According to Bombshell

The mission of BombshellDecals.com is to provide top quality decals of iconic nose art for scale modelers. We are a small home-based, U.S. Army veteran owned company, located in The All American city of Fayetteville, North Carolina, just outside Fort Bragg.

The Product

My sample arrived in the standard zip-loc bag we’ve come to expect from the aftermarket decal retailers. The cover sheet artwork features beautiful nude and non-nude nose art aircraft. The decal sheet itself is a masterpiece with seven options and enough decals to do at least two aircraft. Printed by Cartograf and made in Italy the decals are perfect in every regard. The only drawback worth noting is the lack of information specific for each aircraft option. All but one aircraft are painted in the standard tri-color paint scheme, it’s painted overall medium blue.

Kit Made for: Academy, Tamiya or Dragon Wirbelwind or any Flak 38 using the L/65 four barrel set up.

The Flak 38 was 2cm anti-aircraft guns used by various German forces throughout World War II. It was by far the most numerously produced German anti-aircraft artillery piece throughout the war. It was produced in a variety of models, notably the Flakvierling 38 which combined four Flak 38 auto cannons onto a single carriage which the German Heer put into their Wirbelwinds anti-aircraft AFV.

Master’s set comes with four complete barrels including turned brass barrels and flash suppressors as separate parts, so eight parts in total. From what I have read, these are the 15th set of aftermarket barrels for the Flak 38. There are at least three kits of Wirbelwinds (Academy, Tamiya and Dragon) and three of the trailer mounted Flak 38 (Dragon, Tamiya and Bronco) that this set of four barrels will work with.

This set is designed for Airfix’s newer molding of the later marks of the Spitfire. It consists of 5 white metal parts: 2 main gear struts, 2 main gear doors and a tailwheel. As always, the parts are designed to be drop-in replacements for the kit parts, however, where the kit has the main gear struts and doors molded together, SAC has split each into two pieces, which adds extra depth and definition to the main gear. At first look, I thought the casting blocks had been left on the struts as there is a rectangular piece at the top of each strut, but fortunately before I trimmed them off, I realized that these pieces are part of the struts and actually slot into the square mounting holes in each wheel well, establishing the correct angle both front to back and left to right. The tailwheel is also nicely molded and paints up very nicely.

Recently, Airfix has upped its game with the release of several 1/72 scale aircraft kits with new tooling and featuring excellent detail. One such kit is their Hawker Typhoon Mk Ib. Despite Airfix’s excellent out-of-box detail, aftermarket detail manufacturers have tossed their hats into the ring to make an excellent kit even better.

Among them is Aires -- bringing their improved horizontal stabilizers and elevators. Comparing fairly closely to the kit parts, the Aires version offers some slight differences in surface detail and panel location, as well as posable elevators.

Aires’ mold quality and fidelity of detail is exceptional, and the positionable elevators make a subtle contribution to improving this legendary 1/72 RAF tank killer. Highly recommended for the braille scale modeler wanting to really trick out his Typhoon Ib.

Thanks to Aires for the sample parts and to IPMS/USA for the opportunity to review.

Recently, Airfix has upped its game with the release of several 1/72 scale aircraft kits with new tooling and featuring excellent detail. One such kit is their Hawker Typhoon Mk Ib. Despite Airfix’s excellent out-of-box detail, aftermarket detail manufacturers have tossed their hats into the ring to make an excellent kit even better.

Among them is Eduard with it’s set of photoetched landing flaps. Consisting of a single fret of photoetched brass, the set includes the movable surface areas as well as the stationary wing-side structural elements. Rib and rivet detail is crisp and delicate. Instructions are visual, succinct, and clearly presented.

Typical of Eduard products, fidelity of detail is exceptional. Some care and experience working with PE are recommended for this set, making it most suitable for intermediate and experience modelers. Highly recommend this set of flaps for builders wanting to further detail their Typhoons.

Shamrock Miniatures out of Ireland is led by Daniel Batta and offers excellent figures in lines ranging from historical to fantasy. The subject of this review is Michael Collins -"The Big Fellow".

This set consists of a cockpit tub, seats, instrument panels and glare shield for early and late instrument/radar panels, control stick, rudder pedals, a couple of boxes for the sides of the cockpit, headrests, and ancillary parts for the back deck of the cockpit. This set is designed for the Sword kits, though Pavla makes a set for the Matchbox version of the Skyknight, too. The parts are well cast in a medium grey resin. I found no bubbles or short molds in any of my parts. The instructions are two pages in the typical Pavla format of line drawings with color callouts and occasionally slightly vague locations.

The Product

My sample arrived in Eduard’s trademark clear poly envelope enclosing a piece of card stock, Eduard’s Knight standing at parade rest at the top right-hand corner. Inside I found one small photo-etch fret, one small textile fret and the instructions.

The Yellow Series from Mushroom Model Publications covers individual aircraft in great detail. This book on the Boulton Paul Defiant is an excellent example. The book starts out with the basic concept of the Defiant as a daytime bomber destroyer. It then covers night fighter operations, followed by air-sea rescue operations, its use as a target tug and other tasks.

Along with, and in addition to the description of the operational history of the Defiant, a great number of photos are included. These show experimental and operational aircraft as well as incredible details of all parts of the aircraft. The majority of the detail photos were taken of the only complete surviving example of the Defiant at the RAF Museum Hendon. The modeler will be very pleased with these detailed color photos.

The future of modeling has arrived! 3D Model Parts is a company specializing in 3-D printed resin accessories for car and ship models. Their only offering for cars at the moment is these wire wheels. They will work as 15” wheels for 1:25 scale cars, and14” wheels for 1:24 scale cars.

Available with 3 different styles of knock-offs, the wheels come in a pack of 5, with an instruction sheet that explains how to work with them. The wheels and knock-offs each come attached to a thin wafer of resin, not unlike traditional resin parts, which must be sanded away to release the part. I found it easier to cut the wafer away from the knock-offs, as they were too small to hold against any kind of sanding surface without also sanding the skin off my fingertips.

Master Model out of Poland, well-known for producing high-quality, precision after-market products, has recently released a German 2cm L50 KwK 38 Gun Barrel. This barrel is made to replace the ubiquitous AA and infantry support weapon found in a variety of 1/35th scale kits.

The barrel comes in two pieces of turned brass; a shaft and a delicately perforated cone that slips over the end of the shaft. The shaft is shorter than the standard 2cm L50 KwK 38 barrel and must be cut-in to the plastic using super glue.

I looked across my stash and found the following three comparison barrels:

• (DML) Dragon 6590 Flak 38(t) Ausf. M Late Production
• (TAS) Tasca Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. L “Luchs”
• (ITAL) Italeri 380 Opel Maultier with FlaK 38

I decided to upgrade my Tasca “Luchs” kit for this article. It came with a barrel that, coincidentally, was the narrowest of the three.

I get excited when the new issues of Scale Aircraft Modeling arrive. This issue had a large surprise upfront in that the editor, Jay Laverty, has moved on and they are in search of a new editor. The good news is that Neil Robinson, frequent builder and previous editor has stepped in to keep the great article coming. While the previous formats have been consistent, this interim issue is a collections of great articles an aviation in profile plus two bonus profile sets and all the expected news on new releases and current in stock materials.

To start, the Aviation in profile series has eleven pages of coverage of the North American T-2 Buckeye. There are bunches of different color schemes including the trainer colors but also camouflage version of Greek use as well as some really interesting Navy schemes.

If you believe you know a lot about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but don’t know about the Niihau Zero, you are in the same boat I was in before reading Syd Jones’ book about this obscure episode. During the second raid on December 7, 1941, a flight of A6M2s from the carrier Hiryu made a series of low level strafing runs on Bellows Field. After making what would be his final pass, Naval Airman1st Class Shigenori Nishikaichi was forced to break away from the group and climb to distance himself from the small arms ground fire that had peppered his aircraft. The Zero seemed to be responding to the controls and he was at maximum power but the cockpit was welling up with fumes. He cracked open the canopy for fresh air and was surprised to find he was alone. There were no American defenders in the air and by now he was far from the action.

Master Model from Poland specializes in metal turned parts for aftermarket kits. In my personal option they are among the best in the market. I really like their products.

This set is devoted to the HMS Belfast and it includes a set of 12 replacement metal barrels for the 6-in guns and a set of 12 replacement metal barrels for the 4-in guns. The parts are very nicely detailed down to the holes on the end of the barrels. It also includes resin correction parts for the 6-in mountings, including some metal pins to keep the parts in place and to allow variable elevation of the guns.

I have to apologize for not being able to get good pictures of all the parts. They are so diminutive that my camera was not able to focus on them. I have included some screen captures from the manufacturer website in this review.

In 2014, Airfix tooled a new 1/72 scale Douglas C-47 Skytrain (or Dakota as it is know in the UK) that virtually eclipses Airfx original C-47 kit that was introduced in 1960 and released in various forms eleven times since then. The new kit is superior in all respects (with maybe two exceptions, which will be explained further on) and clearly demonstrates the strides Airfix has made in improving the detail and accuracy of their recent offerings.

A bit of explanation here. I try to do full-build reviews with photos taken through most of the process. When I hooked my memory card into the USB port on my computer, it said, “there are no files”. And there weren’t. It had erased my photos, so all my pictures are GONE. It did the same to another memory card. I am quite unhappy.

On with the review.

Scale Aircraft Conversions does white metal landing gear for a lot of aircraft kits. Some are necessary because the kit parts aren’t correct. Some you need because the plastic kit parts aren’t strong enough to hold the model. And then there’s this case. I finished the Victor kit, and it was a tail sitter. OK, I glued it to a piece of foamcore board, and the glue held the nose down. When the opportunity came to get the SAC gear, I jumped at the chance.

Hauler Brengun offers a variety of aftermarket detail sets for 1/35 scale. Set #HLU35076 1/72 provides the components necessary to assemble two steel containers used in factories to store and transport any manner of manufactured parts, castings, subassemblies, etc. They would be useful as details for dioramas of industrial models.

This set includes two resin castings of the bodies of the containers and enough parts on a single brass photo-etch fret that provides the parts to assemble the 4 corner posts with lifting lugs (see the photo below). The parts are packaged in a clear pouch stapled to a card to protect the resin parts and fret. An instruction sheet is included showing how and where the components are installed. The detail in this set is very crisp.

From the kit's Hasegawa web page:

Returning to roost

Moving the space shuttle is one jumbo task, fortunately, the eggheads of Boeing hatched the B747-one of the largest commercial aircraft ever to spread its wings. The bigger birds made dozens of flights yoked together with the shuttles. Had the shuttles scrambled on their own, they would have risked frying their engines or cracking flight surfaces. After the space shuttle program was put on the shelf, the 747s ovoided their due date by serving the shuttles to their final roosting places. Limited edition kit features a shuttle carrier and shuttle with decals for Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour.

The M2 Browning Machine Gun or "Ma Deuce" as known by some is probably one of the most highly recognized machine guns in the world and is rapidly approaching one hundred years in service.

Eduard Brassin is designed as resin and photo etch accessories for scale plastic kits at a reasonable price.

The kit comes with two grey resin parts and a small brass photo etch fret. The resin pieces are of the M2 machine gun and the charging handle. The photo etch pieces consist of the trigger and barrel carrying handle.

Moving on to the build. My example came with a warped barrel and no matter how I have tried, I can not get it straight. The pour stub on the gun is in a horrible position. It is on the handle end of the receiver which is already attached to gun. This makes clean up in this area extremely difficult. You will also have to drill the end of the barrel to give the impression of depth. The kit builds fairly easily with just the above mentioned problem areas.

Introduction

2013 marked the 50th anniversary of the Lamborghini automotive company. An anniversary as significant as this could not pass without Lamborghini celebrating it with what else but a new version of the magnificent cars they have produced for 50 years. The Veneno (named after a famous fighting bull as all Lambos are) is that car. Based on the Aventador LP700-4, this car has a redesigned body and increased horsepower from its L535 6.5 liter V-12 engine. This engine makes 740 hp and can propel this car to 220 mph. The body is constructed largely of carbon fiber with aluminum sub-frames in the front and back. Suspension is provided by pushrods with horizontal springs like a formula car that is essentially what the Veneno is. Only three production models were built, each in the colors of the Italian flag: White, Red and Green. Of the three constructed, two were granted to buyers in the US.

Model Art Magazine is a monthly magazine that covers aircraft, armor, ships and car modeling. Model Art started releasing magazines in 1966 and has evolved over the past forty-six years. They also release many special releases during the year, as is the case of this issue.

This issue covers IJN Light Cruisers that were produced from 1919 - 1945. During this time period there were twenty-four (This is the number that I came up with from Wikipedia. If it is incorrect, please forgive me as I am still new into IJN subjects, but learning. Light cruisers built and these fell into seven different classes. The classes being the Nagaro, Agano, Tenryu, Kuma, Sendai, Oyodo and Katori.

The magazine is broken down into ten sections. Section one thru five covers the guns, torpedo tubes and catapults found on these cruisers. Each gun is represented by a line drawing, model kit parts, and a period b&w photo. The catapults are represented by line drawings.

Stuart McKay has updated his out-of-print seminal 1999 edition on the Tiger Moth, Midland Publishing’s 272 page tome, “Tiger Moth, De Havilland’s Legendary Trainer”. If you ask, just who Stuart McKay is, I would have to answer that he is Mr. Tiger Moth. Stuart McKay has been fond of Tiger Moths since his teenage years and is the founding Secretary of the de Havilland Moth Club (Since 1975) and is the editor of the de Havilland Moth Club.

Furball Aero Design, in association with Detail & Scale, offers an expanding collection of decals for the modeler, and this set is designed to be used on the Kitty Hawk TF-9J Cougar. This review does not include any comments on the Kitty Hawk kit, but focuses solely on the Furball/D&S decals.

My initial response to the decals upon inspecting them was very positive. The decals are the result of much research and it shows. But then, that is a hallmark characteristic of Detail & Scale, which provided the research. The detail in the stenciling and markings is outstanding. I noted that the decals were printed by Cartograf and I have yet to have a problem with a Cartograf decal. Detail & Scale coupled with Cartograf printing? That’s a win-win.

What you get in the package is a full gear replacement in white metal for both main gear legs and the nose gear. In many cases SAC will assemble some of the kit parts prior to casting . This is what they have done in this case. They have also cleaned up the gear and filled any imperfections that were present on the original plastic parts.

The gear in the kit consists of six plastic and two resin parts. The metal replacement parts make up 5 pieces, two for each main gear and a single piece for the nose gear.

Hauler-Brengun continues on its path to help modelers everywhere add realism and interest to their dioramas with this latest set, a complete bathroom in 1/35 scale. The set is perfectly cast in gray resin with 26 total pieces.

The pieces are broken down as follows:

• Sink - 4 parts
• Tub - 7 parts
• Toilet - 6 parts
• Shelves - 2 parts
• Dresser - 1 part
• Toilet Paper Holder - 1 part
• Mirror - 1 part
• Lamps - 4 parts

Cast is very good. I did have a little breakage on one lamp arm but it was a snap to replace with metal. Everything is included to set up a scale model bathroom!