Yes the dreaded "stash" creep! I had kept a bunch of 1/48th scale, for years, but eventually the engineering on newer kit issues improved so much, and as I got older, so my eye lenses have gotten harder! So sold them off and have gone into 1/32, desperately fighting off the stash creep, have the Hasegawa FW190D, P40, the Tamiya Spitfire MkIX (every modeller should have one) and a Revell Lysander and Beaufighter. I have been recently "temporarily" diverted by a Roden 1/48th DH9, but it was such an interesting subject, being a modded DH9 for an air ambulance role. And that's where it will stop! (yeah..right!)

However recently I have tried somthing new, tried to turn my built models, into some sort of useful display/function as such. For example, in my office at work, I have a 1/32 Revell Spitfire Mk24 and a Revell Spitfire MkI, both mounted on the same wooden stand, as if flashing past eachother, head on. Now I know these are far from perfect models accuracy wise, but they still look pretty good with a bit of tidying up. They make for some interesting comparing, as they represent the first and last Mk's of that remarkable aircraft, so interesting to look at the obvious differences between the MkI and the Mk24, (nose length, wing shape, tailplane vert' fin shape, hor'stab span, bubble top/raised back, etc). Every day I arrive in the office, I enjoy the sight of them, and chatting about them and MkI/24 differences, to the odd person who asks, is good fun too.

Another one is the 1/72 scale Boston I have posted pics of on the site. I took this and mounted it on a length of metal rod, which I in turn stuck down into the middle of a small clay flower pot. This now acts as a pen holder on a corner of my desk. It's amazing how mounting the models on a stand seems to keep them out of harms way, and by performing a useful function to boot, seems so much better than them sitting on a shelf gathering dust? I guess the only danger is making sure my office doesn't start looking like a giant diorama of a Duxford warbirds airshow! Now that I think of it, the crew room could do with somthing interesting to hold the coffee sugar sachets in...somthing like a DH9 ambo' aircraft/flower pot combo?!