Category: design
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All Kit Builders Should Build Something From Scratch
All scratch-builders should build a model from a kit. It is no good looking at someone else’s take on the scale model hobby and pooh poohing it. Or wondering whether they have it better than you. Or wondering whether you could ever do it… Wise experimenters do it simple at first. The long-time kit builder…
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Soviet Hound – Part Four – It Is Never Open And Shut
It used to be – in the dear old days of Airfix and Monogram. You could buy a model kit that did things. Ailerons moved. as did flaps, elevators, and rudders. Canopies slid back over cockpits and wheels retracted into wells. Occasionally a bomb bay door opened and something fell out. It was all over-scale…
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Stupid Science Theatre 3 – The Proof Of the Pudding
In our case the pudding tastes like old paper and turpentine. Like cooking with the stuff I find in our pantry… The problems in order: a. Yellowing of the decal and surrounds. This one is easy to cure: tape the sheet to a window that gets sun most of the day. Let it sit for…
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Pilatus PC-21 – Part Three – The Double Mask
The look of this Swiss trainer in RAAF service is a bit daunting – all that colour and complex markings. Yet, like every paint job in the world, it yields to careful study of individual parts. You just have to mentally look past the complex decals to the basic colours – red, blue and white.…
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Pilatus PC-21 – Part Two – My Faith Rewarded
Remember I said I was confident in the new Swiss kit? Well, it is getting better. A dry-fit stage is not a perfect thing – you can miss slightly less obvious gaps and misalignment…only to have them show up and bite at cement time. However this time it looks as if the cockpit tub fits…
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Barrier In Action
The experimental exhibition barrier went into action today. Fits on the standard trestle very well and is secure. The colour does stand out, and people capable of reading it do so. However, it was no use against a 2 1/2 year-old grabbing up over the edge – one model was damaged before the attending parent…
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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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Stand Off!
It looks as if the warning sign idea for exhibition tables is a success – at least in the making. The wood was purchased at the Big Clawhammer but the rest of the materials were all to hand in the workshop. Even the red and yellow paint. The later is a mix of all the…
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Model Airfield Hobby Part One
In case you think I have become addled or have narrowed myself too much, let me make a modest proposal. Model airfields and airports form the basis for a complete division of the little world hobby – every bit as much as model railways or miniature houses. The concept just needs organization. I’ve done a…
The Little World 