Category: 1:72 scale
-
De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part Eight – The Colour Lab
When I set myself the task of finding an effective workflow, I decided to make it as realistic as possible. So I cut 16 MDF board tablets to 2 x 3 inches and sprayed them with standard Tamiya primer. Some grey, some white, and some red oxide. The Tamiya product in a can has always…
-
De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part Seven – Challenges Must Yield To Science!
Part Six of the DH Mosquito Mk II saga showed the dull and sad paint job that I ended up with after failing to think properly about what I was doing – I sprayed a matting acrylic too heavily and cured it under too high a temperature. I regarded the result as a failure on…
-
De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part Six – A Day of Challenges
The markings day has become a day of challenges. Of mistakes and discoveries. It has seen the finishing of the model, but not quite in the way that I expected. a. The markings for the squadron code were nowhere to be found in my stash of decals nor in our local shops. T,W, and Z…
-
De Havilland Mosquito – Part Five – Can I Make A Mess?
Or can I what? Here are the in-progress shots of the Great Masking Adventure as it unfolded. Since it was entirely new ground, I cannot be sure whether I was doing it right. But the fact that nothing caught fire has to count as something good… Here’s the overnight result – surprisingly successful, with only…
-
De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part Four – The Mask Of Comedy
Or of tragedy. I cannot be sure which it is to be until tomorrow when the paint has cured…Here is the tale of too much coffee and too much time to think. The painting of a British camouflage pattern on a model of a WW II aircraft was always easy when I was a child.…
-
De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part Three – Subassembly
I was right about the quality of the Tamiya kit – the first encounters at the dry-fit stage were excellent. No flash whatsoever, and small casting gates. In most cases the precision shears were all that were needed to separate the parts with no additional mangling. The cockpit has a great deal of detail without…
-
De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part Two – The Peek Into The Box
I must confess to a slightly pusillanimous nature when it comes to buying model airplane kits sight-unseen. I was bit by a Revell Tradewind kit as a child and the scar still throbs in wet weather. I prefer to look carefully at what I’ve got before I spend my money. Nevertheless I do read reviews…
-
De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part One – 12:35 In The Morning
6 July, 1944. Western France – near the Pas de Calais. One of HM aircraft on a Serrate mission was lost. It crashed with my wife’s uncle in it. His navigator was killed, he evaded capture, and was eventually delivered back to England by the French Resistance. He wasn’t allowed to fly over enemy territory…
-
Messerschmitt 109 – Part Four – The Production Line
I cannot think of a worse way to approach the business of being a scale modeller than that of a production line worker with a contract to produce a product in a set time. This also applies to the full-size workers who made the full-size airplanes – Some were employed and some were drafted and…
-
Messerschmitt 109 – Part Five – The Captive Bird
A surprising number of airplanes have been captured in war and returned to flying on behalf of their enemies. Some as service machines, some as decoys, and some as test beds. This might seem to be a bonus for the people who capture the enemy’s warplanes, but remember that they also need to capture the…
The Little World 