Category: Self Reliance
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We Get What They Got

And if they don’t have it, neither will we. Shopping at the local hobby shops is a good idea. It gives business and employment to local people and keeps vital supplies available to us year-round. Except when it doesn’t. Shops can run dry of all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons – and…
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Hannover CL III A – Part Two – Tuch der Tränen

If ever you are presented with the prospect of building a WW1 German aircraft, look at the colour call-out carefully. It may have lozenge-pattern cloth used as basic covering, Prepare to tremble. The lozenge-pattern camouflage is going to be difficult – as the previous chap found out when he tried Humbrol enamel on the complex…
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Make Your Own Museum

Make your own display. Please yourself how you do it, but take some time and effort with the presentation…even if it is only for yourself. You will be rewarded: a. If your collection of scale models tells a story. The library aspect b. If your collection is a delight to the eye. The art gallery…
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Carrie Nation’s Guide To Airbrushing

Stay away from Mick, John, and Dick. They have dangerous ideas. A recent discovery of a cheap Canadian whiskey on our local market led to speculation about paint thinners and prices. We looked out bottles of Tamiya X-20 and X-20A at the club, and noted the recent price rises. It’s now $ 15 – $…
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Am I A Modeller?

Or a Tetris player? This thought occurred as I was shifting cabinets and restringing electric lights in my workshop. There was no real need to do so – the space produced perfectly good scale models prior to this. But, like a woman moving a piano about the living room, I just could not stop myself.…
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What’s Brown And Sticky?

A stick. Now that we’ve gotten the classic dad joke off the board, we can continue to the real topic of this post: the cocktail stick. Also known as the wooden skewer, satay stick, or kebab stick, this thin bamboo or wood shaft is available in any grocery store or Asian shop. Bundles of a…
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When People Are Determined To Be Happy

You have to work hard to break the spell. One of my hobby clubs meets in two separate places; a public library and my photo studio. It is fortnightly schedule that lets us have an outing somewhere each week. Another club offers a delightful morning mid-week. I need never lack for amusement. This camaraderie is…
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Scale Model Puzzlement

And not the jig-saw kind. I mean the sense of uncertainty and curiosity that arises when you see certain aspects of our hobby. Here is a list of head-scratchers: The builder who has a magnificent and expensive kit to hand – in whatever scale or genre best suits them – and instead of building steadily…
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Norcanair DC-3 – Part Two – The Inside Seats

Very few paying passengers opt for the back porch seats on the Norcanair DC-3 flights over northern Saskatchewan. At least not after October. Everyone wants to stay inside huddled round the wood stove. To this end I have adapted ten seats gleaned from a Heinkel airliner of the 30’s. The expensive people get armrests and…
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When The Horse Balks And Throws You

Get up and get back on.* When you make an inadvertent floater in a kit build, finish it and start another as soon as possible. Find a kit that will require you to do the same procedure as before, but this time correctly. Remember the mistake you made and why it was wrong…and when you…
