Category: 1:72 scale
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Atlantic Wildcat – Part Two – Look, Ma! No Instructions!

Do the wings go on the back or the front? Well, it was free. How can you complain at the lack of instructions with that in mind.? And how hard can it be to make a monoplane fighter? Not hard at all, as one afternoon at the bench showed. Even early Minicraft kits are good…
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Atlantic Wildcat- Part One – Older Than Dirt

But just as attractive. The is an Academy/Minicraft kit, which nails the age at 1996 – not really old at all, when you consider some of the fossils I have built. A donation, and welcome, but what should be done with it? Missing a canopy* but complete otherwise, with a spare tail plane and an…
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Less Can Indeed Be More

Well…more or less… This famous fashion dictum also applies to a lot of scale modelling. Those of us who model in smaller scales are often unable to apply the same structures or details that other people can achieve. We have to paint suggestions rather than cement on actual structures. We also spend less on individual…
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All My Best Models Cost Under $ 10

Because they are the poor, sad runts of the hobby shop litter – or the nearly-dead ones that just pass from stash to stash without ever getting built. I give them hope and dignity. I clip their parts off the distorted sprue trees without making noises of obvious disgust. I sand off flash and rivets.…
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Mi-2T Helicopter – Part Three – Andrusiak Air Field

It turned out nice again, eh? I was very pleased with the result of my Hobby Boss Mi-2t Hoplite helicopter kit. I couldn’t have asked for a better fit on the parts and I’m pleased to say that the masking experiment has resulted in some of the best windows and frame lines so far. The…
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Mi-2T Helicopter – Part Two – When I’m Washi-ing Windows

Wi’ nod to George Formby… My relationship to clear plastic parts and canopy windows has changed over the decades. My original plan was to cover them with cement fingerprints and I can report that my first years in the hobby were entirely successful. Even if the Mounties in Kaslo B.C. lose my 1966 fingerprints (…
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Mi-2T Helicopter – Part One – A Small Gem

And an inexpensive one, as well. I was attracted to the idea of another small helicopter and noted from Inch High Guy’s weblog that he was impressed with the standard of the Hobby Boss kits. I fully endorse this assessment, so I was happy to take the HB kit to the hobby shop counter –…
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Do Or Die-orama?

Is your little world being made around your ideas, or are your ideas being made around those of the retail trade? For some modellers – the model engineers in particular and to some extent the R/C model boaters – they are in control of their desires. Both groups make what they like…and spend a very…
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Ardently Argent

There is an El Dorado for all of us. The Spanish Conquistadors looked for a Golden Man. I am not as ambitious – I will settle for a silver airplane. I am driven by memories of shining jets and passenger liners of the great travel age. Not now, when everyone can be crammed into a…
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Egyptian Mig 21 – Part Three – O..1

When life gives you MiGs – you make MiGaid… You research the internet until you find a real picture of the model you have in the box. Colour, for preference, and well-lit if possible. You can make do with older B/W photos but be wary of other people’s colourizations or the precise artwork of virtual…
