thing becomes obvious
very quickly….no two units are exactly alike. In fact, in one
case, I was able to examine and photograph two units together from
the same trucking company. These two units were hauling two loads
exactly alike and even these units had many features quite
different. I mentioned in the beginning of Part One that I was
initially working with very little information concerning the
details of the several sections making up the load carrying
portions of the trailing units. I had acquired a few additional
pictures that were loaned to me by one of the people still at our
plant. These additional pictures didn’t help much in the initial
layout of these trailer but they did help in filling in details
later. The pictures I have are two 3” x 5” color prints of the
total length of this rig which in real life spanned about 100 feet
from front bumper to the rearmost point of the last trailing unit.
My first steps were to calculate what the enlargement value was
going to have to be to bring portions of these 3” x 5” photos up
to full model 1/25th scale. Most of the sections were going to
have to be “blown up” somewhere around 500% plus or minus. Part
of the problem was the fact that these two pictures were taken at
a bit of an angle. For example, the tractor in the left
foreground was going to be slightly larger then the very tail end
of the rig on the right side of the picture. The only measurement
I could use as a standard measurement was the known diameter of
the tractor’s and trailer’s wheels with a standard tire diameter
of 40”- 41”. I began by enlarging sections of the picture to the
maximum the scanner would take, and processing about three or four
separate sections of the photo. I then would go back to each of
those sections and calculate what it would take to do the second
and third enlargement to bring the wheels in that sectional
picture up to a scale 40” diameter. (I had to deal with the fact
that in both of my reference pictures there was a little bit of a
vanishing point effect- that dimensions in one side of the picture
was different then the portion that fell away into the distance.)
This was done to the left hand portion of the first picture and
repeated for the right hand portion of picture number two.
Eventually after three or four enlargements of each section I was
then able to literally paste up a composite picture of the total
rig in 1/25th scale. It made for a rather patch work
quilt looking assembly of sheets of paper but it worked. If you
have ever seen some of the aerial photo recon pictures from WW II
that were assembled from many recon shots, you get an idea of what
I had crudely assembled. It was close enough to allow me to then
reconstruct what the side frames of these several sections of
trailers would look like. Most of the sections of these
articulated truck trailers were going to be something over a foot
long. I could not have even considered fabricating these sections
using the standard sheet sizes of Evergreen stock. Luckily some
years ago I had purchased several 3 foot by 5 foot sheets of
varying thickness styrene. When I arrived at what would be the
side elevations of each section of the trailer I trimmed out blank
rectangles out of .020” thick styrene sheet. For the first two
trailers “A” & “B” and the last two trailers, “D-1 – D-2” & “E”
two side girders each would be all that was needed. When it came
to laying out the center section load carrier deck, “C”,
it appeared that there would have to be at least five or
six girders running the length of the deck and a total of 4
girders for the two “gooseneck sections. I also arrived at a
figure that seemed to work for what would be the overall width of
these wheeled dolly trailers. I should add that I had temporarily
laminated thicknesses of the rectangles needed for a given girder
so that duplicate pieces were made at the same time. These side
girders would then be exact duplicates but in addition to that,
these girders had rows of square holes cut in them to create a
little lighter structure while maintaining strength. (at
the conclusion of assembly of all of these girders and the cross
members separating them I calculated that I had made 998 square
holes. I knew that the trailer girder widths would have to be
about the same as the truck chassis frame to allow them to
lay inside their wheel suspension and
brake units. I had also measured the width overall of the load
deck from comparison pieces of full size equipment found around
the Quad Cities area. This would fall somewhere about 96’’ to 100”
wide. This doesn’t mean that an oversize load could be no wider
then 100”, simply that the carrier trailer deck unit isn’t usually
any wider. Another point should be added. These trailers had many
girder-like I beam cross piece braces spaced down the length of
the side girders. These cross members in almost all cases also
were perforated with these geometrical lightening holes. One final
consideration was that down the lengths of these girder frames
there would have to be places where additional holes were cut
along the edges for passage of brake control tubing lines;
electrical wiring bundles and control lines and hydraulic pressure
tubing going to the steering cylinders and platform raise/lower
leveling cylinders. For modeling purposes, these
hole locations would have to be
determined after the rough assembly of these trailers was
completed. Layout of the frame sides proceeded to be plotted on
heavy shelf paper. When it seemed that the spacing of the
individual trailer frames would clear one another, the patterns
were transferred onto the laminated pieces of styrene. For the
individual trailers it was sufficient to just laminate two styrene
rectangles each. (Only two sides to the girders.) The lamination
was accomplished using a coating of rubber contact cement. We
wanted to be able to separate these pieces after the shaping
process was done. For the load carrying deck, I laminated six
rectangular pieces and laid out the pattern. I later found that
it would work out better to actually only use five girders on the
load deck. I then laid out the pattern of square holes in each
section and cut out the overall pattern and then proceeded to
drill pilot holes and file out the square pattern. This was
accomplished at the speed of smell. It was a long and tedious
process but gave a really authentic look to the trailers when
assembled. I assembled each trailer with the installation of the
“I beam” shaped cross bearers. It is amazing how much strength
some flimsy sheets of plastic can take on. It really tends to
prove the concept of the strength in the heavy hauling capability
of the full sized trailers. Be aware that in tackling a project
like this, you have to be prepared for the possibility that you
might possibly miscalculate layouts by translating and
interpreting some photo angles incorrectly. I ran into several of
these little glitches and you have to figure that this just comes
with the territory. In one instance I was under the impression
that the heavy wood planking that covered the load carrier deck
ran from side to side as in a railroad flatcar. Not so in oversize
truck carriers. It runs parallel to the length wise spaces
between the load carrying girder’s framework.
This was an easy one. I just ended up, thanks to member/friend Ron
Franck, with a little extra wood. The second miscue caused a good
deal more work then the planking error. I miscalculated the
layout of the front trailer, “A”, the one that attaches to the
fifth wheel of the tractor unit. The gooseneck area was made too
short. Upon completion I could see that attaching the kingpin to
the tractor’s fifth wheel plate would not allow the trailer to
swing around the rear of the semi tractor chassis without hitting
the truck frame. Back to the drawing board to build a completely
new slightly lengthened trailer. Time passes and the trailers are
assembled and clearances dry fitted between sections of trailers.
In real life these trailers must be able to pivot around the fifth
wheels or king pins to allow this long “train” to “articulate” in
and out of rather tight spaces. One small trailer “D-1” had yet to
be designed and built. In the full size trailer lineup this is a
rather small 2 axle dolly trailer that follows directly behind the
load deck and connects via hydraulic cylinders to the following
trailer “D-2”. This small dolly unit is controlled and swiveled by
way of horizontal hydraulic steering cylinders. In use, this
small trailer is locked directly to the load carrying deck, “C” by
way of a solid strut. This insures that the following units stay
locked in line and don’t tend to wobble. But when the equipment
arrives at the destination, there must be a way to steer and
position the complete unit in and out of tight places. So the
entire rear section is unlocked and allowed to steer independently
of the front sections. These drivers are amazing as to what kind
of tight spots they can maneuver into. There is a lot of detailed
work to add to these trailers and we will cover that aspect in the
next edition of the “Diary.” I would like to include here a few
of the website locations that I have found to be very useful in
the search for details concerning truck modeling in general and
this project in particular.
www.truckpaper.com A huge want ad website for full sized
trucks. Go here and go to your specific make and type of truck.
www.stsmodeltrucks.com
Spaulding Trading & Shipping. Model
trucks and parts.
www.timstrucks.com A web page of a master truck modeler
with comments on conversions.
www.modelcarsmag.com/forum
a huge model car-truck forum site.
www.griffendesigns.com/pages/3208.htm A model trucks parts
site.
www.plasticcowboy.com/tmc/ A private collector/builders
site…lot of good reference info.
www.kitformservices.com/
A British model parts and supplies dealer…good stuff.
www.truckinfo.net/trucking/
Commercial full size trucks…for special equipment of interest.
Last but not least is the IPMS Special
Interest Group truck website: Doc225@ msn.com
Doc Wiseman maintains the site…no periodical
“publications” but just chat in and out. Doc has a lot of
information and is very helpful.
Research Resources
by Ed Mate, courtesy IPMS Will-Cook newsletter
Modeling Korean War Aces F-86
Sabres – Part 1
I’ve been collecting books and decals on this
subject for a while now, so I prepared this article to share some
information about where to find reference photos, profiles and
1/48 decals (sorry, I only build in 1/48 scale) of your favorite
Korean War Ace’s F-86 Sabre. To keep
track of what I’m doing, this list is in order of victories
tallied.
Captain Joseph D.
McConnel, Jr. 39th FIS, 16 total victories.
Being the highest scoring ace, information about Capt.
McConnel, Jr. is widespread. Here is
information on his Sabres: F-86E
s/n 51-12753 Beautious Butch FU-753.
Photos can be found in Mig
Alley (p. 77), Korean War Aces (p.74), and The
Korean Air War (p. 173). I have never seen decals for this
aircraft. F-86F-15 s/n 51-12971
Beautious Butch FU-971.
This is very interesting. There is a color photo in F-86
Sabre Aces of the 51st FIW
(p.44) which shows that the photos in Korean War Aces
(p.74) and The Korean Air War (p. 173) are cropped versions
of this photo and are mis-captioned as
FU-753! It is now perfectly clear to me why I could never find
the leading edge slats in the Mig
Alley (p. 77) photo. I have never seen decals for this
aircraft. F-86F-1 s/n 51-12910
Beautious Butch FU-910.
Profiles can be found in Mig Alley
(p. 45), F-86 Sabre Aces of the 51st
FIW (p. 56) and Korean War Aces (p. 53) and photos in
Mig Alley (p. 77),
Korean War Aces (p. 74), and F-86
Sabre Aces of the 51st FIW (p. 78). Decals
are on SuperScale sheet 48-52 and
Aeromaster 48-448. F-86F-1 s/n 51-12910
Beauteous Butch II FU-910. This is the same aircraft
repainted for Public Relations purposes – note name misspelling!
Profiles can be found in Korean War Aces (p. 53) and
F-86 Sabre Aces of the 51st
FIW (p. 57) and photos in Mig
Alley (p. 45), Air War Over
Korea (p. 50), Sabre in
Color (p. 28), and F-86 Sabre
Aces of the 51st FIW (p. 79). Decals are on
SuperScale sheet 48-52, 48-102, and
Aeromaster 48-449A.
Major James
Jabara 334th
FIS, 15 total victories. I have information on 4 of his
Sabres:
F-86A-5 s/n 48-0259
FU-259. Profile can be found in Korean War Aces
(p. 45). A photo is in 4th FIW in the Korean War
(p. 55). I haven’t found 1/48 decals.
F-86A s/n 49-1318 FU-318. Jabara
was flying this aircraft on May 20, 1951 when he downed his 5th
and 6th MiGs to become the
first Ace of the Korean War. Photos can be found in
Mig Alley (p. 18) and
Korean War Aces (p. 27). However, aircraft serial numbers
cannot be completely seen in these photos and may really be the
following subject aircraft.
F-86A s/n 49-1319
FU-319. Photos in 4th FIW in the Korean
War (p. 56, 57 & 58) indicate that this is the aircraft
Jabara used to down his 5th
and 6th Migs.
F-86F-30 s/n 52-4513 FU-513.
Profile can be found in Mig
Alley (p. 48). Photos can be found in
Mig Alley (p. 72) and Frontline Color #6
(p. 122), but from the angle, it is very hard to tell if it
really is this aircraft or the following subject aircraft. Decals
can be found in the ESCI F-86E Sabre
kit (#4093). One can get the squadron badge decal on Aeromaster
48-448.
F-86F-30 s/n 52-4519
FU-519. A photo can be found in 4th FIW
in the Korean War (p. 184 & 186).
Captain Manuel "Pete" J.
Fernandez 334th FIS, 14½ total victories. Here
is information on 2 of his Sabres:
F-86E s/n 51-2830
FU-830. Photos can be found in
Mig Alley (p. 74), and 4th FIW
in the Korean War (p. 177). I haven’t found 1/48 decals.
F-86F s/n 51-2857
FU-857. Profiles can be found in
Mig Alley (p. 41) and Korean War Aces
(p. 45), and photos can be found in Mig
Alley (p. 41, 67 & 74), Air War over Korea (p. 52),
F-86 Walkaround (p. 22 & 79),
and 4th FIW in
the Korean War (p. 180). I haven’t found 1/48 decals. One
can get the squadron badge decal on Aeromaster 48-448.
Major George A. Davis
334th FIS, 14 total victories. I haven’t found
any information on his Sabre, what
information I’ve found shows him in Dick Creighton’s
Sabre:
F-86A-5 s/n 49-1225
FU-225. Profile can be found in Korean War Aces
(p. 48). Photos can be found in Mig
Alley (p. 26) and 4th FIW in the Korean War
(p. 98, 99, 101, & 104). I haven’t found 1/48 decals.
Colonel Royal "King" N.
Baker 335th FIS, 13 total victories. I have
found information on only one Sabre:
F-86E s/n 51-2822 Angel Face &
The Babes FU-822. Profiles can be
found in Mig Alley (p.
41) and Korean War Aces (p. 48). Photos can be found in
Mig Alley (p. 73),
Korean War Aces (p. 67), Sabre
in Color (p. 6), 4th
FIW in the Korean War (p. 181). Decals are on Aeromaster
48-449A.
Selected References:
F-86 Sabre
Walk Around (Walk Around Number 21)
by Larry Davis, Squadron/Signal Publications 2000
F-86 Sabre in
Action (1033) by Larry Davis, Squadron/Signal Publications
1978
F-86 Sabre in
Color (6502) by Larry Davis, Squadron/Signal Publications 1981
Air War Over
Korea (6035) by Larry Davis, Squadron/Signal Publications 1982
Mig
Alley (6020) by Larry Davis, Squadron/Signal Publications 1978
Korean War Aces, Aircraft of the Aces #4
by Robert Dorr, Jon Lake and Warren Thompson, Osprey Publishing
1995
F-86 Sabre
Aces of the 51st Fighter Wing, Aircraft of the Aces #70
by Warren Thompson, Osprey Publishing 2006
F-86 Sabres of
the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing, Osprey Frontline
Colour #6 by Warren Thompson, Osprey Publishing 2002
The Korean Air War by Robert Dorr and
Warren Thompson, Motorbooks
International 1994
The 4th Fighter Wing in the
Korean War by Larry Davis, Schiffer
Publishing 2001
Mike Valentine sent this in, a listing of
upcoming episodes of Dogfights on the History Channel:
Season TWO
KAMIKAZE
Imperial Japan, desperate to prop up their rapidly collapsing
empire, sent poorly trained volunteer pilots in suicide attacks
against American naval targets. This wasn't the only time pilots
used the plane itself as a weapon. German, Russian, and even
US ramming tactics will be explored.
JET VS. JET
In the skies over North Korea F86s slug it out with
communist MiG-15s. American pilots are in pursuit of a previously
unknown glory...the title of jet ace.
THUNDERBOLT
The P-47 Thunderbolt, or Jug as it was known distinguished
itself as one of the most lethal dogfighters of World War II- a
classic warbird best remembered for
its size, ruggedness, and reputation for protecting the pilot.
DOGFIGHTS OF THE HOLY LAND
The innovative, delta-winged MiG-21 arrives in the Middle East.
Israel must acquire a fighter to counter the threat and soon
settles on the French-built Mirage III. The Mirage and MiG-21
seemed destined for combat with each other...but only one will
emerge as the preeminent delta-wing fighter of its day.
GUN KILLS OF VIETNAM
The era of missiles had arrived. Electronic warfare was coming of
age. But when technology fails pilots are forced to do combat the
old-fashioned way-maneuver in close and blow the enemy out of the
sky with guns.
THE FIRST DOGFIGHTERS
Some of the greatest fighter pilots of
all time engaged in epic duels over the battered landscape of
France and Belgium. Fokker triplanes,
Spads, and SE5s go head to head in
World War I's most famous dogfights.
NO ROOM FOR ERROR
It's where a pilot can ill afford to make a mistake...but where
dogfights are inexorably drawn. Down on the deck-at treetop
level-the margin for error is zero.
NIGHT FIGHTERS
From Radar equipped Hellcats in the Pacific to modern stealth
technology.
THE BLOODIEST DAY
May 10, 1972. The bloodiest day of air combat during the Vietnam
war featured numerous twisting and
turning dogfigts. Bob Lodge and Roger
Locher pioneer electronic warfare and
engage in one of the most exciting air battles of the war.
P-51 MUSTANG
In the European theater of world war II the P-51 Mustang proved
itself to be the quintessential dogfighter and went on to become
the most famous warbird in history.
DOGFIGHTS OF DESERT STORM
The planes have changed but the
jeopardy remains the same. American fighter pilots pit F-15s
against Iraqi MiG-25s and advanced MiG-29s as part of Operation
Desert Storm.
BATTLE FOR THE FALKLANDS
The 1982 Argentine invasion of the
Falkland Islands triggered war with the United Kingdom. Remarkable
vertical take-off and landing Sea Harriers take on Mirages and A4s
in some of the best dogfights of the modern age. The British
establish air superiority but the Argentines sink several ships
with wave-top level attacks in A4s.
SUPERSONIC
Stories of the development of jet aircraft and their subsequent
introduction into combat. Includes
stories of test pilots who were the first Germans and Americans to
fly these aircraft and the great air battles that were fought
through the years at Supersonic speed.
DEATH OF THE LUFTWAFFE
The Luftwaffe's last great offensive
was launched on January 1, 1945...called Operation
Bodenplatte. Oscar
Boesch was a German pilot who took
part. Sandy Moats and Alden Rigby were American pilots whose
airbase was swarmed by fighters. After this day, the Luftwaffe was
shattered as an effective fighting force.
TUSKEGEE AIRMEN
African-American pilots of the 332nd distinguished themselves as
one of the most successful fighter groups of the war, despite the
bigotry and prejudice they faced from their own countrymen.
Revell Germany Audi R10
Diesel LeMans Winner
Kit #7248 1/24 Scale
First Look
By Tim Leicht,
courtesy IPMS GTR newsletter
The most spectacular racing car and until now
most powerful Audi ever is powered by a twin turbo charged twelve
cylinder TDI engine with 5.5 liter cylinder capacity. The powerful
power-unit offers over 650 horsepower and a torque in excess of
1100 Newton meters. The V-12 runs extremely smoothly and requires
an injector pressure of around 2000 bar. Development of the diesel
sports cars at Audi was looked upon as a great technical challenge
partly because of the high torque and associated high power
developed by the engine. Compared to its predecessor the R8
therefore, not only the engine and gearbox are new. Audi has
already written motorsport history
with this excellent racing car. Never before has a diesel powered
vehicle won such an overwhelming victory in one of the hardest
races in the world, the Le-Mans 24 hour race. Model-details:
- Multi-part bodywork with original detail of
the 2006 Le Mans Race
- Multi-part, highly detailed Twelve Cylinder
Engine
- Detailed Suspension
- Multi-part Rear Spoiler
- Detailed Cockpit
- Authentic Tires and Rims
- Separate removable Bonnet if preferred
- Authentic Transfers for the Audi R10 TDI
from the Le Mans Race 2006 for both driving teams
After the impressive second year n a row win
of the Audi R10TDI Diesel powered at the 75th LeMans 24
Hour race, my kit arrived one week later. Audi has dominated
LeMans for years now, first with gasoline power and now with
diesel power. But this year was not easy for Audi with two Audis
knocked out by accidents during the race, and Peugeot gave them a
real run for the money until wet weather hit with just two hours
to go. Luckily Audi had a lead of several laps over the Peugeots
and won easily. I can tell you
Peugeot will be back next year and look out!
They were really strong this year and most certainly will be even
tougher next year. So, on to the kit.
This is another race kit from Revell Germany tooled in
China by, I assume, Dragon. We are lucky Revell has teamed with
Dragon as their kits are getting better and better. The last
Corvette C6R was a real winner and this kit is just as nice.
The body has minimal parts with most of the small bits
being the rear spoiler pieces and the inside side air ducts. The
lower front end between the headlights is actually molded to the
interior tub so some masking and painting is required. The various
air vents are molded open but require some clean up. Also the
access cover fastener details are just a bit a too big and look
out of scale. But overall I think they captured the shape of the
flowing bodywork pretty well. The
decal sheet provides some of the red for the body but the
side red needs to be painted. I do not think the red color
reference in the instructions is correct, it is too bright. I
think Testors Guards Red would be a closer match. Speaking of
decals, it appears to be a Cartograf
sheet and the registry is perfect. It also includes carbon fiber
for the suspension, front valance and the various other panels.
AND, it has tire logos! I guess Michelin is not on the payola
program yet and that’s a good thing. The body and wheels need to
be painted a brighter silver aluminum color with clear coat. My
son has a new 2007 VW GTI with very similar wheels and they are a
lot brighter. Also, the body is molded in silver plastic and there
are a lot of swirl marks, the interior tub is full of nice detail
bits including electric boxes and switches. The decal sheet
provides carbon fiber for the switch panel but it looks like it
will be difficult to lay down flat without trimming around the 16
switch opening. There are foot pedals, raised steering wheel
details and the seat has raised belt detail with decals for them.
I think it is very well done. The bottom tub is molded in two
pieces with the front section forward from the front axle being a
separate piece. You have to add the radiators and ducts, the
interior tub and the engine/transaxle assembly to the tub.
WARNING: the instructions are incorrect and there is a separate
sheet in the box that says you must glue the interior and front
end to the body before attaching it to the tub. The
engine/transaxle assembly is a 14 piece affair with modest but
crisp details. The kit could use some help here, but it is not
that bad. I’m sure someone will make a photo etch detail set for
it. The exhaust headers/turbos are
nicely done and with some detail painting will look great.
Suspension details include all control arms and sway bars but
noticeably absent are any spring and shock details. The brakes are
plain Jane discs with somewhat small calipers molded to them,
again a good project for an aftermarket supplier. Well, bottom
line? This is a great kit with some Tamiya like qualities for a
much nicer price.
The timing could not have been better and the
nice part is that use can use this for the 2007 car
as well! I can see tons of aftermarket stuff coming down
the pipe for this kit very soon. For us race car builders this is
a MUST HAVE and buy a lot of them to make all the different
European and American race versions of this historic car.
Build review – Resicast
75mm Pack Howitzer
By Mark Corbett, Courtesy Spare Parts, IPMS
Richmond Newsletter
IPMS #42356, AMPS
Recently Resicast
released a nice addition for all of the “King of Battle” and
Airborne fans with a rendition of the M1A1 75mm Pack Howitzer. The
kit has options for either a US or British version of the piece. I
won’t take the time here to do the research for you, but there are
plenty of pictures available on the internet and lots of
references. Suffice to say that this little gem will be a welcome
addition to your collection. What’s in the box? When I received my
copy of the model I was pretty surprised at the number of parts
and the clean, crisp molding apparent throughout the kit. The
parts are cast in light grey resin and there are plenty of them. I
found no air bubbles or major cast problems on any of the parts in
the kit. All of the parts are well marked on each pour blocks or
sprues. There is one thing you need be aware of from the start –
the kit has lots of small parts that require some care when
removing from the pour block and if you have clumsy hands like
mine, you are going to have great time. The kit contains a few
extras in the way of ammunition, cardboard packing tubes, support
tools and photo-etch. One interesting addition is the PE pieces
for the ends of the artillery rounds. My box also contained
several extra copies of some the sprues that have the smallest
pieces, presumably in the event of breakage there are extras.
Let’s build it! When I opened the box I immediately told the wife
I wasn’t feeling well that day and it might be a good idea for me
to stay home and take it easy, you know, do a little modeling,
cough, cough. The instructions come in nice little 20 page booklet
with plenty of photographs and a few pictures from technical
manuals. They are easy to follow and leave little room for error
except in one or two locations which I will point out. The first
few steps have you assemble the front trail which goes together
well. The match up between parts is excellent with lots of detail.
There are about 8 parts that comprise the front trail legs. On the
third page there is part number “PM” which joins the trails
together at one end. The instructions state clearly several times
to put the pivots on top! If you study the pictures you will
notice that the pivots are actually the hinges
that join the front trail to the real trail, however, in the
picture shown in the instructions the model is assembled
incorrectly with the “pivots” or hinges facing towards the bottom
of the model. Needless to say I read ahead and checked my
references to ensure that hinges actually do go facing to the top.
The instructions now call for you to add parts PI, PJ and PK. I
decided to leave these small parts off until the end to make it
easier to handle the little beast. Next up is the rear trail
assembly where I encountered one more obstacle. The problem
concerns the lunette assembly for the US version of the kit. The
part provided in the kit in no way matched the picture in the
instructions. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get the
parts, TA and TB to fit and look like the diagram provided. So,
going back to my reference
pictures I decided to just scratch build one, which was not too
difficult. I’m not sure that my picture references were accurate
for a WWII depiction, but they were good enough for me to make a
lunette and continue with the build. The final steps are the
barrel and cradle assembly. All went well with no problems. The
kit gives an option to build the howitzer with the breech open or
closed. I chose to show mine closed. You will now have three
sub-assemblies – front trail, rear trail and the barrel/cradle
which are joined together in manner similar to the real McCoy.
Once assembled I painted my howitzer standard OD, Tamiya XF 62,
lightened just a bit with desert yellow. The final step is to add
some weathering, which is not shown in the pictures. Since I plan
to show mine as if it has been sitting in front of a VFW post for
many years I left off the aiming sights since they would not be
present on a static display. The final weathering steps are some
washes, rust and dry-brushing. All in all this was an interesting
project that took about 2 weekends to complete. If you like resin
kits and don’t mind small parts then this kit may appeal to you. I
would recommend this kit to my friends!
The Boxart
Den-The Website!
From: Christian Bryan <craviola880@msn.com>
It’s finally here. A project begun over ten
years ago, we have been compiling rare and classic model kit box
art from the 930's through today.
http://www.theboxartden.com. And a
humongous job it has been and continues to be. Now for the neat
part; the group owner (That's me) is an airliner junkie, so we
have about 95% of all the airliner model kit box art ever made
from the 1940'S to today. In addition, I have also added folders
for airliner post cards, and airliner ads and articles (All cool,
esoteric stuff-no "Run of the mill" things that you see everywhere
else. And now for the very best part: all the box art,
instructions, decal, post cards, ads, etc, are all fully restored
to "better than new" condition!! Very shortly, we will be opening
our print shop, where members can purchase securely, and full size
prints of the classic box art, printed on high quality glossy
photo paper. These look absolutely wonderful framed, and hanging
in your building room, office, den, etc. All modeling categories
are covered; Space, Figures, Armor, Missiles, etc, but we are very
airliner friendly! Check out our display; our collection of model
kit box art will astound you (I hope it does; after ten years of
searching, begging, pleading, and tracking down over 3,000 box
tops, and restoring them) I want to thank all the AMD members who
have sent us scans over the years, this has been a huge help. We
are still after these extremely rare tops, if anyone can help:
Aurora/Netherlands Garuda DC-8
Swissair DC-10
SAS DC-10
Lufthansa 737 (NOT 727)
Aeros DC-8 & CV-880
Airfix QANTAS 747 "Type 4"
BEA Comet "Type 2"
Progress-werk Lufthansa 707
Revell/Brasil
Varig 707 (NOT mid '60's "Orange" box, but earlier issue)
Solido Air France
Caravelle & 707
Tri-ang BOAC Bristol Britannia
Plus many scattered Revell & Aurora "Wide body" not so rare
titles. Email me for list
craviola880@msn.com. Many thanks
and we hope you enjoy the site!
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