Category: damage control
-
There Is No Such Thing As A Free Launch
Just ask down at the boatyard… Whenever you are enjoying what you think is a freebie, look carefully about you and see what it has cost. There are money trails leading everywhere and down them cash flows ceaselessly. In most cases it is away from you. If you are allowed to use a public room…
-
Waiting For The ROBERT E LEE
And waiting a long time. I once built a Pyro model of the steamboat ROBERT E LEE. It was a gift at Christmas and possibly the largest thing I’d tackled at the time – the sort of model that a rural shop might stock but not hope to sell. I’ll bet the shopkeeper breathed a…
-
It Must Have A Little Challenge
It cannot be entirely Shake ‘n Bake. Easy-build kits are a blessing. I welcome the opportunity to whack together a classic air-frame in a day. It gives me a chance at the airbrush and decal printer next morning ( I love the smell of lacquer thinner in the morning. It smells like victory….). I can…
-
The Makers Of The Kits Do Not Make Them For Your Pleasure
They make them for your money. Anything downstream of this is just an extra. Remember this when you look at the Verell kit that costs $ 35.00; the 1:53.5 scale one that has “ 1951 ” moulded inside the wing. It has been returning cash to the pockets of Verell for 75 years and pretty…
-
Design Folly
Whenever I complain about the folly of others I am compelled to regard my own. Fortunately I am hypocrite enough not to dwell on it too long… Some days see a club mate building a model tank and looking in horror at the task of the tracks and wheels. I’ve heard groans before from the…
-
Do What You Can
With what you have – where you are. This may have been Teddy Roosevelt’s line or it might have been from an earlier writer. Since I just typed it, it’s mine now. You are free to use it as you will. You have a kit in front of you – for which you may have…
-
The Clean-Up
New year seemed to demand new experiences. Also new work. So I rather hurried to complete a model before midnight. It was not hard…just a small one. That meant that January could start afresh at the club with a new kit. The stash owner always has the problem of which to select. In my case…
-
Disloyalty Is Not Allowed
Modellers are required to decide which nation in the Little World they will belong to and will not be allowed to emigrate to another. If you build plastic aircraft you will not be allowed to make wooden ships or doll houses. If you run trains you are not allowed to look up in the sky.…
-
All My Best Models Cost Under $ 10
Because they are the poor, sad runts of the hobby shop litter – or the nearly-dead ones that just pass from stash to stash without ever getting built. I give them hope and dignity. I clip their parts off the distorted sprue trees without making noises of obvious disgust. I sand off flash and rivets.…
-
Should You Be Able To Write Critiques Of Other People’s Models?
I mean it happens all the time in the theatre and art galleries. Books are published and the critics review them in the newspaper. The Sunday Morning Umpires are always replaying someone else’s game… And we all read forums and groups and posts on social media that degenerate into flame wars. Why not the scale…
The Little World 