Category: Modelling materials
-
Out Of The Box

” Oh he’s just built that out of the box “… If you ever hear this you are entitled to sneer, but be careful where you direct your lip. The speaker is using the word ” just ” to belittle the modeller. There is a suggestion of lack of skill or imagination. Possibly a financial…
-
Vultee Vengeance – Part Three – How Green Was My Vultee

If the fumes from the paint don’t kill me, the bad puns will. Probably through the agency of enraged listeners seeking me out to stop them. Actually, I am very proud of this one, as it involves real thinking and research. As I am building a Vultee Vengeance in RAF or RAAF service ( not…
-
Convair 440 – Part Seven – Thinking Outside The Box

Getting a kit that is deeply flawed – or undertaking any other modelling task that is doomed to failure from the start – is a wonderful opportunity to put the prop on coarse, turn on the water injection, and shove the throttle past the military stop. You might as well see what the hell happens……
-
Convair 440 – Part Six – Methinks They Doth Protest Too Much

Well fresh from the debacle of a failed paint job and the recovery of spirit when the paint job was partially saved, I decided to launch out on a voyage to the New World of Mach 2 kits – I finally hauled the Convair 440 out of the stash and started to work on the…
-
Which Cement Shall I Use To Ruin My Sweater?

I’m glad that I own more than one garment – because I sure as heck own more than one kind of adhesive. I did not realise just how many until I got a kit that is moulded from cheese and determined to try out which would be best to stick it. In many respects it…
-
De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part Eight – The Colour Lab

When I set myself the task of finding an effective workflow, I decided to make it as realistic as possible. So I cut 16 MDF board tablets to 2 x 3 inches and sprayed them with standard Tamiya primer. Some grey, some white, and some red oxide. The Tamiya product in a can has always…
-
De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part Seven – Challenges Must Yield To Science!

Part Six of the DH Mosquito Mk II saga showed the dull and sad paint job that I ended up with after failing to think properly about what I was doing – I sprayed a matting acrylic too heavily and cured it under too high a temperature. I regarded the result as a failure on…
-
I’m More Eco-Virtuous Than You Are

So there too, hah! Actually all us model builders have an opportunity to stick it to the Facebook/Shopping Centre/News bite saints who scold us daily about everything we think or do – particularly the ones who would deny us everything from plastic straws to bear traps. We are ahead of their game: a. Plastic straws.…
-
The Bad Decision

Steel yourself – there will be some serious soul-searching in this post. You are going to have to confront your own failures. As for me, I’m going to hide mine by pretending that I never make mistakes. Anything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault – even if there is no-one within 500 yds of…
-
Hawker Hurricane Mk II – Part Three – The Beauty Salon

It was cold tonight. Rainy. I adjourned into the computer room with a portable modelling tray to proceed with the Hurricane in some comfort – the Little Workshop was just too miserable to work in, even with the heater on. The task was masking the pattern illustrated in the Avia publication on Canadian warplanes. I…
