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Euro Scale Modelling 2017

Last Saturday (November 25th) I went to the Euro Scale Modelling event. The event was, as always, organised by the Dutch branch of the IPMS. For this year a new location was found as the event was growing out of available space at the previous location. The new venue was the Expo Houten exhibition centre. And I can say, definitely a change for the better. There was a lot more room inbetween the stands which the exhibitors surely must have welcomed. The extra room made it also possible to get more clubs and vendors present, which was also very nice. The event was spread across three halls. The third hall was only used for about 75%, so there's room for growth in the coming years. Only minor downside was the location of the competition tables. These were located in a smaller room on the first floor and there was hardly enough space for the models in competition (notably in the cars category). I think there's some room for improvement. But otherwise this was a great ev

There's resin and than there's resin...

Over the years I have collected quite a few model kits. Most kits I have are injection moulded plastic model kits. Apart from that I have several white metal kits and some resin kits as well as resin transkits. Reason I'm starting this blog entry is the fact that I was completely blown away by the quality of a transkit I purchased from the ZoomOn pro modeling team earlier this year. Just look at the impeccable presentation of the transkit in the first place: Not many companies can top this. And it doesn't stop there. The quality of the parts is unbelievable. No flash, no skins, no casting stubs or blocks. Hardly any clean up necessary. The wheels are a great example of the casting quality. As are the thin walls on the new body parts. If I didn't know this was resin I'd say these parts are injection moulded... Apart from the resin components there's a quite complete sheet of photo etched parts included as well as several very comprehensive decal

KMK Scaleworld 2017

Last Sunday I went to the Technisch Instituut St. Paulus in Mol to pay a visit to the yearly event held by the KMK. A good way to get the modelling juices flowing again after the summer break. Once again, the Scaleworld event was great. There were a lot of spectacular models on show. Best of Show was truly a work of art. Sadly I wasn't able to get many good pictures of this piece of art. Just one image remained and it doesn't even begin to show how good this diorama was. More pictures can be found on the KMK website . I also had the opportunity to have a few chats with fellow modellers which is always nice. Time went by quickly. A good sign. I can really recommend this event. It's not too big, but still there's a lot to see. I took quite a few pictures last Sunday but had to delete quite a few of them (as with the other pictures from the Best of Show piece). Somehow my (newish) camera (Panasonic FZ200) and I don't speak the same language. There's

Ferrari F430 (part 10)

After the better part of an afternoon I had polished the body. I started with MicroMesh cloths, using 6000, 8000 and 12000 grit. Next I used Tamiya compound (fine and finish) to restore the shine. Once again I can state that the Aqua Gloss from Alclad can be polished quite nicely and the layer is quite tough. However, after washing the body there were some tiny scratch marks evident. Seems to be my own fault as I used an old cotton t-shirt to apply the compound to the model. It appears that cotton is still too coarse for polishing (also stated on the Hiroboy website). So off I went and bought me some polishing clothes from Zero Paints and from Tamiya. After another round of compound the scratches have been removed, so I could (finally) continu with the final details. Or so I thought. For some reason I couldn't get the shine back on this paint. I don't know if it's because I used Zero Paints compound or that there's something else going on. I was a bit relucta

First finished model of the year...

...but not by me. Well, it has finally happened. The first finished model this year (actually, since moving to my current house last year) is a fact. My (8 year old) daughter beat me to the finishline though. When visiting the Interscale Stolberg modelling event earlier this year it turned out that she would like to try building a model herself. So I bought her a kit of her choice (which "sadly" turned out to be an egg-plane... Nope, I'm not a fan of egg-planes). Upon getting back from the event, the box was quickly opened and parts were cut from their sprues and glued together. Building and painting has been done by my daughter, as has been most of the decalling. I only needed to help out with a few stubborn ones. The model has been painted by brush with colours from the Revell Aqua Color and Tamiya acrylic range. The choice of colours was done by my daughter. She wasn't into the low-viz version that's in the instructions and opted to use some sl

Modellausstellung Modellbaufreunde Siegen 2017

Recently I visited the Modellausstellung in Wilnsdorf (Germany). The event was organised by the Modellbaufreunde Siegen . After my failed attempt to go to this event last year (caused by severe traffic congestion due to a truck on fire and a sporting event), the journey to Wilnsdorf went without a hitch this time. The event is rather small, but the quality of work on offer was amazing. The atmosphere at the event was very relaxed and I had some great conversations with fellow modellers. One of them is a car model builder from PMC Dortmund , Holger Boborowski. He builds regular models but also builds 1/24 slotcar models. It was a pleasure talking to him. Below are some pictures of his work: I also had the pleasure to talk to Frank Roth , who makes great looking diorama's in 1/72 scale. Amazing how much detail can be crammed into such a small scale. Some pictures of his work: Apart from these people there were of course a lot more models on show.