Category: research
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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…
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MiG 15 – Part One – Plunging Off The Cliff

Every one who leaps off the edge of a cliff in the face of a stiff breeze wearing a set of nylon wings exhibits a degree of faith and hope…and wishes sincerely for charity on the way down. They have to risk something valuable…ie their neck…to get a benefit. I am going to have to…
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The Royal Ruritanian Army Air Force – Part Six – The Strelsau Line

Air defence in the 1930’s was a complex thing – most nations had various plans in hand for offensive strategic war against their most likely enemies – and in some cases against their most likely allies. In some case the former was the least likely… There were also equivalent plans for air defence, though it…
