. . . Lufthansa converted a Dornier Do-335 fighter to a post-war, four-passenger, high-speed, executive transport? This paper model, from E-Cardmodels.com, is 16.5 inches long with a 17-inch wing span. I made two changes to the kit: I scratch built the passenger cabin interior and the clamshell passenger door. I am always impressed by the fit and finish of Marek's designs.
This paper model kit from Maly Modelarz was a real joy to build. Artwork and fit are excellent and the finished model is very accurate in dimensions and proportions. The scale is 1:33. The flight deck base was a free download.
I started building plastic scale models as a grade-schooler. In high school, I build my first model railroad (HO scale) and began scratch building in wood. Around the year 2000, I discovered paper scale models and I haven't looked back.
Paper models have been around since the early 1800s when they were first printed in Europe, and they remain very popular today among European scale modelers.
In Eastern Europe during the Soviet era, there were no plastic model kits. Paper and wood were the only media available to most modelers behind the Iron Curtain. Publishers in Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany produced printed paper kits for that market, but the paper and inks were usually of poor quality.
After 1989, those publishers gained access to better papers, better inks, and western markets. Today, several companies continue to produce high-quality printed kits for a worldwide market.
Today the Internet has created a wider paper model industry. Using dedicated software, almost anyone can create a scale paper model kit and upload it to the Web for sale through "e-stores" or free distribution through portal sites. Dozens of new kits come online every week, many of them free or priced very low.
The huge variety of paper models offers something for everyone. The basic skills of paper modeling are easy to learn. And finished paper models are often mistaken for plastic models. As the prices of plastic models continue to rise, affordable paper models are gaining popularity.
is an online forum of friendly and mutually supportive paper modelers. You'll find help for every level of paper modeling and some very skilled modelers and designers. And there is a huge archive of free downloadable models. If you are a paper modeler and you are not a member of papermodelers.com, slap yourself, then go join.
It sounds to me like something one would say while on one's knees leaning over a toilet bowl, or something you'd hear in a weather report. ("There's a Blog Warning for the L.A. Basin today so put on those gas masks.") Or it might be a creature one encounters in the dark recesses of a virtual dungeon, a creature with bad breath, bad skin, and a bad attitude. It might be one of those stupid acronyms that everyone loves to hate, Brotherhood of Left-handed Old Guys or the Baltimore Ladies Opera Guards, or the Baja-Larado Occulist Guild. Or maybe it's the nickname you give to that friend who drools a lot and puts his shoes on the wrong feet. You know who I'm talking about.
But to call this a "blog"? To burden this humble epistle, this homespun chronicle, this whimsical potpourri of one's own triumphs, tragedies, merriments, misfires, and humorous cat pictures with a name that sounds like a Polish expletive?
Dear friends, we could have called it an e-journal, a tale, a narrative, a yarn, a buzz -- something that reminds you of your mother's kitchen, your old dog, or your first romantic kiss. (Actually, "blog" does kind of bring to mind the first time I kissed a girl. I got better at it.)
But "blog"? It's ridiculous! It's almost scatological! I wave my private parts at it! I fart in its general direction! May it smother forever in the arms of Cthulu! May it be bricked in behind a wall with a bottle of cheap Italian wine! May it walk for weeks across the desert behind a dyspeptic camel!
But we're stuck with it, at least until some adolescent computer wonk with 70 million followers on InstaTwit coins a new term we can mostly agree on. So, blog on, me hearties! Arrrgh!
There. I got that off my chest. I feel so much better now.
The Ceresco & Wolf River RR operates a half dozen 20-foot ore cars to haul coal and gravel to places along the line. At Scots' Landing, coal and gravel are transferred from the ore cars to small barges that serve communities up the chain of lakes. This freelanced bunker will stand on a concrete pad in the bay. Crews will use an idler flat car to push ore cars one at a time up the inclined trestle to the bunker.
The bunker walls are paper from Clever Models. I used Midwest and Kappler scale lumber stained with Hunterline weathering stain. The ore gates are castings from Rusty Stumps Scale Models, with chutes scratch built of Evergreen plastic card.
My father was a C-47 pilot in Europe in World War II. I bought and scanned a copy of Fly-Model's C-47, and used Photoshop to change the serial number and unit markings to match my father's airplane. Dad and his crew ferried a new C-47 from the US to England a couple of weeks after D-Day, so his plane had no invasion stripes. I had replace those with the olive drab of the rest of the aircraft, then redraw some of the panel lines. I also recolored the interior wall panels to a more accurate color. Next step is to print and build the kit.
