Category: design
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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…
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The Shelf Of Ponder – Part One – Quo?
Other people have stashes – I have a shelf of ponder. Every model kit that sits there has some thought attached to it. In some cases the thought is ” what in the hell do I do with this? “. These are the model kits that someone has donated to me. I am delighted to…
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When The Wing Falls Off…
Or the tailplane, or the engine nacelle… The aging of a model – or of a collection – can be graceful and unremarkable, or not. You will not notice the first circumstance but the second one will call itself to your eye every now and then. Something will break off. When you stop and think…
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Theme Modelling
Conscious or unconscious – our minds tell us what to do. In my case it tells me what to scale model to build. It does for you, as well. Where are you in the list? a. The scale builder. Anything in 1:72, 1:48, 1:35, etc. You stick to scale and end up with a coherent…
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Landing Hard – Part two – Lolly Legs
You can google that one up to read the full horror of Australian vernacular, but for now just concentrate on the landing gear of scale model aircraft. Landing gear on real aircraft are the structures that allow the aircraft to land safely, supporting it as it rolls down the runway. On scale aircraft they are…
The Little World 