Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
April 3, 2015
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$6.50

The Revell Bf-109G-6 is an inexpensive model but it does come with its flaws. One of the most noticeable flaws is the anemic gun bulges. Quickboost offers a chance to replace them.

Molded on a single pour block, the light grey resin is perfectly cast of two bulges. Removal of the bulges from the pour block does not seem too difficult. They are properly bulged and direct replacement for the kit parts. Simple and easy.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Aires and IPMS/USA for the review copy. You can get yours directly from Aires at www.aires.com or at your local hobby shop or online retailer.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
April 3, 2015
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$8.00

The MiG-19PM is the missile version of the short lived MiG-19 family. The PM had four pylons which allowed the aircraft to fire beam riding AA-1 missiles.

This set is packaged in a Ziploc bag. There are five parts in the package. The large pitot tube is beautifully rendered out of turned aluminum. There are four turned brass missile rails that are designed to fit on the front of the missile pylons. These will hang out the end of the pylons so you know they will break off during handling, unless you replace them with these metal extensions.

So you have an easy to install upgrade for a reasonable price. This simple and effective upgrade offers strength and perfectly round cross section with minimal work. What more can you ask for? The set is indicative of the quality that I’ve come to expect from Master. Another winning product.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Master and IPMS/USA for the review copy.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
April 3, 2015
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$8.50

The MW-50 and GM-1 were used to raise the operating altitude and provide more power for the DB-605. The storage area behind the pilot had an access panel inside it to allow the Schwarzmann a place to service the system. This unique setup has never been available before in model form as far as I know.

Molded in light grey resin with the minimal resin flash, there are four parts for this set molded on two pour blocks. There is minimal flash on the one part but nothing that a knife blade and five seconds couldn’t take care of. The instructions are simple enough and show you how to add the parts. It really is a no-brainer. The storage area is provided in a single piece with the additional compartment cut out of the bottom of the area.

This set will work perfectly for your 109G if you want to do something different. I’ll add it to one of my future Eduard 109s.

Highly recommended

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
April 3, 2015
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$8.50

The landing lights under the wings on the MiG-21 is quite a visible feature. The Eduard kit has you just add a plastic piece over the area. It may be adequate for some but for others it will just beckon those to detail it. Enter the Quickboost set.

Two resin blocks are included. One is crystal clear with outer part of the light and then the other part is a very tiny filament part. It is as realistic as the real thing. The other resin block is molded in light grey resin. This is the housing for the light. Just paint this part gloss silver, add the filament and you will have a perfectly realistic landing light housing.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Aires and IPMS/USA for the review copy. You can get yours directly from Aires at www.aires.com or at your local hobby shop or online retailer.

Review Author
Phil Pignataro
Published on
April 3, 2015
Company
Res-Im
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$6.82

The Hasegawa X-29 in 1/72 scale has been around since the mid1980's and, as far as I know, is the only injection-molded kit of this interesting aircraft. Though accurate in outline, it is a very basic kit lacking detail in the wheel wells and cockpit. As was the norm with Hasegawa kits of that era, cockpit detail only consists of decals for the instrument and side panels, and a simplified ejection seat. However, RES-IM fills this void with their beautiful, full color, photo-etched set. If this set has a familiar look to you, that’s because Eduard produces it. Their logo is prominently displayed on the bottom of the fret.

Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
April 4, 2015
Company
Hauler
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$5.99

A perfect addition to your diorama or display base is this Brengun wooden barrels and buckets set. Brengun provides three resin wooden buckets, three large wooden barrels and three small wooden barrels. The package is non re-sealable packaging so once the parts are out of the bag, don’t lose them – escpecially the smaller barrels. There are no instructions provided for color, but a quick internet search will provide a wide spectrum of painting options.

Brengun has molded the parts in light grey resin with no bubbles that I was able to find. There are no mold seams to sand off and the resin plug is easily removed from the bottom with a razor saw.

Review Author
Rod Lees
Published on
April 4, 2015
Company
Scale Aircraft Conversions
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$14.95

Thanks again to our steadfast IPMS supporter, Ross at SAC… and to IPMS leadership for providing it to me for review. Metal gear rule!

This set simply replaces the main and nose gear for the new Airfix 1/48 Folland Gnat. This is an excellent little kit, and the kit gear will serve the purpose out of the box, but the simplicity of installing metal gear on the assembled airframe is too good to pass up.

Parts include two main gear struts with extension and drag arms incorporated, and a nose gear. All three parts are one-piece castings, which justifies their use in my mind. Airfix is on a roll, and their kits just slide together with little fuss. The only complaint I personally have is the plastic is a bit soft, so small things like landing gear, pitot tubes, etc., tend to be very “bendy” and flexible. The Gnat may be miniscule, but the landing gear is still vulnerable.

Review Author
Bob LaBouy
Published on
April 4, 2015
Company
Dragon Models
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$74.00

History

The M1 Abrams tank is one of the world’s best know, easily recognized and most lethal main battle tanks, and has seen combat throughout both the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars. One of the latest versions is the M1A2 SEP V2. ‘SEP V2’ stands for System Enhanced Program and ‘V2’ denotes Version 2.

There are numerous URLs & sites dedicated to both the SEP V2, a great deal of public information and photographs available to assist the scale modeler in construction and finishing of this tank.

Kit

This is a great kit, providing not only the basis for the updated versions of the Abrams, of which over 5100 examples have been built since the M1’s were first produced in 1978.

Not to be outdone by either their earlier issues of the M1 kits nor those of their competitors, Dragon has raised the bar even further with this M1A2 SEP V2. What’s different in this kit?

My abbreviated list includes these new goodies:

Review Author
Jim Pearsall
Published on
April 5, 2015
Company
Furball Aero-Design
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$15.99

Furball Aero Design is a new decal company. They have teamed with Detail & Scale who I have admired and trusted for many years, to turn out interesting and correct decals and marking schemes for 1/48 modern US aircraft. They also have vinyl mask sets for those kits.

This decal sheet consists of all of the markings you would need to do two Blue Angels aircraft, either two TF-9s or two F9Fs, or one of each.

The Blue Angels flew the Cougar from 1954 to 1957, when it was replaced with the F11F Tiger.

The decals are printed by Cartograf of Italy. I put Cartograf as the industry standard for quality decals. My basis for this is toughness of the decal film and the fact that it only takes about 15 seconds in the water for even the largest decal to come loose from the backing. Even I can get a decent looking set of markings using Cartograf.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
June 21, 2021
Company
Scale Aircraft Conversions
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$17.00

The F-15 sits up high on fragile bird like landing gear and let’s face it the plastic kit parts are pretty flimsy. This is where white metal landing gear come in.

Packaged on a cardboard backing with a plastic enclosure glued on the front, the parts are loose inside the packaging. There are three white metal parts, one for each landing gear. The three landing gear parts are made of white metal that looks blemish free, however, my example had the large support strut slightly bent. Nothing drastic or dramatic, it was easy enough to straighten out. I can’t find any seam lines on any of the pieces. All the pieces had one little attachment point that will need to be removed. Very small and easy enough to do with hobby knife and sandpaper.

The SAC metal landing gear is a stronger copy of the kit gear. An added bonus is that the landing gear are already partial built compared to the kit gear. The three gear struts are direct replacement gear for the kit ones.