Category: design
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Airfix Auster – Part Two – One A Week In Bull Creek
The Auster is going well. The build is not taxing, as sight of the sprue trees probably suggested. It is going well enough, indeed, to suggest that it might be a good return build for another form. One doesn’t get a great deal of detail, but then I don’t think Auster or Taylorcraft put a…
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Airfix Auster – Part One – Vintage Classic Day
My vigil at the hobby shop was rewarded – the re-issue of the Vintage Classic Airfix kit came in. And went out again, under my arm. I did not know in what form it would finally be assembled, but since I had such success with the similar Airfix Beaver, I was confident. The kit is…
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We Regard You As Innocent
Until someone suggests you could be guilty. A big local scale model exhibition seems to have attracted a very unusual visitor: A 1:1 scale replica of a motor vehicle from 80 years ago. It was parked in the front of the Cannington Exhibition Centre on the second afternoon of the show. I did not see…
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Fokker Dr.1 – Part One – Brothers…19 Years Apart
Recently I bought an Airfix Dogfight Double Vintage Classic kit that promised a Bristol fighter as well as a Fokker triplane. It was a mis-box – I got two Bristols ( Stop thinking of Barbara Windsor… ) but no Fokker. ( Stop, Stop. Just stop thinking of the lovely Carry On lady… ) A friend…
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When It Is All Too Flaming Much
Do not despair. Do not allow kit makers to sell you unhappiness. If they have decided that you need to model the rivets on the underside of the toilet seat in the 1/144 scale airliner, consider your own opinion before theirs. They may very well be making fools of themselves and you at the same…
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Grumman Tracker – Part One – The Started Kit
Kits that have been started by another modeller are traditionally lower priced than pristine ones. I suppose this would be reversed if the original builder was Leonardo da Vinci, but so few of his plastic models seem to have survived the Reformation… I got this aircraft kit from the clearance of a legacy stash and…
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Extraordinary Models
Out of the ordinary. Unusual. Remarkable. Etc. The devil is in the etc. Manufacturers of kits are sometimes thrown to the edge of the cliff when it comes to the selection of a prototype for their latest kit. In their various divisions they have usually fallen back upon a well-known kit to get quick money.…
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Mitsubishi Betty – Part Two – Not-So-Ghostly Seam
I wondered what that cracking noise was… It was the top fuselage seam giving way. I must have flexed a wing too much and surpassed the tensile strength of the thin cement used to seal the fuselage. Well that’s what undercoat painting is designed to catch – the flaw that occurs before you add a…
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The Odd Modeller
This will be a delicate subject. Give me a moment to put on my hob-nail boots. Firstly, let me say that I realise there are scale modellers with mental and emotional challenges. I sympathise with them and hope that they get adequate professional care to help them cope with life. Secondly, I am not the…
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You Can’t Do That
Because, because… a. It isn’t done that way. b. It isn’t done. c. I can’t do it. And there we have it, children. The gatekeeper, scale model authority, icon, legend, club ‘rak who would bar you from carving your own Spitfire from a bar of laundry soap has spoken. You must obey. Or… You salute…
The Little World 