George Lee & his Keystone, etc.
The first 3 photos are of George Lee with his "scratch built "Keystone Bomber." I took the photos at the annual 1988 IPMS/USA National Convention. George taught me how to scratch-build model parts and how to airbrush different colors of paint.
The photo of the small Corsair models shows different colors.
There are a couple of photos that show my models in a dust free show case.
The last few photos show how I packed up all 284 models in 2016, which are still in this air tight cases...
The End!
Rodney J. Williams
An Old Retired Model Builder
A modeler's life's work...well done Rodney. It is a shame that scratch building has become a lost art to most modelers these days.
Hi Jack:
I agree with you on this! If guy's are still "Scratch-building models, they are not showing photos of it here on this site. And most of the models that are posted show only the finish model and next to nothing of the cockpit and half the time they post photos that are "OOF"-(out-of-focus).
George was one of the nicest guys I ever met in this hobby, when we were both members of Golden Gate IPMS 45 years ago. You'd bring a model to show off and George would critique it. You never felt anything but lucky if you were the one whose model showed enough promise that he was willing to take the time. He never thought there was any such thing as "modeling secrets" and at the end, you knew twice as much about modeling as you had when you walked into the room at first. And his work was inspirational. I never thought I would follow his footsteps in scratchbuilding, and other than scratchbuilding bits and pieces I never did ("A man's got to know his limitations"), but the inspiration was always helpful.
Same here! George passed away in 1992 from a rare Chinese family disease so said his wife. I went to his home several time to take black and white photos of him scratch-building his Navy Corsair float plane. He and his "side-kick" John Alcorn was building the model,(s) and writing a book call "Scratch-Built." John finished the 2nd book after George died. George's wife Millie gave me a copy of the 1st book, then John gave me a copy of their 2nd book.
John finish the float plane and it sets in the Navy Museum in Pensacola, Florida while the Keystone bomber went to the Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio.
Hi Tom:
After I met George in 1984, me and my model friend Matt Matsushita use to go up to George's house and spend several hours on different Saturdays learning different thing to do, and becoming better modelers. The main thing that I remember was: He stuck is wooden stir stick in my jar of paint and we watched the paint slowly run off. He then put a stick in his paint and off came 2 or 3 water-like drops of paint. He said go home and add thinner to my paint until it drips off like his. My mix ratio became 4 parts thinner to one part paint from 1986-2016. I used a Badger-200 internal mix airbrush and around 15-20 psi. I have 284 perfect painted models here @home, including photos of a couple dozen painted customer models.
Thanks for sharing this. I remember that Keystone being featured in FSM over 30 years ago.
Me too! I use to have a copy of it in FSM, but all my model stuff is in several cardboard boxes out in the garage since 2016.