Category: Scale Models
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If You Win Second Place
You resent the person who won first place. The third-place winner detests you both. And the further you get away from the winner’s podium, the deeper the level of hate becomes. That is the nature of contests and competition – you win dislike along with the trophy and the set of dishes. Sometimes winning second…
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Finnish Brewster Buffalo – Part Three – 1945
Let us be delicate about this… In 1945 the Finns were on the winning side of a losing war. Actually several wars. They had fought the Soviet Union on their own behalf, as partners with nazi Germany, and then fought the Germans for their own territory as part of the Allies. It was a situation…
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Finnish Brewster Buffalo – Part Two – All In A Day’s Play
I have given up days of work. Now I slave away at a hobby… it is much more trouble… And I should not have it otherwise. I can remember employment and practice and professional education and have no desire whatsoever to go back and re-commence them. If I had to do it all over again,…
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Finnish Brewster Buffalo – Part One – The Herd Increases
As a child I once had an unbuilt balsa model of a Brewster Buffalo. It was well beyond my skills at the time but the design always intrigued me. Perhaps that is why I have built four of the beasts so far for my 1:72 collection. This one is the Hobby Boss version – a…
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The Opened Box
And the started model. I find that I can slumber, bored, in most horror or adventure movies. They are predictable, and I know that there will be creepy music, several minor characters will die, and the hero will be saved in the end. Ho Hum. No such thing with the scale model kit that falls…
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The Political Model Kit
Surprisingly, these last few years of international war ( as opposed to the internal sort practised in Africa and South America ) have yielded few scale model controversies and political arguments. I did not expect this. Of course there are bound to be restrictions on the supply of kits from warring nations, but the ones…
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Short Stirling Mk IV – Part Three – V3 To Canada
A very specific aircraft on a very specific mission. And no bombs carried. This Short Stirling was flown from the UK to Canada in the 40’s as a training aircraft to familiarise the trainees of the BCATP with the then-new H2S ground-view radar. You’ll see the characteristic H2S streamlined dome under the rear portion of…
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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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The Unaccounted
Every so often I see things in the hobby shops for which I can find no explanation. These can be on alien shelves – the gundam and anime models – the motion picture and comic book models. I see things that bear no relation to my life whatsoever. They may be good kits, and they…
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We’re Not A Club
We’re a cult. The building of scale models is not the sort of thing that you can leave to just anyone. You have to be chosen. Who, exactly, does the choosing? You will be told in due course. If the behind-the-scenes investigation report is favourable. Do not try to hide anything – we have ways…
The Little World 