Category: finances
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Boxing Day Is Only Good If You Need Boxes

And I do. In my cases I need boxes with plastic model airplane kits in them. This year I opted for the do-it-yourself-later option. I asked for gift vouchers for the local hobby shop. The good family delivered as requested and I am now cashed up for the next few months – whenever I need…
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Tool Time – Part Five – We’re There

Here’s what the Ustar people packed into their mini modeller’s tool kit – the kit I bought for the pair of plastic nippers inside. I’ll show you why today was a good day. The heading image was inside the cardboard case. That’s a 100mm x 200mm cutting board and sealed plastic box. Let’s tally up…
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Tool Time – Part Four – What Happened Next

Never glance. Glancing is dangerous. Either look deliberately or put your head down inside your shirt collar and see nothing. I know this because I glanced… To my left, as it happened, as I went to the till at Hobbytech to purchase the set of Ustar plastic nippers. I went past the rack that has…
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Tool Time – Part Three – The Choices On The Racks

I’ll confess it – I’m at a loss when I go to many retail outlets and look at the variety of goods on offer. I might go there with some problem in mind, but I fall apart when I see that the shop has half-a-dozen different solutions to it and a further half-dozen brands of…
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Tool Time – Part Two – The Positive Break

I thought it felt a bit odd. The nippers I keep in my travelling kit to separate plastic parts from sprue trees felt strange while biting into a kit. No-wonder – the coiled spring wire that separates the blades had fractured. Pretty good for a tool that was less than a year old, eh? It’s…
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The Two Fingered Salute…

Actually, that should be two-pronged, but I wanted to grasp your attention quickly with a slightly risqué title. I was going to add something about Mae West or Sabrina but the younger readers wouldn’t have any reference points… The business of painting bombers and transports is a little tougher than fighters. To start with, they…
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Lockheed F80C Shooting Star – Part Two – The Smooth Bullfrog

No, it’s not a Frog model – it’s still the bargain Airfix kit. But the more I look at the basic shape of the Lockheed F80C in the grey primer, the more I’m reminded of an amphibian. You have to admire Clarence Kelly and his designers for making such a sleek thing using an engine…
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North American Sabre – Part Four – The Aliens Are Not Coming

But that doesn’t stop me from putting on my tinfoil hat. I’m not repelling mind control – I’m keeping out stray spray paint. I find occasionally that I have a need for a trim colour that is too big for brushing but too small for a major masking stage. In the case of the Sabre…
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Heinkel He70 F2 – Part Six – Like A Newly-Minted Penny

The Heinkel He 70 has been delivered to the RRAAF. It appears that there has been somewhat of a mixup. Whether this is due to the purchasing commission spending a good deal of time in the cabarets of Berlin, or whether there has been some interference in the order by the Reichsluftministerium remains to be seen…
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Build me A Hobby Room!

I have just won Lotto. My ticket in the 450 Million Dollar Supergreed Draw Of The Millenium has won first prize and I am the only one in Australia who got it. All week long dump trucks have been backing up to the front lawn and tipping wads of $ 100 notes onto it. Now…
