Category: research
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Consolidated Liberator B.VI – Part Two – The Green Crew

And green they are – if not in experience, then at least around the gills at that horrible chromate colour in the aft fuselage. The cockpit is proper FS cockpit green for the Skipper and the co-pilot but everyone else has to work in the cheap section of the plane, and the cheap sections are…
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Boeing Fortress Mk III – Part Four – Debut Day On The Club Bench

The Tuesday Soviet saw my new Airfix model box for the first time today and most seem to approve. I opened it up and started to study the instructions – fully intending to do most of the building on my Tuesdays to prolong the pleasure. The Airfix instructions are good – I experience little or…
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Sandown Park 2019 – Part Ten – Break Out The Spray Gun, Lars.

I’m feeling sentimental… You cannot laugh at the Finnish Air Force. If you do they swoop down on you and open up with cannons and rockets. The Finns have very little sense of humour. This is not surprising. They live in between two heavily-armed neighbours – the Swedes and the Russians – and in their…
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Sandown Park 2019 – Part Seven – The Great Grey Elephant On The Table

As Ray Stevens might have said…” Well, I seen it. ” It was the 1:72 scale components of a Saunders Roe Princess flying boat produced using some sort of 3D printing machine…and cello-taped together as a teaser at the Sandown Park exhibition. No-one around, but enough literature left as a clue to allow me to…
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Sandown Park 2019 – Part Six – Before You Ask…
Back from my visit to the Victorian scale model exhibition, all my parcels have arrived, and I’ve reviewed the pictures taken on the day. Someone is bound to ask me which exhibit I thought best. After due consideration, here it is: Olympic Doughnuts in Footscray. A real model of a real place in real time.…
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What’s In This Stuff, Anyway? – Part Three – Masking Solutions

I counted up the bottles on my Little Workshop shelf and I now have more masks than Zorro. That’s not counting the tiny rolls of modellers masking tape or the big ones from Bunnings – I’m talking about bottles of goo designed to mask under spray paint. a. Maskol from Humbrol – the heading image.…
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So Why Does One Model Tank?

And another become a classic? I’m not talking about 1/35 scale armour here. I mean why is one model kit a success and just keeps on selling, and another ends up in the auction house for unsold kits within the first six months? a. Is it a bad model? Badly conceived, badly moulded, poorly packaged.…
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MiG 15 – Part Five – Science To The Fore! Onwards To Socialism!

Whoops, sorry about that. The Radio Havana broadcast was turned up too high… But let us not allow politics to interfere with science – particularly with the science of the model airplane. The Little Workshop is proud to announce the introduction of a new instrument into the world – the Stein Staterometer. You won’t find…
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MiG 15 – Part Three – You Have Chosen Wisely, Grasshopper

The MiG 15 is somewhat of an iconic aircraft – albeit Soviet, derived from German research. It lasted well after contemporary Meteors and Sabres were shuffled off to client nations and thence to museums. Indeed aircraft of this era are now only found as museum exhibits – flying or otherwise. Oh, and a Canadian private…
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MiG 15 – Part Two – Bring On The Clowns, Popov

Well, I stared and stared at the colour call-out and decal sheet for the MiG 15 and just couldn’t get excited. The entire outside of the airplane was aluminium colour – with only a little red or blue on a tail or nose. I am not against aluminium colour per se but I’ve recently built quite a…
