Category: Russian models
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Tupolev SB2 – Part Four – ” Red Is The Colour…”

” Of my true love’s national aircraft recognition insignia in the morning, as I rise…” This was an aviation folk song that Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie tried to promote in the 1930’s but it never really got off the ground, despite a headwind. Even when they offered to strike every Friday and bus in…
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Tupolev SB2 – Part Three – The Gallows…

I never realised how much my painting stand looked like a gallows tree until I hung the Tupolev SB2 on it for undercoating and colour coats. Didn’t mean to be quite so morbid… But the fact that the SB2 was suspended there and took its paint so well pointed out the basic utility of the…
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Tupolev SB2 – Part Two – In Russia Model Make You

If I had been in any doubt looking at the crude plastic on the sprue runners, it was dispelled when I got to the ” Made In USSR ” stamped into the plastic. I was relieved. Up until that moment I had been worried that this kit was an elaborate practical joke and that Alan…
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Tupolev SB2 – Part One – Katyuska

I was on tenterhooks when my daughter came back from Japan recently – I had tasked her with getting me a nice 1:72 model aircraft kit that we couldn’t get here in Australia. She obliged by searching out both a major and a minor hobby shop in Tokyo and bringing back 4 models – all…
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Following The Instructions…

To your doom. I’ve written before about the Czech, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Chinese instruction sheets that we get with our kits. I won’t repeat the sly digs at the Chinglish, Czechlish, or other dialects involved – suffice it to say that we should be grateful for the kit and not be such English language…
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Sandown Park 2019 – Part Five – A Red Star Track

When Red StarTrack deliver…you sign for it or else… This year’s exhibition pointed out something to me – the quantum shift in the scale modelling word from US and UK manufacture of plastic kits to makers behind the old Iron or Bamboo Curtains. With the moulding going to areas of former Soviet influence there are…
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MiG 15 – Part Eight – Is Ready For Uszhitmi Air Show

The Uszhitmi Air Show has always been the premier display of Soviet – and laterally Russian – air power since the early 20’s. Starting as it did with flying tractors and merry peasant dances on the tarmac between crashes, it progressed to formation passes made the giant creations of the 30’s that were ever larger…
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MiG 15 – Part Seven – Supercheap To The Rescue

Do you remember my series of tests done to find out which acrylics, enamels, and lacquers would spray best? And the subsequent quest for clear coatings that would let me do decals and then protect the models? Well I looked out my sample tablets today and reassessed them. The local version of a floor polish…
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MiG 15 – Part Six – Was That The Mr. Whippy Van?

And was it playing The Internationale? I don’t normally pay attention to conspiracy theories, but there seems something suspicious about this. Normally we get soft serve, sundaes, and double cones with a Flake bar stuck in the middle. This seems to be a new one… I wonder what flavour – Borscht? Caviar? Fish canned in…
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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…
