Category: Modelling materials
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Tupolev SB2 – Part Three -Guessing Game
Meetings in the design bureau of a scale model company must be interesting to attend. Are there knives? Do people disappear? Do they call in dancing girls and order pizza? I ask because some of the decisions that come from these meetings seem to be motivated by strange desires. Who would have split the fuselage…
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Birthday Boatyard
Bob’s Boatyard, to be precise. Bob is my brother-n-law and a scale model builder as well. Rather than concentrate on plastic models, he devotes part of his retirement time to constructing wooden ship and boat models. It is rarely kit work – Bob builds from plans using wood that he cuts and shapes for himself.…
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Once You’ve Done The Worst Of The Kit
You need not fear the rest of the kit. My club-mate Michael Marchant showed me the tank tracks he was working on – they were from one of those Czech productions that have multiple parts per link, and multiple links per track, and no fun anywhere. I sympathised with him but left before any of…
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Hannover CL III A – Part Two – Tuch der Tränen
If ever you are presented with the prospect of building a WW1 German aircraft, look at the colour call-out carefully. It may have lozenge-pattern cloth used as basic covering, Prepare to tremble. The lozenge-pattern camouflage is going to be difficult – as the previous chap found out when he tried Humbrol enamel on the complex…
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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…
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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 – $…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
The Little World 