Saturday, March 9

Posted on March 10, 2024 by shenvalleymodelers

Good day Gents and good day to our newest members! It’s great to see us growing! The meeting was fun, with our energy bars (otherwise known as donuts) and good cheer. It was fun to celebrate Randy and Ben’s awards at ODO 2024 – what team spirit we have. I really enjoyed hearing Rick’s story about his dad and working on models with him. It is nice to see how our hobby crosses generations and brings dads and kids together – as shown by 3 sets of dads and kids at our meetings.

Ross’s sports car, based on an actual working car, was superb. I had no idea what pipes he was talking about but like Chad said – just don’t mention it to anyone. I don’t know about any of you guys but John’s flatbed with the bulldozer was a total stunner. John, you should have taken that to ODO! It was truly impressive.

I hope my primer on flesh tones went over well and I was able to pass some tips on. As I mentioned in the meeting, we are a long way off from hosting a big show. I do think we can host a smaller show to give us practice and confidence to do more shows later. I welcome your thoughts but ones I had were to hold a “if you never competed/never won before” kind of show or an Ace of Aces show (I prefer the former as our club ethos is to teach and help each other along). I would appreciate your thoughts on the idea and if looking to shoot for August or September 2025 is a good timeframe.

We have three pre-orders for the grey club shirt – Ross, Jeff, and Randy. Need 3 more for the minimum order of 6 so if you would like to have one, let me know.

Keep building and stretch yourselves like Jeff did with his 4-at-once build or me with a motorcycle (what color is a motorcycle engine,,aaagh) . It can be frustrating but you will learn a new aspect of modeling and you will have fun in the end. Jeff, those trucks looked good to me brother!

– Chris

Ross’ Trash Truck

Posted on March 8, 2024 by shenvalleymodelers

My latest build in progress, this is the AMT Garwood trash truck. So far it has received a MASSIVE scale ride height adjustment (think between 5-8 inches!) a conversion to “super singles” and the conversion of the engine into a 428 SCJ with an 8-71 Cragar supercharger. For when the trash needs picked up RIGHT NOW. Lol. We will see what sort of tricks I will have to pull out of my hat to get the cab floor to clear the motor, and if the body will fit over the rear tires without further modification.

This is the cab height I am hoping to achieve. Which may be a struggle given the intake scoop is just below the bottom of the rear window!

Here is the interior tub cut out to clear the ludicrous engine. These cuts were required to allow the cab to pivot on its hinges and sit level on the frame. The following photo shows the drivers seat riser I made from styrene to cover the aforementioned cuts and allow the seats to fit over the engine.

Here are the seats mounted to their risers. And lastly the cab, now attached to the modified interior tub and mocked up to the frame. Looks like I have achieved the cab height and stance I was looking for! The goofy wheel offset has been fixed by shortening the interior hub surface, I just forgot to take a photo, oops!

Paint work almost finished. The cab is pearl white and red metallic. The body is gloss white, with pearl white in the outer recess of the body and metallic red on the inside. Still have the “tailgate” portion to finish as well as the interior of the cab.

Here is the interior all finished. The seat height for the driver isn’t as crazy as I had feared it would be. Detail work on the cab also nearly finished. The Ford lettering on the nose required a dose of Jamiesons to steady my hand a little :p

And here she is almost complete. Detail painting of the compactor, decals and if I can find a diagram online routing all the hydraulic and air hoses. Photos make the compactor appear unpainted, which it most definitely IS NOT. I’ll just have to bring it to the March meeting and show off a little…

– Ross

Luftwaffe Boat Update #3

Posted on February 29, 2024 by shenvalleymodelers

Okay gents. The Luftwaffe rescue boat is getting closer to its first rescue on the Channel! The pilot house is in and just about all the wood tones are painted. Left to go is the install of the windbreak glass panels and the real fun begins-the weathering to make it look like it has a tough go of it in the choppy waters of the North Sea and the Channel

– Chris

Richmond Show

Posted on February 28, 2024 by shenvalleymodelers

Good day gents,

Several club members attended the 24 February Richmond show. Six members entered various categories and four of our members walked away with “bling”. Randy was our bandleader by earning 4 awards across different categories. Way to go Randy! Ben scored in the collections category with his neat set of figures and Scott placed in the truck category. I was lucky too with one of my figure pieces. This was a tough competition- with almost 1000 models entered! The craftsmanship across the board was simply stunning. Proportionally, our little chapter did pretty well… in short we rock!!

Rescue Boat Update

Posted on February 15, 2024 by shenvalleymodelers

Hey gents here are some update photos of the Luftwaffe rescue boat. The hull sides are given several light layers of a grey-white paint. The pilot house is pretty much done minus the windows-thanks to Scott for supplying the clear material for the windows! The cabin deck has been started but has a ways to go but not so bad so far. See the aircraft recognition poster!

– Chris

Saturday, February 10

Posted on February 14, 2024 by shenvalleymodelers

Hi all; I hope I speak for everyone in saying the February meeting was outstanding. Applause to Randy and Marcin for giving a fantastic primer on diorama bases. I learned a great deal about a skill set I don’t much have. From the energetic sidebar discussions, Randy and Marcin certainly engaged all of us. We have some very talented folks in our club.

Welcome to our two new members; it’s great to see the club continue to grow. But really, do we need another truck modeler? Just kidding, I know how sensitive you truck fellows are.

As mentioned, several of our meetings this year fall on the same day as an IPMS show in the region. In particular, these dates conflict with our meeting dates:

13 April The NOVA show

10 August Virginia Shootout (Salem VA)

14 September PENNCON

So, what would you all like to do? We can move our meeting forward or back 1 week around these dates; cancel the meeting that month for those months; or have the meeting take place as scheduled with those not attending the respective show holding the meeting as scheduled. Please respond to the poll link below so I can see how you all lean and we’ll go with that!

As a reminder here are the next few meeting topics:

For March, I will do skin tones

For April, let’s do effective decal placement/setting. (Depending on the results of the poll above)

For May, how to effectively paint cars with that special kind of gloss/shine car paints have by Ross

For June, range day! bang bang!.

For July, fiber optic how-tos by Todd

For August, industry and update Mark (depending on results of poll above) and a primer on the use of pigments by Marcin

Finally, let me know if you would like one of our grey club polo shirts. Need 5 more shirt orders to submit the order and I’lll get that off quick.

– Chris

Luftwaffe Rescue Boat

Posted on February 8, 2024 by shenvalleymodelers

The Luftwaffe used the same boat as the Kriegsmarine captain’s gig. The Luftwaffe used it however as a rescue boat to pick up downed aircrew in the Channel. Here is the boat in work. It is 1/35 scale. The pilot house had zero interior so I scratchbuilt what you see inside it. I added the hand bars on top of the house using evergreen strips. I primed it a bit to see how it was coming along and where extra attention needed to be applied.
The picture of gear that will be eventually added are from various 1/35 accessory kits. Will keep you posted on progress!

– Chris

Gepetto

Posted on February 7, 2024 by shenvalleymodelers

Gents. Here is the finished Gepetto scene. The he figure set is from Andrea Miniatures 54mm metal figure set. Acrylics were used for the figures but lacquers were used for the flooring and the work table. I used a block of walnut wood from the garage for its “woodshop” look.

– Chris

Update From Chad

Posted on February 6, 2024 by shenvalleymodelers

In a comment on another post, Ross demanded updates from other members, so I figured I would update you guys on my lack of building progress.

I will be out of the state for the Richmond show, so my deadline for contest entries has been slightly extended with NOVA being the next target in April. I don’t believe my motorcycle will make it (it’s going to need a base and I need to develop those skills a bit first) but fingers crossed for the Bonanza. My 3D printing side gig is taking off and proving a bit difficult to keep up with, but that just means more money for kits I’ll never build!

In the immediate future, I’m working on an article to be published in the Mentor Monitor which is a quarterly magazine put out by the T-34 Association, which I’m a member of through my job. I’m going to be covering as many of the different scale model kits available for the T-34 Mentor as i can and trying to give comparisons between them. Here are some of the photos I’ve been accumulating for that project.

– Chad

Lego AN225

Posted on February 6, 2024 by shenvalleymodelers

Taking a brief break from one type of plastic in favor of another. This is a truly enormous AN225 in 1:84 scale if the package is to be believed.

This thing is so huge my work area is actually too small to contain it. The package it arrived in weighed 13 pounds! In photo two you see my Harbor Freight bin set up I use to separate the parts for assembly.

The wings fleshed out, then the six engines assembled and installed. To those who may be wondering this build took about twenty hours spread out over ten days.