Category: damage control
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Airspeed Oxford – Part Two – Pink Dot Special
You’ll note the pink dots on the wings and fuselage of the Airspeed Oxford – these are the lesions of Moulder’s Pox. It was a disease that afflicted scale models in the 1950’s and 60’s. It was caused by styrene mixtures that tended to shrink. This was exacerbated by pulling the sprue tree from the…
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The Third-Party Direct Hearsay Evidence
That you read once, but can’t remember where. You know, the absolute shining truth that is too good to repress… The sort of tale that you tell to the other modellers around the table as they cut and glue, enhancing your status as the expert who has seen it all. With a bit of luck…
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Art Thou Too Fussy, Friend?
Is thy hobby becoming a fiend upon thy shoulders? Should thee push away the PE fret and stop fretting? Is there happiness in a flat cardboard box? In short, are you taking it all to seriously? Have you gone past the fun and arrived at the work…and paid a swingeing price for it? I have…
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Out Of Stock
So why in website? To make us think you are a bigger retailer than you really are? To get us revved up? To taunt us? Or is your website the equivalent of a dusty cupboard? Unable to keep it clean, do you exhibit the whole as an artefact? So why do you not list all…
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The Importance Of Amateur Expertise
Don’t leave knowing it all to the professionals. I belong to scale model hobby clubs that derive information from various sources. The members read the internet, published books, and many specialist magazines. They have local museums to visit and can meet people who have seen and operated the things that they are modelling. There should…
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Expertise
If you were to be in a position of unassailable expertise somewhere in the scale modelling world, what topic would you choose to command? Imagine people coming up to you shyly at the club and asking for your help. Or better…for your judgement. How would you help? I think I would like to be the…
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Eventually The Kit Will Be Finished
Or the Earth will spiral into the sun. Either way, there will be an end to it. Some builds seem to take forever. You start out looking forward to a few weeks of building and eventually it becomes a few months. If the calendar stretches to an extra year, you know you have a special…
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The Rules Of Engagement
I was a a meeting recently that set out the rules for an upcoming scale model exhibition. The briefing was from one of the chief organisers and was very well done. He was in a position to make the set-up and operation perfectly clear, as I suspect that he was able to control his committee…
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Risk Management In Scale Modelling
The Amalgamated Fireproof Insurance Company Pty Ltd asked me to write this to help prevent modelling disasters that they might have to pay for. The risks they don’t cover – well, knock yourself out. a. Don’t model drunk. Little knives and spray guns become a lot more fun when you’re schickered, but you’ll regret it…
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At The Mercy Of The Crotches
A cautionary tale. My scale model club mates build models of nearly everything; airplanes, ships, cars, tanks, trucks…you name it. But so far none of them have built kits of women’s crotches. That has not stopped some unknown individual from sending pictures of these to our Facebook account. We have been seeing them for months,…
The Little World 