Category: design
-
Ruritania Poste – Part Five B – RT-AFR
Purists amongst the aviation game may wonder at the slight anhedral exhibited by RT-AFR …the new SM.79 that Ruritania Poste has added to the African mail route. The answer is simple. The Savoia Marchetti is depressed. Wartime service for the Italians and now having to fly over cannibals and savage lions of post-war Africa …and…
-
Ruritania Poste – Part Four – Sprayin’ Weather
I never used to take the slightest notice of Advice To Mariners. It could be blowing a gale round Beachy Head…or Bayswater for that matter…and I couldn’t have cared less. That was before I got an airbrush and a bad habit. The habit is spray painting model aircraft, so don’t be judgemental. The business of…
-
North American F-100 – Part Three – Dry Fit For The Win
I have taken to adding a new stage to my regular builds – I try to get a mock-up of the basic flying aircraft fitted dry before I reach for the cement bottle. This means taping parts together or even using the Micro Scale temporary adhesive. The benefit of doing it is I catch incipient…
-
Jet Jig Jive
I’ve just used the second of my new Slovakian assembly jigs for a jet. It is the Tornado GR.1 from Italeri – a perfect testing piece for the tool. There are square fuselage panels to rest upon. The geometry is markedly different from the WW2 small jig – though the construction materials are just the…
-
Morane-Saulnier MS 500 – Part Two – Le Criquet
If you started reading this build as a Fieseler Storch you can be forgiven for wondering what happened. The end of the war happened and the French and Czech aviation industries needed to get started – and there were plans and parts for ex-German aircraft galore. The French army and the Aeronavale needed small liaison…
-
It Do You Good
To look at reality every so often. Be careful if reality wants to look at you… As model builders we are engaged in reducing reality to a small space full of small objects. We get very good at this with our kits, aftermarket parts, paints, and weathering. We construct imaginative dioramas and sets. We focus…
-
I Believe In You
Of course, I also believe in pixies and the Lone Ranger, so take that into account. You may want to put a disclaimer on most of this conversation. Verbal advice in scale modelling is generally worth the paper it’s not printed on. It can be had from shopkeepers trying to sell you something, friends trying…
-
Handley Page Jetstream – Part Three – Big Body And Tiny Wings
I was always puzzled by two aircraft; the Douglas X-3 Stiletto and the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. They were fabulous looking and built for speed, but the tiny size of the wings always suggested that they just couldn’t lift themselves. There were troubles galore when they overloaded the F-104 but otherwise they seemed to work. But…
-
Handley Page Jetstream – Part Two – Saturday Build
I have three divisions of kits; Tuesday Mens Shed builds, home Little Workshop builds, and Saturday Historic Modelling Friends builds. I keep them as separate as painting requirements permit so that my pleasure in building them comes undiluted. The HP Jetstream is the Saturday Historic Modelling Friends kit. I enjoy an invitation once a fortnight…
-
No Apologies Kingfisher
This post is somewhat different from my normal practise…You get to see it built without seeing it a’building. This is because it is very nearly the same as the wheeled version made by the same maker – AZ. I built one last year in that configuration with a full report. Refer to it if you…
The Little World 