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Airfix Mosquito – Part Three – Look Quickly

I suggest that you look quickly at the IAF Mosquito in today’s illustrations – it may be the last time that you will see it in such a clean condition. It is just about to be wheeled out onto the hardstand at Schmattarim Air Base to join the museum of aircraft that have been in…
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AIrfix Mosquito – Part Two – The Lists…

There can be two lists connected with every scale model airplane kit; the list of things that went right and the list of things that went wrong. You’re only in trouble if the lists contain the same items…Here’s the good one for this Airfix Mosquito: It was free. I had special decals saved up for…
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Airfix Mosquito – Part One – The Free Skeeter

Is there any nicer word in the English language than ” free “?* I was attracted to this Airfix model of the Mosquito NF MkII when I saw it on the free kit table of the Model Car Spectacular earlier in the year. If you put in an entry you got a number that was…
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Well, I’ll Be Darned, Eh…?

I’m so pleased that the photographs I took in my studio of Bill Duncanson’s Bentley motor car model have made it to the cover of the premier Australian modelling magazine; Modelart Australia, Issue 110. I feel it to be a real, if unacknowledged, achievement for my studio. Of course the graphic artist on the magazine’s…
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The Courage To Bin The Trash

If you are an inveterate collector and hoarder like me, throwing materials away is a difficult task. Every cut scrap of something looks as if it will be useful for some project and you save it in the appropriate storage tub. Plastic, wood, metal, cardboard, etc. Eventually you fill up the tubs and find yourself…
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Vought Corsair F4U-1 – Part Four – Delivery In A Plain Envelope

Students of military aviation are very quickly attuned to the finer points of insignia, markings, and unit numbers. You have only to go to some of the more intense internet modelling forums to read people engaging in passive/aggressive arguments about the exact position of the ” No Step ” stencils on the Hurricane Mk XXXIV…
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Vought CorsairF4U-1 – Part Three – Thanks, Doc…

Thank you, Dr. Tamiya. I needed that. That slap in the face with a model kit: That fits together without sanding or filing. With an entire cockpit in 1:72 as a matter of course. With wing seams that need no putty. With the engine where all cylinders are part of the injection moulding and no…
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Vought Corsair F4U-1 – Part Two – Which Came First?

Well, which came first; the chikin or the tamago? Did Tamiya get a good reputation by building precise model kits or did they build precise model kits because they had a good reputation? At what point did they say to themselves ” We must make excellent products above all…”. Did they have a modelling adolescence in which…
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Vought Corsair F4U-1 – Part One – Birdcage

I wandered into Hobbytech for a bottle of paint. I came out with three bottles of paint and a Birdcage Corsair. This is why I’m not allowed in Bunnings or the beer shop unaccompanied. To be fair I was responding to an internet search session that showed the prototype XF4U-1 aircraft Vought showed to the…
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If You Build A Barber Shop, They Will Comb…

If you wish to give yourself a treat – for about $ 40 a throw – go down to the hobby shop and look at the OO/HO building kits. You’ll find them for British, North American, and European buildings, and there is hardly anything that you can imagine that cannot be bought. If you stray…
