PSAMA Show

On Sunday, May 11th, the Puget Sound Auto Modelers Association (PSAMA) held their 20th annual model car show at the Elks Lodge in Puyallup. The weather was perfect and it was Mother's Day, two strikes against holding an indoor show :) This was the show that I attended one year ago that made me decide to join the club and get back more into model building. And since I had so much fun at the IPMS Show last month, I decided that I would finish up a new model and debut it at this show. Let me tell you, that just about killed me :) I was up working on it until 1:30 AM on Sunday morning, and only went to bed for 4 hours because I could go no further as everything was waiting on something else to dry. I got up again at 5:30 and finished gluing the last part, the rear bumper, on at 6:15 AM. I have photos for an "Off the Bench" blog, but will wait and do that in a day or two. Anyway, I was supposed to meet the guys at the Lodge at 6:30 to start setting up, but after stopping at Starbucks and such I managed to get there about 7:10 AM -just in time to avoid most of the heavy work in the morning :) Check-in was supposed to start at 9 AM, but we started checking folks in around 8:30 as they were already lining up. A couple of us club members checked in first, set our stuff up on the tables and then came out to check-in everyone else. I did a little checking in, but mostly ran the spectator's admission table. Check-in went until noon, and actually, we had folks checking in for most of the morning. I think that final tally was that we had 165 exhibitors, which was down from last year, due mostly, I suspect, to the Mother's Day snafu. Our show was actually supposed to be the weekend before, but it was mis-booked by the Elks Lodge and they were unable to give us our normal weekend as they had already booked it with someone else. So, that should not happen next year as we already booked the hall for the correct weekend. Anyway, back to the show. The IPMS Show last month was a judged show, in that the models were judged. The PSAMA Show is not judged per se, instead everything, except in a few instances, is a popular vote of your peers. Balloting began at 11:45 and ran until 2:45 PM. Counting ballots began at 3:00 PM and awards presentation was about 3:30 or so. And to those of you who have made it this far, I will go ahead now and tell the REST of the story - How I did and what my new model is... Like I said earlier, I will do an OTB blog as well, so I won't focus too exclusive on it, that will come later... I took three models with me, my little silver Mercedes tuner, my green '67 Impala and my new creation - a pearl blue '61 Ford Falcon Sedan Delivery. The Impala and the Falcon were in the same class and after they were set up on the bench, this is what they looked like: As usual, all of my photos will biggify for those of you who are interested and click on them. I also took a couple of photos of the Mercedes, but they were blurry, so no photos of it will be included here. Hmmm, actually, I do have a shot of it sitting behind this gorgeous 66 Ford Galaxy that won that class...

At the awards presentation, the Impala was again the bridesmaid, garnering it's second second place in as many shows. The Falcon did not fair as well and did not place, but I know that it did finish just outside the top three, so there is nothing wrong with that... I did get the opportunity to chat with quite a variety of folks - one guy who was just starting back into modeling after a 30 year absence all the way up to one of the premier model builders on the West Coast, Shannon Diamaulo, from Vancouver, BC. She brought a wide variety of models with her, including one or two that I have seen in magazines, and several more that should have been. It was very cool being able to talk to someone of her calibre and I have several new tips that I cannot wait to ty out on future projects. She won Best of Show with a 60 or 61 (I forget which) Chevy Ice Cream Truck that was mostly scratch built. It was VERY well done. Probably the coolest part of the entire day for me was that there were were TWO photographers there, one of our club members taking photos for possible magazine submission (he like the Falcon and photographed it :) and a photographic team from Model Cars Magazine taking event photos for an upcoming issue that will cover this show who photographed BOTH of my cars (Falcon and Impala) for possible inclusion in that issue :) :) :) No guarantees that either of them will actually end up in a magazine, but you have no idea how cool it was to even be asked. And finally here is a photo of the Challenger Street Machine that won first place in my class... In addition to having the Street look nailed just about perfectly (I voted for it on my ballot :), the headlights and running lights also worked as well. In fact that was the case of all three of his cars in this photo. Pretty stiff competition in this class, I am already thinking about new projects to up the ante for next year - and branching into a few more classes as well... I am also wondering about more shows this year. One of the guys from my club is organizing a model show to coincide with the Good Guys Car Show this summer and there is talk of a new fall model show that will be in October / November of this year. Guess I have one more schedule I'll have to sort through and figure out what we have time to attend... :)

-Dave