Category: Uncategorized
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Bell AH-1 Z – Part One – Freak it

Sorry, that should have read Free Kit. This is a donation from Kevin, who is a master modeller in his own right. He does marvellous things with larger aircraft…and people who know him donate kits. If they are like this unprepossessing Hong Kong helicopter he donates them right on again. It is a kit maker…
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The Swiss Army Varnish

My workshop has a shelf in it for varnishes. Read that again. A whole shelf. I call it the Swiss Army Shelf because it has something of everything there – like a Swiss Army knife. And like the famous tool from the Alps, I suspect that about 89% of what’s on the shelf is useless.…
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Marcel Bloch MB 152 – Part Two – Minus Two

If you are a little put out that you only get to see the start of this build and then the finished product, remember that this is a very simple Heller kit repackaged by the Poles. There is not all that much to see during the building process – it just cemented together in one…
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Marcel Bloch MB 152 – Part One – Marcel…

I kid you not…there really was a Marcel Bloch and he really did design airplanes. And he used his own name, which is pretty damn brave. Around the people I know there would have been an immediate reaction. This model from Mister Craft is, of course, a rebox or remould of a Heller kit. That…
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Too Many/Not Enough

Our club has a vast library of old model magazines and other publications. I’ve no idea what the oldest model magazine held there is, but I do know what it is bound to contain: a complaint from someone in the UK that a particular model has errors. The writer may not have built the kit,…
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Curtiss Helldiver – Part Seven – Shangri La

As this is the first Curtiss Helldiver I have built, I could approach it with a fresh mind. The history of the type seems to have been a mixed one – initial failures and disappointments and then solid success against the Japanese fleet. It had its time and place and filled it well. I must…
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Curtiss Helldiver – Part Five – Jackson’s Art Supply

Jacksons Art Supplies – or Drawing Supplies, if you prefer, is a dangerous place to visit. Like Officeworks, Bunnings, or Dan Murphy’s you are surrounded by too many temptations to resist them all – you inevitably succumb to buying something and there’s the food money for the week gone. The kids will just have to…
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Curtiss Helldiver – Part Three – Green Is The Colour…

As I have written before – it is the colour of my true love’s cockpit. But it is never the same colour as you see in the books, movies, or museums. It is never the same colour as other people use, and it is never the same colour twice. The only thing that cockpit green…
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Having A Thin Time Of It

Since returning to scale model kit building and taking on the whole airbrush thing, I’ve been steadily making discoveries. Many of them have been through the mechanism of mistake and regret, but I’m happy to say not all. Yesterday I got to pet the learning curve without it biting me in the ass. The question…

