Category: Modelling Supplies
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De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part Two – The Peek Into The Box
I must confess to a slightly pusillanimous nature when it comes to buying model airplane kits sight-unseen. I was bit by a Revell Tradewind kit as a child and the scar still throbs in wet weather. I prefer to look carefully at what I’ve got before I spend my money. Nevertheless I do read reviews…
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Serious Money For Lighthearted Spenders
When you enter a hobby shop, do you do it with a happy heart? Do you skip in with a Tra La and a happy whistle? Do you greet the proprietor as an old friend? Or do you slink in round the corner of the door and growl at the staff behind the till? Do…
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I’m More Eco-Virtuous Than You Are
So there too, hah! Actually all us model builders have an opportunity to stick it to the Facebook/Shopping Centre/News bite saints who scold us daily about everything we think or do – particularly the ones who would deny us everything from plastic straws to bear traps. We are ahead of their game: a. Plastic straws.…
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The Bad Decision
Steel yourself – there will be some serious soul-searching in this post. You are going to have to confront your own failures. As for me, I’m going to hide mine by pretending that I never make mistakes. Anything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault – even if there is no-one within 500 yds of…
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Repressed Desires And the Scale Modeller
I have come to this topic from writing another column dedicated to selling photographic goods. It occurred to me that if there is an id in the camera shop, there is also likely to be one in the hobby shop. I turned over the thought that Sigmund Freud might have been a model train buff,…
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The 2018 Catalogue
I have just been doing my extensive professional research…that’s code for surfing the internet…and studied the 2018 catalogue for a firm that makes model trains. They are a historic firm that entered into the plastic toy trade at least 50 years ago from a long association with the tinware business. I had the privilege of…
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The Aisle Of The Darned
Never mind the Isle Of The Damned or the Isle Of The Doomed – they are just comic book fiction. We have a real Aisle Of The Darned at my local hobby shop. From the start of it to the end, it is shelf after shelf of paint. No-one I know has ever successfully traversed…
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Whadaya Want In The Hobby Shop?
A good question – and one the owners of the places would desperately like to have an accurate answer to – there have been enough hobby shops that have foundered upon not being able to answer it. I often wonder if there was a way to have prevented this. Note: I realise that some shops…
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The Power And the Glory
Little World builders have powers far exceeding those they exercise in the Big World. They can be sole commanders, iconic architects, industry giants, or genius designers and no-one else can say them nay. Their word may be flawed, but it is generally final. It gives them a little taste of what it must have been…
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The Table Of Despair
My local hobby shop has a shallow table out the front of the store near the tills. It contains the specials and bargains that they would like to clear quickly. I look at it every time I go to the shop and have come to a number of conclusions: Some things will never sell, because…
The Little World 