Category: Modelling materials
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The Makers Of The Kits Do Not Make Them For Your Pleasure
They make them for your money. Anything downstream of this is just an extra. Remember this when you look at the Verell kit that costs $ 35.00; the 1:53.5 scale one that has “ 1951 ” moulded inside the wing. It has been returning cash to the pockets of Verell for 75 years and pretty…
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Do What You Can
With what you have – where you are. This may have been Teddy Roosevelt’s line or it might have been from an earlier writer. Since I just typed it, it’s mine now. You are free to use it as you will. You have a kit in front of you – for which you may have…
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YF23 – Part One – Y-Leftovers
The Box of Possibilities. This box contained two aircraft – I suspect it is the residue of a failed project from someone unknown. Abandoned in the club storeroom, it fell to me after a grand clean-out. This is no new sensation – it often happens here at home when the wife or daughter decide to…
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Ardently Argent
There is an El Dorado for all of us. The Spanish Conquistadors looked for a Golden Man. I am not as ambitious – I will settle for a silver airplane. I am driven by memories of shining jets and passenger liners of the great travel age. Not now, when everyone can be crammed into a…
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Mil 24 Hind F – Part Three – Goo Time
In some cases that is a good time and in some just a goo time. I have written before about making my own sprue goo and using it for seam and gap filling. I have largely thrown away the Vallejo, Perfect Plastic Putty, and Mr Hobby products in favour of this home-made solution. I also…
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Scaling Up Your Scaling Down
When you are presented with requests. You give positive answers. Someone wanted decals for a model aircraft but couldn’t find them on the net. I did, but that probably wasn’t the question anyway. Fortunately the decal sheet needed was simple and illustrated cleanly in colour. Getting it onto Photoshop Elements was simple. Not so simple…
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You Can Save Yourself Into The Bin
Or the poorhouse. The first comes about when you decide to buy raw materials to bypass the commercial products. If you have been used to using a rattle can for spraying undercoat or varnish, you can replace this consistent and successful method with a single-action airbrush, little pots of clear lacquer, and a great deal…
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CAC Wirraway – Part Four – Gappy vs Gapless
It is pretty simple to guess whether kit builders prefer their models with good or bad fit. But if there is going to be a situation in between – where do you want the gaps to fall? The aircraft modeller generally sees it in wings and tail, with the ambitious factories inventing new places to…
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The Bad Batch
Whenever something goes wrong we search for an explanation…that’s just human inability to accept fate. Sometimes it turns out not to be our fault – though smart money always bets the other way. When it is genuinely not us, it can be the maker. The kit that is moulded wrongly. Or warped in the packaging.…
The Little World 