Category: Uncategorized
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Northrop P-61 Black Widow – Part Five – The Ghost Decal
I was a bit puzzled when I opened the box for the Hobby Boss Northrop P-61 Black Widow and saw that there were two sheets of decals; a big one and a little one. The big one had all the usual insignia, tail codes, and wing lines ( BTW, I hate wing lines as they…
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Northrop P-61 Black Widow – Part Four – The Black
If you want to be nervous, spray an undercoat of grey or white on your model kit. Then you’ll see just how good you were at spotting gaps and crevices. Of course then you’ll get a chance to correct them with putty or paint and you can get set to get nervous a second time.…
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Northrop P-61 Black Widow – Part Three – Under Tension
Remember I mentioned that the disparate parts of the P-61 Black Widow fit well together? Well that was before I tried to mate the belly pan to the rest of the fuselage. The basic fit is fine, but tight. The makers have exercised computer machines to measure where the parts slide over each other –…
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Northrop P-61 Black Widow – Part Two – The Parts Are Greater Than The Whole
I am often overwhelmed when I open a new kit and see the dozens of sprues that they pack in the box. Well, make that several, rather than dozens, but you get the idea. Seeing the bits laid out on the runners makes the whole project seem more formidable, mysterious, and complex than it often…
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Northrop P-61 Black Widow – Part One – My Second Widow
Ninth grade – Christmas in Calgary, Alberta. The tree held a number of real surprises…a Guillows SE5A and and Aurora 1:48 Northrop Black WIdow amongst others. It was the first time I had ever seen the aircraft and I was astounded. The Aurora kits were fun for their time but their time was a long…
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Spatial Ambition
Or ” The Kit Designer Is Laughing At You “. I’m drawn to this conclusion upon seeing some of the decal sheets that ask you to reproduce a complex paint job with a two dimensional sheet of plastic film. The painters and decorators that the Air Force and Navy get in from time to time…
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The Perils Of the Hot Box
Now we’re not talking about a broken bearing f on a railroad car – the proverbial North American ” hot box ” that leads to the failure of the axle and derailment of the train. No, our hot box is the plastic curing box that sits on top of an electric oil-reservoir heater in the…
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When Your Little World Blossoms
The Little World is blossoming. More and more models – in this case 1:72 scale – are coming onto exhibition and more and more kits are being discovered. There are three themes current and they can all expand for a number of years. This is all to the good. It’s sad to say, but sometimes…
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Boy, Was Flory Ever Right
And more correct than even he thought. Phil Flory is making some bite-sized videos for modellers to introduce them to basic concepts – and right at the start of this series he has advised people to sit down with the instruction book and plan out their build. Good, good advice, and something that no-one else…
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Douglas Dauntless – Part Three – Perhaps It IS A Dountless…
Maybe they know something I don’t. In my relentless pursuit of knowledge – also known as surfing the net – I discovered that there were quite a few RNZAF Douglas SBD-4 and SBD-5 aircraft used in the South Pacific. There are a number of period photos of them in flight and on the ground in…
The Little World 