Category: 1:72 scale
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The Kit That Makes You Say Hmmm
We have all had one…and those of us with bad luck have had several kits that make us doubt whether we should have even started them. Sometimes it has been commenced in a hurry with blithe disregard to warnings from the internet. Sometimes we have been seduced by box art. Plastic porn, if you will.…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part Five – NATO Eye
Call me suspicious and cynical if you wish – I mean a person like you would…but I suspect that the ranks of photo reconnaissance aircraft are generally made up of fighter failures. They are either not fast enough, nimble enough, or well-enough armed to succeed on the battlefield, and are relegated to flying above it…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part Four – Get Thee Behind Me, Stencils…
You cannot escape decals on model aircraft – they are needed to complete everything. But they can completely ruin the job. Or your day, if you let them. I’m thinking of the friable, misprinted, graphic horrors that flow out of eastern Europe. You can tame them somewhat, but you are never really satisfied with the…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part Three – PRU Blue
I suspect there might be as many debates about PRU Blue as there are about Azure Blue but since I have been given a ready-mixed bottle of Testor’s Model Master I do not care to argue. This model also lets me use two other MM enamels thinned with lacquer thinner. The choice of type was…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part Two – The Inside Job
And a lovely job it was, too. The modern Airfix kit will please and delight the builders of cockpits as a great deal of effort has been put into this first stage. Gone are the days of a lumpy pilot figure plugged into a plastic rod from one side of he fuselage, or a bare…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part One – A Christmas Belle
Yes, I did get this for Christmas, and yes, I did select it myself. I know how to operate a holiday… This is a new Airfix kit – meaning that the plastic is a perfect consistency, the mouldings are accurate, and the instruction book is detailed enough to cope with even weird parts. There will…
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Silberner Blitz
There are some models that you build with polystyrene cement – others with wood glue. And yet others that are joined with anxiety. This is one such model – it was a superb bargain buy at a stash sale morning – and never better timed. I was on the lookout for 1930’s European airliners for…
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Spend Half Your Time Learning How To Do It Right
Then spend the rest learning how to recover when it goes wrong. All kits have flaws…if not in the box, then in the buyer. Something will go awry in the build. If you are fortunate it will be small and early, and you can fix it before you go on. These are the times that…
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Vought Crusader F-8 – Part Four – In The Med
And fresh as a daisy. I was delighted to find very clear photographic support for the French naval air service on the web. A number of the Vought Crusader aircraft that operated from the FOCH and CLEMENCEAU were photographed from the islands of those carriers while taking off or landing – and these evolutions were…
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Vought Crusader F-8 – Part Three – Between Thinners
I was torn between thinners for this Crusader. I had enough Light Gull Grey to do the upper side easily – and a new bottle of semi-gloss white for the under side. But one was a water-based acrylic and the other lacquer based. Would it matter? Was there going to be a fizzing explosion along…
The Little World 