Welcome to IPMS/USA Reviews

Introduction: The primary organization of the IPMS/USA Review website is by IPMS/USA National Contest Class. Within each Class there are sub-menus by kits, decals, books, etc. The Miscellaneous Class is for items that are not class specific or that cross two or more classes.

IPMS/USA Members: We encourage you to submit reviews, both here and to the Journal. To volunteer for membership in the IPMS/USA "Reviewers Corps" and submit your own reviews, please read the Guidelines For Submitting Product Reviews.

Manufacturers, publishers, and other industry members: IPMS/USA is pleased to offer your company the opportunity for product reviews. All product reviews are performed by IPMS/USA members, and are posted in the publicly-accessible section of our website. With very few exceptions, we perform full build reviews of new kit releases, aftermarket products, and supplies. If you would care to provide product samples for review, please contact John Noack, IPMS/USA 1st VP.

To learn more about IPMS/USA, please see our About Us page.

Review Author
Chris Vandegrift
Published on
Company
Scale Aircraft Conversions
Scale
1:48
MSRP
$18.99

This accessory kit contains three direct replacement pieces for the Monogram Catalina kit. There’s one piece of the breaching gear that isn’t included with the kit. That is the strut for the rear tail wheels. You will have to use the kit part for this.

The level of detail is nice and representative for a 1/48 scale kit. The gear itself in real life is relatively simple, meant to be attached in the water. There was a little bit of cleanup to be done and two pieces of long, thin flash from the molding process had to be cut off.

General flash on the parts was minimal and they cleaned up easily. I didn’t note that the tail wheel support was extremely soft until after I started working on it. Just scraping flash off with the #11 Blade caused it to bend.

Review Author
Pat Villarreal
Published on
Company
Scale Aircraft Conversions
Scale
1:48
MSRP
$20.00

Scale Aircraft Conversions (SAC) has provided the IPMS reviewer corps a set of 1/48th scale metal landing gear for the Academy F4F-3/4 Wildcat. These parts are drop-in replacements and provide a more robust landing gear set given its metal properties.

In the Package

The metal pieces are packed in a clear blister package with cardboard backing. No instructions are provided.

The metal landing gear set is used as drop-in replacements for parts B4, B17, B23, B33, and B50 and can be referenced in the instructions on step 2.

The metal used is malleable and has some give to allow for any minor bending if needed. Also, seam lines will need to be cleaned up prior to painting just like the plastic kit parts.

Review Author
Pat Villarreal
Published on
Company
Scale Aircraft Conversions
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$17.00

Scale Aircraft Conversions (SAC) has provided the IPMS reviewer corps a set of 1/48th scale metal landing gear for Clear Props F-86A Sabre. These parts are drop-in replacements and provide a more robust landing gear set given its metal properties.

In the Package

The metal pieces are packed in a clear blister package with cardboard backing. No instructions are provided.

However, my review sample did not come with the nose landing gear and came with an extra RHS strut, part H19 (a quality control slip).

The metal landing gear set is used as drop-in replacements for parts H19 & H15 (RHS & LHS struts) and the K2 oleo arms are molded with the strut. The nose strut, part K22, was missing from my sample review, but it too should have the oleo arms, part K27, molded with the strut. Also, the nose gear extension arm, part K9, is included.

Review Author
Chris Vandegrift
Published on
Company
Reskit
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$74.99

ResKit has obviously spent some time designing their packaging to make a visual impact both from the outside of the box and then when opening it. The parts are capped on top and bottom with foam and each resin print has a cage around it in addition to major pieces also being in small plastic baggies. I assume the baggies are to catch any parts that might inadvertently come off during shipping. All the parts are finely detailed, and the only place I could find layer lines was on the very ends of the cargo platform, and they barely showed up under primer. It took me roughly 2 hours to detach all the parts from the print supports. The main cargo bed was definitely tricky to detach. I worked from the outside, meaning the longest supports, to the inside one layer at a time. I was able to cut the lower base plate in between the layers of supports. By doing that I was able to pry the layer up and twist it off without any damage to the cargo bed.

Book Author(s)
Dick Taylor and Andy Brend
Review Author
Bill O'Malley
Published on
Company
Mushroom Model Publications - MMP Books
MSRP
$49.00

Real Weathering Volume 2 is a reference book with photos of military vehicles showing various conditions of wear and exposure to different environmental conditions. This volume features military armor and land vehicles. The book is the second in a series and is intended for military modelers who want to weather their scale models to better replicate actual vehicles.

The book is not an instruction manual that describes how to model the effects shown in the photos. The value in this book shows examples of vehicles that can be used by the modeler to replicate various effects on actual vehicles. The photos are large and many are zoomed in on particular details.

The only text in the book is in the Introduction and captions on some photos in the Introduction. The main chapters of the book are strictly photographs with no descriptions and are as follows:.