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When A Whim Pays Off
And I don’t mean just chasing ladies down the street… I had a whim, based upon a Christmas present. I’d received two lithium-ion batteries for the Ryobi 18+ system from the wife. They were intended to help me mow the studio lawns with an electric mower. All clear so far. Being Temu products, we decided…
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The Mask
And I don’t mean Jim Carrey. I may be crazy about my hobby, but there are limits… It was Windows Day at the Little Workshop. Again, I need to clarify; this means I was masking windows on a scale model airplane – not seething in rage and frustration at clunky computer commands. I use an…
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Was It Edison?
Who said he had discovered 10,000 ways that you could not do something before he made a successful electric lightbulb? I feel like that sometimes dealing with the scale modelling world. Whether it is painting or moulding, soldering or carving, there seems to be a long and winding road always ahead of me. A case…
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A Good Reason
Vs no reason at all. If you want a history of design you have no further to look than the RFC/RAF roundels. Airborne identification is very sensible indeed – people bent on murder need to positively identify their enemies. The roundel, cross, star, or other symbol on an aircraft wing lets you see it at…
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You Lose Points…
Whenever I see a contest that starts with the premise that you have a certain number of points to lose – and the winner will be the one who loses least – I lose interest. If I want to be belittled, I have a family at home. No need to do it in a drafty…
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Mirage III CJ – Part Five – The Cavalry
That was the phrase used to describe the Mirage IIIC in a recent YouTube story about the Yom Kippur war. Apparently two Israeli F4 Phantoms were engaging a vastly greater number of MiGs that were trying to destroy a desert airfield. The Mirages were touted as the cavalry coming to save the Phantoms, but I…
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Mirage III CJ – Part Four – Who’s Hiding?
And from whom? Where are they lurking? Is it all just nonsense these days? I have no idea – I presume the various air forces have worked out how to hide in the air with grey paint and rubber knobs on every sharp point of an aircraft. The business of greying out national insignia to…
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Mirage III CJ – Part Three – Let’s Give The Customers Something…
What shall it be? Accurate instruction sheets? Flawless mouldings? Adequate colour information? I have it – let’s just give them trouble. It’ll be fun and cheap and we can do it by making bad decisions. Like avoiding a centre seam on the top of the Mirage fuselage that could be smoothed and polished easily –…
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Mirage III CJ – Part Two – The Approximate Cockpit
I confess myself mystified at the philosophy that spends money to mould a resin seat of truly superb quality and then cannot make adequate provision to anchor it accurately within the fuselage. I admit that it is unlikely to escape once the two halves of the thing are cemented together, but the business of deciding…
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MiG 3 – Post Script
Looks like I was barking up the wrong tree – or at least one containing different squirrels. The MiG 3 kit I reported on – with the home-made canopy – came with an Italeri instruction sheet. I assumed they were the authors of the mould, and was a little nonplussed at some of the quality…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
The Little World 