Indice dei contenuti per November 2016 in FineScale Modeler

Spotlight Airfix loads up the C-47 with jeep and gun WHAT’S THE PERFECT ACCESSORY for a transport? Stuff to carry, which is exactly what Airfix provides in the latest version of its 1/72 scale Douglas C-47 (No. A09008), the Royal Air Force Dakota. The blue-gray plastic is marked with fine engraved panel lines and surface detail. The plane features a detailed cockpit with seats, controls, instrument panel, consoles, and bulkheads. Aft is a navigator’s station and a full cargo compartment with optional stowed or extended seats. Decals provide markings for a single RAF Dakota in Burma in 1944. The kit includes a splendid little Willys jeep with a detailed chassis and suspension, seats, controls, a clear windshield, and weighted wheels. Optional parts allow the soft top to be up or…

In the May 2016 FineScale Modeler, we asked you to let us know what models you most wanted to see. Now that we have gathered the results and read your comments, one thing is clear — you want more of everything you like. Beyond that there are few absolutes, and maxims are hard to come by. We can tell you the results are as diverse as our readership, with a few notable exceptions. As in our past two surveys, the standout nominee for kit production is the C-5 Galaxy. But if the wait for a C-5 is trying your patience, consider this: Of the wish list submitted by readers in our last survey (November 2013 FSM), manufacturers have produced 20% of the kits requested (and a few more are making…

Hard as it is to believe, the iconic F-16 has been around for more than 40 years. The versions, from A to F as well as I and N, not to mention block numbers — 25, 30, 32, 40, 42, 50, 52, and 60 — make my head spin. But it’s that variety that offers so much scope for modeling. I am not an expert on the subtleties of the F-16, but I got a bug to build an Israeli F-16I Sufa (Storm) when I discovered a 1/72 scale conversion set from IsraDecal (No. 72002). The Sufa is a modification of the two-seat F-16D Block 52, and the set is recommended for Revell’s kit. I didn’t have one of those, so, keen to get started, I used an old ESCI…

Longtime readers will no doubt recall that for years we have been extolling the virtues of what used to be called Future — an acrylic floor polish now called Pledge FloorCare Multi-Surface Finish (PFM is our merciful abbreviation). Throughout its various name and packaging changes, PFM’s positive attributes have remained the same. It not only makes clear plastic look shinier but also smoother and more transparent — in other words, more like glass. Additionally, PFM makes an excellent glossy clear coat that’s more receptive to decals and weathering washes. Or it can be a final clear coat for a high-gloss finish. Not only that, but it is more forgiving than many clear finishes because it levels so well (fewer runs), is easy to touch up (for small errors), and, if…

Academy’s all-new M1A2 uses no parts from the company’s older Abrams kits. Parts provide for one of three versions: M1A2 SEP V2, M1A2 Tusk, and M1A2 Tusk II. The tan plastic parts feature excellent detail, including beautiful nonskid texture on the hull and turret. A few ejector-pin and sink marks in visible areas need to be addressed. A small PE fret provides mesh for the turret baskets and CIPs for the turret. A large clear sprue provides all of the periscopes, lights, armored glass, and wheel hubs. Academy even includes pre-cut masks for the clear parts. Nice! The instructions are spread over four booklets and a color painting guide. This approach left me jumping from place to place more than usual, but Academy’s done a great job of making clear…

Airfix’s new Sea King HC4 is a real beauty! The 133 parts, molded in the now-familiar soft blue-gray plastic, show crisp, recessed panel lines and little flash. Optional parts allow for the aircraft to be built flight-ready or with the rotor and tail folded. The cabin doors can also be posed, and the instructions show the rotor can turn with help from a small motor available separately from Airfix. Cartograf decals give markings for two Sea Kings, one in an Arctic scheme and the other all green. Each assembly step highlights parts added in the previous stage, aiding placement. I wish the color callouts were a little clearer, especially for smaller pieces. Starting assembly in the cabin, I opened a couple of clearly marked holes in the floor for the…

Inspiration is essential to modeling. Fortunately for modelers, sources of inspiration are endless. For Charles Pomazal, an effort to salute the U.S. Coast Guard brought him to a model that told another tale — the sinking of the Great Lakes freighter Daniel J. Morrell and the rescue of the sole survivor from the ship’s 29-man crew. Charles says, “Several years ago I began building models of the various aircraft which had been assigned to the Traverse City Air Station, including the HH-52A Seaguard, the one in the rescue. The biggest problem that I encountered was to obtain a model kit of that particular helicopter.” What he found was a chunky looking Sikorsky S-62 kit made in the 1960s by Ringo Toy Corp. (formerly Ideal Toy Co.) in about 1/50 scale.…

Before I begin any modeling project, I map out what I want to achieve and, just as important, how and where it will be displayed. I like dioramas, which tell a story and place the subject in context. This tableau was built for a friend who is a major in the U.S. Air Force and a flight commander on KC-135Rs for the Utah Air National Guard’s 151st Air Refueling Wing. With a 1/72 scale KC-135 (Italeri No. 1281, neé AMT/Ertl 8848), one thing was certain: Any display was going to take up a lot of real estate. I settled on a 25" x 24" base, as most military tarmacs are expansive — I wanted to give that impression of space yet avoid having to finance an addition to house it.…

PEDRO NEGRON TRUJILLO ALTO, PUERTO RICO Turnabout was fair play to Pedro, who portrayed Tamiya’s 1/35 scale Tiger II as a Polish possession in hand-painted markings. He loaded the erstwhile German tank with Mirage resin Zimmerit, photo-etch engine shields and a metal machine gun barrel from Armorscale, Friulmodel metal tracks, and a turned-metal barrel from RB Model. Tamiya acrylic paints, artist’s oil filters, and dusty pigments polished off the captured panzer. JOE CONOWITCH EVANS, WASHINGTON Joe painted Dragon’s 1/35 scale Israeli Huey “Anafa” (Heron) with Testors Model Master enamels and tinted the glass with Tamiya clear green acrylic. He made safety belts and added armor and antennas. Dried flowers and gravel are strewn on an earthen base. He painted the figures with Winsor & Newton artist’s oils. JOCELYN CARON DEUX-MONTAGNES,…

USS Skipjack (SSN-585), lead ship in a class of nuclear-powered fast-attack submarines, was commissioned in April 1959. With a new teardrop-shaped hull, the Skipjack-class boats were faster and more maneuverable than any submarine at the time. Six Skipjack-class boats were launched, and only one was lost: Scorpion, in 1968 from unknown causes. The rest of the class served successfully and were still considered effective attack submarines when they were individually decommissioned decades later. Skipjack was decommissioned in April 1990. In 2012, Moebius released a 1/72 scale model of this historic submarine (No. 1400). The kit consists of 60 parts and is 42" long. This is (by far) the most accurate plastic model of Skipjack ever made. Let’s cast off and make headway … 1 Construction begins with the four hull…

The number one thing I can say about Eduard’s new Bf 109G-6 is “it was worth the wait.” In 2014, the company’s 1/48 scale Gustav created a lot of buzz in the modeling community. Unfortunately, the detailed ProfiPack kit, with photo-etched (PE) details and colorful decals, was a touch too big all the way around. To its credit, Eduard acknowledged the problem and promised to return to the subject with a revised kit. Now the wait is over. Kit: No. 82111 Scale: 1/48 Manufacturer: Eduard, www.eduard.com Price: $49.95 Comments: Injection-molded, 238 parts (46 PE, 1 wire), decals Pros: Kit revised to be dimensionally accurate; ProfiPack includes canopy masks and PE for the cockpit Cons: None The cleanly molded neutral gray plastic parts show exceptional recessed panel lines and extraordinary rivets. Features…

Rye Field Models keeps raising the bar. Its new Abrams provides parts to build one of three versions — an M1A2 TUSK II, an M1A2 TUSK, and the one I built, an M1A1 TUSK — as well as optional parts for coolers, ammunition boxes, and spare road wheels. The hatches are posable and the clear parts are molded in green to replicate the tint of ballistic glass. Decals supply markings for three tanks. The instructions clearly indicate part and assembly differences between the versions, with notes and color changes for the M1A1. This is the first armor kit I’ve built in which assembly started with the turret rather than the hull. Most of the turret went together without issue except for the outer frame of the inner turret basket (part…

As Sweden’s first multirole fighter, the Saab J32 Lansen was a ground-attack platform, allweather fighter, reconnaissance bird, electronic countermeasures aircraft, and air sampler, from the 1950s until at least as recently as 2010. Tarangus’ J32B/E is its second 1/72 scale kit. I was eager to build it, having tackled the prior release, a J29 Tunnan. Opening the box brought to mind kits from Czech manufacturers in years past. The Lansen had the look of a short-run kit: slightly soft detail, flash on many parts, and fit in need of refinement. As I followed the instructions’ 25 steps, my suspicions about the kit’s short-run nature were confirmed. It’s not a difficult build overall, but I encountered a couple of areas requiring particular attention. Many parts needed sanding and test-fitting, starting in…

It’s not you, it’s the tiny parts With a little chuckle, I read the letter in the May issue about manufacturers going overboard with tiny parts. If I hadn’t known better I would have thought I had sent it. I have been modeling as long as the gentleman who wrote the letter: 60 years. My interest started when I was 4 and saw a Sherman tank model in a hobby store. My father and I put it together to the best of our abilities. Now at 67 I am still at it. Where did the time go? Yes, some kits have become more complex, and when my wife sees me on the floor she knows not to ask what I’m looking for in the great carpet monster. But I wouldn’t…

Screens: Mike carefully primed, painted, and weathered the photo-etched RPG screens on the fret. “After much consternation and a good deal of cursing, I got them all mounted on the model,” he says. “I hit them with a touch of very thin sand and they were good to go.” Windshield: After painting, Mike installed the windows and masked wiper arcs on the front. Then he weathered the truck, leaving the windows to suffer along with the rest of vehicle. “Since so much of the weathering was random, I figured a little overspray and pigment would not hurt the windows,” he says. Driver: After assembling the resin figure, Mike sprayed it with Tamiya Fine Surface Primer, then Vallejo light sand. The uniform and flesh were hand-painted; pastels soften the skin tones, and a light…

There is no doubt our world of instant media is having a profound influence on modeling. For example, the Ukrainian conflict is proving to be a wealth of modeling inspiration. I can’t help but wonder if this BMP-2 would even have been possible without iPhone pictures and YouTube uploads. Inspired by news photos, I chose to build a Ukrainian army BMP-2. The pictures show a dirty and combat-battered vehicle with logs fastened to its sides — makeshift add-on armor. I placed an online order for the Trumpeter kit (No. 05584) along with MasterClub tracks (No. 35042). But while waiting for my package to arrive, I happened to mention my upcoming project to a friend who said he had the same kit already built — including the aftermarket tracks — and…

Sometimes there’s nothing for it but to give in to advanced modeling syndrome or, in my case, advanced modeling kitbasher syndrome. During a recent outbreak, I thought it would be fun to build a hovertank using a single kit. I selected Dragon’s 1/35 Jagdpanther late, which features hundreds of parts, including several options for some pieces, and individual-link tracks — that means extra parts for creative repurposing. Working backward I began with a concept of the general Jagdpanther shape traveling backward under power from a giant thruster where the gun mantlet would normally fit. The rear hatch would become the windshield, and I could mount the main cannon either offset or below the cockpit. I glued the hull together as shown in the instructions, but attached the mantlet piece in…

Tamiya’s M10 is the first all-new 1/35 scale kit of the U.S. tank destroyer in 15 years. The crisp parts feature great touches, such as a one-piece slide-molded barrel and three figures to crew the open-topped vehicle. Posable hatches have detail molded on the inner faces, and the gun rotates and elevates (unless you glue the crew in place). The straightforward build starts with the lower hull, which includes more interior detail then I expected, even on an opentopped vehicle. Most omitted details are in spots that won’t be visible. For ease of painting, I skipped ahead and attached the sponson plates (parts A5) to the lower rather than upper hull as shown in Step 14. The upper hull aided alignment as the glue set. The vertical volute spring suspension…

The Royal Navy’s Hunt-class destroyer escorts, like HMS Badsworth, served from the East Indies to South Africa and Malta and escorted Murmansk convoys. The little ships could be built quickly and 86 were completed before the end of World War II. More than a dozen were transferred to free Greek, Polish, Norwegian, and French navies. Twenty-one were lost during the war. The kit comprises six sprues and a PE fret; nearly 100 parts are added to the 4.8" waterline hull. The decks fit perfectly and appear accurate when compared with overhead photo views. Anchor chains molded on the deck meet fine PE anchors. Splinter shields and the bridge structure are finely molded as near to scale as possible. Recessed portholes with rain gutter eyebrows are featured throughout the hull and…

Photo-etch tips and techniques Q I am a subscriber to FSM but don’t recall any information about photo-etched items. I ’d like to know what type of glue is the best to use. An article with any added information on use or special ways to handle these items would be of interest to many of us. – Skip Allen Belmar, N.J. A Skip, your regular styrene cement will not work for photo-etch (PE) metal. You can use tacky glue (like white glue but stronger), super glue (the usual choice), or epoxy (very strong but not as forgiving). A good feature on working with PE parts was in the March 2009 FSM. You can order back issues by calling 800-533-6644. You also can order it online: FineScaleModelerSingleCopy @customersvc.com. “What’s the best…