Category: Scale Models
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Heinkel He70 F2 – Part Six – Like A Newly-Minted Penny

The Heinkel He 70 has been delivered to the RRAAF. It appears that there has been somewhat of a mixup. Whether this is due to the purchasing commission spending a good deal of time in the cabarets of Berlin, or whether there has been some interference in the order by the Reichsluftministerium remains to be seen…
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Heinkel He 70 F-2 – Part Three – Dryfit

Dryfit is not just the brand name of a battery. It is the essential part of nearly all model kit making. It was one of the chief pleasures I had as a kid with the kits. When you dry fit a model you get to play with it far longer than just gluing it together.…
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Heinkel He70 F-2 – Part Two – Methinks I Doth Smell A Ratte

And it may be a Ukrainian ratte at that. The kit has just been started – the cockpit tray completed and some preliminary wing work to box in the wheel wells – and already I am suspicious that this kit has Eastern European origins. Or at least Middle Europe. Middler than Germany, at any rate.…
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Green Is The Colour Of My True Love’s Cockpit…

And it would appear that I must needs have many loves. I have two pots of paint in the Little Workshop stocks at present – both green – that I use to paint USAAF aircraft of the WW2 period’s insides. One is a custom mix zinc chromate and the other a Testor’s cockpit green. Neither…
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Lowering The Pressure

And this has nothing to do with a Johnny Farnham song either. Come to think of it he’s about due for another farewell concert tour soon… No, I mean lower the pressure on your airbrush. I know that Phil Flory has very sensibly said that there is no particular prescribed pressure for the air in…
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Douglas Havoc – Part Eight – The Faulty Gear

Looks like 42547 will be sitting for a bit longer on the hardstand at RCAF WET DOG. The Russian ferry pilot has complained about the front landing gear strut – and we can’t say we disagree with him. It has been put on the service sheet for a rebuild. The front gear leg does indeed…
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Douglas A-20 Havoc – Part Seven – The Work Of Art

Masking tape is one of the few artistic mediums overlooked in the catalogues of the famous galleries. Yet it is the chosen vehicle of expression for so many of us. And it is such a transient thing – here one hour and stripped off and thrown in the trash the next. Truly a metaphor for…
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Douglas A-20 Havoc – Part Six – A Pleasant Surprise

After the trauma of the undercarriage construction on the Havoc, I was not looking forward to the assembly of the rest of the nacelle. I had done some preliminary dry fitting and trimming of the housing – noting that the aft fairing was going to need either a great deal of putty or forgiveness. As…
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Douglas A-20 Havoc – Part Five – Just Because Someone Was A Fool…

…Doesn’t mean you have to follow them. This might be the phrase best suited to the stage of building that we are up to today – the landing gear on the A-20 Havoc. It is tricycle gear and the original designers of the ship wanted to make the wheels and tyres disappear from the airstream…
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Douglas A-20 Havoc – Part Four – I’m Starting To Like…

Well, I am starting to like the Havoc. And not just the plane itself, but the new materials and techniques I’m using on it: a. The plane itself is interesting – the pronounced dihedral and the cant of the tailplanes looked to be daunting when seen in plans, but the makers of the kit have…
