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Ron Bell

IPMS/USA Executive Board
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Ron Bell last won the day on March 28

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About Ron Bell

  • Rank
    Acrylic Addict
  • Birthday 06/05/1948

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    Eddie Rickenbacker
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  • Location
    Columbus, Ohio
  • Interests
    Braille scale British armor, classic kits, just getting in to ships.

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  1. This is the M+E Models conversion set mated to a 2nd generation Airfix Lancaster. You get a new nose and tail as well as a plug for the ventral turret and a page of decals. From what I've been able to gather, these used the paddle bladed props, so the ones in the kit shouldn't be used. I got a set of the other props from a friend. It sat on the shelf for a few years as the decals shattered when put in water. Then I discovered that the new Airfix Whitley kit comes with BOAC markings. I know they're not correct, but they look fine and what's more, they fit. Finish is SNJ polished with their polishing dust with the exception of the control surfaces.
  2. Remember these? This the the dawn of armor modeling in the 50's. Aurora had a series of 1/48 tank kits that included the Stalin III and Churchill, which wouldn't be modeled in any scale for literally decades. This is the Atlantis re-release of the M-46 Patton. It's actually the second re-release as Aurora modified it's original molds to more closely represent an M-46 and not an M-26 Pershing. The detail is on the sparse side and the turret MG is cartoonish, but over all it does look like a Patton. Fit is horrendous and there was lots of flash and mold seams. But with work, it looks presentable. This is OOTB (I did drill out the gun barrels and had to retexture the turret after I fixed the huge top/bottom seam) built as a pressure reliever for a larger project I was in the midst of. The paint color was MM Green Drab, but with weathering and washes, it looks more brown than green.
  3. Try contacting Bill Devins. He was in several episodes. He might have access to some/copies.
  4. Contact the office manager at manager@ipmsusa.org. She's the one maintaining the mailing list and can get you a replacement.
  5. Robert, Welcome back! We have a very active modeling community here in Columbus. We have a good club and meet the second Sunday of each month at the Westerville Library. Please, consider this an invite to join us. HOWEVER given the current Covid-19 business, the library is closed, so we won't be meeting until it re-opens. You can find out more about us on our FaceBook page, https://www.facebook.com/groups/100922699967667/ including meeting times/dates.
  6. This is the Revell 1954 release of the F-94C. The original release had one-piece wings and no landing gear. I blanked off the intakes and exhaust and the gear wells and replaced the gear doors as they were much too thick. The markings are just whatever was in my spares box as the ones in the kit were very yellowed. Finish is Alclad over gloss black. The panels were done with dull coated or sprayed decal film. I think the basic finish is too glossy. It's "polished aluminum". Next time I'll try a different color. Slowly but surely I'm getting the hang of these natural metal finished a/c.
  7. This is a resin kit from Retro Tracks, a Belgian company. It's a very nice casting that went together pretty easily. The challenge was that camo in 1/72. It doesn't look too bad in the photos, but in person, it's kind of rough is some spots. The vehicle itself was not a roaring success. As a tank, it was a miserable failure. It was front heavy, the chassis was overloaded and it was underpowered However, it proved useful on occasion as a sort of proto-assault gun (that's a French 75 in the nose) and as mobile artillery. It was declared obsolete immediately after the war and discarded.
  8. Please contact our office manager as she is the keeper of that list. There are many rasons why such things could occur ranging from just not telling us of a change up to human error. Please be part of the solution and let her know at manager@ipmsusa.org
  9. Just for future reference, you can reach any of the ipms officers via their email listing on the ipms web site under "about" and then "officer listing".
  10. Here's another "golden oldie", the Revell 1954 kit of the F7U-3M. I used a German re-release, which was good because it had a much nicer decal sheet. The kit was the original molds, however, raised panel lines and decal locators galore. All were sanded off and some amount of putty was used to get a good joint for the vertical tails and the wing to fuselage joint. The canopy, though nicely molded, was too wide for the fuselage, so I had to shim out where it mated to the fuselage. I closed off the jet intakes, but that was pretty much all I did. I tried Tamiya rattle can AS-12 silver as I was told it made a good natural metal. Suffice to say, it doesn't. Looks like silver paint. I took some clear decal paper and painted it several different shades of silver and cut it into various shapes for panels. Doesn't look as good as I had hoped. That new decal sheet was very good and all that stenciling breaks up some pretty large barren flat planes. It was a challenge, but also fun. You really use whatever modeling skills you have to get these old guys into shape. Kind of like me at the gym, a lot of effort but in the end, you're still an old guy and the "newer" ones look better without even trying. This particular a/c was assigned to a missile test squadron. That's why the Sparrows are painted orange and white with the black stripe.
  11. Wild Bill, The red is just Testers enamel Insignia Red out of the bottle. Nick, The cockpit floor is the kit part. Its probably wrong as the floor was more likely just plywood, but a wash and a dry brushing and it at least looks interesting in there.
  12. Since it's metal, you want something with more "tooth". An acrylic might not adhere well Try something simple, like Tester's enamel primer. Stir it well and thin it with their thinner,. Experiment on a scrap piece of metal first. If you thin it to a good consistency, it should settle our well. When thoroughly set ( a couple days) try wet sanding it very lightly with 600 or higher grit sandpaper to feather out any edges.
  13. Ron Bell

    tank tracks

    Keith, Would like to help, but you're going to have to be a little more specific than "won't work" before anyone can. How don't they work?
  14. If you put out notices of who the 1,2,3 winners are on Sat. morning, almost every other model in the room will be gone by noon, people will not stay Sat. night in the hotel reducing the number of used, but required, room nights, and the only people at any awards presentation that night will be those that won the 1,2,3 awards, and remember many of those will be people that have won multiple awards, so the number present will be much lower than the actual number of awards and it will be even harder to meet any food/beverage requirement of the venue. And all those people won't be in the venders area spending money on Saturday and then what vender is going to travel all that distance and pay those rates to set up for such a short period of sales? I base that on 40 years of national convention experience and what I've seen at local contests that use a similar approach, i.e. my own club . We place the 1,2,3 winners on the table then open the room up and wait a bit before we read the other awards. When people see they have not won, they pack up and leave. By the time we finish those awards, the room is mostly empty. For us, it doesn't matter as it's only intended to be a one day, drive in show anyway but imagine the impact on a what is suppose to be a national event. You either accept the convention as a gathering of people who love models and modeling and want to meet and be with other modelers, or it's just a big model show with a venders area. If the former, then you can go Gil's way and emphasize comraderie and have a banquet with a speaker on Friday and an awards ceremony a la Chattanooga on Saturday. If all you want is a big model contest, put out the awards on Sat. morning and watch everyone leave, but don't expect it a second time 'cause where are you going to find a venue that you can do that in that you can afford and where is the club that wants to put all that effort in for very little return. It's the IPMS/USA National Convention. It's a convention. It's a gathering, not just a model contest. If that doesn't appeal to as many people now as it use to in the past, maybe it needs to be smaller, not larger. In some ways, maybe those few guys who got together for dinner long ago in Chicago had the right idea. Just people gathering together to enjoy each other and their shared hobby. Here's a weird idea. Similar to the British show, Scale Model World, mix our venders up with the models. Maybe have a row of venders, then the aircraft categories, then another row of venders and another group of categories and so on. Maybe place aircraft heavy venders near the aircraft and automotive venders by the automotive categories. Maybe we need to rethink the whole thing, but then maybe we don't mess with something that seems to be working just fine. This is off topic, so forgive the tangent, but I spent 22 years in IPMS national leadership positions pondering all this stuff and it still sticks with me.
  15. It's kind of an F-84F after it's been on Weight Watchers. Just doesn't look as "hefty" as it should.
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