Category: Secondhand
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We Can Retro Better than You Can
If you are a collector of mid-century modern furniture, or fashions, or cars you can pay a small fortune for junk. It’ll be up to you to repair and maintain it, and make yourself think you’re doing a good thing. For the scale model builder, we can do the same thing, but with a bit…
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Boeing Dreamliner – Part Two – Dry Fit Wonder
I started this kit with some misgivings but they are rapidly evaporating. The only flaw I have detected so far is the loss of two engine fans. Whether they were wrenched off by the previous owner or never cast is unknown – I have just had to search the spares box and make up a…
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Swiss Ju-52 – Part One – Straight Out
Of the box. This one is a tribute to a club mate who left a large uncompleted stash. I’ll confess that it is not the first Ju-52 I’ve built – one was a Heller kit repopped by the Czechs, and one was a slightly later Italeri offering. Of course this Lufthansa plane will be the…
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Grumman F3F – Part One – At Long Last
I have been looking for a 1:72 scale model of this aircraft for years – and wouldn’t you know – one turned up at a swap meet sale a few weeks ago. It may not be the Monogram Four-Start Plastikit of my youth, but it is a perfectly good Czech MPM model sealed in it’s…
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RAF Wellington – Part One – Another Legacy Bomber
This kit is the second legacy purchase from a deceased estate. The club member who passed away had not started it. A short google search turned up a number of RAF squadrons who flew this type and several clear illustrations showing camouflage pattern and squadron markings. As I had built a Wellington Mk 1c before…
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Northrop Gamma – Part One – Inter-war Special
Newcastle Song Day. And I didn’t let the chance go by. This was the first time I had seen a Williams kit – though I had read about them in Scalemetes. The impression I got was that they were rather garage-kit like. This vanished when I opened the box at the club’s stash sale and…
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Kawanishi Norm – Part Four – A Powerful Flop
From all accounts great things were expected from the Kawanishi reconnaissance float plane. And then the contra-rotating propellers and jettison-able float proved problematical and the service missions undertaken with the type were failures. So it was quietly shoved back into a training role. The appearance of the aircraft in the box art was what attracted…
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North American Bronco – A Quick Build
This North American OV-10 model has a rather chequered history – it was sold twice and gifted three times before it was built. It is just this report on my column because it was a quick build. It started life in Korea as an Academy model, made its way to Japan into someone’s stash, and…
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All These Sprue Trees…
Of which i am collecting more and more each week… What the devil do I do with them? I’ve been in the habit of throwing them into the trash after I finish a build – minus the spare parts, of course. In some instances chopped up as I progress through the box, but in some…
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This Model Ain’t Makin’ Itself…
The lazy modellers guide to workflow. We are told that youthful modellers in the 1970’s used to buy a kit at their local shop, have it together by teatime, and destroyed by the next morning. I think this is one of those old-guy stories that is made up of fibs, lies, and political promises. I…
The Little World 