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Sandown Park 2019 – Part Eight – Chop Till You Drop

I really must make more of a study of model helicopters – having built four of them for my own small airfields. Thankfully, the kit industry has as much affection for them as for fixed-wing aircraft and there seem to be varieties from every country on offer. If you were a dedicated helicopter modeller you…
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Sandown Park 2019 – Part Seven – The Great Grey Elephant On The Table

As Ray Stevens might have said…” Well, I seen it. ” It was the 1:72 scale components of a Saunders Roe Princess flying boat produced using some sort of 3D printing machine…and cello-taped together as a teaser at the Sandown Park exhibition. No-one around, but enough literature left as a clue to allow me to…
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Sandown Park 2019 – Part Six – Before You Ask…
Back from my visit to the Victorian scale model exhibition, all my parcels have arrived, and I’ve reviewed the pictures taken on the day. Someone is bound to ask me which exhibit I thought best. After due consideration, here it is: Olympic Doughnuts in Footscray. A real model of a real place in real time.…
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Sandown Park 2019 – Part Five – A Red Star Track

When Red StarTrack deliver…you sign for it or else… This year’s exhibition pointed out something to me – the quantum shift in the scale modelling word from US and UK manufacture of plastic kits to makers behind the old Iron or Bamboo Curtains. With the moulding going to areas of former Soviet influence there are…
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Sandown Park 2019 – Part Four – Hearts of Card

I am always pleased to see our local card builder at the WASMEX exhibitions – card and paper seem so ill-suited to modelling. When I thought that, I had no idea what the kit and printing industry in Europe could produce. I’ve since learned by some practical experinece what can be done with pre-made card…
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Sandown Park 2019 – Part Three – Why Are We Here?

I don’t mean to get all angst-y and existential on you, but I did find the thought expressed in our heading crossing my mind at the recent model exposition. I was prompted to it by three sights: a. The line of patient modellers coming into the hallway with their creations. This was well and…
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Sandown Park 2019 – Part Two – Tanks For The Memories

I am not really an armoured vehicle person as yet. It is not an aversion – just a lack of attraction. Perhaps this will alter in the future, though I hope I will not have to step to yet another scale if I do try it. 1:72 and 1:76 seem to be rewarding enough. I…
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Sandown Park 2019 – Part One – Silver

Well, there we were, folks – Sandown Park in Melbourne for the 2019 model exhibition. Plenty of parking, real live motor cars circling the track, and a large canteen area set aside for the punters. What more could one want? One of the first tables that caught the eye after I rounded the Wall O’…
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What’s In This Stuff, Anyway? – Part Three – Masking Solutions

I counted up the bottles on my Little Workshop shelf and I now have more masks than Zorro. That’s not counting the tiny rolls of modellers masking tape or the big ones from Bunnings – I’m talking about bottles of goo designed to mask under spray paint. a. Maskol from Humbrol – the heading image.…
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What’s In This Stuff, Anyway? – Part Two – Decal Solutions

If I want to enjoy myself in the Little Workshop I can either fasten decals on a freshly-painted model or hammer nails into the back of my hand. Some days I am torn in an agony of choice… It was never like this in the old young days – I just found the place on…
