Category: damage control
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The New Kit Box

You do not have to be an 18th century rake… To recognise the experience of being captured by the appearance of a smartly-dressed courtesan with a painted face and patches on her cheeks. The ample bosom and the curled hair may be missing, but the end result – bitter horror at the raddled creation encased…
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CAC Wirraway – Part Two – The Grind Begins

With a grinding… Specifically, inside the wings and the fuselage, Both these areas have cast re-enforcements running diagonally over their rough plastic. I suspect they are extra conduits for the molten styrene to flow through so that sufficient bulk of material reaches past thin areas. Other makers may design sprue tree elements outside of the…
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As Al Capone Said…

” Dis organisation is moider. “ I have lost yet another major part from a new kit. I doubt it will be found and I do not want to buy another kit for just one part. So it is out with the old Pinkysil silicone moulding rubber and some resin – I will copy the…
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Late Night Modelling

A doom-laden exercise. Unless you are building an Aurora ” Famous Monsters ” kit you’ll be making trouble for yourself. As modellers we have routines and patterns that govern our lives. You just try walking past the hobby shop and not going in to see if there are kits on the shelves. You will be…
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Lifespan

Is there a natural lifespan for scale models? I have seen a magnificent dolls house in London that apparently belonged to one of the British Royals when she was a girl. I suspect it was in the 20’s…but it is preserved in a museum for all to see. It may well go for another century…
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RCAF Hudson – Part Two – I Been Airfixed Again

And I didn’t even know it until now… Look at Part One for the parts layout picture. Note that only one elevator panel is shown on the shot. I did not pick this up until I came to assemble the horizontal stabiliser. Airfix had dudded me again. But I don’t dud easy. I remembered what…
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The Most Expensive Model I Have Ever Made

Vs the most economical one. Which was better? Why? The most expensive model I have ever made to date would probably have been an R/C ship I constructed in the 1970’s. It took fibreglass resin, cloth, a Futaba radio control set, several motorcycle batteries, a Taycol and then a Graupner electric motor, perspex sheeting, and…
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The Bad Batch

Whenever something goes wrong we search for an explanation…that’s just human inability to accept fate. Sometimes it turns out not to be our fault – though smart money always bets the other way. When it is genuinely not us, it can be the maker. The kit that is moulded wrongly. Or warped in the packaging.…
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If It Is Not A Pleasure…

Does it need to be a pain? I am brought to this question by the effort of completing a 1/400 scale model of a very small naval vessel. It is well moulded. It is presumably accurate. It may be relevant, but then the well-mannered never mention the relevant in the room… It is not excruciating,…
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When Are You Actually Done?

Well, some people would say when you put your half-completed model out on the road and the council sweeper brushes it up into the bin. That’s DONE! A little less desperate than that for most of us. Perhaps when the last part goes off the sprue tree and onto the rest of the plastic? Perhaps…
