Category: Miniature Philosophy
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You Can Be Damned
So can I, and all we need to do is pick up the wrong pot of paint. The colour question has divided people for centuries… and no more so than in the hobby shop. The number of paints available to camouflage toy airplanes is exceeded only by the number of people who claim to know…
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Too Many Decal Systems
Too many to make your hobby shop choice an easy matter. And that’s the way it is with scale model chemicals – whether that is paint, cement, or polish – in the 21st century. We might have passed cheerful childhoods with tube cement, tinned paint, and a bottle of turpentine, but we ain’t going to…
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The Importance Of Amateur Expertise
Don’t leave knowing it all to the professionals. I belong to scale model hobby clubs that derive information from various sources. The members read the internet, published books, and many specialist magazines. They have local museums to visit and can meet people who have seen and operated the things that they are modelling. There should…
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Expertise
If you were to be in a position of unassailable expertise somewhere in the scale modelling world, what topic would you choose to command? Imagine people coming up to you shyly at the club and asking for your help. Or better…for your judgement. How would you help? I think I would like to be the…
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Prior Exposure
If it all happened before, you can be sure that it will all happen again. Somewhere there is an iceberg looking for an ocean liner. And the next time you book a zeppelin… It is the same with scale modelling – you can bet on death, taxes, and Spitfire kits. If it caught a penny…
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A Good Day’s Modelling
A good day’s modelling can be a surprisingly limited affair – producing only a few components for a larger model, or only a few steps in an assembly sequence. We all like progress, and rapid progress if possible, but we should also recognise when the little thongs are rewarding. A day spent making the crew…
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Eventually The Kit Will Be Finished
Or the Earth will spiral into the sun. Either way, there will be an end to it. Some builds seem to take forever. You start out looking forward to a few weeks of building and eventually it becomes a few months. If the calendar stretches to an extra year, you know you have a special…
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Making A Hobby Out Of A Job
It’s generally the other way round, isn’t it. People go along loving something they do for themselves and then someone suggests money should be made from it. The hobby becomes a side-hustle, and then a venture, and then a full-blown job. Eventually it palls and the former enthusiast comes to hate it. So they take…
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The Rules Of Engagement
I was a a meeting recently that set out the rules for an upcoming scale model exhibition. The briefing was from one of the chief organisers and was very well done. He was in a position to make the set-up and operation perfectly clear, as I suspect that he was able to control his committee…
The Little World 