While the importance of collections has been evident in the sciences and humanities for several centuries, the social and cultural significance of collecting practices is now receiving serious attention as well. As reflected in programs like Antiques Roadshow and American Pickers, and websites such as eBay, collecting has had a consistent and growing presence in popular culture. In tandem with popular collecting, institutions are responding to changes in the collecting environment, as library catalogs go online and museums use new technologies to help generate attendance for their exhibits. In Contemporary Collecting: Objects, Practices, and the Fate of Things, Kevin M. Moist and David Banash have assembled several essays that examine collecting practices on both a personal and professional level. These essays situate collectors and collections in a contemporary context and also show how our changing world finds new meaning in the legacy of older collections. Arranged by such themes as "Collecting in a Virtual World," "Changing Relationships with Things," "Collecting and Identity-Personal and Political," and "Collecting Practices and Cultural Hierarchies," these essays help illuminate the role of objects in our lives. Covering a breadth of interdisciplinary perspectives and subjects-from PEZ candy dispensers and trading cards to sports memorabilia and music-Contemporary Collecting will be of interest to scholars of cultural studies, anthropology, popular culture studies, sociology, art history, and more.

Although many modelers can master the basic techniques of construction, it is with the painting and finishing of their kits that many begin to struggle. It is this skill that gives the model its distinctive look and feel and separates the good model form the truly great one. This title will present a detailed, step-by-step approach to addressing the difficulties involved in creating realistic, colorful finishes to armor and aviation models using a variety of different media and techniques. The book swill be aimed at both the beginner and the intermediate modeler looking to improve their skills and, through clear text and photography will give a chapter-by chapter guide to the subject. Each stage will deal with a particular element of the painting and finishing process, whether it be creating camouflage schemes or dealing with markings and decals, to build into a comprehensive study of the subject. Relevant tools and materials will be included in sidebars, whilst a Gallery feature will highlight the range of color schemes and finishes available throughout the world of military and aviation modeling.

Here is the most comprehensive collection of toy and model buses ever presented in one book. Experience the evolution of bus transportation as you explore a worldwide showcase of buses from the 1920s to the present. This book provides a unique resource for discovering an extensive variety of buses and over 150 toy companies who made them. These models feature coaches of most major manufacturers of buses; American, European and Asian coaches are shown in the actual liveries (trim) of scores of bus companies. Also featured are school buses, trolley buses and others. With over 500 color photographs of over 1100 buses, here is the missing link in the transportation toy library, the book that bus lovers have been waiting for!

Staying at home doesn't mean that you have be stuck in front of the TV. This is the ultimate companion to help you beat boredom and to embrace your time indoors. Organized by mood, this book is packed with ideas on how to energize yourself, find your purpose, relax and reflect, get creative and connect with the world around you. Whether it's for a rainy day or a weekend indoors, there are over 80 ideas to keep busy and to challenge your mind. Staying at home can be a challenge and this clever book will offer ways to keep you happy and healthy, from putting together a homemade exercise routine using everyday household items to creating your own home silent disco as well as ideas to help you discover a new hobby, such as learning a language or upcycling furniture. There are also tasks to keep you feeling engaged and proactive, with tips on lowering your plastic pollution and ways you can volunteer from the comfort of your home, as well as practical ways to help you stay connected with nature, from making your own bird feeder to star gazing from your window, and creative activities to help reduce stress and worry, such as journaling, colouring and crafting. Staying in is the new going out, and it's so much more fun when you have ideas to keep you busy and entertained. These simple activities are full of tips and tricks to make your time at home as enjoyable as possible. You'll never wonder what you can do with your spare time ever again!

Despite modern appearances, colour light signalling has been around since the 1920s and is just as full of subtle details and variations as 'traditional' semaphore signalling. The inclusion of a working signalling system within a model railway layout is technically challenging but adds realism and 'wow' factor. This new book contains a brief history of the development and deployment of colour light signalling in the UK; a basic explanation of how track design influences signalling design; an overview of the different types of point motor and, finally, descriptions of the different components that make up a signalling system and how these components are used and controlled. It is an extensive guide to developing and adding realistic colour light signalling to a model railway layout.

Make: High-Power Rockets is for all the science geeks who look at the moon and try to figure out where Neil Armstrong walked, watch in awe as rockets lift off, and want to fly their own model rockets. Starting with an overview of mid- and high-power rocketry, readers will start out making rockets with F and G engines, and move on up to H engines.

Whether you intend to add flair to your office presentation or charm to your model train set, this book will give you professional insight into designing and producing architectural models--with truly spectacular results. This book is a primer for the design, construction, and presentation of the three-dimensional model from conceptual drawings. Ideal for use inside or outside the classroom, the process begins with the construction of a cube and tetrahedron, and moves on to encompass manufactured modules, a commercial building, a single-story house, and a city rowhouse. Landscaping and presentation details are also provided to make your creations look their absolute best. Beautiful photography illustrates the step-by-step instructions for the beginning projects, as well as a colorful gallery of more complex designs that will excite and inspire you. These projects are a wonderful combination of the precision of model-building and the limitlessness of your creativity.

In the spirit of Cornelius Ryan's epic A Bridge Too Far an American author retells the story of the ill-fated Allied operation code named "Operation Market Garden." The audacious, yet multi-faceted Allied plan in September 1944 included an airborne carpet of 35,000 troops, dropped along a sixty four mile corridor reinforced by the entire British 2nd Army with the intent of seizing the Ruhr Industrial Valley and end the war before Christmas! The author uniquely combines the best works available into a superbly researched and illustrated text, suffused with a masterful articulation of the entire Allied tragedy in combination with 20mm scale miniature portraiture. The "visual seams" of oral military history are filled through the author's interpreting of the battle in miniature. Horsa gliders are once again seen dropping "flaps down" onto the Spandau raked fields of Ginkel Heide. Captain Viktor Graebner's 9th SS Recce fatefully charges towards Colonel Frost's battalion holding the northern ramp of the Arnhem Bridge. Major Julian Cooks leads the heroic "Hail Mary Full of Grace" 82nd Airborne river assault across the Waal. Brigadier Lathbury's First Parachute Brigade conduct their final charge beyond St. Elizabeths Hospital and the Hartenstein Pocket steadfastly holds against enemy attempt to liquidate them.

More than 100 crosswords of a variety of difficulty levels, perfect to test your lexical abilities against. The revered intelligence organisation, Mensa, have worked with Gareth Moore to put together this rigorous examination of your vocabulary skills. These brand-new puzzles will provide hours of entertainment, with a mixture of crosswords across a wide variety of topics ensuring that you will need to use a wide range of knowledge to solve them all.

N gauge is the most rapidly expanding of all the model railway formats and if you want to take advantage of its huge potential, then this is the book for you. The author explains exactly what N gauge is, its history, its advantages and some of its possible disadvantages. He begins with a train set and progresses through choosing a prototype and designing a layout, to a practical demonstration of how to build a baseboard, to designs for open-topped baseboards and fiddle yards.

Connect with all of the joys in your life in The Book of Things That Make Me Happy, full of journal space and fun prompts to help you appreciate the good stuff.

Whether you plan on using drones for recreation or a more serious purpose (from search and rescue through farming to scanning construction work on a high-rise apartment buildings), Build a Drone will make sure that you not only understand how to construct a drone, but the proper and safe ways to maintain and handle them. Within the last couple of years, the usage of drones in both the public and private (military) sector has exploded. People are talking about drones, building drones, and something most people didn't know of a few years ago is now a household name. Build a Drone will not only teach you how to build your very own drone, but will explain their history in the military and the impact they will have-and are starting to have-on our everyday lives. Chapters include: Ready Made or Build Skills and Understanding the Drone Build Drone Assembly Setup and Calibration Safety and Flying Your Drone Designing Your Own Drone And more! Author Barry Davies has built drones for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and AAI (one of America's largest drone manufacturers), as well as six experimental ones for MIT. He not only understands their use in the world, but knows the ins-and-outs of how they can be created and handled.

Award-winning minaturist shares his panzer modeling approach in this lavishly illustrated volume featuring rare and unusual armor subjects of the Third Reich. Each 1/35 scale "exotic panzer" is presented in its own project essay, complete with in-progress photographs. Advanced assembly, conversion, and finishing techniques are covered, with emphasis on creating life-like dioramas and vignettes that incorporate figures and landscaping. This new title, unprecedented for its wealth of both informative and inspirational material, represents a fresh take on panzer modeling that will appeal to armor model enthusiasts of all experience levels.

A highly illustrated step-by-step guide to designing and making contemporary tableware in clay, featuring inspirational pieces by leading designers. The tableware we use is very important in our everyday lives, whether plates, bowls, mugs, cups or teapots. This stylishly illustrated guide helps budding and established ceramicists alike to create practical and attractive ranges, starting with design principles, working through appropriate construction techniques, and leading on to decoration and finishes. Leading designers Sue Pryke and Linda Bloomfield explain the importance of inspiration and consistency in design, providing step-by-step guides to the main making methods, which include hand building, pinching, coiling, throwing and slipcasting. They also offer advice on using various clay materials - such as recycled and reused clay bodies - and the combination of clay with other materials including wood, metal, textiles and synthetics. Tips are provided on glaze fit, dishwasher- and microwave-safe glazes, firing and finishing. Featuring beautiful photographs of the work of such prominent tableware makers as Sasha Wardell, James and Tilla Waters, Reiko Kaneko and Nico Conti, there are many sources of inspiration for those wishing to further their tableware ambitions.

Promotional cars and trucks are miniature vehicles used by car and truck dealerships and manufacturers to promote the sale of their vehicles. Each example was produced for one year, then discontinued when the new models came out. For this reason, and their appeal to the car lover in general, promotionals have a popularity enjoyed by comparatively few collectibles. This new book presents a complete list of promotional cars and trucks, including manufacturer and current value, in a model-by-model chart. The charts are heavily illustrated with over 500 beautiful color photos, showing the full range of vehicles available. This comprehensive book will appeal to promotional vehicle collectors, toy collectors, and automobile and truck buffs alike!

This fascinating, well-illustrated and informative book presents a straightforward guide to points, signals and level crossings and provides all the information that railway modellers need in order to get the trains on their layouts moving effectively. The history of semaphore and colour light signals is outlined and the implications for modellers is clearly explained. A variety of different types of points, signals and level crossings is then illustrated with detailed instructions describing how to make them work. Simple, tried and tested mechanical and electrical methods used by modellers are explained together with modern electronic approaches, which are described in a way that enables them to be easily understood. The reader is taken step-by-step through various projects, and clear diagrams and photographs are provided throughout, including wiring diagrams for frogs, signals and level crossings. Written by an electronic engineer, this book contains invaluable information gained in a lifetime's experience of railway modelling.

Love Space? Love LEGO? If the answer is yes, you'll love this book! 'Brick by Brick Space' will teach you how to build amazing space projects, giving step by step instructions - simple and easy. And all you need for it to work are LEGO bricks! If you want to bring to make amazing space craft, our planets, the galaxy and more, this book will help you do it - and all in the middle of your living room! Not only will you learn how to build amazing space projects; you'll also learn a bit more about them, through the information scattered throughout the book. This book teaches you how to make incredible space projects, and to understand them a bit better - a must-have for space lovers!

This book details the construction of a range of simple miniature steam engines and boilers. The projects, each of which can be completed with only a basic workshop, range from a single-acting oscillator to more sophisticated twin-cylinder double-acting engines and a variety of boilers. A final project brings together engine and boiler for a simple steam railway locomotive. These projects are a perfect introduction to model engineering and an enjoyable exercise for the more experienced engineer or those who wish to pass on their hobby to a younger generation. Stan Bray is an experienced craftsman in engineering and metalworking; among his previous books is "Metalworking: Tools and Techniques."

Explore what makes you unique and brilliant in The Great Big Book of Amazing Me, full of journal space and prompts to help you feel self-love and see how truly amazing you are!

Designing and building a miniature aero-engine is an exciting and rewarding task. Whether a professional engineer or an amateur looking to build an engine to fly your model aeroplane, this book will safely guide you through all the stages of designing and constructing an aero-engine in your workshop at home. With practical advice and details diagrams throughout, the book includes: machine tools, materials and accessories required; designing the engine, including a focus on proportion, valve timing and engine balancing; the manufacture of carburettors, assembly and setting up and, finally, choosing an aircraft for a home-designed miniature engine.

The Soci t Europ enne de Production de l'avion cole de Combat et d'Appui Tactique (SEPECAT) Jaguar and Hawker Siddeley Harrier played critical ground-attack and tactical reconnaissance roles, including in the latter stages of the Cold War. The Jaguar came into service with the RAF in 1974 and flew with eight operational squadrons and an Operational Conversion Unit before finally being retired in 2007. The unique Harrier entered service with the RAF in 1969.It flew operationally with four squadrons, as well as being deployed in Belize and the Falkland Islands and with an Operational Conversion Unit. The second-generation Harrier was prematurely retired in 2011. With over 180 photographs, both black and white and colour, this book, the third in a series on British combat aircraft of the 1970s and '80s, is an essential addition to the libraries of those who flew or worked on these aircraft, aviation historians and enthusiasts, and modellers alike.

Dive into the Dobble Puzzle Book, where all of your favourite Dobble icons have combined to create more than 140 creative puzzles inspired by the award-winning game. Everyone who loves Dobble will enjoy these colourful challenges, with puzzles ranging from Seeing Dobble and Dobble Trouble to elbboD and Wobble. There are even a series of head-to-head games for you to solve while racing against your friends.

A revolution in radio control aircraft modelling is here. The traditional route to flying a radio-controlled model was to purchase materials (or a kit of parts) and build one's own model. This approach is rapidly disappearing as well-designed and affordable 'Almost Ready To Fly' models dominate the market. This is the latest and most exciting development in radio control model flying - off the shelf, out of the box and ready to fly! This book is a response to the changing market. It aims to provide all the information the budding radio control flyer cannot get from within the packaging of the model he has, or is about to, purchase.