Category: Modelling materials
-
The Feral Modeller
A guide to being the strangest one in the room. If you’ve only built a Mustang, Spitfire, and Messerschmitt, you are probably going to fit right into any scale modelling group. Not so much if everyone else is into doll houses or anime, but you never can tell. But if you want to really stand…
-
Carrie Nation’s Guide To Airbrushing
Stay away from Mick, John, and Dick. They have dangerous ideas. A recent discovery of a cheap Canadian whiskey on our local market led to speculation about paint thinners and prices. We looked out bottles of Tamiya X-20 and X-20A at the club, and noted the recent price rises. It’s now $ 15 – $…
-
People Know More Things Than You Know
But sometimes they don’t show. I mentioned a small discovery I’d made in the art store to another club member and the discussion turned to silicone moulding and investment casting. I’d done a lot as a student and practitioner and it appears that the other chap has done nearly as much as a modeller. I…
-
I Plan To Ask For Asylum
In the Airfix factory. I know what my priorities are, and once I escape my enemies I will need amusement. 45 gallons of glue and the contents of the warehouse should about do it. Other fugitive world leaders are going to try to be banged up in Biarritz or Bermuda, but I leave them to…
-
What’s Brown And Sticky?
A stick. Now that we’ve gotten the classic dad joke off the board, we can continue to the real topic of this post: the cocktail stick. Also known as the wooden skewer, satay stick, or kebab stick, this thin bamboo or wood shaft is available in any grocery store or Asian shop. Bundles of a…
-
If I Knew Then What I Know Now
I probably woulda forgotten it. I will have to be satisfied with what I am learning. some of the lessons are easy and some of them need to be scraped off the floor. I do watch other people at work on the model bench and on the YouTube screen. I am aware that the latter…
-
When The Horse Balks And Throws You
Get up and get back on.* When you make an inadvertent floater in a kit build, finish it and start another as soon as possible. Find a kit that will require you to do the same procedure as before, but this time correctly. Remember the mistake you made and why it was wrong…and when you…
-
The Unaccounted
Every so often I see things in the hobby shops for which I can find no explanation. These can be on alien shelves – the gundam and anime models – the motion picture and comic book models. I see things that bear no relation to my life whatsoever. They may be good kits, and they…
-
The Brass Band
In my hobby clubs there are people who risk death daily by building models using photo-etched brass parts. The fatal danger they run is showing the rest of us up with their skill and precision. One day they will be found out the side door with little knives in their backs. To be fair, some…
-
Is It Organisation or Obsession?
I have spent an afternoon labelling boxes. The basic need was to identify the contents of cardboard grazing boxes that contain the larger model aircraft I build. These were too big for IKEA shelves and too difficult to dust – I needed to keep them covered, the boxes were a good solution, and both locally…
The Little World 