Category: Painting
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Douglas Skyray F4D – Part Two – Peacetime Colours
Or at least as peaceful as a Cold War aircraft could get… I am always happy to see military aircraft in bright colours – the yellow wings of the pre-war US Navy – the dazzling squadron codes of the pre-war RAF – the bright stripes of the pre-war Italians. Because brightly coloured aircraft are not…
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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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Dornier Do 27 – Part Four – Dror
Hebrew word for ” freedom ” or ” sparrow “. I favour the latter meaning when applied to this little Dornier observation aircraft. They were active in the IDF between 1964 and 1981 – a very active period. The internet says they were initially attached to the delightfully-named ” flying camel ” squadron. Observation, liaison,…
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Dornier Do 27 – Part One – The Plastic Baggie
The title image for this little kit is a little dull – it is taken from the monochrome instruction sheet as there was no box to the kit. It is a legacy kit bought from a stash and even in its heyday, probably was not a major-factory product. I have tried to get a line…
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What Do You Call That?
I call it finished, friend. It’s a scale model kit that I bought with my birthday money. I got all the paints I needed for it, read the instructions, and planned the paint scheme. I consulted the internet to see if it was reasonably accurate, but in the end I more or less made it…
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Painting With Perceived Wisdom
Or painting with rumour, advice, lies, advertisements, and blind faith. Pardon – that should be blind, stumbling faith. What could possibly go wrong? Painting white is tough. Painting red is tougher. Painting yellow worse. Painting silver worst of all. Woe is us, woe and wailing. And particularly if we listen to everyone else’s advice. And…
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Airspeed Oxford – Part Four – The Central Flying School
The third partner in the Training Trio. My BCATP airfield: RCAF WET DOG – has struggled on for years with an Anson, a Harvard, and a Crane – all good trainers. Of course there is a Tiger Moth and a Grumman Gosling as well, but up until now the Airspeed Oxford has eluded me. Now…
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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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English Electric Lightning – Part Three – Cross My Palm With SIlver
Very few aircraft are made of silver* – yet that is what the kit maker would have us paint them. And there is no one silver – as there might have been in the dear dead days of Humbrol tinlets. Now we have lacquers, clads, super metallics, etc. Some experts swear by certain brands and…
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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…
The Little World 