Category: Self Reliance
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Every Kit Is A Spin Of The Wheel

Whether it’s a Crown and Anchor wheel or one they break criminals on is up to you. Sometimes it is up to the makers of the kits – but even the best kit can be spoiled and the worst made magnificently. As you are the one doing the work, you need to be the factor…
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If You’re Not In It

You can’t win it. This distresses some, but delights others. You see, if they do not make a bet, they do not lose their money. If they do not enter a contest they are not relegated with the majority of the crowd to be losers. If they’re not in it, they can’t lose it. Indeed,…
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Mil 24 Hind F – Part Three – Goo Time

In some cases that is a good time and in some just a goo time. I have written before about making my own sprue goo and using it for seam and gap filling. I have largely thrown away the Vallejo, Perfect Plastic Putty, and Mr Hobby products in favour of this home-made solution. I also…
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Scaling Up Your Scaling Down

When you are presented with requests. You give positive answers. Someone wanted decals for a model aircraft but couldn’t find them on the net. I did, but that probably wasn’t the question anyway. Fortunately the decal sheet needed was simple and illustrated cleanly in colour. Getting it onto Photoshop Elements was simple. Not so simple…
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What’s The Biggest Headache In Model Aircraft Kits?

Is it gaps in the joints? Impossibly big sprue feed gates? Dodgy decals? Nope – the worst thing about a model aircraft kit is the landing gear. Unless you’re building a flying boat ( and they have their own problems ) you will encounter your worst moment with the legs. Your problem will be balanced…
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Open Form Modelling

You might think that individuality and enterprise would be rewarded enough in scale modelling when we choose one of the options on the kit instructions. Or when we go the whole hog and get a packet of aftermarket resin or brass. Past that, there are the heady heights of what-iffery and enthusiast sci-fi to absorb…
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De Havilland Kate Moth – Part One – Airfix of Middle Age

Grown old in the mould – but tarted up with a new box. This Airfix model is a 1990 re-box of a series of Moths that originally hatched in 1957. It started in a plastic baggie cocoon but eventually graduated to the small cardboard box. At least that allowed Airfix more surface area to print…
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The Search For New Plastic

Are you at an impasse? Have you built yourself out of a hobby? Are you standing in the hobby shop but not feeling the buzz? Relax – it happens to all of us one time or another. The people who have a lot of spare hobby money to burn have it happen a lot more…
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CAC Wirraway – Part Five – Foliage Green

And Sky Blue, and let the colour contestants retire to their corners and come out fighting. I was fortunate to receive a book from a friend full of careful tests and colour patches for WW2 aircraft. It contained references for RAAF Foliage Green and Earth Brown and I was able to mix reasonable matches with…
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CAC Wirraway – Part Three – An Evergreen Cockpit

When the world gives you bare cockpits you just go out and build your own. The High planes Wirraway is a kit on a budget and there doesn’t seem to be enough in the kitty for much interior. I count a cockpit floor, two seats, two control sticks, and a couple of instrument panels. As…
