Category: subassembly
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Gloster Gladiator Mk I – Part Two – One Day’s Work

Every fortnight or so I visit a private home for a friendly scale modelling session with a group separate from my normal modelling club. The experience can be quite different. I enjoy the routine of each experience, but I keep them separate in my mind. Oddly, one of the other participants in the home sessions…
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Lima Beans And Spinach

Some people like lima beans. Some like spinach. Some cannot stand either vegetable*. If they are in a restaurant it’s easy – they don’t order either. If they are eating at the family table or someone else’s house the problem becomes more difficult. They may have a heaping helping steaming there on the plate and…
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A7 Corsair II – Part Five – On Her Feet

When next you see a charity tin marked ” Italeri “, stop and put a dollar in. They are good people. In particular, they have respect and kindness for builders of their 1:72 aircraft – they always provide decent landing gear and attachment points for gear legs in the engine nacelles, wings, or fuselages. If…
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A7 Corsair II – Part Three – A Grey Eminence

I am always a little daunted when I see a paint call-out that calls for different shades of grey…I am never certain whether they should be gray. The only thing about which I can be certain is that I will pick the wrong one. No, I’m wrong – the second thing I am certain of…
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Vultee Vanguard – Part Four – Mind The Gap

Fitting an eastern European model together is like opening Forrest Gump – you can never tell whether you have a soft centre or not. In the best kits the parts fit, and in the rest they nearly fit. You are fortunate if the gaps are symmetrical and the surfaces parallel. Plastic strip and sheet can…
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Vultee Vanguard – Part Three – Hate, Loathe, And Despise

If I told you I hate, loathe, and despise kits that have separate blades and hubs for their propellers you might get the wrong idea. Many 1/72 planes have this feature and the two, three, or four-bladed props sandwich in between a hub and a spinner and end up looking fine. I reserve my negative…
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De Havilland DH2 – Part Three – Wing Day

Well there is no point in putting it off and just sitting in the club rooms drinking coffee. Glue the bastard together or go home. 12 struts – reasonably formed for all that. 4 cabanes and 8 inter-plane ones. Socket dimples in fuselage and wings, but everything’s separate. The only saving grace is that all…
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De Havilland DH2 – Part Two – Shit Muckeldy Dun

You rarely see that shade on paint racks these days. There are plenty of colours that qualify, but they tend to have kinder names. The Spanish make a small fortune in tiny squeeze bottles of them. They invent names that suggest you need them for your model – in reality you just need olive green…
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Courage, Mon Brave!

When it is right – defend it. When it is wrong – admit it. And when it looks like hell, strip it off and start again. There are times when our reach exceeds our grasp. I have just printed a set of decals with the inkjet that would cover most of an air tanker. They…
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Triumph Herald – Part Two – Sending You To Coventry

In this case after the Luftwaffe have long gone. The Triumph Herald is coming along smartly, courtesy of a Covid isolation period. I am in no fear – this is what stashes are for, and like many wise modellers I keep a material and paint stash as well. The weather is cold but as far…
