Quad-City Scale Modeler Society’s
June 2008 Newsletter
The meeting minutes:
Greetings sportfans, we ended up
with a fair turnout at the May meeting.
I think gas prices are starting to have an effect on attendance, maybe
its time to start carpooling? The June
barbecue will be at Keith Johnson’s house in Dubuque again this year. Keith thanks for offering your hospitality
again. The address is 828 Kaufman Ave, Dubuque,
IA 52001
for those of you who want to google or mapquest it.
For the rest of us, the best way to get there is to take the Grandview exit off HWY 61. You follow Grandview
quite a ways; take the right fork at the Dog Park,
that’s Kaufman Ave. The house is on the right side. Just so you know,
the mapquest and google directions will take you down
town, then to Keith’s house. Remember to
bring a dessert dish, casserole (like Funeral casserole, hint, hint) or appetizer to share. The club provides the meat.
Also, bring your completed model from the Christmas raffle or anything else
you’ve completed for the club contest.
There will also be a club raffle.
Remember that there is also a special treat, a tour of Keith’s Man Cave. This is one of the most interesting model
building spaces I have ever seen. Not to
be missed. For those of you who have
seen it before, trust me, it doesn’t hurt to see it again. I also hear that it has been upgraded. We discussed subjects for upcoming meetings;
if there is something you would like, or think would be interesting, please let
me know. Ronbo
passed around an example of his club card.
I think it would be great to get some printed out to hand out to guys
you meet at the hobby shops and Hobby Lobby and what not. Is there anyone who
would like to take this project on for the club? The club would pay paper costs. We also
discussed the show; we need a show chairman, or at least a co-chairman. I may deploy next March, so someone either
has to take over as show chairman or volunteer to be co-chair and take over and
execute, if need be. Ronbo asked if there was
interest in bidding on a Regional in 2010.
This is something we can discuss at the next meeting. The treasury ahs $3,175, so we are not
hurting too bad. The Quad Cities air show is coming up on 21-22
June. Always a good
time. We voted to spend up to
$300 on the raffle, sadly, no sign of a 50% off sale at HobbyLobby…
We had an interesting presentation at the meeting, a little
bit of “Christopher’s summer vacation” in Iraq. We ran out of time, but I will ask him to
throw the vehicle pictures and some of the interesting videos he has into a
presentation, I will add some of my pictures as well and we can set it up as a
subject for an upcoming meeting. At some
point, we should think about changing or adding to the museum display, any
ideas? I do see folks stopping to
look. We had lots of show and tell stuff
and we also did pictures of club member’s models at the show. I believe Mike S. will be posting those
shortly to the web page. Finally, I have
added a bunch of in box reviews to this newsletter, almost all of these were
purchased locally at hobby shops in the Quad Cities, one was from Ronbo’s stash and one was purchased at the Fartin’ Fleas show, so lets support our local shops, and
the back of Ronbo’s pick up truck. See you all at the barbecue.
The Dates:
June 14: chapter meeting.
Club barbecue and annual club contest at Keith Johnson’s house in Dubuque.
June 21-22: Quad
Cities Air Show, Mt.
Joy airport
July 12: chapter meeting
August 6-9: 2008 IPMS/USA National Convention; Virginia Beach, VA
August 9: chapter meeting
September 13: chapter meeting
October 11: chapter meeting
November 8: chapter meeting
December 13: chapter meeting. Christmas party, Annual “What if?” contest
and gift exchange
Something from the Region Coordinator:
Hi All,
Just got back from the Region 5 Regional and this was in my inbox. It is
an update for the Nationals from the VA Beach folks.
RCs,
Sorry for getting this out late, but I had to take a business trip to Sorrento, Italy.
Well fed, with Italian cuisine, I am back in the NATS saddle. Less than 3 Months to go! Now is the time to
sign up, while those rebate checks are coming in! We have a newly activated
on-line registration process - take advantage of it. A reminder that
pre-registration rises to $40 on July 1st, and closes August 1st, so now is the
time to strike. Tickets for the banquet and Fighter Factory BBQ will close out
as well on August 1st, don't delay! Tamiya
is going to donate kit #56022 1/16 Panther Type G;
retail value $1226 to the raffle. You must be a ticket holder at the banquet to
be eligible to win this or a Model Airways 1/8 Albatros
D.V! Two premium incentives to enjoy a nice meal with your IPMS family! Plenty
of seats left! Other things or note! -
The NORAD anniversary award - a nice package of stuff from NORAD goes to the
winner of this award - so finish or dust off your NORAD related models! The
Best of the Past award - a chance to recompete medal
winners - we want to see some of the eye watering work from past conventions! Displays - room left for club and individual
displays! My biggest concern is
increasing trophy sponsorship; we only have sold 35% of the regular
categories/splits. We need help in this area. There are plenty of hi-visibility
categories to sponsor. We need businesses, clubs and individual to help. As times slips away IPMS Tidewater is heads
down working on the details to make this a pleasant event including an event
program and the details of the awards slideshow. We welcome questions and are
trying to get satisfactory answers. All
the best and may your modeling projects go smoothly
and finish in time!
Charles Landrum
And some more from Mike:
Hello Region 5,
The DLC sent this out to us. James Corley received this letter and
thought perhaps some IPMS Members and Chapters might be able to help them out.
Dear Mr. Corley,
The National Watch Clock Museum will be presenting an exhibit in 2009 that will
highlight the importance of time and timekeeping to the fields of exploration
and navigation. Trade, sea power, and exploration have always depended on
effective navigation. Early navigators turned to the skies and nature to find
their way on the surface of the earth. Modern navigators have once again turned
to the skies, for different reasons, to pinpoint their location on earth.
Explorers of all ages need to be able to accurately navigate and document the
locations of their discoveries. Technological advancements have affected
methods for doing so over the ages. This exhibit will present navigational
instruments and stories from the world's explorers, both modern and historical,
and investigate how navigation has changed over time and the importance of time
in determining one's location. Objects for this exhibit will include
astrolabes, marine chronometers, compasses, sextants, surveying equipment,
chronometers, GPS devices, etc. I am
writing because we would like to augment the exhibit with displays of scale
models of vessels, aircraft and spacecraft of importance to the fields of
exploration and navigation. Would IPMS/USA be able to assist us? You can learn
more about the museum at our website: http://www.nawcc.org/museum/museum. This
year we partnered with the American Political Items Collectors for our Time in
Office: Presidential Timepieces Exhibit and it worked out great for both of us. Feel free to email me your thoughts and to
arrange a site visit if you like.
Thanks,
Mr. Noel B. Poirier
Museum Director
The National Watch and Clock
Museum
The National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors
514 Poplar Street
Columbia, PA 17512
[email protected]
(717) 684-8261 ext. 236
See ya,
Mike George
R5 RC
In Box Review
And now for something completely
different….
1/72 Armored Self propelled Railroad Car D-37 with D-38
turret from UM
By Glen Broman, IPMS Quad Cities
I was wandering the shelves of MVR Hobby on a Friday
afternoon after work, as is my habit, when I saw this sitting on the
shelf. It was 1/72 scale, painted green,
inexpensive and weird. It was a very Zen
moment. The package said there were more in the series, so I asked Mel to order
the other one that was released. There
are supposed to be eight different rail cars in this series, I am getting all
giddy like a schoolgirl just thinking about it.
UM has a reputation for making decent models, and they are much more buildable than say, ACE.
Anyway, back to the kit. These kits are of small, self propelled armored
rail cars built by the Russians before World War 2. This particular variant was built in
1932. The Russians were big fans of
armored trains back in the day, and these cars could act both as scouts for the
armored trains or as track security. The main armament was a short barreled
76.2 gun with a coaxially mounted machine gun, and two 7.62mm machine guns
mounted on the side of the vehicle. There was also a twin Maxim machine gun
that was mounted in the rear compartment under armored doors, but these are
molded closed on the kits and the parts are not provided. Sad, as that would have looked way cool. According to the instructions, this version
never entered production, but served as a base for the DT-45 variant, so this
appears to be the Russian version of those paper German Panzers that are all
the rage. Whatever, it still looks cool.
There are not a whole lot of parts to this puppy. One sprue with the base vehicle parts,
another small sprue with the turret parts, and a fret of PE. A small section of railroad track is also
provided. The molding looks very
workmanlike, the detail is decent and ejector pin marks and flash do not look
like a problem. The instructions could
be clearer, but you should be able to figure out what parts are what and where
they go. A PE folding tool looks like it
will come in handy on this. It also
looks like to should assemble in an evening and would take a day or two to
paint, including drying time. You can
paint it any color you want as long as it’s green. All in all, just the
weirdness factor alone makes this kit a worthwhile purchase. It also looks to be very buildable,
so extra points there.
Kit Review—Ed Mate
Modeling notes from
Hasegawa’s 1/48 Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden
Kai (George)
Courtesy Will-Cook
newsletter
I have the original Hasegawa kit, which was pretty good for
its day, but has raised panel lines (which I’ve grown to despise). I purchased the new Hasegawa kit when it came
out. I picked up the N1K1-J (mid-wing) Shiden as well (which makes my Otaki
kit obsolete). When I purchased a Judy
dive-bomber from Hobby Link Japan,
I also picked up a set of turned brass gun barrels for a Shiden. Then with a book gift-card that I got for my
birthday, I picked up Genda’s
Blade. Everything came
together to make it the right time to build this kit. All that was left to make my building plans
complete was an Eduard color Zoom photo-etch set and I was off to workbench. I started with the engine. It is the same molding as in the Ki-84 kit,
but it can be seen a lot more easily in this kit. I painted the base engine piece Floquil silver and followed that with a dark brown oil
wash. Each bolt was carefully painted
gold to add a little color to this almost completely silver-colored engine. The crank case housing was glued together and
then modified to accept telescoping tubing for the propeller shaft. This was followed by attaching the collector
ring parts, then painting the entire assembly Model Master steel. I drilled holes in each cylinder and in the
side of the collector ring for wires.
For the ignition wires, I used some .006” wire bent to shape and
carefully glued in place with super glue. In the cockpit, I put to use an
Eduard color Zoom photo etch set. The
kit cockpit is very nice, and it takes a lot of guts to start cutting and
scraping away the detail, but using Eduard details for the instrument panel,
seat belts, and consoles is a noticeable improvement. As with most Japanese subjects, confusion
runs rampant about what the proper cockpit color should be – the “typical”
metallic blue which is more often wrong than right, natural metal, or “bamboo”
green. Actually, it isn’t any of these –
with the help of some experts at J-aircraft.com, I
found that the cockpit interior color is a grey-green close to FS34258. I painted my interior this color mixed from
various paints in my collection. This
color looks a lot like Model Master British interior green, so others might
choose to use this paint instead. The
Eduard set provides some panels painted in a green which is close to US
chromate primer (which is good for a Zero), but that’s OK since different
panels and boxes were painted separately by the suppliers. The fuselage halves can be put together
before the cockpit is installed, and that is what I did. I like this since all the filling and wet
sanding can be done without all of the dirty water going into a nicely painted
cockpit. On this kit there is a clear
part installed along the fuselage seam between the cockpit and rudder. I installed this part at this time and sanded
it flush and smooth with the surrounding area.
Sanding with fine grit pads and polishing was needed to restore the
clarity of the clear area. I used my
Tiger saw to restore the panel lines that cross the fuselage joints. After all of this work was done, the cockpit
assembly was installed inside. I added
the lower wing half first without the upper halves assembled. This fit very well without any added shims,
although I needed to remove a smidge from the forward fuselage to get the
overlapping wing to seat all the way to the bottom (it is a wedge type
joint). In reality, this fit is a result
of how the two fuselage halves are glued together, so it could be different
with each build. When I added the upper
wings, a 0.005” shim was added to the right wing root aft of the seam step and
0.010” was added forward of the step to get a tight fit. Both wings were pulled
upward with tape while the glue dried to close small wing root gaps. The underside fuselage-to-wing joints fit
very well – I didn’t use any putty; just a little sanding to get a smooth fit;
however, the profile isn’t smooth, it looks like there is a kink in the bottom
at that fuselage station. I relented and
put some putty in here to lessen the kink.
The stabilizers have interlocking tabs which help the modeler get them
properly aligned. The radiator scoop is
added next and it fit perfectly. The
flaps can be displayed up or down, but if you want them up some plastic must be
cut away per the instructions. I was
afraid of how they would fit in the up position so I assembled them with the
down parts. The drop tank under the wing
fit together very well; fitting the mounting struts in the tank slots even made
the joint lines disappear. My choice of
markings can be found right in the box. Genda’s Blade has a color profile, and I
found an excellent photograph as well. Kanno’s Shiden is a very popular
subject, but throw me in with the masses; I wanted to do his airplane
anyway. I started the painting process
with Alclad primer because the underside is natural
metal. A few shades of Alclad completed the bottom. The color stripes and Japanese national
insignias are carefully masked paint.
The color sequence was painting the natural metal bottom and top areas
that will show chipped paint. Next was a
dark brown preshade on all of the panel lines under
the topside paint. I followed this with
white in the areas of the insignias and markings. I cut circle masks for the red areas from
masking tape. I then placed the white
masks around the red masks and then removed the red masks. At this point I restored the preshade over the white paint, and then sprayed the
red. The process continued by masking
off the red areas and spraying yellow. I
made a photocopy of the kit decals so I would have patterns for the fuselage
stripes. The wing ID and fuselage
stripes were masked off, and then I used the table salt masking technique
described in the July 2003 issue of Fine
Scale Modeler to get some chipped paint areas. The topside green is an old Floquil Military German 83 Green paint; it was a good match
to FS34077, which is a reference color for Kawanishi
green paint. The pre-shade did not show
up very well under the green, so I added a little black and post-shaded the
panel lines. I used the Humbrol green that I used on my Zero to paint the fabric
control surfaces to represent the variation from these component
sub-suppliers. The model was gloss
coated with Future, a few small decals were added,
then highlighted with a brown artist oil wash followed by a flat coat of
Testors Dullcoat.
After cutting the propeller off of the sprue and cleaning up the mold
parting lines, I sanded the edges to make sure they were smooth. I also sanded off the raised molded in demarcation
line for the yellow tip stripes. After
that the propeller tips were painted white, then yellow. The stripes were masked off and the remainder
was painted brown. Construction was
completed by adding the landing gear, wheels, gear doors and actuators, flaps,
propeller and spinner, canopy, and guns.
I further improved the wings with Fine Molds replacement metal guns,
pitot probe, and CMK position lights.
The kit has separate clear parts for the wing tip and rudder lights, but
I used CMK product for the lights on the top of the wing. I purchased an Eduard canopy mask (on sale,
cost me $2.20). As a masking product, I
find the precut masks very poor since the adhesive usually pulls away from the
edges which results in underspray or seeping paint
where you don’t want it. If you don’t
get that, the somewhat stiff film must be pressed down right before painting
and you hope it doesn’t pop up before you have the chance to spray. Mine were not cut all the way through, so I
had to run a knife edge around to release the mask from the rest of the
film. However, if you look at your cash
outlay as a means to obtain the templates to create your own masks, then, for
me, it was $2.20 wisely spent. I put the
Eduard mask over some masking tape and created my own masks that stick down and
don’t loose adhesive at the edges.
Eduard provided some nice accurate templates. My antennas are 0.005”-dia. stainless steel
piano wire cut to length and super-glued into small holes in the antenna
mast. I wound some 0.005”-dia. soft wire
around a drill bit to make the spring at the back. Finally, some pastel chalk was added for
exhaust stains on the fuselage. I rate
the kit a 9 out of 10 on the Mate Meter.
It is an interesting subject, the kit is engineered well, has great
molding detail, and assembles easily with added details or if built out of the
box. The next time I’ll build the N1K1 Shiden mid-wing airplane that was developed from the Rex
floatplane.
From Mark Aldrich
IPMS Tacoma
Marine Corps Rules:
1. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
2. Decide to be aggressive enough, quickly enough.
3. Have a plan.
4. Have a back-up plan, because the first one probably won't work.
5. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill
everyone you meet.
6. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun whose caliber
does not start with a '4.'
7. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
8. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral &
diagonal preferred)
9. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
10. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or
tactics. They will only remember who lived.
13. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating your intention to
shoot.
Navy SEAL's Rules:
1. Look very cool in sunglasses.
2. Kill every living thing within view.
3. Adjust speedo.
4. Check hair in mirror.
US Army Rangers Rules:
1. Walk in 50 miles wearing 75 pound rucksack while starving.
2. Locate individuals requiring killing.
3. Request permission via radio from 'Higher' to perform killing.
4. Curse bitterly when mission is aborted.
5. Walk out 50 miles wearing a 75 pound rucksack while starving.
US Army Rules:
1. Curse bitterly when receiving operational order.
2. Make sure there is extra ammo and extra coffee.
3. Curse bitterly.
4. Curse bitterly.
5. Do not listen to 2nd LTs; it can get you killed.
6. Curse bitterly.
US Air Force Rules:
1. Have a cocktail.
2. Adjust temperature on air-conditioner.
3. See what's on HBO.
4. Ask 'What is a gunfight?'
5. Request more funding from Congress with a 'killer' Power Point presentation.
6 Wine & dine ''key' Congressmen, invite DOD & defense industry
executives.
7. Receive funding, set up new command and assemble assets.
8. Declare the assets 'strategic' and never deploy them operationally.
9. Hurry to make 13:45
tee-time.
10. Make sure the base is as far as possible from the conflict but close enough
to earn tax exemption.
(And I Love This Next One)
US Navy Rules:
1. Go to Sea.
2. Drink Coffee.
3. Deploy Marines
In Box Review
Glen Broman, IPMS
Quad Cities
Hasegawa 1/48 Type 95 Small Sedan “Kurogane”
and Isuzu TX40 Type 97 Truck
I saw this kit in one of the model magazines, not sure which
one, but I I wanted to get this kits as soon as I saw
it. The Kurogane
is a very cool looking car, but then again, I drive a Honda Element, so you may
not want to trust my judgment on this one.
There have been a number of 1/48 scale vehicles released lately with
aircraft kits, these two have been issued with some other Hasegawa aircraft but
have been boxed together in this release.
Works for me.
This is a medium sized box and when you open it up, there is a
surprising amount of plastic in it.
There are also two instructions sheets which look identical at first
glance, but do not be fooled into tossing one, one covers the truck and one
covers the car. Each kit is bagged separately, and the clear parts are each in
their own bag. The Kurogane
consists of three sprues, decals and the clear parts. Besides the standard windshield and side
windows, the canvas covers for the cabs are molded in clear, so you can mask
the windows and paint the whole thing, that’s a whole lot easier than coating
clear parts with Future then supergluing the suckers
in after painting has been done. The Kurogane comes
with a machine gun that you can mount in the front window which looks a bit
incongruent for a car that looks like it’s powered by fairy dust. Two figures
are included, both sitting, one driving and one manning the machine gun. The detail looks good and I just don’t see
any flash or ejector pin marks. The
truck looks very tasty and has six, and possible seven different sets of sprues
in the bag. Once again, the molding
looks crisp with very good detail. The
truck can be built with an open bed or with a canvas cover over the bed. It also comes with several 55 gallon drums, a
tool box and two figures, one driving and the other playing with the fuel
drums. The painting instructions are for
Aqueous Color and Gunze paints. You may
have to extrapolate into something that is available here, use your own
references or do whatever trips your trigger.
The schemes in the kit are for Imperial Japanese Army and Navy vehicles.
These vehicles look they will provide a trouble free build and will look good
as stand alone kits or give a sporty look to your Japanese aircraft dioramas.
Some quick info from Mike Scheel:
First: June 1st Testors is raising prices on paint.
Second: June 8th, Quad Cities Cruisers Model Car Show, South Park
Mall in JC Penney parking lot. Registration
0800-1200, Judging 1200-1400, Awards 1400, MVR Hobby is the sponsor, Will cost
2.00 to get in the show and then 1.00 for any entries. More info at 355-0036
In box review:
1/72 ACE Dingo Mark I armored car
By Glen Broman, IPMS Quad Cities
Apparently, I do not learn from my mistakes. Yes, I bought another ACE kit. I suppose I feel they challenge my model
building skills, that I am less of a man if I pass one by, or maybe I secretly
love pain. Whatever the reason, I got
another one. In ACE’s
defense, they actually have been getting better with each new release. This comes in the usual resealable plastic
bag and has a fair number of parts, some look very delicate. The molding looks decent, although somewhat
soft, and the detail is fair. There is
also a small PE fret. In the past, ACE
kits had to be built up to make the lower and upper hull parts, this one has
the entire lower hull molded as a single
piece, so that alone is a great improvement.
There are a few ejector pins that will require filling, most are in out
of the way places, but some will be visible if you don’t take care of
them. The tire detail looks pretty
good. The interior detail looks good and
you can build the vehicle with either an open top, half open or a closed top.
The roof is PE and will require some careful folding if you select the open or
half open version. You could build it
without any top at all, but that I actually a later Mark. There are markings for four different
vehicles included in the kit, two British vehicles from France in 1940 in overall bronze
green, and two captured vehicles used by the Germans, one in panzer grey and
one still in the previous owners bronze green.
Overall, it looks like an improvement, but the proof will be in the
building.
From out of left field
New kit review – 1/72 Bedford QLD 3 Ton 4x4 General Service
Truck from IBG Models
By Glen Broman, IPMS Quad Cities
I ordered an Airfix 1/48 Canberra B(I)8
from MVR hobby and went to pick it up, while waiting for Mel to ring it up, I
wandered around the shelves and found this kit.
I have never heard of IBG Models and had not heard of this kit, although
I had heard that a company was coming out with a 1/72 Bedford.
I guess this was it. The box is
fairly large for a 1/72 kit. Nice
artwork and a little info on the box side. The Bedford QL series included the
QLD, which is the basic transport versions; there was the QLT infantry
transporter, QLW dump truck and QLC six ton semi trailer. There were other versions as well and they
served from the early 1940’s until recent times. Hopefully, we will see some of
these variants in the future. IBG stands
for International Business Group, and they are based in Warsaw
Poland. They are definitely getting off to a good
start with this kit. There are two bagged sprues, and yes, in case you were
wondering, they could have done this kit in a smaller box. This is the first kit of a Bedford of this type that I know of that is
injection molded. The molding itself is
good and fairly detailed. It’s isn’t as
crisp as Dragon ore Revell, nut it is better than most eastern European
kits. There are a few sink marks, such
as the one on the fuel tank. It is
pretty significant, and must be filled.
The parts are well molded with little flash, although many are petit and
will require very careful removal. Once again, a PE saw will be almost a
requirement to get these parts off the sprue in one piece, a sprue cutter or
your bog standard hobby knife will chop them to pieces. There are a lot of
detail parts and this kit looks like it will be a real keeper once done. The decals look nice and there is a pre-cut transparent
sheet for the windows. The instructions
are very nice, and are very similar to the new Dragon ones. They are computer generated, very clear and
better than most other types I have seen.
As I said, IBG are making quite a name for themselves
with this first release. You can build
the bed in two versions, with the canvas over the body or with the support
frame in place with no canvas. The
canvas body comes in one piece and does not look that realistic, the frame,
however, looks very good. There are
decals for no less than six versions, all them belonging to Polish forces, five
Army and one air force. Full five views
are provided of each version with painting and marking info. All instructions and information is in Polish
and English and the paint call outs are for Gunze, Model master acrylic, Humbrol and Vallejo. No color names are given, just the numbers,
but not bad at all, considering most just have one or two Japanese colors or
“house” brands such as Revell called out.
Overall, I am looking forward to this build, I think it will require a
little patience as the parts look like they will be easily damaged if not
removed carefully, but it will result in a very attractive and unusual model.
And now, a drum roll please…….
The Airfix 1/48 Canberra
B(I)8
By Glen Broman, IPMS Quad Cities
Yes. Finally. I really
like the Canberra
and have a bunch of different 1/72 Airfix, Frog and matchbox kits in the
stash. After trying to build a few
Classic Airframes kits, I have given up on them and passed up the Classic
Airframes Canberra when it came out, although I was sorely tempted. Finally, Airfix announced a 1/48 Canberra series of kits,
then came the shattering news of their demise, but wait! There’s more, Hornby
purchased them and they have been going great guns ever since. The Canberra’s
were released this year; I believe two or three are currently available. This
is a fair sized box with a color painting on the box top that harkens back to
the good old days of the Airfix kits of my youth, except that there is nothing
blowing up in the pictures, if you remember back in the 60’s and 70’s,
something was always blowing up on the box art. The first thing that hits you
when you open up the box is the intoxicating smell of plastic, and lots of
it. There is a large plastic bag full of
sprues, including a separately bagged sprue of clear parts, and there is an unbagged sprue o that consists of the upper and lower
wings. The kit even comes with three nicely molded crew men with separate and poseable arms. The
detail looks sharp and the molding is crisp. The cockpit has a fair amount of
detail, I’m sure the after market guys will be out in force to tart it up, but
it should look fine with the parts provided.
The instructions are clear and assembly looks to be
straightforward. A number of under wing
options are provided, iron bombs, missiles and rocket pods and a bomb bay with
four bombs is also included. One of the
most impressive parts of the kit is the full color painting instructions and
the immense decal sheet. The painting
guide has three schemes, two grey and green over silver and one overall silver
aircraft from the South African Air Force.
The color call outs are Humbrol numbers, no
mention of the name of the color, just a number. No big problem. Anyway, painting guide also shows where the
approximately four million little decals that cover the national markings as
well as the other assorted airframe markings.
This is an impressive decal sheet folks, the thing is huge and has some
sweet looking decals on it. Yes Mabel,
one is the famous shark mouth marking from 16 Squadron, RAF, in Germany
in the early 70’s. There are a lot of decals here folks, and the sheet alone
should keep you busy for a few nights slapping these bad boys on. While this kit is not exactly on the same
level as the latest Tamiya or Hasegawa kits, it is very close and is a Canberra. I plan to buy as many as I can sneak in the
house.
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