Being primarily an armor modeler, I was interested in this kit after seeing a fellow modeler’s build on the web. After all, it has tracks, doesn’t it?

The kit is, in a word, miniscule…really. I was a little surprised that, for a 1/32 kit, it was so small. Don’t let size fool you though, Fujimi has provided a little gem here. The kit features only three small sprues; two molded in bright yellow styrene that make up the excavator itself, and one molded in white styrene containing 13 parts that provide some general construction site supplies – wheelbarrow, cones, etc. No decals or markings of any kind are included in the kit, an unfortunate drawback in my opinion.

The mere 60 parts are crisply molded and required little, if any, clean up. A few parts may require a quick pass from a #11 blade to remove some minor mold seam, but that’s it.

The P-38 Lightning was used in both European and Pacific theaters during World War II. It operated from paved strips as well as fields barely straight enough to throw rocks at. If there was one critical part of the aircraft on which the pilot placed his life during takeoffs and landings, it was the tires.

Ultracast, located north of the border in Canada, offers quite a few accessories for many different modeling subjects. This offering, #48227, is a block tire tread design replacement for any 1/48 scale P-38 kit. The package contains three spoked wheels, two main and one nose. All are cast in a tan resin, and have the pour gate still attached at the flattened bottom of the tire. A razor saw removed the gates quickly, and painting was the next step.

History:

The Rumpler C.IV was one of the outstanding high altitude reconnaissance aircraft of World War I, and it was produced in substantial numbers during 1917 and 1918. Preceded by the C.1 and C.III biplanes, the C.IV had excellent performance, and it could fly higher than most Allied fighters of the time. In addition, it was able to outrun some of them in a shallow dive, making these aircraft extremely popular with their crews. They served throughout the remainder of the war, and a few survived to be used as civilian airplanes in the immediate postwar period.

The Book: