The Little World

Put aside your politics, folks. I’m concerned with the practicalities of scale modelling when they call a lockdown in your area.

If you’re at home to stay for a period of time, your best friends are not the TV or the cocktail cabinet. They are your library and your modelling stash. And possibly your computer, if you do not let it muscle in and take over your life. See the note above.

If your library contains all the great works of literature, I need not go on. If you have read a good portion of it, you will probably go there again after reading this column and pick out another book. Try not to break the binding…the cheap editions can be fragile.

The stash is the basic woodpile for your modelling stove. if you have been wise enough to stock it up in the summer, you’ll be able to keep warm and busy all winter. Feel free to use this analogy on the family.

But remember that you will also need to keep the paint, thinner, and other consumables up to a usable level. If your local hobby shop has been plundered by other hoarders before you , consider on-line orders. They may be a tough call for volatile liquids, but you can sometimes locate very useful substitutes at car-supply outlets or DIY centres. If you suspect a solvent is a little hot, test it on your styrene and try undercoating before you spray it.

Note that a packet of sandpaper strips or knife blades will outlast most lockdowns by a long time. No need to go mad there.

Plan your stash to be things that you will actually enjoy building and value when completed. No good being the king of junk when it is all finished.

Look at your hobby space critically now and see if it will sustain a concentrated modelling spree without being a mess all the time. You need not be minimalist but you must be organised. If you are currently saving every cardboard box you ever bought since 1957, it may be time to call Cleanaway and ask for a big skip bin.

Look at the hobby space and see if it has good lighting, a convenient tabletop, and good airflow – either hot or cold. Make sure the radio or sound system works and pumps out music that you like. Don’t model in front of TV. Save that for a different part of the day, as a break from the workbench.

Be careful how much you eat and drink during your enforced stay. You want your health to be as good or better than when you start in.

It’s no fun to be cooped up when you want to be out and doing, but you can make it easier and more fun than you’d think.