Keenan Chittester
Reviews By Author
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MiG-21F-13 FishbedPublished:
The MiG-21F-13 was one of the early variants of the MiG-21 series, and as far as I know this is the first injection-molded kit of the aircraft in 1/48 scale. The kit comes in an appropriately sized box with some nice artwork on the cover. Inside the box, there are 9 sprues of cleanly molded medium grey parts, four of which are dedicated to underwing and under fuselage stores. Most of the major parts have their sprue attachment points molded on the mating surface, rather than on the edge of the part, which means that you don’t have those ugly sprue attachment areas to deal with when cleaning up the seams. I thought that was a nice touch and I hope that other manufacturers will start molding their kits in the same way. The panel lines are recessed and nicely done, and the rivet detail is… more |
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PZL.23B KarasPublished:
The kit comes in an attractive box with a profile of one of the marking options on the box top. This is a special limited edition and includes a very nice gold colored coin that is packed separately in a fancy red box similar to what you would get a piece of jewelry in. I am not sure what the parts count is, but I'm sure there are well over one hundred parts. The parts are molded in a medium blue-grey color and they have a slightly rough texture. The plastic is a little on the soft side, so care must be taken when sanding and cutting. There is a small photo etch fret with seatbelts and other detail parts. I did not use all of the PE parts because some of them were so thin that they came apart when I cut them from the fret. There is also a small bag of resin parts comprising oxygen… more |
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Breda Safat 7.7mm Machine Gun BarrelsPublished:
If you are not familiar with the Master Model name, you need to be. They are a Polish company that produces wonderful brass detail parts that have to be seen to be believed. This particular set contains two Breda 7.7mm machine guns that are made up of a gun barrel and a cooling jacket. The detail is exquisite, and the jacket fits snugly over the barrel. This type of machine gun was used in early WWII Italian aircraft. My example was sent to me in an envelope with a piece of paper folded around it. Unfortunately the cooling jackets were flattened, and I spent some time trying to get the openings back to a round shape. I used a small drill bit and a pair of tweezers to achieve this, which may not have been the best way to do it. In the process, I damaged one of the cooling jackets… more |
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Hobby Boss F6F Hellcat Landing GearPublished:
This set from Scale Aircraft Conversions is designed for the new 1/48 F6F Hellcat kits from Hobby Boss. There are nine beautifully cast metal parts in the set, and the quality is an improvement over the kit parts. Not that the kit parts are bad, but these SAC parts are very nicely done. As usual, there are no instructions provided, but since the metal parts are direct replacements for the plastic parts, it should be no problem for the average modeler to figure out where everything goes. As you probably already know, cyanoacrylate (CA) glue must be used on these parts. There are very slight mold seams on the metal parts which will require cleanup, but you would have to do that with the kit parts anyway. I test fitted the main gear leg in the hole provided in the upper wing of the… more |
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Bf-109F Landing GearPublished:
Scale Aircraft Conversions continues to crank out metal landing gear for a lot of recent kits. One of their latest offerings is this set for the impressive 1/48 Zvezda Bf-109F kit. The SAC set contains both main gear with separate oleo scissors, and also a new tailwheel. The tailwheel appears to be slightly smaller in diameter than the kit part; otherwise, there doesn’t appear to be any difference. The SAC gear legs and oleo parts are very well molded, but so are the Zvezda kit parts. As you can see from the accompanying photos, there is very little difference in detail and crispness of detail. It looks like the mold seam on the metal gear is not quite as pronounced as on the kit part, so cleanup should be a little easier. I did not have the opportunity to check the fit of the… more |
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Netherland Navy Tracker and Oxford DecalsPublished:
Dutch Decal has released this decal sheet in 1/48 scale to coincide with their excellent book on the Grumman Tracker used by the Royal Netherlands Navy. The sheet also gives modelers a chance to do something a little different with their Kinetic S-2 kit. There is also an option provided on the sheet for a single Airspeed Oxford, which the Royal Netherlands Navy used in 1947. Special Hobby has recently released a kit of the Oxford in 1/48, so now I suppose I will have to buy one of those. There are two sheets, with one composed almost entirely of numbers in black and white. This should enable the modeler to do just about any of the 45 Trackers that were used by the MLD. However, there is only one set of national insignia provided, so you will only be able to do one of the… more |
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Grumman Tracker In Service of the Royal Neth. Naval Air ServicePublished:
Having recently acquired one of the Kinetic 1/48 Grumman S-2 Tracker kits, I was intrigued when I saw this book and the corresponding decal sheet offered for review. I was previously unaware that the Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service, or Marineluchtvaartdienst (MLD), had used the Stoof. This excellent 52-page publication combines dozens of photographs along with text in both Dutch and English to tell the history of the S-2 in the MLD. The first half of the book contains the Dutch text and the second half contains the English. The English translation is very well done. There were none of the awkward translations that you sometimes find in publications that have been converted into English from another language. The pictures scattered throughout the book each have Dutch and… more |
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Hawker Hunter Landing GearPublished:
Unlike a lot of the white metal landing gear sets produced by Scale Aircraft Conversions, this is more than just a straight replacement for the landing gear provided in the Academy/Italeri Hawker Hunter kits. This set corrects a couple of errors in the kit; namely, the undersized main wheels and the length of the main gear legs. Among the 16 parts, you are also provided with a much more detailed nose wheel, and the detail on many of the other parts is superior to that of the plastic parts. The oleo scissors are also provided as one piece, rather than the two-piece affair provided in the kit. The one-piece unit should therefore be much easier to install, especially for someone like me who is all thumbs. There is a slight mold seam on the parts which will require some cleanup, but… more |
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Focke-Wulf Ta-152C1/R14Published:
This kit uses the good old Trimaster molds with some new plastic providing the correct wings, the torpedo and a few other parts necessary to make a Ta-152C. There are three small photo etch frets that contain various detail parts. Two styles of canopy are also provided. There are separate parts provided for open or closed cowl flaps. The decals, clear parts and photo etch parts are all attached to a printed piece of heavy paper to keep them from jostling around in the box and getting damaged. The kit is molded in light grey styrene, with the older parts in a shinier plastic than the new parts. The older parts are starting to show some signs of mold wear, but they are still very nice. The older parts were also more brittle than the newer parts. I actually took a chip out of one of the… more |
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Bf-109 V-13 Dübendorf ConversionPublished:
This conversion is designed to be used with the excellent Eduard Bf-109E-1/E-3 kit. I chose to use the Weekend Edition E-1 kit. The conversion set comes securely packed in an attractive box. The twenty resin parts are in one small zip-lock bag, while the three small decal sheets are in another zip-lock bag. The instructions are printed on two sides of an 8.5” x 11” sheet. There is one picture of the actual aircraft on the front, and a three view drawing on the back showing decal placement, along with painting instructions. There is a brief history of the type, along with some basic instructions on dealing with the resin pieces. The instructions are strictly of the narrative type, but are well written and fairly easy to follow. I did manage to find a decent picture of the V-13… more |