Category: Painting
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Boeing AH-64A – Part One – Magic Touch
And building this Israeli attack helicopter in club time may require just this – political opinions being what they are. Nevertheless, it is a superb kit from Academy – a Korean firm that never seems to disappoint with the precision and detail of their mouldings. This is one kit that will have a lot of…
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Summer/Wintertime Modelling
Who am I kidding? In winter the workshop in the shed is flaming well freezing. There is cold and rain and any airbrush painting is a gambling game – whether there will be a reaction to the increased water vapour in the air that will fog up a coat. Whether any coat will dry in…
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If You Want A Lesson In Painting…
Buy a ready-made die-cast model car and change the colour on it. You will have to go through the process of disassembly and paint stripping to get to the bare casting. Then you’ll need to apply an undercoat and then a long series of thin paint coats to get back to what was originally there.…
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Sopwith Pup – Part Two – Bits And Pieces
It took me a long time to realise that you get further if you go slower. Specifically, you get a better paint job if you can do all the pieces separately. This is most easily done with biplanes and other early fliers ; their joints are natural divisions for paint colour. Nothing is faired into…
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Pure Colour
Means a pure, clean model with no moral deficiencies. You will be accepted into the company of saints. You may be able to use your halo as a building lamp. Or not, if you are one of those sort of people who just weather every surface in the house. There are advantages to using pure…
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Swedish Hampden – Part Three – What Colour Is Swedish Green?
Go ask at IKEA… Or look carefully at the greens in your paint rack and note which ones can be poured together into a bottle and shaken up. This is a good opportunity to get the last few drops worth out of stuff that needs replacement anyway. A vigorous thinner will blend them all together…
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Casting About For A Model
Is a die-cast airplane a model or a toy? It all depends upon the person holding it. One thing – it will never be a flying model – die-cast metal is not aerodynamic no matter how hard you throw it. It will sit on a stand or on its wheels and please the eye, but…
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Israeli Phantom – Part Four – Kurnas
I get two spellings for this name in google searches, but as a website run by the IAF uses one “s”, I figure I’ll go with that. They’d know. The aircraft is just about to go out on the display concrete at Schmattarim but experts will note that the intakes are empty and there is…
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Israeli Phantom – Part Three – Library Day
The IAF Phantom was ready for decals within 5 days of starting it – fruit of the new serial building program. The secret of successful decals is the gloss surface upon which they rest, of course, and I have learned that by a long series of neglectful errors. And as with many modellers, I’ve gone…
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Short Skyvan – Part Two – Lavez-vous?
How many of you ignore the warnings in your model kit instructions? How many of you do not wash the kit parts as soon as you open the box? The makers all tell you to, and give as their reason the mould parting agents that may cling to the plastic after manufacture. These might act…
