Category: Painting
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Northrop Gamma – Part Three – Texaco Sky Chief
From the layout of the wing and tail – the position of the cockpit – and the size of the engine, this must have been a hot, sweet, ship to fly. And the same specs must have made it right pig to land. I was thrilled with the appearance of the model as it was…
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Northrop Gamma – Part Two – A Silver Ghost
The instructions to paint an aircraft ” silver ” or “aluminium ” are often all you get from a maker in their colour call-out. I did not expect much more from the Williams company for this kit. But which silver – and which aluminium? I count four different Mr Hobby, 7 different Mr. Color, and…
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Triumph Herald – Part Five – We’ll Get To It When We Can
Just park her down the back of the shop and leave the keys in the ignition. And so the Triumph Herald arrives at Ess Bend Engineering. Stranded with a Lucas electrical system and a Coventry carburettor, she will eventually be reworked to Canadian standards. Many of her sisters will suffer the same fate in the…
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Triumph Herald – Part Four – The Non-Rolling Chassis
Despite appearances, I have grown up. I no longer build scale models with working parts. I can accept fixed wheels. Particularly when they are dependent upon thin plastic axles and cemented suspension parts. I have too many experiences with 1:72 landing gear legs to be sanguine about engineering in styrene. The Herald chassis is square…
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Triumph Herald – Part Three – Down The Rabbit Hole
At my model building club I see many of the other members building models that are a larger scale than the ones I work on. Up until now I have not thought how much harder their minds must be working – because a lot of the things that are just omitted from my 1:72 aircraft…
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Kawanishi Norm – Part Four – A Powerful Flop
From all accounts great things were expected from the Kawanishi reconnaissance float plane. And then the contra-rotating propellers and jettison-able float proved problematical and the service missions undertaken with the type were failures. So it was quietly shoved back into a training role. The appearance of the aircraft in the box art was what attracted…
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Kawanishi Norm – Part Three – Sprayin’ Weather
This last week has been good weather for spray painting. Clearish, dryish, and warmish…enough to be able to manage lacquers with regular thinner and also spray rattle cans of clear. The shop heater has been on to make a warm box but this is less of a problem now that I have overcome my fear…
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Was Lacquer Thinner Good For Covid?
I had no idea, but one week I tested it out. I went down in iso with a positive RAT and a number of kits in the stash that needed paint. They had gone through the preliminary stages and were ready for primer and paint. And I did not intend to let a spare week…
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Ready-Made Mistakes
Or, how to tread the primrose path in spite of the barriers. You cannot blame me, unless I am guilty. And I always am. Guilty of following orders, guilty of believing what other people tell me, guilty of valuing theatre over intellect. Not in real life, I hasten to add. When someone in vague authority…
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JS-2 Tank – Part Four – Czech This One Out…
Despite indecision about the Zvezda JS-2 kit’s deficiencies, I think it has fulfilled my vision splendidly. The idea of armour and military modelling is new to me – heretofore I just collected die-cast vehicles that suited my model airfields. I admired the efforts of expert armour modellers i saw at my club and at interstate…
The Little World 