Category: Colour Schemes
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Curtiss Helldiver – Part Seven – Shangri La

As this is the first Curtiss Helldiver I have built, I could approach it with a fresh mind. The history of the type seems to have been a mixed one – initial failures and disappointments and then solid success against the Japanese fleet. It had its time and place and filled it well. I must…
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Curtiss Helldiver – Part Six – A Pot To Peer In

Or into, as the case may be. A pot of paint. 10 ml of potential heaven or hell. A liquid mistake waiting for you to make it. I am a 10ml paint pot guy – Tamiya, GSI Creos, or AK Real Colours are the ones that sit in my paint rack. I’ve experimented with others,…
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Curtiss Helldiver – Part Three – Green Is The Colour…

As I have written before – it is the colour of my true love’s cockpit. But it is never the same colour as you see in the books, movies, or museums. It is never the same colour as other people use, and it is never the same colour twice. The only thing that cockpit green…
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Curtiss Helldiver – Part Two – Diving For Dollars

The Sword model of the Curtiss dive bomber is one of the bargain bin purchases I made when a chap came to our club thinning out his stash. The whole thing in box was only $ 20…which made my previous purchase of an A-25 A Shrike from a retailer look pretty sick. The Shrike has…
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Lockheed RT 33 – Part Five – Snowbird Hack

Well, that was rewarding. The decal set that cost $ 5.00 went down like a cold beer in a country pub. Decals are always a lottery – even from the reputable makers. Specials from shows? Like licking a light socket and betting the current is off. The CT133 that followed the ‘Birds for a few…
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Lockheed RT 33 – Part Four – Don’t Mind If I Do

For all my tootling about over the use of an airbrush, I finally have to confess that there are times when a rattle can is a comfort. Painting the walls of the Police Station, for instance. You try dragging a compressor there in the middle of the night and asking the desk sergeant for the…
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Lockheed RT 33 – Part One – An Unexpected Delight

In 2019 I visited a model exhibition in Melbourne and scoured the secondhand tables for bargains. I think I did pretty well in the decal files – the RCAF Lancaster decals were found as well as a $ 5.00 set of commemorative ones for the Lockheed CT-133. This was the Canadian version of the T-33…
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Kawanishi George – Part Three – George of the Jungle

Watch out for that tree! The Kawanishi George is complete, after a week of delight. I have never spent $ 5.00 better, and that is truly all that came out of my pocket for this fighter. Not a scrap of filler anywhere, scraped seams, and no weathering needed. It is a museum piece after all.…
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Kawanishi George – Part Two – No Colour Known To Man

I am always intrigued by the colours of the styrene plastic that kit makers choose to mould their little fighter airplanes. I’ve seen silver in early Revell kits, red, blue, oliveish-green from Aurora, and a vile yellow from Monogram. Matchbox outdid them all choosing greens, browns, and greys for their kits. And even went so…
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Boeing P26 – Part One – Two Shameful Confessions

I have two painful confessions to make in regard to the Boeing P-26 peashooter fighter plane. The first was in 1961 when I was in the 9th grade. I formed a friendship with a kid in my grade at school who was also an enthusiastic model airplane builder. He introduced me to matte paints –…
