Category: Scale Models
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The Temptation To Re-Stash
And just when they thought you were cleaning out the old one… Many people I know go through a cycle where they alternately empty and replenish their stashes This conforms to the universal rule of physics that you can never have a completely full shelf nor a completely empty one. There must always be either…
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General Dynamics F-1 – Part Two – Viper!
Well, I have decided to go with the Air Force crews and call this the Viper. I am also less than impressed with a company the calls itself by such a generic name; General Dynamics. Sounds as if they could be making light switches or selling time-share weeks. I think they should change the name…
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General Dynamics F-1 – Part One – Falcon?
Not, apparently, to the people flying them. They call them ” Vipers “. And they ought to know… This is my third F-16 - two others having been completed in 1/72 for the USAF and the IDF. I am starting to like the type a lot. The Academy kit is simple, small, and well-moulded. The only…
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McDonnell Douglas Phantom – Part Two – Vietnam Era
Little of my aero collection so far shows schemes of the Vietnam War period, but gradually this will change. Many of the kits now seem to have decals for the period and If I can overcome my aversion to both stencil decals and three-colour camouflage schemes, I can go right ahead. The call-out for this…
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McDonnell Douglas Phantom – Part One – The Iconic Fighter
As a young person I was as susceptible to hype as anyone – including that put out about modern aircraft. The jet fighter that seemed to get most of it was the McDonnell Douglas Phantom. For a while I confused it with the older McDonnell Phantom – a late 1940’s straight-wing jet. But it was…
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Grumman Albatross – Part Three – Before 1965
If you look closely at some of my RCAF aircraft, they look odd; there is no lightning flash down the sides and the the flag is wrong. Wrong. The planes are pre-1965 with the old national flag on the tail. And if you look closely you’ll see that it flies with the Union Jack to…
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Morality And Styrene Cement
A guide to repentance and the re-enforced joint. As scale modelling sinners we often risk judgement and damnation through our treatment of the innocent…the innocent kit, I mean. Each one of these comes to us pristine and unsullied, unless it has been bought at a stash sale – and in that case anything that happens…
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Do We Read Or Watch?
A good question for scale modellers. We used to have books and magazines to inform our modelling. Increasingly we turn to screens…sometimes to read, as you are doing now…but sometimes to watch an unknown person tell us how to do something or what to think about some subject. The video proceeds at its own pace…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part Four – Get Thee Behind Me, Stencils…
You cannot escape decals on model aircraft – they are needed to complete everything. But they can completely ruin the job. Or your day, if you let them. I’m thinking of the friable, misprinted, graphic horrors that flow out of eastern Europe. You can tame them somewhat, but you are never really satisfied with the…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part Three – PRU Blue
I suspect there might be as many debates about PRU Blue as there are about Azure Blue but since I have been given a ready-mixed bottle of Testor’s Model Master I do not care to argue. This model also lets me use two other MM enamels thinned with lacquer thinner. The choice of type was…
The Little World 