Thanks to Ross at SAC for yet another outstanding metal gear set. IPMS USA continues to appreciate the support! In this case, I purchased the gear, because I really needed it.

This set is, again, a simple drop-in replacement gear for the new 1/32 Italeri F-104C. This is the logical follow-on kit to the previously released F-104G/S, and this kit is great. A bit expensive, but the decal sheets are huge Cartograf items with several options. The basic plastic and the few add-ons like the gear was worth my money.

The SAC set contains the entire main gear beam strut area as one unitary item, and a nose gear. Both are perfectly cast and directly upgrade the kit parts.

Installation is easy. Use superglue and press the SAC gear in place. They fit perfectly, and impress with strength and “peace of mind” when attaching wheels/tires to the axles.

Sometime back in 2015 it was announced that ICM was going to produce a new 1/48 Ju-88 series kit. I was rather intrigued as the Ju-88 is one of my favorite aircraft of WWII and that the last time I actually built a Ju-88 was an old Hobbycraft kit back in the late 1980’s. Then sometime in the early 1990’s a new model company DML, later Dragon, came onto the market with a whole series of the Ju-88 family. At the time these were top notch kits but some of the engineering in order to produce a wide variety of variants made things slightly complicated for some, myself included. So with this announcement of a new Ju-88 kit coming out I was excited but at the same time very reluctant as my past experience with ICM not being favorable.

The latest offering from Quickboost provides a one-piece supercharger intake. Packaged in a self-sealing package with a card stock support, this light grey resin intake is perfectly formed. The kit would have you build up the intake from two pieces meaning you’d have to fill the seam and then lose the raised welded detail Quickboost takes care of that for you. The inlet is deep enough to be convincing.

This time saver is worth the small price charged. The shape is accurate and all the detail is there with very little work. It is a drop in replacement for the kit parts. Simple, inexpensive, minimal work and accurate, all the hallmarks of the Quickboost line. This is another winner from them.

Highly recommended

The F-14 has no shortage of kits in 1/48^th scale and with the impending release coming from Tamiya the Tomcat will likely become a more popular model on the tables. The Tomcat is not a stranger to colorful markings. Furball Aero-Design has released another great sheet for the Tomcat.

The Air Wing All-Stars Part One has options for seven F-14As, all of them colorful. Typical of Furball decals the decals are sealed in a large ziplock bag. Inside the bag are the instructions printed in full color on three sheets of 8.5x11 high quality print stock. These instructions are easy enough to follow with no issues noted. All the aircraft have profile views of the left side and where there are differences between sides this is noted. Plan views are included on a side to themselves. The final sheet is designed just for the stencils and will be a great reference for the modeler.

The Eduard Bf-108 has been around for some time and recently re-released. This little gem of a kit is a fun build and a very nice model.

There are limitations to things that you can do in plastic. In this instance the fine trailing edge of the prop blade can’t get be thinned enough. Well resin allows you to do a lot of things that plastic won’t. That is where this resin prop from Brassin comes in.

Packaged in a vacuformed container this set contains two pieces of resin. The resin is cast in light grey resin with no defects noted. The parts are the actual propeller blade and the nose cap. The key is the way Eduard casts their parts. I’ve found it to be very easy to remove and clean up.

There is also a sheet of decals for the prop blade logos.

The set is simple to add just drill a 2mm hole in the kit back plate and add the prop by threading the nose cap through the prop.