Category: research
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When The Horse Balks And Throws You
Get up and get back on.* When you make an inadvertent floater in a kit build, finish it and start another as soon as possible. Find a kit that will require you to do the same procedure as before, but this time correctly. Remember the mistake you made and why it was wrong…and when you…
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Short Stirling Mk IV – Part One – A Very Specific Aircraft
Many modellers build generic aircraft. A Spitfire. A Mustang. A Messerschmitt. Others build specific ones. The Spirit of St Louis. Enola Gay. The Wright flyer at Kittyhawk. I draw myself up somewhere in between. An internet search for a particular air force. Narrow down to a theatre. Then a unit or a time and I…
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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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Build What You Know
Not what you don’t. This doesn’t mean you have to restrict your building to domestic objects or your own trade. Scale models of insurance policies are probably exquisite but few people bother to read them in 1:72 scale. You can do anything you like, of course, but you’ll be happier doing something that you understand…
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Have You Ever Been Tempted…
To chime in at the local hobby shop when you hear someone ask a question of a salesperson? Well, stifle that impulse…unless you are asked a direct question by the staff member, your input is not helpful. You may know the answer, but consider that the answer you know may be one of many. The…
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FROG Stash Avenger – Part Four – Show Bird
Casting about for a role for the FROG Avenger, I came upon a series of photos taken at a recent Dutch air show. They show a Grumman Avenger painted in what I assume are authentic colours for the Aéronavale – the air arm of the French Navy. I expect the aircraft would have been a…
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Is There Life After Enamel?
Now that everyone uses acrylics? Yes. We may have lost Testors but there is still Humbrol. You may have cut your teeth on them, grown to hate them, but now are curious about them. Find a test-bed model…something you can afford to ruin. Sand it, prime it, and grab a dear old a Humbrol pot.…
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Is it Puttering Or Pottering?
I mean the faffing about that you do in between builds. The tidying up of the workshop and the sharpening of tools. The filling of thinner bottles and the tossing out of dried-up paint. The time when you blow down the air compressor tank and then have to wash the floor. When you vacuum up…
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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…
The Little World 