Category: design
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Shinden – Part Two – Future Fighter

I am immensely impressed by this 1:48 scale Hasegawa model. It seems to have everything you’d want in a different adventure. The plastic is Hasegawa – brittle – and that frightens you when you imagine the amount of sanding that will be required…but then the parts dry-snap into each other and there is really no…
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The Corner Of Frugal Boulevard and Tight Arse Lane

The cheap end of town. I got there after consulting the internet and looking at eBay sales items. The prices were high and the shipping costs higher. But I did benefit from the product illustrations – which I could screen save and use for reference. Free information. My project involved making some more buildings for…
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Decal Or Not Decal

That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to suffer the agonies of masking tape and airbrush or to take scissors and water and end them. I am in the position of Hamlet every time I look a the colour call-out of a kit. I have the decal sheet in one hand and my heart in…
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Occam’s Razor Saw

Go google up William of Ockham and read the article. Follow a few of the rabbit hole links and then come back. You’ll want a stiff drink now. Don’t try to model as your hands will be shaky. Avoid bright lights. The principles that William seemed to be writing about and that have provided philosophers…
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Soviet AS Truck – Part Two – The Light Dawns

The ” Aha! ” moment in this build came as I tried to figure out what the platforms and driveshafts were all about and I ran across the term ” Huck starter “. A google hour then filled me in. And filled in a question I had about a number of airplane designs. On a…
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I’m Not Sure What It’s Supposed To Be

But I’ll follow the instruction sheet. I have never heard of the aircraft, nor of the maker. I barely recognise the firm who moulded the kit, though I see they are registered in Liberia. It says so on their stern. I will google up the thing when I get it home but I hope I…
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Beware Simplicity

For it will complicate your life every time. Scale modellers looking at a kit for the first time are all different creatures. One looks at the sprue trees and sees the big parts – another sees only the tiny details. Someone else goes first to the PE fret or the resin blocks. The artistic look…
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Renault R-35 – Part Six – Hit Me With That Rhythm Stick

Or a German tank shell – because that seems to be what the French armoured corps were hoping for when they thought up their paint scheme and then added tricolour insignia at all the best aiming points. I realise that they did not know what they were up against, nor what to do about it,…
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Renault R-35 – Part Four – Art Deco Armour

I cannot see the French armour colours in any other light than that of the 1920’s Art Deco movement. They are straight out of a pattern book of the period. Whether they disguised the tanks is another thing, but I’m guessing not. I have done a small bit of dirt-spray weathering on the hull at…
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Renault R-35 – Part Three – Running Gear

There must have been as many designs of tank suspension as there were designers – so few seemed to quite agree with each other. Even when one tank was the norm – like the Sherman – there were a number of suspensions and wheel arrangements This Renault R-35 seems to make use of the squeeze-a-rubber…
