Category: Modelling Supplies
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Ustar
Never heard of ’em? I never did until I started patronising Hobbytech out in Myaree. Then I found an increasing number of products from this Taiwanese firm on their tool and material shelves. I experimented with a few things, then bought more. Not every product was world-beating, but they were all workable, and some were actually…
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Scale Model Kit Building Is Craft Beer In Styrene
Here’s two parallel experiences; buying a plastic model kit in a hobby shop and buying a six-pack of craft beer at the local Dan Murphy’s. In both cases you are basically paying out for a pig in a poke. The externals are generally confusing…the plastic model kit has either great box art or horrible writing,…
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Fairchild Flying Boxcar – Part Three – The Smear Campaign
My efforts to obtain 1:72 decals from Canada for the C-119 Fairchild Flying Boxcar came to nought – the sets that were made are long out of production. In the event, this is just as well, because they would have necessitated a major reconstruction of the aircraft’s tail to be authentic. I was thrown back…
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Hot Glue Gun, Hot Glue Gun…
Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow! Oy! Repeat, while leaping about the workshop doing the traditional dance of the Impatient Modeller. The one who has just touched the glue to see if it is cool yet. Klezma music is good for this. You will be connected to your art – by hot, drooping, strings of…
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Who Decides And How Do They Do It?
I walk the kit aisle in the local hobby shop and wonder about the choices that have been made – and I’m not sure about all three tiers of retail trade; manufacture,selling, and buying. The maker of the plastic model kit needs to make a fair few of them with a profit upon each sale…
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Faith and Begorrah…
” Tis a green jig. It must be Irish. ” Well, ’tis green now but it’s about to become feldgrau and then olive drab, and then azure blue in patches. And then you can assign whatever nationality you want to it. It’s Mk III painting jig – the foamboard structure upon which I hang the…
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Hobby Money – Part Six – Setting Up.
You’ve seen my figures before on setting up for re-enactment or radio-controlled aircraft or amateur photography but I’ll give them a brief reprise: a. Reenactment – $ 200 to stand around home as a medieval, $500 more if you wish to slay dragons. Add $ 1000 if you wish to camp out and another $…
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Grumman Duck – Part One – The Civil Mould
I have a suspicion that the Airfix Grumman Duck in 1:72 scale is an older mould – the raised rivet lines. Perhaps a Matchbox kit re-issued. I also find that as I am an older modeller – it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. That is the fine legacy of being able to build the…
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The Brush With Debt
I went to the opium den today to buy some brushes. Not a real opium den, you understand – that would be far less dangerous and addictive. I went to the hobby shop. The crafty villain…I mean the nice lady behind the counter…was cheerful as always and waved me on to my destruction in a…
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When You See Behind The Scenes…
A casual question in the local hobby shop sent my heart to my boots. The brand of paint to which I had pinned my hopes – the brand that I had determined to change to – the best material with which I have yet worked – had lost their Australian distributor. What I saw on…
The Little World 