The Little World

I rarely urge the calendar to advance – I am at an age when I appreciate every day – indeed, being retired, I frequently mistake one for another. As long as I can remember scale model club morning and garbage night, the rest of the week can dissolve.

But a special month was coming; Matchbox March. A month when I devoted myself to old Matchbox kits. If I could get ’em fresh and unbuilt I could relive old times. If they were broken and needed repair, that would be okay too. Occasionally I might make do with a Matchbox mould re-boxed by someone else…but that is still in the spirit of the thing.

The idea started with Phil Flory on his YouTube channel. This last March was an itchy time for him as I think he contracted a case of shingles, but I toasted him just the same as I build.

The Heyford was a new kit to me – it’s a kind gift from Paul. He got started on it back in the 1980’s but only to the extent of a coat of dark green matte paint on some of the wing and tail surfaces. They were still on the sprue trees. And remember this is a multi-colour kit as well.

It was not new to my sight, and thereby hangs a problem. Several examples of it in the RAF schemes are in cabinets down at my scale model club. They have been built by past members and are really done very well – rigging and everything. They are delicate things – I pulled one out to do a photo series about it and it was a nervous time.

The problem is that I doubted I could do as well. And I certainly could not use the decal sheet that was in the kit – the cover sheet had welded itself to the decals and then curled and dried. They were toast, and not appetizing toast at that. There was little prospect of obtaining a replacement sheet here in Western Australia at any price.

So, I needed to think outside the box. And fortunately a Britmodeller did that as well. He discovered a Heyford that lost the delicate dangling bits and the distinctive markings – and substituted others. I had Xtradecal roundels that matched the Matchbox ones and I could paint the tail myself.

At least the instructions were Matchbox-clear. I did not really fancy the strut to wing task but if you want a Heyford you are forced to it.

I was going to enjoy March.