Recently I was given the opportunity by IPMS USA to review Scale Aircraft Conversions adaption of the RF-84F Thunderflash landing gear in white metal for the 1/48 TanModel kit. This set consists of the two main landing gear legs with the lower doors, a nose gear leg with the additional wheel fork and some smaller struts. These are direct replacements for the parts that come in the TanModel kit. When comparing the kit landing gear and the SAC landing gear side by side you will notice similarities between the two, but a lot better detail in the SAC offering including brake lines. The nose landing gear from SAC offers you the option to depict the nose wheel fender removed or you can use the plastic fender from the kit(TanModel kit parts E42 & E43).Overall this is highly recommended for stronger landing gear and added detail and is a great addition to the TanModel RF-84F kit.

PJ Production has jumped in to help 1/48 Mirage III series model builders. This new release provides you with a Mirage center line RP 825 fuel tank along with the pylon featured on the Dassault Mirage IIIS / RS, CJ, CJ / EZ, and the Cheetah. This set is probably focused on the new Kinetic 1/48 Mirage III kits, but it should also work well on the Academy, Eduard, Fonderie Minatures, Heller, and Hobby Boss kits; along with the older ESCI kit that has also been re-boxed by Revell and Italeri.

Notable is the re-sealable packaging that PJ Production uses that makes the parts easy to review and then stuff back into the package securely. You will want to be careful handling the resin fins as their thinness makes them easy to break or chip. There are no painting instructions included with the small instruction sheet. I did not observe any air-bubbles in the resin parts.

Many thanks to the Hauler Brengun Company and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for allowing me to review this excellent detailing accessory set. Hauler Brengun is a recent contributor to the IPMS Reviewer system and I am very pleased to report on my experience with these very nice detailing accessories: cross-type tie-down points for flight decks of all kinds.

Tie-down points are a ubiquitous feature anywhere on a wide ship’s deck where anchor points are required. The points are often difficult to scratch build and detail effectively, making Brengun’s photoetch tie-down points a welcome addition for anyone building display platforms.

The tie downs arrived in a 5.5 x 2.75 inch plastic pouch with a 4 x 2 inch photoetched brass sheet with 110 tie-downs. No instruction sheet is needed, but a full-sized example image is included. The image is also available on the product website. The photoetched sheet is bright brass with flat tie-downs.

A feature that you can quickly notice on almost any 1/48 soft-skin AFV are the windshield wipers. Often they are either molded into the clear windshield, or they are absent all together. Hauler has come to the rescue with eight different sized windshield wipers. The photoetch sheet provided gives you a total of 120 individual windshield wipers along with simple instructions on folding them to set on the windshield.

Hauler uses an open plastic pouch that is stapled to the header card. You will want to be careful handling the photo-etch windshield wipers as their small size makes them an easy sacrifice to the carpet monster.

Hauler produces photo-etched and resin upgrade sets for armored fighting vehicles (AFVs), airplanes, cars, railway vehicles, and dioramas. They also produce a few resin kits. Their products are in most of the common scale sizes, 1/72, 1/48, and 1/35, but they also produce a number of other items in common railroad hobbyist scales.

The kit for this review is a set of sharply cast resin Dragon’s Teeth. Dragon’s Teeth are those square concrete pyramids, most often associated with the Siegfried Line in Germany during World War II. However, these types of fortifications were used in many countries, other than Germany in World War II, and continued to be used today around the world. The idea behind these formations was to create an obstacle to slow the advance of enemy AFVs, or to channel those vehicles into prepared kill zones where anti-tank units waited in ambush.