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The Coconut Bow
Look up the history of the WW2 cruiser USS NEW ORLEANS at the Battle of Tassafaronga. You’ll find that a Japanese 21″ Long Lance torpedo hot it at night and blew the bow off just aft of the first turret. The bow then rotated to port and passed down the port side of the ship,…
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Backed Away From The Airbrush
And no-one got hurt… My daughter – a net-savvy person – heard me chortling about the idea of using cheap vodka for airbrush working. She did some searching and found an Amazon product that could arrive at the door for 1.3¢ per ml. I had no words. She ordered a bottle, and I prepared the…
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The Standard Can Of Soup
You may never experience three-star Michelin fine dining in your life. But you can certainly get a good bowl of soup – just look for the Heinz or Campbell label. It will not have the wonderful ingredients and spices of the restaurant’s speciality…but you will be able to depend upon it. So it is with…
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Fokker D.XXI – Part Three – 1939
Ist Fighter Squadron, De Kooy, Netherlands. Autumn 1939. Den Helder was the location and the Dutch had about 30 operational Fokker D.XXI fighters at the base. They were used in May 1940 as defence against the Luftwaffe and the official history records some remarkable successes for the type. It was more manoeuvrable than the Bf…
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Fokker D.XXI – Part Two – Dutch Canals
And a surprise – as the rest of this MPM kit fit together superbly. The gaps either side of the wing fillet were the only areas on this fighter that needed a filling. Fully deep, but narrow, possible to bridge with Vallejo acrylic putty. It dries quickly enough not to be an impediment to the…
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Fokker D.XXI – Part One -SOOTB Fighter
I have so few Dutch aircraft in my collection that this stash buy is a real asset – Let us hope the kit is up to MPM standards. New MPM standards, I hasten to add. The canopy is clear injection and there is only the wretched resin propeller boss and separate blades to gloom the…
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When It Is All Too Flaming Much
Do not despair. Do not allow kit makers to sell you unhappiness. If they have decided that you need to model the rivets on the underside of the toilet seat in the 1/144 scale airliner, consider your own opinion before theirs. They may very well be making fools of themselves and you at the same…
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The Commander Of Leftover Air Base
The home of the 103rd Tactical Kit Boxes. Our motto: ” What The Heck Is This? “ It is a heavy responsibility to be the grate at the bottom of the scale modelling drain. To be the hobbyist that follows the parade of kits with a broom and a shovel. To be the person under…
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So Good That…
That the makers of 1:64 scale cars and trucks don’t make their construction equipment in the same scale. That the cars they do make are nearly always brightly coloured race cars and rods. So useful for normal dioramas. That the die cast factories employ pantograph design machinery to produce the same thing in three scales.…
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What Does A Free Model Teach You?
If chance brings a free model kit to your bench, what should you do? a. Thank the donor profusely. b. Bear it away unopened and when alone, look inside. c. Whatever the state of the contents, do not panic. There might be gold or iron pyrites in there, and you may have to actually build…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
The Little World 