Dem Brudders have returned from the 2019 IPMS/USA Nationals (August 7-10, 2019) in Chattanooga TN!  Dick and I will provide a full report in the IPMS/USA Journal.  The content will be a lot different from what you read here, so if you’re not a member, sign up and you’ll get the full story in wall-to-wall color and so much more from an IPMS/USA membership!

​For this article, I decided to describe the nuts and bolts of an actual IPMS/USA Nationals for those who have never attended along with some photos and recollections that those who were there might enjoy (IPMS = International Plastic Modelers' Society).
 
Mike Moore and the Chattanooga Scale Modelers hosted the show at the Chattanooga Convention Center downtown.  Mike’s theme, “Was it Over When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor?” is the sort of off-kilter hook that Dem Brudders like, so we made early plans to attend.  The reference is a quote from the 1978 movie, “Animal House,” which was filmed at the University of Oregon, in Eugene.  Mike Moore attended college there not long after the movie became a hit, and couldn’t resist using the quote, by John Belushi’s character, Bluto, for the show.
 
The convention poster also subtly suggests another John Belushi character from Steven Spielberg’s “1941” flying a caricature shark-mouthed P-40.  How could we possibly resist attending a show with a poster like this.

Was it over when…WHAT??!!  This poster was first unveiled at the 2018 IPMS/USA Nationals in Phoenix, AZ.

Usually, an IPMS/USA model show and convention goes from Wednesday through Saturday, so it’s four days of fun.  I used Wednesday as a travel day to get from Salt Lake City to Chattanooga.  Model registration typically starts around noon, but the Chattanooga crew initiated registration at 11.  While I wasn’t onsite at 11, I heard that this early start helped facilitate an orderly beginning for the thousand or so modelers, some of whom are often chomping at the bit to get models registered and on the tables (have either Dick or myself ever fit into this category?).

Saturn V SA-500F at the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center.  The capsule appears to be a boilerplate test unit in the same colors as seen in a Little Joe II test flight.

SA-500F has been fully restored in its newer indoor locale.  Sharp-eyed fans note that the roll pattern at the bottom of the rocket has a black ring that encircles the S-IC stage.  None of the Saturn V’s that actually flew have this.

A full-size Space Shuttle mockup.  The orbiter Pathfinder is a full-size kitbash of sorts.

The convention center was very roomy.  Mike Moore and his predecessors had actually used the venue in the past for local and regional contests and so were familiar with it.  Their selection of contest room, vendor hall, registration area, and seminar rooms was pitch-perfect.  Planning and implementation were top-notch.

Dick plays Yellow Submarine with his air guitar in front of a yellow submarine.  That's a full-size mockup of Skylab in the background.  There's another Skylab at the museum that you can walk inside!

The IPMS/USA Nationals utilized most if not all of the Chattanooga Convention Center.  The model display area and separate vendor’s area were in the part that appears to have factory windows.

When Mike sold us on attending the Nooga Nats during his presentation at the awards banquet in Phoenix last year, he promised an extensive display-only area in the contest hall.  

Many modelers don’t care to have their work in competition for awards, but wish to display their models for the public and other modelers attending the show to enjoy.  Mike made good on his promise, providing a significant area at the front of the contest hall for this purpose.  It was also done with great success at the Phoenix Nationals in 2018, and Dem Brudders hope that this practice becomes a permanent part of the IPMS/USA Nationals. 

An F-102.  Eric Engstrom (Eastover, NC) points out that the actual aircraft’s finish was aluminum paint, and he accurately portrayed this instead of natural metal or gray.

On Thursday, Dick and I took a full-day bus tour.  It’s pretty common for the contest hosts to choose tours that would interest out-of-town modelers, and Dick and I could not resist a visit to the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center.  Dick’s wife Ann, who flew in with Dick a couple days earlier, even wanted to see this.

It takes quite a few dedicated individuals to pull off a Nationals in addition to a chairman like Mike Moore, and Lynn Petty planned up the Huntsville tour.  Lynn arranged to have none other than Sven Knudson from Austin, TX as our tour wrangler and he rode with us on the bus.

My guess is that a lot of you already know Sven; his website Ninfinger Productions was one of the first hobby websites in 1995, and it is still among the best out there.
 
Sitting in the back of the bus, Dick and I were tempted to start a round of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” or maybe we would have started at 999 since the bus ride would last two hours one-way.  Probably anticipating such malfeasance, Sven ran some selections from Spacecraft Films’ excellent DVD series on the Saturn rocket boosters since the high-end travel bus was equipped with video screens.  It works with the kids in a minivan!  We watched documentaries on the Saturn V and Saturn 1B rockets on the way and nobody complained about our behavior that I heard about.

​A model from the 1964 movie, “Fate is the Hunter.”  Daniel Carey (Renton, WA) started with the Minicraft DC-6B kit and did some scratchbuilding to make it resemble the aircraft in the film.  The engines on the rear stabilizer look a bit weird, but that’s how the movie airplane was!

​Daniel also built a fictional “Rutland Reindeer” from the 1951 movie, “No Highway in the Sky.”  This story ominously predicted metal fatigue problems experienced by the early De Havilland Comet, which experienced two fatal crashes caused by the phenomenon in 1954.

I’d seen the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center a number of years ago, but since that visit, they added a full-size Saturn V replica.  By replica, I mean a 1/1 scale model that appears pretty indistinguishable from the real thing and it stands over 360 feet tall.  It was installed in 1999 and refurbished for the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and it looked great!

​Also available to see and photograph is the other Saturn V known to us Saturn rocket geeks as SA-500F.  Fans of the Saturn V know this designation as the version used to test out launch pad and ground handling facilities for the Saturn V.  It languished outdoors for many years, but a new facility has the fully-restored rocket displayed in a climate-controlled indoor environment and visitors can walk underneath and to the sides of this Saturn V to get photos and admire the sheer size of the rocket that put us on the moon.
 
The museum is huge and rates with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and Kennedy Space Center as places you should really want to see if you are a fan of spaceflight.  Also onsite is the original Space Camp, and we saw many kids excited to experience a taste of what it would be like to be trained as an astronaut.
 
On Friday (Day 3), Dick and I enjoyed the models in the model hall, and in the vendor’s area.  The aforementioned display-only area was simply spectacular; nearly 1,700 models showed up there including a collection of nearly 1,000 armor pieces in 1/72.

They're not just cartoon characters--oh wait, they really are.  Dem Brudders, Dick (L) and Bill (R ) mug for a photo taken by Rob Schorry.

The vendor’s hall is like a supermarket-sized scale modeling flea-market.  Individuals can rent a table or two and sell off some of their collection at cents-on-the-dollar, or online retailers such as Squadron and Culttvman will rent dozens of tables to sell their wares at prices discounted off their already low mail order rates.  I’ve seen R&J’s Hobby House at a few shows, and they had a fantastic selection of Revell stuff that is getting hard to find.

Mike Turco, a versatile modeler from Thornton, PA built this hypothetical X-15D.

Speaking of Revell, it was great to see Ed Sexton back with the company; he came to the show to visit with modelers at a Revell display.  Last year, the implosion of Hobbico essentially blew up its subsidiary, Revell USA, and all Revell USA employees were suddenly out of a job, Ed included.  Revell of Germany bought up many of Revell’s remaining assets, and it was most gratifying to see that they hired back Ed Sexton to market Revell products in the USA.

Another interesting twist and turn in the history of the Revell company is the acquisition of much of the older tooling library of Revell by Atlantis Models.  Atlantis has been around for a few years, producing an eclectic array of model kits, toys, and jigsaw puzzles.  I’ve always enjoyed their series of UFO models and they are now releasing many former Revell kits!  Some of them haven’t seen the light of day in decades.  Atlantis had a booth in the vendor’s area and it was fun to see boxes of new kits and see what the near future brings (they are bringing back Aurora’s Cheyenne helicopter!!!).  Their arrangement also includes the old box art, and most Atlantis nee Revell kits utilize the vintage graphics we all love and remember.

​A Nationals always has seminars with many topics.  Many are modeling techniques, such how to use photoetched parts to enhance a ship model, to US Navy markings from a specific era, and so on.  As fans of NASA spacecraft, Dick and I were delighted to attend THREE different seminars on “Real Space” models, although one of them straddled real space and hypothetical, stillborn NASA projects.

Tim Bates didn’t come far to the contest; he’s from Chattanooga.  He brought this Independence Class carrier

Rob Schorry of Cincinnati, OH demonstrated how he built his Explorer 35 model using many 3D-printed parts.  We’ve enjoyed a number of interesting unmanned space exploration probes he’s built; most are from scratch since kits generally aren’t available for these subjects.  Rob has refined many different scratchbuilding techniques to capture the unique shapes and textures found on these historic spacecraft.  I won a model that he raffled; a 1/288 Space Shuttle/747!  Thanks, Rob!

Tom Moon from Houston, TX built this nice Panzer III.  We liked the way he rendered the turret plate welds!  

Mike Mackowski of Gilbert, AZ showed us techniques used to build his hypothetical Gemini spacecraft.  Many people may not realize that the Gemini spacecraft was actually designed later than the Apollo capsule, even though the technology was a derivative of the Mercury spacecraft.   Some interesting concepts for possible developments of the Gemini platform have come to light over the years, and Mike has built models of many of them.  He showed us how he melded Revell’s 1/48 Gemini spacecraft into models based on the concept drawings.

David Carlton from Gerogetown, TX brought a 1/35 Mercury Redstone that he entered in competition at a past convention, and in his seminar, he showed us how he made many complex parts from simple techniques.  David actually used the body tube from an Estes Mercury Redstone kit for the airframe of his booster.  The body tube is fractionally smaller than it should be for true-scale, so David built it up with layers of CYA adhesive.  Since the model had many cutaway sections including internal details of the fuel tanks, the inside of the tube had to be smoothed with CA adhesive as well.

In the model room, over 3,000 contest entries had shown up.  With a considerable number of collections with many models in each, the total number of models to view had to be in excess of 5,000-6,000!  This has to be a record, and probably by a wide margin.  If memory serves, the first Nationals we attended in Albuquerque in 1995 had about 1300 models.  So I think it is safe to say that the hobby is alive and well and growing.  Hours can be spent at a Nationals just taking in all those models!
 
The contest had around 200 categories, and some of those were split.  At Nationals, it is customary to judge the models Friday night, and we met at 6:30 to help as judges.  Dick has been a national judge for 15-16 years.

David Carlton's amazing 1/35 Mercury Redstone made a return to Nationals.  He used it as a visual aid for his seminar.  Being a previous winner and thus ineligible for competition, we were also delighted to see it again in the Display-Only section of the contest room.

I haven’t been to quite as many conventions, and next year, I might hit my ten-year threshold.  Dick likes to judge ships, and I’ll judge aircraft, which typically has the most models and the most categories.  Bill Devins, of Lancaster, PA, has been head aircraft judge a couple decades, at least as long as I’ve been judging, and he announced his retirement from this position this year.

Mark Persichetti of Louisville, CO has been the Head Judge at Nationals since 2015, and he led us through the often excruciating experience of picking first-second-third award winners in our assigned categories.  It took us about three hours to judge two categories.  The quality of the modeling is such that you really have to spend time to look closely at every model, and most of the time the final decisions come down to splitting hairs.  We were done before 11 pm, but the judging captains and staff worked into the wee hours.

Donny Bates from York, SC built this MPC Highjacker right out of the box, including decals.  This is an awesome kit with all kinds of detail and a 4X4 drivetrain.

In the old days, the model hall was closed on Saturday as the judges did their thing, but for the past 15-20 years, judging was changed to Friday night.  This leaves Saturday all day available to view the models.  By afternoon, the vendors pack up their wares and convention attendees have one last chance to enjoy all the models prior to the end of the show.
 
Since Dick and I started attending Nationals, there was always a reception and awards banquet that would begin around 6-6:30 pm Saturday night. 

In more recent years, it has required a $50.00 ticket for the meal, which is served at banquet tables.  Attendees stay at their tables for the duration of the awards presentation.  By 7:30, the banquet hall is usually open with chairs set up in the back for those wishing to see the awards presented without a banquet ticket.

For 2019, Mike Moore implemented a new idea—instead of a $50.00 banquet, he offered a $5.00 dessert reception!  He suggested that we get our own meal ahead of time at one of the restaurants within walking distance, and we tried the City Café Diner, where we found a good dinner costing much less than the customary banquet.  The $5 ticket scored us some nice seats at banquet tables, and we enjoyed the same reception we all were used to without the expensive meal served.  I considered this a nice alternative and would be perfectly content if future convention hosts plan either option in the future.

Ken Spriggs, Muncie, IN, built the Moebius Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Ken opened the pod bay doors.  The kit does not come with pods, interior, or lighting, and Ken added all that detail!

From 7:30-8:30 pm, there is IPMS business to be performed, including awards for such things as Chapter of the year, Newsletter of the Year, Regional Coordinator of the year, and so on.  ​Chairman Mike Moore thanked all those who assisted him in pulling off a huge event, and it’s customary to learn about next year’s Nationals. 

Bond, James Bond, built from a Dragon kit by Patrick Gallagher of Dallas, PA

In 2020, the IPMS/USA Nationals is to be held in San Marcos, TX.  Len Pilhofer, chairman of next year’s show, explained the Texas-related theme and provided details about the venue and accommodations.

Mike McFadden, from Arizona, used a Jeff Foxworthy theme to build this "Redneck Houseboat."  It was jammed with just about every type of redneck stereotype you can imagine!

You might be a redneck if you build a houseboat out of an old shipping container and 55-gallon drums--in 1/1 scale, of course.

Another important item of business is the announcement of the location of future IPMS/USA conventions.  Clubs interested in hosting a Nationals put together a bid.  The bid normally contains a proposed venue, accommodations, attractions, and a preview of how the host clubs plan to take care of all aspects of a major convention.  The IPMS Executive Board has to make sure that the hosting club can find enough volunteers to take care of multi-day registration and have individuals capable of arranging bus tours, dozens of seminars, and many other items not included in the typical model show.

Butch Bryan from Coconut Creek, FL went big with his 1/2500 scale model of the planet killer from the original Star Trek series episode, The Doomsday Machine.

Two bids were received at a meeting held during the convention.  For 2021, it would be time for a convention in the Western United States, and Las Vegas was selected.  Dick and I attended the “Best of the West” contest there in 2002 and had a good time; you can bet we’ll be excited for this show, which will practically be in our back yard.

In recent years, the next Nationals has been announced only two years out, but this time, they announced that the other bid for Omaha, NE has been accepted for 2022.  

Omaha has hosted Nationals a few times.  Near the geographical center of the country, it’s a convenient location for many.  Dick and I attended the two most recent conventions there in 2011 and 2017 and we’ll definitely attend again based on the good time we had at the previous events.
 
The awards show goes from 8:30-10:30.  Aris Pappas and Bill Devins, both longtime IPMS members and former officers, host the show as they have done for a long time.  They read off awards (first-second-third) for about two hundred categories, and present the big awards including best-of-category and Judge’s Grand.  This year’s winner for Judges’ Grand and People’s Choice went to a 1/24 Lunar Module built by David Carlton.  David’s Lunar Module was intricately detailed, and his workmanship was flawless.  A special award for the best model commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing was also won by David’s amazing model.  

​At the conclusion of the awards show, the modelers migrate back to the model room to pick up their awards (placed by the entries), pack up their models, and say goodbye to friends old and new.  By 11:30 PM, the contest area is devoid of models and their builders and everyone who isn’t local heads back to the hotel for the night, and a few intrepid out-of-town souls begin their drive home.
 
Sunday is a travel day for most long-distance attendees to return home, and for convention planners such as Mike Moore, Sunday is a day of badly needed rest.  

You know that good things are not going to happen to the USS Constellation in this diorama.  The kit is AMT's 1/2500 USS Enterprise.  The light effect inside is fluorescent paint and a "Gemmy" holiday light projector--the animated "flames" churned, just like in the episode!

Dem Brudders had a great time at the “Nooga Nats,” and would like to thank Mike Moore, the Chattanooga Modelers, and those from other clubs and individuals who gave of their time to make sure that all attendees enjoyed a perfect event.  

Just a handful of the 450 tables filled with scale modeling delights in the vendor's area.

Rob Schorry took this photo of brudders Dick (Seated) and Bill presenting their seminar on the models of Space: 1999.  Content of this seminar will eventually become a page on this site.

It takes a village to make a magazine, and the IPMS/USA Journal begins preparation of its biggest issue of the year once Nationals is complete.  Dem Brudders have been privileged to cover the convention in the magazine for a few years now, and we work with Journal editors Chris Bucholz and John Heck, who produce a full-color keepsake with pictures of every winning model and a report on various happenings.  Our article in the Journal will be quite a bit different than what you’ve read here, so if you haven’t joined IPMS/USA or need to renew, the article covering the Chattanooga show will definitely not be a rerun or retread of what you get here!
 
Happy Modeling, and we hope to see you at a future show!

Just a little note of thanks to all those who put up with me hawking this website at the IPMS/USA Nationals in Chattanooga, TN.  I passed out cards and flyers and shamelessly plugged the site during our seminar.  We're now into the thousands of visitors per month!