Category: finances
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Your Hobby Costs HOW Much?

This is the way someone asks how much your hobby costs when they want to belittle it. No matter what answer you give, they will scoff at you. In truth, they don’t want a number as an answer – they just want to fix you while they prepare their next snort. If you like being…
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You Know Where You Can Stick It, Buddy

And wash your hands afterwards… I use all sorts of perfectly good adhesives for my modelling – cements, glues, resins, etc. And while they all have different formulae and different actions on the plastic models, they have one thing in common; I can make them go where they are not wanted. I have smeared every…
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The Meaning Of The Universe

I hesitated to write that title in case someone was going to object on religious or scientific grounds – or was a fan of Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. I also debated where to place it in my blogoverse – humour, photography, or scale modelling. In the end I decided upon…
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Yakovlev 6 – Part Five – A Flying Fin

Not a flying Finn – unless the Finns captured a few of these in the Winter War. The fin is the price that this Encore model cost. And I think it has proved a sterling investment. The green you see here is a lightened and blued form of the Russian Green. The scale effect, perhaps,…
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How To Make A Small Fortune At The Big Local Model Exhibition

Start with a large fortune and go there to sell model goods. Well, you knew that punchline was coming when you started reading. You should have stopped then. Too late, you have to finish reading this article now. Going to the Big Local Model Exhibition at Cannington Central with goods to sell is a sure-fire…
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If I Hobby For Money…

Am I hobbying at all? Good question. The idea of making money from your hobby is one that has occurred to 105% of everyone. 75% of us have tried it, 3% have succeeded and the rest…some 230,000 hobbyists…have decided just to go out and buy another kit. The saddest man in the hobby shop is…
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The Curse Of The Were-Lancaster

Or FrankenHalifax. Or worse “ The Superfortress That Took Over The Lounge Room “. We’re talking about aircraft model kits that have dazzled their builders with large-scale detail. The 1:32 and 1:24 scale kits that are the talk of the modelling world right up until they are built and the proud owner tries to find…
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A Decoarsing Moment

That’s like a defining moment but in the other direction. Recently a friend referred to my models as cheap and cheerful. A phrase that sounds intimidating…but it turns out not to be so. An English definition of the phrase says that it doesn’t necessarily mean bad quality – just good value for money. This certainly…
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From Expensive To Valueless In One Simple Movement

Want to know how to convert $300.00 to nothing in a couple of weeks? Easy. Go put and buy a $ 300.00 kit and build it. It was worth the 300 on the shelf in the shop, dropped to 150 in your stash, and as soon as it was complete it became unsaleable. Not quite…
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Stash Conquering

How to defeat the Box Monster. We all know about the Carpet Monster that eats parts from our model kits before we get a chance to break them. We all have ways of coping with this – mine is crawling about on my hands and knees and swearing. But what do we do when the…
