Category: design
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Handley Page Heyford – Part One – Come On March

I rarely urge the calendar to advance – I am at an age when I appreciate every day – indeed, being retired, I frequently mistake one for another. As long as I can remember scale model club morning and garbage night, the rest of the week can dissolve. But a special month was coming; Matchbox…
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Nieuport 17C – Part Two – Old But Good

This very old mould still can teach the new firms several lessons. The first one is that you need not engineer gaps into your parts. They can, indeed, be made to meet all along their surfaces. Unless your firm derives the bulk of its income from plastic putty and sandpaper sticks, providing close-fitting parts is…
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” I Want To Return This Kit “

And I want a full refund for it. a. It is the wrong kit. I wanted the right kit. Okay, I brought it from the shelf to the till myself and paid for it, but it was the wrong kit when I got it home and the wife found out how much it cost. b.…
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Are We Having Fun Yet?

When that question comes up, the answer is never ” Yes “. Yet it could be… I do things that are pointless and expensive and embarrassing. And fun. I’m not going to tell you what, but you can let your imaginations run wild. As this is a scale model column, wild is likely to involve…
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WW1 Female Tank – Part Three – Makin’ Tracks

The tanquistas at my scale model club are variable creatures. It pays to be careful when you talk to them. While they are building the hulls and turrets they are cheery. You can have a jest about anything. While they are painting interiors they are happy and contented. When they are assembling tracks from a…
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WW1 Female Tank – Part Two – Mystery Iron Box

I must say that the classic British WW1 tank is somewhat of a mystery to me. I’ve never seen a real one and the actual topography of it is a puzzle. I know the lozenge shape but that’s all. The basic box hides inside the tread, much like the Churchill tank – another enigma. This…
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The Art Of The Signal Failure

I used to think that a signal failure was the dismal collapse of the world. I now view it as a necessary component in the chain of good communication…and not one to be ignored. I have done badly with my scale modelling at times…mostly through impatience and lack of understanding of the materials with which…
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Airspeed Envoy – Part Two – Squeezy

Say what you will about the British being a stuffy and stand-offish nation, when they make a small airliner they make sure that everyone is chummy on the flight. Either that or the moulds for these seats are a little wide. You can get in the door and possibly into the back three seats, but…
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Airspeed Envoy – Part One – The IKEA Airplane

And it’s not Swedish at all. The reason I refer to this RS Models kit of the Airspeed Envoy by the shop name is that – like most of the goods that IKEA sell – it is very nearly what I want, but not quite…I could make do with it, and change it around, and…

