Category: damage control
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Swedish NA 16 – Part Six – Uncle Dick’s Kit O’ Doom
Inside every silver lining is a cloud. My week building the Beechnut Models CAC Wirraway into a Swedish NA 16 trainer was a humbling experience. No, that is not quite right – that should be ” bumbling “. With a kit this bad you are feeling your way from the start – over a carpet…
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Swedish NA-16 – Part Four – Pinning Your Hopes
When all else fails, reach for the drill… Sorry, old habits die hard. Actually that should be reach for the forceps and slide that bucket over here. Open wide. The butt joint wing or tail surfaces are the easy way out for many short-run kit designers. They imagine you will square up the fitting surfaces…
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Swedish NA-16 – Part Three – Dr. Phil
Not the TV chap – I’m thinking this kit should have been built by the famous Irish dentist: Dr. Phil McCavity. Six separate applications and removals of two grades of putty plus a styrene sheet fitted to the worst of the gaps. All done in a cheerful frame of mind and without the aid of…
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Swedish NA-16 – Part One – The Beechnut Models Company
You’ll want to remember that name – in case you are ever faced with one of their kits. If so, you have choices: a. Buy it, spend days of your life coping with its awful nature, and eventually turn out a masterpiece. Then die. b. Save time. Fall to the floor grasping your chest. c.…
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The Freedom To Explore
Includes the opportunity to achieve great things. And to fall down holes. If you can do this cheaply you are all the better. I use the opportunity provided by donated model kits to try out fresh ideas. Being honest, some of them are thrust upon me by the nature of the kits – and they…
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Disciplined Expectation
A phrase I would recommend to many when they go to an exhibition. I have attended an annual show and taken my own advice. I gritted my teeth at the price of parking on the grounds and for the door ticket. I noted with dismay the closure of half of the space used for other…
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Ansaldo SVA 5 – Part Two – López De Media Cara
Or, in English, half-face Lopez. Because that is all this little 1:50th Spaniard has – his body is moulded well and he has a uniform, flying boots, and a helmet, but half his face is still in the mould. Just as well that he has been depicted facing to Port – the deformity is masked.…
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Selective Ordering
A recent Youtube post by a Canadian hobby shop owner pointed out the selective nature of the current tariff brouhaha. He gets supplies in from US distributors and recently had a shipment stopped by Canadian Customs, with a 25% tariff fee slapped on it. When he was notified of this he took his ordering invoices…
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The Rites Of Scale Model Passage
If you have not done these yet, you will… a. Cut yourself severely with your modelling knife. You will bleed profusely, and probably onto your decal sheet. The bit you cut will be the digit you use for most delicate and detailed work, and you will be bandaged for a month. If you manage to…
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How To Achieve Air Superiority
Without firing a shot. Easy…spread propaganda that you have a new plane that is many generations beyond what your rival has. Produce propaganda and animated simulations of the aircraft and make it do things that are frankly impossible while claiming that you have hundreds of them in secret underground bunkers. Make accurate scale models of…
The Little World 