Category: design
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If You Were Asked To Pick…
Your favourite airplane, or ship, or car, or tank…you would spend hours going over the possibilities. Then you could spend more drinking time debating it with other modellers. What a great idea! Now suppose the discussion turned to the favourite model making company… and here the discussion was serious. Exacto knives would be drawn and…
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The Hobby Room
I have a hobby room that has accommodated any number of pursuits – yet I am still chasing perfection. And it is still elusive. The first use of the hobby room – the 5th bedroom in a house that has only three sleepers – was as a photographic darkroom. It was the days of film…
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F-16A – Part Three – In Every State Except…
In every state of the Union and nearly every country of the world, the heading image would raise little interest; it’s a toy airplane with a lead weight glued in the nose. In California, I suspect, it would cause sirens to wail and lawyers to leap from their kennels. Lead! A known carcinogen! A dangerous…
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Ready-Made Mistakes
Or, how to tread the primrose path in spite of the barriers. You cannot blame me, unless I am guilty. And I always am. Guilty of following orders, guilty of believing what other people tell me, guilty of valuing theatre over intellect. Not in real life, I hasten to add. When someone in vague authority…
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JS-2 Tank – Part Three – Zvezda Economies
I am still making my mind up about the Zvezda kits. They seem curate’s eggs in many respects, but I have not built enough to be able to judge accurately. My first Russian kit was a MiG 15. It was chosen as the only kit of its type in that shop at that time –…
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JS-2 Tank – Part Two – Can Vermibus
I should have known better – but in my defence I was unsupervised in front of a computer… The Facebook group that deals with 1/35 scale tanks is quite skilled in their model building. Every day there are pictures of builds or completed models that have amazing detail, fine camouflage, and careful weathering. They far…
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JS-2 Tank – Part One – A Step Up From The TKS
I endured such a razzing from my scale model club mates when I built the tiny Polish TKS tankette that I have decided to get my revenge. And who better to provide it than the Russians. They provide excess misery for everyone else, why not harness it to my purposes. So here is a Josef…
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And Now The Shipping News
A number of chaps at my Men’s Shed morning are model ship builders – some exclusively and some as a relief from tanks or planes. I used to build boats – R/C ones as a young householder, and in my dim youth plastic ships as well. But so far not in old age. No real…
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Are You Proud Of Your Work?
That sounds like one of those passive/aggressive questions that bullies invent to make people feel bad. But bear with me – it is legitimate. Are you proud of the models you make? I am, and I display them at my studio in IKEA cabinets. I take pictures of them and post them on the internet.…
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Convair Atlas D – Part Three – The Beast
The advantage of building to a common scale is the insight it provides you into the relative size of things. Prior to this build I had no idea these first-generation ICBMs were so large. My mind saw the toys of my childhood – the Cape Canaveral set gave totally false impressions. But then I went…
The Little World 