Official
month club meeting - kits, jokes and modeling...
This IPMS-NJ club meeting took place on Mar/13th at
KOC, Garwood NJ. This was probably one of
the best meetings that I attended, and it was the Empire Night,
sponsored by Martin Quinn. Let's check the
contenders.
A couple of Spitfires, of course. This one is the 1/48 Airfix Spitfire
by Pat O'Connor...
... while this one, also in 1/48, was authored by Marc Rocca, our Model Making Machine-Man:
Next, a beautiful rendition of the Accurate Miniatures Douglas
Dauntless in 1/48 scale Martin Quinn. Nice to see a yellow wings SBD:
This vignette started as a 1/32 Hasegawa Me-109 by
our Big Bill Schwartz. It's entitled Rushing to Meeting Night . Bill
told us that he spilled 'half a pint' (sic) of lacquer thinner over the
model near the end. He then had the idea of using the tail as shown.
Bill, I can't tell how the 109 would be, but surely it would be
difficult to beat your vignette. These guys know how to have fun (I
still don't know if I should vote for it in air or land category!):
Moving to the sea, two fantastic entries. First is this K-Class British
Submarine. It is an all resin Pit Road kit in 1/350. First (and possibly the
only) time I saw one built:
And the next is Martin Quinn's HMS Tiger in 1/700
from the Combrig offering. I think he was saving this one for a meeting
closer to St. Patrick's day. Amazing work, Martin:
Look all these antenaes:
And in the 'land' table, we started with this Bishop SP Gun in 1/35
from Dragon, built by Thomas Stead:
And this fine entry is the rare Minicraft 1829 Stephanson 'Rocket'
locomotive in 1/26, built by our veteran Neal Scheue. Neal told me that
this was the first practical passenger and freight steam locomotive,
carrying up to 20 ton of load at 29 mph. It was used in the
Liverpool-Manchester Railway:
Look the strange (but structurally correct) shape of the rails. Here is
the author proudly explaining his efforts. He also told us that the
coal car was missing, which he intends to finish in time for
MosquitoCon'10. I hope to reach your age still so active, Neal...
And the only figure entry was this fine Stalingrado Inferno vignette
1/35 (DML) by Jim Cosides:
The 'under construction' table was very full this time.
Let me start by the fantastic job done by John with his DML Jagdpanzer
38 in 1/35. He started using a New Connection resin set, but corrected
so many flaws that he virtually scratchbuilt the whole conversion:
Here is him explaining all the work:
Mike's Sikorsky S-38 progressed a lot since the last meeting. The wings
are already done:
Here is Ernest holding a PE 20 mm cannon in 1/700 scale. I don't
remember the author, but it is small eh?
It seems that somebody is going to have a lot of work:
And more 'in the works':
Bill talked to us about the MosquitoCon, mere three weeks away. It is
going to be a great show:
And the winners of the Theme Night were awarded at the end. Here is
Marc receiving from Martin the prize for his
Spitfire... I missed the winner of sea/land category, sorry (too much
beer):
What made this meeting special was the large number of goodies brought
by the members.
The table got the same attention that the contest table. No surprise,
as it was full of new items and rarities. It is nice to be able to
check new releases in person.
Some really called my attention. This is the Hasegawa Yahagi in 1/350:
Note how Hasegawa
cleverly packed the hull:
More new stuff:
Ahhh goodies (some of them older
than me):
And that was it. The
meetings are getting better and better each month... I'm looking forward
to the next one.