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Scaling Up Your Scaling Down
When you are presented with requests. You give positive answers. Someone wanted decals for a model aircraft but couldn’t find them on the net. I did, but that probably wasn’t the question anyway. Fortunately the decal sheet needed was simple and illustrated cleanly in colour. Getting it onto Photoshop Elements was simple. Not so simple…
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No Kittens Were Harmed In The Making Of This Kit
But it was not for want of trying. Pets and scale model kits would be a combination made in Heaven, if Heaven involved a great deal of inconvenience and anger. Anyone who has seen a long-haired cat walk over a half-rigged biplane will know exactly what I mean. If you factor in the static electricity,…
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Boeing Clipper 314 – Part Five – A Soul At Rest
It took an extra week, but the time was worth it. The aggravating mistakes of the first Boeing Clipper 314 have been corrected. The mental image I had of the result has come into focus. I can rest easy. The duraluminium surface has been all I could ask for – taking decals perfectly and keeping…
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Boeing Clipper 314 – Part Four – The Horse
When we fall off a horse we are counselled to get right back on – before we develop a fear that would paralyse us. Sound thinking, and as I was unhappy with the finish of the Boeing 314 DIXIE CLIPPER I considered it advisable to go out and buy another kit…and finish it to a…
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Boeing 314 Clipper – Part Three – President’s Plane
When Only The Best Will Do. This aircraft – DIXIE CLIPPER – flew Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Casablanca Conference in 1943. He maintained a Douglas for Continental flights – the SACRED COW. This build fell together but as usual it also started to fall apart as it progressed. The Mr Color 2028 Duraluminium went…
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Boeing 314 Clipper – Part Two – Slicker
And as slick as only a flying boat can be – particularly if it is not an amphibian. Not too many designs of the flying boat era eschewed outboard pontoons or floats. Whether they were local or overseas designs, few used the hull-and-sponson configuration to stop the boat tipping to the side once landed. And…
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Boeing 314 Clipper – Part One – It’s Not Old Gold
It’s new – in the shops and on my workbench. If you have never built a certain model made by a certain manufacturer of a certain aircraft, it is, by definition, a new model. It might be reissued, it might be remaindered, it might be stash-sold…no matter. You and that model are meeting for the…
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Sit Up
Beg. Roll over. Die for the Queen. Good modeller; here’s your trophy. Now go lie on your mat and chew it. Perhaps it’s not really like that. Maybe the scale modelling contest is an instrument of culture and craftsmanship that rewards excellence and encourages the development of skills and good moral tone. Perhaps the committee…
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What’s The Biggest Headache In Model Aircraft Kits?
Is it gaps in the joints? Impossibly big sprue feed gates? Dodgy decals? Nope – the worst thing about a model aircraft kit is the landing gear. Unless you’re building a flying boat ( and they have their own problems ) you will encounter your worst moment with the legs. Your problem will be balanced…
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The Fifty Cent Fighter Plane
Sixty years on. My allowance in the eighth grade was 50 Canadian cents per week. It was more than adequate for my needs as I was stuck in an Alberta bush construction camp with no shops anywhere. Our one shopping trip a month went to Drayton Valley and by then I’d built up $2.00 pressure…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
The Little World 