Helion is a UK-based company that produces books on many aspects of Military History from the Late Medieval period through the present day. Helion was established in 1996 by University of Warwick graduate Duncan Rogers. Since then, they have published over 1,200 books, with 100 or more new titles coming out every year for readers around the world.

Dmitry Zubkov from Russia, a banker with 25 years of experience, has a lifelong interest in the subject of military history and has written several books and articles in Russian on a variety of related subjects. His area of interest is the little-studied issue of Soviet arms exports during the Cold War, especially warships. His studies of little-known details of the warships’ careers, the warships’ influence on the buildup of the recipient navies, and the experiences of their crews.

The directions are all in Korean, and if it weren’t for the excellent drawings, I would never have been able to build this kit.

There was very little, if any, flash on the parts and some of the parts are very small. All the parts fit together very well making for easy assembly.

The building is molded in white plastic, so I masked off the lower portions of the building and then painted the exterior with Rustoleum texture paint. The base was painted flat black while the curb was painted gloss yellow.

I sanded the kit's front sign and added a piece of flat Styrene that was painted white and then added my decal and some paint stripes.

I’ll probably use this storefront as a backdrop for completed model cars.

I’d like to thank IPMS and MRC for the opportunity to build the kit.

What’s in the Package

This conversion for the Border Models 1/35 Scale Spitfire Mk. Vb is presented in a rigid cardboard-backed blister pack with generic Scale Aircraft Conversions packaging and labels on the front and back of the packaging indicating the item details and MPN, as well as the UPC on the barcode label on the rear.

The parts replace the plastic parts provided for wheel assembly in steps 8 (K3) and 13 (S1 & S2). The wheels are still required, and there is a separate sub-assembly in the Border Models kit Step 13 (R1 & R2) and part E20 for the rear wheel. Overall, the molding is good, with superior detail on the white metal parts to a greater extent than that of the kit provided parts.

The parts maintained good adhesion with Alclad Black primer and micro filler, which will allow a nice base for the final paint coat.