The Little World

Close focus is a subject that I take particular interest in with my photography columns – since I make scale models, I like to take pictures of them. I have special lenses for this, and lots of sneaky photographer’s tricks to make things look bigger than they really are.

But it also applies even before the model gets into the studio:

a. I am short sighted – this means in anatomical terms that my eyeballs are too long for correct focus at infinity. This has been the way it was since I was 8 years old, and spectacles are so much a part of me that I really could not imagine life without them. They restrict my field of vision, but if they were removed i would probably feel a real sense of optical agraphobia. – or so I thought.

As I got older the eyes changed – and the changes were followed by attention from the various ophthalmologists that I have seen. I cannot tell you exactly how many pairs of glasses I have had since a child, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it amounted to over 75 pair. Now that I am 70, cataracts may need attention, and the optometrist holds out the thought that I may be able to dispense with glasses once this sort of thing is done. I am not relishing the idea…

But I can do something I have not been able to do before – I can take off my spectacles when painting small objects at the workbench. Bare eyesight on close objects is better than ever before and I am experimenting with doffing and donning the glasses while I work. I am not at all self-conscious about holding the tools and models close to me as I work – the clarity is its own reward.

b. The close focus can also apply to the spray booth – and now that there is a finer set of adjustments to the new airbrush, I have found that the use of the rattle can primer may be a thing of the past.

I have always been happy with the results obtained with Tamiya fine primers – white, grey, or oxide red. They spray evenly and dry down to a smooth surface. But they also spray a standard rattle can pattern – this is fine for larger models but overkill for the 1:72 scale I work in. A lot of paid-for paint goes past the model and out the exhaust fan.

But today I used the last of the grey can of Tamiya and opened a jar of Mr. Surfacer 1000. I cut it with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner and coated the new Curtiss Tomahawk with it. It seems in every way as fine and even as anything the Tamiya rattle can produced and has the advantage of much less overspray. Admittedly, there is a cleaning stage after the spray job, but this is not onerous. I shall search for a white Mr. Surfacer for use with the Coastal Command aircraft and give up the rattle cans.