Category: Model Airplane
-
Piper J3 – Part One -The Household Word
Hoover. Not Herbert, you herbert. Hoover like in vacuum cleaner. The brand name. Except, in England it isn’t a brand name – it’s the name of a class of product – the vacuum cleaner. People don’t vacuum the house, they hoover it. Losing that capital letter was the greatest piece of industrial and advertising good…
-
Junkers Ju52 – Part Four – Czech Junk
Old Czech junk. Actually old French junk that was foisted on the Czechs. And happy they were to get it, too. The scheme of the Junkers 52 that you see in the finished product is listed as being in service with the Police Air Service in 1950. A bit of googling shows that the Police…
-
Junkers Ju52 – Part Three – Hugo’s Ghost
Hugo Junkers died in 1935. May he rest in peace. What I am left speculating about is; was he buried in a corrugated coffin? All the Junkers planes I have built so far have featured this form of sheet metal and I am starting to think it would have been a nice touch if he…
-
Junkers Ju52 – Part Two – The Four-part Fuselage
The Potez bomber that Mister Craft boxed up from a Heller mould had a distinctive four-sided fuselage that lent itself to IKEA construction. So does the Junkers 52 – as long as you get the elements in registration it all goes very well. But that doesn’t mean that you can wipe round the edges, clap…
-
Junkers Ju52 – Part One – Vanilla, Please…
What? Straight out of the box? No complicated build? No sheet of arcane decals? No aftermarket resin kit? Just the thing you bought off the shelf? What sort of a monster are you? A tired one. Tired of the bullshit of trying to re-make every single kit into something weird. Tired of having to second-guess…
-
Grumman Goblin I – Part Six – Ol’ 340
Ol’ 340 is finished and will take her place on the main runway of RCAF WET DOG, Students of aviation may wish to adopt the methods of Sherlock Holmes; observe and then make deductions. The basis for the decision to build this plane this way came from Harold Skaarup’s vast collection of Canadian airplane pictures.…
-
Grumman Goblin I – Part Five – The March To The Gallows
You can only put off unpleasant things for so long – eventually you have to face up to them and either conquer or be conquered. In my case the dread arose because of the cabane and interplane struts of this aircraft. True to their past form, the short-run moulders had made hardly any provision for…
-
Grumman Goblin I – Part Four – Ugly Bug Ball
There is a certain point in your wife’s beauty routine that you should not see. Lovers may never see it, if their lady is careful. Husbands will inevitably happen upon it at some stage of the game. The shock will be severe. It may lead the man to blurt out a cry of dismay. This…
-
Grumman Goblin I – Part Three – Fuselage of Courage
The title of this column recognises that there is a certain stoutness of spirit required when you try to close up a fuselage, car body, or hull. The reality of what the plastic is going to do can be a lot different from the blandishments of the instruction sheet. I’ve written before about what the…
-
Grumman Goblin I – Part Two – Interior Lines Of Confusion
I like photo-etch brass pieces. I also like chiggers and toothache. All three are acquired tastes… In the case of the Goblin I, the brass fret is not too daunting – rendered more comfortable by the fact that I am not going to touch about half of the tiny parts on it. This is not…
The Little World 