Category: 1:72 scale
-
Lockheed Lodestar – Part Two – Knifing A Lockheed

Those of you who have never seen me in a tee-shirt may be a little startled at the top image. I am hoping it has that effect on the owners of the construction company that used to own the Lockheed Lodestar CF-TDI…the one I am building at present. I sent them a letter yesterday asking whether…
-
Lockheed Lodestar – Part One – Personal Plane

I just barely squeaked into respectability – this column was typed on the 31st of December at about a quarter to midnight. The respectable part was actually starting a kit within the year of buying it. A slow builder, not a hoarder… The Lockheed Lodestar leapt at me from the shelves of Metro Hobbies and…
-
Doing A Little Jig

And ‘tis not even St. Patrick’s Day, begorrah. I’ve been watching the YouTube modellers painting their planes and cars and musing about the business of the production jig. You’ve read about this before here in the Little World as I glue together bits of foamcore board to support aircraft during the painting process. I think…
-
Boulton Paul P82 – One Special Day

One special day in 1938 the Boulton Paul P82 – the turret fighter that was to become the Defiant – was rolled out onto a field for the men from the Air Ministry to look at. They had seen it without its turret nine months earlier, but this time it had teeth. It was still…
-
Yakovlev-3 – Part Four – The Silver Bird

Encouraged by the silver paint coat on the Yak-3 I went ahead and added the decal stripes and stars. The decals were good – they released quickly but were not fragile and I surprised myself with how well the red side stripes went. The fact that the pre-decal clear coat was Mr. Hobby Superclear UV…
-
Yakovlev-3 – Part Three – The Dreaded Instrument

I used The Dreaded Instrument on helpless victims for 40 years. Oblivious to the screams and the smell of burning flesh, I pressed onwards in a mad orgy of torture. The only thing that would stop me was the end of the day or running out of electricity. In short, I was a dentist. And…
-
Yakovlev-3 – Part Two – It Fits…

It fits…where it touches. And this is a no-touch model… It was all going swimmingly ( until the modelling bench hit the iceberg and the band started playing ” Nearer, My God, To Thee… ” and I was cheerfully impressed with the cockpit tub of the new Amodel Yak-3. The fuselage sides have a useful,…
-
Yakovlev-3 – Part One – Never Slow Down Past The Kit Aisle

I was just going to Hobbytech for a pot of paint…I told myself…I noticed that my lacquer bright silver was running very low and I wanted to stock up. The paint aisle was easy – I found the Mr Color Bright Silver and grabbed it. They make a number of other forms of silver paint…
-
The Positive And Negative Mask

If there is one thing that model airplane building brings you to, it is the knowledge of how to do masking. You may do it badly or well, but you will be doing it for nearly every model you work on. I’ve just been taping up the Grumman Duck and it has prompted me to set…

