Category: design
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Okay, Ben….Now What?
Poor Richard Saunders, aka Ben Franklin, kept telling us that time is money and we should do today rather than putting off until tomorrow. Sound advice, and then we go and take it and rack up another $ 50 debt with Bunnings for overpriced wood. This goes directly against Ben’s other constant song of frugality…
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Airfix Vintage Val – Part Two – So Far, So Good
The last couple of plague days were very productive – and the Airfix Aichi Val was coming along splendidly. Fuselage seams needed progressive assembly but in the end little filler would be needed – so little that it would probably be only thickened undercoat. So far a victory over the Fujimi product. Wings needed no…
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Fujimi Aichi Val – Part One – Oh Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy
I finally got to build a model of an airplane my uncle Jack shot at on Dec. 7, 1941. Fujimi kits are thin on the ground here in Western Australia at the best of times and these aren’t the best of times. But a shelf of them turned up at the local shop and I…
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CT-155 Hawk – Part Two – First Mistake
First mistake was not reading the colour call-out fine print – and painting the wheel wells the wrong colour. A tiny print panel says they are all white inside. I painted them grey, same as the cockpit. ( The cockpit is correct. ) Fortunately this can be taken to mean I have primed them with…
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CT-155 Hawk – Part One – Idly Interneting…
I drifted past the RCAF historian’s site and glanced at the trainers – in this case at the new ones. The BAE 100-series two-seat Hawk seems to have been a hit with the RCAF as an advanced fighter trainer. I looked at Scalemates and was encouraged to see that AIrfix make a new kit of…
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Ess Bend Engineering – Part Two – Now You Sea One
And I wish you could sea two. The Trumpeter kit for a 40′ sea container is a beauty – and as it came under the wing of an EOFY sale by Hobbytech, I seized upon it gleefully. I would have been even more delighted if it had been a pair of 20′ containers as these…
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Lockheed Hercules – Part Five – Paint By Numbers
The Bob Ross School Of Aircraft Camouflage Or how I learned to hate the RCAF airframe finishers. Because they used three colours on the CC-130. They only did it this one time, but that was one time too many. The three-grey camo for this plane is a one-off. It was apparently thought to be something…
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Lockheed Hercules – Part Three – Enough Meat On The Bone
In my recent builds I have concentrated upon small aircraft. This is fun and fine – it delivers quick satisfaction and another plane for the collection. But it sometimes seems as if there is very little going on – that the thing flies together in a day or so. I start to miss the meat…
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Lockheed Hercules – Part Two – First Sprues
I may have been typecasting myself at the model club. Everyone who saw me start on the C-130 commented that I was building a big model at last. Well, it is big, but not much more than the Italeri Fairchild Flying Boxcar of 2018. The seams between panels are raised, but discretely so. The polish…
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Can A Manchester Or Lincoln Be That Far Away?
I am a solid fan of the Airfix company’s plastic model kits. I cannot remember ever having a really bad, unbuildable one from them. Some of their offerings could be a little crude, but they were of their time and reasonably priced withal. They did concentrate on British marques and that was fine – they…
The Little World 