Category: Modelling Supplies
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Grown People

What on earth would induce grown people to spend an entire weekend standing around a hall at the dog race track looking at plastic models? Are they mad? Hopefully, yes. This thought is held sacred by a number of hobby retailers who also stand round…round the back of the tills. The more madness and money…
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Fairey Battle Mk I – Part One – At Long Last

Knowing that the Fairey Battle was used by the BCATP in the 1940’s meant that I was always burning to find one. Well, the coal fire went out at the Airfix works a long time ago, and nothing was seen here until an advertisement for a new Czech mould appeared earlier in the year. This…
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Lux-ury

If there is any simple thing I want to make my scale modelling experience better it is light. More light, brighter light, cleaner light, portable light, steady light, etc. No room in an Australian house seems to have a ready supply of it, even with the window blinds open. At night we are at the…
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Pride Is A Cheap Emotion

Well it is, if you do it right. Scale modelling can be done with pretty nearly any purse…though the hobby shops would like you to browse on the expensive shelves. The prices can rise to pretty nearly any level that you could name. People who purchase and build the expensive kits can generally be assured…
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Douglas Skyray F4D – Part One – Unloved Tamiya

Don’t raise your eyebrows and make that noise – this Tamiya kit was half the price of other 1/72 models from the same maker in their Warbirds range. That tells me that it is not a big seller – rather like the Japanese submarine seaplane in the same line. People concentrate on the famous fighters…
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Geezers

Pilots, aircrew, figures…whatever you prefer to call them. They were once included with all scale model aircraft kits – now they are rarely seen. The only reason my RCN Grumman Tracker has them is that it is a very old stash kit. The quality of the mouldings is marginal, but far surpasses those moulded in…
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Change? CHANGE?

We don’ need no esteenkin’ change! Or badges…Those of you old enough can tell me where that line comes from. But it applies as surely to scale modelling as to making drinks before dinner. The heading image was shared over three weblog columns; this one, Here All Week, and The Frontier And Colonial Photographic Establishment.…
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Respect.

I am not sure I’ll ever deserve it, but I have certainly met people who do – and some of them have been in my scale modelling club. I write ” have ” because time rolls on and removes people from time to time. The respect you may have formed for them when they were…
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We Can Retro Better than You Can

If you are a collector of mid-century modern furniture, or fashions, or cars you can pay a small fortune for junk. It’ll be up to you to repair and maintain it, and make yourself think you’re doing a good thing. For the scale model builder, we can do the same thing, but with a bit…
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OPPs Beat Apps

We older Australians are often thought to be past it. Or more accurately, past IT. Yet every day we confound the young with our imaginative use of the computer and the winsome way that we reset the modem. They never know what is coming. In my case I do not play much with telephones and…
