Category: Modelling Supplies
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You Can Only Build What You Can Get
And if you can’t get something, you have to build it… The principle of the scratch-builder. Also of the realistic builder – a person who may not know their own limitations but can list those of the local hobby shops in detail. This is not just snarkiness – the realistic builder knows that not every…
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How Many?
And how would one ever find out? I have been amazed at the number of firms that make plastic scale model kits. I knew of perhaps eight when I was a kid – and some of them have long disappeared – but they have been replaced in the shops with what may be hundreds more.…
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Équipe Super Mystère – Part One – L’idée Dormante
For years these Heller kits have lain on the shelves. Ignored, discarded, unconsidered. Rather the story of many lives, eh? Well the reforming zeal of the SMCWA committee swept them from the storeroom and into my stash cabinet. Whence they have flown to the workbench and photo table. They are 1:100 scale – not a…
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CAC Winjeel – Part Four – FTS 1
Point Cook, Victoria. SOOTB rendition of this Winjeel and I don’t think I could be happier with the result. It will form the starting point of a number of RAAF training types – with the occasional side-excursion to an aerobatics team aircraft or the FAC service livery as used on ADF exercises. You have to…
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If You Cannot Raise the Standard Of Your Skills
At least lower the level of your expectations. The hobby, after all, is meant to give you pleasure. If all you do is whinge about the efforts of others and wince at the sight of yours…well, is it time to seek your joy elsewhere? I have gone up and down in my own estimation a…
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The Half-Built Bargain
However you acquire a half-built – stash sale, donation, or legacy – you buy more than a box. You buy a dilemma. A fresh kit, with a sealed box or bagged sprue trees, is a clean field to play on. It may be old, with tatty decals and useless instructions, but at least when you…
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Bristol F.2B – Part One – The Dogfight Half
Bitterly disappointed as I was upon opening the Airfix box, I decided to soldier on. I had been expecting a Fokker triplane as well as a Bristol F.2b that were shown on the box top. Inside the box were decals for both planes, instructions and call-out for both, but no Fokker. Instead I got a…
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Fun For The Whole Family
A scale modeller who runs out of kits need never be dismayed – as long as they have their family. a. The family are a soft touch. All you need to do is mope about the house complaining that you don’t have anything to do. After a day of this they will empty their purses…
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Will We Run Out Of Prototypes?
I asked myself this one day as I idly scrolled through the catalogues of Hasegawa, RS, and Special Hobby. I was trolling for 1:72 aircraft that I had not built yet. For a time there it was looking a bit bleak. The Hasegawa people are deriving a lot of their income from kits of Gundam,…
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MiG-29 Fulcrum – Part One – Not 1959
I can’t understand why Airfix did not make a 50¢ model of a MiG-29 in 1959 when I was a kid. But, better late than never. The second kit in the Fifty Cent Fighter series is as neatly moulded as the Su-22 – and contains just as many traps for the unwary. I am delighted…
The Little World 