The Little World

And the occasional jet pokery, too. In fact poking plays a great part in a lot of my builds – I need to poke myself to get enough enthusiasm to even start.

The Vertigo jet jig has the marvellous feature of a two-part clamp on the front to secure the nose of an aircraft from moving forward. The flipping pads on the wings can deal with various sorts of wing but there is always a point at which an elastic band can be hooked. Like, I’m hooked on using them.

The advantage of a model that doesn’t move in an unexpected fashion is massive. I use the bases as handles for lifting and holding models at odd angles once they are strapped down. People who attend ” special ” clubs apparently know this as well, though I wish they wouldn’t tell me.

It is also a dead-set cert that you’ll need a third or fourth hand when it comes to cementing landing gear or ordnance on the undersides. If you need to prop up the gear while it sets – and this is unfortunately the case with a lot of Czech kits that try to construct a tower of sticks and struts under there – you can use kneadable eraser or foam blocks. Real solvent cement is actually a better choice than most cyanoacrylates if you can hold the pieces in register long enough.

I’m mentally designing some mini-scaffolding for this – and once the idea has gelled I will go to Toys ‘R Us to see if there are still tinker toy or other construction sets that will do it.