Model Art Modeling Magazine is a Japanese publication that is released monthly. The text is mainly in Japanese with some English subtitles throughout. The magazines’ striking feature is the high quality of the photographs showing the models used.

This issue has two feature articles instead of just one, as normal. The first article covers the Pz.Kpfw. IV. They use models of an Ausf. D by Tamiya, Ausf. F2(G) by Dragon, Ausf. H early by Tamiya, and an Ausf. J late production. These are all 1/35th scale. Within the article, they go over how to improve these models, along with a breakdown of German gray between three different paint manufacturers (Mr. Color, Tamiya enamels, and Vallejo). The last part of the article consists of photos of a Pz. IV Ausf. J. in a museum, along with line drawings of some of the differences between versions.

Here’s another fine replacement landing gear set from SAC, this time for the new Kinetic Goshawk. The white metal parts are a spot-on match for the kit gear. In situations where the weight of the model could lead to overstressed and broken gear, these sets are a lifesaver (the life of the model, that is). All relevant parts are there, including both the compressed and extended nose gear struts.

A few of the smaller, thinner pieces in the package I received were slightly bent, but were easily returned to their proper shape. That just shows that care must be taken when handling some of those more delicate thin pieces, but unlike plastic, they are more easily reshaped when necessary before they reach the breaking point.

All told, another very worthy effort from Scale Aircraft Conversions. Thanks to SAC and IPMS for the review sample.

Academy continues to re-release the Accurate Miniatures series, which in my opinion is a very good thing. Despite their age, Accurate Miniature molds have very good surface detail and they have held up pretty well. There is virtually no flash at all. I only had to clean up two parts for a bit of flash.

Originally, Accurate Miniature released the B-25G as a conversion set for their early mark B-25. This particular re-release brings you all the parts needed to assemble a B-25G in a single box, plus decals from Cartograf. As a plus, you get plenty of spare parts from the early mark (B/C/D) B-25s.

In their third release of the Science World series of kits, Hasegawa has reproduced the Japanese manned research submersible Shinkai 6500 in 1/72 scale with upgraded thrusters that were added in 2012. The company previously released the original version of the submersible as SW01 (54001), and parts for that version are contained in this box as well. The kit builds up nicely, with many of the items fitting snugly enough that you might almost consider not applying glue. With the exception of just a few small parts, model builders of any age can complete a very respectable looking model from this kit, and more experienced builders should enjoy the level of detail provided by Hasegawa.

Thank you to David Lajer of Aires / Quickboost and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for the privilege of reviewing this delightful aftermarket resin set. The Hobbyboss F8F kit is wonderful in its own right, but replacement of the kit wheel wells with the Aires parts and the other pieces in the set allows a much cleaner and more detailed presentation.

OK, it’s a 1/144 B-17G. I have 1/144 B-17Gs in the stash from Crown, Revell, and Academy/Minicraft. Nevertheless, I’ve never gotten around to building any of these, so this one is the first of several B-17Gs I’ll be doing as I get around to it.

First reason to like this kit – they’ve completely redone the clear parts. Trust me, this mold has been around the block a few times, and these clear parts are much better.

Second reason – the decals. Cartograf makes excellent decals, and Minicraft gives you markings for two pretty interesting B-17Gs.

The Aircraft I Built

This B-17G is not done with the kit decals. Just before I started this project, I attended IPMS Las Vegas “Best of the West” contest at Henderson, NV. I picked up a set of Kits-World decals for the B-17. The provided decals would have been just fine, except one of the aircraft on the sheet has a personal connection.

Intended for the Kinetic 1/32 scale Hawk 100 trainer kit, this SAC replacement gear set includes a nose gear, right and left mains, and the two main retract struts. The 5 metal landing gear pieces are finely cast and are made of a soft white metal which cleaned up in quick order with a file and a Flex-I-File. They’re the same length as the kit’s gear, but are slightly thinner in diameter. You’ll need to use the kit’s plastic part # D-38 to complete the nose gear. There are no instructions, so I just followed the kit's instructions.

The kit’s nose gear has two halves in order to get the nose
wheel in place, but the SAC metal one is in one piece. To get the wheel in, I bent the nose fork open, snapped in the wheel, then squeezed the fork back together. The main wheels fit fine on the struts and everything fits the airplane's mounting points.

Quickbost has produced a replacement gun barrel for any 1/32 F-16 kit. The resin replacements are a simple drop-in for the kit’s plastic parts. The supplied items include two replacement muzzles. The only modification required will be the removal of the end of the kit part’s barrels beyond the second sleeve.

A side-by-side evaluation (see photos) indicates a replacement of superior detail that will provide a more accurate view of a true dogfighter’s weapon of choice.

Highly recommended.

Thanks to Quickboost and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for the opportunity to review this item.

I was quite excited to see Trumpeter start releasing some of the more modern Soviet armored vehicles. Not only are the kits nicely detailed, but they tend to go together quite well. Also, Trumpeter has no problem releasing several variants, unlike some other manufactures that release one base type and leave us modelers scrambling for aftermarket resin to do other variations. So, needless to say, after years of resisting the urge to purchase some resin “updates” to the old Skif T-64 kits, I was delighted to have a state-of-the-art tooling in my hands.

Box Stats

Within the box you get 566 parts in all.

I was given Minicraft’s B-17G for a review. Just as I was about to start the project, I was at IPMS Las Vegas “Best of the West” contest, and found a set of 1/144 decals for the B-17G. The decals included in the kit were perfectly OK, but the subject matter of this sheet made me drag out my wallet and buy it.

The first plane on the sheet is “American Beauty”, 2S*G. A friend and co-worker of my father was the top turret gunner and flight engineer on this aircraft. So it has a personal connection to me.

THE DECAL

The decal sheet itself is very good. When you finish cutting out the decals for one aircraft, you still have a solid sheet, not something that looks like a lace doily. Good planning on their part, and I appreciate that.

The subject matter of the other three planes is also very interesting – “Little Miss Mischief” of the 91st Bomb Group, “My Devotion” (an F model) of the 351st BG, and the famous “A Bit o’ Lace” from the 427th BG.

Inside the Ersatzteiliste (parts manual) for the Bf-109E is a special tools section. Before now, if you wanted to add this to your diorama, you were limited to scratchbuilding it, and then you still had to find the tools to fit. Eduard has made this a lot easier.

Contained on a single brass fret is a roll of tools, a special tool kit, and all the tools for both. The first assembly sequence is a tool roll which can be looped over the wing. There is a second one that is all folded up. These are both perfectly formed and textured to give that canvas look. The tools fit along a canvas strap. It might be easier to add this strap from tape, but the PE part is quite adequate. As a personal aside, my thought is to use the Eduard PE part as a template to cut the “canvas” roll out of masking tape, both for scale thickness and that more realistic canvas texture that masking tape suggests.

Airscale provides some excellent aircraft instrument dials, but until now you had to cut them out and add them to kit instrument panels. Well, now you can build your own instrument panels with the aid of their new bezels.

There are 46 distinct shapes, but that doesn’t mean there are only 46 pieces on the single brass fret. There are multiple bezels, allowing you to do anything you need to do when scratchbuilding an instrument panel. Don’t think that it stops there. While marketed for the instrument panel, they can be used for numerous other things. The sky is the limit.

There are US, German, RAF, and WWI instruments represented on the fret. The parts are arranged in 9 rows with each style of bezel labeled with a letter on the instructions. The instructions are printed in full color on card stock to protect the fret. The instructions indicate what each bezel is designed to represent. Some are multi-layered, so do your research.

Eagle Editions’ series Wings of the Black Cross is now in its tenth edition. The latest edition is a softbound book with 36 high gloss pages. Inside the front cover is an addendum and errata sheet from the previous volumes. This is a professional approach, as new information is constantly being discovered by other researchers.

The highlight of all of these books is the photos, and this volume contains 62 black and white photos of the highest resolution. They are clearly printed and quite useable. Most of the photos have never before been seen. There are some that I’ve seen elsewhere but these reproductions are superior in clarity.

This is one of Model Art Modeling Magazine’s special editions. The text is mainly in Japanese with some English subtitles throughout. One attraction of these magazines is the high quality of the photographs and the models that are used.

This issue starts off with sixty nine pages of models. These pages are chock-full of color photographs, line drawings, and tips and tricks to building the models. The models used are the Academy 1/48th F-4B Phantom II, Hasegawa 1/72nd F-4J Phantom II and F-8E Crusader, Academy 1/72 F-8E Crusader, Zoukei-Mura 1/32nd A-1H Skyraider, Tamiya 1/48th A-1H Skyraider, Hasegawa 1/48th A-4E Skyhawk, and A-4F Skyhawk, Airfix 1/72 A-4B Skyhawk, Fujimi 1/72nd A-4C Skyhawk, Kinectic 1/48th A-6A Intruder, Revell 1/48th A-6E Intruder, Hasegawa 1/48th A-7E Corsair II. and Hobby Boss 1/72 A-7B Corsair II.

For this review, I built the Hasegawa Police version of the VW Beetle. This says Limited Edition on the box and, if that is true, I would pick one up ASAP. You get a really nice car kit here, and it includes three versions of the bug to build – a green and white German Polizei auto, a black and white Canadian bug, and the version I built: the white and blue Belgium Politie. The good news about that is if I am ever in Belgium and see a white bug with a blue stripe behind me, I won’t do anything stupid.

History

The Brewster F2A Buffalo series of single-engine fighters has long been maligned by aviation writers and historians, although its combat career varied widely because of the meager performance, training levels of its pilots, and the quality of the opposition. In the hands of the Finns, the airplane was highly successful, managing to score against Spitfires, Hurricanes, and other types operated by the Russians. In British and Dutch service, it fared poorly against the nimble Japanese fighters, although the war in Southeast Asia was by no means one-sided. At the Battle of Midway, a few USMC F2A-3’s suffered heavy losses against Japanese A6M2 Zero fighters, mainly because of the inexperience of the Americans facing Japanese pilots with much more combat skill.

Scale Aircraft Conversions specializes in white metal replacement parts. Its line of replacement landing gear has been expanded to include a set for the Tamiya 1/48 Spitfire Mk.I/Vb.

The set includes 3 parts, two landing gear struts and tail wheel, finely molded in white metal. These parts are drop-in replacements for the plastic parts.

You can see from the pictures the parts are very cleanly molded and formed. They include the “double slot” in the struts where the plastic landing gear cover is attached, so replacement should be quick and painless.

Typically I tend to think of replacing a plastic landing gear by a white metal one when the model is large and heavy. For most single engine 1/48 scale models, weight is not an issue.

Scale Aircraft Conversions has produced replacement gear for the Hawk/Testors OV-10 Bronco kit. I have reviewed several of these sets, and have purchased a few more on my own, because in all cases they have been superior to the kit items.

The white metal replacements are a clean drop-in for the kits plastic parts. The supplied items include two main gear struts and braces and one nose gear strut. Also included are weighted tires mastered by Doug Smith of Royal Resin. The weighted wheels are a significant improvement in detail over the balloonish kit tires. The SAC tires also have tread and improved rim/lug detailing.

A side-by-side evaluation (see photos) indicates an identical strut replacement that should provide greater strength with a significantly improved weight capacity and abuse tolerance. In some cases, painting may not be necessary.

Highly recommended.

The MJ1-B is a United States Air Force bomb loader built by Hydraulics International. It has served in various forms since the 1950's and sports a 3000 lb. lifting capacity and a 25-horsepower engine. It is able to lift up to a height of 78 inches and was widely used in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War.

The kit consists of enough parts to build either the MJ1-B (the late version), or the earlier MJ1-A version. The solid resin parts are finely cast and the kit includes a figure for each version – a male for the early one and a female for the late one.

All parts had to be cleaned and cut from their casting blocks, and are on the soft side. There was minimal flash on some parts which was easy to clean up. Care needs to be taken on the steering wheel and the side arms, as they’re very thin and delicate.

“How the heck did he do that?” A polite version of one of the most often-asked questions in the scale modeling culture. With the proliferation of modeling blogs and videos available on the internet, as well as generations of printed reference material, it seems a rare occurrence when a scale modeling reference in print form hits the market with such great impact and acclaim.

Michael Rinaldi’s TANKART Vol. 1 WWII German Armor is just such a work. For that matter, the book seems to be a work of art in and of itself. Yeah, that sounds a bit extreme, but seeing, reading, and re-reading is truly believing. So much for cliché, let’s get into the facts.

Much has been written in regard to the tank battles that happened on the eastern front with heavy emphasis on either the Germans or the Russians. This book looks into the smaller countries and the vehicles that were used during this campaign. By reading the book, you find out that some of these countries were not true allies to Germany. Many were forced to side with Germany and some tried to get out of this "alliance" but were drawn back in through kidnappings of their family members and other strong-arm tactics.

This book is clearly written and easy to follow. There are many black and white period photographs, color artwork, line drawings, cut-away drawings, and charts of the vehicles.

The mind of Leonardo DaVinci must have been an interesting place. There's an entire museum in Milan full of his art work, architectural and biological drawings, and working models made from his original plans for a wide variety of machines, and Academy has released a series of spring-driven working models based on these. The subject of this review, his Flying Machine, contains a series of gears that drive two bird-like wings up and down. Of course, it doesn't actually fly, but it was an attempt to understand how birds do.

Motivation for Review

After taking a 1-year hiatus from modeling, I wanted to start back with a build that would be of strong interest for me. That is the Spitfire, and I decided to do 1/144, 1/72, and 1/48 builds in the Mk.IX series. At this time, the excellently reviewed: 1/48 Eduard Spitfire Mk.IXc late version was released. For me, one benefit of being in the IPMS Reviewer Corp is to request items in which I have a personal interest, and since I had acquired all of the prior-mentioned scaled Mk.IXc model kits I thought that the Reviewer List might be able to provide me with replacement detailed parts for my builds. I was right, and this review is the first of the few parts that I have been able to obtain. I remain on the lookout for other parts. (Note: the 1/32 Spitfire scares me right now, but I am hoping that once I finish the 3 scales I have now that I will be ready for it.)

“How the heck did he do that?” A polite version of one of the most often-asked questions in the scale modeling culture. With the proliferation of modeling blogs and videos available on the internet, as well as generations of printed reference material, it seems a rare occurrence when a scale modeling reference in print form hits the market with such great impact and acclaim.

It’s déjà vu all over again – Michael Rinaldi’s TANKART Vol. 2 WWII Allied Armor is just such a work, following close on the heels of the amazing TANKART Vol. 1 WWII German Armor. Batting 2-for-2, the author seems to be on quite a roll, with TANKART Vol. 3 Modern Armor’s forthcoming release eagerly anticipated.

I won't go into the background of the F9F Panther, mainly because I don't know a lot about it and I know there are those out there who, knowing every nut, bolt and hydraulic coupling, would let me know in no uncertain terms if I were to err. Instead, I'll confine myself to the kit itself. Round 2 Models is a collectibles company located in South Bend, Indiana, that has acquired, among other lines, plastic kits from AMT, MPC, and Polar Lights, and they re-release selected out-of-production subjects from these companies' lines. Interestingly, they put out their releases in the old companies' packaging with no indication that it's from Round 2. If you didn't know any better, you'd think it was 20-30 years ago. The only clue you get is a Round 2 flyer/catalogue that is included in the box. Currently, their offerings are weighted toward automotive and Star Trek subjects, but they do have a couple of aircraft, one of which is the old AMT F9F-2 Panther.