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Bristol Mk32 Superfreighter – Part Three – Who Was That Masked Whale?

Balance it up in your mind – whether you trust the decal makers to put a product out that will look like a painted surface, or whether you can make a painted surface look like a decal. If you can fold a 2-dimansional sheet of plastic paint to conform to a 3D surface with convex…
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Bristol Mk32 Superfreighter – Part Two – Bristol Box

Just seeing the kit parts in the cardboard box doesn’t prepare you for the shape of the Bristol 170…it is too unbelievably boxy to exist. Yet, it did. And my wife was a passenger on a number of flights on Bristol 170 air ferries between Lydd and Le Touquet. So the RCAF conversion has been…
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Bristol Mk32 Superfreighter – Part One – The Prize Of the Weekend

Remember the Newcastle song; never let a chance go by. This was my big chance at the model stash sale. I knew the box instantly in the stack, and the price was very low. I’d the money out before anyone else had the chance to think, and I’m always wise about stash sales – I…
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You Can Be Colour Deaf As Well As Blind

Some unfortunates cannot see certain colours. This must be a challenge for them when they undertake scale modelling, though the provision of reference material that makes use of standard paint numbers might see them through. As long as the kit makers and paint makers tell the truth to the builder ( and each other )…
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Charles Schultz Said Happiness Was A Warm Puppy

Charles Addams agreed, but recommended gravy with it. So it is with the scale model building hobby. We are offered many kits of things that are essentially the same, but with a different twist. Take the example of the Japanese battleship YAMATO. I have seen it in commercial form in every scale from 1:3000 to…
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Walk On

What does Pablo Picasso think of your models? Hard to say. Sr. Picasso turned in his paella spoon many years ago. Anything we say about his opinions now would be just imagining. But I do suspect Pablo would approve of them…on one condition. Do you approve of them? Pablo Picasso walked his own line for…
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The ” Worst In Show ” Award

A new era in scale modelling opens up… For years we have been seen awards presented at scale model exhibitions. They could be for First, Second, and Third, or Gold, Silver, and Bronze, or any other combination of prizes. Sometimes they have had cash or goods attached to them as reward for the modellers. Let’s…
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Hurricane Night Fighter – Part Three – Dirty Black

Or clean black, as in this case. I have not had the courage to spray the characteristic iridescent exhaust plume patterns on the side of this fighter -perhaps when the wing lights are ready… The shiny gloss coat over the black and the three days in the window for the old Matchbox decals worked well…
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Hurricane Night Fighter – Part Two – Saturday To Monday

King’s Birthday long weekend and I had something better to do than go to the Royal Show. The basic structure of the Hurricane went together on Saturday afternoon. The undercoat and then the black sprayed on Sunday. The clear gloss was Monday. This kept me home – off the roads and safe from the double-demerit…
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Hurricane Night Fighter – Part One – The Leftover Matchbox

Orphaned on the club’s Shelf Of Neglect. Donated to yours truly, and eagerly seized upon. The kit was minus a canopy, but I have an extensive spares box. So this Hawker came to life. The Matchbox kits are sometimes criticised for having pronounced panel lines. As this was to be a semi-matt coal black finish…
