Category: Scale Models
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Progressive Cementation
Sounds like a political party that’s going to lose their deposit, eh? Well, it’s a good idea for scale modelling when the makers of our kits decide to care less about them than we do. When they mould things too fast and the plastic warps out of the blocks. When the parts only fit where…
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MiG21R – Part Three – 006 On The Line
Along with my reputation, which is also a tarnished relic. I don’t mind – it saves a lot of fussiness. The real Mig 21 that was pinched got a thorough working analysis from the IAF before being consigned to Hatzerim. It wore several liveries after the Syrian brown camo was scraped off – some of…
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Mig 21R – Part Two – I’m Gonna Sit Down
And shut up. The judgement that I made about the Condor people making agricultural models is all taken back. They do good work. The basic structure of any kit is…well…basic. I have purchased kits that have been moulded with dismay and disappointment in every seam. Fortunately the seams are also moulded so wide open that…
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Nieuport-Delage 622 – Part Three – On A Wing And A Half
If you don’t have enough materials to make a complete lower wing, just shrink it a bit and no-one will notice… The sesqui-wing is a much-maligned design. I count several in my collection and they are nearly all sleek things. They lower wing is functional to some extent – much like the small wing that…
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Nieuport-Delage 622 – Part Two – Canadian Club
I have chosen this title because of the shape of the Nieuport-Delage 622’s fuselage and sesquiplane lower wing. It reminds me of a baby seal. Coming from the Frozen North as I did, some things are ethnographic… Stop shuddering. If you can eat Vegemite on toast within the sight of decent people, you can stand…
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AI And The Contest Judge – Part Four – You Lose Points
The scale modeller who seeks love by looking in the wrong places – ie a scale model contest – will be particularly ill-served by AI. The ordinary run of contest modelling is hard enough: A. The business of conceiving a new model based upon the bias of the judges – analysing what they rewarded in…
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AI And The Scale Modeller – Part Two – The Electro-Boss
Let us imagine for a moment that the model making firm of Plasti-Prag decides to download a computer program for AI to help out the staff. In it goes to the works Mac or PC, settling in amongst the porn and unpaid invoices, and the design section tries to use it to draw up box…
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AI And The Scale Modeller – Part One – Write It Down
The brouhaha about AI seems to be heating up, which is fine if you are in Australia in the middle of winter. Frankly, any warmth is welcome. For scale modellers it will make no less of a difference than it will for photographers, gossip column writers, or people who clean drains. We will explore the…
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I’m Not Fussy
Really I’m not. You would be convinced of this if you saw some of the clothes I wear and some of the people I pal around with. There is a lot of slack there, and most of it is me. And I am getting a lot looser with what I build as a scale modeller.…
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Sherman Tank – Part Five – Aberdeen
And not the one in Scotland, either. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Harford County, Maryland. The US Army testing facility. There’s another one at Dugway in Utah, but you don’t want to stand downwind of it… The Zvezda kit provided decals for the Aberdeen tank, so it got the nod. That meant that it could be very…
The Little World 