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The PE Pests
No, I’m not talking about the people down the club who can make perfect PE parts every time and cement them on with no problems. I admire them. I’m talking about the Bohemian types who dream up the extra-thin parts on the PE sheets and expect you to be able to manipulate them into components.…
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We Can Retro Better than You Can
If you are a collector of mid-century modern furniture, or fashions, or cars you can pay a small fortune for junk. It’ll be up to you to repair and maintain it, and make yourself think you’re doing a good thing. For the scale model builder, we can do the same thing, but with a bit…
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How Fast Should You Go?
Is there a ” 40 Kph Men Working ” sign at your modelling club? Is someone always looming up behind you and asking ” Are you done yet? “. Perhaps you are out of synch… Phil Flory nailed it some time ago – and I suspect he has a pretty good handle on most of…
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SERIOUS Modelling
Here in Australia we have Yahoo Serious. He is not an internet server….but he has served us well over the years as a comedy actor. Serious laughter is a Serious matter… In the scale modelling hobby we can also encounter a spectrum of involvement that goes from the Terribly Serious to the Delightfully Comic. I…
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English Electric Lightning – Part Four – The Cold Warrior
The English Electric company made several notable aircraft in the 50’s and 60’s. This interceptor was designed to tackle Soviet bombers before they could get to the UK – hence the high speed climb and short range of the prototypes. The over-wing tanks were a novel way to supply enough fuel to permit this remarkable…
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English Electric Lightning – Part Three – Cross My Palm With SIlver
Very few aircraft are made of silver* – yet that is what the kit maker would have us paint them. And there is no one silver – as there might have been in the dear dead days of Humbrol tinlets. Now we have lacquers, clads, super metallics, etc. Some experts swear by certain brands and…
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English Electric Lightning – Part Two – Club Day
When ya hot, ya hot. The heading image is the Lightning at the end of the second club morning – wings, tail, nose and exhausts all firmly in place. And there will not be a trace of filler needed on any of the flying surfaces. Laugh, if you will, at the raised panel lines. Snigger…
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English Electric Lightning – Part One – Sad Box Special
Yet another orphan of the storm – a tattered, neglected box at the back of a shelf. An old decal sheet. An outdated model. Just my meat. The inner plastic bag was sealed and every part was there. And I have never built a Lightning before. This is a one of the classic early series…
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The Third-Party Direct Hearsay Evidence
That you read once, but can’t remember where. You know, the absolute shining truth that is too good to repress… The sort of tale that you tell to the other modellers around the table as they cut and glue, enhancing your status as the expert who has seen it all. With a bit of luck…
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The Profiteer’s Stash
The very word ” profiteer ” is a red rag for certain political minds, and has been used to justify no end of malice in the past. It has been heard to crop up in the scale model world, as well. Yet, every one who buys and builds kits has to recognise that there is…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
The Little World 