Category: Tools
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RAAF Spitfire Mk Vc – Part Four – Where You Can Stick It

On your underside… On the workbench – in the spray booth. And with the comforting knowledge that it won’t fall off. I have tried a dozen different ways of holding scale model aircraft during the painting process; by the tail, by the nose, with a stick up the jet pipe, etc. All have their uses,…
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RAAF Spitfire Mk Vc – Part Three – Peg ‘0 My Heart

I love you… Okay, there is an earworm for you. If you are too young to know the tune put your cap on backwards, go away, and stare at your mobile phone. I am the strange old guy in the supermarket that looks at clothes pegs. Or the weirdo in Bunnings that tests out every…
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How Much Fun Is It To See Other People’s Hobbies?

I wonder at that when I see exhibitions of scale modelling or other Little World pursuits. I know it is fun for the exhibitors as they vie to outdo each other and to buy things that they need for their next project. There is a deadly rivalry in some camps and shows are the battlefield…
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Like Kipling’s Cavalryman

I spend idle time studying how to reduce my horse’s burden. Even though mine is an iron beast that runs on petrol rather than hay, it is still limited in what it can bear. There is only so much a Suzuki hatchback can carry and that I can ferry from carpark to clubroom or exhibition.…
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What Can You Do In Five Minutes?

I mean on a modelling bench. Never mind the bedroom or the toilet… In five minutes you can: a. Finally rescue that paint that settled in the jar. Dilute it, stir it, clean the cap and threads. Label it properly. b. Get fresh blades on your knives and safely dispose of the dull old ones.…
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Four – The Puzzle…

If you did not want me to do it, why did you provide the parts? I address this to the Amodel engineers who moulded a complete interior bomb bay and 250kg bomb load, and then left the fuselage doors moulded shut. Not shut with a line to score and pop out – completely moulded in…
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Never Leave Well Enough Alone

You do not need a Stradivarius to fiddle like mad. You can be dissatisfied to your own satisfaction, and go from there. I looked at tmy new tool wall inside my hobby room and was struck by how sad it all looked. An online search for an alternative turned up nothing good – all the…
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Dissatisfaction

Is the step-mother of invention. With cheapness as a sibling – how could I resist the temptation to rebuild the modelling desk. The old one featured a wall of Chinese take-away food containers that held tools and materials – they were hot-glued to a sheet of foam board gaffer-taped to the workbench. No expense spared…
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Economodelling

Cheap, Cheerful, And Proud Of It We all like to brag about how much money we have to spend on our hobbies. Just ask the average Olympic skeet shooter what their shotgun costs…but sit down before you do. However, we can also puff out our chests when we are in exactly the opposite situation –…

