Category: Hobby Shops
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Scale Model Puzzlement
And not the jig-saw kind. I mean the sense of uncertainty and curiosity that arises when you see certain aspects of our hobby. Here is a list of head-scratchers:
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The Ideal Stash
The ideal stash is just as easy to construct as the ideal house or the ideal marriage. All you need is about ten centuries of unremitting toil to buy, shelve, rearrange, sell, build, discard, and trade your scale model kits and eventually you will have it perfect. I should start now before the summer heat…
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The Really Good Kits
Go to someone else. We are left with the stuff that doesn’t sell. The wholesale trade has only a certain number of new releases each year and when these have been sent to the eastern state’s shops we get the dregs. And plastic dregs can be dreadful. I don’t think the makers started out to…
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The Unaccounted
Every so often I see things in the hobby shops for which I can find no explanation. These can be on alien shelves – the gundam and anime models – the motion picture and comic book models. I see things that bear no relation to my life whatsoever. They may be good kits, and they…
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The Noodles You Have In Your Bowl
Are all you need. Have you ever been to a fast food outlet that tried to sell you food by asking whether you wanted to ” up-size ” it? Did you agree or decline, thinking that a standard-size assault on your gall bladder was all you really needed? You felt you had just been hustled.…
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If You Made Models Of Dead Cows
Someone, somewhere, would buy them. A disturbing set of questions would revolve about what scale to make and who to aim it at. I am guessing 1:24 or 1:35 and the car or armour markets respectively. The diorama that would be built using the models would reveal a lot about the modeller. It would not…
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Hobbyist Approved…
Oh dear God. I have just seen an advertisement for a portable airgun that is ” Hobbyist Approved “. The world is spinning before my eyes. Bells are ringing and strange phantoms drift in an out of my vision. Whether they are approved by hobbyists is unknown. Children, we are scale model hobbyists and we…
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Watching For The Delivery
Or, not every on-line transaction is seamless. The order for the little die-cast motor cars was made after careful consideration – I was going to need specific years and types to enhance my 2025 exhibition layout. Good sense would gather the elements needed now while they are still available. The net. A shop in South…
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I Can Quit Any Time I Want
But building model airplanes is a cultural activity. And good for the economy. And, and, and… Don’t go in there; that’s the stash room. If you open the door the sealed atmosphere will be contaminated. Where was I all day? In my workshop or at the club, of course. Clubs, actually. Uh, workshops, as well,…
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Looking For A Good Time, Big Boy?
I’ve seen these advertisements in the back of the newspaper. But they are rarely from hobby shops… I don’t think we need to make our hobby – scale model building – sleazy and profitable to attract the masses. I am not sure how you’d add porn appeal to an M4 Sherman tank in 1:35 scale,…
The Little World 