Category: Modelling Supplies
-
TKS Tankette – Part One – Earwig O Again

Gary has visited the Men’s Shed at the modelling club again – bringing his box of extremely inexpensive scale models with him. I am skint this month due to extra studio expenses but even so I was able to buy three models for $ 1 each! This Polish TKS tankette kit is nowhere near as…
-
Polish Tankette – Part Four – The Painting Starts

So – what are Hataka paints like anyway? The four bottles of Hataka acrylic paint are the first of their brand I’ve ever encountered. I noted a year or so ago that they were all the rage on the Flory internet model show, but have seen little of them there recently. There was some talk…
-
Polish Tankette – Part Three – Tankietka

I am starting to be impressed with the IBG company’s approach to scale modelling. The first club day saw a little of the inside compartment started; the engine block and radiator shell. The parts separated cleanly from the sprue trees and dry fitted perfectly. the plastic is very slightly soft – eminently cuttable. Think a…
-
Northrop Black Widow – Part One – ‘Tis A Gift…

And ’tis the only thing gifted about me – the ability to attract free model aircraft. This one is from a lady in payment for some Christmas family pictures. Again, it is a case of telling the client the scale I model in and letting them go and pick out something they fancy. So far…
-
” Slice Me Off About $ 5.00 Worth, Love…”

” And is the polony fresh…? “ A reader of this column who lives in my same town has raised an interesting question re. the dearly-remembered Antonov AN 225 cargo jet. Apparently there is a 1:72 kit of it from the Ukrainian maker ” Modelsvit “. A massive thing, of course, and one of those…
-
Either Shit Or Climb Off The Pot

Come with me to my local hobby shop – my happy place. Tool aisle, car aisle, kit aisles, paint aisle…as many wonderful aisles as one could want. In these post-viral days we are instructed to leave a metre and a half between us and other people while sometimes wearing a mask. I do this, and…
-
PZL 23b Karas – Part Two – L’Airfixe

At least that is what it seems. And I am not complaining at all. The mould quality of the Heller kits seems to be of a piece with the better Airfix of the times. Of course there was a period when the two companies were aligned for business reasons but then went their separate ways.…
-
PZL 23b Karas – Part One – Oh, What The Heller

My local hobby shop gets in batches of Mister Craft kits every year or so. They stick around a long time, as some of them are repeaters – say a Focke-Wolfe mould just reboxed endlessly with different decals. Others are unique and you snap them up as they appear – always hoping that they are…
-
Farman NC 223.3 – Part One – A Packet Of French Letters

Specifically, SNCAC NC 223.3 B.N.5. Hereafter referred to as the Farman – it’s the only one in the stable so I don’t need to be specific. This Azur kit promises to be several weeks worth of advanced building – it is definitely short-run but of the better sort. There are only the vaguest of interior…
-
Dornier Do-17Z – Part One – The Pencil Again

I seem fated to build Dornier Do-17 bombers. I have already completed one for the Ruritanians, and one for the Swiss. Now a third kit has turned up and is slated to be sent to the Finns. The kit is a multiple re-boxing – mine popped out in 2011 but the original mould started in…
