Category: Scale Models
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Grumman Goblin I – Part Three – Fuselage of Courage

The title of this column recognises that there is a certain stoutness of spirit required when you try to close up a fuselage, car body, or hull. The reality of what the plastic is going to do can be a lot different from the blandishments of the instruction sheet. I’ve written before about what the…
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Grumman Goblin I – Part Two – Interior Lines Of Confusion

I like photo-etch brass pieces. I also like chiggers and toothache. All three are acquired tastes… In the case of the Goblin I, the brass fret is not too daunting – rendered more comfortable by the fact that I am not going to touch about half of the tiny parts on it. This is not…
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Grumman Goblin I – Part One – The New Appearance

I regularly cruise through Hobbytech in Myaree to see what’s new. Of course, no cruise is ever painless. I buy something every time. If it is not paint or a new tool, it is a kit of some sort. I am not complaining or bragging – just stating a fact of life. Like gravity or…
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Bristol Bulldog – Part Six – Pip Pip Reggie

The Lockdown Bulldog was finished – and a day before time. Shows what you can do when you are doing what you can do… Someone – I cannot think who it was – gave the big horse laugh at US Navy and US Army aircraft of the 1930’s for being too colourful. He saw the…
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Bristol Bulldog – Part Four – Partial Masking

I cannot say that I look forward to masking all that much. But I recognise that it is an in-escapable part of aircraft painting in small scales. There are things you just cannot freehand with enough precision. This is hilarious considering some of the pictures I’ve seen of ground crew respraying aircraft in wartime with…
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Bristol Bulldog – Part Five – Plan Out The Paint

And I nearly didn’t. I was going along well with the painting and decaling of the Bulldog when I noticed that I’d jumped a gun – the instruction sheet showed the underwing report code being put on before the bomb racks. I’d long cemented and painted in the racks before I noticed this. Fortunately the…
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Bristol Bulldog – Part Three – Plane, True, And Plumb

Say what you will about super-detail kits and expensive models – you just cannot beat a kit that will go together cleanly with no strain on the components. Oh, we’ve all had kits where we’ve coped. Where we’ve managed to make one warp counteract another and end up with something that looks like the box…
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Bristol Bulldog – Part Two – Well, They Don’t Fly Themselves, Eh?

I’ll amend that. The drones do…sort of. But in the case of the Bristol Bulldog, it needs a human pilot to defend the realm. Airfix have been good to us for a long time – nearly all of their kits have contained at least one crew member to steer the ship and/or make the sandwiches.…
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Bristol Bulldog – Part One – Viral Week

We copped a 5-day lockdown here in Western Australia when Covid transmission occurred associated with a quarantine hotel. Which sounds trifling when you compare it to other places in the world that had been devastated. But we were in a legal and geographic position to take it seriously and did so. With a bit of…
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Supermarine Stranraer – Part Four – You Can Glue…

With your fingers crossed. This is the normal mode of operation when cabane and inter-plane struts are concerned. With Czech kits the legs are also intertwined and you run the risk of falling sideways off the stool in the workshop. Matchbox made the process a little less fraught by sectioning the upper wing in three…
