Category: Uncategorized
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Potez 540 – Part Two – The Hatch Of Heller

The moment of truth arrived in my hobby room – I opened the Mister Craft box and saw what I had exchanged money for. I was pleasantly surprised. Heller it was, and Heller is still is. But not as bare or sad as some people would have you think. And not moulded as badly as…
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The Bellanca Ball-Ache

I’m being unfair to Bellanca – I could have chosen Beechcraft or Bristol. The alliteration was the thing – a ” B ” aircraft maker was needed. Let’s start out by saying there never was an aircraft called the Ball-Ache. There may have been many that induced the condition, but that is a matter for…
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Federal 2 1/2 Ton – Part Four – A Nervous Time

The Academy kit of this truck has two build options, differing only in a winch and a machine gun mount on the cab roof. I eschewed this and opted for the version associated with the Red Ball Express. There are plenty of stores on the sprue trees and a big open bed in the back.…
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Federal 2 1/2 Ton Part Three – Classy Chassis

The joy of building Academy vehicles is the precise subassemblies that their kit moulding makes possible. The chassis of the Federal is no exception – in fact it is better than the Army ambulance that they put out. I still have the horrors trying to get all the wheels on the pavement at the same…
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Federal 2 1/2 Ton – Part Two – If it’s ALL Green…

Is there any need to paint it? Yes there is. Bare green plastic is just that… you can see a mile away when someone puts a model out for display that hasn’t been painted. That’s fine and dandy if it is a display of production models that lets the customers see what it looks like…
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Stash Time

We are just starting a 5-day covid lockdown and fortunately our house has toilet paper, food, and books to read. The family has the goggle box and I have a stash. There are three kits a’building at present – one for the Tuesday Soviet Mens Shed meeting, one for the fortnightly glue and talk session,…
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Prop Washing

Well, you don’t want a dirty propeller, now do you. Sign of a badly-maintained aircraft, that. All greasy around the spinner, like… Actually, I got to wondering at who decides what colour the propeller on an aircraft should be, and why. Some reasons seem evident, but some are obscure. a. American aircraft prior to WW2…
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15 = 50
If someone owes you $ 50 and tries to pay you off with $ 15, don’t you let them get away with it. That’s robbery. But if you find that you can have the same amount of fun, nourishment, or drunken-ness for $ 15 as you can for $ 50…take advantage of the discount. I…
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Dassault Ouragan – Part Five – Smile

I suppose if you are going to paint a shark mouth on the front of an aircraft – a la Flying Tigers – there is no need to be discreet about it. You’re not trying to hide anything. You might as well make it as big as possible. This seems to have been the philosophy…
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Dassault Ouragan – Part Four – The Colour of The Underwear

The colour of the underwear is always important. And not just in the gusset, either. Trying to find authoritative material about the insides and undersides of aircraft can be a problem. There are air museums, of course, and you get to peer from a distance at what the wheel wells and control surface recesses look…
