Scale Plastic Aircraft Modeler member interview
Ernie Schafer aka Scruffy
Meaning of forum name: Scruffy, when I was in high school I, along with several class mates, worked at a local restaurant. I would usually show up for work with a nice crop of 5 o'clock shadow thus they began calling me scruffy.
1. First kit? Lindberg 1/180 DeHavilland Comet airliner. I acquired another some time ago, same boxing as the first one I built, and at some point want to build It again.
2. Preferred Scale: is 1/48, though I am driven by subject more than scale.
3. Preferred Subjects: Everything that interests me really, there is a whole world of models out there from Roman chariots to Sci-Fi vehicles centuries into future, so what ever catches my fancy, or something I want to learn more about I will research it and build a model of it.
4. Favorite model to date I would have to say is a 1/72 Hasegawa F-106 in New Jersey ANG markings that I built years ago when I was a teenager. I saw it at Pease AFB during an open house, and photographed it with my Kodak 110 Instamatic camera and then built a model of that very aircraft using the reference photos I had taken of it.
5. Hardest Model: 1/72 Phoenix Models 1/72 Slingsby Grasshopper glider. White metal frame, vacuform wings and tail surfaces with little to no attachment points on the fuselage frame, no decals, and completely rigged with stretched sprue. The model had to be attached to a base as it was almost too fragile to be picked up.
6. Holy Grail kit: I don't know, I have been very blessed to have more kits than I ever need, but if there was one, I would have to say the 1/48 Collectaire B-45. My father worked on them in in Europe when he was in the air force.
7. Favorite kit maker: For easy no fuss builds Tamyia or Hasegawa, Monogram for their Century Series, but for sheer modeling fun and satisfaction, pretty much any of the new manufacturers in Eastern Europe. They are putting out many interesting subjects, use innovative molding techniques, and require a little input (read effort) from the builder, but usually turn out very nice.
8. Tamyia Extra Thin and Extra Thin Quick Set.
9. Well, I am sort of a paint junkie, but go to bullet proof, Model Master, for ease of use and ability to get great finishes, MRP, especially for the European and Soviet colors.
10. Well, I guess I got started in modeling because my father and uncle were big into aviation, and my dad would help me build models of aircraft I saw in his photo albums. Also, my parents were all for me reading and learning so every week we would go to the local drug store and I would get the newest Scale Modeler, Scale Aircraft Modeler (the U.S. one published quarterly, anybody remember that one?), or Military Modeler. I enjoyed learning from the magazines, the process of building the models, and it just carried on from there to something I have done pretty much on a continuous basis ever since.
