Category: Enamel
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XF-7 Sky In The Morning…
Modeller take warning. They used to think that shepherds and sailors were the best folk meteorologists – reading the sky and waves for signals of storm or calm. Pooh – that’s nothing. Compared to modellers contemplating airbrush work, the sheep farmers and mariners might just as well be at the bottom of a mine. They…
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The Swiss Army Varnish
My workshop has a shelf in it for varnishes. Read that again. A whole shelf. I call it the Swiss Army Shelf because it has something of everything there – like a Swiss Army knife. And like the famous tool from the Alps, I suspect that about 89% of what’s on the shelf is useless.…
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Having A Thin Time Of It
Since returning to scale model kit building and taking on the whole airbrush thing, I’ve been steadily making discoveries. Many of them have been through the mechanism of mistake and regret, but I’m happy to say not all. Yesterday I got to pet the learning curve without it biting me in the ass. The question…
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A Childhood Ambition Realised
No, I will not be a fighter pilot, or a movie star, or a rich man. But I think I can say that I am acheiving a childhood ambition with my aero modelling. Not flying models, you understand – scale plastic models that sit on a shelf. My experience with flying models was and has…
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Do You Need An Idea Or An Argument?
Also known as – do you need to be correct or right? – because they can be two different things. And never more so than with paint colours. I will be writing for several readerships here – some will be from Australasia – some from North America – some from The United Kingdom. The advice…
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Colour Choice In A Paint-Starved World
The racks in my favoured place of worship are looking bare. Time to put some more heretics to the question… Calm, down Torquemada – we’re talking about the paint racks at the local hobby shop. The Tamiya and Gunze sections are getting sparse as shipments are delayed around the world. Other sections are full –…
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Proper ‘Ard
Say that in a Matt Ball accent. The question of drying times has arisen in the past and I’ve made decisions that have bit me in the Arsenal F.C. Progressing from Tamiya acrylics to Mr. Color lacquers and modelling in an outside workshop/shed for much of the year has meant that there were a whole…
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Covid Painting
The year-long Covid pandemic has been so tragic for so many that it seems nearly a sacrilege to mention it in connection with a hobby – but it has led to a drought in the paint aisles of many hobby shops. Oh, there’s paint still, as not all the makers have ceased sending out their…
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Keep Yer Cap On
Do you remember Andy Capp? For years he and Tony Hancock were my sole mental picture of the English…albeit of different parts of the country. Then I went to the UK and discovered other, stranger creatures. Well, Andy always wore a flat cap…much as I do in the winter here in Australia. I’ve two –…
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The Perils Of the Hot Box
Now we’re not talking about a broken bearing f on a railroad car – the proverbial North American ” hot box ” that leads to the failure of the axle and derailment of the train. No, our hot box is the plastic curing box that sits on top of an electric oil-reservoir heater in the…
The Little World 