The Little World

Jacksons Art Supplies – or Drawing Supplies, if you prefer, is a dangerous place to visit. Like Officeworks, Bunnings, or Dan Murphy’s you are surrounded by too many temptations to resist them all – you inevitably succumb to buying something and there’s the food money for the week gone. The kids will just have to go hungry again.

In my case I buy art supplies that can be turned to modelling use; foam core boards, matt boards, teeny little brushes, and the latest discovery; artist’s rubber eraser.

I remember drafting erasers from my father’s home offices as crumbly big cubes of tan rubber – effective for pencil work, useless for biro. Too expensive to take to school. This is nothing like that at all.

Think of it as Blu Tack with less tack – a soft, rubbery mass that can be pushed into all the crevices where you don’t want paint to spray. Unlike Blue or Green Tack, it has very little adhesion – once the job is done it rolls right out of the wheel well or cockpit with no leftovers clinging to the model.

It is particularly useful for occluding the front of a radial engine cowling.

And best of all, it seems to be infinitely re-usable. Somehow it absorbs the paint and just kneads up as fresh as ever. It’s a Faber Castell item – just ask the lady for it.