Welcome to the IPMS/USA Reviews site!

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
Matthew Cottrell
Published on
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$7.00

Over the past few years, Master has established itself as a quality provider of turned-metal aftermarket details for ships, armor, and aircraft. Their latest set of new releases cover the F6F Hellcat, providing welcome metal details for three variants in three major scales. The detail set under review today covers the F6F Hellcat Night Fighters’ armament configurations in 1/72 scale.

Review Author
Matthew Cottrell
Published on
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$4.00

Over the past few years, Master has established itself as a quality provider of turned-metal aftermarket details for ships, armor, and aircraft. Their latest set of new releases cover the F6F Hellcat, providing welcome metal details for three variants in three major scales. The detail set under review today covers the F6F-5 Hellcat’s late armament configuration, six covered .50 cal Browning barrels, in 1/72 scale.

Review Author
Tim Hortman
Published on
Company
Revell
Scale
1/25
MSRP
$19.95

General Motors brought back the Camaro in 2010, and in 2012 came out with the ZL1 version. The ZL1 features a more powerful 6.2L 580hp LSA V-8 engine and for many, is the flagship Camaro on the market today.

The kit itself comes with a pre-finished body, and 48 parts. It’s listed as a “skill level 3” kit and comes in an attractive box that shows the color of the car. My review sample was red, but I have seen black versions as well.

Parts are packaged very well with the pre-finished body held in place with a plastic strip, and the chrome wheels packaged in their own container. The clear sprue and the red tail light sprue are packed in their own bags, as are the side mirrors and tires.

The kit’s clear parts come attached the body, so there is little chance they are going to get marked up. A nice touch is the black outlines along all of the clear parts.

Parts are molded in black, and a metallic grey and the external body parts are pre-painted.

Review Author
Eric Christianson
Published on
Company
Academy Models
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$44.99

Summary

Academy apparently has teamed with Italeri to produce one of the first ‘Calliope Shermans’ to appear in some time. The M4A3 vehicle is produced by Academy, while the T-34 multiple rocket launcher looks like it is from Italeri, based on sprue shots of the rocket launcher parts. As with all of their AFV kits, Academy provides the builder with good value based on fewer parts without sacrificing a lot of detail.

Review Author
Dave Morrissette
Published on
Company
Scale Aircraft Modelling
MSRP
$6.87

Scale Aircraft Modelling's October 2015 issue comes with a gorgeous picture of a Wolfpacks 1/72 T-2 Buckeye in trainer markings. For me, that sets the tone for a great issue as I love the color scheme.

And that is how this issue starts with Karl Robinsons’ build of the beautiful 1/72 scale T-2 in the US Navy training scheme. He is well impressed with the kit and only notes small issues with fitting the intakes and flaps which are easily corrected.

Roden’s 1/144 kit of Bristol’s Type 175 Britannia is built by Andy McCabe. He builds it in BOAC markings and it looks wonderful for what he considers a “quick build”.

Mike Verier writes an excellent article on Gunships, highlighting the Roden 1/144 AC-47 Spooky. Not only does the article have an excellent build of the kit in which he scratch builds bulkheads and interior detail, but he follows it with an article detailing Roden 1/144 AC-119K and more info on other gunships.