Category: British aircraft
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Tasman Airspeed Oxford Mk I – Part Four – While The Goo Sets…
Busy your hands, to stop your mind from screaming. The engine cowlings on this model have become a standard mark in my workshop. They form the nadir from which anything else is better. I have joined the halves and lit a votive candle. The interior is bare, but surprisingly neat. It is simple, of course,…
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Tasman Airspeed Oxford Mk I – Part Three – Oh, Just Grit Yer Teeth…
Pull up your Big-Girl panties, and get on with it. It’s not going to make itself. The first thing that has to go is the upper turret. Tasman have made a decent job of it, and the whitemetal gun mount will be saved for the future, but the aircraft I’m modelling has no turret. so…
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Tasman Airspeed Oxford Mk I – Part Two – The Apology
At least Tasman Models are scrupulously honest. They recognised the problems of short-run manufacturing and the times when it just doesn’t come out like a Disney movie. The under-wing parts of this model apparently were consistently short-shooting at the wing tip. They realised it , modified the panel on the mould, and added two extra…
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The Disappointment
I read a review once in a modelling magazine that was quite scathing about a brand of short-run kit: Merlin. I don’t pay too much attention to this sort of bagging as I have made quite decent aircraft out of kits that other people would avoid. The garage kit may look bad to start with…
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Westland Lysander – Part Two – Fragile Nest
I was right to wonder about the fragility of the cockpit on this Dora Wings kit. Even at the outset, some parts did not come off the sprue trees intact. Fortunately there are pieces of Evergreen plastic in the scrap box that match the profile of the broken pieces. The fact that the greenhouse is…
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Is Your Kit Pre-Painted?
A friend once showed me a model kit in very small scale – 1/144 or smaller – that was pre-painted by the maker. It was delightful to look at, in a sort of toy-like manner. The makers had finished the fighter in camouflage but I think there were a choice of decals that could be…
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Bristol Belvedere – Part Three – The Mehcopter
Cue enthusiasm…reboot…reboot. I think this is the first of the Airfix Vintage Classics that has disappointed. It is undoubtedly what it was in the original release, but like the original Blackburn Buccaneer, the Hovercraft, the Fairey Rotodyne, and the prototype Harrier, it strangely fails to please. Perhaps Airfix were precipitate in issuing something that was…
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Bristol Belvedere – Part Two – How Right They Were
This kit has all the appeal of a Revell re-box. The two halves of the fuselage may have been pulled out of the mould while still hot and allowed to cool on a window sill. The result is a progressive rolling distortion that will never allow the parts to join in one cementation I decided…
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Bristol Belvedere – Part One – Dire Warnings
And why I never heed them… This kit appeared in my local hobby shop before I read a review of it. It was reasonably priced, a Vintage Classic, and a type I had never built before. I forked over the cash and took it home. The review was not mealy-mouthed; it said this was the…
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RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Two – Missing The Point
The new Airfix Wellington Mk II has a full set of interior parts. These are proper injection moulded parts – not resin bits on a block or impossible slivers of brass. If you follow the very detailed instruction diagrams you can end up with a fully kitted-out bomber interior. Yet Airfix suggest that you can…
The Little World 