Category: frugality
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Grey – Gray – Grau
This is not a black and white post… I was gifted a number of paint bottles – a LARGE number – and had to decide what to do with them. The first step was to ascertain whether they could be used with my normal airbrush and thinners – and apparently they could, with good success.…
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RAF Wellington – Part One – Another Legacy Bomber
This kit is the second legacy purchase from a deceased estate. The club member who passed away had not started it. A short google search turned up a number of RAF squadrons who flew this type and several clear illustrations showing camouflage pattern and squadron markings. As I had built a Wellington Mk 1c before…
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Middle-Class Modelling
Worrying about not being seen as better – or being seen as worse – than you really are? Perhaps it would be more accurate to refer to it as having a case of muddle-class modelling. However one defines it, by the time someone finds themself thinking they are in the middle of it, it is…
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Shoot Low, Boys.
They’re riding shetlands. The magazines that are published monthly, and bought yearly, all seem to praise extraordinary efforts put into scale kit building. It often involves extraordinary expense as well as inordinate time. The model engineer hobby is the prime example of this; years spent making a workshop – to spend more years making specialized…
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Aichi Seiran – Part One – A Bargain
And a Tamiya bargain at that – you don’t see many of those around the shops these days! I cannot say whether this Aichi Seiran float plane model was inexpensive because it was unpopular, or unpopular because it was an old kit, or an old kit because it was inexpensive…that sort of circular logic is…
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Lima Beans And Spinach
Some people like lima beans. Some like spinach. Some cannot stand either vegetable*. If they are in a restaurant it’s easy – they don’t order either. If they are eating at the family table or someone else’s house the problem becomes more difficult. They may have a heaping helping steaming there on the plate and…
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Westland Whirlwind – Part Three – The Admiral’s Barge
Part of my research material about this green -and-white helicopter suggests that it wore these colour so that it could function as an ornate flying Admiral’s barge for part of the Royal Navy. Other sources assign it a training role at a Naval Air Station. Whichever is correct – and they both may be –…
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Westland Whirlwind – Part Two – Building Someone Else’s Memories
This Westland helicopter model of the late 50’s from Airfix seems to figure largely in the memories of other people. Everyone I have shown the box to seems to have built it back in the day and are scathing about it. I am fresh to the neighbourhood and am starting to feel somewhat wary –…
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Westland Whirlwind – Part One – A Green Stranger
The Vintage Classic shelf again – this time something I have never built before – the Airfix Westland Whirlwind HAS.22. In reality, it was a Sikorsky S-55 sold to the Royal Navy. The original kit is apparently of late 50’s vintage though I never saw one in shops in Canada. Basic, as you would expect,…
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The Royal Fly-Under
At the recent coronation of the British king we saw a fly-past by the RAF. Helicopters first, for some obscure reason, then the Red Arrows trailing multicoloured smoke, then a Royal anthem, and then nothing… The RAF may have been booked elsewhere for the day. At least the Royal Navy did them proud. As the…
The Little World 