I’m pleased to announce that the next title in our Build Guide Series will feature the 1/32 scale Fw 189 kit from HpH Models. Entitled Building the HpH Fw 189 ‘Uhu’ in 1/32 Scale, and written by Jan Gabauer, this eBook will take you through the build process for this complex multi-media kit.
Jan’s build is exceptional, and shows just what can be achieved with the right approach.
Please stay tuned for more news on this release in the coming weeks!
As we know, nothing in this world is perfect—least of all the process of publishing a book! Feedback from readers and contributors has led to some further refinements of the new Spitfire book, and this has resulted in v1.4 now being available. New purchasers will receive this latest version by default, but existing owners can also update their copy by re-downloading the book (please see the article Purchasing and Downloading Our Books for more information).
Hopefully there won’t be a v1.5!
As Murphy’s Law would have it, now that Peter Castle’s new Spitfire book is out, one particularly diligent reader has identified a number of typos in the original release (well, three to be exact). These were very minor, but I felt it was important to correct them—this being one of the benefits of digital publishing!
I’ve now uploaded a new version of the file, which is what new purchasers will receive from now on. If you’ve already purchased the book, you can simply re-download the newer version using the link in your original download email. If you no longer have that email, please see our article Purchasing & Downloading Our Books for more information on how to obtain the file.
I’d like to thank Paul Monforton for bringing these errors to my attention.
I’m pleased to announce that Peter Castle’s Building Race #80 Spitfire Mk XIVe in 1/18 Scale is now available!
This 565-page eBook features Peter‘s award-winning conversion of the HpH Models 1/18 Seafire 47 to represent a Spitfire XIVe—specifically, Race #80, as flown by James McArthur in the Tinnerman Air Races at Cleveland, Ohio, on September 4th 1949.
Peter rebuilt much of the airframe, scratch-built most of the detail parts in aluminium and brass, and covered the model in aluminium litho-plate for an authentic natural metal finish. Peter’s model won the National Senior Champion award (among many others) at Scale Model World in Telford in November 2017, and its construction is presented here in forensic detail.
Not only does the book contain a blow-by-blow account of every stage of the build, including how Peter fashioned many of the intricate details, but also:
This book is a must-have for aspiring scratch-builders, Spitfire fans, and any modeller interested in learning from the best.
The book is $22 Australian dollars as a downloadable PDF from our store. Please check out the sample pages below:
Barely a week after posting that our next book, Peter Castle’s Building Race #80 Spitfire Mk XIVe in 1/18 Scale, had clocked up a massive 300 pages, I now have to report that it has just blasted through 400 pages! The sheer scale and scope of Peter’s magnificent build has necessitated the book growing to an unanticipated size, but this just makes it all the more compelling!
This will mean that this title will be slightly more expensive than our previous three releases, but much better value on a page-per-dollar basis. I’d like to say that we’ll be ready to publish in a couple of weeks, but with so much amazing content to sort through and fashion into pages, I’m not prepared to guarantee it!
More news when I can bring it.
After a longer-than-expected forced hiatus, work resumed recently on preparing our newest title, Peter Castle’s Building Race #80 Spitfire Mk XIVe in 1/18 Scale.
The book, much like the model itself, is fast becoming an absolute monster, and has now breached the 300-page mark! It will not only cover the building of Peter’s model in exquisite detail, but will also feature several technique tutorials from Peter himself, a handy set of walkaround photos of a Spitfire seat by Tony Taylor, and an article and artwork on #80 from Juanita Franzi.
Work continues at a feverish pace, and it’s about 70% done. I’m hoping we’re now only a matter of weeks away from publication.
Stay tuned for more news!
I’ve just added a new section to the website called “Partners”. This will feature information and links about the people and organisations who help make our books possible.
The first two partners to be featured are Mark Jessop of Aviation Spotters Online, and Rob Fox of Rob Fox Photography. The walkaround photos provided by these fine gents are featured in Building Brick’s Sabre in 1/32 Scale and Building Mac’s Birddog in 1/32 Scale respectively.
There’s a new link in the main navigation menu for this section, which will grow over time to include many more worthy contributors!
Just a quick note to point out that the “My Account” link has been moved from the main navigation menu, to the upper right area of the screen, just to the left of the search field. This has been done to allow for future expansion of the main menu, and hopefully won’t cause too much confusion!
Please contact me if this change has caused any issues for you.
While the vast majority of purchases from our website go off without a hitch, I do receive the occasional email from customers experiencing issues. As it happens, these issues tend to fall into a couple of common areas, which are easily solved or avoided, so let’s take a look at them.
This is a relatively straightforward process, and the feedback I’ve had about it suggests that there are no real issues with the checkout process. Prices are in Australian dollars, and payment is made via PayPal—you can even checkout using PayPal as a guest, meaning that you don’t need to have a PayPal account to use it.
Once the order is placed and payment is made, you should receive an order confirmation email that contains your order details, plus a link to download your purchase. This appears to be the main area where things can go wrong, with customers either not receiving this email, or not realising its significance and deleting it. And don’t forget to check your junk or spam email folder!
The screenshot below shows how the Downloads section of the order confirmation email should appear. There should be one row in the table for each book you purchased. Note the “Download” column at the far right of the table—this contains the link to download that particular book (you’ll need to download each book you have purchased individually):
It’s worth noting that some browsers will launch a new blank window or tab to facilitate the download, and this can make it appear as if the download didn’t work. You should still see a download progress indicator of some description, and the blank window or tab should close once the download has successfully completed.
The book should be downloaded to the default download location set by your browser or operating system. On both macOS and Windows systems, this will be your “Downloads” folder. If you’re not sure whether the book has downloaded, check that location and see if it’s there.
If you don’t receive the order confirmation email, contact me and I can generate another one for you. Depending on the reason for not receiving the initial email, it’s possible you may not receive the second one either. This is where the solution below comes in.
Many of our customers use the guest checkout option (as a guest of the site, as distinct from using the guest payment facility with PayPal), which is quick and easy to do. And while this is convenient, creating a dedicated customer account has several advantages, and we highly recommend doing so!
Firstly, once you’ve created the account, subsequent purchases are actually faster, as you’re no longer asked to supply your details if you make a purchase while logged in.
More importantly, however, is that you then have access to your purchase and download history, and this means that you can log in to your account and download any book you’ve previously purchased from the Downloads section of your account. Not only does this solve the issue of not having received the order confirmation email, but it also means you can log in to your account from a different computer or device to the one that contains the email, and still download the book.
Arguably the most important reason of all to create an account is that it’s the best way to gain access to the regular updates to our books we publish. Any book you purchase is eligible for lifetime free updates—when a new version is available, you simply need to log in to your account and re-download the book again. (If you still have the original order confirmation email containing the download links, they will work too.)
If you’ve already purchased books from the site without a customer account, and then decide to create one, once you’ve done so, I can associate those purchases with your new account, and they will then become part of your purchase history. Please note that this doesn’t happen automatically, so if you’re in that position, contact me with the details and I can make the associations.
Of course, not everyone is interested in creating an account, so if all else fails, contact me and I can get the file to you directly by other means. This should be a last resort, however, and I strongly encourage everyone to create a customer account in order to gain some added control over your purchases, and avoid potential problems into the future!
Over the weekend of November 11 & 12, The Australian Capital Territory Scale Modelers’ Society (ACTSMS) held the ScaleACT model show and competition. By all accounts, it was a great show, but one particular incident had special significance for KLP Publishing.
The subject of our first title (Building Brick’s Sabre in 1/32 Scale), Kevin Bricknell, was again awarded the honour of a tribute build of an aircraft he flew during his career. This time, it was his PC-9, and the modeller was Andrew Doppel.
Congratulations to Brick for another well-deserved tribute, and also to Andrew Doppel for creating such a fine model. Thanks also to Andrew for permission to use his photos.
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