Dioramas Plus was founded in 2008 and has been producing 1/35 bases and buildings for the diorama builder. These products are plaster cast and quite robust. When the box arrived I could tell that just walking it up my driveway tired the mailman out it was so heavy (OK, so maybe I exaggerate). Upon opening the box I found the content wrapped carefully in bubble wrap and an examination of the parts revealed no broken bits. You get 4 main cast pieces consisting of the walls and the street base; a thin wood laser cut sheet with window frames and a door, a clear sheet with holes and jagged edges for the window glass and a bag of loose bricks as well as some large debris piles cast as one piece. I was extremely impressed with the quality of the castings – the relief and detail is excellent and the damage convincing.
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I was just getting to the paint job on my review of the Zvezda Mi-24V. I had already painted the sand color when the postman delivered a package which saved me hours of work and possibly saved my sanity also. The Eduard mask set is a really great time and labor saving addition to the project.
If you look at the mask layout, it becomes evident that there are only a couple of straight lines anywhere on the mask. The Hind’s canopies have a number of compound curves and squiggles, and masking these, even with Tamiya tape cut into ½ mm slices would be a difficult job.
The masks went on very nicely. I used tape instead of the liquid mask Eduard suggests, but the masks followed every curve in the canopy lines nicely. A quick shot with the airbrush, and the canopy was painted.
The wheel masks were also quite good, although I had to make a small cut in the main wheel outer mask as the Hind’s wheel is not perfectly flat.
The Helicopter
The Mi-24 has been in service with the Soviet/Russian air forces since 1972. The design is interesting in that it has three engines; another tri-motor to add to the list. The 24 has undergone a number of redesigns, and the early versions had a much different cockpit setup. The Russian Air Force has announced that it will replace its 250 Mi-24s with newer more capable helicopters, starting in 2015.
The Mi-24 is nicknamed “crocodile” by the troops. The Mujahedeen in Afghanistan called it "Shaitan-Arba" (Satan's Chariot)". The Hind is unique in that it can carry 8 troops and weapons at the same time. Huey gunships had to have the seats removed to allow for ammunition and extra fuel storage. The crews didn’t think much of carrying the passengers, as they became a liability if the pilot had to do extreme maneuvers and return fire.
Bottom Line
The kit was well engineered, but I thought it had a few too many parts. Short shots with the canopy frame and propellers were an unwelcomed surprise. It had great detail on the whole aircraft, including panel lines. Engines and gun bay were probably overdone as when complete, you can not see all the work you put into them. But it was a great kit to build and very enjoyable because of superb engineering.
Quickboost just keeps adding to their line of resin aircraft accessories. The latest addition is for the ESCI/Italeri AC-47 Gunship. It is up to their usual standards; molded in grey resin, smooth, seamless and bubble free. One thing of note is that they are really easy to remove from the mold block because of a nice perforation. It only took me a couple of swipes with my saw blade to remove them.
The barrels on the ESCI kit part look alright and would make an acceptable model but the Quickboost replacements are superior because of the high level of detail. All that is needed is to cut the kit parts barrel off and glue the Quickboost piece into place.
I highly recommend this product if you want a really superior looking model. Usually replacement parts need some work to get them installed properly but these parts go into place nicely. Thanks to Quickboost and IPMS USA for the chance to do this review.