The Little World

Scale model builders are in an enviable position; they are considered harmless and childish. This is ideal cover from which to snipe at passers-by…

a. Build a perfectly standard kit of a common airplane. Perhaps a Spitfire, Mustang or Messerschmitt. Pick an average kit, and it need not be an expensive one.

Assemble the fuselage well, so that there is no top or bottom seam visible. Take some time to smooth and fill here.

The use a razor saw to cut the fuselage apart from front to back along a side section. The re-cement the parts together, but leave a visible seam. Continue with the build and finish it well, without hiding that side seam.

Display it but say nothing. Just watch the viewers.

b. Build a standard three-wheel airliner like a DC-4 or 707 but close and putty up the nose wheel doors. Open a similar set of doors at the tail of the aircraft and set in a tail wheel. Weight it if necessary to get it to set down on the tail. Finish to a high standard and put out on display.

c. Build a normal tank kit of a highly common prototype – a Sherman or a Tiger or some such.

Do not put tracks, sprockets, wheels or rollers on. Put four truck wheels and tyres on each side and try to get just enough leaf springs behind them to suggest a real suspension.

Finish it clean and put a label on it as ” Manufacturer’s special prototype 1943 “. When you show it, wait for the club anorak to tell you that he saw one of them at Bovington or Aberdeen, and you have the wrong green…

Ask him for pictures…

d. Paint up a really good resin figure of the Duke Of Wellington with a light blue face. Wait for the howls to start and then ask whether or not they think the hands should be RLM 65.