The Little World

No, that wasn’t a typo. And yes, I know I’m writing to scale modellers.

But do you? Is your hobby under control? Can you say that it does not take the bread out of your children’s mouths? Or out of your own? Or does the bank have a jug of red ink with your name on it for the annual statements?

I wish I had more money, but that is a silly thing to task myself with. I can gain tranquility much more easily by wishing I had fewer wishes. However, I too am a scale modeller and they keep whole shops full of lustful desires in cardboard boxes. Shelves of ’em. I may go in there for jars of paint but unless I’m wearing horse blinkers the wishes crowd in.

I keep my spending in check ( as opposed to cheque ) by looking at the Czechs – those boxed models from Moravia that feature the resin, photo-etch, and cockpits that don’t fit. They are sometimes of common subjects and sometimes of the most exotic oddities, but they all have one thing in common; they are surprisingly expensive.

I don’t know if they are smuggled past grim border guards as in the old days or loaded on sea containers and jammed in the Suez canal, but by the time they arrive in my suburb they have picked up a price tag that we normally only see on the top shelf of the bar in the pub. I mean selling a plastic kit for the price of a bottle of whiskey is an economic feat.

I cannot buy all the short-run Czech kits that I want. So I compromise – I buy inexpensive common ones and push the cockpits in slightly askew. With a bit of work I can get a gap between the fuselage halves and the experience is very much the same.

Another cost saver is the discovery that for most purposes the most common paints will dissolve in the most common thinners and these can be combined to make new colours. It’s a trick that they figured out in the Middle Ages. I mix up my own authentic colours from basic ingredients and label them on spare jars. In most cases my guess is as good as the maker of the expensive paint sets.

And I save further by using one set of paintbrushes for everything. As they wear out they lose bristles and become better for fine detail.