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Glue For One
Dinner for one can be a difficult affair if you are your own cook. You rarely make all the trimmings of anything and frequently steer round the things that are good for you in favour of the things that are easy to make. Shopping for one is similarly fraught – particularly if you have come…
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De Havilland Vampire T.11 – Part Four – Baked Bat
It’s not your eyes. Your eyes are fine. It’s not your computer. You need not re-calibrate it. The scale model Vampire T.11 really looks like that. And its counterpart in the Negev does too. The desert sun has very little air shade, no ground shade, and winds that blast from all directions. The paint that…
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De Havilland Vampire T.11 – Part Three – Do Not Decal
At least do not decal when you can paint. I am in awe of modellers who can make a decal panel lay down over an undulating wing or fuselage and have it come out taut and flat with no silvering or air bubbles. Even more so when the decal involves several panels abutting each other.…
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De Havilland Vampire T.11 – Part Two – Voila
No apologies for going from the bare kit parts to the glued-together carcass…it has been a busy two days. The model building club’s rooms have air conditioning and so does my computer room – I have repaired to them to escape the 40º plus heat in Perth. My workshop goes far above that on a…
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De Havilland Vampire T.11 – Part One – Going Batty
By now you probably feel you have reason to question my sanity – I am starting to build my third De Havilland Vampire in 1:72 scale. One DH.100 as a Canadian museum piece, then a Swiss Vampire with extended nose, and now a two-seat trainer. What is it with these bats? Well, the first was…
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De Havilland DH. 100 Vampire FB.6 – Part Two – Well That Was Fast…
You’ll forgive me for not taking any pictures of the pignose as it was being assembled. Too much was going on in the house at the time. The build was uneventful – thanks to the precision fit of the components hardly any filler was needed. And the tail sections fitted perfectly with no long packing…
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De Havilland DH.100 Vampire FB.6 – Part One – Those Riotous Swiss
Congratulaions – you have coped with one vampire. now you can cope with another… One thing – you have to hand it to the Swiss. They’re a barrel of laughs. All you have to do is sell them a old jet fighter and they’re out with the paint pots making a carnival float out of…
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De Havilland DH.100 Vampire – Part Four – Whooooosh
Flying a Vampire must have been an exhilarating experience for pilots who had trained on propeller-driven aircraft. Or perhaps I should say propeller-pulled aircraft…as there were very few pusher planes past the WW1 era. Of course pilots who had flown with twin-engine bombers and other multi-craft would be used to a clear field in front…
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De Havilland DH.100 Vampire – Part Three – Tell Me The Truth, Doc
Don’t sugar coat the pill. Give it to me straight. I can take it. Is the Amodel kit going to go fit together or am I just going to end up sobbing in the corner? Well, actually, the news from Kiev is good. The basic pod of the Vampire goes together exceedingly well. If you…
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De Havilland DH.100 Vampire – Part Two – Czech Out The Cockpit – It’s Got Steppes…
Note: There are going to be a lot of Vampire posts in this column. If you are chiropterphobic look away now. As another modeller noted in his daily build column, the quality of fit on a small-run cockpit can be a variable matter. I approach all cockpit tubs, floors, or structures with trepidation these days…with…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
