Category: Model Airplane
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Potez 540 – Part Four – IKEA Day

The day I assemble the fuselage from the flat pack with a little hex wrench. I almost seemed like that was going to be the case when I first saw the way the aircraft had been sectioned. But Heller was wise – if the Potez was rectangular in cross section there was no point in…
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Potez 540 – Part Three – Three Days On The Road

And I’m definitely not gonna make it home tonight. Not riding the Potez 540. The heading image is three days later. Not hectic days, mind, but steady use of my evening modelling time. I think we are making progress and I hope it is in a forward direction. The engine nacelles or housings for the…
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Potez 540 – Part Two – The Hatch Of Heller

The moment of truth arrived in my hobby room – I opened the Mister Craft box and saw what I had exchanged money for. I was pleasantly surprised. Heller it was, and Heller is still is. But not as bare or sad as some people would have you think. And not moulded as badly as…
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Potez 540 – Part One – The Roll Of the Dice

When my mother was expecting me, an angel appeared and offered to make me either smart or good looking – her choice. I now begin to suspect which idea appealed to her. The reason I’ve come to this conclusion is I have purchased another Mister Craft kit from Poland. You’ll remember my experiences with other…
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The Bellanca Ball-Ache

I’m being unfair to Bellanca – I could have chosen Beechcraft or Bristol. The alliteration was the thing – a ” B ” aircraft maker was needed. Let’s start out by saying there never was an aircraft called the Ball-Ache. There may have been many that induced the condition, but that is a matter for…
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Martin Maryland – Part Three – SAAFies Again

Remember the SAAF captured Junkers 52 that I made a couple of years ago? Well now it has a companion in the Desert Air Force. K for Kaffir – the Martin 167 Maryland of the South African Air Force. A lot of the SAAAF Marylands were camouflaged with middle stone and darker brown, but I…
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Stash Time

We are just starting a 5-day covid lockdown and fortunately our house has toilet paper, food, and books to read. The family has the goggle box and I have a stash. There are three kits a’building at present – one for the Tuesday Soviet Mens Shed meeting, one for the fortnightly glue and talk session,…
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Martin Maryland – Part Two – FROG Spawn

Well, I wasn’t wrong about the origin of the model – but I noted some interesting features on the sprue trees. Some were perfect and some were not. A Forrest Gump box of chocolates, indeed. The fuselage and wings are wonderful. The tail plane likewise. The design features a set of long tabs that lock…
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Martin Maryland – Part One – Circling The Shelf

You know that thing – when you visit a hobby shop on a number of occasions and pass the same model on the shelf each time. And you look at it and heft it and put it back for some reason. Then one day you run out of reasons… This kit of a Maryland is…
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Prop Washing

Well, you don’t want a dirty propeller, now do you. Sign of a badly-maintained aircraft, that. All greasy around the spinner, like… Actually, I got to wondering at who decides what colour the propeller on an aircraft should be, and why. Some reasons seem evident, but some are obscure. a. American aircraft prior to WW2…
