Category: Modelling Supplies
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AI And The Scale Modeller – Part One – Write It Down
The brouhaha about AI seems to be heating up, which is fine if you are in Australia in the middle of winter. Frankly, any warmth is welcome. For scale modellers it will make no less of a difference than it will for photographers, gossip column writers, or people who clean drains. We will explore the…
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Vultee Vanguard – Part One – Stash Sale Star
The acquisition of a Vultee Vanguard was one of those serendipitous moments – a stash was being thinned, the sales day was ending, the owner was marking things down, and I had $ 15 left. Now the painful part – the decision whether to assign this one to the USAAF, the RCAF, or the Nationalist…
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Who Decided My Childhood?
No, I don’t mean my parents or the school teachers or the rock and roll industry – I mean who decided which prototypes to make into the plastic models that I built? Bear in mind it was a childhood in a part of North America that was under both American and British influence. Airfix, FROG,…
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The Sparkless Stash…
Or the stashless spark. Is it better to have no kits but brilliant plans, or plenty of kits but no interest? There are any number of people with big stashes who lack the motivation to build anything. They look listlessly at the shelves of plastic in boxes and nothing at all calls to them. It…
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Roland C II – Part One – Unwanted Baggie
If you wanted to know what the box art for this 1987 Airfix Roland C II looked like, see the heading image. It was one of the sad rejects in the club junk bin. Box long gone and no future for it. These were the Humbrol years for Airfix – spiralling down into a mess…
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Messerschmitt 410 – Part One – Family Connection
You might be surprised at a family connection with a German night fighter, but there is one. Not my family – the wife’s uncle. A Mosquito pilot in the RAF in 1944, he was on night-fighter patrol over France when he encountered a Messerschmitt 410 Hornisse. He shot it down, the thing was confirmed on…
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Triumph Herald – Part Three – Down The Rabbit Hole
At my model building club I see many of the other members building models that are a larger scale than the ones I work on. Up until now I have not thought how much harder their minds must be working – because a lot of the things that are just omitted from my 1:72 aircraft…
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JS-2 Tank – Part One – A Step Up From The TKS
I endured such a razzing from my scale model club mates when I built the tiny Polish TKS tankette that I have decided to get my revenge. And who better to provide it than the Russians. They provide excess misery for everyone else, why not harness it to my purposes. So here is a Josef…
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Are You Proud Of Your Work?
That sounds like one of those passive/aggressive questions that bullies invent to make people feel bad. But bear with me – it is legitimate. Are you proud of the models you make? I am, and I display them at my studio in IKEA cabinets. I take pictures of them and post them on the internet.…
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SNCAN Martinet – Part One – A Siebel By Any Other Name
Christmas was coming to the hobby shop and it was time to choose my present. In this case before the actual day, so I got a fresh choice. The SNCAN Martinet was a Siebel 204 produced in France during the occupation and afterwards. It was used by the French air force and then sold on…
The Little World 