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US Navy Phantom II – Part One – Airfix Series 3
This older Phantom came as a part of a legacy sale. It is a Series 3 Airfix kit – boxed, and from 1965. Even if the actual production of this box was in later years, that’s a long time, and the instructions, decals, and moulding are bound to have suffered. Since then, of course, many…
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The Ideal Stash
The ideal stash is just as easy to construct as the ideal house or the ideal marriage. All you need is about ten centuries of unremitting toil to buy, shelve, rearrange, sell, build, discard, and trade your scale model kits and eventually you will have it perfect. I should start now before the summer heat…
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Such A Simple Idea
So effective. The decal box was a gift from my friend John – he is a constant shopper on Temu and other Asian hobby sites. As a scale model builder himself, he is razor-sharp when looking for tools and paints. This was a real find. It is a plastic box, fitted with a fine-grain foam…
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If You Win Second Place
You resent the person who won first place. The third-place winner detests you both. And the further you get away from the winner’s podium, the deeper the level of hate becomes. That is the nature of contests and competition – you win dislike along with the trophy and the set of dishes. Sometimes winning second…
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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…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
The Little World 