Category: frugality
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Stand In Line
Standing in line is Europe’s national sport. Whether it is waiting for pancreas sausage in Poland or boiled tripe in England, you have only to get two people to line up and they will be joined by twenty more. In Perth we line up for cheap plastic. The ( so far ) annual big scale…
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Avia B-135 – Part One – A Semi-Precious Stash Gem
The big annual local scale model exhibition had come and gone – and there was some speculation that it had gone forever.* But I did well. My model Ruritanian airport garnered only slight interest, but the stash sales made it all worth while. This Czech fighter appeared at a very advantageous price and I was…
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The Fifty Cent Fighter Plane
Sixty years on. My allowance in the eighth grade was 50 Canadian cents per week. It was more than adequate for my needs as I was stuck in a construction camp in the Alberta bush with no place at which to spend it. Our one shopping trip a month went to Drayton Valley and by…
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The Corner Of Frugal Boulevard and Tight Arse Lane
The cheap end of town. I got there after consulting the internet and looking at eBay sales items. The prices were high and the shipping costs higher. But I did benefit from the product illustrations – which I could screen save and use for reference. Free information. My project involved making some more buildings for…
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Decal Or Not Decal
That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to suffer the agonies of masking tape and airbrush or to take scissors and water and end them. I am in the position of Hamlet every time I look a the colour call-out of a kit. I have the decal sheet in one hand and my heart in…
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Beware Simplicity
For it will complicate your life every time. Scale modellers looking at a kit for the first time are all different creatures. One looks at the sprue trees and sees the big parts – another sees only the tiny details. Someone else goes first to the PE fret or the resin blocks. The artistic look…
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The Dinner On The Workbench Idea
No, I’m not talking about a plate of stew in the middle of painting a new model. That will not end well. This is a post about prices. We pay varying amounts of money for our models – Some come free and are all the sweeter for that – some cost a lot. Unless we…
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Airfix Boomerang – Part Four – Classy Vintage
Well, if the Airfix 2023 announcements are anything to go by, it is going to be a good year for Vintage Classics. And if this kit is a sample of what will come along I shall buy the entire range. The result at the end of the build has been all I could ask for…
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Airfix Boomerang – Part Three – Jackson’s Art Mask
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound…I tried the Art Spectrum masking fluid from Jackson’s Art Supplies in earnest. The bottle seems a lot like Humbrol Maskol, except slightly thinner. It doesn’t have quite the strong formaldehyde odour of Maskol, but it’s latex, all right. If you do not clean a brush in…
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Airfix Boomerang – Part One – Back Again
The problem with building CAC Boomerangs is they keep on coming back… Airfix have re-issued their CAC CA-13 Boomerang again in the Vintage Classics line and I am absolutely delighted. I’ve had experience building a Tasman Models resin kit of this plane and lived to tell the tale – this one promises to be a…
The Little World 