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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…
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General Dynamics F111 – Part Two – Library Day
Every fortnight I repair to the Cambridge Library in Floreat for an afternoon of modelling, coffee, and chocolate biscuits. As it is a public place there is no booze allowed, and I drive home clear-headed. Except if there has been a lot of cementing and painting. Fortunately 1/144 involves very little of either and the…
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General Dynamics F111 – Part One – A New Maker
I am never happier than when building a kit from a maker that I have not encountered before. It is a new land to explore. This Arii kit from Japan came with very rudimentary instructions - really nothing to help with decal placement or colouring save the box art. Yet the individual components and the decals…
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Scale Modeller’s Adolescence
If you have not experienced an adolescence of any sort yet, you may wish to loosen your clothing and put down newspapers over the good flooring… Scale modellers pass through adolescence any number of times. There’s the original one that breaks the voice and soils the sheets, and that’s a lot of fun. There’s the…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
The Little World 