Category: design
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Understanding The Language of Modelling
And listening to what it tells you about the rest of the world. Welcome to the classroom. Every time we approach a foreign land we look first at the language it speaks. If it is not our native tongue we either try to learn enough to get by or go all arrogant and demand that…
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Soviet ZIS-5 – Part Five – Fiddler On The Workbench
Oy! The various sub-assemblies of the ZIS-5 have been models in their own right – the Hobby Boss factory having moulded them in such detail as to justify taking a great deal of care with them. This is good practice anyway, but here the diagrams of the instruction sheet were particularly useful – the sequence…
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Soviet ZIS-5 – Part Three – Non-Rolling Chassis
You can say what you like about Tamiya paints – I swear by their Dark Iron for nearly all the chassis I make – tank, car, or truck. I’ve been under motor vehicles and I know what colour they are… In this case the ZIS-5 truck ( made by the Ural factory, I surmise )…
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Soviet ZIS-5 – Part Two – The Truck Factory
Well, that’s what it feels like as you sit at your bench with a kit of this type. You are working in the factory. This same feeling was encountered years ago with a 1:24 scale kit of a Bedford fuel tanker made by Emhar. They obviously had an original vehicle to base the model upon,…
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The Medium Is The Message
As Marshal McLuhan said, and was misquoted ever after. He had a right to be mad – he’d ordered a large, instead of a medium. And he was too Canadian to complain. In the hobby world, and especially in the hobby shop, there are lots of mediums – paint mediums, medium brushes, and medium tank…
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Quonset Hut – Part Two – One A Week In Bull Creek
The title refers to the current batting average for 1:72 scale models – one a week completed. It’s not a contest, so the only prize I win is a fresh model for my collection or a layout but I can tell you – It’s Satisfying! The Rix Products Quonset is a tough build as it…
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Quonset Hut – Part One – The Tin Of Terror
If you have ever spent time in a Nissen or Quonset hut it is subtracted from your stay in Purgatory… These Corrugated Containers Of Discomfort seem to have been erected everywhere in peace and war. Australia housed service personnel, prisoners, and migrants in them, and still has some left in bush towns. They are still…
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Grumman F3F – Part Three – The Toy Shop
Well, at this stage of the game it looks like this aircraft has been made by Mattel or Fisher-Price. Solid bright colour and basic shapes. But all is well – a careful evening was spent getting the struts to join the wings in a decent fashion. Czech kits have little markings on the wing surfaces…
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Grumman F3F – Part Two – The Cockpit Of Thomas Hobbes
The cockpit tub and landing gear platform of this American shipboard fighter are evidence that the Czech kit makers believe in free will. No part of the fuselage compels the struts and legs to be where they should be – they must do it of their own accord. This was probably sound philosophy during the…
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The Scale Sketch
Versus the final model painting. Which is better? Which is more authentic? Which is likely to get you a medallion on a ribbon at the Big Local Scale Model Exhibition? I think we all know the answer to that one… But not every model is destined to be under the eye of the Judgemental Committee.…
The Little World 