Greetings and  Happy Easter to all.  Do have a peaceful and enjoyable Easter with your family and friends.  My dogwood trees are not ready to bloom at Easter this year as they normally do, but when they do arrive it will be nice as the flowers of the tree are pretty and have that very appropriate Cross pattern in the petals.

Chad and I took a trip to Frontline on Saturday and had a good visit with Christian and his team at the store.  They had coffee and – of course – donuts waiting for us.  We gladly took advantage of that.  The highlight for me was getting the Meng 1/48 F-14B Bombcat, which Christian had ordered from his distributor for me.  Chad got a bunch of small stuff (it’s Chad remember!) for under $30.  Christian gave some deep discounts for the both of us.  Afterwards, we both munched on street tacos at the nearby Mexican restaurant and visited a gaming store about a block away.  All in all it was a good trip to Staunton on a rather nice day.

Good news all.  We have crossed the $2000 barrier for our chapter account balance.  It took us just about 1 year to do so but we made that goal I had set out.   Thanks to Ross, Chad and Scot ahead of time on giving a primer on decal placement and setting for this month’s talk.  FYI to all, our honorary member John will be officially handing over one of his superb fire engines to a fire hall in Pennsylvania and graciously offered to do so on behalf of the Shenandoah Valley Modelers chapter.  John and I will work on doing a write up of the event for an upcoming issue of the IPMS magazine. 

In closing, having a great Easter.  Put the sprue down and spend time with those close to you today. 

– Chris

Hey you hot rod car builders; some industry news for you!

– Chris

Hey Tomcat fans. check out this new reference material – looks really good!  Donovan, you can see the mottled paint that Navy fighters (especially it seems the F-14) have due to the salt effects at sea.  Gives Navy fighters a real tough guy, gritty look.  Anytime Baby!

– Chris

Hey folks, saw this video (see link) and wanted to pass it along.  It’s about a new range of acrylics from AMMO that appears to fit the bill that acrylics  – at least for me – don’t do at all near as well as lacquers do.  I may try this range out on some new build I do and will let you know how the new line performs.  Until then, enjoy the video and if any of you already have worked this paint, let us know how it went.

https://www.themodellingnews.com/2024/01/hands-on-video-review-clayton-examines.html#more

– Chris

Update from the Batcave gents.  The two bats are done and the cape/cowl have their base coats on.  The lead foil replacement of the molded cape seems like a good choice.  Clear coating of the cemetery monument and then oil weathering of that and a lot more touching up to Bruce Wa….I mean Batman!

-Chris

Hi gents, here is my Special Hobby 1/72 Type XXIII German submarine.  Finally got it wrapped up and taking it to the National Capitol Model Soldier Society show on 30 September.  Wish me luck!

-Chris

The meeting for August has been moved to August 19th and will be held at All Nations Model and Hobby Shop at 11am. This has been updated on the Meetings page as well.

Please bring a model you’re working on or recently finished to discuss with the group. With PennCon coming up we want to expose everyone to new ideas or techniques that we can learn from.

As you all know, we met at the AMVETS post in Stephens City for July.  If you are a veteran and would like to join that AMVETS post please let Chris know and he will give you information on how to join.