Category: Workshop
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Vickers Wellington Mk 1C – Part Two – More Poles

Our heading image is very close to the version of the Wellington Mk 1C that I am building, though in the case of this plane it has the later grey and grey/green upper works rather than the green/brown. But it provides painting hints that Italeri have left out of their instructions, so I am grateful.…
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Wait. What?

I have just been given a conflicting story and am in the process of processing it. Pardon the odd sounds coming from my brain. Some of them are gas and some of them are suspicion. The basic problem surfaced a few months ago when I went to my local hobby shop to get another bottle…
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Gloster Meteor F.1 – Part Three – Just Outta The Paint Shop

Well, it has been a couple of days. We are in spring*, which means we should be getting warmer weather soon. But we also get the tail end showers of winter with the ensuing bad paint conditions. So I have been dodging in and out of the Little Workshop catching my opportunities as they arise;…
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Boeing B-17 – Part Three – A Slight Detour

My projected mail plane needs to lose the upper and ball turret. The Academy people have not supplied blanking plates for these two gun positions so I need to occlude them with some scratch building. However, I started out with the basic cockpit and bomb bay assembly. The interior is supposedly chromate green according to…
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The Masked Man – Part Four – The Leap Of Faith

Every model kit build has a point that I hate – in the case of the R/C ships a half-century ago, it used to be the carving of the hulls. Now its the masking of the canopies and the cockpits on small airplanes. The tasks were and are small but the daunting is big. As…
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The Cockpit – Part Three – The Pen Is Mightier Than The Canopy

You’ve read before in this column about using a drafting pen as an instrument to paint the frames of a model airplane canopy. It is a perfectly valid technique – and one that I use all the time. If I am going to attach the canopy later with PVA glue, I can sit with it…
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The Cockpit Tapes – Part Two – Liquidation

Okay. You have looked at your 1:72 scale bomber and decided that you do not want to spend another $ 23 on pre-cut masks and you don’t want to spend a week trying to cut your own. What’s the alternative? Microscale, Humbrol, and GSI Creos would have you believe that painting a liquid mask on…
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When You Cannot Figure Out What It Is…

You’ll know this one. You go to the tool section of the hobby shop, possibly with a definite purpose. You have need of a tool and possess sufficient spare cash to be able to afford it. You rush to the place before the family demand money with menaces ( school shoes, food, medical attention…). As…
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The Plastic Casino

Are you an inveterate gambler? Are they always hauling you out of casinos and racetracks and putting you on 12-step anti-addiction plans? Well cheer up – you can put the cards down, throw the dice away, and say farewell to the horses. I’ve got a new outlet for your mania and it’s all legit. Betcha…
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Seriously Successful Decals

I’ve written before about the traumas of trying to get old decals to work – and failing miserably with some of them. But now I can brighten the day – Even 1959 decals can be brought back. There is a little of the Transylvanian laboratory about it, but you can do it. All you need…
