Ron Bell
Reviews By Author
HMS Warspite, 1915Published: May 4, 2013 The HMS Warspite was one of the Queen Elizabeth class dreadnaughts launched during the First World War. These were the state of the art battleships of the time and the general soundness of their design shows in the fact that the last of them was not disposed of until the 1950's! They went through many refits that changed their appearance quite a bit over the years. The WWII Warspite has been… more |
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Replacement British Naval Gunbarrels, 16", 6", and 4.7"Published: March 24, 2013
Master Models is a company in Poland that must employ elves, incredibly small tool and die makers, and/or people with exceptional eyesight. They make replacement gun barrels for aircraft and ship models out of brass, and some of these are… more |
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Four Stroke EnginePublished: March 19, 2013 Airfix is releasing all sorts of interesting/strange subjects in their current burst of productivity and this is one of them. It's an old kit that originally dates from 1972, at one point was motorized, and is now billed as part of their Museum Collection. I selected it thinking it would be a fun diversion from my more "intense" projects. Wrong. This is not a simple build. You need to pay… more |
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HMS Sheffield Type 43 Destroyer Batch 1Published: February 12, 2013 This is a re-boxing of Dragon kit #7071 that has already been reviewed by Rod Lees. For photos of the kits parts, you can find that review in the Archives section. I will confine myself to sharing my impressions of this kit. First off, you have to decide what ship you are building, as there are parts for around four different ships and some surgery is required on some kit parts in some… more |
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British Matador TruckPublished: December 26, 2012 Zvezda is one of the myriad of injection molding companies that emerged in Eastern Europe after the Soviet block fell apart. At first, they used old, re-cycled molds from other companies such as Frog, etc, but now they are doing their own molding and, at least in this instance, doing it very well. A couple of years ago, Italeri introduced a line of simplified 1/72 scale kits to be used… more |
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City Building and WorkshopPublished: December 3, 2012
MiniArt is a Russian, I think, company that has produced a line of 1/72 scale buildings. These could be of use not only to the small scale modeler, but also to the model railroader as well. I received two kits to review, a Workshop (72022) and a City… more |
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Churchill Mk. IIIPublished: November 20, 2012 The Churchill tank had one of the largest production runs of any British WWII tank and was built in more variants than any vehicle except perhaps the Sherman. However, until very recently, it has been woefully under-serviced by the modeling manufacturers. The first kit was the old Airfix one from the 50's, which had many limitations. Then came the Aurora 1/48 one in the 60's which was almost… more |
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Pz.Kpfw.VI Ausf.B King TigerPublished: October 17, 2012 For those old-timers in the hobby, the name Airfix may bring back many a fond memory of simple kits that only generally resembled what they were supposed to, and could be put together on a rainy Saturday afternoon at the kitchen table. However, since being taken over by the toy giant Hornby, Airfix has been in the process of re-inventing itself. Old kits are being updated and new ones issued… more |
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British Heavy Cruisers 1939 – 45Published: August 3, 2012 This volume by Osprey/New Vanguard gives an overview of British 8 inch gunned cruisers (heavy cruisers by definition) in WW II. Four major sections deal with the design and development of the ships, the specifications of each class, the service history of each ship and a finally a description of the ships' armament and operation, the last part of which actually should have been a separate… more |