Category: Model Airplane
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Burbank
I appear to have started an aircraft factory. This was not my intention when I began my retirement modelling – I was just looking for one or two kits to while away spare time. Nostalgia. A mere bagatelle. Well, the Mere Aircraft Company’s Bagatelle Mk III turns out to have been a hell of an…
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Never Mind Washing Your Hands
Wash your Handley Page. If you won’t do it carefully, just do it for the Halifax… We all need to wash our mitts more these days to prevent the transmission of the Wuhan Plague and hopefully we will all do so – but what we really need to do is wash our model kits better.…
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Gluetoset
Waitin’ for the gluetoset. Is there a more agonising time? Waitin’ for the paintoset has been suggested, but at least while you are doing that you have something to look at. And you are trying to keep the rain/flies/dust/fingers off the new colour so you are occupied. But waiting for the gluetoset? Millenial boredom. Those…
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Grumman Wildcat – Part Four – Neutrality Patrol
This colour scheme on the Grumman F4F Wildcat is apparently real – it was seen in 1941 in the Atlantic aboard the USS RANGER conducting something called a Neutrality Patrol. It’s the standard US Navy Yellow Wing scheme adapted to the eastern seaboard. Neutrality? Was the USA expecting attack from the British or Germans or…
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Grumman Wildcat – Part Three – Nodecal
Nodecal – the pill that makes you a better modeller. One review of this Hobby Boss Wildcat kit bemoaned the fact that there were no decals for the wing or fuselage bands. The review also went on to complain about the proportions of the tail and the scribing in the wing surfaces.Now, I’m not a…
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I Can Quit Any Time I Want To…
Honest.* But the success of the first diorama shelf trays being what it was, I decided to call past Officeworks, get some more A1 foam board, and then see what the hobby shop afforded in the way of decorations. Luckily, there were new Faller fencing sets in stock. Expensive, but totally worth it for the…
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Grumman Wildcat – Part Two – Four-Part Harmony
In each of the two pictures on this post there are four plastic parts. They’re glued up and setting overnight. The time taken to get to this point, including the washing of the parts, was about one hour. I’ve spent longer in the barbers. This would be a terrible thing for some modellers to contemplate.…
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Grumman Wildcat – Part One – Hello Yellow
My friend Warren once pulled up a Hobby Boss kit of the F4F Wildcat in early colours and it set me investigating. This plane turned up in one of the profiles out of a modelling magazine – I can’t tell you if the kit makers made theirs from the illustration or if the illustrator drew…
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The Shelf Life
I have a miniature air museum of model airplanes. And a motor museum of model cars. And an air field. And an airport. And very little space to actually live in – I need to move a Tupolev sideways to sit on the toilet. Reform is needed. I thought that this was possible with IKEA.…
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The Inaccurate Model
If you are a reader of Britmodeller or some of the IPMS sites you’ll find that there are a number of people who live in mortal fear – whether it’s fear of discovering their plastic kit is out by three millimetres or fear of discovering that it’s not – is not clear. I think the…
The Little World 