Category: Utility Models
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Ooh! We’ll Build THAT One…

Aaaaaand We’re there! We’ve succeeded in the most difficult part of scale modelling – deciding which model to make. The question and decision may have been asked and made in several ways: There is a picture of a ship, plane, or tank that we’ve seen on the net…or in a book…that just calls to us.…
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US Army Ambulance – Part Two – The Bug Bear

Everyone has a sort of a bugbear in their modelling. One person will have no luck with paints. Another will continually mess up clear parts. In my case it is vehicles – I never complete one without some basic flaw. In many cases it is the basic structure that foxes me. 1:72 and 1:76 vehicle…
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Why Is I Here?

” So tell me, Boss, why is I here? In the stash. In my little bag with my decal sheet and dodgy instructions. Why am I not back in the hobby shop with all the other kits? Why did I get chosen? ” a. You were the only kit of the essential model I need…
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Republic Thunderjet – Part Three – Polish-ed Silver

They said it couldn’t be done. They said it shouldn’t be done. But I did it. Now tell me why I did it…because I am not that convinced that it was a good idea. I have completed as much work as I intend to do on the Mister Craft Republic F-84G Thunderjet. It is stand-off…
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Republic Thunderjet – Part Two – ” Warsaw, We Have A Problem…”

When I introduced this Mister Craft model last post you may have gotten the impression that I was making fun of it. Nothing of the sort. I am coming to the conclusion that there is no fun to be made with any part of it. The good news is the wing top and bottom halves…
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Republic Thunderjet – Part One – Polish Thunder…

Grom, Grom, Grom… I set out this morning to find a Hobby Boss kit of the F-84 Thunderjet to build as a companion to the Boeing KB-29B tanker that is taking shape. Inspired, as usual, by a Squadron profile book that showed just this combination linked together in flight. I’d researched the HB kit and…
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Ilyushin Il-10 – Part One – The Beast

I normally pass by the Russian planes in the kit shelves – they are not a subject that I have much knowledge of and the examples of the later ones are not common as museum pieces in the West. However, anything that is known as ” The Beast ” has got to be interesting. The…
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Grim Reality Vs Grim Fantasy

I am often puzzled at the selection of model kits on the shelves of my local hobby dealers. They’re good dealers and I love them dearly – just as I love the dealers in the eastern states when I visit them. Every one is different but they all have a certain feel to them that…
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Boeing B17 – Part Five- The Fat Lady From Wenatchee

Well, it has been a week. The Fat Lady From Wenatchee is finished and I am delighted – so much so that I will now deliberately seek out other aircraft that can be made into civilian service aircraft. There were severe forest fires in Washington State and British Columbia in the 1970’s and a number…
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Tupolev SB2 – Part One – Katyuska

I was on tenterhooks when my daughter came back from Japan recently – I had tasked her with getting me a nice 1:72 model aircraft kit that we couldn’t get here in Australia. She obliged by searching out both a major and a minor hobby shop in Tokyo and bringing back 4 models – all…
