What’s in the Bag?

Hobby Design is a Chinese manufacturer with an extensive line of resin and metal photo-etch, window masks, and other up detailing add-ons for cars and motorcycles.

This review centers around Hobby Design’s set of PE parts for Revell’s Ferrari California. Included on the two seperately packaged and Mylar protected frets are detail parts for the engine bay, interior, and the car body itself. Some of the more intricate pieces include a 4-piece grill insert that replaces the as-molded center section of the grill. Only the outside portion of the Revell grill is used. Other exterior pieces, of course, include various Ferrari logos and scripts as well as the rear exhaust escutchions. Of note are the 3-piece windshield wiper arms and blade assemblies included in this set.

Aires continues releasing excellent resin sets for the series of 1/32nd Revell Tornadoes. The latest set is replacement wells and speed brakes and includes the actuating pistons. Molding is first rate with no flash or air bubbles.

To install the parts, cut out the kit bays and smooth the openings. Install the parts from the inside and add the speed brakes. Detail on the parts is excellent and is somewhat better than the kit. The speed brake is deeper and finer than the kit’s. This set is an improvement but with a couple of caveats – obviously, if you are going to close the speed brakes, this set is not necessary. Second, the improvement in depth and detail is there but will set you back $27 ($24 from Great Models) and this is a decision for the modeler. It is a simple improvement.

If you have a 1/32 Spitfire kit that would benefit from the addition of a well-detailed seat that comes with realistic safety belts, Quickboost has an answer. Quickboost has added exactly that to their 1/32 resin detail part line, and this seat provides a significant level of extra detail that most current other offerings don’t. As the photo below shows, in addition to believable safety belts, Quickboost’s version provides a row of flare cartridges along the front edge of the seat and a detailed seat-adjusting lever along the right side. The part is molded in Quickboost’s familiar gray resin and is packaged on a casting block. The quality of the molding is flawless, with no bubbles, pinholes or flash to remove.

Here is another great addition to the growing Quickboost line of detailed exhaust parts. Here we see a set for the 1/48 Hasegawa J2M3 Raiden “Jack” WWII Japanese Interceptor/Fighter.

The exhaust set comes in the typical Quickboost plastic sleeve packaging, and contains separate exhaust stacks which are an exact fit to the kit parts.

The great thing about this set is the amount of detail provided. Not only do you get hollowed-out individual exhaust stacks, but the Quickboost parts have the proper seam on each stack – something the original kit parts do not have. In fact, the kit exhaust stacks look like blobs of plastic compared to the detail of the Quickboost parts.

I high recommend this detail set to the modeler working on any boxing of the Hasegawa 1/48 J2M3 family of kits. It is the perfect replacement to add detail to your kit’s exhaust and will make for a much more realistic finish.

Thanks to Aires and Quickboost for the review sample!

Mitsubishi J2M RAIDEN – Imperial Japanese Navy Interceptor Fighter is the newest book in the series of Profiles by Model Art. This is #11 in the series and is my personal favorite to date. This softbound book contains 136 pages and is jammed packed with vintage photos, line drawings, and color profiles of the aircraft, as well as some color photos of a surviving Raiden.

The Mitsubishi J2M Raiden was code named “Jack” by the allies during WWII. It was intended to be an interceptor to counter the threat of high altitude B-29 raids over the home islands. This publication covers the Raiden development and design changes throughout its short operational history.