The Little World

A guide to being the strangest one in the room.

If you’ve only built a Mustang, Spitfire, and Messerschmitt, you are probably going to fit right into any scale modelling group. Not so much if everyone else is into doll houses or anime, but you never can tell. But if you want to really stand out of the crowd, try shopping in the unwanted section of the hobby shop.

Some kits leave the factory on a pallet or in a sea container – hundreds of them at a time. Some leave individually, thrown out of the window – these are the ones that make their way to the unwanted section. They are just waiting for you to pass by all unwary. They leap into your shopping cart and you are through the till and out in the street before you know what hit you. Some hobby shops close the door, turn off the lights, and hide behind the counter.

When you get the oddity home, do not open it until you have googled Scalemates. If this useful site has a flashing red warning light and the phone number of a counsellor, you’ll know you’ve got the genuine article. Put on gardening gloves and a welding helmet and see what you’ve got.

Some kits are pleasant surprise. They may be box scale from the early 1800’s and most of the parts warped into corkscrews, but that is just a modeller’s challenge. No pain, no gain, and these kits will give you all the gain that your nerves can stand.

Other boxes open to a sterner aspect. You may be confronted with raw wooden blocks ( sand this into a ship’s radar array ) or strips of plastic and a diagram ( bend strip to make the radial engine ) or even tissue paper ( just cry ). There may be no actual instructions, but a sheet of photos taken in a museum. The paper model is an honourable and detailed thing, but not if the box says ” ezy-bilt 1 Hour “. They never specify which hour…