The Little World

One of the chief perils of isolation right now is the freedom it gives to you to do things:

1. Your own way. As you are cut off from the scrutiny of others and their good advice, you can take bad advice from yourself. This is the general approach of people who make home-made gunpowder or liquor.
2. The right way. You have time to let the layer of yak-dung set before you apply the next coat of lacquer, like it says in the book.
3. Any old way. Who’s gonna see it?
4. Way too little. You’ve got to conserve your resources so a one-micron thick coat of Tamiya acrylic will have to suffice. Just pray no-one ever runs a fingernail over that surface. Or looks at it with a frown.
5. Way too much. Ah, what the heck. Rivet detail isn’t all that important. Or panel lines. Note: when you cannot see the panel lines any more and the model is a 1966 Matchbox kit with raised details…it’s time to stop and go for a cup of tea.
6. A new way. No sense being hide-bound. If the book says it has been done, you can probably do it as well. Or as badly. Check your reading matter…
7. An old way. Well, if the book says it can be done with bass wood and linoleum dissolved in acid, what’s to stop you? Good sense? You’re a scale modeller. Where you gonna get that? No aisle in the hobby shop selling that in packets…
8. A scientific way. Well, it worked for Werner von Braun, didn’t it?
9. The way of your people. If this involves wearing a costume and doing a folk dance, count me out. If there’s sausage and beer I could be interested.

All this said, I intend to try an idea for spraying aircraft camouflage semi-freehand. The spray mule is a common model and I will not be downhearted if I have to metho the paint off and start again the hard way. As it is I am not exactly sure what the easy way is, either.