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Douglas Devastator – Part Two – Crates
” My God, Carruthers! They’re sending boys up in crates like those…” Well, don’t write off the Douglas Devastator TBD so soon. Admittedly they did not have sterling success as fighting machines in the battles they fought…but they did get some torpedo strikes. If the US Navy had addressed the problems of the Mk XIII…
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Douglas Devastator – Part One – I Was Devastated
Well, not actually devastated…which apparently means ruined with overwhelming shock and grief. More like surprised and delighted, in a geeky way. Someone was selling old dead plastic model kits for tiny prices. It was not even the swap-meet portion of the Victorian plastic model show – just a few table-holders who decided to get in…
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When To Reach For The Pointed Stick – Part Five – The Primitives
Painting and masking need not always be done with conventional tools. Spray cans, spray guns, airbrushes and bristle brushes are all very well, but we can take a lesson from the indigenous Australians who had none of these tools. For millenia they picked up a pointed stick and cheerfully painted away. In many cases they…
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When To Reach For The Can – Part Four – Rattle me Timbers, Matey…
The aerosol paint can for model work has been around nearly as long as I have, though I did not come to them as a resource until I was in my teens. The cans were small then, as they are now, and just as expensive in relative terms. An AMT model car might cost $…
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When To Reach For The Airbrush – Part Three – The Fashionable Choice
Ever notice how everyone is using the airbrush nowadays? Is this really an advance or is it just fashion? Well, if you try to do what an airbrush does with a spray can, you can’t. The airbrush can be dialled down to a very small spray indeed and can introduce colour in subtle ways that…
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When to reach… – Part Two – The Cheap Option
I love being cheap. It looks so trendy and cool. And you can set up a camouflage of frugality for 29 days of the month that allows you to go out and spend like a maniac on the 30th… The cheapest way to paint a model – apart from dipping it in a bucket of…
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When To Reach For Your Gun – Part One – Soul Searching
When to reach for your can. Or your brush. Or your soul. What’s the best decision you can make about the way you are going to paint a model? How do you arrive at it? What are the factors that influence that decision? Let’s start out with the basics – what are you trying to…
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The Classification List For Scale Models
A recent comment regarding the 5-foot rule for judging scale models has prompted me to ponder on a possible classification list. No names, no pack drill – but I konw where a lot of mine sit on the scale. International museum-quality model – paid for by a government and regarded as a national treasure. Published…
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Do Not Tidy Up
Or do tidy up. Choose whichever piece of gratuitous advice you like – the price is the same. There is a danger to the business of tidying up a hobby workshop – you may succeed. Then you have a tidy workshop and nothing actually doing. This is a very sad situation. I’m sitting here on…
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Good Morning Walter – Part 13 – Mellow Yellow
Good Morning, Walter, and welcome to the wonderful world of crazy old Australians with yellow cars. This might not seem to be unusual, but the cars you’ll see here in this report are from the Western Australian Hot Rod Show that we have every year. They are real, but how real and how old can…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
The Little World 