The Little World

I knew I’d do it. I made a report about our group’s stand at the recent WASMEX scale model show and I missed out one of the photographs I’d taken. That’s it in the heading image.

It’s a large scale model of a Lancaster bomber that was made and finished by two other chaps in the group. Not allowed in the WASMEX competition, it was nevertheless a great looking addition to the stand and I was impressed by several aspects of it:

a. The sheer size. I’ve built an RCAF Lancaster Air-Sea rescue plane from an Airfix kit in 1:72 and thought that big – this one blew me away.

b. The removable engine covers. the two port-side engines were displayed open with the folded covers underneath them. I’m not sure if there is a fastening system that attaches the covers for other display, but it was fun to look in at the engines.

c. The acrylic cabinet. Now here we’re getting somewhere.

All of us have dealt with dust on models in the past. In some cases it is the one factor that really destroys realism – I remember trying to keep it away from the surface of textured acrylic sheet when I used that material to represent water. It was for 1:1200 scale waterline ships. I’m sorry to say I wasn’t all that successful – the ocean-going ships looked like they were sailing the Sargasso Sea most of the time.

One thing that did help was zapping the layout with a Zerostat gun from my vinyl record collection. But it never really stayed clean until I boxed it.

With the big Lanc model the acrylic cover is on several locators to make sure it goes safely over wings and tail. Of course there’s a bit of plastic cover polishing, but that’s better than constant dusting and sneezing.

While I’m at it, here’s another view of the very clever stand arrangement that supports the 1:72 RAF Victor tanker and Sepecat Jaguar.

I have a feeling that if the modeller decides to make more fighters and attack aircraft of the period, he can add them to the diorama – the stand has areas where similar structures can butt into place. That’s good forward thinking.