Category: American aircraft
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Boeing B-17 – Part Three – A Slight Detour
My projected mail plane needs to lose the upper and ball turret. The Academy people have not supplied blanking plates for these two gun positions so I need to occlude them with some scratch building. However, I started out with the basic cockpit and bomb bay assembly. The interior is supposedly chromate green according to…
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B-17 – Part Two – What’s In The Box?
What’s in any kit box? Hopes and fears, mostly. Hopes that the kit is all there and not fractured or warped and fears that the mould may have deteriorated with time. The decals are an entirely separate class of anxiety… In this case the sprues are nice clean Academy products, which may have been nice…
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Boeing B-17 – Part One – Why Do I Buy Famous Airplanes?
Why indeed, if I don’t intend to build the famous version? Because the famous versions are what sell to other people and that’s what the kit makers manufacture. The best I can do is look at the basic structure of the thing and see if it conforms to my plans …or can be modified enough.…
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Vought Corsair F4U-1 – Part Four – Delivery In A Plain Envelope
Students of military aviation are very quickly attuned to the finer points of insignia, markings, and unit numbers. You have only to go to some of the more intense internet modelling forums to read people engaging in passive/aggressive arguments about the exact position of the ” No Step ” stencils on the Hurricane Mk XXXIV…
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Vought CorsairF4U-1 – Part Three – Thanks, Doc…
Thank you, Dr. Tamiya. I needed that. That slap in the face with a model kit: That fits together without sanding or filing. With an entire cockpit in 1:72 as a matter of course. With wing seams that need no putty. With the engine where all cylinders are part of the injection moulding and no…
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Vought Corsair F4U-1 – Part Two – Which Came First?
Well, which came first; the chikin or the tamago? Did Tamiya get a good reputation by building precise model kits or did they build precise model kits because they had a good reputation? At what point did they say to themselves ” We must make excellent products above all…”. Did they have a modelling adolescence in which…
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Vought Corsair F4U-1 – Part One – Birdcage
I wandered into Hobbytech for a bottle of paint. I came out with three bottles of paint and a Birdcage Corsair. This is why I’m not allowed in Bunnings or the beer shop unaccompanied. To be fair I was responding to an internet search session that showed the prototype XF4U-1 aircraft Vought showed to the…
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Grumman Widgeon – Part Two – Port and Cheese
I cannot decide now that the Grumman Widgeon is done and sitting on the photo floor, whether I enjoyed myself building it or not. If you go by the mis-fitting engines, nacelles, windscreen, and landing gear, it was a misery. If you looked at the wing, fuselage, and tail assemblies as they mated, it wasn’t…
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Grumman Widgeon – Part One – The Small Goose
The Sherriff’s Mini Cars shelves had some of the best and oddest kit shopping I have been able to do for some time. Stashes had disgorged treasures and/or trash and they were sensibly priced for all that. I have no idea how new the Widgeon is, not how long it may have mouldered on the…
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Boxing Day Is Only Good If You Need Boxes
And I do. In my cases I need boxes with plastic model airplane kits in them. This year I opted for the do-it-yourself-later option. I asked for gift vouchers for the local hobby shop. The good family delivered as requested and I am now cashed up for the next few months – whenever I need…
The Little World 