Category: Uncategorized
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The Search For New Plastic
Are you at an impasse? Have you built yourself out of a hobby? Are you standing in the hobby shop but not feeling the buzz? Relax – it happens to all of us one time or another. The people who have a lot of spare hobby money to burn have it happen a lot more…
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The Dwindling Stash
I am astonished to be writing this – my stash of 1:72 scale model kits is practically gone. I’m down to three and one gets done in a fortnight. Unless the wholesalers deliver some of the 2026 releases I will be forced to turn my attentions to another genre. Fortunately I have good projects in…
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You Can Save Yourself Into The Bin
Or the poorhouse. The first comes about when you decide to buy raw materials to bypass the commercial products. If you have been used to using a rattle can for spraying undercoat or varnish, you can replace this consistent and successful method with a single-action airbrush, little pots of clear lacquer, and a great deal…
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Promoting A Hobby Shop
I visit two hobby shops regularly – another two every six months – and a couple more not at all. The chosen ones are close at hand when I am at home or coming from my weekly club meeting. The occasional ones are out of the way but rewarding for small items. The rejects are…
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The Monument To Discouragement
Sits sad and alone in the public park. No-one visits it…willingly. Sometimes you arrive at a point in the building of a model kit when it makes you sad. It might be the bad fit, the broken parts, or just the lacklustre nature of the prototype. It might be the advent of a much better…
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I Miss The Old China Station Scheme
I mean I miss the warship paint scheme that was favored in Victorian times: a white hull and upperworks with buff funnels and the occasional black funnel cap. Brass, too, just to trim up the works. Oh, I understand perfectly the need to paint them a uniform grey in wartime to let the ship approach…
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If You Went To The Theatre As A Drama Critic
What would you do if the show was good? Bet you would be torn by the temptation to slam it anyway. After all, that is what you are paid for and you have a reputation to uphold. The fact that you might do so by blackening that of others is beside the point…and Pierrepoint the…
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Sikorski Sea Dragon – Part Three – Grey On Gray
I just did that to gee up the Pommie Pedants who will insist that there should never be two spellings of the colour…or the color… The helicopter is surprisingly handsome for something that hangs its engines out on stalks and puts rubbish bins in front of them. I could have asked Italeri to mould the…
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Sikorski Sea Dragon – Part One – A Matter Of Numbers
I think there is trouble in the Italeri printing works where they make the boxes for their kits. The top of the box has superb artwork depicting a Sikorski MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter in US Navy colours. One end of the box repeats this. But one end and one side are marked as MH-47E –…
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The Box Office, The Cast, And The Audience
Which is the most important part of the theatre? If you know, tell me. I am trying to decide the same thing about the modelling exhibitions that are held annually in Perth. Whether they are of cars, boats, trains, planes or houses, they all have essentially three components; those who show, those who they show…
The Little World 