Category: Decals
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Hillson Praga Air Baby – Part Four – It Was A Good Idea At The Time…

Plywood wing, tube-frame fuselage, tiny 4-cylinder engine. What could possibly go wrong? Well you have to hand it to Hillson Praga. They were stylish. The little Air Baby looks good from many angles, and if the history of the type in Australia is to be believed, the three examples that got here were successful. Part…
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Hillson Praga Air Baby – Part Three – See What You Get When You Listen To Yourself

Particularly when it is the voice of experience and has arrived at wisdom through previous bad decisions. The Australian civil registration code on this plane is on clear decal film – the sort that the Czechs do well. The sheet is finely-printed and seems to be in register, but I know from past jobs that…
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Glossing Over it All

I tend to gloss over many things; my qualifications, my time spent in the chorus line of Le Crazy Horse*, the mysterious mounds in the back yard… And I now religiously gloss over my models in preparation for decaling. I have been caught by silvering too many times to take it lightly. The problem of…
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What If It’s Misnamed…?

” What If ” modelling – colloquially known as Whiffery – is an established genre in the scale world. It is the basis for a good deal of science fiction work, and can be very well thought-out indeed. It permeates the doll house genre and appears in many hot rod builds. But it is most…
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Canadian Car And Foundry Harvard II – Part Four – Goldilocks

You can’t make this stuff up, folks. This Harvard was a part of an RCAF flight display team called ” the Goldilocks “. I believe they were sort of slow-speed comedy relief for air shows. I agree with this. You need some variety at military displays. There can only be so much of the troops…
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Problem Solvered

Advice offered in jest to a person in a modelling club has just lit up a lightbulb in my mind. I’ve a perfect solution to the problem of painting. Well, not to ALL the problems – but at least to the business of getting the right colour onto the models. We all spend hours…days…years…acquiring pots…
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Douglas RB-66B – Part One – The Shelf Queen

Some kits fly out the door of the hobby shop as soon as they arrive. Some stay until the sales. Some stay until the owner dies and the executors hacksaw the door open. The reasons for this can be many – the kit is horrible – the kit is so obscure than no living being…
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Yakovlev 6 – Part Five – A Flying Fin

Not a flying Finn – unless the Finns captured a few of these in the Winter War. The fin is the price that this Encore model cost. And I think it has proved a sterling investment. The green you see here is a lightened and blued form of the Russian Green. The scale effect, perhaps,…
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RCAF Privateer – Part Five – The Rockcliff Transport

Until now I have been having immense difficulties reporting the completion of this model. If you are reading this I have succeeded… The Rockcliff Privateer probably had a different name attached to it, but I am pleased that the Matchbox decal sheet was replaced by a Revell one that eliminated the nose graphics – they…
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RCAF Privateer – Part Four – When To Commit Yourself…

Or alternately…when to have yourself committed… You have to make a decision eventually – whether to cement every blessed little part on the model and then try to paint and decal around them, or to break it down into stages and make your errors in a more orderly fashion. One road leads to madness and…
