Category: Scale Models
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Consolidated B-24 D – Part Three – Take That, Ya Basket!

A new selection of things to add to my least-favourite kit experiences. Don’t get me wrong – after smoothing the lumpy exterior of this old Revell casting, the parts have gone together pretty well. I used the progressive cementation method and the workshop clamps coped with the complex forces needed – the fuselage and wings…
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Consolidated B-24 D – Part Two – The Toxic Rivet

Or should that be noxious? Whatever, the exaggerated rivet detail on this old Revell kit is probably what causes it to be rejected by the modern builders. Yet, under the spotty exterior is a pattern of decent engraved panel lines. I researched other’s efforts and found one ambitious chap who sanded the rivets off entirely.…
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Whenever You Feel Guilty

Whenever you feel guilty about spending money on your scale models at the hobby shop, reflect on the other places you could go to: a. The liquor store. There are bottles of wine that cost more than your entire wardrobe, including the Mickey Mouse bathrobe. Once bought, most of these bottles can never be drunk;…
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Lockheed Ventura – Part Three – Shiny Is As Shiny Does

And you can’t tell a paint by the tin. The ugly bug in the heading image had just received the third colour of a standard RAF day bomber scheme and was waiting to be de-husked. The masking was, if anything, worse looking than usual, but for a good reason. The worms were standard but the…
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Lockheed Ventura – Part Two – Assembly LIne

Well, it worked in Burbank – it’ll work in Bull Creek. I tackled the Lockheed Ventura in two club meetings as well as here at home by the simple process of parcelling it out into sub-assemblies and assigning them to places where the work could be done with the most facility. This was exactly the…
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Junkers D.1 – Part Four – Does What It Says

On the tin… I wonder what the Junkers man said to the first German test pilot who climbed aboard old No. 1 and settled down into the corrugated metal? ” You von’t stick your finger through zis one, Herr Baron…”. While I find the vertical tailplane to be somewhat agricultural, the rest of the structure…
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Junkers D.1 – Part Three – Gerry And The Wrinkles

Sounds like a geriatric pop group, doesn’t it? In this case it is good old Junkers and their good old metal folding mill. They had an idea and they stuck to it, and we are stuck with it. Don’t get me wrong – I understand the principle of the corrugation and applaud it in fences…
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Junkers D.1 – Part two – The Devilling Detail

I’m never quite certain with superdetail, and even less so when the model kit that delivers it is on the bargain shelf. Am I being told a tale? Will the parts come off thee sprue trees in one piece? Will they fit? Does the design of the kit follow the design of the prototype? Roden…
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Junkers D.1 – Part One – The Tin Shed

I remember seeing a photograph of a Junkers D.1 on the Western Front many years ago and thinking that it was like a Christmas Bullet – a fake flying machine made out of a corrugated iron shed. No, apparently, and now here is Roden serving me a 1:72 model of it for my WW1 shelf.…

