The Little World

Paradoxically, nano is a big word these days. We see it every time someone has managed to make a smaller machine or discovered a smaller bit of the universe. You’ll see it in all sorts of scientific reports as well as commercial advertisements. Mind you, the makers of confectionery tend to shy away from it in their ads…though every year they make the chocolate bars smaller…

I’ve just discovered the phenomenon in the modelling world with my first kits featuring photo-etched parts. I am not sure whether to cheer or boo.

The kits are from the Czech Republic and are reasonably well-moulded. Two manufacturers are represented and they both have good decal sheets and clean parts. And there are little brass sheets containing the photo-etched bits – impossibly tiny little trim items that will complete a cockpit or an air intake. I admire the enthusiasm of the idea , but as these are 1:72 airplanes, the chance of getting the things stuck on and painted so as to improve the model are pretty slim. I suspect that the end result might very well be cruder than if they are left off.

This said from a man who performed miniature surgery for 40 years as a profession. I don’t brag about my fine motor skills and these days my eyesight is of the sort that can recognise an elephant at 5 paces…but I still have a lot more patience and control than many. How the average person is expected to cope with a photo-etched rearview mirror on a 1:72 Spitfire Vb beats me.

Perhaps it is a ploy to get the modeller so enraged at the very end of the build that he flings the model into the fire and has to go out and buy another…Cunning plan, Baldrick.