Category: Scale Models
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” Model Not Recommended For Novices “

I have seen this on reviews and appended to the end of kit boxes. It warns the unwary that the designers have exceeded their dosage again and moulded up something that is near-on impossible to build. It is even more poignant when it appears next to a completed model – making you wonder if somewhere…
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LeO 45 – Part Four – Art Deco Bomber

People who google images of this French early-war bomber may see something stuck underneath it. There is a dust-bin turret that drops down from a position just aft of the cockpit to allow an unfortunate crew member to fire a single short machine gun at attackers under the plane. It is included in the kit,…
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LeO 45 – Part Three – The Unseen Hand

Ooh. Sounds like the title of a Sax Rohmer novel, doesn’t it? Well no, but don’t let me stop you from suspecting villains lurking in the dark. Some of them were responsible for this kit. The idea of masking off the canopy and nose area with the clear plastic parts that would eventually be cemented…
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LeO 45 – Part Two – This Is Fine…

The initial burst of admiration for this Heller kit has been tempered by building it. The wings are on, and at a reasonable dihedral – set by the internal tab on each wing sliding all the way across to the opposite side of the fuselage and locking itself in place. This is admirable. Less so…
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LeO 45 – Part One – The French Fish

This title is prompted by the shape of the Liore et Olivier 45 bomber – the last time you will see the entire name in this report. It is a fish – a codfish or salmon, by the look of it – attached to two streamlined wings, two streamlined nacelles, and two inverted rudders. This…
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Perth’s Plastic Pedestrians

The big local model exhibitions of every sort happen within different halls – but they have one thing in common: They are the Aisles of the Blessed. All who wander are not lost, but smart money says most are… The visitors – and exhibitors – at model exhibitions do not dress especially well. They have…
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I Asked About The Difference…

Between fantasy and science fiction, and the chap with the space helmet, ray gun, and rocket back pack just shook his head. So did his four-headed dragon, and that was a messy business. Took us half an hour to put out spot fires. In the future, I shall just observe the future from a distance.…
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The Toy Train People Have An Advantage

Model railway builders who exhibit their layouts have a pretty big task to do – they have some major haulage and construction to do to set up a display. Once done, however, they have a distinct advantage over the model builders who make plastic kits; the toy trains move. The model railway maker might be…
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The Visiting Club

Scale modellers who make plastic kits know that when an exhibition is coming up they need to steel their nerves to the sticking point for two things; the journey there and the journey home. Because the model that you spent three months carefully cementing together has a dozen points of protrusion – plastic guns, pitot…
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New Show

Old theatre. The Western Australian scale model exhibition took place this last weekend and a lot of people held their breaths. The long-serving committee that had presented it for many years past ( decades, perhaps… ) had decided to retire and there was some concern that the exhibition would cease. A new committee was formed…
