Category: frugality
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Frugal Storage – Part One – Costco Croissants

The wonderful thing about Costco is that nearly everything they sell is in big lots and it is all well packaged. Thus the recent purchase of 10 croissants in a clear plastic container was actually a considered modelling decision. The fact that the pasties were heated up and consumed with strawberry jam and cups of…
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When Is Shoddy Workmanship Justified?

Never? Always? Something in between? Let us explore… The classic maxims about workmanship emphasize how you must always strive. ” Any job worth doing is worth doing well “.” A poor workman blames his tools “. ” Go west, young man “…and so forth. Stirring stuff. Makes you long for a moral Mixmaster. It has…
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FROG Stash Avenger – Part Two – A Fine Frog

The reputation of older kits is low, but I think this can be undeserved judgement. This FROG moulding is all that one could decently want for the original cost and hits well above its weight at the stash price. The seams have met my expectations – and more importantly, the other parts they were designed…
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FROG Stash Avenger – Part One – Inadvertent Baggie

Got for a very low price in a plastic freezer bag, this FROG Avenger of 1973 is going to be a beautiful model to build. The parts photo shows some work already done at the SMCWA clubrooms: cutting and sanding plus Sprue Goo filling of numerous FROG sinkholes. The week’s interval between club dates means…
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Not Every Good Idea…

Is good. Brains do burp occasionally… One of my episodes these last few months centred around building some 1/144 scale fighter planes – my Fifty Cent Fighters. The kits went together well and the painting was a lot of fun; a lot more successful than I expected. But one of my ideas for putting the…
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Pride Is A Cheap Emotion

Well it is, if you do it right. Scale modelling can be done with pretty nearly any purse…though the hobby shops would like you to browse on the expensive shelves. The prices can rise to pretty nearly any level that you could name. People who purchase and build the expensive kits can generally be assured…
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SAAB J22 – Part Three – Defender Of Neutrality

You have to give the Swedes credit for neutrality. Otherwise they might sell themselves to your enemies. Perhaps this is a little harsh on them. They have not been officially at war for over 200 years, though they were key players in Scandinavia and Middle Europe prior to that. They made a number of enemies…
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Douglas Skyray F4D – Part One – Unloved Tamiya

Don’t raise your eyebrows and make that noise – this Tamiya kit was half the price of other 1/72 models from the same maker in their Warbirds range. That tells me that it is not a big seller – rather like the Japanese submarine seaplane in the same line. People concentrate on the famous fighters…
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Change? CHANGE?

We don’ need no esteenkin’ change! Or badges…Those of you old enough can tell me where that line comes from. But it applies as surely to scale modelling as to making drinks before dinner. The heading image was shared over three weblog columns; this one, Here All Week, and The Frontier And Colonial Photographic Establishment.…

