wonwinglo

Scale models had done a good job of getting more people interested in modelling,and also fulfilled a very useful purpose in making the identifying of aeroplanes & ships in a fun way during the war torn years of Europe,as the Lancasters,B-17 Flying Fortress & Liberators were smelted down into making peacetime saucepans,people enjoyed their new found freedom.
The wooden solids were by now well established although understandably sales did go into decline as people just wanted to forget the trauma of war and the machines that went with it,many companies went into decline including Skybirds which struggled on until 1945,but around this period a new type of model kit was starting to emerge,the roots of which would change scale modelling forever,Frog ( Stands for flying,rise off ground ) introduced some de-luxe and expensive kits of parts made from a form of celluloid,these were to be the breakthrough into what we now know today as plastic kits,but the celluloid mouldings had many drawbacks one of which they used to warp very bady,for this reason not many survive to this day and I d not have a single example in my collection ! the models were difficult to assemble especially on the thin edges of the celluloid which had to be stuck with a special adhesive.
The ordinary solid kits plodded on but in all fairness never changed much or developed into anything more sophisticated than the crude chunks of timber,in fact in some ways they went downhill and the quality declined and varied from one manufacturer to another.Veron had a range called 'Truescale' which included the early jets such as Supermarine Swift,Supermarine Attacker,Mig 15,F-86 Sabre,De Havilland Comet airliner etc these included small plastic wheels and a supply of thin ply for the undercarriage doors,nice clear cockpit mouldings as well.Down in Wickford in Essex the long established Keil Kraft company were making a similar product line to supplement their famous flying model kits.
It was to be America where the first breakthrough was to happen,a company called Monogram,started to add small plastic mouldings to their wooden model kits,I have an example of a Mig 15 which has a plastic nose button,undercarriage legs and other tricky to make fittings,a sort of combo kit,it also featured a nicely made spindled fuselage but again chunks of badly sawn wood for the basis to make the wings,finesse in one respect but back to the dinosaur in another,it was to be another 5 years before something happened that changed things forever,so here meanwhile are two questions ? What was the very first injection moulded plastic kit ever to be made in the UK ? and which model was to be the very first in a range that still exists today ? if you happen to have either of these then they are worth a lot of money.

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'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
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