Category: Model Airplane
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Junkers Ju-86 – Part Three – Lady Anne Barnard

Of course you name a German bomber after a Scottish lady of the Georgian period who walked up Table Mountain. Perfectly normal, what? And so they did – this Junkers-86 K passing from the South African airline to the South African Air Force when war commenced and the South Africans decided which side they wanted…
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Junkers Ju-86 – Part Two – The Four-Part Scheme

You have no idea how hard it was to resist writing ” Four-play “… The horror I experienced painting my first four-part camouflage scheme still exists in my display cabinet – wrapped around a Morane-Saulnier fighter of the French air force in early WW2. I was relying upon a back-of-packet colour call-out and masking fluid.…
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Junkers Ju-86 – Part One – The Lumbering South African

And I am not talking about elephants here… How often do you get to see South Africans flying overhead? Or landing on a local field? Or eating things off your lawn? Those of you who live in Perth know that the chances are quite good – we have seen many South African migrants over the…
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The Birthday Money

I got my birthday money and went to the hobby shops to spend it. I went to three different ones in my city, and enjoyed myself in each…though not as much as you might expect. It was like being a fussy kid in candy stores that either did not have any fresh lollies…or had priced…
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Is It Light Into Dark?

Or the other way around? I can’t remember the correct sequence for mixing custom colours that need several hues or shades in one pot. Do I put light drops into a dark base or vice versa? I ask this because I need a purple for the top of a WW1 German aircraft and there are…
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The Itch Builder

And I write because I am just that when the need arises. These days I build mostly model aircraft in one scale. I like to photograph them in my studio and need structures and accessories to go with the kit-built planes. The trade is pretty lax about making things for model aircraft…very much so in…
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Handley Page Heracles – Part Four – Night Flight To Hyderabad

This aircraft model gave two choices of registration – G-AAXC or G-AAXF. I chose the latter – ” Helena ” and noted that it was assigned to eastern flights for Imperial Airways – when there was an empire in the east to fly to. As I intend to do with most 1:144 models in my…
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Handley Page Heracles – Part Three – Mask And Silver

I shall never understand the remark that someone once made about silver-finish aircraft being boring. The amount of work that goes into preparing a model for a silvered finish – and the sheer terror involved in spraying it – would seem to be enough excitement for anyone. Follow this with decaling and sealing and you…
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Handley Page Heracles – Part One – A Present From The Past

I recently asked my daughter to pick me up a fresh model kit when she passed through Melbourne. There are several good shops there and she might encounter something new. Well, she was taken by something old – an Airfix vintage Classic re-issue of a 1965 kit – the Handley Page HP.42 ” Heracles ”…
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General Dynamics F111 – Part Three – The Masked Bandit

Every model you build teaches you something – this little one showed me how to conquer the tri-tone scheme. Normally I hate ’em – the Armée de l’Air or USG or Italian three-colour camouflage that looks so cool and takes so much masking and spraying time. I have been known to chicken out more times…
