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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
npoirier@nawcc.org
(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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