Category: 1:35 scale
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” Model Not Recommended For Novices “

I have seen this on reviews and appended to the end of kit boxes. It warns the unwary that the designers have exceeded their dosage again and moulded up something that is near-on impossible to build. It is even more poignant when it appears next to a completed model – making you wonder if somewhere…
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Historical Friends

I hope that’s right – I tried ” Hysterical Friends ” and the auto-correct passed that as well… One of the groups I belong to is called ” Historical Modelling Friends “. We meet either at the Cambridge Public Library in Floreat or at my studio in Willetton. The sessions are always modelling afternoons –…
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Canadian Valentine Tank – Part Four – Borden Baby

Or ” The Jolly Green Midget “. Say what you will about the green paint on this Valentine, it is the closest I can get to the distinctive colour on this tank and an adjacent Matilda as they sit in the CFB Borden museum right now. The colour illustrations that show these are taken in…
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Canadian Valentine Tank – Part Three – World of Wheels

I get on quite well with wheels in my model aircraft building – because I normally only have to paint three of them for each plane. Open a tank kit and start counting the round objects. No matter who made it – Germans, Russians, or British, they all decided that more wheels were better and…
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Canadian Valentine Tank – Part One – Well You Had Me At…

At Canadian, actually. Anything with a maple syrup glaze. This was not a model I saw in a local shop – it was ordered from the eastern states after a dangerous internet browsing session. It came with another Canadian armoured vehicle, but unfortunately I had not looked closely at the web page – that one…
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Canadian Valentine Tank – Part Two – Semi-Detailed

I am alternately delighted and dismayed when I see the interior of a model kit. It may be anything from fully-detailed to absolutely bare, and even the walls of the cockpit or interior of the tank or car may be problematical. There are moulds that concentrate their ijector pin towers right where you are looking.…
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To Paint Or Not To Paint

That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to coat the photo etched brass parts of your kit with the same paint as the injected plastic ones and let them sink into oblivion or to leave them unpainted and declare your skill and investment to the world. For those of my clubmates who might feel I…
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Ponder Shelf – Part Two – The Iron Boxes

1/35 scale vehicles and accessories – a new standard. You can hardly fail to notice the 1/35 scale vehicle and military market. Tamiya started it, continues it, and shares it with any number of other makers. There are aisles of tanks, trucks, troops and trash cans in every hobby shop and the kits in the…
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Renault R-35 – Part Six – Hit Me With That Rhythm Stick

Or a German tank shell – because that seems to be what the French armoured corps were hoping for when they thought up their paint scheme and then added tricolour insignia at all the best aiming points. I realise that they did not know what they were up against, nor what to do about it,…

