Daily archives: June 18, 2007


Wish List Time

At the moment I’m collecting, more than making, models. And I don’t have the money or the space to do much of that, either.

But that’s not going to stop me drawing up a wish list of kit’s I’d like to get my hands on or see produced. Quite a few of them are driven by a desire to start painting 54mm figures, particularly Andrea’s character series and placing them in dioramas involving relevant vehicles.

1. Arii’s Collectors’ Series available in the UK. I’ve developed a crush on these 1:32nd scale curbside models without ever seeing one or reading a review. I’m watching a lot of Kung Fu movies at the moment and I want to put Bruce Lee on a street with a delivery trike behind him and scattered boxes and other debris. I could order the models from Japan, or EBay shops in Australia or Hong Kong, but I’d really like to be able to get them from my local model shop or one of the bigg online shops like Hannants.

2. More of Airfix’s 1:32nd scale ’60s and ’70s saloons re-released. I’ve read that some of the moulds were damaged or lost, and I may be the total market for a Morris Marina model. What I really want is the Ford Capri and Ford Escort. (I know the latter was in last year’s three car special set, so I’ll see if I can pick up one of those.) I don’t have any plans for these in figure terms, just an abiding fondness formed from reading Street Machine and Custom Car in my youth. Whilst we’re about it, let’s have a Ford Pop (Anglia in the States, I think) in that scale. I know there was a 1:24th, or 1:25th van version by one of the US manufacturers, but let’s have the saloon beloved of British hotrodders.

3. Photoetched parts for 1:72nd scale cars such as the ones from Cararama. You can get them for 1:87th cars (and, a little, for 1:76th ones as well), so let’s have them for my braille scale of choice. I’m going to start producing transfers and stuff again, so one day I may be the person who satisfies this desire. (Affiliate link Cararama 1:72nd cars on EBay)

4. Retro robo. This is a personal project, I don’t want anyone to produce it. I just need to find an appropriate Japanese robot to kit bash and lots of spare parts to use in the bashing.

5. Preiser 1:72nd stuff. I know they do a lot of good stuff in this scale, I just can’t find it in my local model shops.

That’s what I want right now. That, and the money to afford it all.

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Scale reference

I keep getting mixed up over scales and gauges and figure scales. So here’s a list compiled from sources around the internet to refer back to.

1:285 6mm
1:220 8mm Z
1:180 10mm
1:160 11mm N
1:120 15mm TT
1:87 20mm HO
1:76 24mm OO
1:72 25mm
1:64 28mm S
1:60 30mm
1:48 37.5mm O
1:45 40mm
1:35 51.4mm
1:32 54mm I
1:30 60mm
1:25 72mm
1:24 75mm
1:22 80mm G
1:20 90mm F
1:18 100mm
1:15 120mm

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Raised bed


Raised bed
Originally uploaded by spinneyhead.
This bed started life as stackable storage, but when the previous owners were throwing it out my sister managed to bag a few and let me have one. I’ve dug it in a bit and filled it with compost and soil improver. There’s spring onions (which are supposed to keep slugs at bay), rocket and beetroot seeds in there, as well as the first batch (probably sacrificial) of propagated lettuce.


Amazonian Airfix

Amazon really are trying to sell everything. In their Toys & Games section you can now get Airfix models. I stumbled across this list whilst searching for something completely different. They also stock Revell, AMT (but not much), Tamiya, Italeri, Hasegawa and no doubt others. They’ll never have the arcane stuff available from a specialist shop or site, but might be worth checking out every so often.

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