Category: Workshop
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When To Reach For The Airbrush – Part Three – The Fashionable Choice
Ever notice how everyone is using the airbrush nowadays? Is this really an advance or is it just fashion? Well, if you try to do what an airbrush does with a spray can, you can’t. The airbrush can be dialled down to a very small spray indeed and can introduce colour in subtle ways that…
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When To Reach For Your Gun – Part One – Soul Searching
When to reach for your can. Or your brush. Or your soul. What’s the best decision you can make about the way you are going to paint a model? How do you arrive at it? What are the factors that influence that decision? Let’s start out with the basics – what are you trying to…
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Do Not Tidy Up
Or do tidy up. Choose whichever piece of gratuitous advice you like – the price is the same. There is a danger to the business of tidying up a hobby workshop – you may succeed. Then you have a tidy workshop and nothing actually doing. This is a very sad situation. I’m sitting here on…
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Heavier Than You Need To Make It
And lighter than you can lift… Have a look at the tools in your workshop – whatever your shop produces. It doesn’t matter whether it is turning out toy airplanes or plate armour ( and I know workshops that do just that…), there are tools there that are built like a rolling mill in Henry…
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Canadair Sabre – Part Two – Basic Airframe
Well, I will tip my hat to Airfix – this is one lovely build. I am almost going to get away with no putty, and if the Mr. Surfacer can be coaxed to thicken up by letting it evaporate a little, I can paste it on instead. There was only one little bit of fettling…
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The Modelling Station
I am in constant state of admiration when I see the modelling stations of truly professional scale builders. The green cutting mats, the neat rows of paint bottles, and the tools lined up in order of size and/or political opinion. It just thrills me and makes me want to put on a pair of heavy…
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Plod, Nod, Or Sod It All?
Do you build models in parallel or do you build them in serial? Is your workbench pristine and pure – a minimalist’s paradise? Or is it awash in 14 kits and a broken toy that you prised apart for the gears? It can be a seriously diagnostic thing to see – a window into your…
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The Bow Pen Revisited
An earlier post mentioned the draughtsman’s bow pen as an instrument to paint the lines on 1:72nd canopies and I sad I was going to experiment with it. Experimentation finished, I have decided that it is the preferred method of work for the future. I admire the people who can mask canopies and spray paint…
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Blu, White, Or Yellow?
Tack, I mean. Which stickum do you prefer? I’ve been googling about BluTac just now and apparently the formula is non-toxic, rubber based, and secret. It is made by the original people and half a dozen imitators – two of which I’ve been experimenting with. Useful for tacking posters to dorm wall and kid’s drawings…
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The Sock Drawer
Whenever some cartoonist wants to suggest that someone has no life – and way too much time to spend living it – they have the poor individual sorting out his or her sock drawer. It is meant to be hilarious and pitiful at the same time, like parliament in Ottawa. I think this is entirely…
The Little World 