Category: finances
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Do Not Build
A useful list of things not to do in the scale model hobby… a. Do not build tired. Too late at night spoils paint jobs. b. Do not build drunk. One more little one can’t hurt you, but five more can. Hobby knives can cut flesh as easily as styrene. c. Do not build angry.…
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Christmas And Birthday All Year Round
Remember Christmas as a kid? Remember your birthday? Remember the present in the wrapping paper that looked suspiciously like a model kit – and the final minutes of anticipation before you got to it and unwrapped it? Be honest with yourself…if it WAS a model kit when the paper came off, you were thrilled. It…
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The Barnacle
AKA the shelf queen. The styrene albatross. The kit that has sat on the hobby shop shelf ever since the place opened. The Unsold Undead… It may be worse than this. There are items in stock in many retailers that have been delivered from other shops that have previously failed; I saw it several times…
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Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrello – Part One – The RRAAF’s New Poster Plane
Readers of this column who follow the history of the Royal Ruritanian Army Air Force will be long familiar with the history of the service. The training facilities in Alberta, the variegated equipment roster, the bad decisions and worse outcomes…all have been documented. But here is a new chapter of the saga – brought to…
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” I Want To Return This Kit “
And I want a full refund for it. a. It is the wrong kit. I wanted the right kit. Okay, I brought it from the shelf to the till myself and paid for it, but it was the wrong kit when I got it home and the wife found out how much it cost. b.…
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General Dynamics F-16 – Part One – The John Plane
Making friends with other model builders is a good idea – they sometimes have large stashes of kits that they bought a long time ago…but have forgotten. They may have changed scales in the meantime. Then they remember you and the scale you build. And make you a wonderful present of an unbuilt kit or…
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The Box-Scale Kit
We’ve all seen them and we’ve all built them. And at one stage of the game they were the norm. The box-scale kit that was accurately drawn from official government plans and moulded in 1/60 or 1/94 or 1/287… We were captivated by the box art…or the fact that it cost $1.49 and we had…
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” Complete Your Collection “
I saw this line in an advertisement for commemorative coins. The only thing I could think was: Oh, Dear God, don’t! Don’t ever complete your collection of anything. If there is a finite number of things that make it up – even if these are only thoughts or other vague dreams – do not get…
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Airfix Vintage Val – Part One – Comparisons
It is said that comparisons are odious – or in the case of British cinema chains, Odeons. Be that as it may, I intend to contrast and compare the Airfix vintage classic kit of the Aichi Val dive bomber with the Fujimi example that I built earlier. The prices are rather similar, so it was…
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Canadair CT-116 – Part One – Turkey Shoot
Stopping at Perth Hobby Centre for a brief browse, I passed by the airplane kit rack and noticed this PM model of a Northrop T-38 Talon wedged in between several other Turkish oddities. I’ve built several of the PM models kits before and noted that they were value for money, but technically very low down…
The Little World 