Category: Scale Models
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Ponder Shelf – Part Two – The Iron Boxes
1/35 scale vehicles and accessories – a new standard. You can hardly fail to notice the 1/35 scale vehicle and military market. Tamiya started it, continues it, and shares it with any number of other makers. There are aisles of tanks, trucks, troops and trash cans in every hobby shop and the kits in the…
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The Shelf Of Ponder – Part One – Quo?
Other people have stashes – I have a shelf of ponder. Every model kit that sits there has some thought attached to it. In some cases the thought is ” what in the hell do I do with this? “. These are the model kits that someone has donated to me. I am delighted to…
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Theme Modelling
Conscious or unconscious – our minds tell us what to do. In my case it tells me what to scale model to build. It does for you, as well. Where are you in the list? a. The scale builder. Anything in 1:72, 1:48, 1:35, etc. You stick to scale and end up with a coherent…
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Landing Hard – Part two – Lolly Legs
You can google that one up to read the full horror of Australian vernacular, but for now just concentrate on the landing gear of scale model aircraft. Landing gear on real aircraft are the structures that allow the aircraft to land safely, supporting it as it rolls down the runway. On scale aircraft they are…
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Landing Hard – Part One – Spindly Is As Spindly Does
And if you occasionally collapse onto the airfield in a welter of tin tubes and screaming passengers…well, that’s British engineering. Also French and Russian aero design. For people too cheap to build proper airports with runways, they seem to have had a propensity for iffy landing gear. Thin legs splayed at impossible angles guyed up…
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Big Pinch – Little Pinch
A gripping story… The best tool I ever purchased from Stanbridges was a set of clamps by Xacto. The buy was in 1974 when Stanbridges was Stanbridges and Xacto was Xacto… The clamps are made of metal, though I often wonder which one. I would have guessed aluminium but lately I’m not so sure. Originally…
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Israeli Bell 47 – Part Three – A Bubble In The Desert Sun
It cannot have been much fun to climb into a Bell 47 bubble in the desert sun of the Negev. Even on a cold day, it would have been hot in there and the overhead fan would not have helped if you had the doors shut… The Italeri kit has proved as good as it…
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Israeli Bell 47 – Part Two – Production Lines For The Win
The idea of serial building is working out, but there is still a place for sub-assembly lines in the scale model factory Even with modern super-glues there is still time required for re-enforcement to set, and of course the drying and setting times of the various paint coats. So there is a real advantage to…
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Israeli Bell 47 – Part One – Legacy Build
My friend, Warren Hughes, gave me four 1:72 scale kits in the months before he died. He knew he would not get to them, and it was my honour to complete three of them before his passing and show him how well they came out. We were both pleased with the results. This last kit…
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Make At Least One Little World
No matter what the size. The Little World is a fun column to write. I draw on the individual scale models I build and sometimes get to expand to several at once. Then I get to arrange them in dioramas and eventually into layouts. I’ve been fortunate to have enough space to do this, though…
The Little World 