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Review Author
Bradley Moreland
Published on
Company
Tamiya
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$20.00

Unboxing

This kit has 3 sprues. Though the kit is small in size, it is LOADED with parts! I love how the parts were organized across the sprues. It was very easy to find what you needed. Each sprue was dedicated to the element of the model you were working on so there was no back and forth. Sprue A was the motorcycle itself. Sprue B was the sidecar. Sprue C was the figures. A neat little feature was the road signs on the side of the box that you cut out and form the traffic post. Much easier way to do this than a decal set-up.

Assembly

The detail on this model is very good! For something so small, I was impressed with the attention to detail that Tamiya gave to this. The instructions had very clear and detailed pictures which were easy to follow. This was my first ever motorcycle kit and it was a very enjoyable process.

Review Author
Bradley Moreland
Published on
Company
ICM
MSRP
$10.50

I will be honest…I do not have any firefighter figures that needed painting. That being said, these paints were PERFECT for what I used them for. I have a military motorcycle kit that I was working on. These paints were perfect for base paint on the project and especially for dry-brush weathering. On the figures the German Grey was the perfect shade as a base for the uniforms. After painting that, I used the Russian Green Primer. I dry brushed this lightly over the grey on the uniform jackets to give it the slightly “dusty green” that was pictured on the motorcycle kit box and it was a fantastic look. For the motorcycle itself I used the Chocolate, Black and Green Ochre to simulate dust, dirt, and scratches. I used a little bit of the Clear Red mixed with the Chocolate and Green Ochre. It made a very nice light rust color to simulate some very miniscule rusting on the motorcycle. Became a very nice touch.

Book Author(s)
Venner F. Milewski, Jr.
Review Author
Tom Dunford
Published on
Company
Mushroom Model Publications - MMP Books
MSRP
$52.00

This book provides a comprehensive encyclopedia of the US Navy Destroyers commissioned after WWI (from 1919 ) until just before WWII (to 1937). It includes primary reference data and relevant photographs of individual ships for each class of destroyers during this period. While photo captions provide brief stories and glimpses into the drama accompanying each ships’ maritime history, the paragraph text is rather perfunctory. These efficient descriptive paragraphs leave room for the rich photographic record included for each ship.

Review Author
Will Kuhrt
Published on
Company
ICM
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$14.99

To begin, I am not a model builder who focuses on vehicles or on 1/72 scale. This project was a bit of a challenge to me personally. While building it, I discovered some surprising drawbacks, which I believe would be a bigger challenge to less experienced builders.

Box and Contents

Packed in the typical side-opening white box, the box features eye-catching artwork of the ZiL-131. The ZiL is a general 3.5 ton 6x6 army truck produced in the Soviet Union / Russia between 1964 – 2012. This kit depicts a Ukraine Army version.

Contained in the box are three sprues of soft gray styrene, one clear parts, one tree of rubber tires, a fully-molded cab, and a cab interior piece. There is one decal sheet for two camo schemes. The instructional guide is three pages and has no numbering or call-out errors. They are very easy to follow. The last page shows two full-color illustrations of the camo options.

Book Author(s)
Historical narrative by Patrick Branly
Review Author
Pablo Bauleo
Published on
Company
Valiant Wings Publishing
MSRP
$18.95

Valiant Wings has released the 11th installment on its series “Airframe Extra” and it is fully devoted to the Falkland’s conflict of 1982. The book starts with a historical section covering the events leading to the Argentinean invasion in April 1982 and later military events.

I should point out that the book almost exclusively includes historical pictures of British equipment and the historical claims for the islands are narrated from the British perspective only. It would have been nice to see more period pictures of Argentinean equipment and to have included the history of Argentinean claims to the islands as well, as to enrich the historical research.

Book Author(s)
David Nicolle and Air Vice Marshal Gabr Ali Gabr
Review Author
Paul Bradley
Published on
Company
Helion & Company
MSRP
$29.95

The catchily-titled Air Power and the Arab World, 1909–1955 Volume 10 THE FIRST ARAB-ISRAELI WAR BEGINS 15-31 MAY 1948 continues the story of the men and machines of the first half-century of military aviation in the Arab world. This volume tells the story of the first two weeks of the first of the Arab-Israeli Wars in May 1948. While part of an ongoing series, this volume also stands alone as a history of the period covered.

Book Author(s)
Károly Magó
Review Author
Paul Mahoney
Published on
Company
KLP Publishing
MSRP
$25.00

KLP Publishing is based in Australia producing digital guidebooks aimed specifically at the modeler. This is #4 in the “Modellers Monograph Series” and covers the camouflage painting/schemes of the Royal Hungarian Air Force from inception (post WW1) to 1945.

The e-book consists of 417 pages, with a color “cover” and loads of photos of aircraft, source documents and aircraft relics. In addition to the 200+ photos, there are 46 color profiles with very detailed explanations of the individual paint schemes.The author,Károly Magó, served with the Helicopter Defense Forces in Hungary and currently works at the Szolnok Aviation Museum doing restoration and research.He is also involved in search and recovery of aircraft wrecks within Hungary. Finally, it is worth noting that he is a modeler, and is Head Judge of the Moson Model show.

Review Author
Allan Murrell
Published on
Company
ICM
Scale
N/A
MSRP
$12.99

This is a paint set primarily meant for Civil Aviation on the 1930-50’s. I decided to use a 1/450 scala Heller DC-10 paint mule I had on my bench to use the paints on. Then I used each paint to see its finish and application. All the painting I did was with the Airbrush. These paints would also need to be thinned if brush painting.

The paints are best thinned with the ICM thinner, which I did not have, so I tried the following –

Book Author(s)
Nicolas Deboeck
Review Author
Bill O'Malley
Published on
Company
HMH Publications
MSRP
$42.00

From the Back Cover

The A-10 was specifically developed as a close air support aircraft, and a replacement for the A1 Skyraider. The intended mission of the A-10 decided the looks of the aircraft: the forward fuselage was built around the avenger gun, while the cockpit was placed in a titanium armored tub. The engines were placed high on top of the fuselage and the wings equipped with a lot of pylons in order to take a huge weapons load. Some have suggested several times to retire the almost 50 year old jet, but soldiers on the ground have repeated that it is a lifesaver.

This is the 30th book in the Duke Hawkins series of aircraft Photobooks from HMH publications. The book includes very high-quality photos of almost every detail of the May 10. Unfortunately, few photos are included of the GAU-8 Avenger gun.