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Review Author
Mike Lamm
Published on
Company
Hauler
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$17.00

Hauler produces photo-etched and resin upgrade sets for armored fighting vehicles (AFVs), airplanes, cars, railway vehicles, and dioramas. They also produce a few resin kits. Their products are in most of the common scale sizes, 1/72, 1/48, and 1/35, but they also produce a number of other items in common railroad hobbyist scales.

The kit for this review is a set of sharply cast resin Military Provisions. These military provisions include a number of different items, including a carving knife, 6 sausages, 3 wheels of cheese, 2 wooden buckets, 2 milk cans, 9 bottles, 6 loaves of bread, 3 crates of vegetables, and 2 bags of potatoes. In addition to the individual food items, this resin set includes parts to assemble a wooden wagon for hauling the food to the local farmer’s market.

Review Author
Andrew Birkbeck
Published on
Company
Tamiya
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$56.00

Background

The French military has a proud history of tank design, starting with the grandfather of all modern tanks, the FT-17 during the First World War. This was the first tank to incorporate a gun mounted in a rotating turret. Immediately prior to the start of the Second World War, the French Army fielded a good number of world class tanks such as the Somua S-35 (Tamiya kit 35344). But disaster struck the French, and their massive Army was humiliated when it was outmaneuvered by German forces in May 1940.

Review Author
Dave Morrissette
Published on
Company
Round 2 Models
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$149.95

Round 2 and Polar Lights has begun releasing full resin kits with The Wicked Witch, Kane from Alien and this kit, King Kong Triumphant. All of these kits are made of cold cast resin. This kit represents King Kong after the fight with the T-rex standing triumphantly on top of his beaten opponent. The kit was sculpted by Gabriel Marquez and represents the "long face" Kong from the film as animated by Willis O'Brien.

This kit is packed in perfect Styrofoam packaging with each piece nestling into a hole precut for it. The kit comes with Kong’s main body, his two arms, the base with the dead T-Rex and the dinosaurs left forearm. The kit has minimal to no seams with just a little clean up around the head of the dinosaur and a few in the fur. I prepped the kit using a Dremel with diamond bits and had it ready in no time.

Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$9.00

A feature that you can quickly notice on the Sukhoi Su-15 Flagon-F is the complicated nose pitot tube. Although Trumpeter made a valiant effort in molding the Su-15 TM pitot tube with its twelve separate vanes, the limits of the injection molding process come into play. I have used another set that used a combination of resin and photo-etch that was an improvement, but assembly was very difficult and the photo-etched vanes don’t really convey their 3-D nature. This Master Model set provides a quantum leap over any previous attempt to portray the Su-15 TM nose pitot tube. As a bonus, Master Model also provides the ability to build the slightly less complex Flagon-A nose pitot tube. I have also listed the Trumpeter Su-15 UM Flagon-G above, but I only have conflicting evidence that this set will help that kit. There should be no problem for the wing mounted pitot, but I have seen a variety of nose pitot tubes for the Flagon-G.

Review Author
Ron Verburg
Published on
Company
Round 2 Models
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$19.99

History

The Ford Ranchero is a coupe utility that was produced by Ford between 1957 and 1979. Unlike a pickup truck, the Ranchero was adapted from a two-door station wagon platform that integrated the cab and cargo bed into the body. A total of 508,355 units were produced during the model's production run.

Kit

The kit is produced by Round 2 Models, a well-known company who bought the AMT Line and is re-issuing the kits in very colorful packaging. The box artwork shows a close up of a black 1961 Falcon Ranchero on a classic green background.