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The Force is With Us Tonight! Gothaforce’s Christian Smekens joins us live from Belgium (and 6 hours in the future!!) Hearing about NENY’s November 2024 Zoom discussion of Gothaforce’s upcoming 3D-printed 1/32 Fokker D.VII, Christian contacted Tim Burke and generously offered to join us tonight and tell us more about the company, their philosophy, their 3D printing process, and their future plans. Christian answers our questions and discusses the evolving evolution (or revolution?) of 3D printing in modeling. Check out Gothaforce's website and kit offerings! Show and Tell
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First In-Person Meeting of 2025 A smallish but enthusiastic group of local members gathered to share their modeling resolutions and dreams for 2025. Aside from any show and tell models, each member brought two models they pledged to complete, one each under these categories:
Stop Press! It’s never too late to jump in! Even if you missed the meeting, send Tim Burke an email letting him know which two kits you pledge to build and we’ll add your name and the names of your pledge kits to the list! For the record, here are our members’ pledged kits so far: Tim Burke Dreams Kit - Hobby Boss 1/48 Antonov An-2 Resolution Kit - Hobby Boss 1/48 La-11 "Fang" Nick Filippone Dreams Kit - Planet Models 1/72 Gloster F.9/37 Resolution Kit - Clear Prop 1/72 Gloster E28/39 "Pioneer" Bill Ellis Dreams Kit - Tamiya 1/48 Spitfire Vb Resolution Kit - Tamiya 1/48 Pzkpfw. 38t Paul Dupree Dreams Kit - 2 different kits of the 1/72 PBM-5 Martin Mariner (Rareplanes vacuform and Academy/Minicraft injection) which he pledges to finish both!! Resolution Kit - Academy 1/350 RMS Titanic (Very ambitious, indeed!!) Greg Aldi Dreams Kit - Monogram 1/24 NASCAR Thunderbird that he started when he was 9 years old!! Resolution Kit - Tamiya 1/48 Beaufighter Mk. VI night fighter Kyle Koppos Dreams Kit - Tarangus 1/48 Saab B-17a Resolution Kit - KEP Models 1/48 Yak-6 bomber (complete 3d printed kit) (Kyle’s kit choices were assigned to him at his request by popular vote of the group from three alternative kits he presented for each challenge!!) Dave Pratt Dreams Kit - Roden 1/144 Fw-200 Condor airliner Resolution Kit - Airfix DeHavilland Mosquito Mk. XVI Show and Tell Here's a short gallery of both pledge and regular project models reviewed during the meeting. Happy New Modeling Year! We kick off the new year with a Show and Tell Gallery of member projects, a presentation by Mark Norman of the November visit to the Hanger Day event at the Tunison Foundation at the Dutchess County Airport, and discussion of topics for our 2025 in-person meetings. Show and Tell Photos of the Air Force Museum of New Zealand in Christchurch Greg Aldi shares photos of the Air Force Museum of New Zealand in Christchurch taken when he visited the museum while he was deployed for Operation Deep Freeze in 2022. Here's a PDF of the slide show. Tanks for the Memories Brian Fowler shares photos of his experience at Tank America in Orlando where he drove an FV433 Abbot SPG on a tank trail and a FV432 APC in a car crush! Take a look at this PDF of the highlights. May the (Gotha)Force be With You We kicked off our discussion about the 3D printing trends in the modeling world with a look at the soon to be released 3D printed 1/32 Fokker D. VII from Gothaforce. Here's a PDF of the product announcement. No Prisoners and No Compromises Brian Fowler shared a set of photos of his super detailed Flak 88 vignette, based upon the ancient Tamiya 1/35 model but upgraded with PE, scratch built details, and excellent distressing, weathering, scenery, and figure painting. The project took rather longer than Brian originally expected and the results show why! Show and TellBuild a Car Challenge Results Members were challenged to build a car model for the October in-person meeting. Here's a photo gallery of our efforts, some more complete than others. Show and Tell Aside from the car challenge builds, here are a few photos of the additional projects members shared. Special Guest - Ester Aube, AirCorps Library Manager From our special guest, "For those that may not be familiar, the AirCorps Library is a website that offers enthusiasts of WWII aircraft a place to access primary source blueprints and manuals for the warbirds we love. Join Ester Aube, the manager of AirCorps Library, as she discusses the history behind the website, and how the hobbyist community can utilize the over half a million resources that are accessible there. If you have an interest in building WWII aircraft, and have ever had questions about the accuracy of your kit, or are an over-enthusiastic scratch builder or modifier, then you won't want to miss this presentation! Show and Tell Kwai Me a River Aris Pappas shares pictures and descriptions of his experience visiting Kanchanoburi, Thailand, site of the famous Bridge on the River Kwai and the infamous "Death Railway" during WWII. Behind the Scenes of Kermit Weeks' "Fantasy of Flight Museum" Brian Fowler recently had a behind the scenes tour of this well known flying museum in Florida. Brian couldn't be with us for the meeting and asked Tim Burke to run a photo presentation of this amazing collection. Show and Tell  The Sanford Cup Competition Returns! Our August in-person meeting brings the return of the Sanford Cup competition after a five year hiatus. This award, inspired by the late Al Sanford’s excellence in modeling and good sense of humor, is presented to the NENY member whose work is voted to be the best model exhibited at the chapter’s August meeting each year. The winner will take the cup home for the year and return it to the site of the next year’s August meeting. It's a friendly competition (as friendly as possible when modelers compete for anything) and an opportunity to put forward your best model of the recent past and enjoy good fellowship. We hope you'll participate next year! Here's a PDF of the rules.  Contest Results Everyone who entered a model also qualified for, and received, a nifty commemorative coaster that was designed and 3D printed by our very own member, Jason Mantor. A huge thank you to Jason for his excellent work on this! 14 worthy entries vied for the honors this year with a close run result requiring a tie-breaking second round of voting. Brian Fowler's 1/32 Tamiya A6M2 Zero (entry #6) edged out Paul Dupree's build of the ancient box-scale Revell Pine Island seaplane tender (entry #9) by one vote! Here's a gallery of the entries and winner. Show and Tell Several members displayed models not entered in competition for show and tell. Here are a few photos of the meeting and show and tell models. Commemorative Air Force Fly-in Photos A PT-13, RC-45J, T-6, B-29, and P-51D of the Commemorative Air Force visited the Schenectady County Airport on June 12-16 and members of the club toured the visiting aircraft. It was a beautiful afternoon to see these iconic aircraft up close and talk with the staff who maintain and fly them. Here's a short photo gallery of the aircraft. Show and Tell Special Guest - Peter Vetri, President of Atlantis Models We are fortunate to have Peter from Atlantis joining us for our meeting. Atlantis is the premier manufacturer of new versions of vintage kits, which are made available to all of us for a stroll down memory lane or because no one else ever made a kit of that subject! Visit their website and check out their current and future releases! Other Meeting Highlights A peek behind the curtain at the IPMS Journal - Our NENY Zoom friend Shawn Hays has been working with the IPMS Journal team to help with the production process for the society's publication and he'd like to use our group as a mini-focus group to show us a new look and feel for the Journal and get some feedback from the group. Maybe we'll have a contest to see who has the oldest copy of the Journal! 😉 Building OLD kits - And since we're talking about older, vintage, classic, retro, etc. model kits...let's talk about that! We ALL have some in our stashes, but how many actually build them? What are the challenges? What are the rewards? How do you approach the project? What's different from building a newer kit? Show and Tell |
Upcoming MeetingsOnline meetings held the first Thursday of the month. Next Zoom meeting will be 11/6/25. Archives
October 2025
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