Tamiya’s ever growing line of 1/48 armor kits has added one of the most produced armored figting vehicles of the Second World War, the Panzerkampfwagon IV, with this release being the ausf H version. The kit is molded in Tamiya’s standard desert yellow plastic. The tracks are plastic link and length type, and the only multi-media in the kit is two steel weights for the lower hull. Originally Tamiya 1/48 armor kits came with die cast metal lower hulls, but that has been replaced with a plastic hull in this release, with the two weights being a compromise. There is no zimmerit texture on the hull parts, a necessity for a German armor kit of this time frame. Tamiya recommends either buying their zimmerit tools and applying your own, or using the self adhesive vinyl zimmerit that they produce. I chose the latter for my build.

Master Model continues to provide delicate turned metal parts which not only provide greater detail closer to scale, but in the case of pitot tubes, are far more resilient during handling. For the modeler who chooses to take a model to a show or club meeting, indestructability is a consideration during the modeling process.

The MPM/Special Hobby 1/48 L-39 Albatros is back on the market after a long hiatus. The kit provides the aircraft’s two pitot tubes as separate moldings which are then glued to the leading edge of the wing. The pitot tubes are rather non-descript and require clean up to use. Master Model fortunately has released this set of two tubes as replacements. These are nicely turned pieces with all of the subtlety of the real tube. To use them, the modeler just needs to drill a hole in the wing after assembly of the wing and slide the tubes into the hole when the model is finished. There is plenty of base stock for attachment to the wing.

This set is provides replacement gear for either the Hasegawa or the Fujimi A-4 kits. As I had a number of the Fujimi A-4 kits, I selected the TA-4J kit for installation. In comparing the metal parts to the kit parts, the set includes two different nose gear struts; one matches the Fujimi strut, so presumably the other is intended for the Hasegawa kit.

Thank you Furball Aero-Design for sending these excellent decals for review. Thank you to the IPMS Reviewer Corps for letting me review them! I am honored to contribute back to the scale-modeling community.

Six F-14 sets of over-the-intake walkways are provided on a 4 x 4 ¼ inch (100 x 110 mm) sheet. The decals have minimal carrier film. There are two sets in each of three colors: black, dark gull gray, and engine gray. Decal opacity is excellent. Test decals worked very well with Microscale solutions and plain water. The decals are thin and durable, snugging down nicely without coaxing. I did not try stronger solutions like Solvaset, but I do not believe that such solutions would be needed. In short, these simple decals work, and work well.

As with many of SAC’s sets, this set provides a one for one replacement for the kit parts. It consists of just five parts, two main landing gear struts, two retraction struts and a tail wheel. The parts are nicely cast and have just as slight cast line where the mold halves met, but this is easily cleaned up with either a fine sanding stick or a metal wheel in your Dremel tool at low speed. The retraction struts are very thin, so be careful in handling them as white metal is much more pliable than the plastic kits parts, but unlike the kit parts, the metal parts do not spring back to their original shape if bent or moved around, they stay in the shape you last put them in.