AFV Club kits for me have always been a bit of a challenge - multi-part assemblies that could easily be presented as lower part count builds are usually the norm for me. This particular build for the most part avoids this issue, except for the undercarriage. The only real issues encountered for me was in the order of assembly in some cases which will be outlined as we go. The kit is a rebox of the AEC Dorchester kit from 2012. Obviously these three examples were basically captured Dorchesters so the only changes were in the interior equipment and schemes of the three examples captured by the Germans as we will soon see.

What’s Inside the Box

The kit has an assortment of different media-plastic, resin, and PE, but not in overwhelming amounts. Inside we get:

Lifelike Decals from Japan is one of those hidden gems people need to hear more about. With a large selection in the most popular scales, they have decals for WWII era planes from Japan, Europe and the US. This set covers Part 2 for the B-25C/D/J in 1/72 scale and is meant for the Airfix B-25C/D.

Inside the package, you’ll find three decal sheets with two being made by Microscale and one by Cartograf all in perfect alignment. Two sheets cover the plane markings and one is for the roundels in two different styles. Also, there is a masking sheet for “Old Baldy”. There are specific instructions for each aircraft along with color profiles and details of how to represent that specific aircraft with aftermarket accessories where needed. A separate page on the history and types of national insignia is also included.

The sheet covers five aircraft:

The DFW C.V Landing Gear for the 1/32 scale Wingnut Wings kit is one of the many accessories offered by Scale Aircraft Conversions. This is the second of three of these aftermarket kits for which I am providing an out-of-box review. As with their other products, these are made of white metal.

For the packaging for this conversion kit, we have a blister pack with a clear plastic bubble. My only complaint with this is that you cannot reseal it once you open it. However, it likely keeps the cost of the kit down.

The kit consist of what appears to be 4 parts, two of which are connected together with a larger piece of metal sprue. Similar large metal sprues are connected to the other two other parts. I have to say that I am very impressed with the casting of the parts. After looking at them very closely, I did not see anything that would require any significant attention other than cutting them off of the large metal sprues.

OKB Grigorov has provided very nice and unusual submarine in this German Type 201. This was the first post war German submarine. They only built three type 201’s U-1, U-2 and U-3 and they first entered service in 1961. The had issues with the Amagnitic steel material which lead to cracks in the structure, so all were scrapped.

Included is:

• Two Photo Etch Sheets
• One resin submarine
• Two small resin parts

The detail quality is great; The parts are very delicate parts that need careful removal from the resin bases.

There was no instruction sheet in the box I received to review, this was not a problem as it was a simple build although there was not much reference materials online due to this being a very short lived program.

The ssembly is quick and easy.

I would like to have seen some small decals.

The final part is painting.

This is a review of an A-4 Skyhawk crew access ladder in 1/72 scale made of photo etch parts. Given the scale of the ladder, it is obvious that all parts are going to take some patience to remove from the PE sheet and apply to the ladder.

The package contains a photo etch sheet containing all the parts needed to construct the access ladder and a one-page instruction sheet.

Instructions

The instruction sheet clearly marks parts. The ladder construction has all the parts and their locations in an exploded view of assembly

Building the Ladder

I started out by laying the PE sheet on a strip of tape that I had rubbed on the back of my hand and removed a couple of times to reduce the stickiness of the tape. The parts are so small that I was afraid of the parts flying off into infinity when they were cut from the PE sheet.