Hi all,

Steffen and I have spent three days in the Czech Republic this week and we made some "model tourism". Well, not the kind of tourism one would think of (I am married) but the serious one which is related to our hobby.

First we have stopped at the Eduard Headquarters in Obrenice where we were presented, amongst other stuff, the new Albatros Oeffag 253 testbuilt by M. Vladimír Šulc himself...







Then we spent two nights in Kovarska in the Penzion Avionika. One day was necessary to visit the "Battle over the Ore Mountain" Museum of Jan Zdiarsky and we could have even spend more time there so fascinating it was...







On the last day we made our way to Prag to visit the MPM company and here as well we have seen some very interesting stuff this time presented to us by M. Jan Hajicek.







Of course this is only a teaser and more will follow soon...

Jean-Luc

Hi Jean-Luc

It looks like you both had an amazing trip! I can hardly wait to read the full reports!

All the best

Rowan

That looks like fun, looking forward to the report.
On a lighter note. My God Steffen how tall are you?
Steffen you are looking well, and slimline.
Andy

Hi J-L

what about the new pieces of historical artifacts for the Bf 109E Royal class

yeah I know you did not want to post that...

Still I think I always look stupid on photographs but "mit gefangen, mit gehangen" .... and as you said, I always look that way

Selecting the photos and preparing the text will take a little longer than I thought on my end....

cheers

Steffen

P.S. Hi Andy

well, I am something around 1,90m depends on how straight I stand and I am still pretty much overweight, but I already lost some 50+ kg since my stroke so you can imaging what behemoth I was before

Wow, those moulds look awsome.
tim

Hi I also have a few pix though I do not want to post teasers...

here is the wednesday evening when Jan's companion in the museum brought his Fw 190D-11 for some discussion.



As you can see Jans son Vitek is also interested he also wanted to see what is in the box and grabbed it ... now he knows how fast modellers can react ...

cheers

Steffen

The photo's make you look like a giant, but at 6ft 2in roughly that's not massively tall. 50kg that's pretty good going, keep it up. You do realise that if you keep losing all this weight you will have to divert some modelling tokens to get new clothes .
Andy

Hi there

Good on you Steffen! I think you already need a new slim-line avatar!

All the best

Rowan

Luckily Mom buys most of the clothes I need (and I do) ... of course I am aware that this might not sound all cool, but I really do not have an exclusive taste, but rather see things practical and if I do not have to pay them .... you get the picture. (and remember I am unemployed since years).

I am in the final stages of preparing the first part (i.e. Eduard) of my report ... stay tuned, I will post a link later today.

all the best

Steffen

O.k. gang, here we go.

Find out more details in my first report on our visit: Tour de Hobby - Part 1 --- if you read German

cheers

Steffen

Cheers Steffen

Even all of us with only rusty high-school German will probably be fluent by the end of it.

All the best

Rowan

Hi Rowan

not sure about that, but I write this mainly for my German visitors (I had over 400 visitors on the main paige of this report) J-L's article is surely not too faar away and he will probably do all three at once .. BTW I am a bit puzzled why there is sso little interest in this (there are just 170 thread views when I post this, and some of these my own) .. well at least we had a lot of fun...

though I am not sure if this guy will agree on that



cheers

Steffen (running for cover)

Hi Steffen

And to think it's usually Jean-Luc's noble profile that he's worried about showing!

To be honest the thread title doesn't give much clue as to what it's about - if it was called something like "Sneak preview - Exclusive look behind the scenes at Eduard and MPM!" you can bet it would grab a lot more attention.

It does look like you had a fantastic time. I really wish I'd been able to come along, but such trips are just out of the question for me at the moment.

All the best

Rowan

Yep, might be a good idea to make the title a bit more thrilling ... did we talk about the forthcomming 1/48 Do 24 (pretty advanced) and He 115 (still a few years to go) from MPM group? ... here is someone who is really looking forward to those...

Hey J-L, whats up? I really thought you would counterattack my picture with some photoshopping from your end?! Everything o.k.?

cheers

Steffen

Hi Steffen,




Too busy for this "Kindergarten" stuff...

Jean-Luc

Ohh come on, we play with plastic toys so we are never too old for this kindergarten stuff

cheers

Steffen

Hi Steffen

Me too! I don't where on earth I'd put a 1:48 Do 24, but I'd love to see it! I remember the full-size one that used to be at RAF Hendon. The Spanish Do 24s were still flying when I was a child and we took our first family holidays in Majorca. They were an incredible sight!

All the best

Rowan

Hi all

despite the very small group of visitors of this thread I'd like to add some stuff until J-L has his reports ready. Today I posted the report of the Museum of 9/11 1944 (i.e. 11th September 1944 for us old world habitants) to our IPMS Deutschland site.

http://vorbild.ipmsdeutschland.de/Museum/Kovarska/index.html

BTW in case you wonder, Jan asked me to remove the pic with him holding part of his car. While he found it quite funny (like myself) there were some people at Eduard who did not understand it in that way ... so I deleted it (thanks Rowan for adjusting the post)

all the best

Steffen
and now for the MPM part

Hi Steffen
Just have been enjoying the photos you posted on the IPMS deutchland website. Great insight into the behind the scenes at Eduard. It's difficult to realise, what a small orginisation they are when they are producing such superb kits, etched and resins detailing products. Thanks for posting the link. Dont become to disillusioned with the lack of responses, I am sure those that read this thread appreciate the work you have put in.
tim

Thanks Tim

we already discussed it above, I just mean this thread. The eduard report had about 1000 visitors on the first day, even though the visits on the IPMS D site go down pretty much over the last 2 weeks ---- weather is great here, lots of other things to do and since yesterday we have the World Cup - otoh I watch TV and browse the net plus do some modelling from time to time

all the best

Steffen

Oh oh...you two gents are sooooooo lucky to do that! I would love to go on a model safari! Hurry home safely so we can read all about it!

Hi Steffen

Thanks for the museum report. Some of the finds look very poignant and the displays appear sensitively done. There's also some really interesting material for modellers - the drop tank for starters, and (as you mention in your article) the tread pattern on the Bf 109 tyre.

I'll certainly try to visit one day.

All the best

Rowan

Thank you both!

Fred: we are home already since over a week, but writing the articles and preparing the photos really takes some time. I will cross link the three articles once they are done...

Tim: forgot to answer earlier. Eduard is quite a big model manufacturer they have 80 employees. Their philosophy is to do much as possible inhouse (e.g. Mr. Sulc said their own decals are also very good but Cartograf is ... Cartograf) in contrary you will see that MPM has only 30 people working for them plus a lot of freelancers for master modelling, design and so on. They concentrate on the plastic and CMK on the resin and the rest is bought ... otoh it looks a lot more like "model factory" there (but they also do stuff for others)... they have 7 IM machines running / Eduard has 2 plus 1 for clear sprues only

Rowan: well, the musem is pretty small, but as you see from the pix it is very well done. And as we had the tour with Jan one day was almost to little time.

all the best

Steffen

Hey All....
This is a really good thread (feature) you have here. I have enjoyed the whole thing even the German part Look forward to whatever else you are going to add ..
Thanks
Kelly

Hi Steffen

That's amazing - the difference in the way Eduard and MPM are set up. I always imagined that Eduard would have more injection moulding machines, but they obviously must have their production capacity tailored precisely to their needs.

Did you get to see the CMK operations while you visited MPM?

All the best

Rowan