Category: design
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Six – Squeeze Me, Baby!
I feel like I’m going to split. The central bomb bay section of the Pe-8 dictates the spread of the fuselage. Had I not included the interior, and just decided to join the fuselage halves without cutting the bomb bay, all this post would not have happened. As it is, it did. as much as…
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Five – A Wing And Several Prayers
I am never so nervous as when I see a plastic model aircraft with a multiple-part wing. I don’t mean a top and bottom – that’s normal. I mean a top and bottom outer, top and bottom inner, internal brace, wheel well, separate nacelles, and no cementing tabs. Add two gun positions and it starts…
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Four – The Puzzle…
If you did not want me to do it, why did you provide the parts? I address this to the Amodel engineers who moulded a complete interior bomb bay and 250kg bomb load, and then left the fuselage doors moulded shut. Not shut with a line to score and pop out – completely moulded in…
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Three – Stein’s Bomb Dump
And if that title doesn’t get me on an FBI list, nothing will. The explosives you see in the heading page are Soviet 250kg types – roughly equivalent to a British or American 500 pounder…though I don’t know if the fillings had equal explosive power. They will be attached to the bomb bay former and…
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Two – Well, No Escaping It…
Sooner or later I was going to have to start the kit. The box had to be opened and the sprue trees taken out. All 870 of them…The AS truck had already been built as part of a Soviet airfield but the main monster remained. Amodels are flashy mouldings., and slightly friable plastic. Many of…
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Modelling Without Guilt
It’s rather like sex without guilt – fun, but a little bland. Not that you want to be pursued through bedroom doors and corridors like a Feydeau farce, but a little innocent concealment of the new kit makes for a frisson of excitement – even if it turns out to be the same old moulding…
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How Far Down Do The Rabbits Go?
And I don’t mean on the internet. How far down does a scale modeller pursue the business – at what point does the quest for detail stop? How about weathering and appearance? Where does the line of diminishing returns cross that of fatigue? I think it differs with the genre and scale of the models,…
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MiG 15 Bis – Part Three – Tight And Dry
A good thing in scale model kits and row boats. Not as desirable in schoolteachers or bank managers. This Eduard kit has classic tab-and-slot fitting for the wings and peg-in-hole for the tailplanes. In both cases the fit eas very firm – so much so that a little sanding was needed to get the parts…
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” Do Your Research “
This is a buzz phrase used in arguments these days as people trade things they have seen on the internet. Reels, social media posts, and video channels all tell the viewers what to think – sometimes at the expense of thought. ‘Twas always this, from the time that the first caveman told his mate what…
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Tasman Airspeed Oxford Mk I – Part Five – Wild Blue Yonder
And off we flaming go… Someone at Tasman was enamoured of the vacuum moulding machine – the one they used for clear canopies – and of the possibilities that it presented. So they made a decision to try something that is – so far – unique in my model-building experience. They vac-formed the canopy a…
The Little World 