Category: Modelling materials
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Long Days Down T’ Bench

Or modelling until you can’t model any more. There are two types of long hobby days: a. The day that you just get to keep doing the thing you love, one bit after another. You finish one stage of the kit and are ready for the next one. Nothing breaks, nothing rolls off the bench,…
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Of Course It Doesn’t Fit

It never fit in 1959, when the kit was released. It didn’t fit in 1989 when Revell bought the mould and re-issued it. It will not fit when someone east of the Urals finally gets the worn-out blocks and injects reindeer poo into them to claw back some rubles. It’s not about fit. It’s about…
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Oh Ye Of Little Faith

Draw Nigh And Listen Unto Me. Cement it twice and glue it three times. For that is the only way that thou wilt be able to keep the pissy little landing gear legs in their position, or the canopy on firmly. Or indeed the fuselage halves together. Add another layer of cement or glue and…
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Fokker Eindecker – Part Three – Stick and String

Well, that was a surprise. I actually enjoyed the process of rigging this little fighter plane. It doesn’t have all the wires it is entitled to, but it has as many as I have the patience to attach. The local hobby shop man didn’t have the Ezy-line that I thought was needed but he did…
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Cessna Dragonfly – Part Two – Weighty Nose

You only have to forget once to weight the nose of a three-wheeled plane to impress it on your memory forever. And there is no effective way to excuse it when you are faced with the fact – other than accepting your fate, putting the wheels up, and the model on a flying stand. I…
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Com Pro Mise

Don’t turn away. And don’t make that noise in your throat. Compromise is not a filthy word. You’ll find this out soon enough when you are a scale model builder – particularly if you build from commercial kits. They have compromises on every sprue tree. You can also buy after-market brass approximations and resin-cast bad…
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Farman NC 223.3 – Part Three – Sprue Goo

I have taken the – so far – free advice from Phil Flory and made up a jar of Sprue Goo. The Evergreen plastic card was from the surplus scrap bin – a little brown and a lot of white chipped up and dissolved in Supercheap Auto lacquer thinner. It was an overnight success and…
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Dornier Do-17Z – Part Three – So Near…

And yet so far… I was really hoping to get the Dornier 17Z buttoned up with no need for filler as a tribute to the old Monogram moulders. Such was not to be the case, but in the meantime I am puzzling over the inside of the wing. The Monogram engravings are there alright, as…
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” Recapture Your Childhood “

Said an advertisement for a reissue of an old kit. I opened the box and looked in… My childhood was moulded better than that – and it was made in the same mould. I might have aged a lot and some of my edges have become worn, but I have avoided sinkholes in every corner…
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Gloster Javelin – FAW 9 – Part Three – Trench Warfare

Try as you might to buy kits that need no major work, you are still at the mercy of the moulding shop. Tamiya may be a safer bet than FROG but do not let the tube of putty out of your sight… This was a case of trying the new sprue goo mixture. I finally…
