Category: 1:72 scale
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De Havilland Kate Moth – Part One – Airfix of Middle Age
Grown old in the mould – but tarted up with a new box. This Airfix model is a 1990 re-box of a series of Moths that originally hatched in 1957. It started in a plastic baggie cocoon but eventually graduated to the small cardboard box. At least that allowed Airfix more surface area to print…
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The Dwindling Stash
I am astonished to be writing this – my stash of 1:72 scale model kits is practically gone. I’m down to three and one gets done in a fortnight. Unless the wholesalers deliver some of the 2026 releases I will be forced to turn my attentions to another genre. Fortunately I have good projects in…
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Tupolev Tu-2 – Part Four – A Straight Bat
And a fair wicket. This Tupolev Tu-2 WWII bomber eventually got a NATO designation: ” Bat “. It seems to have been exported all over the place after it was second-line for the VVS. The Communist Chinese got some and there are preserved copies in their air museum – presumably Hobby Boss were able to…
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Tupolev Tu-2 – Part Three – No Fill Nowhere
Watching a friend struggle with a small-run Czech model of a P-38 Lightning has been a sobering experience. Every corner of the model as it has been constructed from tiny sub-assemblies has been filled with white plastic putty. I don’t know which one he is using, but I hope it is economical. The mutterings have…
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Tupolev Tu-2 -Part Two – The Modern Mould
Whoever makes the plans, designs, and moulds for Hobby Boss is brilliant. The kits they have put on the shelf can be simple or complex, but even in the case of the less expensive ones there is a sense of purpose and level of finish that many other makers could well copy. The fact that…
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Tupolev Tu-2 – Part One – Long On The Shelves
This model of the Tupolev TU-2 light bomber by Hobby Boss Has been seen on Perth shelves for a long time. Whether it was ignored because it was seen as too simple – a snap-kit – or too obscure remains to be seen. It is actually a technological gem The kit design breaks the fuselage…
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The Monument To Discouragement
Sits sad and alone in the public park. No-one visits it…willingly. Sometimes you arrive at a point in the building of a model kit when it makes you sad. It might be the bad fit, the broken parts, or just the lacklustre nature of the prototype. It might be the advent of a much better…
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Sikorski Sea Dragon – Part Three – Grey On Gray
I just did that to gee up the Pommie Pedants who will insist that there should never be two spellings of the colour…or the color… The helicopter is surprisingly handsome for something that hangs its engines out on stalks and puts rubbish bins in front of them. I could have asked Italeri to mould the…
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Sikorski Sea Dragon – Part Two – Changed My Mind
Not the JMSDF – this one will be the US Navy version. It has the big refuelling probe and the Gunship Grey overall finish. I was given a bottle of Model Master Gunship Grey enamel a few years ago and this is exactly the model for it. Model Master worried me for a whiie as…
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Sikorski Sea Dragon – Part One – A Matter Of Numbers
I think there is trouble in the Italeri printing works where they make the boxes for their kits. The top of the box has superb artwork depicting a Sikorski MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter in US Navy colours. One end of the box repeats this. But one end and one side are marked as MH-47E –…
The Little World 