modelbaseguy

Hey thanx, that is exactly what I am looking for.

Okay so I have been lurking around here forever it seems and I just love all the brilliant work that I see coming from the members of this forum. So much so that you have inspired me to do a little kit bashing in hopes to end up with a larger scale Valk. I have an older Revell f-14 tomcat kit in 1/32 scale that I would like to convert to a Valk. The problem is that I need some technical drawings of a Valk vf whatever so that I can begin this conversion. I wanted to get it ready for WF 07 but I am unsure if I will make it now or not what with all the extra work I have recently taken on but I am willing to give it a shot. So if anyone out there could point me in the right direction I would be most appreciative. Thanx for the help and more so for the inspiration to take on such a project, you folks are a the best!

On all of my models I spray a gloss coat before putting on the decals. You want a REALLY smooth surface to apply decals so that they don't silver on you when they dry. I use a mild setting solution when applying the decals to help snug them into crevaces such as panel lines. Once the decal has had plenty of time to dry, I spray MM dullcoat in two light coats. You don't want to leave your decals unprotected, they can come off if handled.

Thanx for stopping by and supporting our efforts. I want to do some more Macross themed bases but I just don't get the support I need. I have to work on getting something together the Macross builders just can't live without. Yeah I can't wait to see the 1/32 scale surprise myself. If I don't trash it out of disgust before I complete it I think that I will have a nice little project to enter in the contest. I was going to go for 1/48 scale but I got a little loopy (too many paint and glue fumes I guess) and decided to go for broke and do something BIG. Now if I can just pull it off in time for next years show......

Well the WF 06 is in the bag folks and let me say that I was disappointed. The crowds were light, the sales were down and I was sick the whole time. I was not even able to come down to the table on Sunday at all. I was however really surprised by the number of Macross folks that came by, we sold out of all of our Macross bases very early. I would like to extend a big THANK YOU to all the members who came by the table to say Hi and show your support. I am planning to go again next year and have already purchased the table. We will be in the main hall next year so there should be more traffic and hopefully more sales. I have a project that I am working on for one of the magazines that I need to finish but then I am going to start my 1/32 scale Macross project. I am keeping it under wraps for now just in case it does not launch by WF 07 but I will be around the forum from time to time to check in on you guys. Take care and I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend.

We have not seen much interest from the Macross crowd so no new bases for now but if anyone has any ideas for what they would like to see we are listening. We will have our existing bases however and a few little greeblies so anybody that is going please just stop by and say HI. I have been so busy getting ready for the show that I have neglected my Macross modeling as of late but I have something in the works for NEXT Years WF. It will probably take me another year to finish it . Can you say 1/32 scale? I still can't find those WF picts, I must have burried them deep. I will keep looking.

Until I can dig my photos out here is a link to Starship Modeler where you can find tons of photos from past shows. This link is to the photos from last years show. WF 2005 photos

I do! I do! Let me dig them out and I will post a link.

Sounds like someone needs to exercise his pimp hand. I will be there again this year so if anyone is going please stop by my table and say "Hi". If you have never been to WF you should try to go at least once. Unfortunately WF is a lot like crack, it only takes one time and then you are hooked, you always end up broke afterwards and you will borrow steal or kill to go again. Anybody entering any Macross stuff in the model contest? I know that the mech and vehicles part of the contest is usually pretty light, mostly just Star Wars and Star Trek stuff. I was trying to get something together to enter but I have been so freaking busy with the model bases I have not had time. Next year I am going to shoot for something big, say 1/48 scale. It will probably take me all year to finish but I hope it will prove to be worth it.

WARNING Be carefull using brake fluids on resin it will ruin the resin. I have used brake fluid many times to remove multiple layers of paint from a plastic part with great success. A couple of months ago I tried the same tecnique for a resin piece and boy did I end up with a pickle. I mean literally the resin piece became pickled to a point where all the paint came off but the piece is no longer rigid it is more like a piece of rubber. All the detail is there but the piece is just like a pickle all rubbery and useless. I have left it on my workbench praying that it would cure out but it still has not. So be carefull using brake fluids on resin. Brake cleaner on the other hand may work fine on resin but keep it away from plastic unless you want a big smoldering glob of goo.

It is Glad's Press n Seal plastic wrap. I have found it in grocery stores as well.

Armentage, sorry to disappoint but we try to offer the highest quality pieces at an reasonable price. One reason we use resin is the weight, so that when the model that you have just spent the last few weeks painstakingly puting together and painting will not topple over if the table it is sitting on gets bumped. I have had too many run ins with cheap plastic bases to allow that to happen with one of our products. As for mass production, well we are a small humble group literally working out of the basement of my house so we are considered a "Garage Kit" company. Because we are small we can make small batches of a specialized product and still offer them at a reasonable price which means you guys get the bases that you like. Try getting one of the "big" corporate model companies to produce decent bases for you, it ain't gonna happen. To understand why that is just take a look at what it takes to mass produce something as simple as a plastic base. First you must have a master base from which to work. Well you can just find those lying around so you have to hire a staff of artists and engineers to make that happen. The raw materials for the bases are cheap if you buy in mass quantities, say 15 tons. Plastic comes in pellets not liquid and the only way to make it liquid is to heat it up. To do that you need a foundry because you are not pouring up just a couple bases, no you are pouring gallons of scalding hot liquid plastic into a $50,000 + metal mold that will produce anywhere from 20 to 100 pieces at a time. An operation like this is not run out of someone's garage or basement oh no you have a staff of 100 or more that you have to pay wages, insurance and benefits to. Oh and then there is rent on the building where you house all of the expensive equipment that it takes to mass produce that cheap little base your company offers. And let's not forget the utilities to keep your business running, those furnaces don't generate the heat magically and it is hard to work in the dark or lift that molten hot bucket of liquid plastic without the use of some sort of hydraulic or electric crane and pulley system. Well now you have your bases all manufactured but now you need a package to put them in so now you have another creative staff just for your packaging and advertising needs. Then you sent this art to a printing company who makes the boxes or header cards that hold your individual bases. Your staff of customer service representatives and sales people take orders for your bases that you pay to have shipped to the retail locations where HOPEFULLY they sell. So you add all this up and you would have to produce and sell several thousand little bases just to break even. That is why you won't find any bases like the ones we produce coming out of the big companies because they cannot specialize, they must generalize just to stay afloat. That is one more reason I founded this little gk company because I could not find a good quality base for my starships. I started producing my own then for friends, then clients and the next thing you know we are in business. Now we are looking to the future and the possibility of producing resin kits because once again I see a need that the big boys are just not filling. Now please, no one take this as a rant or that I am angry. I certainly am not but sometimes it is difficult to see what goes into that little inexpensive "thingy" until it is pointed out to you by someone in the biz. Heck I complained all the time about the cost of the figure kits that now reside in my collection that is until I had the process explained to me by a rather ticked off kit producer. Moving on........ To paint the Kite base in particular I used.................... shhhhhh, come closer so no one will learn my secret...................................................................... .......................................................................................Self adheasive plastic wrap used in the kitchen. You know that new kind that has just a touch of "Post-It" adheasive on one side to help it stick to any kind of container. First I painted the entire base gloss white out of a spray can that I bought for .99¢ at (God help me) Walmart. I let this dry for a day but you don't have to wait that long just follow the instructions on the can, then I tore off a piece of the plastic wrap that was much larger than the base itself. I applied the plastic wrap to the base and really burnished it down around ALL of the edges between the shapes. Next I took an xacto knife with a fresh blade and traced all of the recessed lines in the base and then carefully removed the areas that would be painted red. Don't toss those pieces away you will need them later. Now taking another .99¢ can of spray paint I sprayed red over the entire piece, let that dry for the proper amount of time and replaced the pieces of plastic wrap I had previously removed. Now on the outside edge I trimmed the plastic wrap away to reveal the beveled edge of the base and painted that with, you guessed it a .99¢ can of flat black paint. Once the last coat of paint had dried thoroughly I removed the plastic wrap and began to clean up any edges where paint slipped under, not many of those. Up to this point all of the paint that I have used is enamel so now I switched to a jar of Modelmaster Acryl semi gloss black paint. I thin this about 50% and begin applying it to the recessed lines in the base. Just load up a medium sized brush with the thinned paint and touch one of the recessed lines capillary action will do the rest. Once you have all of the recessed lines filled just let the paint dry for 10 mins and then come back with a q-tip "moist" not "wet" with water and touch up any areas that you painted outside the lines. Because acrylic will not adhear to enamel this should be an easy cleanup. Let the paints continue to cure out for another day or so and then spray the entire base with your favorite clear coat to seal your work. Mount your model to the base and knock the socks off your friends and would be competetors at the next model contest. I hope that this helps and if you are not asleep by now from reading this looooooong post I wish you all a very Merry CHRISTmas and a Happy New Year. Take care all while traveling over the holidays and hey if you get some time, build a model, stick it on one of our bases and send it to me. I just love seeing what you guys come up with.

First a shamless plug: The Model Base Okay now that I have that out of the way, I would try to find some steel wire at your local hardware store. Typically I think this is found in the welding section but basically it is a hardened wire that is very rigid and yet very thin. You can bend the stuff but it takes a little effort just take your time and go slow as it can snap and then you have a tiny missle being launched. If you have a torch or heck even a candle you can heat up the wire where you want the bend and it will make it a lot easier. There are different thicknesses of the wire so get the one you feel is just thick enought to hold your kits. After you have it bent into the shape you want you should scuff it up good with some sandpaper or steel wool and paint it as it can rust on you. I hope that this helps.

Well the Jolly Rogers have been up on the website for a couple of weeks now and..............................................................NOTHING, ZIP, ZILCH, NADA. Where is everyone that wanted one of these? We have both sizes available and we spent a lot of cash bringing them to you guys so why have we not sold the first one. I posted in here and in the Items for sale area but we have not heard a word from anyone. I thought from the response of the poll that the Jolly Roger was the next logical step, I guess that I was wrong. Got to say that I am disapointed with the luke warm results that our bases have gotten from the Macross fans. I think that for now we will stick to working for our customers that actully purchase our products. If and when there becomes a REAL interest from the Macross group perhaps we will get back into developing bases for the genré. Take care all and Happy Modeling!

Okay guys the Jolly Rogers are ready but I have not put them up on the web yet. I will try to get to it Monday morning, still trying to recoop from all that Turkey!