The Little World

If you go to your scale model club expecting that your day will be one of production and artistry…

Oy, have you got the wrong vampire…

Your club visit is, perforce, a visit to a society of like-minded individuals. The business of scale building is your excuse to go in the door, but you need not do much of it to justify the day. That is why I plan my Men’s Shed day carefully, with simple activities that can be worked away at without needing a surgeon’s concentration. There will be distractions, and rather than give way to frustration at them, one should regard them as the feature of the day.

Pure, concentrated, modelling work can be done at the home workbench when family gunfire subsides. Things that need long clamp or set times are better in a home workspace at a leisurely pace. Better undisturbed than hauled halfway across town twice in the space of three or four hours.

By all means gain information at the club – many minds mean many points of view on any scale subject. Take them as a whole, discard persistent anoraking, and profit from the rest. Watch the genuine expert as they do some task and see if they know a trick that would help you.

And learn to leave when you have done enough, heard enough, or seen enough. Go home and digest those thoughts.