It’s Not Just A Jerry, It’s A SUPER Jerry!

Several years ago I built a Nitto 1/20 Maschinen Krieger Jerry. Given that it was a Nitto kit, I was really surprised how much I enjoyed it. Even the assembly wasn’t too bad. (That’s as close as you’ll hear me come to complimenting Nitto kits…)

However, I had also noted that there was a Super Jerry kit. The principal difference was the Super Jerry seemed to ditch the Jerry’s Mr. Snuffleupagus, err… appendage… for a laser shooty pew-pew, and someone stuck rocket launchers on it. (Or a resupply of stove pipes…)

The point was if I enjoyed a Jerry, well then I suppose I would have super enjoyment from a Super Jerry.

Except… it was out of production. And though I have watched over the years, the prices on Ebay have been… well, financing is available. I’ve seen them range from a low of $150 all the way up to $299. And every time my finger hovered over the “Buy Now” or “Place Bid” button, the lingering thought “what if a re-pop is released” kept stopping me from clicking.

And I’m glad it did. Because Wave has announced a 1/20th scale Super Jerry will be released in December.

It’s basically the Jerry with a few different options, mostly in the area of armament and armor. On Linc’s site, he says this kit takes the “original tooling and adds a set of dedicated conversion parts: additional front and rear armour, redesigned legs, and a triple rocket tube launcher.”

I absolutely love these walker type models in any scifi genre, and to have it in 1/20th scale is even more bonus.

Lincoln Wright has them up for pre-order on his site, and HLJ and others carry them as well.

The Quest For A Paint Rack

I’ve always tried to find the perfect balance of capacity, ease of use, and affordability when it comes to paint racks. For a while I repurposed a kitchen drawer utensil organizer, set up on its side. It worked fine… until my paint collection grew. Then I tried portable cases, stuffing the paints away in that, and just keeping my most used colors in the utensil organizer. But that got to be a real pain to find colors… which case is VMC English Uniform in?

I thought I’d found a great one from Vallejo to solve my problems. It held a load of paints – 76 Vallejo sized bottles. While I had more than 76 bottles, that would cover storage for and quick access to the paints I used the most, and quite a few I didn’t use often. It was a bit more than I liked paying – $60 or so – but… I had a gift card. Add to cart indeed!

When it arrived, it was easy enough to set up. But… I was worried about the material – MDF, or medium-density fiberboard. It felt solid enough, but I was concerned about the effect of the weight of the paints over time. Despite the price, once together, it seemed a bit… cheap.

And time proved that to be the case. Over a couple of years, the MDF began to sag. I didn’t overload it by any means. I simply put in the number of bottles it could hold. As one level sagged, the paints begin to slip out. Sections loosened up. Even gluing didn’t help.

Finally… A Paint Rack I Like AND Is Affordable And Durable

I searched through the river that is Amazon, comparing many solutions. I knew this time I either wanted wood, or perhaps acrylic. I was a little hesitant about the latter, as a friend had one of that material, and over time stress fractures formed, getting worse and worse until it broke.

Then I found this one from a company called Plylodex. It was wood, and the photos showed it to be reasonably thick. And I knew once it arrived I could evaluate it fairly quickly, and return it if it didn’t fit the bill.

Happily, it turned out to be exactly what I wanted.

Assembly was a bit tedious. I don’t want to say difficult, because the instructions were clear enough. But it is absolutely essential that it be assembled in exactly the order shown, and with the parts oriented exactly as shown. (Ask me how I know this.)

I started by inventorying and labeling the parts, which was a great help. When I started assembly, I did so without glue despite the instructions suggesting otherwise. That turned out to be a good thing, as I had one shelf in backwards, which stopped the whole show. When I finally figured out it was me, and not the rack, I took it apart just enough to fix that shelf, and after that I quickly had it assembled. Once I checked all was in place and aligned, I glued it up with wood glue and let it dry overnight.

This thing is solid. And the design has so many supports that I don’t see how it could sag. After drying, I moved all my paints from the saggy Vallejo rack into this one and it worked beautifully. It has two drawers built in, and I was able to offload my excess paint brushes there and get them out of the jars on my desk. And because it holds 105 bottles of paint, I can get, well, most of my dropper bottles in there. What is left in the one zip case is mostly duplicates of other bottles, and ONE bottle each of Ammo of Mig and The Army Painter used solely for illustration purposes in photos. 😁

Plylodex has other styles, including nice corner units if you want to go all out. There are options for dropper bottles, Citadel, and Tamiya-sized bottles as well. If I can ever get a proper large corner workstation desk, I may get one of those fancy setups.

In the meantime, I’ll stick with my ad hoc assembly of thrift store furniture and repurposed shoe racks that has worked for 20 years now.

Of course, the real goal now needs to be using all this paint…

Update on Hobby Lobby Airbrush Paints

I’ve purchased more colors, not so much because I need them, but rather because I’m enjoying testing a product that I thought was not going to be good at all. To find out it is “production worthy” has really surprised me. And when 20 paints are about the cost of five bottles of Vallejo, or three of Citadel… there’s not much to lose.

I’ve used them in my normal workflow now for several weeks, and the only gripe I have is that the little seals which close up the bottle for shipping are not easily removed by my arthritic fingers. That is a minor complaint.

I noted that the red, yellow, and blue seemed incredibly vivid. It made me wonder if perhaps they were single pigment. If you’ve ever mixed what you thought was plain old red and yellow, but couldn’t quite get it to orange, you’ve run into paints that rely on multiple pigments. That’s not bad, per se, but it can make mixing paints a bit of a guessing game. (Hmmm… maybe that is how I justify hundreds of bottles of paints. 🤔)

I tested Vallejo Flat Red and Flat Yellow in a 1-1 ratio, and did the same with Hobby Lobby Airbrush Paints. Vallejo headed towards a paler red, which I expected. (I’ve tested this before with Vallejo.) The HL Airbrush paint though, in the same ratio, came much closer to orange – and with a few more drops of yellow produced an acceptable orange.

Now I show this not to say the HL paint is superior to Vallejo, but rather to simply underline that these are working out for me to be good paints that can be quite reliable.

If you’re contemplating trying them, consider them to work about like Vallejo Model Air. They are thinned nicely for most brush painting as I do it (mostly stippling) and a little thinning will make them brush easier for traditional painting. For airbrush use, I’d recommend 2 parts paint and 1 part thinner as a starting point.

As a final point, just to be clear, I am not recommending you toss out your old paints. What I am recommending is for the basic color range that sits on your shelf, if you run out of another brand, consider trying a bottle of this Hobby Lobby Airbrush Paint. It can save a little money, you won’t run out as fast, and it does a good job.