The Little World

My misquotation of Will Rogers is not meant to be disrespectful – I have always thought him one of the finest humourists that the Americas have produced. But he was long before the era of the internet and the wonderful collection of bad information that it provides.

Note that I’m not using this column to make fun of Facebook or Google again – if you want that you can go over to my general column at:

hrhoa.wordpress.com

Here in the Little World I am finding out what can be learned from the forums and the YouTube videos that pertain to modelling – particularly to painting. It is curious that the same behaviour that I can find on photography forums seems to prevail in this hobby. I’m a bit scared to go to model railway, dollhouse, and other scale forums in case I encounter equal trouble.

It’s not the bad manners and unpleasant responses that worry me – I understand that there are trolls under every electronic bridge anyway, and it wouldn’t be unusual to find them in the Little World. It’s the quality of the advice that seems to be so variable. When you don’t know but you think that there is a standard that everyone knows…and then you discover that every disparate thing is a standard to someone…

Take my enquiry one night. I wanted to make sure that I had clear colours and easy decal application for my new Brewster Buffalo model kit. I formed the opinion talking to a friend – face to face – that a coat of clear gloss varnish over the raw paintwork would be a good idea. I had the varnish, made by a firm that I trust, and what seemed to be a compatible thinner for it. So I mixed up a couple of disposable cups of it and sprayed it on the model in the paint booth.

It appears to be drying well, giving a semigloss appearance to the aircraft. This seems to reflect light back in very much the same manner that I see from wartime photographs of the real thing here in Western Australia. I’ll try the decals tomorrow, and then perhaps seal them on with a light spray of a clear semi-gloss varnish to protect them, and on to the finishing. A cheering prospect.

A cheering prospect until I Googled up doing exactly what I had just done. There were dozens of entries from people enquiring about it and the spread of advice was wider than the horizon. Apparently, even though I love the result, I have done it all wrong. Or, on the next reply, done it all right. I’ve gotten the wrong, or right, materials and either made a masterpiece or an abject failure. Had I consulted the internet before spraying the model I literally would have been paralysed.

I’ll not stop reading and watching – there are marvellous YouTube blurbs from Humbrol about their modelling products – and I do believe them as they’ll show you the things happening right on camera. I hope to find similar helpful material from Tamiya and Creos, though I realise that they may not be as facile with the English language as the Humbrol team. I also have great faith in a couple of European modellers who actually do whatever it is they preach right there in front of you.

I realise that there are many ways up a mountain, as I have seen this in photography. I do wish, however, that the road signs were printed and posted with some sort of consistency.