Category: Secondhand
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The Kit Whisperer

We are to have our scale model exhibition in a few months and I will be there showing some of my builds and taking pictures of other people’s efforts. I’ll also browse the trade stands and the second-hand sales that go on. Of the two, I think I’ll have the most fun with the junk.…
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From Expensive To Valueless In One Simple Movement

Want to know how to convert $300.00 to nothing in a couple of weeks? Easy. Go put and buy a $ 300.00 kit and build it. It was worth the 300 on the shelf in the shop, dropped to 150 in your stash, and as soon as it was complete it became unsaleable. Not quite…
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Selling The Farm

Would be a darn sight easier than selling completed scale models. I am about to confirm this as I have put some 1:18 dioramas up for sale. It’s a couple of months away from the annual scale model car show and rather than haul the dioramas to the show and try to sell them there,…
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Dudded? Or Clumsy?

Starting out on a kit that I bought from someone’s stash, I was gleefully contemplating the colour scheme when I noticed that there was no canopy for the aircraft. Had it been included in the kit and I lost it? Had it been missing and was overlooked at the time? Was I in possession of…
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Cheap and Cheerful

One of my friends has posted a picture on Facebook of an Airfix De Havilland Tiger Moth kit he’s building. He’s selected the RAF version in A/B camouflage and from the picture it looks delightful. He noted that it cost him $ 11 – and mentioned me as a cheap and cheerful modeller. Oh, if…
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Mitsubishi Dinah – Part One – The Japanese Shop

My daughter visited Japan for a two-week holiday last year. Thoroughly loved the place and will go again. On this first visit I primed her to visit a model shop in Akihabara with instructions to bring me back a small 1:72 model kit of something that we don’t get in Australia. Her choice of whatever…
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Persuasion and the Bumtree

A while back I decided to try our local swap and sell app – Gumtree – to dispose of an unwanted plastic model kit. The app was efficient and easy to use, which was a blessing for a non-tech person. I have used my iPad to picture objects for sale, offer them, and frequently have…
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B-17 – Part Two – What’s In The Box?

What’s in any kit box? Hopes and fears, mostly. Hopes that the kit is all there and not fractured or warped and fears that the mould may have deteriorated with time. The decals are an entirely separate class of anxiety… In this case the sprues are nice clean Academy products, which may have been nice…
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Boeing B-17 – Part One – Why Do I Buy Famous Airplanes?

Why indeed, if I don’t intend to build the famous version? Because the famous versions are what sell to other people and that’s what the kit makers manufacture. The best I can do is look at the basic structure of the thing and see if it conforms to my plans …or can be modified enough.…
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Percival Provost T Mk1 – Part One – The Box In A Box

I was delighted when my friend Warren presented me with this Matchbox Percival Provost – inasmuch as it has passed through three sets of hands for free I hope to make mine the last ones before it becomes an airplane. It was found inside another model box purchased at a secondhand arms and militaria fair…
