Category: Scale Models
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Now Available In The Convenient Can

There’s an advantage to be had by sticking to one brand of paint – every bottle is somewhat related to every other bottle. You can generally apply something onto something else without a flash and a bang. You might have to wait until layer A dries completely before you apply layer B but most times…
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Curtiss SBC-4 – Part Three – The Bad Bargains

The French paid through the nose for the Curtiss SBC-4 Helldivers. They were compelled to pay in gold bullion hauled to the USA by the aircraft carrier BÉARN, then forced to load them in Nova Scotia after they were towed over the international border, then forced to abandon them in the West Indies when metropolitan…
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Curtiss SBC-4 – Part Two – In Praise Of Heller

It is unfashionable in the British Commonwealth to speak well of the French. The old prejudices born of war and ambition stretch back as far as William the Conqueror and have been topped up and re-aligned every century since then. It goes the other way, of course – the French despise the English nearly as…
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Curtiss SBC-4 – Part One – The Old Photo In The National Geographic

I used to pore over wartime copies of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. I found a trove of them in a school library in the 1960’s and read all I could. I wasn’t after pictures of native girls with bare chests – I wanted colour photos of fighter planes. NG had access to the US Navy and Kodachrome…
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Imagination Is The New Word For Lying To Yourself

If you’re a fan of Facebook or any other general social media site you’ll have seen the memes that encourage you to imagine things. Many of them will have mountain scenes or unicorns and rainbows. I came from Alberta and used to live in the Crows Nest Pass, so I can testify to the accuracy…
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F-15 Eagle – Part Three – Baz

Not Bazza – this is not an Australian fighter. Baz, as in Hebrew. One of the couple of dozen of this type the IDF flies. The tail markings were initially meant to be two red triangles inside and an eagle on the outer but the home printing proved difficult – they were impossible to actually…
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F-15 Eagle – Part Two – Flaps, Gaps, And Traps

I used to think traps were for the unwary. Then I found myself carefully sticking my fingers in to get the cheese and reaping a snappy reward. There are also traps in the Academy F-15 kit – mainly slight sinks in the intakes and screeching big troubles between the top and bottom halves of the…
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Paint Pot No. 2

The business of spray can and bottle was covered in a previous post. Now it’s the turn of the choice of alcohol/water acrylics and acrylic lacquers. Like a lot of people who remembered enamels, I commenced my latter-day modelling with alcohol/water acrylics. A well-known brand that starts with ” T “. The paints worked well,…
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Yak 3 – Part Four _ Speed Is As Speed Does

When you are not bending up connecting rods from brass PE sheets for a 1/72 kit, it seems to go a lot faster in the construction. Not as liable to win Best-of-Show at the Anorak Expo, but you have to be realistic. And Hobby Boss are the most realistic moulders I know. The Yak 3…
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Yak 3 – Part Two – There’s An Hour Of My Life…

Well-spent, as it happens. The Yak 3 basic structure is cemented together with the cockpit painted already. You can see why I like Hobby Boss products – particularly in a case where there is a time constraint. I don’t want to turn out a shoddy model, but I don’t have time for Boola-Boolavarde stops, as…
