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If All Your Pigs Are Dark Green…

Suppose you are a person who makes scale models of pigs…in the internationally standard scale of 1:26.8. And suppose you are a stickler for accuracy; you subscribe to International Pig Modeller Monthly, you regularly submit your models for scrutiny on the Masochistic Modellers Forum, and you have won Pig Modeller Of The Year at the…
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Bring Me More Chemicals, Igor!

If you want to be nervous but don’t like dark houses or cobwebs, try a walk down the paint aisle of your local hobby shop. You’ll find enough there to fuel all your anxieties. I did recently and encountered racks filled with products from nine different chemical manufacturers – eleven if I counted the off-market…
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Hawker Sea Fury – Part Four – Perfect Paki

The PM model of the Hawker Sea Fury is just done and onto the photo table. It has been a symphony of pleasant surprises right from the start. And it’s a good lesson for the modern modeller – particularly the person who hangs on every internet report and thinks that there are experts who know…
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Hawker Sea Fury – Part Three – If You Look Very Carefully…

And I did. I did look carefully. And I’m glad I did. The external fuel tanks of the PM Models Hawker Sea Fury fit together very well. A lick of MEK, a clamp, and they were ready for sanding. And not a lot of that needed – the seams fit very well. As I had…
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Hawker Sea Fury – Part Two – Hours Of Building

About two, as it happened. And part of the time was spent making beef pies in the kitchen. This aircraft kit is a fair way shy of the 1000-piece puzzle… But the pieces that do exist are rewarding. Well-shaped, and with few flaws. The wings and fuselage went together with the kind of precision that…
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Hawker Sea Fury – Part One – A New Maker

I’m a bigger sucker for novelty than I readily admit – I make noises like all the old goods and methods are the best and the new ones are rubbish, and you’d think I have not advanced since the 1950’s. But in truth l’m always buying something new from the shops just to try it…
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I Now Know…

I now know my least favourite scale modelling task: making up propellers from separate blades and hubs. I have just completed the gluing on two propellers for the Lockheed Electra Junior and am waiting for them to set. The maker decided to do the hubs in resin and the blades in styrene – so I…
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A Short Aside…

$ 5.00. Pink and purple. Her Madge on one side and Parliament House on the other. A bird and some wattles. Simple thought, isn’t it. I’ve no ideas what $ 5.00 Australian would buy in Great Britain or North America. It would probably buy nothing at all in Europe or the Arabian sinkholes…but here in…
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Consolidated Catalina – Part Five – 3402 At Last

I finally figured out what I liked about the Israeli 3401 Catalina that is displayed at Hatzerim – they have painted it a shade of blue that has always called to me. My first car, the late lamented Renault 10, was painted this blue-grey and it has set a lead that I’ve followed for many…
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Consolidated Catalina – Part Four – Tail Sitter

I take particular care with my scale models to ensure that the aircraft sit on their wheels properly. The tail-sitters like the Lancaster and Whitley, the B-17’s and B-18’s are no problem. Something can nearly always be done to beef up even the scaliest of landing gear to take the weight of plastic. The something…
