"The book is in the mail..."

Well folks, 2020 has been full of surprises - and continues to reveal even more surprises. Denise and I shipped dozens of packages on 7 December - that apparently made it to the Memphis Postal Distribution Facility, where they were scanned on 11 December. From there, they seemingly went into another dimension, a dimension where time and distance has no meaning - “The DeJoy Zone” (insert haunting music here).

Other packages - including those shipped on 8 December have been delivered. Many of the 7 December packages still list only “In Transit, Arriving Late” on the USPS tracking website.

I understand the crush of the season, and thankfully, so do most of our customers. I also understand that as I write this missive, Tennessee is the WORLDWIDE Covid-19 hotspot, and absenteeism is heavy.

What I don’t understand (other than the attempted dismantling of the postal system infrastructure earlier this year by Postmaster Louis DeJoy), is that the postal service is not working on a first in, first out order processing system that is used by most private industry. Rather, apparently they are using a last in, first out method - a method popular with accountants for bookkeeping - but hardly the norm for production or order fulfillment. Notably, DeJoy was a CPA.

All this being said, we appreciate everyone’s patience, and wish everyone a safe and Merry Christmas!

A few of you have approached us asking if we would publish a book. I want to make it clear - we are not publishers, we write and sell books, which are published by Schiffer, Ampersand, Squadron and a number of other fine companies - but we don’t publish any of these ourselves.

Sincerely,

David and Denise

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Denise and I hope all of you have a safe and joyful day of Thanksgiving.

For those of you anxiously awaiting my new M4A2 and DUKW books, FedEx did not drop these off today, so we will await our Friday delivery. As soon as they arrive, we will start shipping the orders on a first placed, first shipped basis. I expect that this process will take more than one day, unless the books are delivered unusually early in the day.

I am still seeking photos of military vehicles inside the AM General or Kaiser-Jeep factories. If you can supply such images, please contact us.

Trying our hand at blogging

Two and a half years ago, Denise and I acquired the inventory, website and certain other assets of the Ampersand Group. During the intervening months we integrated the inventory from our former DavidDoyleBooks.com website into this platform, and devoted considerable energy expanding our inventory and developing efficient ways to get books into the hands of our customers. All while I devoted the bulk of my time to my “day” (and much of the night) job of writing books. Denise has worked side by side with me on most of these things, as well as maintaining our household.

All of this left little time for posting to a blog. As Covid wears on, we are unable to travel and do research for new titles, and having worked my way through much of the material we had salted away - while this has slowed my productivity, it has also allowed a smidgen of free time to try my hand at blogging.

To those of you have been supporting our writing efforts, I thank you very much!

Sincerely,

David Doyle

Goodbye.

It is with profound sadness that I inform our customers that The Ampersand Group, Inc. will cease operations in its current form as of the posting of this message.

My considerable personal problems have left me without the ability to fully service the needs of this company and its loyal patrons. I have struggled with this decision and it is not one I have taken lightly—my heart is broken from it.

I am working to close the office that we have maintained here in Delray Beach, Florida for the last 20 years and that process will be completed soon.

The remaining inventory and website are being turned over to Mr. David Doyle, my long-time collaborator and friend. He seemed the proper choice, having contributed so much to the creation of our publications. Mr. Doyle is not taking over the company, only the administration of its inventory. This transition is ongoing and will take some time to complete and perfect.

I know that many of you remain concerned about the disposition of your subscriptions. All customer records are being maintained. I will be working on a solution for this problem in the coming weeks and months and will be in touch through social media and email. Many exciting projects are still in development and there is a good chance that one or more will come to fruition in the near future. Regretfully, neither Mr. Doyle nor I can enter into correspondence on this matter for now.

Once the dust settles from our closure, I will have more focus and can concentrate on this dilemma with greater effort. I also have to focus on my new livelihood. Having a roof over my head must be a priority for now.

I created this company and all of its products out of nothing. None of it existed before I conceived it. I made it all happen—both the good and the bad. I am and will remain responsible for everything that happened as a result of this venture. The buck well and truly stops at my feet.

I was thrilled to have made a living in an industry that I loved. I was also fortunate to meet and associate with a widely diverse group of human beings. I traveled the world and got to know many unique and terrific people, some of whom became life-long friends. Fate smiled on me in this regard.

On rare occasions, greed and ambition soured what I thought were sound relationships—a surprising thing in so small a community. I value those interactions nonetheless and wish those individuals no ill will.

With warmest and most sincere regards,

Patrick A. Stansell

Motorcycle Madness!

German Panzer II made large!

Keep your Tamiya M10 company!

Tokyo Show Update

Photo update from Tokyo with a peek at releases from Panda, Hero, Takom, Amusing Hobby and Dragon. Thanks to Brian of the Beaver Corp. for the photos.

Bench Wars Part 4: The results!

In this highly anticipated final chapter of our world-famous blog, we bring you: THE RESULTS.

(crickets chirping...)

I managed to cover nearly the entire length of the bench, maximizing the surface. My lights were moved to the shelf above to clear my reach to the outlying modules.

BTW, final assembly was slightly tricky. Each of the modules is attached to the next with small magnets. These are inserted in holes drilled in various locations. The individual magnets are a tight fit and keeping the correct polarity throughout was difficult for me (I'm easily confused).

Once sorted though, it is an effective system for keeping all the different parts together. The resulting unit is pretty sturdy.

Here is a closer look at the center section:

I used my handy Dymo label maker to identify all the drawers. All the stuff I use the most is located within this section. The top tool holders are pretty cool. The one on the right contains my most frequently used items.

With the large number of drawers available I was able to put together some very useful groups. This is the blade drawer. Previously, these were scattered over several locations. Number 11 blades are in the front:

All my punch and die sets are now together for the first time:

Bits and collets:

Here is a closer look at the right-hand tool caddy. There is a little space n the front that is handy for my x-acto and glue applicator:

Here is one of two of the "on deck" storage units:

I filled up a lot of the space, but there are few areas left over. The corner drawer units are teeny, but so is most of my stuff:

There is still some room in this unit, on the left hand side. I'm not really sure what to put in that center divider...

I now consider myself highly organized! The system is already working quite well. I can quickly put items away and I have zero clutter on the bench. At the end of each session, the bench surface is easily cleared.

I am very pleased with the Hobby Zone product line—everything was very high quality The level of service was also quite good. We have used their paint organizers, too and will be adding to them soon.

Please do not hesitate to check out their site at http://www.hobbyzone.pl/en/

Bench Wars Part 3

Using the sheet shown in my previous post, I placed an order.

FYI, my bench top is 97 inches long and 25.75 inches deep (about 246 cm x 63 cm). I was shooting for a modular set up that was 95 by 19 inches (about 241 cm x 48 cm). This is where the sheet came in handy.

The HobbyZone site can be a tiny bit confusing. Although one can choose between Dollars, Euro or Zloty, all of the prices include VAT. This is only subtracted once the order is placed. For example, the OM03 Corner Drawer Module is listed at $32.57 on the site, but the actual cost is only $26.48. It's not the worst thing in the world, as the order ended up being much less than I thought.

Here is the final order:

Here is the box upon arrival:

 (I'll cover the paint stands in a subsequent blog)

Being composed of lots and lots of MDF, I was fearful that the shipping from Poland with be prohibitive. Miraculously, the nearly 75 pound box was just $138.86 to ship via UPS to the U.S.

As can be seen, the order was blocked out inside with cardboard tubing wrapped in bubble wrap. Pretty clever. The invoice was in a plastic sleeve and included some stickers and pencils:

There were a total of 24 boxes inside:

Each box is essentially a small kit, so I was in for a lot of construction! Here are the parts for one of the three-drawer units:

In the shot above, the drawer components can be seen, as well as the part for the "carcass" that contains them. The carcass parts are all slotted and notched. The small holes in the square parts to the left are for magnets, which attach the various units together (more on this later). The back of the unit is coated on the inside with sturdy vinyl sheeting, as are the drawer fronts and the dividers (the slotted parts).

Jeff pitched in to help and we were soon knee-deep in parts. We used Elmer's Carpenter's Wood Glue—the yellow stuff, for all assembly.

A hint from Jeff: the drawer fronts don't have a slot to lock them in place on the bottom. He used a lot of extra glue in this area and it had a kind of caulking effect, sealing the front firmly in place. Wood glue shrinks considerably once dry, so this doesn't have any effect on the handsome finish of the parts.

I should say that this is not necessary for the drawers to function properly. It simply adds strength to each part and helps keep small parts from finding their way under the drawer fronts once in use.

Here is another of the side pieces, this time for the corner drawer unit:

As suggested in the excellent instructions, we secured the units using masking tape while they dried:

During construction, we kept an bucket of water on the floor with several clean sponges in it. We used these to keep the excess glue under control and make sure everything remained neat and tidy.

Working together diligently, we were able to complete all 24 modules in one day. When working with wood glue, it's important to let it dry overnight for the best bond. Working with MDF is interesting, as the material will swell slightly when exposed to glue, then shrink back as it dries. This creates a very strong bond.

We left that night with all the units drying in various spots around the office.

Next: the results!

Bench Wars Part 2

Once on the HobbyZone website, there was plenty to look at. They offer a variety of organizational products. These are roughly divided into desktop storage and paint storage. The desktop stuff is most notably their "Modular Workshop System." This is a series of interlocking modules, each with some specific function.

Placed end to end, they are designed to cover the back side of your workbench and can be configured in almost infinite fashion. They can also be stacked to create multiple layers of storage.

The material is a medium density fiberboard that has been precision cut.

I was immediately attracted to this module:

There are three drawers in each one and the individual drawers have dividers.

This one was also intriguing:

I thought it would be just the ticket for all my files and pliers.

To create a full wrap-around effect, there are also these:

At first, I wasn't sure what to make of this one:

The bench seems a silly place to store finished models... Then I realized that this is intended to protect whatever you are currently working on. Genius! A safe place to tuck away my work before I go home at night.

One I had an idea of what I wanted, I came up with this sheet:

This helped me visualize the overall concept and also make changes to my design. It also helped on the next step: ordering.

Bench Wars 1

My work bench was in terrible shape. Disorganized, invariably messy and absolutely slowing me down. My main problems seemed to be as follows:

• I have a ton of tools and my methods of storing them were bad.

• I was mostly using small caddies of the type used for storing kitchen utensils.

• I also was using small artist's carousels, which are typically used for pencils and brushes. They also have a small tray along their lower edge.

• Many tools were hard to get at and many went unused as a result.

• Some storage was created with small IKEA metal cabinets nearby, but this kept tools a fair distance from the bench.

• Nothing ever seemed to get put away. During work sessions a big pile of tools would form to my right (I'm right-handed), making it even more difficult to work and find things.

BTW, my basic work bench is an IKEA wooden kitchen "butcher block" counter top mounted onto two inexpensive kitchen cabinets. These were purchased at a home store (Home Depot) as boxed kits.

One day we received a small paint rack in a sample package from MiG Ammo. This was intriguing because it was laser cut fiber board. It came as a small kit and once assembled it was quite sturdy. It accommodated different sized paint bottles and clearly had some thought behind its design.

Although it was a promotional item, with the MiG Ammo logo on it, it also had the initials "HZ." After a little investigating, I found this stood for Hobby Zone and that information lead me here:

http://www.hobbyzone.pl/en/

Auntie Shilka has come to visit!

We got a big charge out of seeing this one. Pat's been pining for this release for years (he used to tearfully stare at the old Dragon box for hours). It's a highly detailed rendition that features plentiful photo-etched brass, link-to-link tracks and a marvelously executed gun system. No more tears for Pat! So many marking options to choose from—eight alone are provided in the kit (and we thought of a few more). Thanks again to Meng's U.S. rep, Chris Mrosko for the sample.

Check out the TUSKs on this T-Rex!

It's not exactly news, but we finally obtained a sample of the new Meng M1A2 TUSK kit. It's pretty massive in terms of both the size of the box and the number of sprues. Lots of nice things to see while "kicking the tires," like anti-skid, torsion bars, clear parts (tons) and some very cool looking tracks. Although they are link-to-link, they are very sensibly designed and include a nifty jig. Look for a full review in an upcoming issue if MMiR. Thanks to Meng's U.S. information Czar, Chris Mrosko for the sample.

Alpine Prinz Eugen

Can you say "Prinz Eugen"? The first part is easy, but it's not "You-gene" it's "Oi-gen." But never mind all that, Taesung Harmms is best sculptor in the U.S. right now in our opinion. This is from his company, Alpine Miniatures. This piece was once used in our Mini-Men section and like many more to come, has been resurrected in a future painting feature by Pat.

Nuremburg Peek-a-boo!

A couple of shots of the new big boys in town: the Trumpeter 1/16th scale T72 and Jagdtiger. Plus, another speculative KV variant. And lastly, the brand new Tamiya AMX-13 (Tell us again why this is exciting???).

Check out what's Coming Soon

More awesome new titles are in progress, including the second volume of the Half-Track series and the next installment in the Expanded Visual History Series on German WWII armor!

A bit of exciting weirdness...

These VK 3601 kits were recently seen on display in Japan. "Revosys" is said to be a new brand out of China. At least one of them will feature a partial interior. The kits will be available sometime in 2016.

New From Sabinga Martin- T-55 Part 2!!!

SIMBK-19, The T-54/55 in Israeli-Arab Wars Volume 2

http://www.sabingamartin.com/

This book describes in detail the operation of Syrian army T-54 and T-55 tanks during the Yom Kippur War (part 1) .
Authored by Dr. Robert Manasherob, a world recognized expert on Israeli military tanks and vehicles, this book contains dozens of new and never published photos, new and accurate info and facts, results of several years of research, full color book with more than 160 photos including action and war photos, walk around photos, markings and illustrations with 15 scale drawings and finally 11 beautiful color profiles.

Amongst the contents are the following:
■80 pages+ covers – including 32 in full color
■More than 160 color photos and illustrations
■Dozens of unique and previously unpublished photos
■1/35 scale line drawings
■In-action photos
■Walk-around photos
■ Newly discovered, unique markings
■Tactical markings
■Detailed color profiles

Hey Look! We have a Blog now!

This is a test of our blog. Cool, huh? I think it'll update automatically to Facebook. Clever bastards!