The Kitty Hawk AH-1Z was ready for decals.

So, on to WW Decals 48-08. One word of caution; decide which aircraft you want to model BEFORE you paint! Floyd gives you eight different choices of aircraft, and there is something different about the color demarcation lines or non-skid paint or patches of other color paint on each aircraft. I didn’t have that forethought, so the end result was there was one aircraft that I could depict, and that was NO. 41 of HMM-268 (REIN). The sheet also contains two sets of common markings.

The Kit

Upon opening the box you are presented with 4 sprues of grey and 1 sprue of clear plastic, a sheet of decals, an 8 page instruction fold out and a 4 page color & markings guide. The plastic is nicely molded with fine recessed lines, no flash and just a few pin marks. The clear parts a thin and very clear. The decals are in register and look very nice.

This masking set is designed for Eduard’s L-39 Albatros kits and includes masks for all three sections of the canopy and for the main gear tires. As with all of Eduard’s mask sets, the fit of the masks is excellent as long as you take a little time to line them up.

For the main canopy sections, the set provides masks for the outlines of the canopy frames. and the instructions tell you to fill in the rest with liquid mask. As there is a lot of extra material on the mask set outside of the pieces to be used, I instead cut small pieces from the extra tape and used it to fill in the rest of the canopies. On interesting inclusion are masks for the clear divider section that goes between the cockpits. I did not use it as I left this piece out until final construction of the kit. I’m not sure how I would have gotten the mask off if I had used it and installed the part prior to painting.

Dragon continues to expand its “Modern Sea Power” Series, this time with the introduction of the 1/350 Zerstorer Class 1936A, with a twin 150 mm turrets.

Upon opening the box you find 18 sprues, plus two small photoetch frets and decals. There is a total of over 550 parts on this kit.

The parts are finely molded, with virtually no flash anywhere. I’ve only was able to spot a bit of flash in one sprue, around the propellers. Slide mold technology was used extensively in the kit minimizing seams and allowing multiple pieces (bridge, hull) to be molded in a single piece. It should be noted it the hull is packed with a small protector to protect the sharp bow from being damaged.

This is another of those Brengun kits that is SO useful when doing a diorama. In this case, the diorama is a USN aircraft carrier deck, and the kit is the MD-3 tow tractor. Actually, the kit is TWO MD-3 tow tractors. Better value for the money.

While I was looking up the catalog reference for this kit, I found another useful item in the Brengun accessories catalog. How about a tow bar for this tractor? It’s item number BRL144115, $6.05.

The Kit

You get two of all the parts. There are two sets of resin parts to make two tractors. Also, the PE fret has all the (tiny) parts you need to make two tractors. The decal sheet has enough decals to make two tractors, as long as you don’t want the black warning stripes for the bumpers on the second kit.

All of the resin parts are nicely molded, without bubbles or excessive flash. The PE parts were nicely set up, with almost no trimming required on any of the parts.