D
Doug Hughes
Guest
I've just been looking through a pile of old Airfix Magazines from the 80s. It's a real nostalgia-fest - conversions galore (make a Bristol Monoplane from the fuselage of the Airfix Gladiator!), vac-forms, Veejay models, and an article about making your own airbrush compressor from a fridge motor.
I was particularly struck by the introduction to this: "Typical high-quality airbrushes will be in the £50-£100 pound area... simple modelling compressors coming in at £60-£120." It seems to me these figures are roughly the same now, despite 30+ years of inflation. Interestingly, kits seem to have risen with inflation, with Airfix Series 1 at £1.15 in 1985, now around £10.
I was also pondering the relative lack of emphasis on conversions in the modelling world these days. On the whole, we seem to do few, and very limited conversions (my only one recently was an Fw 190 A-8 to A-7 - radical indeed!). In some cases this is because you are more likely to find the subject you want already kitted, but not in all cases. For myself, I don't do any serious conversion work nowadays because it would be very difficult to emulate the level of detail you'd find in a good kit in something I'd hacked, sanded, built up with modelling putty, or bodged from two different kits.
What does everyone else think - do any of you do much serious conversion work?
I was particularly struck by the introduction to this: "Typical high-quality airbrushes will be in the £50-£100 pound area... simple modelling compressors coming in at £60-£120." It seems to me these figures are roughly the same now, despite 30+ years of inflation. Interestingly, kits seem to have risen with inflation, with Airfix Series 1 at £1.15 in 1985, now around £10.
I was also pondering the relative lack of emphasis on conversions in the modelling world these days. On the whole, we seem to do few, and very limited conversions (my only one recently was an Fw 190 A-8 to A-7 - radical indeed!). In some cases this is because you are more likely to find the subject you want already kitted, but not in all cases. For myself, I don't do any serious conversion work nowadays because it would be very difficult to emulate the level of detail you'd find in a good kit in something I'd hacked, sanded, built up with modelling putty, or bodged from two different kits.
What does everyone else think - do any of you do much serious conversion work?
