Category: Collecting
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Minimalist Modelling
Paint everything white. Corbusier Kits: sheets of foamcore board and you just glue them together in slabs. I have been experimenting with a less complex approach to scale model building these last few months. Not that kit building can ever be truly simple…or for that matter neither can Lego or Meccano work. Doll houses are…
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Who Judges The Fantasy Model?
And how do they do it? Okay, if you are tasked with reproducing a model of a Willy Ley space ship as seen on a 1950’s Disneyland show, it is still fantasy – but the responsibility for the imagination has been taken out of your hands. Ley and Disney are the ones setting the pace…
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The Old Kid Modeller
As a young kid, your scale model building is limited by one thing: money. You have little of it and are largely dependent upon birthdays and Christmas to supply you with your kits. You may have desires, but you recognise that you’re going to be building whatever you are given. If you are articulate and…
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The Toy Makers
Some scale model builders look askance at people who deal with toys – whether these are wooden horses or cast-metal cars or life-like figurines. There is more than a hint of condescension when they are compared to the latest Tamigawafix 1:200 kit of the Prince Of Huddersfield. The one with the 1200 separate parts and…
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Convair F-106 – Part One – The Workshop Drawer
This baggie was found in an old workshop drawer by a friend in the eastern states, He kindly thought of me and sent it along unbuilt. I suspect it was an repackage of an old LS kit that Revell did in the 1980’s. A modest item, but surprisingly detailed. The instructions were classic fold-over baggie…
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If You Don’t Want To Have A Good Time…
Tell us now – we’ve got kits that we’ve been saving for just such an occasion… As a kid, I saw kits in shops that I knew were a mistake. The shop might have been a hardware store in a Canadian bush town, a news agency in an Australian country town, or the leftovers in…
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It’s Fun To Be Ignorant…
Until something even more fun comes along. For years I have avoided building in scales other than 1/72 and 1/76. My model airfields were this size and I needed goods for them. I could shop in the OO model railway shelves and the plastic model shelves for a long time. Then shopping got harder as…
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Aero-pondering – Part Four – Little Big Planes
I have come at last to the 1/144 scale model. I received several as presents and bought one from a legacy sale – and now I have to start thinking… The 1/72 aircraft that form the bulk of my collection are a delight to build until you come to the landing gear – and then…
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Pondering – Part Three – On The Pond
A damp look at the model ship. I used to build scale model R/C boats. They were fun, expensive, and needed a lot of maintenance. They also needed bodies of water to sail on – and councils had to give permission for this. I hated being at the let and hindrance of councillors. So I…
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Ponder Shelf – Part Two – The Iron Boxes
1/35 scale vehicles and accessories – a new standard. You can hardly fail to notice the 1/35 scale vehicle and military market. Tamiya started it, continues it, and shares it with any number of other makers. There are aisles of tanks, trucks, troops and trash cans in every hobby shop and the kits in the…
The Little World 