Category: design
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Take Your Little Light With You

Everywhere. You may not find an honest man, but you could encounter sympathetic modellers. This seemed to be the case for the chap who took his Japanese trains layout and a selection of locomotives to an unlikely venue; the South Perth annual exhibition for the WA Miniatures Association. Doll houses, tiny shops, and hobbit houses…and…
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Wee, The People

If you wait long enough… The PDMC car layout is often recognisable at model exhibitions – it has model cars in it. It also has litle people, which count for a great deal of the pulling power it has with crowds. You cannot stand around all day and drink coffee and not pay the price.…
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Good Colour

Good Table It really does make a difference at an exhibition if you set your goods out on a table that attracts the passing eye. Many wonderful modelling efforts could be lost to pblic attention by sitting on a dull surface. Let’s face it – most of our models are destined to be seen from…
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Is There Art In Utility?

If the artist is unconscious of it…yes. I do not know if Mr. Burfitt builds scale models – or model trains – or flying aircraft – or doll houses. Possibly, or maybe not – I never quiz him. What I do is pass along the table in front of his selection of tools and imagine.…
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If I Can See It

You win. If the enemy can see it – you lose. Basic rule of camouflage. And it is also a principle to remember when building a scale model for display – especially for public exhibition. If you want ’em to look, attract their eye. This is a challenge for the modeller who is depicting a…
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Wing Walk

You can identify many aircraft from their side profile or plan view. That is the principle of photo-reconnaissance; look down and count the types. Try it yourself with a Google Earth view of Pima, Akron, or Davis Monthan and see how many you can identify. You can also have fun at the scale model exhibition…
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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…

