At the age of 102, Clarence "Bud" Anderson is America's only living triple ace. I decided I'd build a replica of one of his planes, and Academy has a kit to let you do this right out of the box. I put the completed model on display at AAA Hobbies in Magnolia, NJ. Only two photos so far, more to follow. I didn't quite build it out of the box, since having the gear up is not an option, and there's no pilot figure in the box. First step was to make the main gear doors fit, which took some shaving down of the raised detail on the inner surface of the doors, and to cut away the tailwheel ..read more

 My wife and I saw Ridley Scott's Napoleon just before it was pulled from the theaters. I had my doubts about it going in, having heard of obvious historical inaccuracies and Scott's attitude toward historians, which he stated as "Were you there, mate? No? Then STFU!" Perhaps Scott thinks he's valuing lived experience over book learning, or art over pedantry, but he's really valuing ignorance over knowledge. Even with his cavalier attitude, Scott would have been very short on material about Napoleon without the detective work of historians. Anyway, seeing the movie made me want ..read more

Carpenters' Hall at 320 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia is an important historic site, and among other claims to fame was the meeting place of the First Continental Congress in 1774. The first thing a modern-day visitor probably notices upon entering is a display case near the center of the hall, housing a 1/24 scale diorama showing the building under construction in 1770. The diorama was made at the Hagley Museum about 40 years ago, and as closely as possible its construction matches that of the real thing, with wooden framing held together with dowels and wooden shingles being laid on the ra ..read more

 Godzilla Minus One is one of the best movies I've ever seen! For me, a small part of the movie's appeal is the appearance of the Kyushu J7W-1 Shinden fighter. It happens I built the 1/72 Hasegawa kit some years ago, but didn't have any pictures of it on this blog. Not to blow my own horn, but I'm pretty happy with the job I did on it. As of this writing, it's on display at AAA Hobbies in Magnolia, NJ. It's mainly painted with Model Master Enamels, with the green/gray camo scheme applied with my Paasche VL. To give the hinomaru decals a painted-on appearance, I painted over them lightly ..read more

Just completed, the 1/35 Chariot by Doll & Hobby Georgia. I'd say more, but busy getting ready for Wonderfest.   ..read more

  Eduard kit 7424 1/72 MiG-15bis (Weekend Edition) History Back in the mid 1980s, I was working on my BS in aeronautical engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. The professor for my drafting course was a man named Kenneth Rowe. I didn't I know much about him at the time. I think I knew he was from Korea. He was a strongly-built, soft-spoken man, who taught the course more by demonstration on the board than by lecturing. He was a gifted teacher. I'd studied mechanical drawing in high school, and thought I knew my stuff, but I had a lot to learn from Mr ..read more

I recently built Atlantis Models' repop of Aurora's 1/48th scale 8 inch howitzer. I thought it would be a walk down memory lane, as I thought I remembered that about 50 years ago I built Aurora's Long Tom, which is the same kit except for the gun tube. Now I think the kit I built back then was probably Hasegawa's 1/72 Long Tom. Either kit is very play-worthy and fun for kids (and for modelers who can still remember being kids). One of these toys - I mean models (wink!) - can be just the thing to get the modeling mojo going again! The instructions tell you how to assemble the kit in travel mod ..read more

Here's Revell's 1/12 scale astronaut from about 1969, in this case a 1990s repop. Given the EVA equipment, the chest mounted ventilation unit and the hand-held maneuvering unit (HHMU), this could only depict Ed White on his Gemini 4 spacewalk on June 3, 1965. It was the first spacewalk by an American astronaut, and White enjoyed it so much he said having to get back in the capsule was the saddest moment of his life. He would lose his life on January 27, 1967, in the Apollo 1 launchpad fire that also killed Virgil "Gus" Grissom and Roger Chaffee. The kit came out after this tragic accident, a ..read more

"Make the staff six kadams high..." Here's something from last year that I forgot to post about until after it got put away with the Christmas decorations. It's a pretty simple resin kit that I got off eBay. Being a prop replica, it's 1:1 scale, and it consists of three parts: the headpiece itself and two gems. The work involved gold leafing it (after applying a coat of gold paint just in case), then some light weathering before gluing in the gems. My wife Ilene is a big fan of the movie, so I gave it to her for Christmas, expecting that she would use it as a tree ornament ..read more

Here are some pictures of two complete Bandai Mecha Collection No. 12 EDF Destroyer from Space Battleship Yamato aka Star Blazers. Each kit comes with a pair of ships. One set I decided to accurize a bit. The nose is wrong, the aft engine cone comes to too sharp a point, and whatever that senson thing is on top of the bridge should be streamlined to come to a point at the aft end. I also sharpened up some of the details, like those wing-like things that support some sort of streamlined things on the end. I whittled them down so they have sharp leading and trailing edges. I decided to make th ..read more