Category: Hobby Shops
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Fiat BR.20 – Part One – Birthday Bomber

Part of my big birthday buy-up last year was this Fiat bomber. It was a last-minute selection in a shop I rarely visit – but I am delighted with the prospect. Italeri kits always please me, and none more so than their Italian aircraft. They seem to put an extra level of care in the…
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Triumph Herald – Part Three – Down The Rabbit Hole

At my model building club I see many of the other members building models that are a larger scale than the ones I work on. Up until now I have not thought how much harder their minds must be working – because a lot of the things that are just omitted from my 1:72 aircraft…
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Triumph Herald – Part One – Well, It Seemed Like A Good Idea

At the time. Buy a cheap old English sedan and do it up. How hard could it be? People who have experienced Austin, Morris, Triumph, and Hillman vehicles in their lives fell into two groups – those who never opened the bonnets, and those who never closed them. Some came to their fate through fond…
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And Now The Shipping News

A number of chaps at my Men’s Shed morning are model ship builders – some exclusively and some as a relief from tanks or planes. I used to build boats – R/C ones as a young householder, and in my dim youth plastic ships as well. But so far not in old age. No real…
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SNCAN Martinet – Part One – A Siebel By Any Other Name

Christmas was coming to the hobby shop and it was time to choose my present. In this case before the actual day, so I got a fresh choice. The SNCAN Martinet was a Siebel 204 produced in France during the occupation and afterwards. It was used by the French air force and then sold on…
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Polish Tankette – Part One – A Gem Off The Shelf

This kit is the second venture I’m making in 1/35 scale – and this is a deliberate choice, rather than a chance purchase. The little Polish armoured car kit that I bought for a dollar proved to be so much fun to build that I determined to add more to the Stein’s Military World museum.…
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North American Bronco – A Quick Build

This North American OV-10 model has a rather chequered history – it was sold twice and gifted three times before it was built. It is just this report on my column because it was a quick build. It started life in Korea as an Academy model, made its way to Japan into someone’s stash, and…
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Either Shit Or Climb Off The Pot

Come with me to my local hobby shop – my happy place. Tool aisle, car aisle, kit aisles, paint aisle…as many wonderful aisles as one could want. In these post-viral days we are instructed to leave a metre and a half between us and other people while sometimes wearing a mask. I do this, and…
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What’s In It For Me?

That is the sort of question that makes us sound greedy…when we ask it in the wrong circumstances. Yet it really is apposite in some modelling affairs. We can ask it of ourselves when we look at a new kit on the hobby shop shelf. The box art may be fantastic and the reports from…
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PZL 37a Los – Part One – Heart In Hand…

Or mouth, as the case might be. I plucked this Mister Craft bomber off the hobby shop shelf as part of a Christmas present…wondering if I was going to get another dud. Mister Craft can mould some real curate’s eggs… In thus case I was not too dismayed by the sprue trees, but I did…
