Category: Chinese models
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Soviet ZIS-5 – Part One – The Red Army Truck

I have been the recipient of a very kind gift yet again – this Hobby Boss model of a Red Army ZIS-5 truck was purchased in Singapore at a very good hobby shop and came to me at a very advantageous price… The box art is stirring, but the basic truck looks plain. Inside, however,…
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H-34 Choctaw – Part Two – The SMCWA Club Build

Tuesday mornings are sacred round here – that is the morning I get to go to the SMCWA clubrooms and build a scale model. Ignore the fact that I have two other modelling stations – here inside and out in my shed. Ignore the airbrush booth and the assembly bench and the rack of 157…
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H-34 Choctaw – Part One – Third Little Indian

The naming convention for US Army helicopters uses the Indian tribes of the nation – a delightful thing. This is the third helicopter in the collection with a tribal connection. There are more helos in the display cabinet, but they are either civilian or international versions that adopt their own names. So far I only…
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The Rise Of The Decal

Once upon a 1950’s time, when all good boys deserved models, there were large airplanes with small sheets of decals. Then times changed and the proportions reversed. As a 1:72 builder I am dealing with the small end of the market…small as to individual size but large as an overall genre. It is ideal for…
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General Dynamics F-16 – Part Two – Having A Grey Fit

Like a pink fit, but more gentlemanly. You can clip a Hobby Boss kit together at nearly any stage of the build. I’d painted the wheel wells on the F-16 prior to trying the ordnance onto it and was curious to see whether there would be much filling and sanding needed. None at all if…
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General Dynamics F-16 – Part One – The John Plane

Making friends with other model builders is a good idea – they sometimes have large stashes of kits that they bought a long time ago…but have forgotten. They may have changed scales in the meantime. Then they remember you and the scale you build. And make you a wonderful present of an unbuilt kit or…
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Convair F-106 – A NORAD Quickie

I have taken to an amusing game when I photograph dancers at their concerts or for portraits – when they ask me the cost of the finished files or videos I tell them about my model airplane hobby. I ask them to pay their bill by purchasing a 1:72 scale model airplane kit that I…
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Ess Bend Engineering – Part Three – Boxing Clever

I used to wonder at some of the kits I saw in the hobby shop – kits that seemed to be of such mundane subjects that I didn’t think anyone would ever be interested. Wrong. Wrong on many levels. I got the first indication of this when I saw the late, great, John Evans building…
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Ess Bend Engineering – Part Two – Now You Sea One

And I wish you could sea two. The Trumpeter kit for a 40′ sea container is a beauty – and as it came under the wing of an EOFY sale by Hobbytech, I seized upon it gleefully. I would have been even more delighted if it had been a pair of 20′ containers as these…
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Yak 3 – Part Three – Portable Yak

When you build model kits you need not do it in just one place. I have four locations at which I can endeavour to cut my fingers and damage table tops; two at home and two in other premises. If I was a travelling salesman who was sleeping in a different hotel every night I…
