Ben Guenther
Reviews By Author
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'48 Ford WoodyPublished:
Revell has been kind to auto modelers in re-releasing past Monogram car kits that have been out of production. This time the reissue is of the ’48 Ford Woody with Monogram’s name on the box top and on the instruction sheet. With 127 parts molded in white plastic, clear plastic and a sprue of chromed parts you can only assembly a stock Woody. You’ll use all the parts with none left over, except for a few decals. The instruction sheet comes with twelve steps. The first four deal with making the engine and frame including all the suspension items. All the parts went together fine, but there are several things you’ll need to know that will help you build your Woody: In Step 1, the oil filter has an open back and needs to be filled. In Step 2, you have a choice either a) you can glue… more |
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MiniArt Street Accessories SetPublished:
MiniArt Models, your favorite Ukrainian diorama manufacturer, has come out with an accessory kit for their street dioramas, cleverly called Street Accessories, #35530. 44 injected plastic parts are provided on four sprues that will build into two benches, four manhole covers, four grates, a 5 inch section of metal fencing and support poles. In addition, there are four short pieces that look like chess pawns but may be hitching posts or barriers of some sort. The instructions are on the bottom of the box and the only color choice provided is on the box top, but truly you’ll use your imagination to paint and finish these parts to your liking anyway. One nice thing, these parts are not really dated by their design, so could be present from the turn of the 20th century till the mid-50 at… more |
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P-47 Thunderbolt .50 Browning M2 BarrelsPublished:
Master Model of Poland has come out with brass barrels in 1/72 scale for the P-47 Thunderbolt. This is the second issue in the Air Master 72 series and a handy one it is! These brass barrels are small at only .0315” in diameter and .4055” in length, yet each front end is drilled out to a depth of .020”. One simply has to cut off the original plastic barrel, drill a hole using a #67 drill (.0320”) and insert the brass barrel and use cyanoacrylate adhesive to bond it in. The instruction sheet provides a drawing to help in getting the length of the protruding barrel correct. I took out my Tamiya P-47 Thunderbolt kit and tried these barrels out on one set of wing guns. Drilled out and inserted one barrel at a time and I had no problems (see photos). I can highly recommend this P-47… more |
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Browning M2 Aircraft .50 caliber barrels (2pcs)Published:
I think most of us realize that if we want more detail we will often find it in resin sets, and if we really want the best barrels we’ll find them made for of us out of brass. The Polish company, Master Model, has been producing excellent brass barrels in 1/32 and 1/48 scales for the aircraft modeler and 1/700 and 1/350 brass barrels for the ship modelers. Recently, they have started a line in 1/72 scale and the first product is one that everyone can use – Browning M2 aircraft .50 caliber barrels. Just think of all the Allied aircraft that mounted the M2 .50 caliber machine gun and you can see how popular this could be. Now I’m going to give you some dimensions just to drive home the point of how small these barrels are. The barrels overall length (shaft included) is .5020”,… more |
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Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf H Late Production with ZimmeritPublished:
Dragon certainly has produced a lot of Panzer IV kits and this latest one comes with some parts with Zimmerit on them, so you don’t have to apply it. This kit, other than the new Zimmerit parts, is a duplicate of their earlier kit no. 6300 (May 2009) of the Panzer IV Ausf H late production. Dragon also has supplied DS tracks rather than a set of “magic tracks”. We’ll see during the build how this works out. In the Dragon fashion we have at least 23 sprues (two of which come from their Brummbar kit) and as the box top states “over 520 parts”. I did not count the total parts, but just the parts marked "not for use" came to 158. I used about 200 parts on this model, so your spare parts box will have a large addition. As is Dragons custom, the instructions have many cases where you… more |
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Spitfire Mk.IX Engine Cover with RadiatorPublished:
Quickboost is striving mightily to make enough sets for a modeler to make a perfect Spitfire Mk.IX, if that is possible. The latest by their own definition is a 1/72 scale engine cover with radiator. What you actually have is the lower engine cover with carburetor intake. The part is perfectly cast in Quickboost fine grain resin and it only took me a few minutes using a razor saw, snips and a sanding block to remove the casting gate. I took down my Hasegawa kit #AP42, 1/72 Spitfire Mk.IX as Quickboost says the recommended kit is Hasegawa. The instructions states that this cast part “replace(s) kit part #F1 + F2.” Well, I beg to differ. If you look a photo 2, you’ll see the Quickboost part next to the lower engine cover/carburetor intake made from sprue E and the resin part is a… more |