AF-2 Guardian Landing Gear (SH)

Published on
December 30, 2015
Review Author(s)
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$17.95
Product / Stock #
48290
Base Kit
Special Hobby
Provided by: Scale Aircraft Conversions - Website: Visit Site
In the distinct SAC package

Many thanks to Mr. Ross MacMillan of Scale Aircraft Conversions and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for allowing me to try this neat substitute and replacement set for the Special Hobby AF-2 Guardian. I am pleased to report on another sweet add-on and upgrade. The Guardian has a somewhat spindly appearance and having skinny but strong metal “legs” really helps!

The white-metal parts arrived in a blister pack, backed by the distinctive SAC company logo. The weight of the parts is very noticeable. All parts are free of sprues with the exception of two retractor struts. The parts require very little buffing, cleanup and polishing. I did use a Dremel tool to buff some of the parts and brought a very nice natural metal tone to them. But blue paint covers all of that shine.

The SAC gear parts directly replace equivalent Guardian kit parts. Parts of the main struts required a little bit of “truing” or straightening. Gentle pressure with needle-nose pliers did the trick. The dual tail wheel fork does need to be carefully widened to allow the tail wheels to be inserted. This widening is easy to overdo, so be cautious. I found it odd that replacements are provided for nearly all kit parts except E4/E15. I found only one replacement for these two kit pieces in my set. Furthermore, the product description image on the SAC website also shows only one. But the remaining kit part is still very useable. Very nice features of the SAC parts are the absence of sprue attachment points (those annoying nubs) and any significant flash as found on the kit parts. The replacement parts are very clean compared to the kit parts.

Other than polishing, tweaking alignments, and fixing my mistakes, the parts are ready to drop in and fit very well with the kit. It is very possible to retrofit a completed Guardian with these SAC parts. I recommend this add-on.

Again, my sincerest gratitude to both Mr. Ross MacMillan of Scale Aircraft Conversions and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for providing me this conversion set for review. It is a great privilege, thank you!

Comments

Add new comment

All comments are moderated to prevent spam


This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.