Category: Self Reliance
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Bristol Mk32 Superfreighter – Part Three – Who Was That Masked Whale?

Balance it up in your mind – whether you trust the decal makers to put a product out that will look like a painted surface, or whether you can make a painted surface look like a decal. If you can fold a 2-dimansional sheet of plastic paint to conform to a 3D surface with convex…
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Walk On

What does Pablo Picasso think of your models? Hard to say. Sr. Picasso turned in his paella spoon many years ago. Anything we say about his opinions now would be just imagining. But I do suspect Pablo would approve of them…on one condition. Do you approve of them? Pablo Picasso walked his own line for…
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Hurricane Night Fighter – Part Two – Saturday To Monday

King’s Birthday long weekend and I had something better to do than go to the Royal Show. The basic structure of the Hurricane went together on Saturday afternoon. The undercoat and then the black sprayed on Sunday. The clear gloss was Monday. This kept me home – off the roads and safe from the double-demerit…
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” That’s A Pleasure To See “

Be fair and honest. Sometimes your mates will complete scale model projects that are far better than you could ever do. Don’t be jealous. Don’t be critical. Don’t push them off the shelf onto the floor. Give them their due, and ADMIRE them. I see other modellers in my clubs concentrate on their specialities and…
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Are You As Visual As I Am?

Or as the British Lords Of the Admiralty were in the days of sailing ships? The heyday of the Royal Navy in the 18th century saw construction of many wooden ships. Plans for these were a complex thing to see and the contractors proposing them to the Admiralty often had difficulty explaining the lines to…
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Perth’s Plastic People

Sunday morning at the big local scale model exhibition was a festival of wanderers – some with purpose and some with purses. I know…I was one of them. We do not dress well – in some cases because of poverty of purse…in others an equal lack of taste. No matter, we have paid to get…
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When Is An Apple Not An Apple?

When it is drawn as a diagram on the instruction sheet of a scale model piece of fruit. Then – particularly if the kit is from Prague – the part that looks like a Granny Smith, Mackintosh, or Cox’s Pippin could well be an aileron or de-icing strip. There will be few written notes to…
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Human Nature Is Optional

At a scale model competition there are certain conventions and rules: a. Models must be actually there. No good going around telling people how good you are. They are better at assessing you than you are. b. You enter your model in a specific division. There are 35,000 of these so it pays to be…
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If It Is Not The Best Model That You Have Ever Made…

Is it the worst? Let’s face it – we do have failures from time to time. Things start out fine and end up slightly horrid. We may have done what we always do, expecting a win…and ended up with a loss. The finish was off, the shape was off, the build was off. We were…

