The Little World

In my other three weblog columns I used the lockdown earlier in the year to write about the business of social distancing, working from home, getting supplies, and being brave and stouthearted. I didn’t give it a tinkle here in the Little World – and it wasn’t until I watched the Flory Vlog that I thought of doing it.

The Flory Vlog is the almost-daily show that Phil Flory hosts from Devon in the UK for a world-wide audience of subscribers. He’s recently expanded it to YouTube so that even if we do not pay, we still watch. I am eternally grateful to the man for the shows he puts on as they have steered me right more often than not and buoyed me up while in hospital a couple of years ago. I’m not sure I’d be clever enough with a computer to participate in his forums but I did think of ordering some of his modelling tools and supplies.

However, his supply factories in China were shut and he furloughing his business as far as shop visits until the end of the year. No model shows in the UK to attend and only the on-line shop in Doncaster to deal out of. I do hope he has the financial resources to help him carry on.

As it is, he has apparently got plenty of models to be going on with at his workbench. His videos showed him tackling a ropey Mach 2 VC 10 tanker as well as some other, better kits in a summer of difficult builds.

As for myself, I found that the scale model hobby came along again at a perfect time of life. Retirement with no employment would have been dreadful. Lockdown with nothing but a television screen even worse. The dread of the pandemic was bad enough – and real enough – to cripple any mind that had no other resource to turn to. Some might turn to religion – I’ve turned to styrene kits and the computer keyboard. And I’m delighted with it all.

The thing might have been close-run had it not been for the fact that my local hobby shop has remained cautiously open. And the interstate on-line shop has been excellent with offers and deliveries. I do not have a 1000-plane stash, but I can build on something all day, each day. And so far even the simplest of little old neglected kits have brought joy.

The uncertainty of supply ( and I have no idea how much is really uncertain…) means that I’ve decided to conserve my stocks of paint and finishing materials. I discovered that I could make some of them stretch further. I suspect that a lot of the oddities I have bought in the past are perfectly good finishes and cements and that all I need to do is to learn how to use them. I am doing this, and am determined to throw away only empty bottles and squeezed-out tubes.

The problem with Phil Flory’s suppliers has also prompted me to look at the basic needs that a plastic or wood modeller has and to see if things from our local DIY shops can be adapted. The business of fancy sanders and polishers is all very well, but I suspect I can make these for myself with abrasive papers contact-cemented onto tongue depressor sticks. A super-thin glue bottle was refilled with PVC pipe solvent and the airplanes stuck together just fine. Hardware store super-glue was no different from that sold in the hobby shop, except for being a third of the price.

Even the basic measurement of how thick to spray paint onto a model was looked at. In the past I have favoured a thicker toy-like coat of paint. I experimented with thinner ones and more realistic finishes. Older bottles of water and alcohol-based acrylics got a run again in some paint jobs. There’s a lot of bottles to use up, and many of them produce as fine a finish as the lacquer equivalents if you know how to spray them.

I didn’t enjoying the anxiety of the viral pandemic. I missed my modelling club days. The computer meetings were not the same as seeing my mates in person. But the little worlds of RCAF WET DOG, Wet Dog Regional, and Steins Air World museum continued apace. I am still as sane as I was, …and you can stop sniggering down the back there…

Forward to 2021 and airplane flights and travel to the model shows. Please.