Category: Scale Models
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The Irony Of It All
The use of bright yellow and bright green to attract the eye is a pretty standard practice in construction and road building – vehicles, structures, and people are all decked out accordingly to make sure someone sees them in the confusion of a building site. And the colours are all so bright and solid. Yet…
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Aichi Seiran – Part Two – The Trolley
This is quite the most detailed trolley I have ever seen. Seaplanes and float-planes are wonderful birds in the air and slippery fish on the surface of the water, but sad encumbrances back at the air base. Unless they are amphibians like the USAF Albatross, they cannot land on their own wheels and need something…
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Aichi Seiran – Part One – A Bargain
And a Tamiya bargain at that – you don’t see many of those around the shops these days! I cannot say whether this Aichi Seiran float plane model was inexpensive because it was unpopular, or unpopular because it was an old kit, or an old kit because it was inexpensive…that sort of circular logic is…
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Model, Toy, Or Artefact?
When you pick up something from the Little World, you are often faced with the problem of classifying it. That is, if you regard it as a problem. I don’t, but I am unscientific. This is a result of my circulation; my blood goes down one leg and up the other… This may be a…
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Gloster Gladiator Mk I – Part Three – The Mandate Of Heaven
Or of the Gloster Aircraft Company. The Gladiator is complete and ready to join the Swu Ping Provincial Air Army. The delightful thing about the SPPAA is that they have a variety of paints with which to decorate their aircraft. Oh, they do follow the guidelines provided by Nanking, but Nanking is a long way…
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Gloster Gladiator Mk I – Part Two – One Day’s Work
Every fortnight or so I visit a private home for a friendly scale modelling session with a group separate from my normal modelling club. The experience can be quite different. I enjoy the routine of each experience, but I keep them separate in my mind. Oddly, one of the other participants in the home sessions…
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Gloster Gladiator Mk I – Part One – I’m 14 Again
The last time I built an Airfix Gladiator I was 14 and had 50¢ to spend. I am older than that now, and richer, and glad to see that Airfix have kept up the pace – issuing this new kit a couple of years ago. It is vastly more detailed, with weighted tyres, alternate propellers,…
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Lima Beans And Spinach
Some people like lima beans. Some like spinach. Some cannot stand either vegetable*. If they are in a restaurant it’s easy – they don’t order either. If they are eating at the family table or someone else’s house the problem becomes more difficult. They may have a heaping helping steaming there on the plate and…
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Styrene Broker – Part One
Like a stock broker, but smelling of cement, not gin. A recent conversation with another modeller about yet a third hobbyist who is late, led to the question of what will be done with his accumulated scale model production. A great deal of it resides at his former hobby club, and is magnificent, but somewhat…
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Westland Whirlwind – Part Three – The Admiral’s Barge
Part of my research material about this green -and-white helicopter suggests that it wore these colour so that it could function as an ornate flying Admiral’s barge for part of the Royal Navy. Other sources assign it a training role at a Naval Air Station. Whichever is correct – and they both may be –…
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