Tabla de contenidos para September 2020 en FineScale Modeler

Looking at photos of a Marine Corps Sherman disabled in the sands of Iwo Jima, I was compelled to re-create it. Named Tokyo Express, the M4A2 showed many of the modifications that were done on tanks in the Pacific. To replicate those additions on Dragon’s 1/35 scale M4A3, I first modified the engine deck to represent a diesel-powered M4A2. Then I attached wooden coffee stirrers for the sides and suspension for the wood appliqué armor, lead foil for the jagged strips, Aves Apoxie Sculpt sandbags, a resin wading trunk, and wire spikes around the crew hatches. Throughout my research, I found several color illustrations of this vehicle and one thing was consistent: they were all different. Each illustrator had a different interpretation of the vehicle’s colors, which included red, yellow,…

STEVEN KEETON TAYLORS, SOUTH CAROLINA Steven built the 12-inch-long M1070 and M1000 transporter with D9R from Takom. He then placed the 1/72 scale tank transporter and armored bulldozer on a base covered in dirt held in place with white glue. Both the kit and base were airbrushed with dusty, dirty hues. ROB SCHMITT COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO Rob airbrushed this striking Three Kings 1/4 scale resin bust of Neytiri from Avatar with Tamiya and Comart acrylics using Iwata HP-CS Eclipse and HP-B airbrushes. He then weathered her with Vallejo acrylic washes. GRAHAM RAMAGE NORTH DELTA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA “I wanted to do a Luft ’46 build and thought the Heinkel He 162 and Arado Ar 234 would be perfect,” says Graham. To do so, he combined kits from FROG and Lindberg.…

Designed for the Royal Navy as a carrier-based strike aircraft to counter Soviet naval buildup, the Blackburn Buccaneer would fly fast and low under the radar to deliver nuclear or conventional weapons. After the navy retired its large aircraft carriers, most Buccaneers were transferred to Royal Air Force squadrons and flew until 1994. Airfix has had two previous kits of the Buccaneer, one first produced in 1960, and then a new kit in 1989. Come forward another 30 years, and the company has once again released a completely new tool kit of the strike fighter. This kit features crisply molded parts with little flash and fine recessed panel details. Build options include straight or folded wings, and open or closed air brake and bomb bay. A wheels-up version is not…

Who hasn’t daydreamed about stepping foot inside the iconic Millennium Falcon? In your fantasy, are you piloting or does Han or Rey have the controls? Derek Croney of Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada built an old AMT/Ertl cut-away Millennium Falcon and Bandai’s 1/72 scale X-wing starfighter pretty much out of the box. To illuminate the interior and exterior, he installed mini holiday lights, which provided quite a bang for very few bucks. He painted with Vallejo acrylics and weathered with Tamiya powders and oil washes.…

This diorama represents “a compressed composite of U.S. Marines in action in the Pacific during World War II and is solely my own interpretation,” says Todd Jackson of Franklin, Tennessee. His scene is inspired by the landings at Tarawa in November 1943, but is hypothetical and illustrates the chaos of handto-hand combat and the tenacity of both the Marines and the Japanese defenders. “I love figures with models and do tend to go overboard in my work at times,” he adds. No kidding! There are 76 individuals in the 1/35 scale diorama along with an LVT-4, Japanese howitzer, and myriad groundwork and scenery products. In all, Todd says he spent more than 250 hours spread over nine months building the scene. Understandably, the majority of that time involved assembling and…

Many remember the B-29 as “the plane that ended the war” after the aircraft dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. But the Superfortress had already fought two major wars by the time of those attacks. In the second of those, the big bombers flew numerous missions from bases in India and China as well as the Mariana Islands. The first battle almost kept it from the war as it nearly didn’t make it into service in time. Rushed into production to take part in the Pacific war, the B-29 first had to win what is known as “The Battle of Kansas.” Problems brought about by the abridged development required each airframe to undergo numerous tweaks and updates at Modification Centers before deployment. All of the work paid off, and in…

When I started building plastic kits in the 1950s, modeling wasn’t an expensive hobby. I used to save up money from my allowance or after-school work and buy a kit every other month. Kits cost, at most, a few dollars. Nowadays, the kits themselves are much more expensive, and we often spend much more on aftermarket photo-etch metal (PE) or resin detail sets for accuracy. This is particularly the case with ship models. I remember building box-scale Revell, Renwal, and Lindberg ships without busting my limited budget. Now, a typical 1/350 scale kit can cost upwards of $100, plus as much again for aftermarket details. I decided to see if building a ship as inexpensively as possible could produce good results. Rather than trying to build the most accurate, detailed…

Forty years ago, I built Monogram’s 1/48 scale B-17 and somewhere in my stash is Revell’s Memphis Belle, so I never thought I’d see another B-17 in 1/48 scale. But HK Models has proven me wrong. Its first kit is referred to as an “early Production B-17G, with cheek guns, a chin turret, the flat tail gun position (rather than the Cheyenne ball assembly), and enclosed waist positions that are not staggered. The gray plastic parts feature delicate recessed rivets and crisp panel lines. The windows are as clear as water and the frames include raised rivets. A small photo-etched metal (PE) fret provides the pilots’ seat belts and wing intake grills. No ammunition feeds or belts are included. The beautifully printed decals sheet gives two marking options, one olive…

Reproducing certain World War II Japanese aircraft camouflage patterns, like those applied to the Ki-43 “Oscar” and Ki-44 “Tojo” fighters, can be difficult. Many of them feature random splotches and spots, and replicating those in scale means working close to the surface while trying to avoid overspray. Looking around for a solution, I found that insect-eaten leaves can serve as natural masks for replicating these patterns. Soybean leaves in particular offer myriad patterns in the late summer months that give the right randomness and the flexible leaves are easily bent to conform to the surface of the model. “Although there were more than forty widely used schemes of camouflage employed by the JAAF during WWII, no more than a dozen of these were authorized at high levels. The balance came…

The U.S. Navy’s Grumman F6F Hellcat rolled out as the replacement for the F4F Wildcat and counter to the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero. Powered by a 2,000-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine, the F6F made its combat debut in September 1943 and helped secure air superiority over the Pacific Theater. The U.S. built 12,275 Hellcats in just over three years, and it became the Navy’s dominant Pacific fighter during the second half of the war, credited with destroying 5,223 enemy aircraft. In June 1944, the U.S. launched Operation Forager to uproot Imperial Japanese forces in the Mariana Islands and Palau, beginning with landings on Saipan. In response, the Japanese navy’s combined fleet counterattacked, thus starting the Battle of the Philippine Sea, or what is known as the “Great…

The success of the German Sturmgeschutz III inspired the Russians to create an assault gun by mounting a 122mm gun on the successful T-34 chassis. This was my first Zvezda kit and I was impressed. The parts come in a sturdy cardboard box slipped inside a colorful outer box with sharp box art and photos of a finished model. Oddly the box describes the SU-122 as a “tank destroyer” but it was designed as mobile artillery. The well-molded dark green and black (the link-and-length tracks) show sharp surface detail and little to no flash. The soft plastic is easily marred and Tamiya Extra Thin cement proved almost too aggressive, so take care. The kit also includes string for the tow cables, fine plastic mesh for the engine deck screen, and…

Academy USMC F-35B If you’ve built Academy’s 1/72 F-35A, this kit’s parts breakdown will seem familiar although most of the parts are new to account for airframe and power plant differences between the conventional A and the vertical takeoff and landing B. While the F-35A was molded in three colors — white, gray, and black — this kit is all molded in gray. I built the F-35A when it was released, so I knew what I was getting into — and it was good. The instruction booklet is well drawn and concise. The full-color instructions include yellow warning boxes to alert you to step and parts choices for the two build options — vertical takeoff or landing with everything open, including the weapon bays, or flight type, with everything buttoned…