Episode 30 - Australia Calling! with Sam Dwyer, Scott Taylor & John Marley

[00:00:04] G'day Benchmates and welcome to Episode 30 of Beyond The Box Art and we are joined by Sam Dwyer, Scott Taylor and John Marley.

[00:00:37] Your host as usual is Brownie with his co-hosts Stan, Neves, Balders and Shane. Hi Benchmates and welcome to Episode 30 of Beyond The Box Art. Now then, this episode proves once again that scale modelling really is one of the most global hobbies on the planet.

[00:00:57] Because as you just heard on the intro, this time around we've got fantastic guests all the way from Australia for a genuinely brilliant conversation covering the hobby, the community and what keeps us coming back to the bench time after time. But before we get underway properly, as this episode lands at the start of Pride Month, all of us here at Beyond The Box Art want to send a huge message of support and friendship to all of our LGBTQ plus Benchmates around the world.

[00:01:22] Because at the end of the day this hobby is about creativity, friendship, storytelling, history, passion and above all else inclusivity. Whether you're building aircraft, armour, ships, sci-fi, Gundam, cars, figures or absolutely anything else, there should never be a barrier to pulling up a chair at the bench. No one should ever feel excluded from this hobby because of who they are. And honestly, the modelling community is at its very best when it reflects the incredible variety of people who make it what it is.

[00:01:52] So wherever you're listening from across our global Benchmate community, happy Pride Month from all of us here on the show. Right then, a left of the sensible stuff before Neves disappears into the galley looking for the rum rations? Grab a brew, clear a bit more space in that definitely not overflowing stash on the edge of the bench and settle in. Because episode 30 starts now.

[00:02:27] So for this episode, I'm joined by Boulders. Hello all. Dan. Hello, Benchmate. And Neves. Hello all and welcome to episode 30. He's building his part up, isn't he? Blimey. So did he take it a year? Yeah, I think he's going for a power play here, Brownie. Anyway, okay, let's do the normal ones, find out what everyone's been working on since the last time you've been on. Because Boulders and Dan, you missed out on the last one. So Dan, what have you got on your bench?

[00:02:56] Apparently on the bench. Well, what's just driven off the bench is the Esky slash Italeri Reeboks of the Ford Escort RS 1800 Rothmans Rally Car. Now, this was built for my first ever group build I've ever got involved with. And it was the Rally Call group build on the Blue Ox Model Shop page, which is run by Jason Hanscom. That's on Facebook, by the way.

[00:03:22] And yeah, they predominantly build American type muscle cars over there. And he kicked off this rally call. I think he did it last year as well. And you could choose any kit as long as it was a rally car, including stuff like Paris Dakar, obviously World Rally Championship, vintage rallies from years ago or right up to modern day stuff.

[00:03:44] I did consider the L kit Toyota GR Yaris, but quite expensive for my taste at the moment. Yeah. Although they do a Mark 1 Escort as well. But no, went with this. It was a bit of a yin and yang kit, really. The body shell shape is fantastic considering how old it is. It's really, really good. The rest of it, my God. The glass is like looking through the end of a milk bottle.

[00:04:12] The struts where all of the bracing for the front axle and all the rest of it is it, the locating pins are very, very vague. So it almost falls apart when you're trying to get it all back to get it all together. So more of a suggestion than actually a locating pin. It really is. Yeah. And you've had lots of testing, taking it apart, putting it back together before I sort of committed. But on the other hand, the decals are beautiful because they're cartograph and they're really, really nice.

[00:04:39] And what they've managed to do, I mean, this is pretty much the only game in town. If you want to do a Mark two Ford Escort, because I know this has been Reeboks quite a few times, but overall it's, I'd say it's probably something I wouldn't have attempted a while ago, but now feel like I could have a go at it. Now I did full on like gloss coating using Mr. Hobby GX and all that sort of stuff for the first time. So it was a bit of an experiment.

[00:05:09] I have subsequently now got another rally car kit that's just arrived, but that one's got Tamia on the box. So we should be in safe territory. Okay. So the decals, I noticed you said Rothmans. Yes. That's not aftermarket then they've actually put cigarette advertising in the box. Aha. What they've done is they've split the word and on the decal sheet, it says man Roths. Gotcha. Gotcha. But what they've also done, there's a logo on the bonnet, which is, it's like an arched rectangle.

[00:05:39] It's like a rectangle with an arch on it, which is obviously the badge for that rally. But that has the Rothmans scroll writing. And if anybody doesn't know what Rothmans is, it's them horrible things you smoke and cause problems. So used to, because that's why they're allowed to put it in the box now because Rothmans is no longer a brand. Ah, right. Well, Rothmans used to sponsor football annuals or the football results books that used to come out every year. A bit like the Wisdom's cricket annuals.

[00:06:07] Rothmans was always the football guide that came out at the end of every season. Anyway, so that's been a really good project. And I would encourage anyone to just have a go at a car kit because they're great fun. It's very quick turnaround. I started, it took me about three weeks in total and that was doing other stuff as well. That was not rushing it, if you know what I mean. That was just sort of here and there. So cool. Give them a go. I had to make some seat belts as well, because it comes with decals for the seat belts and they're awful.

[00:06:35] So I made those out of tambier tape and painted them. And then I cut out the say belt logo and then use that as a decal on the seat belt. So again, just tried a few different things that I've never done before. So it's, this is what the hobby is all about really, isn't it? Absolutely. And what have you been spending your cash on then? Cash wise, I bought yet another 148 black box Tamiya kit and it's the Cromwell Mark, Cromwell Mark 4 cruiser tank, which is another gorgeous one.

[00:07:03] It's one of the early ones, it's got a metal chassis, but I also got for it the black dog, black dog resin upgrade set. Not a huge amount of 148 upgrade sets for 148 kits, but no, lovely kit. Really, really good. And you fully recovered from your experience on the quarter scale palm pod then? Yeah, that was good fun. We had a great chat. Imposter syndrome kicked him really.

[00:07:26] Cause I was talking to Stan Spooner and Luke Pitt who are like, you know, two of the best quarter scale builders, two of the best modelers in the world to be honest with you. They, they've been going at it for years and we discussed Dan's model box shop, which is a really interesting concept that he's kicked off over there in the States. So it's a, it's in Texas. It's a pub where you can go, you can buy models, but you can also build models there as well. They've got lockers where you can finish your build, put it in a locker and then come back another time.

[00:07:55] They've got airbrushing booths there and obviously lots of people to help with experience. Although he did say the biggest seller so far through the door is all the Warhammer and Gundam stuff. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Very interesting. Okay. Well, we've just been joined by Shane who's on holiday down in Dorset, having been to the tank museum today. And honestly, Shane, I think you could have made a bit of effort with your t-shirt. You seem to have a hole in one. Oh, that sounds familiar. There you go. There you go.

[00:08:24] So what have you been building then? So I have finished the Gundam desk scythe, which has been, it's been a really lovely build. Actually. I was in the final phrase when we last recorded, but it's all finished off and it's gone together really nicely. And it was your graphic that was on the front of the load of the episode for 29. It was. Yes, indeed. Yeah. So yeah, a little bit of help from the computer on that one, but so yeah, I'm really pleased with how that build came out. Actually tried a few different things on it. Jacob was obviously inspired as well because we ended up finishing off his Gundam epion.

[00:08:54] Which we've been working on together. I'm sort of cutting the bits out and he's building it. I've got far too fat fingers for the RG stuff. It's crazy. And yeah, that's, it's been on the bench wise. That's what we've, that's what we've been up to. It's been a chilled couple of weeks actually, obviously with holiday in between as well. But yeah, that's us. So come on then the hole in one, your first ever. Yeah. 30 years. I know the going from the geeks will be keen. Actually you hear about this. Yeah. 30 years playing the game, 30 plus years playing the game.

[00:09:24] First ever hole in one. I've had a fair few on the academy courses and stuff, but this was my first proper hole in one on a proper golf course, which is at my home club at Letchworth. 17th hole, 185 into the wind. So yeah, it was a proper shot. And yeah, watched it in, watched it go in all the way. It was right at it all the way. One bounce and then just released out into the hole, disappeared. And now you know why you don't actually shout about it when you get back to the club room. Cause how many people did you have to buy a round for? Yeah.

[00:09:51] So in our club, we have a hole in one bell, which you are obliged to ring once you enter the clubhouse. There were 78 people there. How are you doing, Ed? Oh, 600 quid then? In prerequisite of what have I spent my cash on? I have spent all of my cash and then some on the bar bill. That is what I spent all of my cash on, all of it. And then some, but that's what credit cards are for. I bet that was more than your wedding, would it? Do you know what? Yeah.

[00:10:21] Inflation is a thing. I think me and Mrs. Cow have been married now. I think it's 13 years this year. I should know really, shouldn't I? I think it's 13 years. Shane, I've just had a thought. I've just had a thought. You could build a little diorama to celebrate it. I mean, I could do. If you can buy a 3D printed golfer, you could do, yeah, you could do a forced perspective of you teeing off and the ball in the air and just popping in the hole. See? Never seen a golf dog. Probably.

[00:10:50] Oh, I thought he was gonna say a 3D printed bar. Why doesn't he just get himself 3D scanned? The course could be in 72nd scale and he could be in 1 to 144 and then it'd be accurate. Yeah. Right. So bring your please balls to model you. I've already said it would come out in one 72nd, but I've been just scanned in one 48th or even one 35th, you know. That's fired. There you go. Yeah, no, what a day though. Honestly, it was in a proper competition as well. Oh dear. Okay, boulders. What have you got on the bench?

[00:11:20] Bit similar to Dan. I've got two rally cars on the go, but I've not done anything for the last few days with the heat and that because I'm not risking decaling in this heat. So I've got a Tamiya 24th scale, Subaru Imprezza 22B, which is Richard Byrne's rally car. And I've got, I can't believe I'm going to say this, the god awful, it's a Luri Eshi Audi Quattro. Oh goodness. And Hannah Michler, it's horrendous.

[00:11:49] The front end's completely wrong for Hannah Michler's Audi Quattro. It's got the full indicators on which Hannah Michler's only had the small strips on the front. Wrong wing mirrors. There's loads of other different bits. So I'm having to scratch build whole new front end, all new wing mirrors. So I might just stick with Tamiya. But Tamiya, apparently the Quattro, they don't do a rally version, only a road version.

[00:12:14] So I'll have to possibly go, like Dan said, towards Bell kit and get an Audi Quattro S1. But the prices of them are a bit expensive. I think they are worth it though. Yeah, they're worth it. So advanced model of Sindro's kicked in then. If you're going to depict Hannah Michler's Audi Quattro, then you need to do it correctly. Because, you know, the guy was an absolute genius on behind the wheel.

[00:12:41] And yeah, you can't just build it with, you know, the normal road wing mirrors on it. They never had them. There were small little spotlight ones mounted to the side and that was it. Deccle wise, the decals again, cartographed absolutely superb. It just needs a little bit of work, but I'm not going OTT on it. I'm just going to fill the sides and use some plastic strip just to create the indicator lights. That's it.

[00:13:08] And tubing for the new wing mirrors and shave it down. I've also got my table mat challenge for the club for next month. And I, again, lost four days due to the weather. Because as soon as I spray, it's just dust everywhere. So I've not been able to do that. So, so yeah, I've completed two models. Two? No, three, actually. Three in the space of a fortnight. What were you working on the last time you recorded it as a boat? Or a ship? A floaty thing.

[00:13:37] Yeah, so I built another floaty thing. I got this at the kit swap last week. It's 1.350 and I built it in less than 45 minutes. It's all done. All ready to display. How on earth have you done it in that time? So, Magic Factory produced a Chinese Type 55 destroyer, which looks a bit similar to our Type 45. And it's snap fit. And it's that good of a fit, you cannot see the join lines. It's an impressive bit of kit.

[00:14:06] Absolutely impressive. All color coded plastic. The only thing it's lacking is railings. That's about it. But everything else, it's all pre-colored. And I think that might be the way forward. Do they do any others? I don't actually know. I've not looked, Dan. But it's impressive. It's a good 50 centimeters long. I'd only say because my youngest, he's mad on Top Gun and carrier decks and all the moment.

[00:14:34] And I don't think he can do cut and glue parts together, but snap fit would be perfect for him. Would be absolutely perfect. How old is he, Dan? Well, he'll be 10, but George is in his head. He's cause George has autism. So he's more like a six year old really, you know, but he's good with Lego. I can sit him down with a Lego kit and he'll say, I'm fine. I can do it. And he'll sort of plow through that and just ask for help now and again.

[00:15:01] But the thing is Gundam would be perfect, but he's just not into it. And he has to be into the subject to want to build it. And I wonder if there's a carrier deck that doesn't really matter which one it is, but a snap fit carrier deck would be absolutely perfect for him. I think it's snap fit. So like the Shenano kits is yes. So you could try them, but also the Meng stuff is snap fit. So I've got a Lexington. They've done another. Oh, who? Yeah. If you want it, got it on the website.

[00:15:32] Get that one in there. Well, I've also, they also do Bismarck and a little plug there. They do the Bismarck and the Rodney as well. Okay. So they are snap fit. Also the Academy, if he fancies Missouri. So the Missouri in the Academy is snap fit. The enterprise isn't. So don't get. What's the one in the second Top Gun movie? Is that the Lincoln? Are they on Lincoln? Why he was probably.

[00:15:59] I think I just heard a tumbleweed go past, but I think it was Brownie's breathing. And I only sat on not to open it, but I only say that because there's a bobblehead on the, when they're on the, on the control deck or whatever. And there's a little bottle head of Abraham Lincoln. And I wonder if they're on the, whatever the Lincoln is in America. I think it is the Lincoln, you know. Okay. And they are like lugs inside that there are positive sort of press together and it will stay together. Yeah. And the color coded as well. Yeah.

[00:16:28] It was the Theodore Roosevelt CVM 71 and the Abraham Lincoln CVM 72. Ah, there we go. Brownie's been firing up the Google later in the background there. Well done. Correct. And coming off of wifi. Talking of colored kits, has anybody seen the border fully painted 135th Mustang? Hmm. What do you think? If you're trying to entice people into the hobby that haven't built before. Interesting.

[00:16:55] I can see why, but why they've chosen that scale, that subject. Hmm. I just get a feeling of it's going to have to go into the paint strip for anyone who's going to actually put up a serious sonish onto it. It might break me mojo. I think doing a mojo on the P 51 because I've never completed one. So if I just throw it together, it's all done. Well, why not do that? And then you can do a nice natural metal finish on it. It's already got one. It's already done. I know.

[00:17:25] My thoughts were trying to weather it because is the plastic going to be okay with like oil? Cause I use artist oils. Is the solvent going to start attacking the paint that they've put on there? I don't know. Or you're going to need to put a sort of gloss or a satin coat on it first to protect it. There's quite a few unknowns with this. Yeah. I think you're right. Has anyone actually got their hands on one yet? When's it due out? It's the thick end of 60 quid. I know that.

[00:17:54] Actually it's 75. Is it? Well, I think the Gundam stuff's all right. It's obviously, I mean, again, it turns on the type of plastic, doesn't it? But you know, you can do both, can't you? Weather it and then seal it or seal it and then weather it. If you go on to Jadlin, Jadlin have got the color screenshots. I don't think it looks that bad, you know? Cause they've managed to do like the oil cannon type effect on panels and stuff. I don't know. The only problem is they give you three decals.

[00:18:22] I think I said this in the, was it the stash inflation report that they give you the decals for two of them, but on the third one, you'd have to fully repaint the aircraft. Oh, okay. So once cold cream is dream. And what's the finish on the decals going to be? Because some decals have a sort of semi matte finish. Some have more of a glossy finish, don't they? So you're putting the decals have got to match the pre painted panels, haven't they?

[00:18:49] In sort of what the sheen level is on the panels. Go on Shane. Well, you just say you can get that the transfers. Cause that's like a lot of the Gundam stuff comes with a dry transfer decals on the Gundam stuff. So William might have some in his, in his Banshee that he's doing. And they literally just, but you cut them out, you put them on, you almost like scrape, scrape over the top. A bit like, like reverse transfer. Yeah. Well, they're on the, that's what they use for a lot of the tire decals in the Formula One kits and stuff like that.

[00:19:18] Well, a lot of race car kits. Yeah. That could be those. In which case you wouldn't get any marks whatsoever. No. I'm just wondering if they're using the same technologies Trumpeter. Guys, might get your teeth back in. That Trumpeter has used on the transformer figures. That's what I thought straight away. Soon as I saw it. Because looking at it, it's the propeller has got the, obviously they injected the black first and then the black comes up the sprue gate and then it's piled in them with silver.

[00:19:47] So they must be injecting certain colors into certain areas of the mold and then popping it out. But how they've got the invasion stripes on the belly of it. And they are perfect. There's no blemish looking at the picture. It's, but it's 75 quid for a pre painted kit that you can put together. But if it's like me where you've never finished a Mustang because it's already destroyed your mold. You're it might be a. Yeah. And it is big for the, it's quite big for the money.

[00:20:17] So a kid or a new modeler, I don't know this, there's just so many unknowns with it. We need some YouTubers to get them and do the reviews and get them built and honestly let us know what they think of it really. I will ask the question to my source Albion and when it's coming in, because it's on Jadlin at the minute. They've got it down for 69.95. But when it's due to come out, do not know.

[00:20:42] I'm just wondering if they actually have injection molded the different colors and it's not printed afterwards. Cause I'm looking at the spinner hub and it's actually red. Then it's yellow. Then it's red. Yeah. But they've done that. They've done that brownie with tires and stuff like that on Optimus prime where it's got black silver black. So it's the technology. Hmm. Trump has come out with this and it was make all break for Trumpeter. So obviously they're letting other people use the technology.

[00:21:11] But if you look on the cowl, the red and yellow checkers that are on the end of the cowl going towards the spinner. Hmm. They're all perfectly symmetrical and they're all crisp. They're not blurred or anything else like that. And it's quite impressive. And the silvering that they've used is actually quite nice, but it seems to be that the silver is matte. Yeah. Or it's possibly got a bit of a sheen. So you might have to varnish it afterwards. Ah.

[00:21:41] To be able to put your decals on and then semi gloss. That's what I mean. Yeah. So I think they've obviously done it that way so that people can weather it and do everything. But again, could you imagine somebody putting that in at Telford in the competition? Out of the box. Slightly weathered. Out of the box. And it won. How many people would that absolutely blow the tops over? It's a model.

[00:22:06] Could you imagine the winner of, you know, scale model world 2026 is a 35th scale border P51. By the way, I've only glued it together and put a bit of weathering on it. I only... A little bit. By the way, I only started it in the hotel room last night. Yeah. Let's enter it. At the services on the way up. Oh, it's a good grief. No, I only asked, seriously, I only asked because I saw some comments that people saying, what are they doing? That's not scale modeling.

[00:22:35] That's not what the hobby is about. And I think the blinkers are on a little bit because people that's, that would be perfect for some people and probably perfect for someone like my son. So stop being so narrow minded people. It is building a scale model and it might be yet another gateway into then picking up a gray plastic kit and saying, right, I'm going to try and replicate the one that I've just built or I'm going to build one of the other fighter group versions or something like that.

[00:23:04] But yeah, the scale was a bit weird for the 35th. I hate to be that person, but I've just noticed a mistake on the painting on the sprung. The fuselage, they've got the white, black, white bands for the D-Day stripe. The box art is black, white, black. Yeah. It's definitely, I think that must be the prototype. They've got them white, black, white. I've got them the other way around. Whether from the, there's a piece of tape with some script on the photograph that we're looking at.

[00:23:34] And whether it is actually saying prototype or not, I honestly don't know, but it's definitely the two are out of sync. Potential boo-boo, but until we actually see the finished article coming out the box, it's hard to actually say what we're actually looking at. But yes. Oh, well, with that then, Neves. Are you finished? Are you haven't finished? Oh, good God. Here we go. You didn't say what I've spent. He's been busy. I have been busy. Go on then, what have you spent your cash on? So I sold some kits at the kit swap last week.

[00:24:04] Oh yeah, how did that go? It was all right. I think Neves is better at explaining what I snapped off somebody for, which was a bargain. Price? Yeah, you exploited her lack of shit wisdom. So let's put it this way, that the woman next to my stand, she comes in, and she has a, what I can best describe as brand new, if not nearly brand new,

[00:24:29] Verifier 1 to 350th Musashin, which Dan will know the VTL price on. Oh yeah. Make your eyes water. She wanted 70 quid. He then opens the box and it's got the full photo etch set and wooden deck. So he paid less than half of what it's cheap. And Neves, he had the 51 cent, yeah. Oh yeah, he had an extra turret, didn't he? Yeah, he had the 51 centimeter guns for the Super Yamato class.

[00:24:57] So she was royally cheesed off, as you can imagine, that she should have put a one in front of that price, at least. Right. And let me guess, bolder, that she knocked her down in price as well. Oh, I'd give her what she asked for. She asked for 70, I gave her. He exploited her lack of knowledge. Shame on you. Yeah. I mean... These modulars, folks, they're unscrupulous. Listen, if you've got it for 70 quid, it's 70 quid.

[00:25:26] Simple as that, basically. You know, if you put it there, I'm gonna buy it. Didn't even buy her a bacon barn to go with it to thank her. Oh what? Oh yeah, sorry, bacon. Yeah, I was just wondering, same Dan. If you haven't even haggled the price, you know you've got a bargain, ain't you? Yeah. Of course I have. Of course I have. Of course I have. Look, she took it there to sell it and she sold it. She didn't want to take it home, did she? So...

[00:25:53] No, she was there literally 30 seconds ago with her 70 quid and a lot to her. Nev said there were some bits inside. She should have realised, because three of us all can add it within two minutes. Bang. Done. The tractor beams were on. Oh, absolutely. I threw... I threw money at her quicker than I would do with a lap dancer. Well, you end that part of the conversation right there. Yeah. And move on very swiftly. Nebs, save us. What have you been working on? Right.

[00:26:20] So, like I said in the last episode, still working away on the Sean horse now. I'm sorry, Boulders, but it doesn't look like it's going to make the table mat challenge. So I am going to take my time with it over the next few months. It'll definitely be making other competitions, if not Telford. So, going to take my time with it. There's a lot of photo etch to put on. So, just finished the main funnel as well. So, we're getting there slowly. Like I say, I do want to take my time.

[00:26:47] And as I spoke about in episode 29, it's going to be fixed in a moment. And it was really important in Sharnoff's last few hours, which is 1221, which is one of the most important moments when it was found, located and hit by a series of British cruisers. So, it's going to have that all around the base about what happened and all of the people that lost their lives on 26th of December, 43, when it was sunk.

[00:27:16] So, yeah, we are getting there. And I feel like I'm trying to shut out every other model that's going, everything online, whether it's aircraft, whatever, just so that I'm in the game, just purely focusing on this Sharnhorst. So, there you are. That's not good enough, Neves. I think you need to have a word with the competition as secretary about why you're not entering your Sharnhorst into the table mat challenge.

[00:27:37] But, is it not a conflict of interest? So, I am going to be there impartially. If I was to try and get it ready for that meeting, it would not look, I would not be doing the subject justice. So, no, no, I completely get it. Completely get it. Especially with it being a fly haul kit. And, well, that's the thing. If this were a Revel kit, it'd be done by now, but the amount of detail is insane. And it's my first fly haul kit and I've not picked a small one.

[00:28:07] You know, it's not like the cruisers I've just done, the Indianapolis or Kinugasa where you think, oh, I can see the length of it within. I don't even need to turn my head. Whereas with this, it's just on another level of magnitude. Okay. Well, during the last episode, I've seen to remember Shane coercing you or more to the point of voluntold that you were going to give us a rundown on the history of your subject. Yes, he did. I don't know if he's still interested or if the tanks that he's seen today has put him off.

[00:28:37] What a place that is, by the way, the old tank museum. Crikey. Yeah. What a place. Welcome to the dark side. Oh, I tell you that, that shop, it hooked me big time, but I managed to walk out with, without purchasing myself anything, just stuff for the kids. So I've done quite well actually. But so now I am still interested. Nevs. Absolutely. I mean, my naval history is very limited as is some of the stuff I learned today on the armor side.

[00:29:03] But, but yeah, I think it's a really fascinating subject. So just going back, cause you actually slipped that in there. You bought stuff for the kids. So you bought them some one 35th Tamiya armor. I can just see it. Well, it is one 35th, but it's not Tamiya. That's what he's told the missus. Yeah. It's a Jacob. It's his birthday in a couple of weeks. So it was a bit more than, than I was expecting, but he got himself a Kobe kit. Oh yeah.

[00:29:32] We, when I was just talking a little bit about, about the border models, but you know, like a Lego style snap kit. And yeah, he just really, he really wanted it. So he picked up a 35th scale Abrams, which I heard all about today in depth from him. So I've already forewarned him, Dan. I've said to my oldest son, I said, when we go to Little Port, you must find Mr. Brazil and you can talk to him all you want about tanks because of that. My Phil. Yeah. Bless him. That's lovely, man. That's really good. Yeah. Awesome.

[00:30:02] Yeah. And they loved this, but to be fair, the demonstration as well. So just a normal day out, they put a demonstration on at lunch time. Yeah. Some vintage World War II stuff. It was a half track, wasn't it? American half track. We saw it. Yeah. Yeah. Half track with a quad 50 cal turret on the back. Yeah. The M16.

[00:30:23] Yeah. And then we had a Grant as well. M3 Grant. And then the little, there was a scout car as well. I can't blame it. But yeah, compared to the other things that we saw, it was very cool. Yeah. Yeah. But no, really, really good, really good, really amazing stories that they tell about some of the crews from all the way through World War I and the Great War should I say. And in that part, the evolution of the tank, it's yeah, it's a really interesting place. I know we've gone slightly off topic, but, but yeah, it is a, it's a really cool place. But you have to fill this in on the naval side.

[00:30:53] Like, Sarnhorst had survived. You wouldn't have fit it into anything even as big as the Tank Museum, would you? Because, you know, what a different kettle of fish, literally. Yeah. I have visited the Tank Museum. Really interesting. I remember when I was there, the demonstration, it was a Challenger 1 and I hadn't anticipated it. They were loud anyway. You'd hear them coming from five miles away. But I remember it hopping to my knees. It was that loud. Anyway, back onto ships. So, so yeah, talking about the Sarnhorst, obviously.

[00:31:22] The diorama I'm building is very much about the sinking, but you can't understand how we get there without understanding where we began. And if you're looking at the design of the Sarnhorst, it's very much this transitionary moment in the evolution of the, what will be the next German Navy from the Deutschland class of pocket battleships to obviously the full fat generation.

[00:31:47] Now, it was built in the context of an arms race. That arms race was with France, which not many people know about. They always think it'll be with the Royal Navy. It was not. The most likely opponent at the time was France. France had built the Dunkirk class a pair of battleships in response to the Deutschland class. So Germany needed to then respond.

[00:32:14] So when they were thinking about this response, bear in mind, it's in the context of the Treaty of Versailles and perhaps staying within the limits, perhaps not. In terms of getting something out quickly, it was decided to keep the 11 inch main armament of the preceding Deutschland class. Although it was improved with a lot longer caliber guns. So a bit of trivia there for any modelers, if you're building either Scharnhorst or one of the Deutschland class cruisers, they are not the same barrel.

[00:32:44] So definitely check. It was a 54.5 caliber barrel on the Scharnhorst compared to the 52 on Deutschland. So they equipped them with these, with the proviso that the turret bar bet for these triple mounts be identical to the future 15 inch 480 millimeter dual mounts, which we'll see on Bismarck.

[00:33:09] So the idea would be that just before war comes, which was estimated to be 1942 at the earliest, that these two ships would be refitted into essentially an equivalent to the repulse class of battle cruisers. So go up against that equivalent in the Royal Navy by then. But yeah, so moving from that design then to obviously the actions in 1943 and why Scharnhorst ends up where she is.

[00:33:37] Hitler has a bit of a tantrum at the start of the year due to a few fiascos that happened within the surface fleet. And he orders the surface fleet to be scrapped and any of its naval guns sent to coastal defense. Surpitz is exempt and Scharnhorst for whatever reason, because it's already deployed, is also left out of that. Unfortunately, it's sister Neisenau, which is laid up in port requiring repairs. Not only does she not get the planned upgrade to the 380 millimeter main guns,

[00:34:06] but she also is completely scrapped. Her turrets are sent off to Norway and she ends up being a breakwater in Gdynia at the end of the war, which is a real tragic end for her. But that leaves Scharnhorst as the only sister left. Turrets and Scharnhorst then sorted together against Fitzbergen in 1943. Two weeks after that is the famous X-Craft raid, which I know Boulders knows a lot about in terms of the midship submarines that get in through the torpedo nets.

[00:34:35] Yeah. So that relates a lot to what happens to Scharnhorst next in that seriously damages Turrets and puts her out of commission. So the only surface, major surface warship left at the time is Scharnhorst. 19th of December, Adnall Dönitz goes to Hitler, whether it was a, you know, pragmatism, whether it's about securing his own position.

[00:34:58] He says, I want permission to use major surface warships again against the Arctic convoys, which the allies had just resumed. Hitler says, yep, go for it. So Christmas Day, they spot that this JW 55B is traveling across the Arctic. It's got about 19 merchant ships. I'll just double check me. Long notes. Yep. 19 merchant ships.

[00:35:23] And it is in the Turrets, the Scharnhorst, sorry, is in prime position to wreak havoc on it. Unfortunately, it's been sent as bait because obviously we're reading the German's mail by this point. And the Admiral of the Humphrey, Sir Bruce Fraser was deliberately playing a game of cat and mouse, and that he was prepared to use this convoy as bait to lure the Scharnhorst out of hiding, knowing that obviously Turrets would not be available.

[00:35:53] So Turrets does saucy at 5pm on Christmas Day. And then the following morning, HMS Norfolk makes contact. You can imagine it's midwinter. German radar is not perfect. They have no idea that they're detected. So this happens a couple of times where they're contacted, the British cruisers fire star shows, they bracket the Scharnhorst, and they're able to land a few shots.

[00:36:18] So by 1221 is when the main radar on Scharnhorst is knocked out. So you find, you know, they're sailing blind in an Arctic storm and they've already lost their destroyer escort in this storm. So it's not looking good. It illuminates her again. The Scharnhorst is firing back and she's able to knock out the radar on Duke of York. They're also able to damage one of the cruisers.

[00:36:45] And one of the destroyers actually takes some serious casualties from Scharnhorst fire. So they're not, even though they're trying to get out of this chase, they're certainly firing back. Duke of York manages to get a very lucky shot out on Scharnhorst. So that's 1824. So they've been playing this cat and mouse game for a few hours now. 1824, it lands this long grade shot. It is able to reduce the speed of Scharnhorst significantly enough for the fleet to catch up.

[00:37:13] And it'll be a very one sided fight from now on. Obviously the Germans aren't going to go down easily. Scharnhorst actually takes 11 torpedoes in the course of this battle, which is very significant. So she's able to take seven torpedo hits before she finally goes down. And it is a magazine explosion, which kills her. 1945 in the evening, that's when that happens.

[00:37:38] And out of a crew of 1,968 people, only 36 are pulled out of the water. So it's one of these areas where I've got to be honest, we know who the right side was in that war, but I can't excuse why the Royal Navy never sticks around for these people. They did it with Bismarck, where they said there was a U-boat threat. And they did it again with Scharnhorst and said there was a U-boat threat. Why on earth there's a U-boat threat in the dead of night?

[00:38:07] Yes, I know U-boats hunt at night, but in an Arctic storm at that time of the year, I don't buy it. So I can't excuse it. Obviously war is war, people die. But to leave hundreds and hundreds of men in the freezing water in the dead of night, it doesn't sit right. But it happened. And, you know, war is war. And so Bruce Fraser, he said afterwards, he was the Admiral and Duke of York. He was very gallant in this approach. And he said to his sailors, and I've got the quote here.

[00:38:37] He said, I hope that if any of you are ever called upon to lead a ship into action against an opponent many times superior, you will command your ship as gallantly as Scharnhorst was commanded today. So I think that is a really good quote there for what happened to Scharnhorst in that final battle. And that's, I'm going to make sure the quote is on the side of this base when it's finally done to commemorate what happened to Scharnhorst on Boxing Day of 1943.

[00:39:07] Scharnhorst flood B turret, Bruno. So? Because did Anton get hit and then they flooded the wrong turret? Bruno turret was hit. They thought it would, it was serious and would cause magazine explosions. So they did flood it prematurely at the time. Obviously they were willfully then losing that turret. As it turned out that that hit early in the day was more or less a glancing blow.

[00:39:37] And they did not need to flood that turret. Anton was hit later on. And it was during more or less the final chase. Now you have to bear in mind, Scharnhorst is hit by these 11 torpedoes. And just before this magazine explosion, she'd been hit by seven of them. One of them is seen to go in the direction under B turret. So they had flooded the magazine, but then they'd put the water out when they realized that it was still usable.

[00:40:06] So should they have kept it flooded? I mean, at the end, would it have made a difference? It's it. Charnhorst was going to go down anyway, the way that she was surrounded. Duke of York wasn't letting up. And to be fair to the Duke of York, she covers herself in glory with this. This is a big kill for the Duke of York. And that's a ship I'll be covering in the future. But yeah, I get what you mean. It is a result of a magazine explosion. It's similar to HMS, but there's always going to be something that gives.

[00:40:36] Oh yeah, absolutely. Anyway, but it's that magazine explosion that really puts paid to Yamato as well. And she killed joint with Warspite. She took out Glorious in 1940. The Jards and Warspite got Julio Caesar in the med. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, her and Nysenau both sorted and obviously a bit of a folly on the Royal Navy's part by allowing Glorious, just with two destroyers, to be out loose in the North Sea at a time

[00:41:05] when the Germans were invaded Norway. So, Sarnhof has a lot of kills to a name. So just after that battle, sorted with Nysenau in Operation Berlin, and each of them sank about 10 merchant vessels each. That's how dangerous. So if you ever watched the film Sink the Bismarck at the very start, I know a lot of it's fictional, but the Admiral that's returned to the war, the, where is it? He's returned to London, isn't he?

[00:41:32] And his background is that he was one of those captains sunk by Sarnhof Nysenau when Lichens sorted with them. So it talks in that film role, he talks about how deadly Sarnhof Nysenau had been. And that really is the pretext for why the Royal Navy is so desperate to get Bismarck before she can return to Brest, because you can imagine what it would have been like knowing

[00:41:59] what Sarnhof Nysenau had done. If Bismarck had replicated that, you know, it's, it would have been very serious. So, you know, Sarnhof has a big legacy there. Fascinating, Neves. So if anyone wants to build a replica of the ship, what options have they got available to them? So, obviously we've been speaking a lot about the Flyhawk offering in one to 700th. It is probably the, it's the most spectacular at the moment in terms of high level detail.

[00:42:26] Now, Trumpeter came out with their one to 350th offering at sale end of last year. That is quite big on the market at the moment. So if you want something a bit bigger, obviously you can go with the Trumpeter one. I do believe they're doing a one to 200th version as well. So if you need even bigger than 350th, you've got that. Revel have a weird offering in 570 and that's just the way Revel were in terms of wanting all the ships to be the same size,

[00:42:54] regardless of what they were in real life. So some are 600 scale, some are 720, some are 570. So you've got that offering. Airfix are just re-boxing their vintage classics one to 600th Sarnhors. But that one only depicts it right at the start of its life. So they had a bow very similar to the Graf Spee, which was, you know, it was not flared at all.

[00:43:21] It was not the famous Atlantic Clipper bow that we now associate with German ships. So if you want the more famous bow, you're going to have to go with one of the other offerings. So like I say, you've got your Trumpeter, you've got the Flyhawk. Tamiya have got one. It is a bit dated now, it's a bit long in the tooth and it is only waterline. So that's 700th scale. But there's certainly a few options out there in different sizes.

[00:43:46] Do a 72nd scale turret type set. Turret as well. So if you were really fancy, you could turn that into a diorama just either as the magazine explodes or just before it, I'll turn it in that. Okay. Yeah. Got me thinking now. After the little history lesson we've been given. I've got two and a half pages on journals and a half page on what I've been spending cash on.

[00:44:14] At the Cubme, I didn't buy that much. I just got a Tamiya, the A6M5 0 in 72nd scale. I've got one already, but I just want to do a whole squadron of them because I absolutely love the A6M5s. So I bought another of those. I have had a recent shipment in from Javis. So I have picked up the new Airfix re-boxed Prince Eugen.

[00:44:38] Now, like I said in episode 22, I'm not going to do it as Prince Eugen in 600th scale because it's weird scale anyway. I'm going to use it to build something from World of Warships, which would have been larger than the Prince Eugen. So something like Admiral Schroeder or the rune, something like this. A fictitious paper ship, but essentially German ships, like I said in episode 22, they just take the same blueprint and then just upscale it.

[00:45:05] That's their idea of follow on designs. So I'm going to look at playing around with that. And then I also picked up the Italeria 72nd scale MC205 Veltro. So I've been after those for quite a while. So I just need some paints to go with it now. Well, you'll have to start selling paints so you can actually use them yourself. So funnily enough, Hataka have a range that I can get hold of very easily.

[00:45:30] So Hataka do have an Italian Air Force box set. So it might be interesting to sample those because they do the RAF. In terms, they do the bomber command. They do the day fighters, night fighters. They do Luftwaffe. They do the US Navy one. It looks interesting as well. So I might be intrigued to try the Hataka paints. I've never used them before. So like I say, normally I do prefer the ammo range in terms of the box sets.

[00:45:59] But if we can get hold of Hataka and that they are good paints, then I'd be intrigued to try them. Fishcop Models. Elevating scale modeling to an art form. Experience highly detailed 3D printed upgrade parts that bring true authenticity to your builds.

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[00:46:52] Beyond the Box Art is brought to you by Ammo by Mig Jimenez. Fishcop Model Company. Guideline publications, face hanger resin accessories and the scale modelers supply. Wallets trembling, shelf space gone. Excellent! Here comes the latest wave of irresistible plastic temptation in the Stash Inflation Report.

[00:47:18] By them bench mates, if the Stash shells weren't already creaking loudly enough, this week's aviation announcements are here to finish the job properly. Starting over in the Czech Republic, KP are throwing absolutely everything at aircraft models this month.

[00:47:31] In 72nd scale, we're getting three new boxings of the Piper PA28, Cherokee, 140, covering markings from Yugoslavia, the US, Czech Republic, the UK, Greece, Hungary, Poland, West Germany, Switzerland and Slovakia. Which frankly means at least one of those is going to end up accidentally in the Stash.

[00:47:53] Moving up to 48th scale, KP are also prepping brand new Pilatus trainers including the PC-9AM, the PC-9B-M and the PC-7MKX. All featuring 3D printed parts and masks.

[00:48:10] The 72nd range continues with the Lavochin LA-5 Valeri and the Supermarine Spitfire Mark 9 early converted aircraft boxing, Hawker Tempest F6 and the Culver PQ-14 Cadet. Meanwhile, Cora models appear to be leaning heavily into civil aviation with new tool let-off releases including the S239, the S139 and the S39. All featuring 3D printed engine parts.

[00:48:39] AZ models are adding a camouflage Hispano Bouchon in 72nd with canopy masks. While Clear Prop continue their superb run of releases with the OV-1B Mohawk variants and a very attractive DH-88 Comet Advanced kit. Over at Armahobbe, Yak fans are being treated to two limited edition Yak 1B releases, Allied Services and Russian ACs.

[00:49:04] While AA models are heading into the modern era with the XB1 Baby Boom demonstrator. The Silver M continue in their 1-144 scale with a Royal Navy Phantom FG-1 and the mighty C123 provider. And then there's Edward because apparently none of us were financially stable enough already. The July line-up includes a limited edition 1-48th PBY-5A Catalina loaded with resin, masks, foretwetch and decals.

[00:49:34] Alongside the MiG-21R and the Avia S99 limited editions in 1-72nd. Plus a very tempting 1-48th P51B Malcolm Hood weekend edition. Luke-Graph are rounding things off with a Yokosuka E-149 Glen in both 32nd and 48th scale. And finally, just when the wallets thought it was safe, Kinetic Model Kits have announced kit 48180.

[00:50:05] The Mirage 2000 5F Ukrainian Air Force Boxing. Honestly, Benchmates, Trainers, Racers, Reconnaissance Aircraft, Flying Boats, Cold War Icons and Modern Jets. This week's stash inflation report feels less like a hobby update and more like a coordinated financial attack. Right, before I accidentally buy another Catalina, handing over to Dan for the AFVs. Cheers, boulders! And yes, somehow the armour welders also collectively decided that savings accounts are overrated.

[00:50:34] Starting with the Bodhi who have announced a beautifully sculpted 1-35th German Luftwaffe Airman in Africa Core uniform. The figure has been sculpted by Stefano Il Libanese di Antonio with box art painted by Enrico Segursa. It honestly looks absolutely superb. The product code is TB35235, so check it out. Over at Sol Resin Factory, there are two new additions arriving.

[00:51:00] First is a 1-16th scale 2nd World War German anti-aircraft MG34 with Patronentrommel 34 ammunition drum. While modern armour builders are also getting weighted wheels and track upgrades for the AVF Club M16 MGMC. Meanwhile, Ryfield model have announced a clear edition of the M4A3-76WHV SS Sherman with full interior.

[00:51:26] An interesting idea, I just hope that that clear moulded top is absolutely flawless and allows for proper viewing of that interior you are definitely going to need to paint. And finally, Panzerwerk Designer are preparing several new track sets, hopefully landing this month including Valentine, Archer and Bishop variants. Including Eastern Front Ice Cleat versions alongside tracks for the Gecko Matilda Mark 1, the AMX50 and the Trumpeter E25.

[00:51:56] So yes, AFV modelers are once again being financially assaulted one individual trunk link at a time. Right, before someone releases another full hold Panther, I'm going to hand over to Nevz for the nautical news. Cheers Dan. First up, the Ukrainian brand Spala, who we've talked about before on the pod. They are releasing two more upgrade sets for the Bismarck in 1-350th scale.

[00:52:23] These include the twin 37mm SK calibre 30 anti-aircraft guns and the single mount 20mm calibre 30 guns. They're all beautifully printed and ideal for anyone wanting to drag an old Kriegs marine shelf queen kicking and screaming into the modern age. Next up, Tori Factory are releasing another 16th century Japanese sailing ship in 1-350th scale.

[00:52:52] This time the flagship Atakebune. This appears to be a fully 3D printed kit with multiple build options including the distinctive iron ram on the bow. Pre-orders are already open with release expected in August. And now for something completely different. DNL models have announced a US Navy PCF swift boat in 1-35th scale.

[00:53:20] Details are still fairly limited at the moment, but we do know it will feature a twin 50 calibre rear mount along with an onboard mortar, which should make Vietnam era modelers very happy indeed. Right then Benchmates, that was a short one for this week. And before someone releases the HMS Belfast with a full interior and lighting kit, I'll hand over to Shane for the Gundam and side-by-side of the hobby.

[00:53:48] Cheers Nevs! And Jess Benchmates, the mecha world is continuing its relentless mission to destroy available display space everywhere. Starting with Bandai Spirits and the new Gundam Artifact Pro series including FA-78 and Zaku 2. This is essentially the premium evolution of the Artifact line. Standing around 10cm tall with key internal sections pre-assembled,

[00:54:15] meaning less frustration and more time making tiny robots look aggressively heroic. Release is expected in November at around £35. Meanwhile, Kotobukiya are releasing their 172nd Crest CR-C98E2 Assault Type from Armoured Core 3. This thing is loaded with deployable thruster hatches, missile pods, energy blades and enough angular armour plating

[00:54:44] to look like it can personally bankrupt a paint manufacturer. That lands in October at £35 as well. Over to Premium Bandai, we've got the MG-1100 Gundam Mark V Earth Federation Forces Colours Edition. Essentially, this takes the already excellent Master Grade mould and swaps the dark blue Rebel colours for the original grey and white Federation rollout scheme.

[00:55:12] Complete with new water slide decals. Expected in October and at this one is £45. Then, there's absolutely enormous inclusion from Fusion-1100 Scale Meteor.

[00:55:26] This beast stands 23cm tall, 44cm wingspan, 89 points of articulation, working gears, sliding hydraulic rods and enough engineering complexity to qualify for its own maintenance contract. That one is apparently imminent and coming in at £55.

[00:55:47] And finally, Motonuclear are releasing the MNP Diane Way kit featuring a full die cast in a frame. Inspired by the legendary Three Kingdoms General, this thing looks less like a mobile suit and more like it can punch directly through a small moon. That lands in November at £45. So there you go Benchmates.

[00:56:12] Whether it's tanks, aircraft, ship or giant robots, none of our wallets are safe this week. Right then, we're going to take a very quick break and hear from some of our absolutely amazing sponsors here on Beyond the Box Art. And when we come back, it's our fantastic discussion all the way from Australia with Sam Dwyer, Scott Taylor from Scale Modeler Supply, celebrating the 10th anniversary.

[00:56:37] And John Marley from the brilliant new charity Piece by Piece by Piece. Do you want cutting edge detail for your kits? Then take a look at Faye's Hanger Resin Accessories, run by USAF veteran Mike Reeves. With real world aircraft experience as a crew chief, Mike knows exactly where accuracy counts. And today, he's bringing that knowledge to life with precision 3D printed parts.

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[00:57:26] Every piece is designed by modelers, for modelers and faithfully reproduced on state-of-the-art printers and shipped worldwide and are ready to drop straight into your next build. With additions to the product line landing all the time, there's always something fresh to elevate your next build. Explore the full range at Faye's Hanger Resin.com and follow Faye's Hanger on Facebook and Instagram for regular updates and inspiration.

[00:57:51] Faye's Hanger Resin Accessories. Authentic detail designed with a veteran's eye and available to modelers everywhere. Faye's Hanger is a proud sponsor of the Beyond the Box Art podcast.

[00:58:17] Head to beyondtheboxart.com for host bios, guest features and direct links to all our social channels. Your central hub for staying connected.

[00:58:34] Welcome to IPMS Dispatches, bringing you society news, upcoming events and a friendly spotlight on branches and special interest groups across the IPMS community. So, another IPMS Dispatches and this time we are joined by IPMS West Norfolk with Daniel O'Grady. Daniel, welcome. Good evening, Brownie. Yeah, great to be on the channel.

[00:59:04] And I'm feeling outnumbered here because we've now got another Dan on the recording for the IPMS Dispatches for a Rare Occurrence, because which is your branch, Dan? Certainly is, mate. Yeah. There we go. So, Daniel, what can you tell us about the branch then? When was it formed? Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Well, so, long before my time. About 2002, set up by a handful of guys, I believe, at a workman's club in Kings Lynn.

[00:59:29] And since then, I joined in 2016, for which then it moved to its current location. Which is? William Burt Social Club in West Winch, just outside Kings Lynn. Okay. And the all-important postcode for people to find it? PE33OJY. Papa Echo? 33OJY. Juliet Yankee. LeBron's been running for some time. How many do you normally get on a club night?

[00:59:56] Oh, so when I first started in 2016, there was probably 15, 15, 16 members. And that has doubled in the last 10 years. So, we're just over 30 members now. I think 31, 32. Which is really great for the club. It suffered, I think, like quite a lot of clubs did during COVID. Because it's very much about connecting with people and being face-to-face and being able to have that banter and chit-chat about all things scale modelling. Mm-hmm.

[01:00:26] And all things not scale modelling as well. But I think after that, possibly due to COVID, people found their roots again in the hobby. And we had, you know, a lot more members coming in, especially after 2022. We just seem to have really kicked off with, you know, an extra 10 members or so in the last, say, three, four years. Which never happened before. Yeah, and we've got a lot of young guys coming in now as well, which is great to see. Because they're the ones that are going to be carrying on the hobby. So, it's trying to get those involved where we can.

[01:00:56] Okay, so what are you using as the enticement for the youngest? Are you looking at Gundam or are you looking at Snapfit? Oh, everything. You know, I want our club to be a friendly club. We've always kind of been known as the friendly club. People come in, you know, we don't have build nights per se, but we still have competitions. We have show and tell nights. You bring your models in, even work in progress. Bring those in, tell people all about it, what you've done or what you haven't done. What you've enjoyed, what you haven't enjoyed.

[01:01:26] And it's in a social club, so you can do that over a beer or an orange juice, whatever takes your fancy. And yeah, it's just trying to be a friendly club where people come in, not be judged. Doesn't matter what level you're at. We do try and encourage the younger ones to come in. So, you know, at our show, we still have the make and paint just to try and encourage the families to come with their little ones and just get faces away from screens and try and be creative. So that's kind of the way that we see ourselves.

[01:01:56] It's just trying to be the friendly club. Gotcha. And you mentioned your annual show and apologies for being somewhat late to the table on this one, but is only in a couple of weeks time after this episode drops on the 4th of June. So 14th of June, when and where? Give us all the details. Yeah, so Sunday. Yeah, Sunday the 14th of June, West Anglia Scale Model Show. It was known as just the West Norfolk show. It had its days at the Downham Market Village Hall.

[01:02:26] Things went awry there. And then since post-COVID, we're now at Littleport Leisure Centre, albeit it's in Cambridgeshire. But it was the only venue that we could really find who were supportive enough and helpful enough to be able for us to put the show on without having a massive expense because they're a charity and we do our shows on behalf of charities. So it helped them as much as it helped us to have the show on, to have people in there.

[01:02:54] So we've been doing that now. This is our fifth year. It's been going from strength to strength. It's at Littleport Leisure Centre in Littleport near Ely, CB61EW. And it's usually warm. Hopefully it's not going to be as warm as this. But if history has anything to say, it's going to be a warm one again. But we'll see how that goes. Fingers crossed. On the day of recording, it's actually the hottest May day ever recorded in the UK, which we've hit 35.1 at Kew Gardens, I believe, today. That's right. Yeah.

[01:03:24] Which is ridiculous for this time of year. But yes. So have you got any refreshments or anything at the event? Yeah. So we've got an open bar. We've got caterers there doing hot and cold food. Free parking, free Wi-Fi, plenty of parking as well. We've got a Tom Bowler on. We've got about 19 traders and 50 clubs at the moment, which... That's not bad. No, it's a decent side show. It's all on one level. Plenty of disabled access. It's across two halls.

[01:03:53] And we've got, yeah, a lot of people's favourite traders there. So come along and do your shopping. Oh, fantastic. And what is the entrance price? It's £5 for adults and under 16 is free. Okay. That's free as well. And do you make Dan pay as well? I personally charge him double. We try. We try. But he runs off when you try to grab him, so... I certainly try running off when we've got to load them 500 tables when it's 40 degrees inside. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. It's...

[01:04:23] We have the show on the Sunday, but of course we still have to set it up. So it's a real kind of community getting together. We have tables come from the parish council, which they don't charge us for. We have tables from the village hall. We have tables from the local churches. And together we manage to put it all on with very minimal cost. And we do all of that on the Saturday evening before the show. And do you have much of a team that actually turns out to help? Or is it the normal family contenders?

[01:04:52] No, we make a point of saying, look, this is your show. You know, it's in the club. If they want to have the show, then they need to put in the effort and at least help. And pretty much everybody usually gets involved. From set up on the Saturday to giving jobs out on the Sunday for doing any judging or running the make and take or running the tombola. So everybody gets involved. So you said judging. So you obviously got a competition there as well? Yeah, we have a competition.

[01:05:21] We don't have a separate room for it. It's just across all tables throughout the show. So everything's judged. And we have, I think, we have aviation, maritime, armor, civilian vehicles, figures, sci-fi. But then if there's a miscellaneous. We also have a junior as well, don't we? That's right. Yeah, we do have a junior. Again, trying to get the young ones in. We don't tend to get a lot of junior entrants, but it's worth to keep going on because hopefully

[01:05:50] some of those ones that have been too young in the past will come up and think, oh, I'm going to enter that now. Cool.

[01:06:24] Yeah. We're going to model out of all of those three winners to take to Telford. And apart from that, yeah, we have meals out as a club. We put days on for the club at the local social club that we're in at the Westwich Social Club. This, well, not this coming weekend, but the weekend after, we're also supporting the Littleport Leisure Fun Day, which has got everything and anything there from kids' activities to a dog show to classic cars to face painting, all that kind of stuff.

[01:06:53] So we're putting on a small display, but we'll also take the make and take. So again, it's trying to get the kids down just to have a go and get involved. So where do you get the kits for the make and take? Usually donated, either from ourselves or from other kind people. Well, I've tried approaching the likes of those who I won't name, but unsuccessfully, we're not a Cub Scout organization or girl guides or anything like that. And they don't tend to do specific projects for just a make and take.

[01:07:22] So yeah, a lot of our stuff tends to be donated either by club members or people that just want to donate to us. Okay. So this is probably going to answer two questions in one here. Your social media and your online presence would be the same address on guests for any people that want to donate kits for the make and take at the same time. Yeah. So what is your social media presence? Social media, we have a Facebook page for IPMS West Norfolk.

[01:07:51] That's probably the best page to contact us through, just Facebook messengers through that. Alternatively, you can go, we've also got a show page for the West Anglia Scale Model Show on Facebook. So you can message through that as well. We also have an Instagram page for the show. So yeah, there's a few options there. Okay. And it's the same method of contact then for anyone who wants to actually join the club then? To join the club, you can get in touch with our club secretary.

[01:08:19] His name's Steve Gregory and his email address is Steve, S-T-E-V-E, Gregory, G-R-E-G-O-R-Y-8-0-2-6 at gmail.com. Cool. Okay. I'm just going to say one of the things we did introduce was the quiz night and it's a good way for clubs and groups out there that if you do support a local charity, it's a

[01:08:46] nice way to break up the off evenings where you've, where you've maybe not got a competition. And if you've got three or four normal club nights in a row, if you chuck a quiz night in there, and I'm sure that there are plenty of budding quiz masters in a lot of model clubs out there, it's great because you can include subjects on questions that are, that everyone in the club will know and there'll be other, other stuff in there that only certain people will know.

[01:09:16] And it's good fun. And I was really impressed when we introduced that. It's just a different thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. It was a good idea. And I think as well in our club, we do have a number of ex forces personnel, ex navigators and like photographers and things like that. So, I mean, it was only the last meeting, one of the chaps, he was in Kabul, I think around 2005. So he brought in all his slides from his trip.

[01:09:44] He was with PRU. So he was on Canberra's for 39 squadron. So that was quite nice showing us all around his digs and what he was up to on the airfield. And yeah, like Dan said, it's just something like that. And occasionally we can break up the, some club evenings that we don't have anything down. Okay. So just to recap then, where is it you meet? So it's the William Burt Social Club in West Winch near Kingsland. Okay. And how many times a month do you meet? Is it once or twice? Two times a month.

[01:10:14] So it's the first and third Wednesday of each month. And it starts at? It's 7.30 until around 9.30 ish. Or until the bar goes empty. Exactly. Yeah. Gotcha. Especially if Dan's there, we know what he's like. Well, yeah, he is usually one of the last ones to leave with myself and a couple of others, to be fair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We usually hang around putting the world to rights. That's right. Yeah.

[01:10:41] And Dan did tell me the other evening that he really enjoyed the Secret Santa that you do at Christmas and make sure any future ones he gets modern day jet aircraft. He really enjoys those. Well, again, the Secret Santa, I think I started that up three or four years ago now. I think it was our fourth time this year. And again, it's just a bit of fun. Get people out of their comfort zone.

[01:11:06] I do stress to people if they want to take part that this isn't a kit that you just want to get rid of that's missing half of the box. It needs to be something that's still bagged, unopened. It's supposed to be a gift at the end of the day. But yeah, it's just a good bit of fun. Thanks for that, Crusader, whoever gave that to me. Yeah, but you enjoyed it. Yeah, it's looking at me on the shelf with contempt. Make sure you bring that to Telford, was it? I'm not. That's not going anywhere near a model show or a display.

[01:11:35] That's staying firmly up there and collecting dust. The more of it, the better. If only you could do what armour builders do, just cover it in mud. Oh, that's going to set them going. Please note that was IPMS West Norfolk and not Beyond the Box side. So I take it you're going to be at Telford with the stand this year? Yeah, we will be at Telford. Yeah. Okay. And do you have a theme? Not really a theme. We tend to, I think it's something we've always done just because of the number of

[01:12:02] ex-forces people that we have is because it's on Remembrance Weekend. We tend to maybe just have a central display on the table of appropriate. One of the guys, he's made a bowing soldier just out of pieces of sprue that stands about 30 centimetres or so high with a couple of poppies around it. There was another member that did a DC3 that he'd sprayed white and then he made poppy decals for it and put those all over it, which was really cool.

[01:12:30] Yeah, just something a little bit different that just marks the weekend. And very appropriate is too. Daniel, thank you very much for your time. Much appreciated. Look forward to catching up with you at Telford. Likewise, Brownie. Thank you very much for having me on. You're very welcome. And we'll speak to you again soon. Indeed. Thanks very much. Thanks, Chairman. There's always one, isn't there? There's always one.

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[01:14:22] And now, our featured interview. Conversations with the people shaping the hobby. From individual modelers to leading manufacturers. Exploring every aspect of scale modeling together. Right then, joining us for this episode is the one and only Sam Dwyer, one of Australia's most recognizable and enthusiastic voices in the scale AFV scene, who has recently seen

[01:14:51] the light and moved from targets to aircraft. We're also joined by a person who spent the last decade helping modelers empty their wallets in the very best way possible, Scott Taylor from the scale modelers supply. As the company celebrates its incredible 10th anniversary this year on the 6th of June, two days after this episode drops. But that's not all. Also joining the chat is John Marley, winner of the 48 in 48 auction in Oceana to come onto the show.

[01:15:18] And we'll be talking about the brand new Australian initiative, Piece by Piece, a charity using scale modeling, creativity and community to support well-being and bringing people together through the hobby we all love. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. Thanks. Thanks for having us. G'day. Good to see you. Okay. Let's start off with a brief introduction from each of you. So we'll start with Sam. If you can give us a brief rundown for our audience that haven't heard of you. And if not, why not?

[01:15:46] Well, why would they have heard of me? Just some guy in Melbourne. So yeah, long time modeler. Usual routine. Started modeling with my dad back when I was five or six or something like that. Might have been a Matchbox Lancaster or Matchbox Wellington. Something horrible. Sorry for all the Matchbox fans. And yeah, never looked back basically. So I've been doing it for however long since then. So don't bear to, can't add up to years. It's too long. But yeah.

[01:16:13] So, and as you mentioned, just relatively, well not relatively recently, but taking a bit of a hiatus from armor to a certain extent to build aircraft and foolishly, fashionably light to getting into wingnut wings stuff. And it's just absurd. I should have bought them when they were available retail, but I want to build world by one aircraft. And so now I want to. So that's where I am. So you've taken up knitting as well, also known as rigging. Yeah. Yeah. I got to say I built one last year and it was the hardest thing I've ever done.

[01:16:43] It was the Albatross and a lovely model, but the rigging really tested my eyes and my tweezer work. So yeah, running two sets of tweezers, rigging stuff is just mental. So, but it's great. It's worthwhile, but it's hard work. Okay. Well, moving on to a person who can sell you those tweezers, Scott. Amongst other things. How are you guys? We're good. Thanks. How are you doing? Yeah, not too bad. Not too bad at all. Fantastic. Well, obviously SMS hitting 10th anniversary.

[01:17:11] You were on the show a little while ago talking about the business in the past. We'll come on to what you're up to at the moment, but you look dressed for winter over there and we're just wearing t-shirts up here. This doesn't look right. Yeah, because it is winter in Australia just about. We've had a big cold snap in the last week. So winter's truly here for us. But I don't know about John because John's up a bit north than Sammy and I, but we're in Victoria, so it's pretty cold in our way. And you are in the coldest place in Australia too. Ballarat is the coldest place on earth. Pretty much.

[01:17:40] Between Ballarat and Canberra, they're the two coldest places in the country at the moment. When you say cold, what temperature are we looking at? At the moment, it's a brisk 10 degrees, which is not too bad for this time. That's a summer's day for us. That's it. But during the week, it was only got to about five or six degrees. I think it was on Wednesday. So it's been very, very fresh. Okay. Moving on to John. Yeah, g'day. All right. I just checked. I'm just north of Newcastle, which is about 170 k's north of Sydney. And I just checked.

[01:18:10] It's 11.8 degrees here. Feels like 11.7. So it's good. But I have a light jumper on just so Scott and Sam don't feel too off-putting or off. I don't know what your problems are. I'm wearing a t-shirt. It's loved if you're in Melbourne. So my background is, yeah, like Sam, I started modeling. My father got us all into it. I have six kids in the family, four boys. And we were all doing the matchbox kits because they were available at the end of our street when I was growing up in Southeast Melbourne.

[01:18:39] And it never really stopped. Like you found girls and all that stuff. But because I was no good at that, I was stuck with modeling and still doing it. Just love it. And the last build was a World War I aircraft. So loving the rigging. But it's, yeah, it's challenging. But it's a lot of fun and very rewarding. Okay. So Scott, why aren't you in the World War I party then? Because we're a bit younger than you, blokes. Great. Oh, right. It's going to be one of those, is it? Right. Okay. Gloves are off. No, my background with modeling is just, I grew up with, I had model trains and stuff when I was a little kid.

[01:19:08] And I had those for a little while, got into Lego, those sorts of things. The general kids in the 80s grew up with. And then moved into model kits on and off during the teenage years. But then it was in my big 20s when I found, I watched a lot of anime and that's where I found Gundam, which got me into Gunpla. And that's got me into modeling from there. And since then, I've been doing Gundams, I've been doing tanks, I've been doing cars, I've been doing planes, I've been doing everything, including, as everyone knows, my favorite subject, dinosaurs. Who did that really rubbish impression? Oh, yeah.

[01:19:37] Had to be bold as, didn't they? Yeah. Okay, then. Let's get into it then. So let's start off with Sam. Rumor has it that the number of high quality 132nd tooled kits hit in the market in the past 12 months is you've been basically solely keeping proper plane, aircraft in pixels, BNA model world and gas patch in business. So how much have you spent because it'd be really sad and bad to keep a spreadsheet of your exact spending?

[01:20:04] Look, it feels like, and I don't want to, Stuart, that someone's been talking. I do keep a spreadsheet because that's who I am as a person. And it's not pretty. It's not pretty. It's a lot. And I don't know. I don't know that this is a safe enough space for me to say how much it is, but it's a lot. Yeah. Look, it's one of those things. And I did it with my armor kits as well. It's like, well, if there's something available aftermarket for a kit, I can't not buy it. I can't not get it.

[01:20:33] So that's, unfortunately, it's the same with aircraft. So yeah. And it's, it's bad with wing nut wing stuff because there's a lot available. So, and wooden props that are hand whittled are incredible. So they're so much better than the kit parts. And they're absurdly expensive, but like it's money. You can't take it with you. So yeah, I've been really bad. So you've gone for some of those laminated wooden props. Yeah. Yeah. Who was the manufacturer for those? Proper plane.

[01:21:01] So they're out of Ukraine and, and it's a twofold thing. It's supporting a small business and a Ukrainian small business for all of those reasons. And yeah, it's the product is top notch. It's incredibly high quality stuff. So it's, it's a bit of a no brainer and it really lifts the model as well. Like the, not just the propellers, all the other stuff that proper plane do really is it's exquisite stuff. Beautifully designed. And all the 3D printed stuff is beautifully printed and no print lines and that stuff. So, and same with aircraft in pixels. Yeah. Oof.

[01:21:31] Yeah. And BNA. Wow. It's just, I know we all should be supporting bricks and water stores, but it's pretty hard to go past BNA for, for their range and their service. They're about 20 kilometers from my place. So yeah, I get stuff next day from BNA. Bad. Really so. Damn. Sam, just circling back to those props. Hey. So they're real wood. Yeah, they are. Yep. Do they come in just, there's nothing on them. Do you have to put a varnish on them and then will they take weathering? Cause this is new to me.

[01:22:01] I have no idea about these things. There is quite the rabbit hole over at the proper plane website. Believe me. It's a beautiful, and I look, I'm sorry. This sounds like a infomercial for proper plane, but their website is stunning and it's, you can search for planes. So just say you bought yourself a Sopwith Camel, you can search for Sopwith Camel and literally the website throws up everything that they make that's available for Sopwith Camel. So for example, it's bloody awesome. So yeah, so the propellers are hand whittled.

[01:22:26] So they are glued together from thin sheets, a basswood, I think it might be very, very thin. Right. And varying colors. So you get that really lovely laminated effect and beautifully varnished there, like a satin varnish to them. Ah, okay. Ready to take the little axial, if you're building a German aircraft, the axial decal. And then just, I glossed and I satined over the top of the decal and it just disappears into the end of the finish and it looks fantastic.

[01:22:53] And do they fit in, do they come with the hub or do they go into the kit hub? Yeah. Yeah. So I've only built the, I've only used, I've got a lot of them, but I've only used the, hang on, I'll go over here. I've only used the, what's that aircraft I built? Why don't have a metal blank on I'm talking about? Albatross. That's the one I'm looking for, Albatross. Ah, okay. And yeah. And so it, it's slotted straight onto the boss of the Daimler Benz engine at the front. And then the cowling went over the front of that.

[01:23:22] The, yeah, there you go. You can see it there. The spin thing goes over the front. So, and the ones that go on radial aircraft, there you go. Like that radial one there. You just get a, you get a 3D printed hub that goes over the top thing. So they are exquisite. Exquisite. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Obviously for our audience who can't see this, I've just shared the proper playing website to the guys and the quality is ridiculous. Yeah. It really, it really is. I can see what you mean. Yeah.

[01:23:50] And once you go down that rabbit hole, it's, you're done. But having said that, I've got a lot planned. I've got a dozen or so kits. And whilst I've got some that I've loaded up with aftermarket for, I really want to explore not using aftermarket on some. And because I know I've started a YouTube channel and I kind of want to cater for lots of different areas thing and, and doing stuff out of box and using paint and weathering stuff to really highlight the kits parts and not use aftermarket is something I want to do as well.

[01:24:18] So yeah, I will use the kit props and teach myself how to paint laminated propellers. Yeah. Cause wood grain on a panel is a hard enough job as it is used. I mean, I use artist oils and then drag the brush across and keep manipulating it. But, but trying to do different multicolored laminated wood grain on a propeller is probably the hardest thing. Cause you need to have masked demarcation lines.

[01:24:43] And if you're using oils, they take forever to dry and you don't want to put a tape straight on the top of oil paint. Cause you just end up ripping it all off. You do oils last is the trick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you paint your acrylics first. You airbrush the prop buff type color or like a light sandy brown color and then paint on your darker lamination colors. Thing use a, you use a gray lid pencil laying flat on a desk and move the propeller around.

[01:25:11] And that gives you your waterline of where your next shade is to be thing. And then brush paint your darker colors. And then they do the oils after you do the acrylics. So you're basically simulating that wood grain effect the other way around on top of the, on top of the layers thing. So you're not waiting for that oil to dry. Yeah. There is a reason for me asking. I've got a, the only first world war era kit that I've got in 32nd is the Copper State Newport 2021 or 22. So that is, I want to get stuck into it this year.

[01:25:41] I mean, it would probably be a bit of a slow burner because there, I've got loads of other 30 seconds girl stuff that's in the queue before that. But. Don't we all? Yeah. But it is, it's something I need to get to grips with. And we're very lucky to, and obviously Shane knows that we're near a museum. It's called the Shuttleworth Collection. And. Lucky. They're all there and real. I've got drip trays under them and they bring them out for the air shows and can't fly some of them when it's too windy. Because they'll end up in the next county. And. Yeah. Brilliant.

[01:26:10] To get to, well, I was a big advocate of getting to museums, particularly seeing flying aircraft as well. Because again, you get to see where all of, they leak oil like you wouldn't believe. It's unbelievable. It's just fantastic. Go on, Shane. But the good news about that oil, it's castor oil and all the pilots have fantastic skin complexion. Yeah. And. Here we go. Empty bowels. Oh, really? Yeah. Because they had, the castor oil would encourage throughput. Oh. Keep you regular, is it? Yeah.

[01:26:40] Yeah. Keep very regular. Not great at 3,000 feet, but there. No. Well, they've been busy this morning because I'm on the, I'm on the flight path for Old Warden. We're only about a couple of miles outside and there's some, this weekend we're recording. They've got a, the first air show weekend and yeah, there's been very busy overhead, which has been quite cool. And in about an hour or so's time, we're heading off to Duxford for their shakedown flying day as well. Oh, right. Don't rub it in, Blimey. Yeah, exactly.

[01:27:07] The last time I attended Euro Militaire at Folkestone, which was 2014, there's a little private museum, Bella Britain Museum just nearby in Folkestone. And. Hawkins. There you go. The one where they take your mobile phone off you so you can't photograph the exhibits. Really weird. And we were literally about to walk into the museum and two Spitfires flew overhead and I, mate, the earth moved. It was incredible. And that looked full noise as well. Really, they're really hooking along and it was, yeah, really impressive.

[01:27:38] Yeah. Teddy, if your mojo's struggling on the modeling front, just go see him in action and that will really give you some motivation to crack through a few in the stash. That's for sure. So going back to Sam's World War I subjects, Scott, do you do a range of lozenge colors or similar to actually keep him employed with masking? No, unfortunately, because as everyone knows, there's not really any good reference material for the old World War I stuff.

[01:28:02] It's so open to your personal interpretation that, yeah, it's difficult to say, to release a color and say it's the color for World War I. The color. The color. Yeah. We have the basic colors. We have the basic colors available so you can mix and match to what your heart's content to get the right shade you want. Well, I was in Canada a little while ago and it was a collector who's restoring some World War I aircraft to flying condition.

[01:28:30] And he had a roll of lozenge painted Irish linen, an original roll. And the colors had faded a little bit. But a lot of people think that the lozenge was actually painted onto the factory, but it was actually printed almost in the same way that wallpaper was. So it came out of the factory ready printed. Yeah.

[01:28:51] And you also got to factor in with that stuff that the print, the inks they use for printing as well with the paint, that'll soak into these fabrics and you'll end up raising the color as well. So what was the original color they've used is going to be faded several times though before it even leaves their factory back in the world. And then they were doped and they were doped. And then they were also, they put stains on them to seal, help seal them and stuff as well. So they just, yeah, all that place. Look, to be honest, I think masking and painting lozenge is the pathway to madness.

[01:29:20] There's no, there's, I mean, kudos if you can do it, but it's like, that's why God invented aviatic decals. So aviatic make the most beautiful linen fabric decals that are just, they're stunning. They really are. Lean over. They're not for the viewers because I know this is a audio medium, but they're aviatic D7 decals. They are incredible. And you actually see the, you can see the stitching and the fabric weave in the decals. They're bloody awesome. Okay.

[01:29:48] So how well do they adhere for weathering and post treatment? Yes. Yep. So I use them on the wings of my Albatross and they're great. So I did have a tiny bit of lift just due to handling. You just, you know, always handling the wings. And I just sealed them in with, because it was blue rib tapes on it. I sealed them in with Vallejo, just a matte blue and it helped glow down. It was fine. Just did little tiny sections where it would lift. And then it just, it looks like you're painted on the rib tapes anyway. So yeah, it was pretty good. Yep.

[01:30:18] So John, is this giving you inspiration for your Royal War I subject? Yeah. I'm just hanging in the background. I just want to, yeah, I want to keep modeling, but no, it's all good. Yeah. Like, yeah, I've been thinking about like, maybe I should get into Scott because I don't think we need much in the way of World War I colors, but certainly like the PC colors. I don't even know what PC stands for, whether paint code or paint chip or no idea, but like there's something that's basically, I think the best reference you can do. I mean, obviously everyone knows that Wingnut Wings do a lot of research into their kits

[01:30:48] and their paints and all that stuff like that. So if I'm building, say an Edward biplane, I'll jump on protective coating. Yeah, protective coating. I'll jump across to the Wingnut Wings website and see what they've used for, say, I did a Bristol fighter recently. So I just, what do they recommend for top and bottom and use that? It can't go wrong really. It looks good to my eye, but no, I'm not going to paint lozage. That's what decals are for. Oh dear. Okay.

[01:31:12] And Sam's obviously now working on, he's moved away from that and working on a Mung Fokker DR1, I believe. Oh, really? This is coming out when? Wasn't necessarily for public consumption as yet, because it's going to be from a YouTube channel, but yes, I am working on a Mung Nut Wings Fokker DR1. Hi Stuart. Mung Nut Wings. Mung Nut Wings. Yeah. Yes, it is Stuart Roff from Black Hat who's been feeding me a little bit of inspiration in the background. This isn't going out to the 4th of June. I'm not telling him another thing.

[01:31:42] No, it's fine. It's fine. It's not a secret. I like to drop stuff when it drops, but I should have an episode before then. So yeah, it's an interesting kit. It is definitely a test shot. So as we know, Mung Nut Wings ceased training just the start of COVID and Mung, however, it came to be released two Fokker's. The 24 scale kit, which was due to be Mung Nut Wings' first DR1 kit release. It was 24 scale. So it was production ready.

[01:32:09] So it's a vastly superior kit than the 30 second scale one. 30 second scale one is a test shot that Mung just put into production. So it needed, it needs a lot more development. And I could see, I know Richard Alexander at Qatar, obviously now Qatar puts a lot of work in the development stages and that stuff. And there were definitely incremental changes between test shots of their things. This is definitely a test shot because it's as, I think the term rough as Hessian undies. It is pretty rough. So still can be polished up pretty nice.

[01:32:39] So I'll say, yeah, I was hoping to get the fuselage together today, but Mother's Day or pre-Mother's Day stuff got on the way today. So maybe tomorrow. Fair enough. Okay, Scott, you've obviously sat there listening to all this wonderful stuff going on from the historic past. Obviously 10 years of production and development of the business. What have you got coming out in the near future that's going to be completely in their ballpark and actually involving Mecca?

[01:33:06] Well, yeah, it's probably not the colors for you guys, but yeah, we're definitely, we're releasing a 10 color set to begin with of colors that are matched to Mobile Suit Gundam. So they're obviously called Mecca because of licensing reasons. We haven't been able to secure license because it's one of those things we can't actually do, but so we're calling Mecca colors. But everything is matched to the RX-78 Gundam, the MS-06, Zaku-2, Zazabi, and the Shars version.

[01:33:36] So the commander units. This is a long time coming for us. As I said before at the start of the episode here, that's how I got into modeling was building Gundam. That's what I was known for before. I was doing all the paint stuff. I used to be heavily involved in the Gundam community in Australia. I used to be involved in the big competitions, the Gundam Bull Doors World Cup, which I actually won in 2013 and went to Japan with my entry and entered the GWC over there.

[01:34:02] So this is when we first started out with SMS. I didn't want to start with the stuff I was known for. I wanted to start afresh and build up the company from scratch and not rely on my reputation beforehand, if you can understand that. So I wanted to build up the brand as a modeling brand, not as a Gundam brand, which is what it would have been lumped into if I'd started with what we're going to start with now.

[01:34:28] So after 10 years, we're returning back to what got me into modeling and releasing 12 new covers that are accurately matched to the Bandai model kits. I was going to say, Scott, if you'd started off with Mecca, that would have no problem for me that. But it's 10 years well worth the wait. I'm looking forward to seeing what these are going to be like to be fair. Thank you. Yeah, I've been putting a few videos and photos up on our social media pages in the last few weeks. I did a gun cannon and Gundam. I've done a Zaku.

[01:34:58] I've got a Shower's version of his Galgoog that I've done as well that I've painted these new colors as test subjects to make sure they're accurately matched. And so far, everyone's pretty happy. Everyone seems to be pretty happy with what we've done. So yeah, I'm expecting good things from this range. So Scott, how do you, I know you're a real stickler for getting your paint colors spot on accuracy and so accuracy wise. How do you go doing that for things like Gundam or Gunpla stuff?

[01:35:26] So there's a lot of, there's different ways to do it because there's the animation, obviously the animation changes from series to series. The stuff that was done in 1979, which is the original anime is not the same as what it's the same colors now. They're similar over the years, Bandai have standardized their colorization of their animes as well. So we try to try and match it to the actual model kits themselves.

[01:35:50] So the colors that Bandai use in the plastics, we try to match them as close to that, but enough that you can see the difference. Yeah. So do Bandai throw in their instructions, like I want to say FS numbers, like we've got the FireMods X-Wing and there's like FS numbers for the colors, calling out for the colors is tough. Yes. There you go. Yeah. Right there. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Shane, Sharon, they're heavily aligned with GSI, Mr. Hobby.

[01:36:18] So all the colors that are showing in any Bandai instruction manual are GSI colors. So what you're saying is there's no set standard color. You take an approximation in the same way that you're not actually touching the lozenge colors for World War I. Yeah. And it's the thing, because it's an animated TV show, it's a bit difficult to match the animated side of things. So we match the actual physical plastic side of things. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.

[01:36:44] And yeah, so we try and make them as accurately possible to match it. So that's, it's enough, it's enough that it doesn't look like plastic. Obviously it looks like paint, but you're going to keep the same colors. So if you want to build a Gundam and you have to do some modifications and you want to repaint it, you want to use the exact same colors the plastic was in, our paints will do that. Okay. So what colors are you releasing? So we've got 12 to begin with. So we've got the four main colors for the Gundam.

[01:37:10] So there's armor white, core red, Federation blue, Vanguard yellow. Then there's interior, so there's sort of inner frame gray, which is the, so the arms and the inside skeleton of all of them. So that's a universal color for everything then carbon black, which is a nice, real nice deep black, but it's a flat finish as well, which gives you a nice highlights for some of the armor parts and three different greens for the Zaku, which is the other, the opposite side of the battles in Gundam.

[01:37:39] So the Xeon side and the commander unit. So there's a pink salmon pink and a wine red. So therefore the commander units and then the Neo red, which is a nice bright vibrant red, which is designed more for the Susabi and the Shinanju. So the, again, the more specialized commander suits, which I know nearly everyone here is going all over your heads. You've got no idea what I'm talking about, Shane. Yes.

[01:38:05] Well, you say that Stephen, who was our guest on the last episode, which you haven't heard yet, we're obviously recording in advance from Gumpley UK has given us a complete grounding on the subject. Oh, I could say it's good. So hopefully all the audience will be knowing all about what you're talking about. You know, for my head. But yeah, so they're the first colors. So they're the main colors that everyone does use when building, because even though they're specifically for these older versions of Gundam, they, the same colors are used throughout

[01:38:35] all the different series. So it's not, there's not a, there's not 200 odd colors like you would see in military and aircraft. There's only like a handful of colors that are used in Mecca. Okay. Okay. So is this the whole range in one head or are there supplementary colors to follow? Depending how this goes, the first range would be obviously the 12 and we're probably looking at another, maybe 12 after that, but that's going to be the extent of it. Okay. Well, I know Stephen's looking to actually stock the paints already. So you've got your first customer in the UK. Oh, that's good. Oh dear. Okay.

[01:39:04] Sticking with your good self at the moment, I take it the paint is actually lacquer. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Or it's all the same. That's all the same premium range that we've got. It's just the colors that have changed. So it's this exact same formula we've developed over 10 years. That's the brush for it, you had as a bottle, same stuff. Okay. Which is absolutely superb. Okay. And you have now actually caused me a massive OCD panic for the fact that after 10 years, you're changing your bum bottle logo and design.

[01:39:34] Are you going to sell supplementary stickers who can actually have it all the same on the shelf? Because it's going to go to wraps at the whites. Yeah, that won't do. That won't do. The heritage line. There you go. The heritage line. This is actually the sixth version of our labels. We've done little tweaks and stuff over the years, but this is the third major change. Yes. It's not showing there yet. That's an eye twitch waiting to happen. So the one on the right there, the green one was the original labels.

[01:40:02] And then we moved to that other one, which is the most current. And then this one we've just updated for the last couple of weeks. So this is going to take quite a while to change over. So we've already sent out quite a few of the blacks and whites and jet black and things like that. The most used colors are already, that stuff's already left and it's in people's hands already. But a lot of the other colors, it's going to take quite a while to change over and see them completely in stores. Scott, I was just going to ask, because I know with your paints, sometimes I skip the

[01:40:31] priming process and go straight onto plastic. Fine. Does it, is it all fine on the ABS style? Me too. Me too. Yep. I don't know exactly what it is. It's fine straight onto plastic. Yeah, it's perfectly fine. ABS is fine with our stuff. It's generally, it's the oil-based enamel paints is what ABS and stuff don't really like, especially with the Bandai plastics. They don't, they tend not to like the solvents that are used in enamels.

[01:40:58] If like, if anyone's, any gun or Star Wars or those sorts of stuff that Bandai do, you put a washer over the top. If you're not careful, the whole thing becomes fragile and just falls apart. That's to do with the plastic itself rather than the paints. That's just the way they are. So to get around that, it's just a matter of giving it a nice coverage of paint so there's nothing can seep through and you're good as gold. Yeah. Yep. Okay, mate. Yep. And give the model a wipe beforehand too with some ISO or something like that. It's all I always do. And then don't handle it again with bare hands. And that's for any paint.

[01:41:28] That's not just the Scots. It's any paint. Scots is hardier than most, but you could still compromise any adhesion with greasy fingers. And don't eat a pizza before modeling. Yeah. Yeah. The beauty of lacquer is the solvents are what creates the adhesion. So as your solvents land on the plastic, it softens the plastic so much because of the solvents will react with the plastic softener. So acetone that's in the paint will bond with the plastic molecules and then dry really, really fast.

[01:41:56] And that's what gives you that really strong adhesion. Okay. One more thing. A lot of the Gundams have like a ball joint connector. Would you recommend masking that off? No. No, it's fine. No. Okay. Right. Yeah, no, it's fine. I've done many over the years. Usually I use those points as the, where I clip my clip on do. Ah, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Where I'm spray able. Yeah. So a lot of the time the paint doesn't get on. And even then, if the paint does get on, the exactly what Shane's showing now, it's clipped on.

[01:42:26] If you, even if you do airbrush them, it's just the thin layer. So all it's going to do is just stiffen the joint. So you're still going to be able to move the joints around. It's just not going to be, it's going to be a lot more firmer. So it's not going to become loose and floppy over time. Do you think coat to 20 PSI? 15 PSI. I mean, 15. Yeah, Scott. So for those listeners that might not be familiar with SMS or what would this set up, if you're airbrushing or whatever else, because it's lacquer, we'd have, we'll have listeners that are predominantly

[01:42:53] enamel painters and we'll have listeners that might be predominantly acrylic. Yeah. And obviously the set up with airbrushing might be slightly different. So if we, with your paints, what's the setup you need? If you're doing like cleaners, thinners, whatever. Yep. That's very simple. We made our paints as foolproof as possible. So it's a matter of making sure you've got good ventilation. So a spray booth, which you should have with any paint, no matter what it is, doesn't matter if it's acrylic, water base or whatever.

[01:43:22] If you're spraying an atomized paint, you should have something to remove the atomized paint from the room. So always use a spray booth. Face mask. Not your lungs. Not your lungs. Don't remove atomized paint from the room with your lungs. Yeah, yes. Don't do that. Ice mask, if you've got one, is preferred depending again on where you're spraying, but it's always best to have one on. Then with cleanup, because it's an acrylic lacquer, all you need to do is use the acrylic lacquer

[01:43:50] thinners or an equivalent solvent to just dilute and flush the paint out of the airbrush. And that's including if you've forgotten about it overnight and the whole thing's dried up and seized up, just put a bit of lacquer thinners back into it and agitate it around a little bit and it'll dissolve it back into a liquid paint, which you can flush straight back out your airbrush. And if you have that problem with something else like a water base or anything else similar, you're going to have to do a full strip down of your airbrush. If that's the case, then you're going to be picking out bits of water-based paint from

[01:44:20] the bottom of your airbrush. So that's the best advantage of a lacquer is if it dries out, whack a bit more thinners back into it and you're good to go again. Okay. So with your paint, it comes pre-thinned. For those that want to actually just go that little bit further, can you put MRT or the equivalent in? Yes, you certainly can. We make it in a way that anyone of any skill level can just pick it up and spray and you're going to get a good consistent result out of it.

[01:44:45] And we also, but we've made it in such a way that people with a bit more experience can add more thinners to the mix to get, to suit their own personal styles or whatever technique they're trying to do. So if you're doing some post-shading and you want to really get a nice, fine, soft line, you thin the paint right down. You can, we've got enough pigment in there that you can actually put quite a lot of solvent

[01:45:11] back into the paint, thin it down to get these nice lines and still get good color coverage. Okay. And instead of actually buying another manufacturer's product, do you do your own version of MRT? No, we just got a standard acrylic lacquer thinner. This is the beauty too of lacquers thinners. If the thinners itself has got the right components, you don't have to stick with the proprietary stuff. A lot of water-based brands, they have their own proprietary stuff that only works with

[01:45:38] their stuff and anything you try any other brands, thinners, and it just turns into a coagulated mess. With an acrylic lacquer, it's universal paint. So if you get a solvent that will work with it, it'll work with it. So MLT will work fine with it. Tamir lacquer thinners will work with it. A general purpose lacquer thinner from a hardware store or automotive store will work with it. So yeah, it frees you up that way to see not tied to the same ecosystem. Okay.

[01:46:05] Now we have a question from one of our teams that's not on the call today, Mr. Spencer Pollard. He is trying to get a decent gloss finish straight out of the airbrush and is having issues. He's aiming virtually at just getting semi-mat or a semi-gloss finish. What is the trick to getting a high gloss for an aircraft? Use the right sheen paint and the distance you're spraying from.

[01:46:30] So you want to use a high gloss, but you only want to spray from about five centimeters away. So the further you are away, the more airtime the paint has to dry. And as a gloss paint starts to dry in the air, it'll start to, the sheen will start to flatten off. So you want the paint to be wet when it hits the model.

[01:46:51] So you want to go down, so you want to go in closer and you also want to go, if you're finding per 15 is a bit too high at that distance, you can drop it down to 10. So that'll give you less force pushing the paint out at the same time, which will keep it wetter. And yeah, and that, and you just do a couple of coats. And you also have to factor in that with glossing stuff, you don't go for the one coat wonder. Aim for two, three, four coats to get a nice, smooth, glossy finish.

[01:47:21] I would assume that Spencer would know this already with that, but a lot of you listeners might not know that they go for the one coat wonder and they try and spray one coat on and go, why isn't it glossy? It needs a couple of coats for it to lay on top of each other to start getting a nice gloss effect. I mix in some clear gloss as well. Drop some clear, some of Scottsky clear gloss in with these flats and it works fantastically well as well. And it helps, is that the clear or the super clear? Super clear.

[01:47:49] Any of the clear glosses and it glosses up the paint really, really well. Glossens, is that a word? Ah. Yeah. Glossens. Yeah. And in fact, Mia paint and AK real colour. Yeah. And not to Gunz because Gunz is kind of a bit glossy anyway, but drop some clear in and it helps the paint spray even better. Yeah. And same with SMS here, I throw some gloss in to the flats. Especially if I'm doing tight camos and stuff here.

[01:48:15] There's another trick along the same vein, the car guys do, which I do sometimes myself when I'm doing cars. Because on the final clear coat you're putting in, especially if you've got a solid colour, put a couple of drops of the solid colour into your clear. So what it does, it'll heavily dilute the colour down, but it'll be enough that it keeps the gloss sheen up without changing it too much. So you're essentially putting on a solid colour, if you can understand that.

[01:48:43] Doing that, and it's going to be a bit more difficult for doing aircraft, for example, because you've done all your post shading, pre-shading and stuff. So you don't want to cover that. So, but with cars, you don't have to worry about that stuff. So a couple of drops in just to give a slight tint to the clear helps with that glossiness as well. A couple of drops of black in the clear and give it on. That's why it's, well, black's a nightmare. Don't ever paint a black car. Why a headier? Never going to paint a black car.

[01:49:11] That's why I always do colour shift and pearls when I do cars, because it's very forgiving. It's why I built stuff that has flat coat on top. Okay. Sam, you were talking about, obviously, the wingnut wings and Qatari. Your channel has done a fantastic build video of a Mark 5B spit from Qatari. How did you find that? That's awesome. I need to control my enthusiasm.

[01:49:37] Yeah, it's the one I've been waiting for really because, well, because Australians use them. I mean, everyone used Mark 5s, right? So it was one of the most, certainly the first of the most widely used spitfires amongst the other nations, not just England and Britain. And yeah, I was really keen. And so, yeah, the kit's wonderful. And I've built the Mark 1 and then the PR as well. And then the Mark 5 is just a lovely extension of building those. So it's there. The cockpit is one of the finest cockpits I've ever had the joy of putting together.

[01:50:07] There's just so much going on. And that might be just because it's a spitfire cockpit and there is lots going on in the spitfire cockpit. But just, yeah, it's an incredible model unto itself. And then look, the outside is great. So, and yeah, quite a bit different from a Mark 1. Different enough. And not brown and green, which is nice. It's a mixed gray and green, which is an interesting color. So yeah, really very enjoyable build. Yeah, really great. And that was 453 Squadron? 457. Yeah. 457. There's so, like it's such.

[01:50:36] And people who build spitfires know there's such a rabbit hole of. And anyone who's got the new IBG 72nd scale spitfire will know when you open the box and there's a dozen canopies in the box because they've included all the different variants of canopies. And so trying to find a 453 Squadron aircraft with the exhaust and canopy combination was really tricky. So I found a 457 one to do instead. So when Katara eventually and inevitably release other variants of that kit, and Mark talked

[01:51:05] about it in the video that he's got, Richard's got others on the way. I think Mark has. Yeah. I'll do more RAF ones for sure. So, but yeah, we need the later exhausts and the later internal armored windscreen to do some of the other versions. And the blown canopy. And the blown canopy. Yeah. So, yeah. And really also the, the tropical, uh, underside cowling to do some Australian actual in Australia spitfires as well as obviously some Malta ones. So they'll all happen.

[01:51:34] I'm sure at some point, they've not told me anything. I'm not privy to any secrets, but I'm sure as night follows day, looking at the engineering of that kit, there's bound to be a million different variants of it. Yes. I'll kill him if he doesn't do a blown canopy version. I've had this conversation with him previously and we've had him on the show talk. Talking about it as well. But this kind of scheme that you chose for that build was when the unit moved from Coventry or RAF Baggington to Jerby, the Isle of Man. If you say something, I was like, I know that sounds really vague.

[01:52:01] I was going off one photo out of, I think might've been the wing leader, one of the wing leader books or one of the squadrons books. Anyway. Yeah. And so it didn't actually say where the aircraft was. It didn't even say if it's mixed gray and green. So I just assumed by how beat up it is that it's mixed gray and green and not ocean gray and green. So not that late. It's definitely an elite one with a mixed gray. Yeah. And so look, I'm assuming that's where it was, but the captions were pretty vague. So I just went with that color scheme.

[01:52:27] Well, there was an article in IPMS Australia from about 79, I think it was, that went into the history of it. The reason I know so much about this unit is I used to be head of air traffic at Coventry and the squadron was actually formed at Squam, Coventry. So I've been doing some research into their initial foundation and then when they moved away from Coventry, but it was at the time period when they were actually moving from the dark earth across to the gray. Yep. Yep.

[01:52:55] And I've been trying to find out at what point were the, did they actually make the transition? Were they gray at Coventry? Were they brown at Coventry? Because although the date came in for the color scheme change, as Mark Pothelswaite from Wing Leader said when he was on the show, don't assume that the aircraft that are not on the front line had the treatment at the same time. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. So the further they are from the front line, they were actually issued the paints, et cetera, and modification state of the aircraft further and further down the line.

[01:53:22] So although they're only a month or so after the date check of the color scheme change, the chances are they probably would have actually been dark earth rather than gray at the time they went to the Isle of Man. But it's finding the research. Look, there's bound to be more information. Yeah. Trying to, I've only found one photograph of a machine at Coventry, but the trouble is you just can't extrapolate out of the data accurately. Is that gray? Is it bright earth? Which is a pain in the ear to put it mildly. But anyway.

[01:53:50] And this is exactly why we love this hobby. Exactly right. Oh yes, totally. But every day is a school day. Yeah, you're not wrong there, Dan. Dan, which was going to lead me on to the next part about your build in that you'd primarily painted the decal or the markings onto the aircraft rather than using the kit supplied decals for the color scheme. Did you find, did you use black for the registrations or did you use a dark gray?

[01:54:18] I used night, which is Scott's night. So which is a World War One color, but it's not black, black. It's just off black. And it's perfect, perfect color for it. Yeah. So because it's an Australian subject, I obviously wanted to use Scott's paints. So I used SMS paints throughout the build and it's flawless. Yeah, it was really lovely. So I made my own mixed gray and had to do touch-ups and by the very nature of mixed gray, it was mixed at maintenance units. So it wasn't a uniformity to the color.

[01:54:46] So any touch-ups I did, the shades were different, which adds to the patina, take a shot of the model, which is awesome. So I really love building that stuff into a model. It's just not blazing away with one color. Rather than getting some difference there. Because I mean, something happens and they get a ding in a panel or they get some battle down, it means they re-touch it up. It's going to be a different color, right? So great opportunity to build some, get some interest into the paint scheme rather than just have it one broad blend color. You did that on your 262 as well that you built for the 48.

[01:55:14] I was looking at the photos, the Messerschmitt 262. So how, could you, would you be up for talking us through the process of how you get a uniform color to look so varied and not boring on a particular model? Yeah. Yeah. There's kind of not. So on that 262, talk us through your process on that one, please. Yeah. Ah, wow. So I think, so it's grey plastic. I don't prime anything because I'm lazy. I'm so lazy. And so just, yeah, it's like, I hate priming.

[01:55:44] Just, I worry about it clogging detail. I know you don't have to blaze away and goop the primer on, but I'm just, and also I'm really lazy. So, and I'm also really keen to get the color on and you kind of saw that in my, oh, sorry, Must Bitfire build because I forgot to spray silver on the wing roots to go back and strip the paint and spray the silver on. Idiot. So anyway, so for the 262, so it was, I was in a rush because it was 48 hours. So to me, a two sprue wonder kit's brilliant and go together so quickly. So it's a perfect build for that scenario. So what do I do for the camo?

[01:56:12] Oh boy, I think in sections I sprayed RLM02 down as, as like, almost like a primer, but it's just a good way of introducing a lightness under the camo. And then I try to paint my paint in whatever scale, and this is going to sound absurd when I say it out loud. I want the paint to look like it's been applied by a human in scale. So I know that sounds really silly, but I don't go for super thick, cover everything

[01:56:39] so that there's a uniform green slab of paint. I squiggle it on across the hatch almost and just, just nothing too uniform. And so that's kind of worked on the 262 and, and got that, got that opacity and that depth to the color, if you like. And so Chris Wockup is a local guy here in Australia who is a master of airbrushing. His listeners worth having a look at his website, Static Capital. His airbrush work is phenomenal.

[01:57:04] I've known the guy for 30 odd years and he just sprays guns, paints straight from the bottle, straight from the jar with a drop of thinners and uses an old Aztec airbrush. And he's the best airbrusher guy I've ever seen. And so he's got some beautiful 262s on his site and he gets that translucency of color where you can see the primer, the German applied primer, not gray primer that we'd use. And, and that's what, that's the look I went for. So, and then when I applied the different colored green camo, I went over the top of the original green with the other green.

[01:57:34] Right. So it, it, it removes any demarcation between the greens. I know that's vague, but yeah, I'm just trying to think back to how I did it. So yeah, it's really just try to apply a light touch and sneak up on the coverage if you like. Yeah. Yeah. So don't just go for one big coat that covers everything, but sneak up on it. So you get that nice thing. Did you choose a particular reference photo to go from or about your, I know it's hard because they're probably not in color. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:58:03] So yeah, no, well I absolutely. So I did black X, which is the aircraft that's at the Australian war memorial here in Canberra. And so it was gifted to Australia post-war from the RAF or from Britain. And then we got it out here and it turns out it's a super rare. I mean, they're all super rare, right? It turns out it's a super rare one because it's got a four gun nose and it's got the bomb racks fitted under the nose as well. So it's a quite a rare one apparently. And it was in original colors up until the seventies, maybe when it was over painted

[01:58:33] in our RAF foliage green. And so it's been stripped back and it's in very poor condition, but close to original paint still. So that's what I was trying to use for, for I guess, yeah, inspiration and reference for the model. So yeah, I'm going to do one in 32 scale, but yeah, doing in 48 is quick for the 48 build. Right. Thanks, Sam. Well, you've got the Revell form 32nd coming out very shortly, which has got the Canon nose, but it's also got the original nose in the kit as well. Yeah. Oh, it does. Okay. Yeah.

[01:59:03] I've got the Revell, the original Revell release here in the stash and then Daswerk are about to release the 262 as well in 32 scale. So that'll be, that'll be interesting. Okay. So did you use Scott's paint for that 48 build and why not? No, I used, why not? Well, it is an Australian subject, right? I should have used, I should have used SMS on it. Yeah. So. Same, same, same. Yeah. So yeah, no, I think I used MRP on that. Sorry, Scott. No, I think I used MRP on that one.

[01:59:33] Yeah. Just for no other reasons, it was handy. Interesting. There's a competition coming up every year here in Australia called SCALACT, which is in Canberra. And this year, one of the, so they have a different rotating all in category every year, the Sentinel Shield, I think it's called. And this year, the category is any aircraft that was flying out of Fairburn Air Force Base in Canberra, which is their airport. And also it's a military base there. And I checked with the other president of the club and yes, anything that this was, that is at the war memorial flew out of Fairburn at one point.

[02:00:02] So any of the aircraft that are on display, G for George, the Lancaster, the 262, the 109, the Zero, any of those things can be built in this category because they're technically Australian aircraft, right? They're Australian aircraft now. So I might just do a 262 for that one. Yeah. I've just asked that any, any bench mates or listeners that in Oz that do go to those shows, please share plenty of photos because us guys obviously can't be there and try and get some more. I know it's hard leaning over models when they're on tables and you have to really make

[02:00:32] sure you're holding your phone very, very tightly in your hand, but try and get some, some closeup photos because I love seeing builds from other countries. Although a lot of the subjects are the same. You do notice that people display slightly differently. I'm a bit of a against sticking it on a piece of paper thing. I like to see models on a base because I think it frames them a lot better, but yeah, please share all of the shows, even smaller shows.

[02:00:58] I know that might not be a thing in Oz because of the humongous distances that traveled, but yeah, please share your, please share photos from shows and events that you go to. Well, you're not going to make it there with that attitude. Well, one day I'd like to, I nearly ended up in Australia at one point. So yeah, saved by the bell. We don't, we don't have a lot of, we don't have a lot of competitions on the shows here, do we, Scott and John? We do. We do. If you look close enough, we generally have like one large one per state.

[02:01:28] So Victoria, got Model Expo coming up in a couple of weeks. It's New South Wales. Yeah. That's I think what the 6th of June, I believe. June. Yeah. First weekend in June. It's a long weekend here in Melbourne. So that's the big, big one. What the New South Wales ones. Not a national though. Yeah. None of these are nationals. They're more state bases, Scott is saying. No, we all do state base. We don't have a traveling national show like you'd see in America or the UK, even New Zealand as well.

[02:01:55] We just don't have, we don't have the population, the hobby population to support a big national show where clubs. Nah. Nah. Choccy and bid for it, unfortunately. So, and then just the tyranny of distance right between all the capital cities is a bit of a killer for that. So yeah, we've got New South Wales more shows in two weeks time. So this time in two weeks, I'll be there in New Laura, in Wollongong. So then we've got, we also got Adelaide in October. Western Australia's got one in August. Canberra in November.

[02:02:25] Queensland, QMHC's in August. It's August, yeah. So Canberra's in November. Plus we've got, there's quite a few small ones in between as well. We've got a few, quite a few little ones around Melbourne. Port Macquarie up Johnsway. Who else? We've got Wagga. The Wagga show. There was a show last week at Toomit, which is in the region of New South Wales. There's one here in Ballarat in the same weekend. I'm going to New South Wales, which is a bit weird. But there's the little tiny ones. And then outside of them too, you've also got all the train shows.

[02:02:51] You've also got all the tabletop shows, the gaming shows and that, the Play the Warhammer and that. So we've got quite a few, just not as much as you guys in the UK do. Fair enough. So obviously this, you being your 10th anniversary year, you've got the STL file for people to download your little character paint at home available. Fantastic idea. Yes. And obviously you do a lot of sponsorship of shows in Australia, as well as sponsoring our pod, for which we thank you very much. It is much appreciated.

[02:03:21] But you also do quite often special limited edition colours, which are available at shows out there. Yes. What have you got available for your 10th anniversary? Is it champagne coloured? Sorry, it'd be 4X, wouldn't it? 4X. Oh, dude, that was an opportunity. You should have done that. It's Victoria Beer colour probably, isn't it? Yeah, go for it. Yeah, piss yellow. No, we're still working on where our anniversary colour is going to be this time.

[02:03:49] We've still got a few limited edition stuff that we've been dragging around for the last few shows. We try and take them around to different shows so everyone gets a chance. Because you don't want to, not everyone can trouble to every show as Sammy was leading to before. Because Australia is quite a big country and it's very expensive to get anywhere in this place. Especially at the moment with the cost of fuel. But, so we take our limited edition stuff around to different shows. It's more an encouragement really to get people to come to the shows.

[02:04:18] They do want to get a hold of our limited edition paints. So the only way to get it is to come to the show. So they've got to pay the entry to get into the show. They're going to come in and hopefully get motivated and inspired to build some new projects when they come to these model shows and see what's around on the table. So that's our way to encourage people to get back into these shows and support the shows and hopefully foster a whole new generation of people coming through. Okay. Well, if you want to stick a box on your next shipment to Albion in the UK for Telford, we can hand that out on your behalf. I'll have a look, yeah.

[02:04:47] The problem is with your paint, Scott, is particularly the really bright colours and the candies and stuff is us as modellers. Well, I certainly do. You think I'm going to buy that and then buy a kit to go with it. It's not buy the kit and then look for the base. It's a gateway drug. Yeah, it is the gateway drug. My son's just got Kawasaki Ninja and that green. We don't want to do the standard green on it. He wants to maybe do a flip-flop on the flip-flop green on the frame or something like that.

[02:05:16] And I thought, I bet Scott's got something on the menu that we can choose from. We've got quite a few different greens in the ColourShift range that would do good on that. One we've got called Cosmos, which is like a green to a yellow, which has got a hint of blue in it as well. It's really beautiful. Yeah. See? The other thing you've obviously got out, Scott, is your commemorative coins. Yes, and it's something we've released just for Australian. There's difficulty with our shipping overseas with a lot of things at the moment,

[02:05:44] but at the moment we've got it available through Australia, through our Australian customers, because it's just a little way just to say thank you to everyone who supported us for the past 10 years. Without everyone's support since 2016 here in Australia, we wouldn't have been able to do what we have been able to do in 10 years. So just a little bit of a thank you as a commemorative item that people can buy from us just so they can be a part of the journey that we've had. So obviously you started the business in your garage.

[02:06:14] You've now got quite a large unit at, is it Ballarat? Yeah, Ballarat. Yep. Yep. In Ballarat. How many people have you got working now in the unit? Including myself, there's only four of us, but the four of us pump out 150 odd thousand bottles a year. So that's pretty good. Consider there's only four of us. It's myself that does. So what you're saying, what you're saying is, Scott, you're a slave driver. That's what I'm hearing. That's what I'm hearing. So pretty much, but I'm the main slave. I'm the main slave. That's the thing.

[02:06:41] Everyone else gets worked part and told, but I work double time. So that's myself, my wife, Katrina, her sister, Sharon. And then we've also got Thomas, who's our my production assistant. So between the four of us, we pretty much keep on top of our shipments across Australia, both the customers and retailers and exports to New Zealand, Canada, the US, and to you the fine folks over in the UK. And are you finding issues at the moment with the Strait of Hormuz problem that you're having issues getting shipments overseas?

[02:07:11] Not currently because we're in between international shipments. So all the major restocks went out December, January, February. So we're about due to get a new wave of shipments coming, a new wave of orders coming through in the next few months, near next month or so. So we're expecting to have a bit of issues then. But as far as I'm aware, the only major issue is just the cost has gone up. I was speaking to our freight forwarders last week just to double check on things.

[02:07:37] Just our normal courier rates across the country here, just my door stuff to the stores, it's just gone up significantly. So I just double checked on international freight and the international's just gone up as well, quite significantly. But that's a problem I'll face when we next ship out. Yeah. Okay. So the final question I've got for you, Scott, is where's my US Air Force ADC grade that we talked about? It's still in progress. Fair enough. As long as you get FS16473 out, I will be more than happy.

[02:08:06] Do you get many people coming to you, Scott, with color requests? Oh, constantly. Constantly. Can I fit you up for stuff? Yeah. Yeah, constantly. It's because of the way we work stuff and the size we are, we can't really do custom requests. So we have to try and factor those things into our range, whether it's going to be a viable option. It's not just whether it's going to be a financially viable option for us, but we've also got to take into consideration the retailers.

[02:08:34] Because the retailers are going to be the people who are going to invest their money into our range. So it's on their shelves. So we need to make sure it's a color that's going to sell through, obviously. So we don't want the retailers to be spending all their money and sitting on a shelf and not selling because only one person wanted that color. We've got to make sure it's a highly sought-after color to make it a viable option, not just for us on the manufacturing level, but also our retailers on a retailer.

[02:08:59] So, Brownie, you need to go to every hobby shop you find in the UK and just ask, have you gotten the SMS ADC grey? All of a sudden, all these different hobby shops are going to start asking for ADC grey. Well, we do. Yeah, well, the ADC grey is only produced by one company. And the quality of it is, I'll say lacking to put it bare and mildly. But it's the grey that all the F-102s, the F-106s and the Air National Guard phantoms were painted in. Ah, there you go.

[02:09:27] And there's not a decent representation of that color. So there's a big imam call for it in the States, I would have thought, to put it mildly. But I've got a 1-32nd Phantom here, which again, thanks to Mrs. Pollard from the Michigan Air National Guard. And I need that grey in quantity. So it's not an obscure color. It is quite a big one. But anyway, I know Shane needs to jump off because he's got an air show to go to in Duxford. So we'll speak to him again in the near future. With that, we'll jump into you, John.

[02:09:54] And if you can give us a bit of a background on Piece by Piece. All right. So my background is, yeah. So I grew up in Southeast Melbourne, Springvale South and Dananong. You're remembering, actually. So I was an electrician, two apprenticeships in different places. And then after 10 years, I joined the Air Force as an avionics technician, worked on J-Model Herx for 15 years.

[02:10:19] Had a procurement job in Laverdon, Melbourne for four years as a respite from going to the Middle East all the time. And jumped across to Orion's. Did that for five years. The search for MH370 and all other things. Then came up here to Williamtown, which is just north of Newcastle on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. Classic Hornets for the last two years at 2ICU. Then I jumped across to F-35. I was on the first avionics course in Australia for the F-35.

[02:10:48] And then my back went. And I had spinal fusion surgery in September. No, wrong. October that year, 2020. And I never got good again. I wildly underestimated how long the recovery for that would be. So very quickly, I went from being like what somebody I thought was pretty good, knowledgeable and all that stuff to being the guy that nobody wants around because he's only here two days a week for half days. And he's getting paid the same amount as me and all that crap. And it became a really caustic environment.

[02:11:18] So I was pretty much showing the door, given no choice really, but showing the door at the end of 2022. And so since then, I've been literally, I'm a pensioner. I'm not working anymore. But this skull modeling thing, if it wasn't for it. And that coincided in 2020, of course, you'd remember coincided with COVID and everything else. So it was a terrible, terrible time. It was no doubt the lowest point of my life, just having trouble walking around the house when you can't leave the house. And it was just terrible.

[02:11:48] But in a way, I've been thinking of this skull modeling thing. I've trained for COVID my entire life. If I need to sit at a bench and be quiet, then I could do that. So it kept my head above water. And also, fortunately, around about that time, I think about, well, certainly when I was with the Classic Hornets, Malcolm Child's work with Models for Heroes in the UK was mentioned, I think, on the Bench podcast. But Dave Julian and, oh God, I'm sorry. Digger Dave. Dave Goldfell.

[02:12:16] How can you forget somebody that size? Dave. Podfather. I'll go, who? Who's he? I've got a picture of him in the Mad Max setup that he signed. It's sitting over there. But you can hear him before you see him. Anyway, so I jumped, I got onto Malcolm and asked, tell me more about this. This is something that I'd certainly look at supporting an Australian version of that if there was one. And I had a look around and there wasn't one. He gave me a couple of names. And both of those people were saying, no, I just asked a question. No, I'm not going to do anything.

[02:12:44] But I thought, well, I'm going to have to do it myself because it is something that's absolutely worthwhile. There's a lot of people I worked with over the years that are damaged as a result of their service. And a lot of it was mentioned the other last week, in fact, by Gary Evans of Gary's stuff, that it's not just warlike activities. It creates PTSD conditions in people and stuff. I showed him a photo of one of the evacuation flights for our J-model Hercs from Bandarache after the 2004 tsunami.

[02:13:13] And I'll bring up that photo here because you'll get the idea. Sorry, it's not for the viewers at home. But there we go. This is a back of one of our Dash 30s. Let's see that. Wow. Jeez. Packed in like sardine. Yeah. Yeah. So the Dash 30 J model, it's about 4.73 meters longer than the standard Herc. So you can get more people in. So we're not even sure, but we think that we may have got the record for most people on a Hercules then, trumping what happened at the end of the Vietnam conflict. But we're not even sure.

[02:13:42] Just for our audience at home, you basically, you had people sat on every inch of the floor was completely covered. It wasn't just the jump seats that you normally use. Every single inch of that floor was covered with people. Yeah. Yeah. So there was no room for, like there was, I think there was 19 people on the flight deck and stuff like that. It was pretty crazy. So I know people that saw some stuff during the tsunami, like people were sliced open, Bali bombing, all this stuff.

[02:14:07] It's a long list of terrible things throughout most people's careers, whether they be deployed or not deployed overseas and operationally. There's some terrible things that can happen. And it does affect a lot of people. And to the point where I know some people that are, it's difficult for them to function with normal life and stuff. And because I've found for myself, the scale modeling thing is an absolute, like that's a positive thing. And I don't suffer PTSD myself. I'm not going to claim that.

[02:14:33] There are a couple of things that if I talk about, I start to get emotional, but I am not going to put my hand up and say, I'm affected by this and that. But the physical disability that I have isn't. The only time it was a mental one was because of realizing that I can't do my job anymore. The last thing I did on an aircraft is a post-wash lube, giving the blokes a hand on the flight line because we didn't have enough people. And just doing, re-lubricating the actuation points on the F-35.

[02:15:01] And I did the nose wheel, main wheel, left gear. And I just said to the guys, I'll go in, take a wee. And I didn't. I went into the change room and I was lying down on the change room bench, bawling my eyes out because I'm thinking I can't do this anymore. So there we go. I'm right back there now. But Models for Heroes, they let me be part of their closed group for the beneficiaries and all that stuff. And I was hanging out and chatting with them and all that stuff.

[02:15:26] And I was thrilled at how quickly they accepted me with open arms because I was expecting it to be like, oh, he's not British and all that stuff. There's none of that. Just more along the lines of, oh, you're in the Commonwealth. We all have the same colors and salute the same people and all that stuff like that. So, yeah, straight in. And after, I think, a year of that, the annual fund raises the 48 and 48, which is March every year. And I've done a lot of the entire premises, build a 48 scale model kit within 48 hours. And it's a YouTube event that goes around the world.

[02:15:55] I was asked to be a part of that as an Australian co-host for that. And I've done that for the last, I think, four years. And I've been part of the live streams for beneficiaries that we do three days a week. Sundays, it goes out to open on YouTube so anyone can see what it says, basically to promote the cause. And then Mondays and Wednesdays, we do sessions for beneficiaries. And I've been doing that for over five years now and stuff.

[02:16:25] So I deal with the people over there and everything that's involved. And basically, I feel a gaping need to see if we can set up one in Australia. We have different issues, constraints, obviously tyranny of distance and everything else. But my principle, my aim is if I can, I lost a mate at the last, I think, couple of last week of my service. And if I can keep somebody vertical a little bit longer, then I'd like to consider that job done. Okay.

[02:16:55] Does the Australian military have this issue with not being able to place people with issues that are actually caused with during service then? I know the UK military basically has a way of putting people into roles that if they can't do a physical job, they could actually do an admin or something of that nature. Yeah. So in my case, what it was my, I think you guys called a Sendo, senior engineering officer, he knew what was going on with my spine and all that stuff like that. And what he was saying is, we'll move you down to headquarters.

[02:17:24] Now, one of the things I was a specialist in was training journals and signing people off for the assessment books for them to get their mammal or military aviation maintenance license and stuff like that. There's a, just doing training, computer crap, administrivia. And I was good at that. And he's, he wanted me to go down to headquarters and have a respite while I got better. My immediate supervisor, my flight sergeant was, nah, I'm not going to give another squadron my problem. I'll deal with it myself.

[02:17:54] And he had me kicked out. So that was it. It was awful that there was so many ways that they could have done better. But when it came to it, like my career is watching people suddenly like heading out the door and being really upset with everything that's going on around. I'm just thinking, oh yeah, I hope that doesn't happen to me. And when it did, I wasn't ready for it. It wasn't, I looked at it with a view of getting better and keeping going. And it was just like, nah, we don't have time for this. And it was crazy time. The first year, the F-35s were in Australia.

[02:18:24] So dropping everything F-18 and doing the F-35 and then all the pickup flights to over to the US to get more aircraft. You're not performing. Why not? Because you're not deploying. Oh, well, you deploy me? No, because you're not performing. And the whole thing was just never ending cycle of downward spiral. And it was terrible, terrible, terrible time. So they're not good at doing this. I think the Army and Navy would have to be the same, probably worse.

[02:18:49] But there's some great people in the services, but there's also some not so great people in the services. And the trouble is my supervisor at the time, I'd known him for 24 years. Like he joined the year after me. We were ACs together on Herx for more than 10 years. And he still treated me like that because nah, you're not manageable. I'm just like, Jesus. Like it was terrible. Thanks for nothing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[02:19:15] So this is part of the reason why it's so important for me because if I didn't experience it myself, I'd think, oh yeah. But it was just terrible. And the deal is I want nothing from the charity myself. I can afford my own model kits and all that stuff like that. But there are people that are probably not in a position to do this and all that stuff like that. So anything I could do to help is my principal aim is just get going, get started. Okay. So the charity name is Peace by Peace.

[02:19:44] So that's P-E-A-C-E by P-I-E-C-E, which is a clever play on words. But where are you with the actual foundation of that charity? So recently in the last, within the last few months, where I am in the Hunter Valley, Maitland, they opened a veterans and families hub. And I went down there the day after it opened and had a look around. I'm just like, this is brilliant. I sat down with them for two hours and showed them everything, told them everything. And yeah, absolutely. This is something we can do. And yeah.

[02:20:13] So it's going to happen. Like every time I see Hayley, the manager down there, she says the verbal is yes, yes, yes. But I'm still waiting for the official even reply for an email. So it's very, it's very slow. So the other thing that I'm very mindful of is because I can't do all of Australia. I can do Malcolm Child's advice was start small, do your own thing that you can do local sessions. And then it's a much longer lines of build it and they will come.

[02:20:43] I know there are other people in other places. Peter, the, I think the president of the SCAL ICT, SCAL, the Australian Capital Territory show and the club down there. He's very keen on this thing to happen as well. And in South, no, no, I can't remember. Stephen Cook is running sessions. Yeah. Melton RSL. Melton RSL. Yeah. Yeah. We've been dealing with him too. That's right. Yeah.

[02:21:10] So I asked just before we came on, do you mind if I throw in a plug for you and the work they're doing down there? Absolutely. It'd be great. He's working tonight. But the best I could do at the moment is network. Like I don't necessarily want to do this alone. I want to, if anybody has the same values and aims as what I've got, they're certainly welcome to come along. I can help. We can, basically if we all talk together and everything else, we can get this happening.

[02:21:35] And I think RSLs, our version of Legion, Returned Servicemen's League, they are keen on funding different groups in their own sub-branches and everything else. But it's just a way of coordinating that, I think, is getting the word out. So my view is if enough of us can go to their local branch and all that stuff, maybe they can see that, oh, this is a thing that we can get behind because it's for relatively low cost. This will do good work, I think.

[02:22:06] So someone who's listening to this, our third largest audience is in Australia. How do they get in contact with you? Have you got a webpage or Facebook or how do they get in touch? All right. The best way would be, so my Facebook profile at the moment is Scalmodeling Twins. I have a twin brother, Paul, who lives down in Melbourne. And yeah, if you can email me, scalmodelingtwins at gmail.com. We can certainly talk and see what we can do.

[02:22:32] But as I say, I'm more than keen to do anything at all at this stage. With the 48 and 48 this year, it became a bit odd. There were a number of auction lots that were paid for by certain winners of lots. And then those kits and supplies donated to me to help set up this. And Scott has mentioned, when you get going, let me know. And Hobby Co., which is, let's call it the New South Wales premier hobby store. Like there's one in each state, pretty much.

[02:23:01] But the big one in Sydney is Hobby Co. And David Wall, the director of that, after the 48, asked me to come down to Sydney and sit down and talk with him about stuff. So he's brought me on as a blogger for their website. They have how-tos and stuff. They have a Gundam one at the moment with Rosie, who I'm meeting on Monday. We're going to sit down over coffee and talk about all this stuff. So I'm going to be starting to do some stuff with Hobby Co.

[02:23:25] It's not going to be a huge endorsement, but Hobby Co. have said that they will do what they can to help set up and look after this as well. So the name's getting out there. I think that's the best thing I could do at the moment. Okay. Well, when you get your logo and everything else, please send and share it with us. And we'll be pushing it as hard as we can. And if there's anything you think that we can do to help, please do not hesitate to share it. That's wonderful. Thank you very much. And we'll give you a bit of abuse on the 48 and 48 next year, which is their 10th anniversary.

[02:23:55] It is. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a wonderful weekend. I think everybody that gets involved in that, like it's a lot of fun. It's an expensive weekend, but then blame me an auction. Yeah. Thank you, Scott, for coming on during the last one. Oh, that's true. It was fun. It's true. Well, good calls though. Speaking of which, Scott, thank you very much for your delivery for the auction I won in the UK. That's all right. Thanks. Thanks for chipping in and winning the auction. Oh, dear. Yeah.

[02:24:21] Anyway, so if you want to guess on from the show next year from the UK and the Australian blog, I'm sure Dan and the rest of the team will be more than happy to actually jump on, including myself. Yeah. Yeah. If it stops the audience from having to look at Digger Dave for more than five minutes, it's got to be worthwhile. Yeah. See, I've still not met Dave. Like, and I've chatted to him time and time again, but I've met Scott once or twice now, but you wouldn't remember, I think, the first one. But everyone else that was part of that stream, I'd never met them.

[02:24:51] I'd interact with them every few months and stuff like that. But I was going to go to Scala ACT in November last year, but my father passed away at that time. So I missed out. But I do plan to go this year. It's a ripper. It's worth it. So, yeah, we'll probably meet someone. Yeah. I think events like the 48 and 48, we've said before, they, and podcasting and YouTubes and all of the various names within the hobby.

[02:25:15] It helps to remind people out there that obviously modeling is a very solitary hobby in itself when you're at your bench in your room or whatever, but it helps people to realize that they're not on their own. And as we found out during COVID and with people that have been in the services or blue light services or whatever, PTSD or just being a bit stressed, it's a good outlet and a little gate on a door to knock on if you need it.

[02:25:44] It's a valuable tool to be able to interact with like-minded souls. Because as we've discussed quite a few times, some people don't share with their other mates that they do this strange little hobby. And it's nice to know that there's other like-minded people out there.

[02:25:59] And I've said before, and I noticed with the 48 and 48, that it, although it's preliminarily aimed at people from blue light services and veterans, it also gives a little, it gives a point of destination for people that might not have been in those services to check in with themselves as well. So, yeah, it's all good. It's all good.

[02:26:21] One point I'll make with that is there might be, for people who aren't ex-military, there might be a perception that people who are ex-military, like, nah, that's wrong. And what does he know? And all that stuff. It's the opposite. I think most people, like I was privileged to work around these aircraft. I know I don't have to check colors of different features on say a Herc and stuff. I could just paint it from memory. But we don't, as far as I'm aware, there's none of them that I've met that are gatekeepers.

[02:26:49] No, we'd encourage it as much as anybody else. But to a lot of people I worked with, it wasn't, there are some modelers and all that stuff. But for most people, it's just a job that just felt like a mechanic, if that makes sense, and had no real interest in the history of the aircraft or whatever. And it's very strange. But yeah, you don't have to be ex-military to get the most out of this hobby. I just, I know my service is odd because I did different fighters as well as transport, as well as all that stuff. Like, they're jumping around.

[02:27:18] A lot of people would be, oh, I was on these ships for a number of years. Yeah. And they don't get to play with many of the features. I was able to get around and see a lot of things. But I'm more of the guy that just, like, just give it a go. If you want to paint a Spitfire pink, go for it. I'm not going to be a rivet counter. However, there is, if you choose, there's certain topics. I've just, I'll just paint this up.

[02:27:41] But there's other ones that I, like Sam would know, like, if you want to, if you want to focus down and get down into, like, as much as you can find out about a particular subject, that's fun as well. Yeah. The British Army put out a Facebook post probably about six months to a year ago. And it was, they'll profile a person, talk about what they do. And this guy is Joe Bloggs and his hobby is Warhammer.

[02:28:09] And he finds that Warhammer really helps in his downtime, particularly when he's in barracks or whatever. And you can imagine the knuckle draggers turned out in the comments and started, oh, all the negativity came. And my God, there is no backlash like the Warhammer community. They wielded that axe and they came to his defense. And then a lot of people came on and said, well, I do this. Would you have a go at me? Well, I fly a model aircraft.

[02:28:38] Would you have a go at me? I do RC. I do model trains. And it was fantastic to see that. Like, it gave people a green light to go, no, you don't attack someone that's just because they're doing a hobby, just because they don't want to go and get drunk and shout at football players every Saturday. That might be your thing, but it's not everybody's thing. I myself am a football fan as well, but I obviously enjoy this hobby.

[02:29:02] So it's nice to hear that people come out in support of each other for the hobby, which is, it feels like we really are a community. Well said. Well said. Okay. So one final thing for me, John, from On Piece by Piece is, are you looking primarily at ex-service personnel or serving personnel to be part? Or are you looking at anyone that has, I'll say, a mental health issue that's looking for companionship to actually build and work alongside other modelers?

[02:29:32] So at the moment, because, yeah, limited resources and everything else, it can only be veterans at this stage. So whether they be, if they serve for a day, like, again, we're not going to be gatekeepers, but I certainly don't have the resources to look after the wider community. So in UK, models for us do blue light services. We, yeah, wouldn't be able to do that yet. But that aspiration. Aspiration. Yeah, yeah.

[02:30:00] A final round of the table then. Sam, any plans for overseas visits this year? I'm hoping to get to SMC this year in October. So that will be great. In that case, we will meet up because I'm actually going to SMC for the first time this year as well. Excellent. Did you manage to get a room at the venue? No. No. It does sell out very, very quickly, doesn't it? So. I was online at the appointed hour and no chance. Yeah.

[02:30:28] So ultimately, we're talking about overseas stuff. What I want to do, and it is doable because I've got some friends that have done it, is to bookend a holiday with SMC at the start and Telford at the end. And they're close enough. They're close enough to get away with that month in between of battlefield stuff and then museums and whatever in between. So that's what I'd like to do. It won't be this year. I've just started a new job and I have zero days of annual leave. So that won't be happening. But yeah, look, hopefully SMC.

[02:30:57] And look, the weekend before SCALE Act this year is the New Zealand IPMS Nationals. And it's a two-hour flight from Melbourne. So it's as close as the Brisbane flight thing. So yeah, it might be tricky. So last year I went to Brisbane and I flew up Saturday morning and flew home Sunday night. So I didn't miss a day at work, which is awesome. So given the limited amount of leave that I have, I might do New Zealand as well. I'm going to have significant pressure from a couple of New Zealand mates to go over. So that would be very nice.

[02:31:24] But yeah, hopefully SMC and hopefully if airline prices come down, boy, yeah, they're ugly. They're ugly. So anyway, yeah, that's what hopefully will happen. I was looking at the flight fare and the cost for the airfare and the cost to Eindhoven from here. And I thought, is that the telephone number or is that the price? You could just drive. Yeah, the water's a little bit of a difficulty, but yes. Hold your breath. Yeah. There's a train? Yes, there is.

[02:31:51] Yeah, the problem is we're up near Manchester. So it's a long way down to get to the top. Laughs in Australian. Come on, just, it's right. Yeah. Yeah, that is the backup plan because the UK has just given operators the ability to, as long as they're doing advanced council flights that have been pre-booked, instead of doing it at the last second for fuel availability. So there is that. Yeah.

[02:32:19] There's a long time between now and then, right? So you'd hope that something, sanity prevails. I mean, it hasn't yet, but you never know. And we might see a turnaround. So yeah, I'm hoping. Just make sure you're booking your charging point times if you're going by a car. That's not a problem. Because of this conflict, my gun delivery of the new car has gone from the 1st of August to the 4th of January. Oh, which year? Dinosaur juice it is. Rari, I'd take that with a pinch of salt because when the Ukraine war kicked off,

[02:32:47] we ordered a car well before it happened and it took two years for the car to come. So a lot of the parts that were produced in the Ukraine, so all the wiring looms and everything else. So basically when all that kicked off, basically all the build times got delayed. Are you buying a Lada? It was a Trebant. A Trebant? I wasn't. It was, believe it or not, it was a Romanian. It wasn't a Trebant. It was... Dacia? Yes.

[02:33:17] Not the Dacia. Yeah, I've had... Well, believe it or not, I've had them for 10 years. It's enough Top Gear episodes. You're thinking of the Dacia Sandero from Top Gear, aren't you? That's it. Yeah, I am. Hey, we had one of them. 1.5 diesel and it went like stink. Yeah, I bet it did. Brilliant car. Yeah. Yeah. The one we've got now is a hybrid and that off the line shifts. Oh dear. Okay, moving on then.

[02:33:44] Scott, what have you got in the pipeline other than a fantastic anniversary year coming up? We've got, as I said, the guncals we spoke about before. We've got a couple of other things I'm working on and just travelling to a few of the shows around the country. So, first show I'll be at will be in two weeks' time from this recording. So, around the time this episode is probably going to drop. So, 23rd, 24th of May, we'll be at the New South Wales Scale Model Show, which is in Wollongong, New South Wales. Then the Model Expo, first long weekend in June in Melbourne.

[02:34:13] And then after that, South Australia in Adelaide, the South Australia Scale Model Expo at the start of October. And then Scale ACT in Canberra at the start of November. Okay, and we've obviously talked about the paint range ad infinitum, but you obviously sell other products as well, which we haven't really talked about previously. Yeah, we do a range of tools and accessories as well. So, we try and cover the basic stuff that you're getting into modelling.

[02:34:41] We've got the nippers, we've got the sanding sticks, we've got the knives and stuff to get everyone started. And we've also got airbrushes and stuff that work extremely well with our paints. So, we try and have the basic tools and accessories available as well. So, we try and help new people out as much as possible with their tools. And adhesives as well as other products other than paint? Yeah, we've just got an extra thin cement. So, as in nearly every model brand out there, everyone's got an extra thin cement. So, we've got ours as well.

[02:35:11] And weathering washers and that stuff as well. But the core of our business is airpaints. Okay. And what is your website? www.scalemodeller.com. W is our main retail site. On there, you'll find our full range plus a map to all our retailers worldwide. And if you're a retailer and you're interested, there's a link where you can apply for an account with us. If you're in Australia, if you're in New Zealand, America, Canada or the UK, we can put you onto our local distributor.

[02:35:39] And for all your UK listeners, if you head to smspaints.co.uk, it'll bring up a big list of all the UK-based retailers that stock our products. So, you can find one who's closer to you or one who will ship to you direct and buy our products through one of your local retailers. And for those that haven't tried Scots paint yet, if you're into lacquer paints, there is nothing better. Yeah.

[02:36:04] I've tried the vast majority that are available and they don't come a patch onto a Scots and they're not blowing smoke in the derriere. It is a fantastic product. And Dan, you've used them and boulders as well. And Australian colours, especially for spits, because you can never get that brown for spitfires over here. It's one of those colours. It varies so much from manufacturer to manufacturer. And it's just one of those difficult ones. It took us a while to get it right, but we got it right finally. It's the redness in it.

[02:36:34] It's the redness, especially for Aussie spits. And you're also going to factor into the, a lot of the colours change dramatically when you put in secondary or tertiary camouflage colours. So, you'll put that dark earth down and it'll look like really mustardy brown colour. But as soon as you put the green on, it'll darken up and look really, really good. Colour theory. Colour theory. Love it. And John, what have you got in the pipeline other than starting a new charity and having no time to yourself? Oh, there's all that.

[02:37:02] But so, unfortunately, my twin brother and I went over to Telford. We did a two-week tour of the UK, like before and after that, and met Malcolm and James and all, basically. Who's who in the zoo over there? It was fantastic. We do plan to get back there. And at this stage, I think next year, the end of next year, will be another UK trip. There are some museums that need to be revisited or visited the first time. I haven't been to certain places like the De Havilland Museum.

[02:37:29] So, I think the next destination I have is over your way. We shall see. Fantastic. Well, when you come across, yeah, just keep in touch when you come across and we'll meet up. Go for a meal. Oh, you'll get the beer in the microwave for us? That'd be great. Yeah. Something like that, yes. Yeah. I'll pre-recce the De Havilland Museum, John, because I'm going there next weekend. Ah! Yeah. Yeah.

[02:37:54] They're having a little model show and I need some reference photos for my Tamiya 32nd, Mozzie. And Sam, what is your channel online that people can actually see you? It's very, very imaginatively named SD Scale Models. Wow. On the nose. I couldn't think of... I'm ridiculous. I couldn't think of anything else. So I'm stuck with that. So available, available on Instagram, obviously Facebook, and now YouTube as well. So swing by.

[02:38:22] Throw us a subscribe and a like. That's easy for you to say. Love your work, Sam. Really do. It's awesome. I've watched every episode of the Spitfire build and it is absolutely enthralling to watch. And obviously it's in 32nd scale. I'll take it the DBMKC Fioris on your list. Look. Especially with two Australian schemes in the box. Yeah. To be perfectly honest, I'm just so ignorant. Like I just... I was like, oh, not really my thing. And then someone said, the RAN used it, right? I'm like, oh, okay then.

[02:38:52] So I'll have to get one of those. What a goose. So yeah. I'll probably will get one. I just... I'll snap and have to get one at some point. So yeah. There's the Aussie schemes. Yeah. Look at that. Yep. Yep. Yep. I did look at them and they looked a little bit... What's the word I'm looking for? Not... I don't know. They never saw active service overseas in Australian use. I think they didn't fight Korea with them, I don't think. Didn't they? They're not wartime schemes.

[02:39:21] They don't look like they're wartime schemes anyway. They look a little bit like... No, they're both aerobatic team schemes. Aerobatic team schemes. So hopefully a later boxing will have something that's a little bit more interesting that I can weather the snot out of. Because that's... I like to do that. I've worked it out already. So the clean ones aren't... As appealing. Necessarily my thing. But with the Gunkworks Centaurus that's come out to go with it. Oh, yeah. All right. Stop talking about it. It is absolutely sublime.

[02:39:51] Needs to get after market decals because the Aussies did use it in the Korean War. We did. Okay, there you go. So the show is ignorance. Like, ridiculous. So, yeah. Job for Rude Duck or if ever there was one. Yeah. Eights all five and eight away squadron. Yeah. Realistically, it'd just be skippies and fuselage codes, right? So if your skippies come in the box and you just make fuselage codes in silhouette and make your own markings and go into the website now. Thanks, guys. No, I'm not. I'm really not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

[02:40:48] Yes, you are. You want photo etched parts.

[02:41:20] So there's more. R2 Tempest. Yeah. Yeah. It's slick. Yeah, it's all black. It's all black. Yeah, right. Oh, don't. But the throttle box is nine components to start with. So when you start looking in like that, there's a lot of photo etch for the cockpit and there are the consoles. It may look bland. I can assure you it isn't. Yeah. Yeah. I guess it comes down to a great paint job too, right? So, yeah. It's 30 seconds, Gail.

[02:41:50] As Stuart said, are you buying them all up? 50 shades of black. Yeah, no. I'm running out of room. You can see behind me there, the cabinet. There's the 24 scale 109 on its side because it doesn't fit in the cabinet properly. Oh, I love that. So, yeah. Just no way out of room. So, yeah. Bursting at the seams here. Well, just take that wall out behind you. That's not a problem. Extend through. Yeah. Walls are overrated, right? Yeah. Yeah, quite. With that, guys, thank you very much.

[02:42:18] I know it's obviously getting late for you out there in Oz compared to us. We're looking at getting our lunch. But thank you for your time. And hopefully we'll get a chance to either meet you or actually speak to you again in the near future. Great to meet you guys. Great to speak to you. Thanks for having me on. Thank you all. Thanks, Brandon. Thanks, James. Speak to you again soon.

[02:42:49] Coming up in episode 31, we are joined by Alexi Okan, the CEO of ResKits from the Ukraine. And that just about brings episode 30 of Beyond the Box Art to a close. A massive thank you to our fantastic Australian guests, Scott Taylor, Soundwire and John Marley for joining us. I have for one thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.

[02:43:16] Brilliant humour and exactly the kind of global bench side discussion that this show was built around in the first place. Though I think if I was Stuart Rolfe from Black Hat, I might be laying low for a little while. Sorry, mate. And thank you to you. You are Benchmates. Whether you're listening, while building, painting, driving, commuting, walking the dog, hiding in the workshop, avoiding DIY or pretending that the latest kid arrival definitely isn't another stash purchase. We genuinely appreciate every single one of you.

[02:43:44] If you've enjoyed the episode, please don't forget to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Share the show on social media and come and join the conversation on the Facebook Benchmates page. And finally, due to the fruit-based company deciding to keep donations for a while and then only paying out part of what is sent to Patreon, we're pulling the plug on this form of support. For those who have contributed over the last year, we genuinely appreciate everything that you've actually sent to us. It genuinely means a lot and has helped offset the hosting costs.

[02:44:14] We're now moving to buy me a coffee instead. So if you would like to continue to contribute, it would be genuinely appreciated. If you go to the bottom of our website, beyondtheboxart.com, you'll find the link to buy me a coffee on there. Also, while you're on the website, you can find bios about myself, the rest of the team, our wonderful guests we've had over the last year or so, and also other things about the show that you probably didn't know and probably don't want to know, but it's there anyway.

[02:44:40] So with that, until the next time, keep building, keep creating, keep supporting one another, and remember, models, modelers, meaning, because every modeler has a story worth telling. From Boulders, Giri O'Hall, from Dan, beer benchmates, don't forget, try a car kit, and Shane, take care benchmates, and from myself, thanks very much for listening, and we'll see you back in two weeks time with ResKit. We'll see you then. Bye-bye.