November Meeting Notes

Our meeting kicked off at 1:00 PM. Unfortunately I showed up at 1:10 thanks to the horrible job of accident clearing by the Woodstock PD!

We had 15 members in attendance, taking into account the ACME NNL Southern Nationals show was happening in Smyrna, and Dave Lockhart on a work trip. I’ll also excuse Mike Idacavage; I guess your daughter doesn’t get her degree every week!

We had 4 models completed plus a WIP.

We did not have a formal presentation, so items discussed included the upcoming Holiday parties:

• ·         IPMS Marietta Scale Modelers on December 10 at Sidelines – Kennesaw beginning 12 Noon
• ·         Atlanta Area IPMS Christmas Party on December 14 at Thai Star in Norcross beginning around 7 PM

Don’t forget to bring a wrapped nice modeling-related gift for the Dirty Santa exchange.

Next we covered the upcoming model shows:

• ·         January 6-7 – Chattanooga
• ·         February 17-19 – AMPS Atlanta and Atlanta Model Soldier Show
• ·         March 11 – Atlanta Con

Kevin Westphal showed us some new models that have arrived at Hobbytown USA:

Scale	Mfgr	Subject	MSRP
48	Eduard	MC 202Folgore	59
?	Revell	Imperial Star Destroyer	35
?	Revell	Rebel Star Destroyer	35
35	Takom	King Tiger Porsche Zimmerit	79
35	Takom	G6 Rhino South African SPG	73
35	Panda	T-14 Armata	66
72	Hasegawa	Space Wolf SW 190	40
24	Meng	Hummer H1	90

As always, your membership in IPMS Marietta gets you 10% off at Hobbytown USA!

Mark Nickleson had two aircraft in November. Mark’s first aircraft was a classic Grumman F9F-8 Cougar. Mark built the 1/48 scale Kittyhawk kit. He painted it in the Glossy Sea Blue finish with Model Master.

Mark’s other aircraft was a helicopter. Mark built the Special Hobby Sikorsky R4 kit, which is also a 1/48 scale model. Using Model Master paint, Mark modeled a USCG R4 that ferried plasma from Floyd Bennett Field on Long Island to Sandy Hook, NJ to aid victims of an ordnance handling explosion on the U.S.S. Turner (DD-648).

Andy Roberts displayed his newly completed Imperial TiE Fighter. Andy built the fighter using the Bandai kit in 1/72 scale. He said the kit does face fit issues especially of you are cementing it together, as it is designed for the snap-tight crowd. Using Vallejo acrylics, Andy achieved a realistic finish with washes and dry-brushing.

James Young had this year's Hallmark aviation ornament, an F-16 fighter. There were significant issues with the intake and missiles, and the paint job was farcical. We'll see how James salvages this one.

Fred Heil displayed a unique kit bash project. Fred titled the aircraft “Aurora” after the US spyplane project. The basic airframe was part of an Italeri kit (SR-75 Penetrator with XR-7 Thunderdart). Fred modified the engine from twin pods to an inline set up to include heat diffusers. Fred also scratch built a bomb bay then placed the aircraft on a base with service personnel and equipment. Fred guessed at what “Aurora” might have looked like. A few years later a new Stealth magazine showed an aircraft named “Astra” with amazing similarities. Fred also mentioned the upper and lower wing halves were not well matched and required genuine whittling to make them fit.

Mark Grzenia had his in-progress Westland Wysander airframe. Mark is building the Eduard kit in 1/48 scale. He is discovering some discrepancies in the kit instructions as he is using the Eduard photo-etch accessories in the cockpit. He will be adding wiring behind the instrument panel as he continues the build.

Tom Rice is venturing into the CAD side of things in creating custom parts for his Saturn I project. Tom had a Shapeways item compared to a scratch built item and the difference was pretty astounding. Tom is going to have some additional parts from other sources for comparison soon.

Fred’s Aurora was voted MoM, in a true democratic fashion (no delegates needed!). Bill Ficke was lucky duck for the second month in a row winning the Hobbytown USA gift card.

See you all at Sidelines December 10^th for our Holiday party!