Category: Uncategorized
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Matchbox Helldiver – Part One – Progressing Backwards

I already own two Curtiss SB2C models – one a US Navy version and one a USAAF A25 Shrike. They were respectively a Sword and a Dragon kit. Both characteristic of their countries of origin – the Czech one a challenge of approximation and the Hong Kong one a masterpiece of precision. But two were…
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How Many, Oh Lord?

How many Messerschmitts can people buy? How many do they need? What are they doing with them? I asked this in grey desperation as I cruised the kit aisle of three of Perth’s hobby shops searching for cheap new models of interesting subjects. I saw kits from what must be two dozen various makers and…
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Perverse Hopes

Relax. This is Safe For Work. If they have accepted the fact that you build plastic model kits, the worst is over. You can stop pretending to respectability and go back to looking at Airfix magazine in the toilets. The perverse hopes we speak of are: a. The hope that a major manufacturer will mould…
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Lockheed CT-133 Silver Star – Part Four – Moose Jaw, Here We Come

The real 261 is flying the Canadian air show circuit , to judge from the photos found on the internet. I was delighted to see it as it combined the features I love; RCAF prototype,simple colour scheme, decals I could duplicate. That, BTW is the big one. I use inkjet printing and have a few…
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Lockheed CT-133 Silver Star – Part Three – Star On A Stick
Well, this is a re-run of a number of previously-learned lessons – how to mask, how to hold, how to finish. As I have made the mistakes that lead to wisdom before, I need not make them now. But I will… However, here’s the internal structure that I mentioned in the last post. That’s so…
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Lockheed CT-133 Silver Star – Part One – The Brand I Trust

Let me start out by disclaiming any business connection with the Italeri company – or with any of their distributors or retailers. I am just a customer – but I am a satisfied customer. I have never had a product from Italeri with which I was unhappy. You may deplore my skills and expertise as…
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Smorgasbuilding

One of those, and one of those, and one of those… And you won’t build that sort again, because they’re icky. And there you are, in the aisle of the local HobbyHell Supastore looking for a small bottle of paint – or a large box of tank. And you see a rack full of packets…
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Mirage F.1C – Part Four – I Must Build More

a. More French aircraft. b. More jet aircraft. c. More Hasegawa aircraft. d. More varied operators. The completion of the Moroccan Mirage F.1C has been a real pleasure – a kit that had few flaws to trap me. Of course I made mistakes but I made them early and easy. And this is the point…
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Mirage F.1C – Part Three – Like Webster’s Dictionary

Or Hope and Crosby…We’re Morocco-bound. Why Morocco? Never been there myself – never expect to visit. Wish them well and hope they do not slide off the edge of Africa into the Atlantic ocean. But their chief advantage to me is their choice of Dassault fighter planes – they fly the Mirage F.1C. They also…
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The Serious Modeller

Vs the chronic modeller. The difference is slight – more a case of emotion than skill. The former is a staid and sober citizen, carefully measuring between rivets on their one and only model – which they have been building since 1987. The fuselage of the kit is nearly complete and the serious modeller will…
