Category: Model Airplane
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Bristol/Fairchild Bolingbroke – Part Three – Are We Hobbyists Or Detectives?

I bought the Avia book about Canadian aircraft of WW2 on a whim at Hylands Bookstore in Melbourne earlier in the year. Hylands is a peripatetic purveyor of printed matter – I have been to 4 of their premises in the CBD of Melbourne over the decades and each time it has been a unique…
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Bristol/Fairchild Bolingbroke – Part Two – If It Ain’t Bolingbroke…

In a reversal of other people’s normal behaviour patterns, I commenced doing the Bristol/Fairchild Bolingbroke before I had thoroughly researched it. I was going on an illustration in an Avia book about Canadian aircraft of the WW2 period and the one I wanted seemed to be similar to the Bristol Blenheim Mk IV. As this…
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Bristol/Fairchild Bolingbroke – Part One – Mark Another One Up

I knew this was going to happen, but I didn’t know it was going to be so soon. I am repeating a build. No. I am repeating a build to a certain extent. I am doing what the prototype manufacturers and the air forces did – making the aircraft that developed from an earlier mark. In…
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Decal Day

Well, I knew it was coming…I knew it when I saw the sheet of transfers in the kit – when I bought the extra packet at the plastic model fair – when I googled up all the various marques of plane that had the same name as the one a’ building. I knew that I would…
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The Progressive Woo Hoo

People who want to develop a better character should become scale modellers. They will learn patience, perseverance, resilience, frugality, and how to get glue off your pants. And they will have rewards at each stage of the journey through modelling. It won’t be just at the end or at some contest when their model of…
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Wonder Of Toyz R Uz Kiddie Kinder Surprise Land Pty Ltd

If you want to challenge yourself, go visit a toy store. NOT in a school holiday period or in the week leading up to Christmas, I hasten to add. There are some things that you need not do to yourself, no matter what. I recently visited a large-scale toy emporium in our city and looked…
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The Big Green Things Made Of Wood

You know. Branches, trunks, roots, bird nests. Those things that stand there in front of the forest and obscure it. Whaddaya call ’em…starts with a ” T “. I’ll think of it in a minute… Well modelling can be like that. You do all the research in the world – spend days on the internet…
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Cheap And Nasty Or Cheap And Nicely?

When I came to Australia in the 60’s I encountered a whole new division of language. Coming from North America I had experienced Canadian English and American English – now I had Australian English to learn. It wasn’t that hard, once you discarded the ocker colloquialisms. Of course you had to pick them up again…
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Is There A Worse Way To Do It?

Because if there is, I want to know all about it. I love horror stories and the things that people invent to do for themselves in their modelling workshops are no exception. Oh, I don’t mean the accidents and mishaps. I can cut my fingers or spill thinner into the electric fire myself. And who…
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Special Greetings From The Hobby Shop Siege

This is the second day of the hobby shop siege and the management hasn’t gotten me out yet. I’ve holed up behind the paint racks and taken hostages. Police negotiators have turned spotlights onto the acrylics but I am refusing to budge until my demands are met. I have sent out a manifesto and have…
