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Čmelák – Part One – Oh, I Don’t Know

” I’ve never built an Eduard kit – I might as well… And here are two versions – the Profipack and the Weekend. Three dollars difference in them…but I suspect that the dearer one would have photo-etch that I hate. Why not save a few bucks? Looks like I get four choices of Czech markings…
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Netmodelling

The computer rules nearly every room of our house – save the toilet. There are still uses for paper… I’m not a Luddite. I like my computer and the facility it gives me to communicate to others…until they block me. Sometimes that can be done in remarkably short order. But until then, the net is…
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Tell Me About It

Tell me aaaaaalll about it… And make sure I know that you know, you know? The expert on any subject can derive their knowledge from a number of sources: a. Casual personal experience. b. Deliberate experimentation, c. Extensive research. d. YouTube. a. It is difficult to argue with the first category, unless you dispute the…
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Shelving Your Worries

Or worrying your shelves. Some people are like that… I am currently shelving, boxing, and arranging my scale model collection and discovering why museum staff have a certain look on their faces: that of murderous Tetris players. Every museum worth it’s salt – and that includes private collections – has simultaneously more than it should…
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Bristol Belvedere – Part Three – The Mehcopter

Cue enthusiasm…reboot…reboot. I think this is the first of the Airfix Vintage Classics that has disappointed. It is undoubtedly what it was in the original release, but like the original Blackburn Buccaneer, the Hovercraft, the Fairey Rotodyne, and the prototype Harrier, it strangely fails to please. Perhaps Airfix were precipitate in issuing something that was…
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Bristol Belvedere – Part Two – How Right They Were

This kit has all the appeal of a Revell re-box. The two halves of the fuselage may have been pulled out of the mould while still hot and allowed to cool on a window sill. The result is a progressive rolling distortion that will never allow the parts to join in one cementation I decided…
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Bristol Belvedere – Part One – Dire Warnings

And why I never heed them… This kit appeared in my local hobby shop before I read a review of it. It was reasonably priced, a Vintage Classic, and a type I had never built before. I forked over the cash and took it home. The review was not mealy-mouthed; it said this was the…
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No Box Art

No colour call-out. No decal sheet. No safety instructions. No history of the prototype. Just sprue trees and a basic diagram. If this describes a lot of the kits you buy, congratulations – but only if you got them cheaply. If you paid full price you deserved all the added extras. What good would a…
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We Get What They Got

And if they don’t have it, neither will we. Shopping at the local hobby shops is a good idea. It gives business and employment to local people and keeps vital supplies available to us year-round. Except when it doesn’t. Shops can run dry of all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons – and…

