Category: Scale Models
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Convair 440 – Part Four – When Life Gives You Lemons…

That meme and its associated parodies running through the brain, I’ve been doing a little research on the Mach 2 Convair 440 kit that I bought. It seems that there are a number of variants of it that share the plastic but change the decals, and a number of companies that have produced custom decals…
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Convair 440 – Part Two – How Much For That Busted Box?

When I was engaged in retail trade in cameras and photographic goods we would occasionally receive a shipment of equipment that had a tough passage. External cardboard cartons might have been roughly handled by the shippers and ended up dented or breached. We rarely had evidence of tampering or pilfering, but it was possible. Trucks…
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Convair 440 – Part One – The Visitation

I went to a new hobby shop – Hobby Mania. It was up a flight of stairs and shared premises with an accountant’s office. No-wonder – the accountant has the shop as a personal hobby venture. He must be doing well enough – he had an employee there to show me the room of stock…
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Planning Permission Not Needed

Did you realise that when you are the creator of your own Little World that you do not need to admit others to your counsel? That you can act as sole dictator and arbiter of all disputes? It is a sobering thought that can make anyone feel drunk. I experienced it recently while laying out…
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The Artillery

Occasionally I take a break from making 1:72 scale airplanes to make other models; houses, service stations, tanks, greasy spoon cafés… It is not so much a case of abandoning my theme as of refreshing the palate with a different taste. I return to the tarmac quickly enough. One thing that my Air World needs is appropriate…
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I’ll Bet You’re Sorry Now…

a. Now that you’ve left me. You’ll ever get to watch me sit in front of the television swearing at a kit full of resin parts. You’ll miss stepping on gun turrets in the shag pile. You’ll never know how the Matchbox Privateer turned out. b. Now that you’ve switched from 1:12th scale supercar models…
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De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part Eight – The Colour Lab

When I set myself the task of finding an effective workflow, I decided to make it as realistic as possible. So I cut 16 MDF board tablets to 2 x 3 inches and sprayed them with standard Tamiya primer. Some grey, some white, and some red oxide. The Tamiya product in a can has always…
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De Havilland Mosquito Mk II – Part Six – A Day of Challenges

The markings day has become a day of challenges. Of mistakes and discoveries. It has seen the finishing of the model, but not quite in the way that I expected. a. The markings for the squadron code were nowhere to be found in my stash of decals nor in our local shops. T,W, and Z…
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De Havilland Mosquito – Part Five – Can I Make A Mess?

Or can I what? Here are the in-progress shots of the Great Masking Adventure as it unfolded. Since it was entirely new ground, I cannot be sure whether I was doing it right. But the fact that nothing caught fire has to count as something good… Here’s the overnight result – surprisingly successful, with only…

