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Building One A Year
Building one model a year may sound like a limiting sort of hobby, but you have to consider what is meant by ” one “… One scale model railway layout, complete with track, landscape, and operational trains would be an ambitious project for any builder. Even a skilled railway modeller would be daunted. One scale…
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Finnish Brewster Buffalo – Part Three – 1945
Let us be delicate about this… In 1945 the Finns were on the winning side of a losing war. Actually several wars. They had fought the Soviet Union on their own behalf, as partners with nazi Germany, and then fought the Germans for their own territory as part of the Allies. It was a situation…
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Finnish Brewster Buffalo – Part Two – All In A Day’s Play
I have given up days of work. Now I slave away at a hobby… it is much more trouble… And I should not have it otherwise. I can remember employment and practice and professional education and have no desire whatsoever to go back and re-commence them. If I had to do it all over again,…
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Finnish Brewster Buffalo – Part One – The Herd Increases
As a child I once had an unbuilt balsa model of a Brewster Buffalo. It was well beyond my skills at the time but the design always intrigued me. Perhaps that is why I have built four of the beasts so far for my 1:72 collection. This one is the Hobby Boss version – a…
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The Really Good Kits
Go to someone else. We are left with the stuff that doesn’t sell. The wholesale trade has only a certain number of new releases each year and when these have been sent to the eastern state’s shops we get the dregs. And plastic dregs can be dreadful. I don’t think the makers started out to…
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The Kit That Doesn’t Teach You Anything
Is best left closed. Every scale model kit you undertake to build ( as opposed to just buy and store ) should teach you something. Some will do so by showing you a prototype that is new. Some will show you a new technique. Some will introduce a new manufacturer. Equally, some will alert you…
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The Opened Box
And the started model. I find that I can slumber, bored, in most horror or adventure movies. They are predictable, and I know that there will be creepy music, several minor characters will die, and the hero will be saved in the end. Ho Hum. No such thing with the scale model kit that falls…
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The Political Model Kit
Surprisingly, these last few years of international war ( as opposed to the internal sort practised in Africa and South America ) have yielded few scale model controversies and political arguments. I did not expect this. Of course there are bound to be restrictions on the supply of kits from warring nations, but the ones…
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Short Stirling Mk IV – Part Three – V3 To Canada
A very specific aircraft on a very specific mission. And no bombs carried. This Short Stirling was flown from the UK to Canada in the 40’s as a training aircraft to familiarise the trainees of the BCATP with the then-new H2S ground-view radar. You’ll see the characteristic H2S streamlined dome under the rear portion of…
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Short Stirling Mk IV – Part Two – The Experiment
Suggested by an illustration. The WW2 bomber in standard British night bomber colour scheme is a three-coloured beast – coal black undersides and green/brown upper surfaces. But as seen on the Stirling, the black extends a long way up slab sides – and the Stirling has lots of slab to it. The top bit is…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
The Little World 