Inarguably one of the greatest things since sliced bread is Eduard’s series of prepainted, self-adhesive photoetch detail sets. Their recent release for the Tamiya/Italeri Hurricane Mk I is certainly no exception.

Two frets of precisely engineered and etched media, accompanied by a small acetate sheet of gunsight glasses, capture a slew of detail enhancements for the cockpit, radiator, engine, main wheel well, and other areas.

As always, the cockpit detail is the crown jewel of the set. Instrument panel, gunsight frame, seat, side console, boarding door, and harness detail are magnificently and delicately captured. Colors are convincing and compliment Polly Scale British Interior Grey Green quite well. Fit of the PE to the styrene parts is, as usual, impeccable. Instructions are very clear and complete.

Some small details, including spark plug wires, are included for the Merlin II and its mounts. Although nicely done, the kit detail is decent, and application of the PE provides only marginal benefit. The kit rendition of the Merlin includes plug wires molded into the engine, which I chose to leave “as is” and forego the Eduard parts, mainly due to cowardice of marring the engine while trying to remove the kit-molded version. Also included are interior engine compartment door surfaces for the top and side doors. The right door is molded into the fuselage, so the Eduard part is invisible on the assembled model. The top and left panel interior veneers add unwanted thickness to overly-thick styrene parts, further aggravating poorly-fitting kit panels (bear in mind, I consciously built per the Eduard instructions and did not thin the panels).

Wheel well and gear door detail adds some subtle dimensionality to some of the bay walls and the interior panels of the doors, as well as brake lines. In all candor, the benefit of the gear door panels is marginal, since the kit detail is really pretty good and the well detail is nicely done, but largely hidden on the completed model.

Radiator screens and flap are another nice touch of the set. The flap adds some interest to the underside when viewed in profile, but the PE screens are very difficult to see without a flashlight and some magnification.

All-in, this PE set is a strong compliment to a good out-of-box kit, and I highly recommend it for modelers with moderate-to-extensive PE experience wanting to bump their Hurricanes up a notch.

Many thanks to Eduard and IPMS/USA for the review sample.