Category: Instructions
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Hawker Typhoon 1B – Part One – Squashed Kit

Another flattened amphibian from 1974 – a WW2 Typhoon fighter-bomber. A kind gift from a club-mate – to whom I was able to reciprocate. This old Typhoon is in excellent shape, even if the box is not. All sprue trees complete and the canopy has not cracked. The instructions are not snail-eaten and the decal…
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Ural Starter Truck Part Three – Part By Part

I’ll amend that; part by precise part. The Ural is going together exactly as per instructions – and each part is straight and plumb as it adds to the model. The 6 wheels do, indeed, hit the ground together and the cab needs only the slightest fettling to fit over the engine. Here the tolerances…
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French Lancaster – Part Two – Part Works

No, not one of those wretched Paul Hamlyn newsagency schemes that sell you a part and a line of guff each week until you either spend $ 2000 or throw the remains in the bin… This is about the little sub-assemblies you can deal with as the main parts are setting. Cockpit, tailplanes, engine nacelles,…
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The Scholarly Modeller

People in the arts, sciences, and humanities will all have encountered the scholarly author or researcher – who will vastly overbear anything the average enthusiast can bring to a discussion. The scholars will have read, experimented, thought, or created their way to eminence in their respective fields and very likely have published and publicized all…
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Curtiss Model 75 A-4 – Part One – Mohawk IV

This ain’t my first rodeo, nor my first Curtiss Model 75. Review the old posts and find the Revell kit I built in Norwegian colours. This kit, however is a new variant of this interesting aircraft, and an entirely new kit maker as well. AML seems to be a Czech firm who supply entire kits…
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When Is An Apple Not An Apple?

When it is drawn as a diagram on the instruction sheet of a scale model piece of fruit. Then – particularly if the kit is from Prague – the part that looks like a Granny Smith, Mackintosh, or Cox’s Pippin could well be an aileron or de-icing strip. There will be few written notes to…
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MiG-29 Fulcrum – Part Two – Thinking Behind

Thinking behind is opposite from thinking ahead and has different rules. a. You are not meant to feel good. b. You are not going to do a good job. c. The language is different. Shorter and sharper… My second lesson in second thinking came when I had closed up the fuselage of he MiG-29. It…
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Ansaldo SVA 5 – Part One – Czech, Box, And Soviet

Normally a set of red flags for me. In this case a boon. This is a gift from my club – an abandoned kit that sat on the shelf in the storage room for all the years I’ve been a member. It is box scale – 1:50th. It is early Czech production, and is presented…
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Two – Well, No Escaping It…

Sooner or later I was going to have to start the kit. The box had to be opened and the sprue trees taken out. All 870 of them…The AS truck had already been built as part of a Soviet airfield but the main monster remained. Amodels are flashy mouldings., and slightly friable plastic. Many of…
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MiG 15 Bis – Part One – Czeching Out The Next Stage

A few months ago I purchased an Eduard kit from Hobbytech Toys in Myaree – a Weekend Edition of a Czech crop duster. It was delightful. Encouraged, I returned to HobbyTech one Sunday and picked up a Profi-Pack Edition of this classic Soviet fighter. I wanted to see what differences Eduard would provide. I noted…
