Category: Scale Models
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The Costs Of A Decal

Well, that can’t be very much, can it? Try making your own and see… The idea of using the inkjet printer I already own to make custom decals was very attractive. I’m a dab hand with Photoshop Elements and as long as a design is reasonably simple, I can duplicate it. Even if it is…
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Expansion, Contraction, And You – Part Two
The basic idea today was to see how much warpage by expansion or contraction would be produced by various adhesives commonly used in the Little Workshop for scale model building. The substrates upon which they were to work were selected from common fibrous sheet material; good photo-quality bond paper, thin card, and matt board. These…
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North American Mustang I – Part Five – A Dappled Horse

Well, the Mustang is on charge and will be conveyed to RCAF Wet Dog in a day or so. It is as fresh as many coats of paint and varnish can make it – the decision to begin weathering the models has been postponed for a few months. The final result of this experimental build…
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North American Mustang I – Part Four – Yamaguchi And Spruance

Look ’em up. Admirals Yamaguchi and Spruance – opponents at the Battle of Midway. Both got an aircraft carrier shot out underneath them. But their subsequent actions when their carriers were unsavable is the point of difference. Yamaguchi stood on his bridge with the sinking ship and he and a number of other Japanese officers…
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North American Mustang I – Part Three – The Unholy Mess

Well, I gave it the old college try – or in this case the old Dental School try. I used red baseplate wax to mask off the Mustang I. It was old home week for a while there as I set up the bunsen burner and got the wax warmed up. If I was doing…
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North American Mustang I – Part One – Genius Or Moron

I cannot decide which of the two I am…and you will kindly not write in and tell me, thank you. In this case the debate will rage around a new experiment I wish to make in painting. And I need a suitable subject to try it out on. With most of my experiments and trials…
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The Brush With Debt

I went to the opium den today to buy some brushes. Not a real opium den, you understand – that would be far less dangerous and addictive. I went to the hobby shop. The crafty villain…I mean the nice lady behind the counter…was cheerful as always and waved me on to my destruction in a…
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When You See Behind The Scenes…

A casual question in the local hobby shop sent my heart to my boots. The brand of paint to which I had pinned my hopes – the brand that I had determined to change to – the best material with which I have yet worked – had lost their Australian distributor. What I saw on…
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Piasecki HUP Retriever – Part Four – The Model As Teaching Aid

As a kid interested in mechanical devices and particularly in aircraft and cars, there were a number of remarkably stupid ideas in my mind at the time. I would look at some fabulous machine and admire the external styling without the slightest notion of what might be going on inside. That’s pretty standard for a…
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Piasecki HUP Retriever – Part Three – The Temperature Gradient

Or ” How to build scale models without dying in the process “. The interior of the Little Workshop was over 42º Celsius one afternoon. No surprise – it was predicted to be a hot, still Sunday and the prediction was accurate. Also no surprise – this was Western Australia in the summertime. We saw…
