The Little World

Or what to do when you cannot get your hands round the throat of the person who designed the kit.

I make no complaint about the mould-cutting shop. Or the injection plastic line. The design department are mostly blameless as is the decal office. My venom is reserved for the acid-pocked faces of the photo-etch lab. The fiends in human form who have made the job of the scale modeller so much harder to do. Their only hope for peace is if disease takes them before I do.

It was only a small fret of brass. There were some rudder pedals that went onto the firewall very well. Two basket-work frames re-enforced the struts on the wing. All yielded to careful cutting, tweezers, and superglue. Even the air scoops on the cabin sides were simple enough to fold and attach – though later reflection told me that cross-flow ventilation on a Canadian winter ski plane was probably not the best idea…

But it finally came down to the control horns for the rudder, elevator, and ailerons. Only the first two ever had any chance of making it but the latter two were doomed. Too fragile by two orders of magnitude and requiring a major fold-over to even start with. NO – just no.

The end result was small-diameter wire bent and glued. Not as good as what was asked, but at the very limit of what could be provided anyway. I was pleased with every other aspect – and particularly so with the landing gear geometry. It needed to be straight and sturdy for the skis.