Category: Decals
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Pilatus PC-21 – Part One – Serendipity
The definition of the word links random occurrences that produce a beneficial result – in short good luck. It has started for me with the donation of this new kit. The firm that makes it – 3D Blitz Models – seem to be Swiss. This will be one of the few occasions when I have…
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The Curse Of The Rivet
The curse of the riveted kit is most often seen with the older moulds. The days were when it was simpler to represent the details of an aircraft fuselage or wing by drilling minute depressions in the mould block. Everyone did it, and only in the last 20+ years have they made an effort to…
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Hawker Typhoon 1B – Part Three – Bombphoon
The Best That Could Be Done. There are some kits that you can build to the max of the craft. Others are on a lesser level – they can be to the max of your skill or the max of their limited potential, As long as you get to one of these points, you have…
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Hawker Typhoon 1B – Part One – Squashed Kit
Another flattened amphibian from 1974 – a WW2 Typhoon fighter-bomber. A kind gift from a club-mate – to whom I was able to reciprocate. This old Typhoon is in excellent shape, even if the box is not. All sprue trees complete and the canopy has not cracked. The instructions are not snail-eaten and the decal…
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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…
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French Lancaster – Part One – Not My First Rodeo
Third one, actually – as I have built two other Lancaster bombers in the past. The first was an old Airfix kit in 1960, the next a new Airfix kit in the last 5 years. The old model was SOOTB as an RAF subject. The new model became an RCAF rescue aircraft. This Hasegawa kit…
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YF23 – Part Three – Trial Duo
Well, it didn’t get the contract. Despite the design and the twin engines of this McDonell Douglas/Northrop, the ultimate choice for the air superiority fighter went to the YF – later – F-22. The two test aircraft were relegated to museum pieces. I suspect that this Trumpeter lkit – a 1999 product – was drawn…
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Airco DH2 – Part One – Shelf Lurker
This Smer kit of a 1/48th Airco ( by De Havilland ) sat on the storage room shelf of my hobby club from the day I joined until the day the committee finally were exasperated enough with the mess in there to clear out the dead wood. I am one of the natural sink traps…
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Scaling Up Your Scaling Down
When you are presented with requests. You give positive answers. Someone wanted decals for a model aircraft but couldn’t find them on the net. I did, but that probably wasn’t the question anyway. Fortunately the decal sheet needed was simple and illustrated cleanly in colour. Getting it onto Photoshop Elements was simple. Not so simple…
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Tupolev Tu-2 – Part Four – A Straight Bat
And a fair wicket. This Tupolev Tu-2 WWII bomber eventually got a NATO designation: ” Bat “. It seems to have been exported all over the place after it was second-line for the VVS. The Communist Chinese got some and there are preserved copies in their air museum – presumably Hobby Boss were able to…
The Little World 