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Northrop Nomad – Part Three – Bumblebee

If you are going to let teach inexperienced airmen the arts of flying, you send them up in training aircraft. And it’s not just the pilots that need to be up in the air – the observers, gunners, navigators, radio operators, flight engineers, and flight attendants also have to get their feet off the ground.…
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Northrop Nomad – Part Two – A Sea Of Plastic

I have never been so happy to see a plastic bag full of parts before. Particularly as they are all injection-moulded with nary a resin part in sight. The new Northrop Nomad kit ( also known as the DB8A3N ) is a return to traditional construction. There is evidence of thought throughout the box. In…
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Northrop Nomad – Part One – Starting To See A Pattern Develop

I’m not the brightest of individuals but I can see a trend emerging – the Czechs are taking over*. At least they seem to be taking over the shelves of the local hobby shops with their 1:72 scale plastic model kits. I’ve encountered them in Melbourne and again here in Perth and it would appear…
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Tamiya Acrylic – The Viable Challenger

Note: in this test I used the Tamiya acrylic paints, but I could slso have used the Creos Mr. Hobby acrylics as well – they can interchange thinners and brush cleaners. Well, as the Avro Anson MkI was slowly being painted and cured, I decided to fill the time with two other kits – a…
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Enamel Is The First Bottle Off The Shelf

Well, in for a penny, in for a Pound…I decided that the Special Hobby Avro Anson MkI was the test bed for the Humbrol system. Other people may know it as the Angst-on but I make my own discoveries… After painting up the interior and locking it into the fuselage, I covered over the windows…
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How Unbiased Do I Have To Be To Look Virtuous?

I’m in the middle of a scale modelling experiment at present. The basic question I need to solve for myself is: Acrylic or enamel? I’ve hedged around the issue for some time now as I gained more experience with the airbrushes and looked at more YouTube videos. I’ve not had too much contact with other…
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The Little Workshop – Colourful Guilt

Some modelers keep a stash of unbuilt kits in closets – these probably reassure them, much like a giant hoard of gold comforts the dragon Fafner in Wagner’s Ring cycle. I can see a few of the curled around them huffing fire… I, too, have a modest stash but I am working like Siegfried to…
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The Green Mat Boys

I am starting to think that I am underprivileged – with more possessions than I can use, more food than I can eat, and more booze than I can survive…but still missing a vital tool for model kit building. I do not own a green mat. Everyone else on the Little World seems to have…
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The Small Encouragement – F2A Five

The people who have been reading about my Anson Encounter may have formed the opinion that it was a difficult time. That it may have been driving me to blasphemy, murder, or federal politics. Rest assured, while I have no problem with the first two, I would never stoop to the last. But there was…
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I Only Know What I Don’t Read In The Papers – F2A Four

My misquotation of Will Rogers is not meant to be disrespectful – I have always thought him one of the finest humourists that the Americas have produced. But he was long before the era of the internet and the wonderful collection of bad information that it provides. Note that I’m not using this column to…
