Category: Uncategorized
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Extra Dark Sea Yellow-Pink

Or was that RLM Light Puce? Or Cockpit Poo Brown? Every source of information that one can access about authentic colours for scale models is based upon the opinion of the person who wrote it…and that may be perfectly valid, adequately valid, nearly valid, or a dog-bone lie. If it is connected in a commercial…
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The Great White West Is Not A Great White Waste

What’s white and cream and arctic and matt and gloss and lives in an old Patak’s curry paste jar? My new model paint, that’s what. And I think the most expensive component was the empty jar. I was up to the paint stage with my Air World museum buildings and they were daunting structures –…
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The Intellectual In The Little World

Are you an Intellectual? Do you know any intellectuals? Can you define intellectual? I can’t. I can define intellect, but I’m darned if I know where to look for it in other people. If they essay to show it to me I am suspicious of the process, and if they do not show it I…
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Whenever You Make A Model of Something…

Make a model of something. That is not just my entry into the fatuous statement of the year contest – it is the realisation that there are a lot of things that people do as modellers that are not helping themselves. Let me explain… a. If you essay to be a railway modeller, you need…
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The Only One Like It

If you are contemplating a big win in next year’s plastic modelling contest, I should get started now. Pop down to the hobby shop and pick up a totally exclusive, one-of-a-kind kit like a Mustang or Spitfire. And a packet of photoetched scale rivets for the detailing… There’s a fine point for the competitive modeller…
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When You See That Magic Lamp

We all succumb to the lure of the magic lamp occasionally. That moment when you see something exotic in the swirling waters at your feet and reach down and pick it up… The lucky ones drop it but the unfortunate ones rub and the genii comes out. Well, I avoided rubbing when I visited a…
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The Back Story

I had a consultation one day with the technical adviser…my friend Warren who was in the Air Force. He ran an eye over the mockup of the model airfield and I explained how it was evolving. At the time there were large sheets of paper down representing major structures I wanted to build, as well…
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The Seven Circles Of Modeller’s Inferno

Dante was not the only person who made a journey to the lowest depths of Hell and wrote about it. I’ve been to the hobby shows myself. Apart from a little more sulphurous smell and uglier demons, they are remarkably like the underworld. And just as Dante found, there are distinct levels of the place,…
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Packaging Part Two – The Quality Of The Box

I’ve been buying model kits since Eisenhower was President and Louis St. Laurent was Prime Minister and I think I’ve seen them offered in every form of packaging save a lard barrel; cardboard boxes, plastic packets, plastic bags, sleeves, and even one memorable lot in paper envelopes. As I sit at my desk typing I…
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Packaging Part One – The Gallery Of The Shelf

I go to art galleries in the various capital cities I visit on a regular basis. Some, like the NGV in Melbourne or the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney get a visit whenever I’m in town. Others, like the various modern art galleries or smaller dealer’s galleries might get a hit every two or…
