Category: 1:72 scale
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F-82 Twin Mustang – Part Four – Alaska Red
Sigh. So near and yet so far. The F-82 has been completed, will be displayed, and will feel like gravel in my sandal all the days of its existence. The canopies arrived, were fitted, and the job was done. But the canopies only fitted to a certain extent. They have converted a fine front-line model…
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F-82 Twin Mustang – Part Three – It’s All Clear
And that’s not a good thing… The pretty looking set of canopies with this Special Hobby kit were superb. Clear and precise, with well-defined framing. I was looking forward to painting them – perhaps masking them in place for a change. As with all anticipated pleasures, it attracted the attention of a malign universe. One…
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F-82 Twin Mustang – Part Two – Czech Out The Fit
I know what Forrest Gump felt like sometimes – particularly upon opening a Czech kit. The box of czecholates that you get can have hard centres, soft centres, or centres with no positioning tabs whatsoever. You will be challenged. In the case of the Twin Mustang the fit of the cockpits was actually reasonable –…
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F-82 Twin Mustang – Part One – SOOTB Interception
I had no idea I needed it… Until I stated googling the business of North American air interception in the late 40’s. I identified an interceptor base near to where I once lived and looked over its roster. I was amazed to find the F-82 and to read that it was an effective unit. Then…
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Patience is A Virtue
Or so we are told – by people who want to get in front of us in line at the petrol station. It is also preached for the scale modeller – by makers who give you tank tracks made up of 6 plastic parts per link or sheets of infinitesimally small brass etched parts. Their…
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Bristol Beaufort Mk I – Part Six – OTU Queen
The receipt of Mk I Beauforts by the RCAF in the early 40’s must have been a sort of a mixed blessing. They had been used on North Sea and Norwegian strikes, and then later in the Mediterranean by specially-trained squadrons of the RAF…often with Canadian crew members aboard. They had their share of successes…
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Bristol Beaufort Mk I – Part Five – Engine Night
The hot weather returning compelled me to wait until after dark to do spray painting in my workshop, but this was no bad thing. It meant the previous day’s cementation had a good time to set and would not be breaking loose unexpectedly. Engine Night, and a lesson in careful attention to detail. Not that…
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Bristol Beaufort Mk I – Part Four – A Dirty, Dirty Business
But that was life at Doukhobor Bay in the old days. Baths once a month and toothbrushing every second week… The interior of the Bristol Beaufort is pretty well complete and has received a coat of filth. Fortunately it will be hard to see inside the fuselage once it’s closed up. Just as well, it’s…
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Bristol Beaufort Mk I – Part Three – Beaufitter
I used to think women were unnecessarily fussy about their shoes and clothes – everything had to be wrinkle-free or seamless. Men were not worried about that sort of thing. Then I took up scale model kit building and realised how much I had been fooling myself. I am hella fussy about the fit of…
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Bristol Beaufort Mk I – Part Two – A Colourless Evening
It wasn’t that bad – it was an evening spent at the workbench doing the first sub-assemblies for the the Beaufort. These were things that could be brigaded up for a spray coat of colour – fortunately the Bristol company turned out most of the interior of the plane in the British Cockpit Green. There…
The Little World 