Eduard continues its “full meal deal kits” this time with Accurate Miniatures 1/48^th scale SBD-5. For those who haven’t seen them, Eduard takes a very good kit, adds resin, photoetch and masks and bundles it into one solid kit. Let’s look at the contents. First, the highly detailed Accurate Miniatures SBD-5 kit. The full kit is here with all the parts including optional position canopies, nice engine detail and wonderful engraved detail. There was the barest flash present on a couple parts only. The resin parts for this include the tires which have two optional outer hubs, a tail wheel and parts for the gun. The decals are from Cartograf and have five excellent options. Markings are provided for the following:

Ross at SAC just keeps cranking these things out. THANKS VERY MUCH for sending IPMS USA another of your expansive line of metal landing gear, and thanks also to IPMS USA leadership for sending it on to me to review.

This is the now-expected, much improved upgrade to the kit plastic. The real SU-24 has a complex landing gear which is, per Russian standard, designed to allow the aircraft to operate from less-than-optimal runways. Trumpeter has done a great job in emulating their design engineering, but due to the limitations of injection molding, has turned the already complex gear into a more complex assembly. The main gear consists of one core (either metal or plastic, builder’s choice), two strut halves, two gear swing arm halves with axles, and detail parts and struts. To their credit, they include metal gear in the basic kit, which, when complete, does a great job of holding up this large aircraft (It’s the size of an F-111… that’s pretty big for a figher bomber).

TanModels is a new company from Turkey and I believe this is their first model in 1/48 scale. They choose the RF-84 as the subject for their first boxing, an airplane often overlooked but that has a proud service history with several NATO air forces, which means many options for camouflage and decals.

Before opening the box you will find “Remove before construction” red stickers (keeping the box closed), which make for a fun experience. As soon as you open the box you find yourself looking at several sprues of very cleanly molded parts, with no flash anywhere to be found.

Ross at SAC just keeps cranking these thinks out… THANKS VERY MUCH for sending IPMS USA another of your expansive line of metal landing gear, and thanks also to IPMS USA leadership for sending it on to me to review….

This is the now-expected, much improved upgrade to the kit plastic. Consisting of 15 metal parts directly replacing the kit items, they are an easy addition to improve the longevity of your kits as they sit on display…

With the T-28, like their 1/48 counterparts, the nose gear is particularly vulnerable to damage; it is not a fork-mounted axle, but an offset arm, and this weakness usually results in strut sag/failure within a year on bigger models. …

Not much to say on this one; I glued everything together and installed on the mostly-finished airframe in about 30 minutes. The gear worked as advertised, and after adding some VERY tiny SAC details which were included for the set, it looked good and was very strong.

First up, a "Heavy duty" THANK YOU to the Furball Aero Design team for this Mask set, and thanks also to IPMS USA leadership for sending it to me to use and review…. As always we appreciate the generous support of our smaller companies who provide us great things we never knew we needed or could use, but now find harder to do without!

Masking of canopies before airbrushing is one thing I still do the hard way; apply tape, burnish down with a toothpick, and cut around the canopy. Either kabuki paper tape or Scotch magic frosted tape have been my standard mask for years. I have tried masks from vinyl from other companies, and have had limited success, mostly because they tend to be in flexible, too stiff, aggressively stick to the plastic when I don't want, and don't when I do, or just don't fit. You know…