Capital Area Modelers Society

Recently a young man of our church, St. Peter Lutheran in Riley Township, started a group for adolescent boys of the congregation.  I invited Christopher, the leader, to come to the West Michigan IPMS Great Lakes Challenge in October and said, if the group was interested, I’d provide a “make & take” later.  Christopher and a couple of the boys came to the show.  Afterward, they said they had a great time, were really impressed by what they saw, and wanted to try it for themselves.  We scheduled a build event just before Thanksgiving.

Saturday evening, November 22, I brought some AMT ProShop kits that had been donated to C.A.M.S., some tool sets we’d bought on Amazon, and some liquid cement I got at AFK Games.  There was a small group; apart from Christopher, just three boys ages 11 to 16.  I explained how each tool is used, demonstrating sprue cutters and sanding sticks.  I showed the different types of cement used in modeling and emphasized that liquid cement needs sparing application and capillary action.  Then we got to work.

Christopher and two of the boys had never built a plastic model, so I shifted between them, offering guidance and suggestions. I had only two problems. First, I’d never built one of these kits, so often I could only guess at what the instructions wanted. Second, I’d forgotten my visor, so half the time I couldn’t see what we were doing!

Nevertheless, after a couple of hours, each project was well under way.  As the group was packing up kits and tools, I distributed our latest newsletter, talked about our club and the specialties of some members, and invited them to come and visit. I said the most important thing is that they had enjoyed the evening, to which they enthusiastically agreed. Later, I told Christopher to let me know if they wanted to get together again to work further on their kits and suggested we could plan another event next year. Granted, it was a very small group, but hopefully it planted a seed for another generation of modelers.