Sprue Cutters Union 32: The aftermarket

In this modern age, we have access to upgrade or extra parts, photo-etch or resin, fully detailed interior sets, decal sets and so on. Does this make it easier for us than modellers had it "back in the day"?

- Has the Aftermarket Taken All the Hard Work Out of Modeling? -

There are many considerations to take before throwing yourself on the aftermarket, "Cost" being a big one of them. I use the term cost and not price, because it's more than just the price tag.

I've seen fellow modellers turn out really impressive models, spending 3 or 4 times to kit's initial budget on extra resin stowage or whatever. The result is awe-inspiring, but for me, that price is too high. The joy of building is my main goal, without attacking the household budget. When showing off a model, my aim is "Nice!", not jaw-dropping awesome.

Time is also a cost and a big factor to consider if your modelling time - like mine - is rather limited.
I can spend 2 to 3 months (or more in some cases) on one model, building it out-of-the-box and being very happy with the result. I could spend twice that time with aftermarket fenders that have a "better scale-thickness", or I could have opened one hatch, revealing a tiny portion of a fully detailed resin engine kit, which can only really be admired by looking at the photos taken before closing up the model.
Frankly, I'd rather just start the next model. This is a personal preference, of course.

I have dabbled with scratch-building when I built an interior for the Chinook. I was not going to spend €20 for a fully detailed set on a €10 model. I found it very rewarding to make it myself, but I'm not going to be modifying every model from now on. I like building out of the box, as the designer of the kit intended it. I'm not fussed about inaccuracies or even blatant errors. If the lower hull is 2 scale inch short, I will not be going for 100% accuracy by performing mayor surgery on it.

Aftermarket photo-etch requires a skillset of it's own, bending, attaching and painting many tiny pieces. You're not necessarily making it easy for yourself by adding detail.

I guess washes and pigments also count as aftermarket? In this aspect of it, I'm guilty as charged. One bottle goes a looong way and makes my life easier by saving time. I have however also purchased a number of oils, because I want to try it the "old way" as well.

Whether you go OOB or AM, this hobby is about spending time. So, in short, my answer to this month's question is : NO.  Au contraire, if you choose to take the aftermarket-road, chances are you'll be spending a lot of extra time.

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Opinions may differ. Check out the other Sprue Cutters' responses :

• Plastic Models
• David Knight's Weblog
• International Scale Modeller

Viper - Part 7 (Decals)

After 2 layers of Alclad II varnish, it was time for decals. On the Mark VII that was done quickly, on the Mark II it was a whole other story.
Don't get me wrong. The Revell decals are sturdy AND flexible. Where needed, they respond extremely well to setting solutions (I use Microscale  Micro Set & Sol). There's just so many of them ...

The tail stripe is broken up in many pieces. Rather cleverly, each piece has no more than 1 irregular shape to conform to, making it a lot easier to get them in place. Below a picture of an almost finished stripe, just missing a small horizontal strip (and one on top of the tailfin).

After applying your preferred setting solution, wrinkling (shown below) may occur. Do not worry: it will go away again, UNLESS you can't resist touching it, or the decal wasn't entirely placed straight in the first place. It pays to go slow and not rush through the many decals.

I mentioned the clever tail stripe design? I can tell future makers of this kit to pay extra attention to the horizontal part. Make sure both the lower and upper parts of the stripe have a little extra to help cover this gap, otherwise you end up with the result below!

How to touch-up these parts? The 2 Vallejo bottles of red I have don't match the color of the decals, so I was dreading having to mix and match paint to cover this mistake, but then I remembered I still have a LOAD of Humbrol/Revell paint, bound to contain the right shade of red.

Bingo! Humbrol #19 (Gloss bright red) is a near exact match. The bottle is over 20 years old and a gooey mess, because the oil has separated from the pigments. But some stirring and some added white spirit yielded more than enough to work with. The result is more than satisfying.

Before and after.

The 2 sisters, side by side, ready for another coat of varnish, then on to some decent weathering.

One small setback. While doing the decals on the Mark VII, I noticed a huge and ugly seam line over the tailfin. No idea how I missed it so far. I should really go over the entire model with more attention befóre I start painting. Oh well, these models have gone back to the spraybooth so many times already, one more session won't hurt.

Sprue Cutters Union 31: Is the hobby dying?

Another month, another Sprue Cutters topic. I can't believe we used to do this weekly and pull it off for 28 weeks!

- Is scale modeling a dying hobby? -

As I'm a little late this month pitching in my 2 cents, most of my colleagues have already written long and detailed statements. Opinions seem united on the answer : No, our hobby is not dying, but it HAS changed a lot since we were kids.

A little history (on a different topic)

25 years ago, we had a tape player at home (the kind with actual reels, not cassettes). It was ancient even back then. My mom had used it as a kid to tape music from the radio. Me and my brother were of course using the more modern cassette player.

When you wanted to share your favourite music with a classmate, you needed TWO cassette players, one playing, one recording. If someone walked in asking why it was so loud, you had to start over. Much later, we got a new player with TWO slots, which supported high-speed dubbing.

When the age of the CD came, there was a lot of resistance, but we adapted. I haven't owned a car in over 10 years that even had a cassette player anymore.

Betamax, VHS, DVD, Blueray, .... the times are simply changing. Nowadays, you can share your playlists with a single-click and order movies online for next to nothing and start watching within seconds. Has the music/video industry died? Are we no longer able to enjoy our favourites?

Back to modelling

Those same 25 years ago, I had my pick of models in various supermarkets, all stocking around 20 kits (all Revell) and a rack of Revell and Humbrol paint. Every time I went back (every few months), they had 2 or 3 NEW models. I thought I'd never be able to build all of them!

New techniques, I had to discover myself. Weathering? No such products lined the shelves, so I was never confronted with them, teasing me into trying out something new.
The amount of kits you could buy on the internet back then? What internet?

Over the years, general supermarkets stopped stocking kits and I had to resort to toy stores. Even later, only the specialist "Hobby store" remained and as of last year, all of them have disappeared in my area.

Have we lost something in the process? Sure. Browsing the shelves, checking new stock, the smell of old cardboard and paint, running into other modellers, ... No more then nostalgia for us, but there's still conventions of course. (now more than way back them)

Is our hobby dying?

I'd say "No, perhaps even the opposite?"

• I can browse thousands of kits online  (let's forget about aftermarket stuff for now) and have them delivered in just a couple of  days. 
• Youtube provides hundreds of hours of people teaching new techniques or reviewing new products.
• Fellow modellers share images of their work. Some even write blogs!
• Every month, at least 10 new kits are announced.
• New company's are still being created, both kit and paint manufacturers.

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Please follow the links below to see the ramblings and musings of my fellow Sprue Cutters:

• The Eternal Wargamer
• Scale Model Workbench
• Doogs' Models
• Mattblackgod's World
• Kermit's Bench
• The Combat Workshop

Time flies

I can't believe 4 weeks went by without any post. It's not that I've done nothing, but certainly not as much as I would've liked.

Where were we?

• The patriot radar truck was being painted.
• The Vipers had been painted and needed a coat of varnish.
• I had finished the photo-etch on the Panzerjäger.
• The Chinook was "finished" late september, but requires some light weathering.
• The castle hasn't been touched since november, when I did some experimenting with oil paints.

Do you feel the disadvantage of not being able to focus on one kit?

So, if I haven't done nothing the past month, what HAVE I been doing?

Patriot Radar

Painting was finished, the entire thing was varnished and decals have been applied. The building instructions only mention where to place 15-20 decals, but many more are provided on the decal sheet. I guess I went a little crazy creative.

Vipers

The Vipers both needed just a coat of varnish, before decaling. Because the Mark II is going to receive many big decals, I sanded the entire body extra smooth (Tamiya sanding paper, 1200-2000 grit) before I started with varnishing.

I've been experiencing issues with spraying the Alclad II varnishes lately, but if I thin it 50/50 with white spirit (or "mineral spirits") it sprays perfectly, more controlled and levels smoother. It does require at least 2 layers however.

The Mark II has been giving me troubles. First the paint lifted after I masked off the side engines. Then when everything was smooth and done (again), I dropped a big blob of glue on it when attaching the nose gear. Some harsh words could have been heard ...

Panzerjäger

With the photo-etch done, I primed it black, added a layer of chipping fluid, then the sand-coloured basecoat. I'm doing both the plastic and PE version to see if all the extra PE- trouble is really worth it in the end.

Chinook

I finally convinced myself to finish the Chinook. I started with a very fine layer of AK dust effects, because I want to make the black and red less "in your face". The dust managed to creep under some of the decals, distorting the intended effect somewhat. I'll add another layer of matte varnish, then do some darkening aft of the exhausts. (and also some dust over the rotor blades)

Also some light dust effects on the Patriot truck, if you can spot it, near the bottom of the side thingies (fuel tanks?).

A trip to the LHS

A trip to the LHS is 40 minutes (and 40 back), so not lightly undertaken. But when your current build is halted due to an olive drab deficiency, you find ways to make it work. Hence a work-related trip to a client was worth a 15-minute detour to the hobbyshop.

Imagine my frustration when the only empty row in the entire Vallejo Model Air stand was .... do I need a drumroll? ... Olive drab. Son-of-a-....!

It was in stock in their óther shop (1 hour, again in the wrong direction), but luckily I remembered that Vallejo also has smaller primer bottles in several colours, Olive drab being one of them. Those were in stock!

Primer is thicker than the normal paint, because of god knows which additives to make it stick better to plastic, but I did not intend to wait any longer. Fingers crossed its the same colour or close enough.

Patriot Radar - Part 2 (rubber)

I've had these 2 bottles of Vallejo Panzer Aces for a long time : Dark and Light rubber. I'm sure I used the dark one before, but I've not quite had an opportunity to really try them out.

The dark rubber looks really great as a base colour. Light rubber is supposed to serve the highlights, but I found the contrast a bit too stark (left tire in picture below), so I mixed the dark and light bottles up a bit. I think I settled around 4:1 light to dark rubber.

Under the flash of a camera, contrast is always more apparent than when viewed normally, but even when I mounted the test-wheels under the truck, the lightest version was really too light,.

 
I've now done all 18 wheels with the darker mix. The contrast is still high, but less so underneath the assembled model and I'm pretty sure some light weathering will further tone down the difference.

I'm gonna go stare into the distance now, because the hour it took me to paint all wheels has caused some serious eye-strain. It was very TIRE-some. (Bazinga!)

Patriot radar - Part 1

I already announced that this kit would end up on the workbench very soon and indeed it has. The buildup is insanely quick, as there are only 73 parts. The larger parts are cleverly moulded in large single pieces. Some mould seams require cleaning up, but it's not that difficult and definitely worth the little extra effort.

One of the axle guides had broken off, but it's a sturdy piece, easily glued and repaired.

Big seams along many pieces, most prominently along the roof of the trailer. Easily fixed with putty and some sanding sticks.

After the small tragedy with paint lifting on one of the Vipers, I won't be fooled again into thinking you do not need to properly clean your parts. Some warm, soapy water and a good scrub should remove most mould release agents and greasy fingerprints. The pieces are left to air-dry on the stove overnight.

Halfway the painting stage, I ran out of Olive drab. Since the nearest hobby shop is about 45 minutes out in the wrong direction, it could take a few weeks before work can continue, which is a big bummer, as I had really intended this to be a quick build.

Patriot Radar unboxing

So, as predicted earlier, I couldn't wait to tackle this new box, as I really like how it looks and I'm anxious to see it in progress on the workbench.

This is Arii Plastic Models (now "Micro Ace") 1/48 scale "Patriot Ladar MPQ53" from 1991. During Operation Desert Storm, it was a necessary component in defense against enemy missiles (or even airplanes), for acquiring targets and directing US Patriot missiles to take down the larger Scud missiles.

The kit is 1 in a line of 4, namely the Patriot missile launcher, Patriot Radar, Patriot Controller and Antenna Mast. A friend from IPMS has the Antenna kit, but the Launcher model is bound to look a lot cooler. Should the build prove agreeable and eBay yields affordable results, I might be tempted to find and make all 4.

The box contains 4 sprue frames and the cabin top.

Detail on the parts is acceptable, but no more. A cabin interior is not available, except for one plate, which I assume is meant to represent 4 headrests? Luckily, the provided clear part for the windows is tinted black, limiting the view inside.

The decals have totally yellowed. An old trick is to put them in the sun for a few weeks (tape them to a window or something), which *should* remove some of the yellowing. This trick did not work for me on the Starfury decals, but I'll try it again anyway. It probably works better in summer anyway, as I can't even remember seeing the sun the past weeks.

A nice touch, the axles are provided as steel parts. Wheel alignment should be easier like this and no warping will occur.

Building instructions are in Japanese (I assume?) and English. 13 easy steps guide you through the build, on to the decal guide and some limited colour instructions. It's best to find reference photos to realistically pick out details that will NOT just be olive drab.

A small booklet is included, with some information on how the 4 different vehicles work together for the Patriot missile defense.

Trading at IPMS New Year's party

IPMS Ghent's traditional New Year's party is always fun and potentially very rewarding, Snacks, drinks, stories, a few works-in-progress and .. gifts!

Everyone is asked to bring a €5 gift and put it on the pile. Many of these gifts actually value around €15 but it's better to give a never-to-be-built box to someone who might actually do something with it.
I brought a Revell Tornado from my stash, since I'm very unlikely to ever build it. It was part of a second-hand batch I bought a few years ago. I'm not into airplanes anymore, especially not modern fighters. The Harrier, F-16 and C-130 in the stash are much more likely to get built.

About halfway of the evening, everyone can go and pick a random gift. Since not everyone builds just anything, a lot of trading goes on after the unwrapping. I initially got a helicopter (forgot which one), which wasn't bad, but I traded it for a Patriot Ladar MPQ53 from Arii plastic models. I have nothing in 1/48, but it just appealed to me. It might hit the workbench very soon actually.

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Nobody seems to actually call this thing a Ladar (which stands for LAser Detection And Ranging), bit googling "Patriot Radar" will yield many images. The truck in the kit seems a bit weird, but I'm thinking it'll look very nicely on the shelf.

Viper - Part 6

The 2 Vipers are reaching the end of the painting stage at roughly the same time. For the Mark VII that meant 2 coats of black primer, followed by the blue-grey base-coat (see previous post). For the Mark II it was some basic pre-shading, then about 15-20 layers of white primer.

I'm now at the point where I inspect the 2 models to detect blemishes (like dust particles in the paint, which need to be sanded away) or parts needing touch-ups. After that they will receive a clear coat to protect the base coat and prepare for decals.

I found minor seam-imperfections on both models. On the Mark VII, I fixed it by sanding away the paint, using extra filler and repainting. On the Mark II, I do not want to redo all those layers and the problem happens to be on top of the nose, where it will be hidden by the red stripe. That settles it for using decals or not. I had half planned to paint the stripes, but going to give the decals a try.