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Handley Page Heracles – Part Three – Mask And Silver
I shall never understand the remark that someone once made about silver-finish aircraft being boring. The amount of work that goes into preparing a model for a silvered finish – and the sheer terror involved in spraying it – would seem to be enough excitement for anyone. Follow this with decaling and sealing and you…
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Handley Page Heracles – Part Two – Wings Over Wetaskwin
This kit build has nothing to do with Wetaskwin, but if you have been waiting for 60 years to use that line, you just go for it. The sprue trees that made up this kit looked like a picket fence – or a game of pick-up-sticks; there were that many struts. The box art was…
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Handley Page Heracles – Part One – A Present From The Past
I recently asked my daughter to pick me up a fresh model kit when she passed through Melbourne. There are several good shops there and she might encounter something new. Well, she was taken by something old – an Airfix vintage Classic re-issue of a 1965 kit – the Handley Page HP.42 ” Heracles ”…
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When The Model Price Is Measured In Hundreds Of Dollars
Something happens to the hobby. It becomes a serious business. Good thing? You might think so if you are a devotee of contest modelling and the pursuit of prizes. Newer and bigger can get you closer to the awards. Complexity figures in this as well – if you can overwhelm a judge with extra after-market…
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Canadian Valentine Tank – Part Two – Semi-Detailed
I am alternately delighted and dismayed when I see the interior of a model kit. It may be anything from fully-detailed to absolutely bare, and even the walls of the cockpit or interior of the tank or car may be problematical. There are moulds that concentrate their ijector pin towers right where you are looking.…
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Not Every Tool Is A Good Tool
But they won’t tell you that at the hobby shop or on the internet site. We all have more tools than we use…every toolbox I’ve ever seen has at least 10 – 20% excess in it that just gets shifted about when we look for the useful items. Yes, I’m guilty of this too. Every…
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Who Sets The Bar Over Which You Leap?
Who sets you up to fail? Is it the manufacturer who makes a 600-part kit where 50 parts would be adequate? Is it the contest judge with a God-complex who marks you down to boost himself up? Is it you, who live in perfect magazine images and internet sites and never realise that real life…
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Risk Management In Scale Modelling
The Amalgamated Fireproof Insurance Company Pty Ltd asked me to write this to help prevent modelling disasters that they might have to pay for. The risks they don’t cover – well, knock yourself out. a. Don’t model drunk. Little knives and spray guns become a lot more fun when you’re schickered, but you’ll regret it…
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General Dynamics F111 – Part Three – The Masked Bandit
Every model you build teaches you something – this little one showed me how to conquer the tri-tone scheme. Normally I hate ’em – the Armée de l’Air or USG or Italian three-colour camouflage that looks so cool and takes so much masking and spraying time. I have been known to chicken out more times…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
The Little World 