The Official Newsletter of the San Diego Model Car Club November 2009

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1 The Official Newsletter of the San Diego Model Car Club November 2009 Here it is again, Monday night at 9:00 and I m struggling to get the newsletter out. One of the big problems for me doing this thing is trying to come up with something to write about that might be interesting to you. Last month, I tried an apparently feeble attempt at model-related political humor and as near as I can tell, either no one read it, or it was so bad that no one wanted to even mention it. I got several comments on the Tamiya Glue I recommended in the Skip s Model Shop section, but absolutely nothing about the editorial. Well, I learned my lesson and I won t try that again! Onto modeling news. A couple of weeks ago, Jesse and I went up to Buena Park to the semi-annual Kit Collectors Show to do a little snooping around and spend a few sheckles on kits we absolutely don t need. Several years ago after an annoying experience at this event, I swore I d never go again, but I m not known for keeping my word when this kind of thing happens so I went up again and had a pretty good time. For as big an event as it is, it s surprising how easy it is to just take a couple of laps through the show hall and then head right out the door. I managed to pick up a few interesting kits, but not nearly as many as I used to buy there. These events are ALWAYS insanely crowded and unless you re behind a sellers table, being in the middle of these throngs of model geeks trying desperately to get a look at what s available can be a real challenge to the senses. And often times, I m referring to the sense of smell. Jesse never fails to find himself, sooner or later, in close proximity with someone that has little or no use for soap and water. After that show, we trucked on over to Pegasus Hobbies in Montclair to see what they had. Unfortunately, they didn t have anything new, but that didn t stop me from picking up a couple of things there, too. Next up was a fattening lunch in Montclair and then the long drive home down the 15. Overall, it was a delightful trip. Then, last Sunday morning, Phillip Huston (of Phillip s Hobby Shop fame in El Cajon) hosted his own little Kit Show in the parking lot next to his shop. Several us rented space, brought in tables and kits, and started selling to the guys that showed up. Despite the small size of the event, it was really a lot of fun and I managed to unload a pretty good chunk of the 1/72 airplane models I needed to get rid of. Other local car sellers included Jesse, Kyle Allen and Timi Schahn. Several IPMS San Diego members had tables there, too, as well as the Grex Airbrush guy. Hopefully, Phillip will do this again maybe a couple of times during the year. Next up for us Model Car Nazis is the Cactus Classic model car contest and kit sale in Victorville next Sunday. I ll be up there, along with Jesse and Dave Allin, and hopefully, a few of you can make it also. I ll be bringing in some more info on this event to the club meeting tomorrow night. As for other club news, we had our Build-It-In-A-Month contest last month and our theme models were the old Hawk Bonneville cars reissued a few years ago by Testors. We had a total of 15 guys (and one gal) build the models I handed out and they all turned out great! Timi and I did the judging and we used slightly different criteria than what we would normally use. For example, we used things like cuteness, cleverness, colors, etc. to determine which models would win. The ultimate winner was Dave Allin s Police Car version, with Pete Johnsons amazing race car version, and third place going to Mike Sund s Rolls Royce looking thingie. All the models were very well done, and very clever. Although it wasn t a formal award, Jesse Chavez had the fastest built model, having started it at 5:00 the day of the meeting and having finished by 6:30. I think Bruce Snyder had the most colorful paint scheme and it s a toss-up as to who had the most radical body work between Pete Johnson, Mike Sund, and Darryl Gassaway. All in all, it was a great event and as you can tell by the pictures, everyone had a great time. I predict that we ll be doing something like this again very soon! Later, Skip

2 NASCAR Model by Jay Rotun NASCAR Car of Tomorrow COT NASCAR modeling is no longer dead! By Jay Rotun Okay, so maybe we all don t build NASCAR stuff anymore. But I still do and there may even be some others here as well that do it too. We NASCAR modelers have been asking for a COT (Car of Tomorrow) kit for years now, and for many reasons still unknown, it just never happened. For years Revell has always been the preferred NASCAR kit manufacturer because AMT kits were just never quite as good as the Revell kits. Then earlier this year, Revell announced that it will no longer be making the NASCAR model line any more. All hope was lost. Now Round 2 (AMT) has stepped into the picture with its 2010 line-up announcement recently. In that line-up they will be making a COT kit in both glue and snap versions. Wow! What exciting news this is. I know of a lot of modelers that have been looking forward to this for years and now it may very well happen. There seems to be a lot of exciting stuff coming out of the Round 2 area that has gotten everyone excited. While I am no fan of today s COT car, I do still watch from time to time and build a lot of NASCAR models. I would still love to build some of the many beautiful paint jobs that are on these cars. Not to mention the possibilities of other subjects, because AMT cages and chassis s from their stock car kits were an excellent source for short track and local dirt cars. Depending on how these are done, there may still be more to kit bash. The cost of these kits and release dates are yet to be determined. There is speculation that it may be late next year, but we have already been waiting long enough, why not wait a little longer? As for cost it can t be any worse than what we have today, as you can still build a COT car with a resin kit. One resin body = $30.00, one donor kit for chassis = $15.00, decals = $ Total with some Misc./ shipping included $70.00 on average a model. Budget in mind, it just doesn t make any sense to me. I for one am hoping to buy a lot of these kits when they come out. Here s some more info to share. There is a lot of talk going on about this on one of this sites I frequent often, If you get a chance you should check it out. They do have other stuff and builds on there other than just NASCAR. For those of you wondering, there are still several decal companies out there making decals for NASCAR models. One company that has plans to make and is still making a lot of stuff is Mike s Decals. His website is He makes a lot of Powerslides decals and these are some of the best I have ever seen. You can find a lot of older decals on his site as well as all the new ones that will be coming out. I have dealt with Mike on a few occasions and his service is fast and great. Another site is Ronnie at Southern Motorsports, his site is and he has one of the largest selections of decals I have seen. One other great site is BSR to get a lot of good stuff, and the URL is I m very excited about what is coming from Round 2 and not just the NASCAR stuff either. Pretty much all of it, so I had better start saving as I plan to be spending a lot next year. Oh, and I don t build just NASCAR, I do build other stuff. Just thought I would throw that in, too.

3 BUILD IT IN A MONTH CONTEST PHOTOS By Skip Samples

4 The Models

5 I came across a couple of items that might interest you this month. The first is something you may never have thought of using, but once you try it, you ll wonder how you ever lived without it. It s a glazed bathroom tile and it really works great. I use it as a pallet for mixing paint, putty, and superglue. The glassy, glazed surface is impervious to any of the chemicals and solvents in paints, putties, and glues, and nothing sticks to it permanently, so you can easily clean it off using a single edged razor blade. It measures about 4.25 square and you can get them in a wide variety of colors, although white is probably the most useful. I found mine in the tile section of Home Depot for about $1.50. The other interesting tool that just came out is the new hobby knife from Revell. Now truthfully, I don t need anymore hobby knives but when I saw this one hanging on the rack at Phillip s Hobby Shop, I just had to have one. It s very different from conventional knives from Xacto and Xcel in that it has a much thicker rubberized handle. I assume that this is intended to make the knife a little easier to handle and maybe that s true, but I m not sure it s worth the $6.25 price tag. I liked the feel well enough, and they were smart enough to put a little bump in the handle so the knife wouldn t roll off the table and into your lap (this has happened to me before and it wasn t pretty!). I found the blade chuck a little tight but that may just be my example. If you buy the deluxe version (for the aforementioned $6.25), you also get a box of 4 additional #11 blades. Like I said, I like my Xcel knife just fine, but the new Revell knife looks kind of cool sitting on my workbench. If you need a new knife, take a look at this one before you buy anything else. You just might really like it!

6 We meet on the third Tuesday of every month at the San Diego Automotive Museum in Balboa Park. The doors open at 6:30 PM and the meetings usually run until 9:00 PM. Dues are $35.00 per year Manion Street El Cajon, CA Dan King