Category: subassembly
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Heinkel He-111c – Part Four – What’s Pink And Sticky?

Your answer will depend upon your character and level of maturity. In my case both are low, but I still think of ” sprue goo ” in answer to this question. I make it for pennies from discarded plastic sheet and lacquer thinner, and am starting to make it in three distinct consistencies. It may…
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Heinkel He-111c – Part Two – The Elsan

You may not have a lot in life, but as long as you have a pot… This is the type of thought that I deal with every day – no wonder the in-laws avoid me at parties. In this case, the Roden kit of the He 111c brought it to mind again as I commenced…
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Aichi Grace – Part Two – Report On The Experiment

You can experiment with all sorts of things; materials, processes, ideas, and weird food. The last-named aside, the others are often a help in scale modelling. We get set in our ways and sometimes it is in Carbonite like Han Solo. We need to explore new things. For a couple of years I followed the…
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Airfix Auster – Part Two – One A Week In Bull Creek

The Auster is going well. The build is not taxing, as sight of the sprue trees probably suggested. It is going well enough, indeed, to suggest that it might be a good return build for another form. One doesn’t get a great deal of detail, but then I don’t think Auster or Taylorcraft put a…
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Fokker D.XXI – Part Two – Dutch Canals

And a surprise – as the rest of this MPM kit fit together superbly. The gaps either side of the wing fillet were the only areas on this fighter that needed a filling. Fully deep, but narrow, possible to bridge with Vallejo acrylic putty. It dries quickly enough not to be an impediment to the…
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Grumman Tracker – Part Two – Do You Goo?

Yes, I do – particularly when I am making Idea Model, Minicraft, Mistercraft, or Novo kits. It is a natural reaction to the sight of gaping crevasses. I should be a quivering mess in Antarctica. At my workbench I am just barely controlled. It was not always thus. As a child builder I would have…
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Mitsubishi Betty – Part Two – Not-So-Ghostly Seam

I wondered what that cracking noise was… It was the top fuselage seam giving way. I must have flexed a wing too much and surpassed the tensile strength of the thin cement used to seal the fuselage. Well that’s what undercoat painting is designed to catch – the flaw that occurs before you add a…
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Curtiss H16 – Part Five – Wing Walking Without A Safety Net

With my heart in my mouth and my underwear screwed up tight… I set out to put 12 inter-plane struts on the lower wing of the Curtiss – all 12 upright and at the same angle. The way I did it was to use three old foam-board shapes I had made when doing an Airfix…
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Curtiss H16 – Part Four – Donks Are Shön

With my sincere apologies to Wayne Newton… These two donks have been the most complex engines I’ve yet seen in a 1:72 kit. The fuel pipes and cooling assembly alone should have frightened me away, but I was too foolish to run. Over a couple of weeks the constituent parts have been cemented on –…

