Category: Scale Models
-
Westland Whirlwind – Part Two – Building Someone Else’s Memories
This Westland helicopter model of the late 50’s from Airfix seems to figure largely in the memories of other people. Everyone I have shown the box to seems to have built it back in the day and are scathing about it. I am fresh to the neighbourhood and am starting to feel somewhat wary –…
-
Westland Whirlwind – Part One – A Green Stranger
The Vintage Classic shelf again – this time something I have never built before – the Airfix Westland Whirlwind HAS.22. In reality, it was a Sikorsky S-55 sold to the Royal Navy. The original kit is apparently of late 50’s vintage though I never saw one in shops in Canada. Basic, as you would expect,…
-
Be Prepared To Be Wrong
Those of you who are married will find it a familiar feeling… But making mistakes in scale modelling is slightly different from the errors experienced during marital bliss. For one, they are quieter… And less permanent. You can paint something wrong, or badly, and realise it…and never do it again…without having to hear about it…
-
A7 Corsair II – Part Six – Library Build Champ
This is the first aircraft that I’ve built in the Cambridge Library – not in the UK, but in Floreat, Western Australia. The venue has allowed a small group of plastic modellers to have a facilities room on alternate Saturday afternoons for a model-building meeting. We share the space with slightly bemused students who effect…
-
A7 Corsair II – Part Five – On Her Feet
When next you see a charity tin marked ” Italeri “, stop and put a dollar in. They are good people. In particular, they have respect and kindness for builders of their 1:72 aircraft – they always provide decent landing gear and attachment points for gear legs in the engine nacelles, wings, or fuselages. If…
-
A7 Corsair II – Part Four – Two-Tone
I puzzled about the white horizontal stabiliser and trailing wing surfaces on this Corsair II when I saw the colour call-out. Of course I was bound to follow the diagram, and as it was the same for most of the variants I knew it was deliberate. Then it struck me – if you did not…
-
A7 Corsair II – Part Two – Library Day
Somewhat of a novelty – an afternoon spent scale modelling at the Cambridge Library in Floreat Forum. It was as a member of a Saturday club that hitherto has met at one chap’s home. This was an experiment in connecting with his local library – a place where we also display a cabinet of our…
-
A7 Corsair II – Part One – A Childhood Dream
I always admired the Ling-Temco-Vought Corsair II when I was a boy and dreamed of flying it. Had I dreamed up some way to see without glasses I might have saved myself some heartache., This childhood infatuation eventually petered out when I discovered girls, but it is somewhat surprising that I never built a model…
-
Miniature Demicturation
Or ” taking the piss out of someone with the hobby “… I have been guilty of just this – with written articles in my web column and imaginative labels on some of my display models. So far no-one has exploded in rage, but I still have hopes. But have I done so with any…
-
Vultee Vanguard – Part Five – Hint of Wings To Come.
Look closely at some lines on this Vultee fighter and mentally add a bent wing and bigger engine. Yep. It would have been interesting to see what might have been if the later Corsair was available for China in the early 40’s. lad-based aviation would have been less critical in landing than naval service and…
The Little World 