Category: Modelling materials
-
Craquelure
The word is from the art world and it describes a fine network of lines or cracks in the surface of an oil painting. This is observable in most famous paintings in galleries and is not considered a fault. However, when it invades our scale model workshop it is to be deplored. We may be…
-
Isuzu TX-40 – Part Three – Now You Don’t
But the Isuzu is there in full glory. And the people at Hasegawa have been thoughtful enough to provide a hand trolley and two ground crewmen to push it, plus 5 fuel drums. This has been one of the best little mojo builds I’ve encountered in a long time. Every part went on it and…
-
Yuron – Yurown Design Bureau
This is the new decal printing company that I have started to use now that every other specialist firm has decided to pack it in. I can look at Scalemates all day and see what once was printed, but as far as being able to actually get the sheets…? I might as well be asking…
-
I’m A Dinosaur…
Because I was raised in the Plasticine Era. Boom, boom. No, really I was. All the way from kindergarten to way past puberty I was using Plasticine for modelling and construction, and never thought it an outdated material. The smell of it, due to the linseed oil, defined the school art classes. A whiff brings…
-
Short Sunderland – Part Four – More Masks Than The Italian Banditti
I am not a mask person. They make me nervous – whether they are the Venetian Carnival sort or the plain ones worn by train robbers. I spent 30 years wearing them in surgery and I was generally up to no good there either… So when I need to mask for spray painting, you can…
-
The Rhythm Of The Stash
If you are a model builder with one kit, you have no trouble deciding what your next build will be. Most of us who built models as children were in just this position all the time. The only occasion when you might have had a multiplicity of kits was on a birthday or holiday. But…
-
Silver Is Not Chrome Is Not Stainless Steel
None of them are super iron or super silver, either, and if you are looking for dull aluminium, you are risking your life trying to get it. The metallisers are loose in the land and terror reigns. I remember fondly the days when there was just one silver – whether it was a Pactra product…
-
Revell SPAD XIII – Part Two – Grinning And Bearing It
Well, it is a vintage kit… The Revell SPAD XIII is going to look good, I tell myself. The large dollop of Mr. White Putty cut with levelling thinner is only to be expected. Also the superglue run into the tail gaps and the Vallejo squirt putty elsewhere. I have not reached for a tin…
-
Dirt Rich
As a kid I encountered the term ” dirt poor “. A lot of you know it as well – though we probably wouldn’t describe ourselves as such if we are building scale model kits or reading this on a computer screen. I would like to introduce a new phrase: ” Dirt Rich “. It…
-
PAINT!
Never mind eating or washing or sleeping. The temperature has become cooler, there is no wind , and the humidity is low. Get out there in the shed and spray for your life. Being a scale model builder in Western Australia is a peculiar life. We are marginally more dependent upon the weather than a…
The Little World 