Category: design
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” I Don’t Like It “

Some people sing a song that goes on for an entire lifetime. Happy, sad, welcoming, or disdainful…it becomes their theme, regimental march, or daemon ear-worm. The main thing you need to do is detach yourself from it all, so that even if the noise continues for a whole lifetime, at least it isn’t your lifetime……
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Com Pro Mise

Don’t turn away. And don’t make that noise in your throat. Compromise is not a filthy word. You’ll find this out soon enough when you are a scale model builder – particularly if you build from commercial kits. They have compromises on every sprue tree. You can also buy after-market brass approximations and resin-cast bad…
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When To Call It A Day

And when to call it a week…that point at which you decide to either finish the model or cut your throat. This is not as foolish a thought as first may seem. There will be more accessories and additions to the kit that you bought than you’ll have on hand. Scalemates shows 4 different mask…
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Farman NC 223.3 – Part Six – Praise Courageous Me

Thank you, thank you. I fully deserve your applause – I have made propellers and engines the HARD way. Not that I had any choice in the matter. The parts were there and the instructions were uncompromising – ” Do as we say or die “. Or, in the case of the engine mounting struts:…
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Farman – NC 223.3 – Part Five – Almost A Sailplane

Well, you could be fooled into thinking that if you just saw the fueslage and wings, couldn’t you. Angular, but sleek. No-one in the SCNAC stayed sleek for long – eventually their Gallic desire to attach a strut, a window, or a café awning and chairs asserted itself and before you knew it you had…
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Farman NC 223.3 – Part Four – Faire Soi-Même

Or you won’t be faring at all. Scratch-building at the order of the kit maker is a strange feeling. I do not shy from it, as I scratch build many of my airport structures, but it still smacks a little of ” don’t care ” when the instructions demand it and there are no parts…
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Farman NC 223.3 – Part Two – Short Run Need Not Be Vile

I think Forrest Gump would have enjoyed short-run Czech kits – he had a philosophy that would have coped. I may send my next Prague bomb to Tom Hanks. The fuselage halves of this angular bird could have been a disaster – no locating pins and a very long run for twists and warpage. But…
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Is Out Of The Box Too Humble For You?

Go to a fancy restaurant. Order an expensive meal – prepared by a Michelin-starred chef. Ask for tomato sauce; see what happens… To their great credit and lasting fame, the people who organise our Big Local Scale Model Exhibition always leave a section of the entry form for people who wish to build their model…
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Dornier Do-17Z – Part Five – Crewed Up

” Skipper to crew: Does anyone have the telephone number for Windscreens O’Brien…? “ Have patience, your canopy is in the preparation stage. Fortunately Monogram/Revell have moulded clear ones with pronounced frames. After-painting should be fairly straightforward. The Dornier is on her legs as well – and here the decision of the moulders to make…
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Dornier Do-17Z – Part Three – So Near…

And yet so far… I was really hoping to get the Dornier 17Z buttoned up with no need for filler as a tribute to the old Monogram moulders. Such was not to be the case, but in the meantime I am puzzling over the inside of the wing. The Monogram engravings are there alright, as…
