A Visit to the National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton Ontario

The only time I visited the The National Air Force Museum of Canada was when I did a weekend wine tour in Prince Edward County with my wife some years ago. Admittedly, that holiday was “pre-kid” and the wine was good so I don’t recall most of the details. However, Prince Edward County is beautiful […]

Remember Model Ads in Comic Books?

Most people spring clean. I do too but I get the most cleaning done in the fall. And by cleaning I mean purging. The rule I have adopted is “if I have not touched it in 2 years, then out it goes.” But there are a few exceptions: Stuff that doesn’t actually belong to me […]

A Model Maker Revival: Scale Models and Social Media

It seems a bit silly to be discussing the virtues of Social Media & scale models in a WordPress blog post. Has Social Media hit scale modeling? Of course it has. Has this been a good thing? Of course it has – even if there are some downsides. I believe one of the biggest changes in this […]

Hobby Stores Bucking the Trend – The Hobby Centre (Ottawa, Ontario)

We hear a lot about the demise of the hobby and certainly the demise of the brick and mortar hobby shop. Of course the internet, China, Japan, video games, expensive kits, lack of youth interest, the economy, oil prices, and the way the winds are blowing that day are a few the many reasons for […]

Finding Inspiration: A Visit to the Canada Aviation & Space Museum

I love pretty much anything aviation related. I love seeing airplanes, reading about them, building models of them and for a short while – actually flying them. And when it comes to seeing actual planes, I really enjoy visiting aviation oriented museums. I have featured several aviation museum visits on Model Airplane Maker: A Visit […]

Tamiya’s 1/48 P-38 Lightning and the Significance of ‘Miss Virginia’

When the announcement of Tamiya’s latest 1/48 scale release hit, I could only think of my “wish list” from back in January 2019. There I wished not only for a Tamiya 1/48 Lightning, I also wished that it would be an early variant with “Miss Virginia” markings. Earlier this year I got to see a […]

The Expensive Model Kit Myth

One of the repeating things you hear in hobby circles is that the price of models today is out of line with the prices of years ago. There are several variations of this theme: Today’s manufacturers are pricing themselves out of the hobby Kits are too expensive for kids Models cost a lot more today […]

The Parrot is not a Rivet Counter.

Way back in my university days I played sports with a guy who considered himself very smart. His was a mind chock full of trivia and he could recall all of it at any time. When asked an obscure fact about some pop culture item, he could reply instantly. Sports? He knew that stuff cold. Entertainment, Pop-History, […]

Stall Warning

The dreaded shelf queen. I’ve written about what to do with models that end up half built on a shelf. I’m now thinking about what causes the stall. I have some thoughts about that. But let’s start with my biggest stall yet: The HK B-17G. It started out great – the model was big and […]

Back to Base-ics

I have written previously about model bases for aircraft. I am still toying with the idea about designing and building bases that include graphics and information but in the meantime I decided to experiment with some round bases with some basic ground cover. There are a few options for round bases. One is a milled […]