Category: Uncategorized
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Don’t Do Anything With Your Hobby…

That isn’t fun. Because then it will not be a hobby – it will be a task – and a burdensome one, at that. Once it becomes work, you become a worker, and then you have to beware of the boss: a. a shop owner who employs you as a salesperson or repairman. Perhaps as…
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The Dinner On The Workbench Idea

No, I’m not talking about a plate of stew in the middle of painting a new model. That will not end well. This is a post about prices. We pay varying amounts of money for our models – Some come free and are all the sweeter for that – some cost a lot. Unless we…
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A Word About Roden

I shall be polite, and not choose the word that comes first to mind… Roden models are made in Ukraine and that probably qualifies them for admiration and sympathy in today’s world. They have it from me for their plight, but not so much for their products. I have built two – a Pfalz D.IIIA…
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Pfalz D.IIIa – Part Three – The Stag Knight

And so few of us remember ours, eh? The Roden Pfalz D.IIIa is done, and within 4 days of start. It had been the Christmas-New Years hiatus and I hied my atus to the workshop and got busy. It was not such a kit as demanded a great deal of work, but it repaid precision.…
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Pfalz D.IIIa – Part Two – You Only Find Out By Cutting

Scale model building with a new maker’s kits is really like draining an abscess. You never really know what is going to happen till you plunge the knife in. The Rodin Pfalz is actually quite nice, if you can forgive a few inadvertent flash episodes. The fuselage sides came together after being flattened on a…
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The Colour Of Your Model Is Wrong

But it’s not the fault of the paint – or of you. It’s the result of history. Cast your mind back to when you were a kid during the Boer war. When you could still get that crispy bacon. Remember what the photographs taken at the Battle of Bloemfontein looked like? The videos taken by…
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Understanding The Language of Modelling

And listening to what it tells you about the rest of the world. Welcome to the classroom. Every time we approach a foreign land we look first at the language it speaks. If it is not our native tongue we either try to learn enough to get by or go all arrogant and demand that…
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” Just Popping To The Shop, Dear…”

And I’m only going to buy a pot of silver paint for the new model. That’s all. Oh look. I’ve come home with $125.00 worth of new kits and a pot of silver paint. However did that happen? If you would strengthen yourself in resolve, skill, monetary resource, and marital bliss – don’t pop down…
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Soviet ZIS-5 Part Six – Igor’s Flying Inn

This truck and the accompanying accessories are to be known as Igor’s Flying Inn – named after GK Chesterton’s novel and my friend in Ukraine. It was not hard to find 12 crates of vodka to load onto the truck. Or the table and chairs. Or the wooden box full of cheese and sausages. The…
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Soviet ZIS-5 – Part Four – Yes Or No?

Do I take an extra day – and undercoat the body parts of the ZIS-5? Or just spray paint straight onto the tan plastic and hope it doesn’t scratch off? Well, I have decided to be moral, and careful, and cowardly. I have seen too many finishes ruined by me when I try to take…
