Category: finances
-
Soviet ZIS-5 – Part One – The Red Army Truck
I have been the recipient of a very kind gift yet again – this Hobby Boss model of a Red Army ZIS-5 truck was purchased in Singapore at a very good hobby shop and came to me at a very advantageous price… The box art is stirring, but the basic truck looks plain. Inside, however,…
-
The PREMIER Club…
I listened to a chap tell me that one of the scale modelling clubs that he belonged to was the PREMIER club in Western Australia. There was a touch of gas and o’erweening pride in the announcement, but it set me to wondering about club rankings. What constitutes supremacy? Is it member numbers, models turned…
-
Getting Out Of Your Comfort Zone
For the most part…don’t. Spend a good deal of your modelling time trying to locate it and when you find an entry point, crawl right in and close the hatch after yourself. Your ancestors lived largely outside comfort zones, as it happened, and spent a lot of time trying to locate them. They worked and…
-
Let Us Now Praise Famous Buildings
Particularly if they are made by obscure companies. I needed a building for a desert museum layout. I have many small structures but they all look vaguely North American or British. It was with dubious enthusiasm I rolled into my local hobby shop. As I suspected – the Superquick and Meltcalf offerings were mostly railway…
-
The Year-Round Scale Model Show – Part Two
So the annual weekend in the hall is to be kaput. Now we think up the new show. You’re soaking in it; the internet. The always-there screen that steals your images and time. The ever-present menace to your credit card. But this time it will be fun. If there is a reasonable pot of money…and…
-
The Year-Round Scale Model Show – Part One
Here in Perth, Western Australia, we have been told that the big local scale model exhibition that’s been going for decades will fold up after this year. This is sad. The reasons given for this is the retirement of the organising committee and the lack of any volunteers to replace them. There may also be…
-
Hall Of Fame
I am starting to despair of ever getting into the Modelling Hall Of Fame. No matter how much I desire it, no-one pins a medal on my chest or shakes my hand. The pedantic types point out that I don’t enter competitions. True, but that shouldn’t stop people from praising me. I think I am…
-
It’s Not A Stash Sale
If you don’t buy something you don’t need. If you buy something that you don’t want, it ratchets up to a higher level. If it is overpriced, you are moving into the professional league. If you buy aftermarket for it, and build it, you have become a master in the art of Zen modelling. The…
-
AI And The Scale Modeller – Part Three – The Supervisor
If AI can think for itself, can it think for you? If you are unaccustomed to the task, there may be an opening… You generally decide to buy a kit by walking down the aisle of Hobbyhell and letting your imagination loose. As there are other enthusiasts in there with you it starts to take…
-
AI And The Scale Modeller – Part Two – The Electro-Boss
Let us imagine for a moment that the model making firm of Plasti-Prag decides to download a computer program for AI to help out the staff. In it goes to the works Mac or PC, settling in amongst the porn and unpaid invoices, and the design section tries to use it to draw up box…
The Little World 