For those readers not familiar with this series of publications, they are published by Ampersand Publishing, the firm responsible for the excellent Military Models in Review (MMiR) armor modeling magazine edited by Pat Stansell, one of my favorite magazines. As the title suggests, each issue of Allied-Axis contains a number of photo journal articles covering various aspects of the Second World War. The issue under review today contains three separate articles. For the most part, each page of any given issue is devoted to a single photograph, with an appropriate written caption. Thus the detail contained in each photograph is extremely good, due to its size. For the most part, the clarity of each photograph varies from good to superb, depending on the quality of the original print used. The Journal paper quality utilized is also very good.
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.
The 1/35 scale CMP F15A Van Lorry by Mirror Models is a challenging build due to lack of clarity in part locations, but experienced modelers can build it into a nicely detailed model.
The kit comes nicely packed in a cardboard box, and each of the gray plastic sprues are individually bagged. On first glance there are many very small parts, and the detail of the molding is good. The parts have very large gateways, or sprue connections, for attaching the part to the sprue. The instructions noted that some of the gates are larger to avoid ejector pin marks, and suggests using a razor saw or scalpel instead of a sprue cutter to remove the parts. The sprue connections are wide but thin, and I didn’t break any of the parts removing when removing them from the sprue.
Set 3 of the Eduard Photo etch set for the Revell U-505 submarine in 1/72 scale consists of detail for the hull. I’m not a “PE guy” but as with Part 2 of the Eduard sets, when asked, I accepted the challenge since I had the opportunity to build the sub.
This set consists of one sheet of brass. Although the instructions do not show any removal of kit parts needed to install this set, I found that they adhere much better is you carefully remove the detail of the kit before gluing on the PE. It mostly consists of removing rivet detail.
I cut the parts from the fret with a sharp #11 blade and sanded them smooth with a sanding stick. The instructions are clear and the parts fit perfectly. This would be a great “first try” at using photo etch if you haven’t done so before.
My thanks to IPMS/USA and to Eduard for the opportunity to review this subject.
This is the Scale Aircraft Conversion (SAC) replacement landing gear set for the new tool Airfix EE Lightning kits and I must say that it is a very nice set. I took pictures of the kit parts and SAC parts side by side and as you can see they are pretty well detailed. You do have a little cleaning up to do because of mold seams but this is true with the kit parts also. Having built one of these already, it will be nice to have the metal nose gear for a little extra strength (due to the weight in the nose) on my next one.
The detail on the parts is pretty good and should look very nice after painting. One thing to watch out for is that one of my pieces was a bent a little and had to be straightened out but really was not difficult to do. I highly recommend this set for anyone that is building those kits.
Thanks go to Scale Aircraft Conversions for supplying this for review, IPMS for letting me do the review and all of you for reading it.
Let me first start off by saying this is not my normal scale for figures. I have been building 1/72nd and wargame scale figures for a short time and even some larger Super Hero kits but these are the first guys in 1/35th scale I have completed since a poorly painted 25 lber crew I did some 30 years ago, so please be gentle on any comments about the paint jobs. Thank-you.
OK, what comes in the box? Well, when I read WWII US Truck Crew I am thinking some guys for a Duece and a half but the artwork on the cover shows them sitting in a Jeep (oops, can I say that) and that would be the ideal vehicle for this set.
The first thing that struck me was the really relaxed poses. These guys look like they could be in a vehicle at rest or moving sedately down a nice dirt road, behind the lines.