Category: Chinese models
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Lockheed Starfire – Part One – My First Airplane
If the first plastic model kit I remember building was a Revell 5-ship set in the mid-1950’s, the first plastic airplane kit I remember seeing was a Lockheed F-94 Starfire. It was being built By Mike Baker – a kid across the street. He was also engaged in building a wooden model of a B-50,…
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Australian Hurricane – Part One – The Oncer
I was surprised as I could be to see a set of markings on an Australian 1:72 decal sheet that were purported to be for a Hawker Hurricane. I thought the RAAF never had them here in Australia. As it turned out, I was nearly right – they had one. The plane, V7476 was sent…
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Northrop P-61 Black Widow – Part One – My Second Widow
Ninth grade – Christmas in Calgary, Alberta. The tree held a number of real surprises…a Guillows SE5A and and Aurora 1:48 Northrop Black WIdow amongst others. It was the first time I had ever seen the aircraft and I was astounded. The Aurora kits were fun for their time but their time was a long…
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Never Mind Washing Your Hands
Wash your Handley Page. If you won’t do it carefully, just do it for the Halifax… We all need to wash our mitts more these days to prevent the transmission of the Wuhan Plague and hopefully we will all do so – but what we really need to do is wash our model kits better.…
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Grumman Wildcat – Part Four – Neutrality Patrol
This colour scheme on the Grumman F4F Wildcat is apparently real – it was seen in 1941 in the Atlantic aboard the USS RANGER conducting something called a Neutrality Patrol. It’s the standard US Navy Yellow Wing scheme adapted to the eastern seaboard. Neutrality? Was the USA expecting attack from the British or Germans or…
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Grumman Wildcat – Part Two – Four-Part Harmony
In each of the two pictures on this post there are four plastic parts. They’re glued up and setting overnight. The time taken to get to this point, including the washing of the parts, was about one hour. I’ve spent longer in the barbers. This would be a terrible thing for some modellers to contemplate.…
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Grumman Wildcat – Part One – Hello Yellow
My friend Warren once pulled up a Hobby Boss kit of the F4F Wildcat in early colours and it set me investigating. This plane turned up in one of the profiles out of a modelling magazine – I can’t tell you if the kit makers made theirs from the illustration or if the illustrator drew…
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Dewoitine D.520 – Part Three – C’est Fini
And fini’d very well, I might add. The usual number of minor errors and hidden mistakes, but then that is par for the course. The D.520 paint job is not perfect – I was trying the freehand spray technique with the pressure on the airbrush turned down to 8 psi and a very thin mixture.…
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Dewoitine D.520 – Part Two – C’est l’Avalanche
One cannot do a Hobby Boss kit slowly – the very nature of the simple moulding does not lend itself to the dawdler. You either do it in normal speed and accept that you will progress rapidly or lapse into ennui. That is my philosophical explanation for the Dewoitine on a stick that you see…
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Dewoitine D.520 – Part One – Allo, Allo…
I have passed the Hobby Boss Dewoitine D-520 kit on the hobby shop shelves for a couple of years now with no regrets. I’d built a Morane Saulnier and a Caudron and the prospect of an diminutive French plane was no urgent call. But I’ve recently borrowed one of those profile books of WW2 fighters…
The Little World 