Category: Decals
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Fokker D VII – Part One – I’m A Kid Again

I have decided to try the Retro Challenge. I want to see if I can be a kid again. I’m not sure if I was good at youth the first time round but I did have fun. And now I get a chance to do it again – specifically to build a kit as if…
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Craquelure

The word is from the art world and it describes a fine network of lines or cracks in the surface of an oil painting. This is observable in most famous paintings in galleries and is not considered a fault. However, when it invades our scale model workshop it is to be deplored. We may be…
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Yuron – Yurown Design Bureau

This is the new decal printing company that I have started to use now that every other specialist firm has decided to pack it in. I can look at Scalemates all day and see what once was printed, but as far as being able to actually get the sheets…? I might as well be asking…
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Lockheed CF-104 – Part Three – Cold Lake

The pattern for 702 is a photo of an interceptor in the early 60’s parked on the hardstand at Cold Lake CFB in Alberta. This is a front-line air defence base as well as a training and exercise area. It protects the rest of Canada from Edmonton… The scheme at the time featured plain polished…
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Sukhoi Su-2 – Part Four – The Green Meanie

I must record my admiration for the box art of this ICM product. I was never going to be able to do the weathering or modulating that is shown on the package, but the slightly yellow tinge to the Russian green was what made it really special. I was also grateful that the designers didn’t…
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Fairey Swordfish Mk I – Part Four – Splish Splash

If I was a kid in a bathtub I would be sorely tempted to play battleships with this Fairey float plane – probably to its detriment. As it is, I will have to think up some way of simulating water to display it – and that is a tough thing to do. The final result…
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SPAD XIII – Part Four – Rickenbacker’s Ride

The historic enthusiasts of WW1 can make of Eddy Rickenbacker what they will. His 22 aerial victories and 4 balloons downed are not the numbers that rival other aces, but he survived till the 1970’s and that was a definite win for him. The SPAD appears from other accounts not to have had quite the…
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Ilyushin IL-2 – Part Four _ Winter At Uszhitmi

Uszhitmi Air Base is what is known in Russia as a winter wonderland. It’s the place that they send people who have been exiled from Siberia. Thus we see the Ilyushin IL-2 sitting on the tarmac on a bright day in midsummer. You can tell it’s summer as they have not put the snow skis…
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Curtiss SBC-4 – Part Three – The Bad Bargains

The French paid through the nose for the Curtiss SBC-4 Helldivers. They were compelled to pay in gold bullion hauled to the USA by the aircraft carrier BÉARN, then forced to load them in Nova Scotia after they were towed over the international border, then forced to abandon them in the West Indies when metropolitan…
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F-15 Eagle – Part Three – Baz

Not Bazza – this is not an Australian fighter. Baz, as in Hebrew. One of the couple of dozen of this type the IDF flies. The tail markings were initially meant to be two red triangles inside and an eagle on the outer but the home printing proved difficult – they were impossible to actually…
