Category: Painting
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Lockheed Ventura – Part Four – Over Holland

My determination to build this aircraft as an RCAF plane meant I did some research about it. The first author I turn to for most of my RCAF builds is Harald Skaarup – and he did not fail me. I found an overhead view of just this airplane in WW2 with a Canadian crew bombing…
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Lockheed Ventura – Part Three – Shiny Is As Shiny Does

And you can’t tell a paint by the tin. The ugly bug in the heading image had just received the third colour of a standard RAF day bomber scheme and was waiting to be de-husked. The masking was, if anything, worse looking than usual, but for a good reason. The worms were standard but the…
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Well, Hello Masking Fluid

Goodbye putty worms. My Facebook feed has just put up a reel of the world’s only flying Avro Anson Mk I in preparation for take-off. The shot is of the starboard wing, engine, and nose. The colour scheme is the standard RAF Dark Earth and Dark Green. And all the colour edges are sharp lines.…
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Junkers D.1 – Part Three – Gerry And The Wrinkles

Sounds like a geriatric pop group, doesn’t it? In this case it is good old Junkers and their good old metal folding mill. They had an idea and they stuck to it, and we are stuck with it. Don’t get me wrong – I understand the principle of the corrugation and applaud it in fences…
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Junkers D.1 – Part One – The Tin Shed

I remember seeing a photograph of a Junkers D.1 on the Western Front many years ago and thinking that it was like a Christmas Bullet – a fake flying machine made out of a corrugated iron shed. No, apparently, and now here is Roden serving me a 1:72 model of it for my WW1 shelf.…
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” Model Not Recommended For Novices “

I have seen this on reviews and appended to the end of kit boxes. It warns the unwary that the designers have exceeded their dosage again and moulded up something that is near-on impossible to build. It is even more poignant when it appears next to a completed model – making you wonder if somewhere…
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When Physics Doesn’t Help

There is a rule in motion picture production when using scale models in action scenes; fire and water won’t work. Not that it isn’t done…but it is very rarely done well. The physics of fluids mean that scale ships never sail as well as real ones. A miniature explosion always gives itself away. Note that…
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LeO 45 – Part Four – Art Deco Bomber

People who google images of this French early-war bomber may see something stuck underneath it. There is a dust-bin turret that drops down from a position just aft of the cockpit to allow an unfortunate crew member to fire a single short machine gun at attackers under the plane. It is included in the kit,…
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Hall Of The Model Kings

And queens. This is an even-handed hobby. The annual scale model exhibition always includes a competition for builders, and it is large enough to require a separate hall. They set out tables and cover them so that the visual presentation is neutral – the lighting is that of the hall, but more on that… There…
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Lid

Or, ” How Not To Flip Yours “… Over a period of years I have been painting with multiple airbrushes – my compressor unit has two output hoses. Starting with cheap kit guns and trigger actions, I have finally settled on two Mr. Hobby Procom Boy units. One is single action – on double. They…
