Category: Modelling materials
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Spend Half Your Time Learning How To Do It Right
Then spend the rest learning how to recover when it goes wrong. All kits have flaws…if not in the box, then in the buyer. Something will go awry in the build. If you are fortunate it will be small and early, and you can fix it before you go on. These are the times that…
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Leonardo Da Vinci’s Cartoons
No, you fools, not the ninja turtles. The real Da Vinci and the preparatory drawings he used to do in chalk and charcoal before launching out onto canvas and oil paint. Think you can pick one up for a bargain price? I mean it’s just a chalk sketch, right? How much could chalk cost…? You…
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The Toy Makers
Some scale model builders look askance at people who deal with toys – whether these are wooden horses or cast-metal cars or life-like figurines. There is more than a hint of condescension when they are compared to the latest Tamigawafix 1:200 kit of the Prince Of Huddersfield. The one with the 1200 separate parts and…
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The Tsunami
It started as a fountain of knowledge – then a pool of information – then a flood of images. Now we have a tsunami and modellers are being drowned at their workbenches. I mean the internet, and specifically the Google images page. The go-to when you are looking for either inspiration or confirmation. You want…
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To Paint Or Not To Paint
That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to coat the photo etched brass parts of your kit with the same paint as the injected plastic ones and let them sink into oblivion or to leave them unpainted and declare your skill and investment to the world. For those of my clubmates who might feel I…
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Aero-pondering – Part Four – Little Big Planes
I have come at last to the 1/144 scale model. I received several as presents and bought one from a legacy sale – and now I have to start thinking… The 1/72 aircraft that form the bulk of my collection are a delight to build until you come to the landing gear – and then…
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When The Wing Falls Off…
Or the tailplane, or the engine nacelle… The aging of a model – or of a collection – can be graceful and unremarkable, or not. You will not notice the first circumstance but the second one will call itself to your eye every now and then. Something will break off. When you stop and think…
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Landing Hard – Part two – Lolly Legs
You can google that one up to read the full horror of Australian vernacular, but for now just concentrate on the landing gear of scale model aircraft. Landing gear on real aircraft are the structures that allow the aircraft to land safely, supporting it as it rolls down the runway. On scale aircraft they are…
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Landing Hard – Part One – Spindly Is As Spindly Does
And if you occasionally collapse onto the airfield in a welter of tin tubes and screaming passengers…well, that’s British engineering. Also French and Russian aero design. For people too cheap to build proper airports with runways, they seem to have had a propensity for iffy landing gear. Thin legs splayed at impossible angles guyed up…
The Little World 