MiniArt has been moving full steam ahead on providing diorama modelers with the kind of details that simply weren’t available some years ago without resorting to expensive resin short runs. This set of household crockery and glass is an excellent example.

What you get in the box is a tiny clump of REALLY small sprues, which sort of niggled me at first until I actually started working on it. These tiny sprues offer a LOT of final product.

Prepping these items was much easier than their small size would lead you to believe. First off, there’s very little painting required. Even the opaque items are cast in a while plastic that looks remarkably like ceramic.

Recently I was given the opportunity by IPMS USA to review Scale Aircraft Conversions

adaption of the Mirage F.1 landing gear in white metal for the 1/72 Special Hobby kit. The set contains two main landing gear legs, a nose gear leg and two additional struts. Overall this is highly recommended for stronger landing gear, ability to adjust the white metal to where you need it, and added detail. This is a great addition to the Special Hobby kit. I would like to thank Scale Aircraft Conversions for another great offering in metal landing gear and IPMS USA for the opportunity to review this item.

Quickboost has produced a replacement prop for the Trumpeter and ICM 1/48 scale Mig-3 kits. The resin replacement is a simple drop-in for the kit’s plastic parts. The supplied items include a separately cast spinner, post and blades with a cast resin assembly tool for inserting the blades at a consistent pitch. There is no modification required to the kit to use this prop assembly.

A side by side evaluation (see photos) and shots of my completed Trumpeter Mig-3 “Early” indicates a replacement of superior detail that will provide a more accurate and “crisp” blade representation of a Mig-3 propeller. The kit parts have the brown spinner cap, and the Quickboost prop assembly spinner is gray. Note, however that using the tool will cause the prop blades to be installed at the incorrect rotation pitch. My web research found that Mig-3 props rotated clockwise (when viewed from the front of the aircraft), as depicted in the kit’s propeller assembly.