Saturday, September 7th

Good day gents.  Many thanks to Scott for running the September meeting!  The topic was on dioramas and Scott brought his Prohibition-era dio as a guide on how to lay out a good one that tells a story.

Several club members will be at PennCon 14 September.   I hope those who have not attended a show but have wanted to see or participate in one will join us!

Three of our members participated at this year’s National Capitol Model Soldiers Society contest on 7 September.  Randy took two golds for his Cobra helo and German missile tank  and  one silver for his dinosaur head (max Medal Man strikes again!).   John took a bronze for his fantastic wrecker truck!   I got two silvers for two of my figures.  Once again the Raven-hood does well!  

My thanks to John for taking my entries to the 7 September show since I was on travel to VMI to watch a military parade the Keydets  put on (my son is a “rat”).

-Chris

Notes from Chad:

The meeting was a bit less crowded than usual with only 10 of us on hand but it was still good to see the models that were brought.  Gabriel’s tanks were all impressive, as was Ben’s vignette (comprised of parts from I believe he said 14 different kits!) Andre’s Tu-95 had me considering buying a Bear of my own at Dan’s after the meeting and Jeff’s car lot helped show us visually how little difference there was between 1/24 and 1/25.

I’m going to try to make it to PennCon, so I hope to see some of you guys there.  Even if you don’t have models to bring it would still be a worthwhile trip!

-Chad

Latest From Jeff

Well,  build number 35 for the year is in the books. 1970 Mustang with a fuel quad 427 from Texas 3d customs. I really do like his stuff. Very well detailed. I wired and plumbed it. Made the headers out of solder, small piece of aluminum tubing and some shrink wrap. Wheels and tires are from a 2n1 1970 Buick GSX. Not your typical paint scheme, but I like it.

– Jeff

The Raven-Hood

Gents, just wanted to take a moment to speak to our “Raven-Hood”.  It is such a positive thing to see almost 30 guys who did not know each other (most of us) before we started the Shenandoah Valley Modelers reach out and help one another.  Just this week, John offered to take some entries for me to the National Capital Model Soldier’s Society event on September 7.  John passed to me a whole lot of pricey stuff he gave to Scott for free when we met on Monday.   Chad has made 3D items for several of us who asked him for only a cup of coffee in return.  Mark served as a head judge and represented all of us at the Charles Town Cruze-In car model contest.

I know there are many other instances of members of our club helping one another – perhaps a lot were “quiet” and done between two or three members with no fanfare.  All of these instances speak to the rapport and camaraderie between us sprue-dudes.  Go Raven-Hood!

– Chris

GT500 Eleanor

So I got this transmit from Texas 3d customs a while got.  It takes the AMT 67 Shelby GT350 and turns it into the GT500 Eleanor from the remake of Gone in 60 Seconds. The kit included a new nose piece, wheel flairs and rocker panels to transform the body. Also included the correct wheels and tires and the all important 428 Cobra Jet engine.  I detailed it with ignition wires and heater hoses. The clear messed up the decals, but otherwise a dune and challenging built.

Jeff

It’s Not Orange!

My latest build, an excellent 96 Nissan 300Z. I fitted it with the wheels left over from the 2024 Nissan Z wide-body project (which IS orange) they fit the look and style of the older car surprisingly well. Other than a stormtrooper paint scheme and the aforementioned wheels this was an out of box build for me. I have been exceptionally busy since mid-July and haven’t been modeling much at all. Looking forward to the ORANGE festival (uhhh PennCon)

-Ross

Ocean City Airshow 2024

I know it isnt model related but my wife and I headed up to MD for the airshow yesterday. Since it was just the two of us I went ahead and bought tickets for a better spot.  I’m glad I did because we ended up with one of the best viewing angles on the beach.

The Frecce Tricolori headlined and they did put on a good show. Not quite on par with the US or UK teams, but it was still really impressive to see maneuvers with 10 aircraft.  And it was very colorful too.

The highlight for me, as at most shows, was the F-18 and F-22 demo teams.  Both are incredible aircraft to watch.  The F-22 also deployed flares this time, which was new for me and pretty cool to see.

The A-10 team was a bit disappointing, unfortunately.  Seeing 3 together was cool but they didn’t do any of the more impressive maneuvers I saw the single aircraft perform at the last show.  They also stayed farther from the crowd and most of their stuff happened to the right of the crowd, and they clearly had no idea where show-center was.

We hung out on the beach for a while after the show and had some pizza.  As we were leaving I met some of the Tricolori support crew which was pretty cool. Just happened to be at the right spot at the right time.

I don’t have the photography skills that some of our club members have and my camera is terribly old at this point, but I got some photos I’m pretty happy with.  Everything on this post is straight out of the camera with some cropping.  Once I find time to sit down and edit some I’ll throw together another album for anyone interested.  There’s a couple terrible videos I need to splice together as well.  For now here are a few more photos from the show:

– Chad

B-1 Bomber

Maybe it is just me, but the B-1 bomber just has to be one of the most graceful looking warbirds ever made.  This B-1 is at the line at Nellis AFB for Red Flag.  I have a 1/144 B-1 but it will be awhile till I can get to it.  FYI all, my 1/144 SOC-1 just fell apart.  Chad, you have a good  buffer of time before I even get halfway competent at this small scale!
Thank heavens for FIGURES!!

– Chris

Another One in Orange

So I’m plugging away finishing the models I’m taking to PennCon and this is the latest. I can’t decide if I’ll do one or two more for the show in Orange. Kinda getting tired of the color. Anyway, here’s a 1970 Mach 1 done in the proper Grabber Orange. Thanks to Dan at the hobby shop for the paint. The hood decals are a pain to get to lay flat. I think next time I’ll just paint the stripes and transfer just the number for the engine size.

Jeff

No Coffee

Hi gents. Worked on a bust figure of me before I get my morning coffee.  Randy won this in a raffle at Nats (funny, I don’t remember posing for the bust but the maker, Blackheart Models, sure captured my likeness!).   Coffee is the great elixir right??!!

-Chris