The Kit

This is the latest in Academy’s “DaVinci Series”. They are models based on sketches of some of the inventions of this amazing man. All are molded in a vinyl-like soft plastic that facilitates the press fit of the components as no glue nor paint is required. All are ingeniously engineered to go together easily and to function smoothly.

The subject of this review is a rolling ball timer. It doesn’t time the rolling ball, rather the rolling ball serves as a sort of escapement mechanism for the machinery. You may think that this is a bit “Rube Goldberg” just for a timer, but remember there were no readily available clocks at the time and those that were, were not particularly accurate and were insanely expensive as well. There are forty-one parts, four of which are metal axels. The plastic parts are molded in two different colors, one a brown that simulate wood and black to simulate iron. The final effect is nicely convincing.

Summary

Panda Hobby, a relatively new manufacturer based in China, has recently released a very interesting addition to the German self-propelled Marder family in 1/35th scale; the Sd.Kfz. 135 Marder I. The diminutive French chassis sports individual-link track, a single–piece barrel, and a nicely-detailed ammunition rack to help kick-start the interior.

This set provides a replacement nose pitot for the most of the variants of the MiG-25 Foxbat, other than the PD and PDS “Foxbat E” interceptor. The instructions do not list what kit the set is designed for, but there are a number of different Foxbat kits available from as Hasegawa’s initial offering based on the MiG-25 that Viktor Belenko flew to Japan, up to more recent offerings from ICM and other manufacturers. I had a MiG-25PU already underway, so I used that kit as a comparison kit.