Category: Modelling materials
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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The Double Decal
The idea of a commercial double decal is not new…but it might be just the answer for your home-made ones. Some decals come on Cartograf or other printer’s sheets as a two layer plan. I have made up French Air Force planes where not only the tail tricolor but the main roundels require two applications;…
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Rain Clouds At Dawning
Gather round me now… Rain clouds at dawning, model maker take warningWhiskey at night, model maker’s delight. Arrr, the old tales be the true ones… I have never taken so much notice of temperature and humidity as when I started airbrushing scale models. I was fool enough to try the art when the weather department…
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Buy A Curse
Be careful in your selection – you want something that will disturb and haunt you for a long time to come. The thing to do is go to the hobby shop and search the shelves until you find something that is both impossibly expensive and horribly complex. Preferably with a complicated colour scheme and a…
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Know When To Fold ‘Em
Kenny Rogers’ good advice to scale model builders. We all know the virtues of perseverance and hard work, having had it drummed into us by parents, schools, and employers. What has been missing is the virtue of quitting while you are ahead. Kenny Rogers’ gambler knew it, and it is time we did too. You…
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Hobbyist Approved…
Oh dear God. I have just seen an advertisement for a portable airgun that is ” Hobbyist Approved “. The world is spinning before my eyes. Bells are ringing and strange phantoms drift in an out of my vision. Whether they are approved by hobbyists is unknown. Children, we are scale model hobbyists and we…
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Build What You Know
Not what you don’t. This doesn’t mean you have to restrict your building to domestic objects or your own trade. Scale models of insurance policies are probably exquisite but few people bother to read them in 1:72 scale. You can do anything you like, of course, but you’ll be happier doing something that you understand…
The Little World 