Hawkeye’s Squawkbox

The Hawkeye’s Hobbies website is in the process of being moved to a different server, so if you are having difficulties viewing the site or contacting me via email the situation should be only temporary. We hope to have everything moved as soon as possible. This is also the first step to our website makeover.

Thank you.

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The cross over between modeling aircraft and armor/vehicles in 1:48 (O guage) just turned an important corner. Tamiya released a P-51 Mustand/Staff Car combo recently and as a follow up they are releasing the staff car separately. Kit #32559 1942 US Army Staff Car is a kit that will allow WWII aircraft modelers more incentive to cross over to an automotive subject. Model railroaders who love O gauge and have sough after quality models from this era will love this kit as well.

I know I am looking forward to seeing this kit on hobby shop shelves, which I suspect once word reaches all genres of modeling, it will not be in stock for long. A US Staff Car is something that has been missing from aircraft dioramas for decades. As a friend and fellow modeler of mine just point out…he can now do his “12 O’Clock High” diorama!

Let’s hope Tamiya recognizes that they can capture some of the model railroading market if they continue to offer vehicles such as this. Kitting other vehicles that cross over between military and civilian users makes sense to me, let’s hope they feel the same way. I’m going to ordering mine as soon as they are available!

Photo courtesy of Shizuoka 2008 Expo.

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April turned into May…that goes without saying, but where was I? April was a blur, things were busy around here but not in the way I wanted it to be. As with any year, we seem to have procrastinated about getting our taxes filed and each your we say we’re not going to wait until the last minute. Seems we’ll be working on that again for next year.

Though the government doesn’t want to say the word “Recession,” I will. Business slowed to a near stop in April, which meant tightening the budget belt rather snuggly. I’ve talked to other businesses who have also felt the pinch, yet we all feel optimistic that it will rebound…the question is when.

Talonized Finish!

Aaron Malone shared his P-36 with us that he finished using Talon acrylics. His efforts garnered him a first place trophy at a recent contest in Mobile, Alabama.

Amaury de Barros Conti sent in a picture of his beautiful F-86 also done with Talon acrylics.

Alex Bernardo did a striking job of both building this YB-49 as well as using some creative photography to depict this masterpiece finished with Talon acrylics.

Hawkeye’s Squawkbox Blog

Those who follow and read my blog, Hawkeye’s Squawkbox, know that we moved it to a dedicated domain. The old blog format was okay, but our host seemed to always be behind the power curve with updating to the latest upgrades and features. So, we moved to a hosting provider who understands how important this is. The old blog articles will be migrated over to the new location eventually, but for the meantime they are still viewable here: http://hawkeyeshobbies.com/squawkbox/ . The button on our homepage now takes you directly to the new blog URL http://hawkeyes-squawkbox.com/ . Hope this isn’t too confusing.

In The Media

I’ve been doing some writing of articles/columns for publication in a trade related publications. Hopefully these will appear soon; when and if they do, I will be sure to let you know. These articles are not consumer directed, but are geared toward business owners and how to better manage their businesses.

The problem with doing articles for print media is the timing of their publication. In many cases, the information contained in the articles is time sensitive. So I will be including several of these articles here in my blog for others, both in and out of our industry to read. I’m also advocating that the publishers of the print media utilize their websites to post these time sensitive articles, so their readership can act upon the information contained in them.

Personnel Announcement

We were recently informed that we should expect the Stork to visit us sometime in October to deliver our fifth grandchild. As of this date we do not know if it will be our first grandson or another beautiful grand daughter. Regardless, we are excited about the news!

Cottage Industry

Part of our mission at Hawkeye’s Hobbies is to help provide those who have a product and entrepreneur interests to take their ideas forward. For the uninitiated, this task can be very difficult and expensive. What we provide is a means to accomplish this task in a simple manageable format. If you have a product idea that you want to “take to market,” let us assist you. Contact us for more information.

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