The Modeller's Blog: IPMS Birmingham Club Meeting

Our hobby is fundamentally a solitary activity, most of us build our models in the privacy of our own individual work room or a shed at the bottom of the garden and it is easy for us to become somewhat withdrawn from society.

The antidote to this situation is to become a member of a modelling club and we are fortunate that we have an active organisation, the International Plastic Modellers Society (IPMS) which fosters our activities. Founded in London in the early 1960s the IPMS has grown to be a truly international society with branches in many countries around the world, as anyone who has visited the annual Scale Modelworld exhibition at Telford, UK will have seen.

I regularly attend meetings of the Birmingham branch of IPMS(UK) and our first meeting of 2010 took place on Sunday 17th January with a good attendance (Especially as annual subs were due!).

One of the th

emes for the meeting was restoring clear parts and a couple of members gave demonstrations of their methods of re-polishing scratched canopies and the like. Here George Green can be seen showing his technique to Dave Child and Ron Adams while others look on.

Of course other subjects arise, here John Duffield explains his preferred method of achieving a bare metal finish on an Airfix Lightning to Gareth Thomas and Terry Walton. I will return to John's methods in a future post as it is and interesting alternative to my own technique.

We also have a mo

nthly competition and the winner for January was this superb battle ship, HMS Prince of Wales in 1/1200 scale built by Ron Adams.

The great thing about becoming a member of a club is that not only do you benefit from other modellers' knowledge but there is the added dimension of socialising with fellow modellers and over the years I have made a number of good friends, not just locally but throughout the UK and overseas. So don't be a modelling hermit, get out and, to start with, become member of your local club.

IPMS(UK) branches
IPMS Birmingham