-
Seeing The Remnants All In One Place

Is good for the mind and bad for the soul. Or the other way round… The big boxes full of little boxes – in their turn full of unbuilt plastic kits saved from the wreck of a Perth hobby shop – that greeted me at my hobby club were an amazing sight. Part of the…
-
Queen Mary – Part Three – Hughes Transport

Or what to do with a wartime leftover… If it is a plate of powdered egg scrambled with Spam, consider how many decades have passed since VE- Day,,,If it is an old QMT, also consider what time has done to wartime metal construction – particularly British metal with British engineering. The QMT trailer is marked…
-
Queen Mary – Part Two – Club Afternoon

I frequent two hobby clubs: The One You Admit To and The One You Conceal. To be fair, I change the designations around from month to month so that everyone can feel uncomfortable… The heading image is the amount accomplished at one 3-hour session. Airfix were precise and sensible when they wanted to be; you…
-
Queen Mary – Part One – ” Can You Use This? “

Whenever someone says this to you, reply ” Yes, please…thank you. ” . It doesn’t matter whether they are offering you a gold Rolex or a tin of condemned beef – take it. You can decide what to do with it later – the offer and acceptance is the fulcrum of friendship. This Queen Mary…
-
The Curse Of The Rivet

The curse of the riveted kit is most often seen with the older moulds. The days were when it was simpler to represent the details of an aircraft fuselage or wing by drilling minute depressions in the mould block. Everyone did it, and only in the last 20+ years have they made an effort to…
-
The Scale Statue Of Ozymandias

I am very grateful to the committee for giving me one of the model airplanes built by a former club member. It is a beauty, and shows the sort of skill he had. I would willingly trade it in for him back in the club, but funerals put an end to a lot of things.…
-
Stand Off!

It looks as if the warning sign idea for exhibition tables is a success – at least in the making. The wood was purchased at the Big Clawhammer but the rest of the materials were all to hand in the workshop. Even the red and yellow paint. The later is a mix of all the…
-
Scratch-building Pack

We often encounter notes on short-run kit instructions that tell us to scratch-build some part. It may be a strut or part of an interior. Perhaps a flap or plate or even part of the undercarriage. Indeed there can be kits where the parts are provided but are of such poor quality that you are…
-
JAS 39 Gripen – Part Two – Loaded For Bear

Quite literally – whether on the ground, in the air, or on the sea. This Gripen is painted as a demonstrator model for an air show – no unit mark, no wear and tear, but a full load of missiles, tanks, and a designator pod. With a load-out this intense, I think its greatest feat…

