by Chip Van Gilder
The group met at the Fircrest Recreation Center on February 2, 2017 with 11 attendees. There was at least one new visitor and several regulars were noticeably missing.
The first order of business was to review new products available. Then each person around the table shared their recent and current activities in the hobby. A couple of the samples brought to the meeting are shown in the photos below.
After a brief break, Mike Stepner gave a clinic on how he uses an “air eraser” in his modeling and some of the techniques he uses.
The clinic by Mike Stepner was about using an “air eraser”. Essentially it is a like a sand blaster but uses finer and softer grit materials for erasing unwanted printed on detail from models in order to personalize them.
The model blaster he used was from Harbor Freight for not a lot of money. It comes with a blasting compound that is too harsh for the plastic models we have today. It may be OK for brass material and other metals but not plastic. Mike uses baking soda (Arm & Hammer is a brand name.)
Here is a link to a short (very short) video of the technique in action. https://youtu.be/jsGRE83ZjB0
The Tacoma N Scalers meet on the First Thursday of the month, year round, at the Fircrest Recreation Center starting at 7 PM.
Thanks for the detailed report on the air eraser. I have one of those same units I’ve never used, but now after viewing the video, I”ll be more likely to dig mine out and try it.