AK Interactive offers a wide variety of items for the modeler, from paint and weathering sets and books, to model kits. The website is easy to navigate and offers a button to provide an “English” translation. Another button offers a currency exchange calculate from Euros (the posted pricing) to US dollars.

AK is on Facebook and has a You-Tube presence. To quote the AK You-Tube link, “AK's Official Youtube Channel (will) show Advanced Techniques, Tutorials, Tips & Tricks and many more things. Currently working on it :-)”

AK provided IPMS-USA their Aircraft Landing Gear Weathering Set, AK 2030, to review and I was pleased to take on this review. The AK 2030 set contains 3 bottles of “wash and weathering” liquids.

PJ Production from Belgium makes resin aftermarket accessories for aircraft, as well as some very nice resin aircraft kits. Among their many products is a series of ejection seats to replace the usually plain kit-provided examples.

This particular seat is a Martin Baker Mark 4 seat. The listing isn’t more specific than that, but says it is to be used in Lightnings, Alpha Jets, Canberras, Hunters, and Vampires.

Now, I’m not entirely up on the Mk 4, but I know that most of those jets used different versions of the Mk 4, along with seats other than the Mk 4, in various versions of the aircraft. For instance, the Lightning used Mk 4BSB, 4BSC, 4BST, etc., while the Canberra used the Mk 1C, 3CSB, 4Q, 4QS, and others in various versions of the aircraft. I’m pretty sure the differences in the different types of Mk 4 were visually minor, so that’s acceptable to me.

I am a fan of Scale Aircraft Conversions gear, having used a number of SAC gear sets on previous projects. I do not replace the kit gear because they are of poor quality, but rather, the SAC gear are much stronger than the plastic kit parts, and require far less clean-up. It is the strength of the metal SAC parts that I particularly like.

Clean up on the SAC gear usually can be accomplished, when necessary, by a few swipes of an X-Acto blade which removes any mold steps. SAC gear can be primed and then shot with the same colors one would use on the plastic parts. In fact, the painting process for SAC gear is the same as for the kit parts.

SAC parts fit extremely well. In fact, the gear seen in the accompanying images were photographed prior to being glued into place. Some superglue was applied, and after a minute or so the SAC gear were firmly fixed into position.

For those of you who have acquired the Revell Halifax in 1/72, you may have noticed that it gives you lots of options, including three different types of exhausts. While they’re not at all bad as they come in the kit, you’ll need to hollow out the ends of the exhaust stacks and that can be very tedious when you’re doing stacks for four engines. Quickboost, as they usually do, have stepped in and done that for you.

This set is for the Type B exhaust and provide exhausts for all four engines. They are nicely cast, in one piece, with no bubbles and the ends already hollowed out for you. Additionally, the kit parts are in two pieces each and you’d have to remove that glue seam. As usual, they’re a drop fit replacement for the kit parts and at the price, seem well worth it. After all, what is your time worth? Recommended.

Thanks go to Quickboost for providing the sample and to IPMS/USA for the opportunity to review it.

This was really a fun kit. There’s not many parts but you do get 4 surfboards, 3 figures, 2 garbage cans (fuel tanks), and SCUBA tanks.

Engine

Bottom half of the engine is molded to the chassis.

Chassis

Front ans rear ladder bars hold the suspension. There’s really not much to it.

Interior

Seats, shifter, steering wheel and column, resemblance of a dashboard is all you get.

Body

It’s a real simple body without much detail. I decided my version would resemble a pickup truck turned into a landscaping vehicle. After priming the body with Duplicolor grey sandable primer, I shot a few coats of Dupli-Color dark cherry followed by a coat of Nason 2 part urethane clear. Only a little bit of wet sanding and polishing with Novus #2 was necessary before applying a coat of The Treatment Model Car Wax.