Category: design
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The Scrap Bin Serenade
The next time you are tempted to spend $ 300 on a model kit, reflect on how many bottles of rum and how many popsies you could buy for that same price. At the same time, cast your eyes around your building space – whether it is a complete workshop or just a tea tray…
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Hawker Demon – Part Two – That Sinking Feeling
Bovril would have prevented this… Actually the problem is ejector post marks in the wings of the Demon. They are as marked as any I’ve ever seen, but fortunately Airfix configured the mould to place them on the underside of the wings and tailplane. Equally fortunatly I have an unused tube of Mr. Hobby white…
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Junkers Ju 87 – Part Four – When You Don’t Have To Land On A Boat
I am led to this line of thought by the glued-together Stuka – devoid of filler, undercoat, paint, wheels or any other signs of civilisation. As luck would have it it sat next to a completed model of a Northrop BT-1 for a while and the differences in the ships was marked: a. The Stuka…
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Junkers Ju 87 – Part Two – Dry Fit
After learning how to correctly cut parts from sprue trees ( learned last year… ) the next most important thing I’ve discovered is the importance of the dry fit stage. And the more of the kit you can get to hang onto itself in this preliminary exercise, the better idea you’ll have of how to…
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The Work-Rounds For Genius Modellers
There is more than one way to skin a cat, but you’d be wise not to tell this to pet owners. However, if you are a scale modeller there are a number of solutions to common problems that appear if you are prepared to think outside the box. Or, in the case of old Airfix…
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Stash Conquering
How to defeat the Box Monster. We all know about the Carpet Monster that eats parts from our model kits before we get a chance to break them. We all have ways of coping with this – mine is crawling about on my hands and knees and swearing. But what do we do when the…
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Strutting Around The Workshop
With my clothes on, I hasten to add… There comes a time in any modeller’s life when they are faced with the difficult decision; do I build a biplane with cabanes and inter-plane struts or do I run amok with a dagger in the mall? I can’t tell you how many times I have faced…
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CAC Boomerang – Part Three – Let’s Take Stock
The start of this build was unpromising. The cardboard box from Tasman Models had all the appeal of a damp surgical appliance and the instruction sheets looked like a practical joke. A Kiwi practical joke at that. It was the sort of kit that you sold on eBay if you were lucky, or bought on…
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CAC Boomerang – Part Two – Wrong
Cicero famously said that any man may be wrong but only a fool persists in error. I wish to state now that I was wrong in my judgement of the Tasman Models Boomerang kit and wish to change my mind. I thought it was going to prove an unbuildable thing – a mere box of…
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Sopwith Camel – Part Three – Decision Time
Decision time comes at many stages of a build – Shop, Shelf, Box, and Bench. For the desperadoes amongst us we can add the Screen. a. Shop. Which one to go to? The closest one? The one with the biggest range? The one who gets the newest kits in? The one with the best prices?…
The Little World 