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Israeli Phantom – Part One – A Kind Gift
My fortune is high – a good friend, learning of my ambition to add more modern aircraft to my Israeli desert museum, has donated a fresh Hasegawa kit. It is an E model dedicated to the USAF, but not all that far from Israeli practice, and certainly convertible for my purposes. The real desert museum…
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The Model You Always See
But can never buy. I look at websites and catalogues on-line. I would collect the paper ones if they were offered – catalogue dreaming was one of the great pleasures of childhood. There was no money for the big kits but you could still imagine building them. On a lot of the Australian screen sites…
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A Structureless Structure
The hobby club with no constitution. And no office holders, fees, or possessions. Yet it functions at two locations and has done so for years. I belong to two hobby clubs. One does have a constitution, office bearers, treasury, and possessions. It is housed by a public authority in its own club rooms and boasts…
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Do You Deserve Your Fate?
And if you don’t, but get it anyway, who is responsible? Every scale model kit that ever went into a box or bag was put there by people who hoped for something. They aspired to money, admiration, respect, or grudging acceptance. Like a marriage, really, but with sprue trees. Few of us got a decal…
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Thin Your Goo
No, that is not a euphemism for something disgusting. I mean thin your Sprue Goo for a better job. My two bottles of homemade Sprue Goo were getting pretty viscous over the months. I daresay every time the lid was unscrewed more of the solvent evaporated and the thicker the Goo got. It could be…
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Short Skyvan – Part Five – Glide Like A Brick
One can only imagine what the situation would be if one or both of the engines of the Short Skyvan quit working. It is bad enough when one of the four engines of a big airliner powers down – or when one of the military engines on a Nimrod needs to be stopped. In the…
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Short Skyvan – Part Four – Progressive!
If I were still in Canada I would probably be a Progressive Conservative. As it is I am in Australia and have become a Progressive Cementer. I assemble the fuselages of my model aircraft with a great deal less dash than I used to exhibit; I am cautious and careful and rarely glue myself to…
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Short Skyvan – Part Three – Once Seen…
Never forgotten – provided you photograph it. The inclusion of detailed interiors in scale models is not new – this Short Skyvan kit had a full set of seats for Olympic Airways passengers in the 70’s and benches for Austrian skydivers in the 2020’s. When my example served as an arctic transport in the 60’s…
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Short Skyvan – Part Two – Lavez-vous?
How many of you ignore the warnings in your model kit instructions? How many of you do not wash the kit parts as soon as you open the box? The makers all tell you to, and give as their reason the mould parting agents that may cling to the plastic after manufacture. These might act…
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Short Skyvan – Part One – Never Saw It Coming
Which is remarkably short-sighted of me – this thing is as wide as a house trailer. And as long and as high. In fact, if it had an oil stove and a porch you could take your muddy boots off in, you could park it in Peace River for the winter… Never before have I…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
