Category: Enamel
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Japanese Secret

The image that accompanies this post was taken with a Japanese camera and Japanese lens. They are superb products that do a wonderful job. The products seen are also made in Japan – and they are excellent, too. Two pots of paint. I could not enjoy my hobby of scale model building without them. But take…
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You Can Be Colour Deaf As Well As Blind

Some unfortunates cannot see certain colours. This must be a challenge for them when they undertake scale modelling, though the provision of reference material that makes use of standard paint numbers might see them through. As long as the kit makers and paint makers tell the truth to the builder ( and each other )…
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It Might Do What It Says On The Tin

But what if you can’t read the blasted tin? The hobby item packaged with a language you cannot understand is no better than the kit with no instructions. You may have a faint inkling about the dilution, application, drying time, or characteristics of a paint or varnish, but that might not be enough. The maker…
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Čmelák – Part Three – Jaundice

Or – dicing with yellow… Doing a good yellow is harder than you’d think. and it gets harder as you try to preserve more detail on a model surface. When you look down into the pot containing a yellow paint it all looks so easy – the colour is whatever the maker has specified, with…
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We Get What They Got

And if they don’t have it, neither will we. Shopping at the local hobby shops is a good idea. It gives business and employment to local people and keeps vital supplies available to us year-round. Except when it doesn’t. Shops can run dry of all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons – and…
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Take It Off

Take it aaaaall off… If your mind replayed the music of Dave Rose – ” The Stripper ” – you are a reprobate. I am ashamed to be seen with you. This morning I have to strip paint from an old Airfix kit to get enough parts to complete a stash build. I have rejected…
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Is It Semi-Gloss Or Semi-Matte?

Come to that, is it matt or matte? I’m sure there will be frantic semantic pedantics out there who can make a half-hour lecture out of these questions. There is also the question of whether you need to use any paint apart from gloss if you intend to varnish the finalproduct. You crank in the…
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Model Car Sunday – Part Four

Overblown is my favourite colour. You cannot look at a modern motor car and not experience a heart-stopping moment. The colour – whether black, white, or grey – will be so depressing that your ticker will slow dangerously. You may lose consciousness or go into deep depression. Memories of the actual spectrum may fade from…
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Is There Life After Enamel?

Now that everyone uses acrylics? Yes. We may have lost Testors but there is still Humbrol. You may have cut your teeth on them, grown to hate them, but now are curious about them. Find a test-bed model…something you can afford to ruin. Sand it, prime it, and grab a dear old a Humbrol pot.…

