Completed Review - Hobby-Boss F9F-2 Panther - Part 2

Scale: 1:72, RRP - £11.99

It's been a while since I started this kit and to tell the truth it's also been a while since I finished it, I've just not got round to writing about it. In fact it's been so long I've forgotten most of the build process, so I'll keep this short.

Carrying on from where I left off, I seem to remember, the cockpit fitted well but it was essential to add some weight to the nose. However the odd part was the nose wheel assembly, it was required to fit this into the wheel well at an early stage which meant for the duration of the build you had to be very careful not to bend or break it.

As I recall the fit was really good, two halves went together and the wings fitted with no issues. The final step was to add the fuel tanks to the wings, again that was straight forward. The only issue was the cleaning up of the parts where they'd been attached to the sprues which I'd mentioned previously.

And now it time to begin painting, which took a couple of attempts as I was having my usual issues with Tamiya paints, in this case XF-17 (Navy Sea Blue) which was the main colour for this aircraft. Of course this no reflection on the kit, just my lack of experience using Tamiya paints.

Now the next part I do remember well, the decals. They were good quality, I don't think I had any major issues getting them on the model. However the big issue with them is that in my opinion they're not to scale! I compared photos, other kits and even the decal guide contained in this kit and I can confidently say they're oversized. This was especially apparent on the nose where it was quite difficult to squeeze them into the available space.

Once the decals were on I could add the under wing ordnance and this was another strong point of the kit . There was plenty to choose from, although I think if you added all the bombs you'd probably have an aircraft that would struggle to take off!

With that in mind I opted for a mix of bombs and rockets and it was done.


I have say that really liked this kit. For me it was a good introduction to Cold War era jets and the kit combined with the Eduard photo-etch made a very nice model that went together well. Pity about those decals...

Overall Build Score: 3.5 out of 5, an extremely nice kit, full of detail but let down by the oversized decals.

Build Review - Academy Me 163B/S (12460) – Part 1

At the end of my previous post I mentioned Academy's 1:72 scale Me 163B/S kit, so time to get on with it. Experimental aircraft from WWII / the early Cold War period are an area of interest to me (something I'll probably write about in the future) and so this seemed like a good kit to get me back into modelling after my break.

Academy kits seem to have a reputation as a bit hit and miss but generally I like them. Opinions on-line tend to suggest that this is a good kit so my expectations were raised. Time to have an opinion of my own.

First impressions were that this looked like a really nice kit, I especially liked that there was a choice between the standard single seat Me 163B and the two seat glider trainer, the Me 163S.

I decided to opt for the Me 163B, enhanced as usual with an Eduard photo-etch set (SS256) for the interior and some small exterior details. Colour scheme wise, I'm probably going to deviate from those offered in the box, we'll see how things go before I decide.

So to start with I built the cockpit. I took the twin seater cockpit tub, filled down the consoles, cut away the rear seat area but left the rear floor. Two reasons, first, insurance in case I made a mess of the photo-etch. It's been a while since I'd worked on something this small. Second was that I felt the longer floor would settle in the base better as cockpit slippage seems to a caused a few problems on previous builds.


However in the end my fears were unfounded. The photo-etch built beautifully and the cockpit fitted fine.

I will say one thing though, it's really small, less than 1cm x 1cm and that includes the full width of the side consoles. Yes I knew it was a small aircraft, I knew I'm working with a small scale, but still, it was tiny! However a plus side is that nice bubble canopy really opens up the cockpit compared to many aircraft of the time, so all that detail is going to be on show for a change.

Next up was the tail section, two halves together with a tail wheel assembly at the base. It appears the tail wheel is meant to be moveable but that makes it quite difficult to glue around.

I also found there was a bit of gap at the base. Pushing this together tight seemed to impede the movement of the wheel assembly so I left it. I then filled and filed it while it was dry fitted to the fuselage which ensured the wheel still moved.

As for the wings, they went together as wings should. And there we are, all the main parts assembled,ready to be put together. So far, so good. I'm really enjoying this kit, which is how it should be.

Build Review - Hobby-Boss F9F-2 Panther - Part 1

One of my my objectives for the year had been to build an early Cold War era jet in 1:72 scale. I'd originally expected to build Tamiya's F-84, however this kit from Hobby-Boss caught my eye, especially when I saw it for sale for just £4!

I'd previously only attempted one of Hobby-Boss's Easy Kits and so thought this would be a good time to try a "proper" kit and was pleasantly surprised at what it had to offer. On the sprues the parts looked detailed and sharp and there were two decal options, one Korean War era US Navy aircraft and one later Argentinian Navy option, presumably one that was sold off when the US decided they no longer needed them.

A while ago I'd removed a few parts from the sprue and have to say the sprue layout was not the best. There were several badly placed sprue tabs attached to awkward locations, in some cases attached to the very thinnest parts of the kit. This made the parts fairly difficult to remove without damaging them.

But that aside it was time to get started, and where else, but with the cockpit. In this case I was to enhance it with Eduard's self-adhesive zoom set (SS398). There were some fantastically small but detailed parts but I felt with the bubble top canopy it was worthwhile as most of this would be visible. I have to say the self-adhesive sets haven't been as adhesive as I'd expected them to be. On flat surfaces they will stick, elsewhere I found I needed glue.

Paint wise, I brush painted with my now custom interior green Citadel paint mix.

I'm sure you'll agree, it looks really good, well worth the effort!

Completed Review – Tamiya MiG 21 (61602)

Scale: 1:72, RRP - £3.99

A while back I attempted to build one of Tamiya's largely forgotten series of 1:100 aircraft, in this case a MiG-17 which if I'm honest was a less than impressive build. So as a result I've largely forgotten this series until I saw some for sale at the Shropshire Scale Model Show the other week. As they were selling for £2.99 each I thought I might well give them another go.

The MiG-21 is a fighter I've always found interesting, back from the days when aircraft designers still tried to build aircraft that resembled sci-fi rocket ships and so I was keen to see how this one would build.

Opening up the kit and the parts looked good, to my untrained eye it certainly looked like a MiG-21. There are a choice of 4 markings, (two Soviet, one Polish, one Vietnamese) all in silver, so in reality it's a case of painting it up and then just choosing which decals to apply.

As builds go it was absolutely straight forward as there aren't many parts at this scale. Cockpit detail consists of a seat, which once the canopy is on is all you'll see anyway. Apart from that you have choice of wheels up or down. Unlike the MiG-19 the missile pylons and missiles were much less of a struggle to attach which was a relief

 Paint wise I used a base coat of Tamiya AS-12 (spray) and then masked individual panels and airbrushed them with Tamiya X-11. This was mostly down to the fact that these two colours were only silvers I had! A coat of semi-gloss spray and then on with the decals, I decided to go for the Vietnamese variant.

As it happens I know a bit about this particular aircraft, 4326, it's one of several on display outside the Hanoi Aircraft Defence Museum, it's well known as a "Phantom Killer" and among its pilots it counts Nguyen Van Coc, the highest scoring ace of the war. It is actually a MiG-21PF and because the painting instructions weren't quite accurate I made some changes. I referred to the more accurate painting instructions for Academy's 1:48 MiG-21PF kit, of which this aircraft is one of the options to build.

The changes were, a dark green nose cone, and the fin at the rear (rather than black) and the cockpit colour which I changed to that awful Russian interior turquoise. It a shame there aren't any decals for the kill markings that adorn the nose of this aircraft, I guess this version will have to be an early version!

I really enjoyed this build, it was quick, fairly simple but still, the end result is a model that I think looks really nice when on display. It's now got me looking for one in my preferred 1:72 scale!


Overall Build Score: 3 out of 5, a simple and yet good looking kit that was a breeze to build. Let down only slightly by the lazy painting instructions.

Completed Review – Tamiya MiG 19 (61609)

Scale: 1:72, RRP - £3.99

A quick review of a quick build, Tamiya's 1:100 scale MiG-19 Farmer.

The 1:100 scale was introduced many years ago as a competitor to the well established 1:72 scale. However it never really took off and remains largely forgotten. Outside of Tamiya's small range no other models really come to my mind.

I was only reminded of this scale when I typed an incorrect search into eBay and found this particular kit for sale at 99p. So a few 99p bids later and I had myself a MiG-19, a B.A.C Lightning and an A-7A Corsair II all in this scale. All of these kits date from about 10 years ago when Tamiya re-released the range. Some of the originals, I believe, date back to the 1970's.

I decided to start with the MiG-19, continuing from my previous build a MiG-15. As you'd expect, the kit is simple, there are only 3 steps in the instructions and this particular kit can be completed with only 3 colours. There are options for 3 aircraft, 1 Soviet, 1 East German, 1 Cuban however they're all the same bare metal silver finish with a different set of decals for each one.

Despite the small parts count what there is, is good, and provides a reasonable little model straight out of the box. My main criticism of this kit was the way the missiles are attached to the wing as they were extremely awkward to attach given their size.

I decided to do my MiG in Cuban colours, I've applied many red star decals in recent weeks so felt it was time for a change! Overall it was nice relaxed build (forgetting the missiles...) and I'm certainly going to do more 1:100 scale aircraft in the future.

Overall Build Score: 2 out of 5, a fun but awkward build. Slightly lacking in detail as to be expected given the scale and age of the kit.