Category: design
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The No Step Two Step
Or how I stencilled myself into the asylum. As a kid facing my first decal sheets, I was blazingly confident. Allowed to use water and scissors…what could possibly go wrong? After all, Aurora moulded the position of the USAF and the insignia right there on the top of the wing – all you had to…
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The Arrogant Strut
Those who saw Mussolini were impressed with the way he strutted. Likewise with Al Jolson and Kaiser Wilhelm II. However, none of them were as arrogant as the Airfix company when it comes to strutting…as witnessed by their production of a 1:72 Bristol F.2B. They have produced a kit that is nearly impossible to assemble.…
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Trying To Get That Exclusive Prototype
And hoping that it is one that everyone secretly always wanted to build. This can be the only explanation for a number of short-run kits that flow out of Eastern Europe. There can be only a few individuals on the planet that dream of building failed designs that are both ugly and insignificant. Even driven…
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The Tsunami
It started as a fountain of knowledge – then a pool of information – then a flood of images. Now we have a tsunami and modellers are being drowned at their workbenches. I mean the internet, and specifically the Google images page. The go-to when you are looking for either inspiration or confirmation. You want…
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If You Don’t Want To Have A Good Time…
Tell us now – we’ve got kits that we’ve been saving for just such an occasion… As a kid, I saw kits in shops that I knew were a mistake. The shop might have been a hardware store in a Canadian bush town, a news agency in an Australian country town, or the leftovers in…
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To Paint Or Not To Paint
That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to coat the photo etched brass parts of your kit with the same paint as the injected plastic ones and let them sink into oblivion or to leave them unpainted and declare your skill and investment to the world. For those of my clubmates who might feel I…
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It’s Fun To Be Ignorant…
Until something even more fun comes along. For years I have avoided building in scales other than 1/72 and 1/76. My model airfields were this size and I needed goods for them. I could shop in the OO model railway shelves and the plastic model shelves for a long time. Then shopping got harder as…
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Boeing Dreamliner – Part Three – Mask And Re-Mask
Just when you think you are done with the paint scheme you realise that there is another stripe… Well, that’s civil aviation. The graphic designers get let out of the dungeon and chained to the drawing boards and new corporate liveries are born. This El Al scheme is to be a retro salute to the…
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Boeing Dreamliner – Part Two – Dry Fit Wonder
I started this kit with some misgivings but they are rapidly evaporating. The only flaw I have detected so far is the loss of two engine fans. Whether they were wrenched off by the previous owner or never cast is unknown – I have just had to search the spares box and make up a…
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Aero-pondering – Part Four – Little Big Planes
I have come at last to the 1/144 scale model. I received several as presents and bought one from a legacy sale – and now I have to start thinking… The 1/72 aircraft that form the bulk of my collection are a delight to build until you come to the landing gear – and then…
The Little World 