Category: Uncategorized
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I’ve Got It All Taped Out…
Betcha don’t know where that expression comes from…Not from the electronics industry and not from the car body workshop. From the trenches of WW1. The British regularly laid cloth tapes from their lines toward the Germans to allow their troops to advance in the right direction without over-running other units on either side if they…
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Lockheed Lodestar – Part Four – The Grey Ghost
Limited as I am to only a half-dozen photos of the actual plane I’m modelling – CF-TDI – I am having to squeeze the last drops of information from each image. The heading one is the chief image I use, as it was evidently taken with Kodachrome in the late 40’s or early 50’s and…
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Lockheed Lodestar – Part Three – But Wait, There’s More…
I am starting to get smarter when I open the box of a new kit – I dive for the instruction sheet. The thing I want to see straight away is the diagram of the sprues with the ID numbers on the bits that I will use and the greyed-out portions that indicate things that…
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The Waiting Room
If you think time spent in a dentist’s waiting room is difficult, try waiting for a paint coat or decal application to set. You know that you should leave the model undisturbed…but you can barely resist the desire to try the next operation or apply the next coat. I was like this when made my…
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Doing A Little Jig
And ‘tis not even St. Patrick’s Day, begorrah. I’ve been watching the YouTube modellers painting their planes and cars and musing about the business of the production jig. You’ve read about this before here in the Little World as I glue together bits of foamcore board to support aircraft during the painting process. I think…
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Yakovlev-3 – Part Four – The Silver Bird
Encouraged by the silver paint coat on the Yak-3 I went ahead and added the decal stripes and stars. The decals were good – they released quickly but were not fragile and I surprised myself with how well the red side stripes went. The fact that the pre-decal clear coat was Mr. Hobby Superclear UV…
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Yakovlev-3 – Part Three – The Dreaded Instrument
I used The Dreaded Instrument on helpless victims for 40 years. Oblivious to the screams and the smell of burning flesh, I pressed onwards in a mad orgy of torture. The only thing that would stop me was the end of the day or running out of electricity. In short, I was a dentist. And…
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The Positive And Negative Mask
If there is one thing that model airplane building brings you to, it is the knowledge of how to do masking. You may do it badly or well, but you will be doing it for nearly every model you work on. I’ve just been taping up the Grumman Duck and it has prompted me to set…
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Shall I Break It Now Or Wait Until Later?
The people in the plastic kit companies who write out the instructions and draw the diagrams are to be admired. I would accord them all honour as I tied them to the stake and bid the firing squad take aim. Because they are very talented and artistic criminals. Their chief crime, past the price they…
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Bell Iroquois – Part Three – The Local
When my friend Terry paid his bill in model helicopters I was initially going to make a yellow and red RCAF rescue – sauvetage machine of the modern era – the bright colours were the attraction. The Italeri kit is an excellent structure to do this on – it fit together with minimal trimming of…
The Little World 