Category: design
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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…
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Dornier Do-17Z – Part Two – ” We’re All In This Together…”

That catch phrase from the classic of Canadian culture – the Red Green Show – certainly applies to most of the German bombers I’ve seen – and particularly to the Dornier 17Z. The crew was large enough; a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, gunner, and party political officer. There were only 5 seats for 6 crew…
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Dornier Do-17Z – Part One – The Pencil Again

I seem fated to build Dornier Do-17 bombers. I have already completed one for the Ruritanians, and one for the Swiss. Now a third kit has turned up and is slated to be sent to the Finns. The kit is a multiple re-boxing – mine popped out in 2011 but the original mould started in…
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Gloster Javelin FAW 9 – Part Two – Evolving A FROG

I have been googling the Javelin kit I bought and have come to some interesting conclusions – it is the Mister Craft mould but there are marked differences between these two and the original FROG sprue trees for the 1950’s. These chiefly revolve about the addition of a long whale-rib probe on the starboard side…
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Workshop – Never Throw Nuthin’ Away

In fact, if they have special on nuthin in Bunnings, buy two extra packets. For my overseas readers, Bunnings is an Australian DIY store. It sells everything that the average man or woman needs to get themselves in big trouble in the home workshop. You can buy poisons, sharp knives, and the sort of machinery…
