Quickboost has continued to issue sets that make building the Hasegawa A-1 Skyraider easier and with better details. This time around Quickboost presents a set with completely assembled pylons, the centerline, the fuel tanks (2) and the wing pylons (12). The parts are cast in the usual fine grain, gray resin with no defects and very little clean up.

With the plastic kit the wing pylons are assembled from two parts and with the fuel tanks and centerline pylons you’ll have to glue on the sway brackets. The plastic parts have seam lines that have to be removed, possible glue smears to contend with and the fuel tank pylons have punch out marks that have to be removed.

Description:

1 pair of intake FOD covers designed for the Academy MiG-29A. And will also work on the Academy MiG-29UB (dual controlled two place trainer).

Inspection:

Packaging is the typical orange-labeled Quickboost clear envelope along with a piece of card stock and a simple instruction note sheet.

For any modeler, but especially ship modelers, it is hard to achieve a realistic effect when gun barrels are out of round, warped or fail to have the right taper and shape; which is often the case with styrene injected or resin barrels. With smaller caliber guns and in smaller scales the barrels are often too fragile to handle. For these reasons turned metal barrels are an attractive alternative. Master Models continues to release well-priced brass barrels for the discriminating ship modeler.

Without a doubt, Dragon’s Smartkit of the Scharnhorst is a real gem with a superb level of detail thanks to its CAD designer. The gun mounts are very detailed and the molded barrels, with the slide mold technology, are quite nice in this scale, including bored muzzles. Dragon has packed the kit with a significant amount of aftermarket detail including injection molded blast bags; a nice touch given how difficult they are to make from scratch.

Description:

2 resin 265-gallon tip tanks and mount fairings. Ex-KMC mold. For the Revell/Monogram kits.

Inspection:

Packaged is in a clear face, white backed, poly bag stapled to a folded card along with a note sheet. It was clear the vintage KMC molds seem to be holding up pretty well despite the years. Upon opening the package I found the resin almost flawless, detecting only a few pinholes and heavy pour stubs. The details include nice gas caps and mounting points on the tanks. The wing tip fairings appear to be a tad small otherwise they look fine. Squadron included a note warning of “possible resin shrinkage” installing these fairings will require minor surgery of the kit, the wing tips will need to be trimmed to the panel line while remembering you must compensate for ‘resin shrinkage’.

History: The Junkers Ju 188 was a German Luftwaffe high-performance medium Tactical bomber/Reconnaissance aircraft built during World War II.

Review:

The quality of the casting is perfect and bubble free. The tips of the exhaust pipes are hollowed out for added realism. Most resin parts are likely to need more work on them than the more normal injection molded plastic parts that you may be used to. Why you ask, well Resin is a much harder material then the standard molded plastic in your kit. This is what gives it the fine details you are looking for. In some cases the greatest challenge can be cutting the part from the casting block without damaging it. I have found that it is better to cut away the bulk of the casting block, leaving just a small amount behind so that it can be trimmed away with a hobby knife.