The Little World

One of my friends has posted a picture on Facebook of an Airfix De Havilland Tiger Moth kit he’s building. He’s selected the RAF version in A/B camouflage and from the picture it looks delightful. He noted that it cost him $ 11 – and mentioned me as a cheap and cheerful modeller.

Oh, if only it could be always so. I love a bargain when I do not have to haggle for it and will soldier on with some of the oddest old clothes, cameras, and kits for as long as they can be worn, worked, or built.

If you are an inveterate spender and changer I must be a nightmare to view – I am always converting something to another purpose, saving clean containers for storage, or repairing something that someone else would discard.

Case in point – I dropped one of my Melbourne Cups in the bathroom sink and chipped the edges – it’s an enamelled metal one.

Rather than wail about it and throw it away, I took it out to the shed and mixed up a lacquer paint to match the damaged areas to the original.

I daresay it will carry on and I will keep calm.

The same applies to the model kits. Some of the horrors in boxes that are sitting in my stash…Moulds that have been sold off numerous times and eventually fetched up in the far east or behind the Plastic Curtain. They are lessons in their times.

Am I wailing about raised panel lines? Am I sanding them flat and spending weeks re-engraving them? Am I trying to trick up a 1956 98 center with $ 50 of brass and resin?  I am not. I’m eccentric, not nuts.

Cheap is good. If you get to spin the wheel legitimately for free you still have a chance of getting the three crowns. If your old 50¢ Airfix baggie gives you a week’s worth of amusement and four weblog column posts it is a gold mine.

And That is a good basis for cheerful.

Note: I mourn the loss of the modelling shows this year – while sensibly shutting up in the face of far more serious troubles that have afflicted others. But I do like the swap meets and bring-and-buy sales. I’ve a half dozen gems in the cabinet from these affairs.