Category: design
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Grumman Goblin I – Part Two – Interior Lines Of Confusion

I like photo-etch brass pieces. I also like chiggers and toothache. All three are acquired tastes… In the case of the Goblin I, the brass fret is not too daunting – rendered more comfortable by the fact that I am not going to touch about half of the tiny parts on it. This is not…
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The Proper Font Is Never There

I do my own decals in an inkjet printer for many of the 1:72 aircraft I build. It’s not that I am contemptuous of the commercial maker’s decals – far from it. I love Cartograf and other fine printing companies for they ability to make a good decal with thin carrier film and good moulding…
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Bristol Bulldog – Part Six – Pip Pip Reggie

The Lockdown Bulldog was finished – and a day before time. Shows what you can do when you are doing what you can do… Someone – I cannot think who it was – gave the big horse laugh at US Navy and US Army aircraft of the 1930’s for being too colourful. He saw the…
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Bristol Bulldog – Part Three – Plane, True, And Plumb

Say what you will about super-detail kits and expensive models – you just cannot beat a kit that will go together cleanly with no strain on the components. Oh, we’ve all had kits where we’ve coped. Where we’ve managed to make one warp counteract another and end up with something that looks like the box…
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The Commemorative Scheme

We’ve all seen one that we liked – and ten that made us wince. I mean the commemorative scheme applied to a current airplane in someone’s roster. It may be a warplane, a civil airliner, or a private plane. It might be an R/C model or a static one. But as soon as you see…
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PZL Gull Wing – Part Two – Polish Plastic

I would love to read a definitive article on the plastics that we encounter in our model kit building. I suppose a lot of it is trade secrets and economic choices, but I think there would be a lot of interest in a scientific analysis of the various styrenes In particular, please give us a…
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Wait For It…Wait For It…

The state government in Victoria has just announced that it will introduce legislation in 2022 to ban the public display of Nazi symbols in public. This sort of legislation exists in Germany, Austria, Poland, Ukraina, and France and has existed for quite some time. Exceptions seem to occur for museums or other institutions but the…
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Morane-Saulnier N – Part Two – Simplicity In Silver

The Revell ( NZ ) model of the Morane-Saulnier N monoplane is the aviation equivalent of the spoiled vehicle kit it replaced – so simple in construction as to admit of assembly before painting. The pilot – Dimitri – has been painted separately and can rest in the shade while the rest of the build…
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Use the Dull Blade…

Said no modeller, ever. Yet we all do it. We use the blade until the tip breaks off and the edge has tram lines on it and we need to push it 300 times harder to get it to cut. And when it is just right; dull, nicked, and rusty, we push it over the…
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Matchbox Helldiver – Part Three – The Hubley Kit

If you are from North America you’ll recognise the name Hubley. They were a die-cast toy maker of the 40’s and 50’s who made larger size offerings. I owned a Hubley Bell telephone truck with working winch and pole trailer – surely an odd choice of prototype even for the times. I observed other kids…
