Category: Uncategorized
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Summer/Wintertime Modelling
Who am I kidding? In winter the workshop in the shed is flaming well freezing. There is cold and rain and any airbrush painting is a gambling game – whether there will be a reaction to the increased water vapour in the air that will fog up a coat. Whether any coat will dry in…
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If You Want A Lesson In Painting…
Buy a ready-made die-cast model car and change the colour on it. You will have to go through the process of disassembly and paint stripping to get to the bare casting. Then you’ll need to apply an undercoat and then a long series of thin paint coats to get back to what was originally there.…
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Mining The Archives
Which is a good way of making sure no-one gets into them. Be sure to keep an accurate record of the placement of the charges in case you have to reopen them… Our club has a library and a magazine rack, and all the members are free to borrow the books and magazines on display.…
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Worrying Your Way To Better Models
Are your models good enough? Are you good enough? Have you had your daily hour of anxiety? We are constantly being told to stop stressing ourselves – advice that can really depress you. You no sooner sit down and let your jaw muscles sag than someone is leaping at you with a pill or a…
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Pure Colour
Means a pure, clean model with no moral deficiencies. You will be accepted into the company of saints. You may be able to use your halo as a building lamp. Or not, if you are one of those sort of people who just weather every surface in the house. There are advantages to using pure…
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Do The Kit Makers Set Traps?
Is your favourite scale model manufacturer playing with you? Have they moulded a practical joke in their latest offering? Are they laughing at you in the lunchroom? You may be forgiven for asking this unpleasant question if you have just opened a $ 250 kit that has three parts and a decal sheet made of…
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The Design Meeting At The Model Plant
They have them, I’m sure of it. All businesses have meetings, and they all stink. In the case of scale model moulding plants the most important decisions are taken at these meetings, and most of them are held just before lunch when everyone is too hungry to think straight, or just after lunch when they…
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Swedish Hampden – Part Two – Grey Is Better?
Hmmmm. I am unsure. Ask me later. The grey plastic of this Airfix Vintage Classic seems to have a different fel to it from that of the 2010 version I built. Harder, stiffer, and less warped. I have only found one shot shot and one sink and the short shot is in the perfect place…
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The Miniature Mind
The psychology of scale modelling rarely makes it to the pages of academe. Few papers and fewer theses are presented about the little worlds of the modeller. Monogram brought out a 1:12 scale kit of someone writing a sociology paper but it never sold all that well. Be that as it may, there is a…
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Casting About For A Model
Is a die-cast airplane a model or a toy? It all depends upon the person holding it. One thing – it will never be a flying model – die-cast metal is not aerodynamic no matter how hard you throw it. It will sit on a stand or on its wheels and please the eye, but…
