Category: 1:72 scale
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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Shall I Break It Now Or Wait Until Later?
The people in the plastic kit companies who write out the instructions and draw the diagrams are to be admired. I would accord them all honour as I tied them to the stake and bid the firing squad take aim. Because they are very talented and artistic criminals. Their chief crime, past the price they…
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Bell Iroquois – Part Three – The Local
When my friend Terry paid his bill in model helicopters I was initially going to make a yellow and red RCAF rescue – sauvetage machine of the modern era – the bright colours were the attraction. The Italeri kit is an excellent structure to do this on – it fit together with minimal trimming of…
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Bell Iroquois – Part One – The New Currency
Move over, Dollar. Step aside, Euro. Bitcoin, I laugh at you. I have my own medium of exchange now. I am no longer tied to your paltry numbers. I am accepting payment in model kits. Recently I took a series of portrait photographs for a friend at his request. Rather than charge studio rates to a…
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If You Know You Cannot Do It, Don’t Do It.
No sense jumping off the roof with cardboard wings. But if you don’t know you can’t do it…go ahead and try. I use this principle all the time in scale model building. I have built kits that were unbuildable, finished buildings that were improbable, and built dioramas with no knowledge whatsoever of what I was…
The Little World 