Those of us that like to display our automotive models with the hood open generally face two problems. The first is, of course, having an accurate-looking hinge mechanism, and the second is keeping the hood open. It’s just about impossible to build accurate-looking hood hinges that are also strong enough to do the job they are supposed to do: they’re fairly complicated mechanisms with springs and multiple pivot points that just can’t be accurately reproduced in plastic. Well, J3 Models has a solution to this problem in their fixed open hood hinges.

Each hinge consists of a piece of photo-etched (I assume) metal representing the hinge itself, and a spring which attaches to the hinge to produce a fairly good replica of a hood hinge in the open position. There is a large horizontal surface available to attach the hood to, and another large surface that can be glued into the engine compartment to hold the hood in the open position.

Each pack of hood hinges comes with four hinges and two springs: enough for two models. Each spring must be cut in half and trimmed to fit the hinge. I found the assembly concept to be fairly straightforward, but the tools I had available weren’t very well suited for cutting and bending the small springs. Once I got things figured out, though, it all went together quite nicely. The pictorial instructions that come with the hinges are a little tough to decipher; fortunately, their web site has a much more detailed text description of the assembly process.

All in all, this is a pretty nice product that can add that extra touch of realism to any well-detailed 1/24 or 1/25 scale kit.