Category: Utility Models
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The Feral Modeller
A guide to being the strangest one in the room. If you’ve only built a Mustang, Spitfire, and Messerschmitt, you are probably going to fit right into any scale modelling group. Not so much if everyone else is into doll houses or anime, but you never can tell. But if you want to really stand…
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Have I Got The Latest, Latest Kit?
With the photo-etch and the resin and the masks and the pots of paint and the signed copy of the designer’s baby photo? Gee, I hope not; I don’t think I could stand the pressure to perform. The 14th coat of weathering oil/lacquer/authenticity magic would reduce me to tears. I could not win a court…
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The Kit That Doesn’t Teach You Anything
Is best left closed. Every scale model kit you undertake to build ( as opposed to just buy and store ) should teach you something. Some will do so by showing you a prototype that is new. Some will show you a new technique. Some will introduce a new manufacturer. Equally, some will alert you…
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The Unaccounted
Every so often I see things in the hobby shops for which I can find no explanation. These can be on alien shelves – the gundam and anime models – the motion picture and comic book models. I see things that bear no relation to my life whatsoever. They may be good kits, and they…
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The Drive-By Scale Dumping
Someone, somewhere, is dumping 1:12 scale old mattresses on the verge outside dollhouse maker’s workshops. And someone is dumping their old scale models at our clubrooms. We are slowly pulling them out of our display cabinets and subjecting them to scale scrutiny. It’s not the quality of the building that is suspect – it ‘s…
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Looking For A Good Time, Big Boy?
I’ve seen these advertisements in the back of the newspaper. But they are rarely from hobby shops… I don’t think we need to make our hobby – scale model building – sleazy and profitable to attract the masses. I am not sure how you’d add porn appeal to an M4 Sherman tank in 1:35 scale,…
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I Asked About The Difference…
Between fantasy and science fiction, and the chap with the space helmet, ray gun, and rocket back pack just shook his head. So did his four-headed dragon, and that was a messy business. Took us half an hour to put out spot fires. In the future, I shall just observe the future from a distance.…
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When Is Shoddy Workmanship Justified?
Never? Always? Something in between? Let us explore… The classic maxims about workmanship emphasize how you must always strive. ” Any job worth doing is worth doing well “.” A poor workman blames his tools “. ” Go west, young man “…and so forth. Stirring stuff. Makes you long for a moral Mixmaster. It has…
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FROG Stash Avenger – Part Two – A Fine Frog
The reputation of older kits is low, but I think this can be undeserved judgement. This FROG moulding is all that one could decently want for the original cost and hits well above its weight at the stash price. The seams have met my expectations – and more importantly, the other parts they were designed…
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The Stash Sale Guide
Or how to do yourself either a lot of good or a serious injury… Stash sales are going on all the time – people decide to thin their collection of unbuilt kits for many reasons. Some need the money – some need the space – some need relief from the pressure of family expectations. Or…
The Little World 