ÿþM i c r o s o f t W o r d - N O V D E C n e w s l e t t e r

Issue 06/08
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008
Our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday 29 January, at the Processing and Administration Center on 112th Street
and the meeting will start at 7:00 (please try to arrive on time). Upcoming meeting dates are currently set for: 26
February, 26 March, and 30 April.
CLUB NEWS
Upcoming Events
29 January – Our new BUILD NIGHT…Bring what you are currently working on
and continue the build. We also have the TV DVD cart that night.
14 March 2009 - Pearson Modeleers Invitational
18 April 2009 - Seattle Show
19 June 2009 - North Olympic Peninsula Modelers Show
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS
Don’t forget….if you have any unwanted kits, books, magazines, or
supplies, please bring them to the next meeting. Anything would be
appreciated. Currently the club has chosen the Camp Falcon Hobby
Club. They have a website www.falconhobbyclub.com but we can
vote on who to send them to.
Minutes of the meeting of the Tacoma Green Dragons, Les Sundt Memorial Chapter IPMS, held on
20 November, 2008
OPENING: The President, George Haase, opened the meeting at 7:37 with 9 members and 2 guests present. The guests were Joel Morris and
Ernie Stephenson. We will be looking forward to seeing them back in the future.
TREASURER’S REPORT: We currently have $488.99 in the Treasury.
MINUTES: The September/October Newsletter was available for perusal.
OLD BUSINESS: There was no old business to discuss as I still haven’t made it over to Sprinker Recreation Center yet.
NEW BUSINESS: I want to personally thank Kim Colvin for preparing the delicious turkey we all devoured. I am sure we all appreciated
her efforts. There was discussion about making the webpage more user friendly for basic information and directions. Keith and I are looking
into it. Randy should be mailing Neil our boxes shortly. Upcoming meeting dates are: 19 December (this is a Friday) and our build night, 29
January, 2009, and 26 February, 2009. All dates are at the Parkland Library Distribution Center.
LECTURE/DEMO: The feast was quite good and it was consumed in fair order. Please think of things to cover as I will be looking for
volunteers in December. Upcoming lectures are: December complete build night. Bring your latest and greatest and BS the evening away.
SHOW AND TELL:
Keith Marshall
1/220 Revell – USS Lionfish – being converted into the USS Stingray from Down Periscope
George Haase
1/35 Trumpeter - 105mm Gun
1/35 Trumpeter - 150mm Gun
1/35 Tamiya – Gulashkanonewagen
Seth Jones
1/35 HSO – ME-163 Komet
1/72 Italeri – RAH-66 Comanche
Steve Russo
1/48 DML – Fokker DR-1
1/48 F o n d e r i e M i n i a t u r e - PV-1 Ventura
Rob Otero
1/32 SP Hobby – P-39D Airacobra
1/48 Hasegawa – FW-190A and BMW 327
Will Thorson
1/35 Trumpeter – Centauro (Spanish Version)
1/35 AFV Club – Stryker MGS
1/48 Tamiya Marder III
Randy Colvin
1/35 DML – 101st Airborne “Ardennes”
1/35 DML – Blitzkrieg in France
1/35 Zvezda – Cossacks Calvary
CLOSING
The meeting ended at about 9:40. Most headed home with a full belly.
Mark Aldrich
Secretary
Dragon Models Ltd 1/24 U.S. "Armored" 1/4-ton 4x4 Truck - Battle of the Bulge
Kit Number: 43247
Reviewed by: Mark Aldrich, IPMS# 39295
MSRP: $28.00
Kit supplied by Dragon Models USA: www.dragonmodelsusa.com
Talk about a conglomeration. This is it! The basic kit comes from Hasegawa, the brass comes from Voyager and the
decals are from Cartograf. The funny part, Voyager and Cartograf are given no credit on the box, the instructions or the
decals themselves. The kit arrives with a Dragon USA exclusive sleeve added over the original Hasegawa box. The
sleeve denotes this vehicle as a U.S. "Armored" 1/4 ton 4x4 Truck - Battle of the Bulge. Once again…..thanks to
copyright issues I am sure. Inside the sleeve is the original Hasegawa box and inside the box, you get the original seven
sprues of green plastic, one sprue of clear plastic, the jeep/truck body, five rubber tires, four poly couplings, five page
instruction sheet and painting guide, and decal sheet (to mark four vehicles). To this Dragon/Voyager/Cartograf/CyberHobby has added two frets of photo-etched parts, an instruction sheet, a decal sheet and a decal placement guide.
This all will hopefully turn into an impressive model. Overall, the detail is somewhat lacking on all the plastic parts.
The ejector pin marks that are present will mostly be hidden. The engine, consisting of over 15 pieces, will also be
hidden. The detail is not that great and one of my parts was not properly poured and I do not want to try scratch
building it. There are very few accessories that can be used with this scale as well. I will try casting one of the two
packs that come with it but there will not be much to toss in the rear. Thanks to Keith Pruitt for the www.printmini.com
website that does have some 1/24 stuff that I might be able to use as well.
One of my two seats arrived in about seven pieces. Other than that, I am looking forward to this build. I want to thank
Dragon Models for the review sample and IPMS/USA for a place to display the review so that others may want to go
and build this odd scale "truck" and add it to their collection as well.
Heavy Wrecker
A Visual History of the U.S. Army’s whelled and tracked wreckers 1940-1945
Ampersand Publishing USA
ISBN: 9780977378159
David Doyle
MSRP: $19.95
Along with picking the Middle East Wars as my model building, I have ALWAYS been fascinated with recovery
vehicles. Sometimes those two loves can work together, like the VT-34, M31 and M32, and the M88. When I first saw
this book I told my wife that would be a neat Christmas gift. Low and behold, Santa got it for me as a Christmas gift.
Tells me I must have been a good boy this year.
This 120 page soft cover tome is just what it advertises. A VISUAL history! This is not a read book but a look book.
All the photographs are black and white and there are over 170 of them. It contains two brief pages of the history of
American recovery vehicles and jumps right into the meat of this book. It starts with the M31 and moves into the M32.
These sections are full of full size “in action” photographs. The last five pages contain interior shot of a M32.
The book then moves onto the three wheeled vehicle wreckers. The T1, C2, and Diamond T series of wreckers are
covered in the remaining 61 pages of the book. All of these photographs are in action as well and some of them are
definitely unique. The last eleven pages are dedicated to close up photographs of a collector’s restored wrecker at a
meeting on England.
This is a MUST HAVE book to anyone interested in recovery vehicles. This book can be picked up from
Greatmodels and Squadron websites. Thanks to Santa (my wonderful wife Jerry) for getting this for me and IPMSUSA
for providing the space for others to read the review.
TACOMA GREEN DRAGONS
The Journal of the IPMS/Tacoma Chapter
Les Sundt Memorial Chapter
Chapter Contact:
Mark Aldrich
7228 179th Street Court East
Puyallup, WA 98375-2366