SCALE MODEL NEWS

MAT IRVINE AND PAUL FITZMAURICE brought another gathering of sci-fi modellers to the English village of Hanslope. Here’s our first bunch of pictures taken at the Smallspace show, held on 17 July, 2022. It’s been an annual event, but this was the first since the start of the Covid pandemic, and it was fingers-crossed for the management team as the show restarted.  But they needn’t have worried, as hundreds of sci-fi model fans turned up, and the K-9 Cafe ran out of bacon butties, a sure sign of success. As you can see from the pictures ( below ), there was a huge variety of items on show. Perhaps this writer’s favourite was a resin-cast Martian figurine, entitled ‘Quatermass and the Pit’ ( bottom pic ). The Martian in question was an ET featured in a TV series that aired on the BBC, way back in the late 1950s. The three Quatermass series (the pit was the third) were hugely successful, and Quatermass is well worth looking up if you’re a fan of silver-age science fiction. Keep tuned f...

ANYONE WITH A NOSTALGIC MEMORY for classic Strombecker kits will enjoy this vid from Max’s Models. SMN report: the video is an update from an earlier one, and Max had some input this time from Andy Yanchus and Mat Irvine. It’s another fact-packed view from Max, and YouTuber Arnold Madderom agrees. He says: “Thanks for this great video. I do have in my collection both the 1909 Hupmobile and the 1902 Rambler from Strombecker. “I do like both the box art and the way the kit is put in the box. The red wheels in a bag and the chassis and wings put in the middle stuck on a piece of carton in the box and the rest of the parts in a bag. “The fact that I'm collecting and building 1/32 scale kits and I do have these 1/24 kits shows how much I do like these kits.” Here are some Strombecker kits from times past:    

HERE'S A BIO-VID FROM Max's Models, and it makes fascinating viewing of a man who was heavily involved with one of the classic names of the plastic kit industry.  

THE WORLD CURRENTLY FACES the deadly coronavirus on the rampage. But – and so we can maybe escape some of the gloom and doom – modellers can use some of the anti-virus measures to our advantage. And that includes the all-important isolation from others. Mat Irvine:  We are, after all, already mostly ‘self-isolating.’ Most hobby modellers work by themselves, and frankly most of us already have a large collection already in stock that we’ll never really get through. But might there be more of a problem to decide ‘just what to build’? My old friend in Chicago, model maker and musician Dean Milano, doesn’t have that precise problem, as the decision is already decided in the stars. He uses lottery (or raffle) tickets, each kit in his stash collection being assigned a ticket. So, when one model is finished (he only ever works on one at a time), it’s close his eyes time, reach into the tin and pull out a new ticket! Dean builds primarily cars, but there are other kits in there. For exampl...

DESTINED TO BECOME ANOTHER MUST-HAVE on the bookshelves of scale model makers, this new title is written by SMN contributor Mat Irvine. SMN report: The Model Builders' Manual is a 188-page hardback from Haynes Publishing, well known for its comprehensive range of automotive guides. In recent years, Haynes has added titles on a range of subjects including air, space, sci-fi, and now scale models from Mat. Like other Haynes manuals, the aims of the book ( below ) include clarity and ease of use, achieved by simple layouts, clear text, and plenty of photographs supplied by the author. The book consists of twelve chapters ( below ) plus appendixes and useful references. The interest-packed cover ( below ) shows you are in for a treat, with hours of reading enjoyment to come. Detail photos ( below ) include this test-shot for the Moebius Models kit of Grandpa and Herman Munster. Mat clears up the confusion between the terms 'sprue' and 'runner' with ( below ) a defini...