SCALE MODEL NEWS

SMN REPORT The Hornby company’s model paint brand, Humbrol, known for its familiar enamel paint tinlets, has shifted some two-thirds of production back to Britain, around ten years after such operations went to China. US-UK story It’s an interesting story of swings and roundabouts on the world economic stage, echoed by similar events in the US, where computer maker Apple is planning to return some production to home shores. Paying more Hornby’s chief exec, Frank Martin, said that rising Chinese labour costs were responsible. They have gone up 300 percent in the last seven years, and show signs of doubling again by the early 2020s. Rustins in the frame According to Martin, “If you include the expense of freight then the cost differences become negligible.” In London, Humbrol enamels and finishing products are now made by Rustins, a family business established back in 1924 that offered Hornby a winning combo of price, quality and speed. Into the future Still, most things haven’t yet retu...

  An appreciation by Mat Irvine Sir Patrick Moore, creator and presenter of ‘The Sky at Night’, a long-running BBC TV astronomy show, died yesterday, December 9, aged 89. Although Sir Patrick Moore's name is perhaps not automatically associated with scale models, in fact it was through modelling that I first met Patrick Moore more than 40 years ago, when I supplied some spacecraft miniatures to The Sky at Night, a connection that continued on and off until the present day. I don’t think anyone would deny that Patrick was the world’s most famous amateur astronomer, for he was a professional broadcaster, but an amateur astronomer in the true sense of the term. Through The Sky at Night, he inspired countless people, many of whom went on to become professional astronomers, space scientists, or were given a lifetime interest in the subject. It would be difficult to put a figure on these numbers, though I know I was one of them. Patrick in The Sky at Night studio ( above ) around the lat...

MAT IRVINE REPORTS  Here’s the latest in the series of ‘Space in Miniature’ black and white books from Mike Mackowski. This eighth in the series concentrates on that basic necessity for working in space, the space suit. US suits only SIM 8’s opening editorial states that although the original intention was to feature all type of space suits, it soon became apparent that to try and include Soviet/Russian and Chinese suits as well as US designs was too much for a single title - and of course, there might be a further book down the line.   The book is written mostly by Karl Dodenhoff ( left above ) with editing by Mike Mackowski ( right ). Karl is an acknowledged expert on space suits in general and more details can be found on his website . Aimed at model builders SIM 8 is intended primarily for modellers, so general coverage is on space suits that have been available in kit form, whether in mainstream styrene or more specialist resin. Actually, there have been models of most s...

Will the world of scale models follow the same path as desktop publishing? That’s the hot question now being asked, as the latest generation of 3D printers makes possible rapid prototyping of any object that’s stored in digital form. It may be that once 3D printers become household objects, then ordering the latest Airfix or Revell kit will be as quick and easy as pressing the button to download an eBook from Amazon, or indeed upcoming SMN eBooks now in the works. Jet Car from the movies The pictures here show a scale model car created by artist and computer expert Sean Charlesworth, using an Objet Connex multi-material 3D printer. The subject is the Jet Car from a little-known 1984 sci-fi movie called Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th Dimension . Not a DeLorean then As featured in the sci-fi parody, the Jet Car was a modded Ford F-350 pickup truck powered by a jet engine, and capable of supersonic flight. It featured extras such as an ‘oscillation overthruster’ which allowed the car to g...

SMN REPORT Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel won his third Formula One Driver’s World Championship in 2012, and you can help celebrate that milestone by building a Tamiya 1:20 scale kit of the Renault racer he drove in 2010, to become World Champ for the first time. The car is the Red Bull Racing Renault RB6, and is an all-new 1:20 scale tooling from Tamiya. The RB6 was also driven by Vettel's team-mate Mark Webber and you can build the kit in either driver’s team markings. Aero aid In Tamiya-speak, the car is a ‘highly detailed static display model’ that features a removeable engine cover ‘to allow installation of the F-Duct system.’ For non-fans the F-duct is a cunning piece of technical trixie that channels air through and around the rear of the car, for improved aerodynamics. Alternative markings It looks like a fine kit, and has the usual Tamiya attention to detail in the cockpit and the chassis. There are photo-etch metal parts and beautifully printed Red Bull markings by It...

Any Brit modeller with access to the Milton Keynes area should go to HaMeX 4 today. It's the kit swapmeet and model show that's really worth a look, not least for our own Mat Irvine's display of work, from Doctor Who to space probes. Show and travel info here.

It's good to see production cars in the Airfix range, and here's one of the best Euro-hatchbacks around, the Ford Fiesta RS, here produced in its hot WRC version. WRC - World Rally Championship - is a dramatic race series that sees production cars uprated to rally spec, with engines, suspension (in fact, virtually everything) improved and upgraded to compete in a series of rally races around the world. Colour markings The Airfix Fiesta joins the 1:32 scale range and is a 79-component kit, which measures 125 mm (4.9 in) when assembled - small but perfectly formed is a quick summation. And it is well made, with good fit and finish, plus colourful decals that make the real thing a standout target for photographers. Skills needed One thing though - Airfix reckons this is a 'Skill Level 2' kit, which might be true if you simply talk about glueing the bits together. But to make the little Fiesta a real display piece demands considerable skill in the finishing department - WRC...

SMN PREVIEW: The sales tables are booked, club stands organized, hot sandwiches on order, models good to go... Yes, it’s HaMeX again, this time the fourth in the annual event series. For anyone living in reach of the Milton Keynes area in the UK, this is the model zone to head for this coming Sunday. As usual, the two organizers will be there, with Mat Irvine displaying his many models, and Paul Fitzmaurice demonstrating airbrushes and other modelling equipment. More kits on show In Mat’s words, “the HaMeX show is invariably less 'things-to-see driven’, compared with Automodellismo and smallspace, as it is intended purely as a swap meet. However I'm aiming to have even more kits there than usual - some 'new old' ones have been dug out, including a range of 1:20 scale cars and I have more 'fix-er-uppers'. More from Mat “I will have some models on display (as it's in the publicity...!), but exactly what I've yet to decide. It won't - necessarily - be F...

MAT IRVINE REPORTS Canada’s headline space involvement is in supplying the Canadarm 2 robotic arm system presently used on the International Space Station (ISS). But here’s another, smaller, Canadian space product in the form of a sleek 1:72 scale resin kit of the Silver Dart hypersonic re-entry glider from Dave Guerin’s Blap! Models of Ontario. The primary role of Blap! is in specialist one-off moulding and mould-making tasks for other companies, mostly involving resin. However, Dave also has a sideline producing model kits, of which the 1:72 scale Silver Dart is one. Easy assembly The Silver Dart kit is simple in construction: you get a baker's-dozen components including the sturdy base, but the box does also contain sheet of decals. These are rather fragile, so once applied, you will need to protect them with several coats of Testors satin varnish. Metallic finish The assembled model measures some 150 mm (6 in) long, though the big base adds to the perceived size on a display sh...

MAT IRVINE REPORTS The competition at Scale ModelWorld 2012 was split into a number of classes depending on subject, scale, and construction type. This has led to approaching 100 different classes, sometimes leading to some confusion as to which class to enter your creation. However, when it comes down to it, there are only seven overall categories - aircraft, military, civilian vehicles, ships, dioramas, figures and space/SF/fantasy, plus an overall junior entry. Best in show Once the main judging is done, each section head chooses one model of all their classes and puts it forward as a potential ‘Best in Show’. Consequently you end up with just one aircraft, one vehicle, one ship, one diorama… Well, you get the general idea. To date, the Best in Show has always gone to an aircraft, ship or military model, and no space/SF/fantasy model has taken top spot - until this year. Steampunk wins This year’s top model was the ‘Modern Steam Monobike 1896’, an amazing steampunk creation, modelle...