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75th Anniversary Northrop F-89 Scorpion (05650) 1:48 Carrera Revell The United States Army Air Force issued a specification for a jet interceptor in August of 1945, the same month that WWII ended, and Northrop’s response was a design that started life with swept wings, reverting to straight wings due to the low-speed issues inherent to swept wing configurations. The prototype first flew in 1948, winning the battle with the alternative Curtiss-Wright XP-87, as it was the fastest of the offerings, and by 1950 it was faster still, having more powerful afterburning engines in the belly nacelles, and a great deal of advanced equipment for the time, entering service toward the end of 1950. As was typical of the time, fewer than 20 airframes were built before the -B variant replaced it with improved avionics due to the rapid pace of development in the early jet age, followed by the -C. Four years later, the -D was the main variant in production, which improved radar and avionics further, and dropped cannon armament in favour of unguided rockets, which was part of the blinkered thinking of the era, expecting dogfighting to be a thing of the past in the missile-equipped world. The Scorpion was an all-weather interceptor that was intended to defend the United States in case of incursion by an enemy, with their former WWII ally the Soviet Union at the top of the list. The Scorpion’s name came from the high position of the tail and elevators, which was due to interference with the airflow from the wings, forcing relocation to an ‘elevated’ position. The sharp nose adds to the aggressive look and this had been lengthened by around 3’ early in the evaluation process to accommodate six cannons and a radome to give it more destructive capability along the line of flight. The addition of permanent tip-tanks extended the type’s range, and gave it a distinctive look. The F-89B variant was a problem child, and was withdrawn in 1954, while the following -C variant was also afflicted with issues from introduction in 1951. The -D was also first flown in 1951, demonstrating how fast things were changing, benefitting from experiences and fixing issues that had plagued the early variants, and became the definitive version, recommencing production that had stalled after the earlier problems in 1953. Almost 700 -Ds were built, skipping two variants that didn’t reach the production line, after which the F-89H was created that was easily distinguished from the earlier types by the greatly enlarged tip-tanks, which instead contained an array of weapons. There were three-each of radar and infrared missiles, plus another forty-two unguided FFAR rockets, but the complexity of this arrangement led to delays that ended its career early in 1959, as it was outclassed by the new types that were reaching service. The final variant was the -J, which was essentially a modified -D that had the capability of firing air-to-air nuclear rockets under the wings, firing one during a test in 1957 - what an insane concept! It was also capable of mounting up to four Falcon missiles for offensive operations that didn’t require a mushroom cloud. The Kit This is a 75th Anniversary release of this 1990 tooling to celebrate the formation of the United States Air Force (USAF) as a separate force, although at time of writing it’s closer to 76 years. The kit arrives in an over-sized top-opening box, and inside are four sprues of light grey/green styrene, a clear sprue, large decal sheet and the instruction booklet that is printed in colour, reusing the old black and white drawings that have been updated to the new style. This is a kit from another era of modelling, but even though it has raised panel lines, it is still a well-detailed kit, with plenty of interest in the cockpit, landing gear bays, and throughout the usual areas of interest, with both raised and engraved features. There aren’t a huge number of panel lines on each external surface, so anyone wanting to rescribe wouldn’t be scribing for too long, as there are only eight main parts to rescribe, plus the tip tanks. Why Revell put the model in such a large box is a source of confusion though. It’s not the worst example of box over-kill ever, but it is noticeable, mainly because of the relative weakness of the cardboard that makes the package a little bit too flexible for my liking. That might not sound too serious, but you must bear in mind that if you intend to stash models on top of this box, it won’t take too much weight before collapsing. As this is a gift set, it comes with a selection of acrylic paints in small “thumb pots”, a Revell No.2 paint brush, and a 12.5g bottle of Revell Contacta Professional glue, which is well-liked by many, partially due to the precision metal applicator needle that makes it easy and accurate to use, avoiding wasting glue in the process. Construction begins with the c…. complete fuselage, gluing the two halves together, and applying the nose cone to the forward end, dealing with the seams once the glue is cured. It’s an unusual starting place, but the cockpit can be inserted from the underwing area once it is complete and painted, which is the very next task. The pilot and radar operators have very different ejection seats, the pilot’s having a simple seat that is trapped between the two side frames with another at the rear that includes a simple head cushion. The rear seat has an extended foot-rest moulded into the seat part, adding curved sides and a thicker rear frame at the rear, both seats having moulded-in belts to add some detail. The cockpit tub has the side consoles moulded-in with raised instrument details moulded-in, and accepts the two seats, plus two instrument panels, one for each crew member, adding control column and throttle in the front, and a tiny clear dome in the rear cockpit. The completed cockpit is then inserted from below, aligning the front instrument panel with the coaming moulded into the fuselage. The front faces of the engines are inserted after it, moulded into a carrier to hold them in position, before closing the hole in the underside with an insert after cutting a small section from the rear if appropriate. Once the glue for the insert has cured and any seams been dealt with, the exhausts are made from rear face of the engine plus trunking, which slides into holes in the rear of the fuselage, then has C-shaped deflectors over the top, which were used to assist smoothing airflow over the tail, which had been a problem with the initial design. An auxiliary intake is built from two halves and inserted into a slot in the port rear fuselage, and the intake lips are installed to the front, taking care to test fit and fettle to improve alignment as much as you can. The nose gear bay is moulded into the lower insert, with detail in the roof, but none on the side walls due to limitations in standard injection moulding. This is partly rectified by the bay side walls moulded into the bay doors, which slide down the sides of the bay and give the doors a firm connection to the fuselage. A small clear light is popped into a recess just forward of the bay. The gear leg is a single strut that is inserted into a U-shaped frame, with a retraction strut to the rear, spaced by a jack that gives it a strong triangular base that plugs into the roof of the nose bay. The Scorpion’s wings are relatively short wide assemblies that are made from top and bottom halves, the latter having the gear bays moulded-in, which is really rather nice considering the age of the moulds, which are also very clean and relatively free from flash. Each wing slots into its appropriate fuselage side on a substantial tab, with the instructions advising taping the wings to the correct dihedral, but a jig would be more effective, coupled with checking back to ensure nothing has moved. The gear bays are filled by a straight strut with lateral retraction jack, vertical outer door, and the closed inner door, opening only for deployment/retraction and for maintenance. This is repeated under the opposite wing, then four FFAR rockets are fitted onto the four pairs of carriers moulded into each wing, finishing with the two-part tip tanks that mate via the usual slot and tab method. The elevators are a single part that attaches to the top of the flat lower fin section, trapped in place by the upper fin that has a long tab that passes through the elevators into the moulded-in portion of the fin. Probes are fixed to each side of the fuselage around the intake area, then the windscreen is glued to the front of the cockpit cut-out, placing the canopy behind it, with the option of sliding it back to open it, or forward to portray it closed. Finally, there is a clear rod that you can insert under the rear fuselage if you forgot to add enough weight to the nose during closure of the fuselage, for which the instructions recommend 20g, although a little more won’t hurt, within reason. Markings There are two decal options on the sheet, and it’s any colour you like as long as it’s bare metal. They come from the post-war period where camouflage was no longer a priority, so the schemes were typically bright and with minimal paint over the exterior. Some were painted grey, but the majority had colourful unit-markings at the extremities, with various flamboyant motifs such as lightning bolts and stars to differentiate their squadrons. From the box you can build one of the following: F-89C Scorpion 51-5843, Montana Air National Guard, 186th Fighter-Interceptor Sqn., 120th Fighter Group, Great Falls International Airport, Montana, USA, May 1958 F-89C Scorpion 50-746, 84th Fighter-Interceptor Sqn., Hamilton Air Force Base, California, USA, 1952 Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. Conclusion A surprisingly well-detailed rebox of this unusual early jet interceptor from the early part of the Cold War, which will doubtless appeal widely, and using the raised panel lines as a guide, re-scribing it shouldn't be a large undertaking. It’s also the only kit available in this scale at time of writing, so qualifies as the best by default. Highly recommended. Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit or

ATF Dingo 1 (03345) 1:72 Carrera Revell Engineered and built in the late 90s by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, the Dingo is an early incarnation of a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) type of armoured transport vehicle that was used by the German Bundeswehr from 2000. It has a shallow V-profile keel under the vehicle that deflects blast waves from underneath away from the crew compartment, and while it may sacrifice a few of the four wheel-stations in the process, it should protect the crew from significant injuries in all but the most extreme mine or IED attacks. The ATF part of the name stands for Allschutz-Transport-Fahrzeug, which translates to “All-protection transport vehicle” according to Google. The windows are also angled inward at the top, which increased their effective thickness a little, and reduces the effects of blasts that are rising up the side of the vehicle. The Unimog chassis at the heart of the vehicle is armoured and protected by the keel, rather than using a monocoque build process like many vehicles of the style, creating a strong chassis that is highly resistant to deformation by explosions. It is lighter than many vehicles of its type, some of which is accounted for by the fabric-covered load area at the rear, rather than using heavy metal armour to protect non-essential equipment. The vehicle was originally equipped with a 7.62mm machine gun in a turret on the roof, but since 2008 there have been remote weapons stations retro-fitted to further protect the crew from harm when using the weapon, without adding any armour and bullet-resistant glass weight to screen a human crew member operating a turret. The Dingo 2 is a development of the original Dingo, with an extended chassis from the Unimog U5000 that offers improved protection for the crew and can carry more equipment, up to four tonnes for the longer wheelbase variant. There are hundreds of both versions in service around the world besides the variants that are used by the German military and police force. Germany has sent 50 Dingo 1s to Ukraine to help them with the defence of their nation against the invaders. The Kit This is a reboxing of Revell’s 2005 tooling of this MRAP Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), and it arrives in a small end-opening box with a painting of the type on the front. Inside are three sprues in light grey/green styrene, plus a clear sprue, decal sheet and instruction booklet printed in colour, with painting and markings profiles on the rear pages. Detail is good for the scale, including the driving crew’s cab, a tilt for the rear compartment, and the underside of the chassis and its keel. Construction begins by adding the front and rear suspension units to the chassis, with moulded-in axles and drive-shafts, fitting a steering arm between the hubs of the front axle. The exhaust is threaded through the chassis and axles, mating to a two-part muffler at the rear of the vehicle along with a C-shaped bar, rear bumper and shield-shaped convoy light with a decal depicting the white cross that helps illuminate the rear of the vehicle for the vehicle behind. Another bumper and protective sump guard are fitted at the front of the chassis, then the four wheels are built from halves, one for each corner. The floor has a sloped form added under the rear before it is glued to the chassis, allowing installation of the dashboard on its central console, the short gear lever, and steering wheel, followed by two seats in the front, and another three in the rear, all on short bases that are moulded into the floor. The hull sides are prepared with their trapezoid windows from the insides, then they are glued to the sides of the floor, adding a bulkhead behind the rear crew, and another two-part bulkhead at the rear of the vehicle that has the light clusters moulded-in. The roof has the windscreen frame moulded-in, and the armoured windscreen is inserted from within, then glued in place over the crew cab. There’s no engine included in this model, building up the bonnet by applying the front wings, bonnet, and the grille, then flipping the model over onto its back to install the keel under the centre of the vehicle, and a pair of mudguards at the rear. Two pairs of crew steps are mounted on a tubular bracket that fit into recesses in the keel, with a scrap diagram showing the correct angle that they should be fitted, adding another rod across the rear of the chassis. The tilt for the rear load area is supplied as a single part that has creases moulded-in, but they are perhaps a little severe for some, and would benefit from being softened by using a sanding sponge, then fixing an aerial base on the right rear corner. Two large wing mirrors slot into recesses on the front door frames, installing the turret ring to the hole in the roof and posing the hatch open or closed. A gun mount is fitted between the two trunnions at the front of the ring, with a choice of MG3 machine gun, Mark.19 grenade launcher, or a Browning .50cal, each with its own magazine style. The MG3 and Browning have box mags of differing sizes, and the grenade launcher has a more substantial pair of linked drum magazine feeding it 40mm grenades that it fires at almost machine gun speeds. Markings There are three decal options on the small sheet, and there’s a lot of green involved. From the box you can build one of the following: 2.Kp/TF1 Zur, KFOR, Prizren, Kosovo, 2001 Task Force Fox “Essential Harvest” Macedonia, 2003 ISAF Camp Warehouse, Afghanistan, 2005 Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. Conclusion A long overdue re-release of this compact MRAP from Germany. It’s got decent detail and clear parts, although a little flash has crept into the latter, but that’s the work of moments to remove with a sharp knife and sanding stick. Highly recommended. Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit or

Airbus A300-600ST Beluga (03817) 1:144 Carrera Revell The Beluga is an aircraft that’s close to my heart, as it frequently flies near or even over my home on its way to and from the Airbus factory at Hawarden, Chester. The fleet has recently been augmented by a larger and more advanced aircraft that is based on the Airbus A330, and is called the BelugaXL that brings a 30% increase in capacity, which also wears a distinctive mouth and eyes of its namesake whale around the nose area and cockpit. The Beluga as it is now known was originally called the Super Transporter, which is where the ST part of its nomenclature originates, and it was designed to transport over-sized components, typically the wings of the now discontinued A380, as well as many other large airframe assemblies that can include fuselages of smaller Airbus products on an ongoing basis. It replaced the ageing turbo-prop powered Super Guppies in 1995, with a fleet of five airframes carrying out their duties ever since. With the XL fleet now coming on stream at a rate of one per year, the Airbus operating company have extended their services to the wider transport world for outsized cargo to hopefully utilise excess capability, and possibly to take over loads that were previously carried by the sadly destroyed Antonov An.225 Mrija that was callously destroyed by the invaders of Ukraine. Although the Beluga’s cargo area is larger even than the legendary C-5 Galaxy, its load is limited to a comparatively low 47 tonnes, which is less than half to a third of its major competitors, although 47 tonnes is still a huge weight, especially if it’s on your foot. The BelugaXL is intended to replace the Beluga fleet in due course, with an original date of 2025, but as of 2023 they are still running side-by-side, with a slight difference in the howling take-off run letting us know which one is leaving Hawarden around 10 miles away. Cargo is loaded at the front via a portion of the fuselage above the nose raising toward the vertical while the low-mounted pressurised cockpit remains in position, giving the crew an excellent view of the runway during landing and take-off, without complicating the door’s mechanism or necessitating the evacuation of the crew during loading. The lower portion of the aircraft remains close to the standard A300, the major differences above the line where you would expect the windows to be, bulging out to accommodate the cargo it has been tasked with over the last 30+ years, and the introduction of the Beluga has reduced Airbus’s transport costs by a third, which is a substantial saving over the years. The production of the XL fleet is proceeding apace, the last of them rolling out onto the tarmac in the summer of 2023, with the original intention of drawing down the Belugas, which hasn’t completed yet at time of writing. When they do leave service, they will still have life left in them, and will be used by Airbus Beluga Transport (AiBT) for use carrying general oversized freight around the world. The Kit This is a reboxing of Revell’s 1997 kit, and is of course the only kit of the type in this scale. The kit arrives in a long end-opening box, and inside are five sprues of white styrene, a small open-sided clear sprue, a large decal sheet and the instructions printed in colour, with profiles for decals and markings on the back pages. Although the tooling is 25 years old now, detail is good, although some of the panel lines on the large cylindrical cargo area could be considered a little deep, but after primer and a few coats of paint they should reduce somewhat. Construction begins with the nose gear bay, which is moulded as a single part with a little detail inside, plus two ejector-pin marks that should be hidden beneath the substantial pivot-point that is mated with the lower portion of the strut, through which the twin wheels, one with moulded-in axle are slotted and glued. A long retraction jack locates into cups in the bay roof, and is joined to the leg around half way, painting everything in preparation for insertion under the cockpit. The fuselage halves have cut-lines for the cargo door thinned out from within, which is a nice feature, but that then puts the onus on the builder to create the interior, but no mention of this is made until the very end of the instructions. The windscreen is inserted into the port fuselage half along with the nose gear bay, then the two fuselage halves are mated, glued and taped in position while the glue cures. Underneath are a pair of fairings with NACA vents moulded-in, which fit into recesses in the fuselage halves, and those are best inserted once the fuselage halves have had their seams dealt with to your satisfaction, as there are some undulations near the edges in places. The elevators of the Beluga are made from top and bottom halves, and have their vertical surfaces made up from inner and outer faces, mating on a shallow peg that would suggest their installation would be best done after they are joined to the fuselage so that their alignment can be checked and corrected if necessary. Plugging the finished assemblies into the tail, attention shifts to the wings, which have a gear bay detail insert glued to the interior of the upper half before joining the lower, and Revell’s instructions show a clothes peg approaching the assembly menacingly from below. Use any clamps you wish however, and please don’t have nightmares. Once both wings are made, they each have five flap actuator fairings pinned in place, and a wingtip inserted in the open end, which has a little winglet at the rear of the fairing. The wings can then be plugged into each side of the fuselage on three substantial pegs, one of which is the inner end of the gear bay insert. Careful alignment of the wings is crucial, so it is wise to check and support the wings just in case one or both moves during the curing period of whatever glue you use. While you wait, the twin GE CF6-80C2A8 (catchy name!) turbofan engines are built up by fitting the front face, rear face and bullet parts within one half of the engine cowling before closing and gluing it, painting the components before it is put together. The pylons are moulded into the engine cowlings, and these are fixed to the underwing on a pair of pins, again taking care with alignment so they both hang correctly in relation to the ground. The two main gear legs are built up identically in mirror image, adding a retraction jack to the strut, followed by a pair of brake assemblies on a carrier linkage, then sliding two wheels with integral axles through the brakes and gluing the other wheels to the other side. These are inserted into the bay on three pegs, and have the bay door cut into two sections and glued in place on the outer edge of the bay. The nose gear was completed earlier, and has its bay door part cut in half for installation on each side of the bay. At this point, we find out that the model can also be completed in-flight by omitting the nose gear and main gear assemblies, placing the bay doors into the cut-outs without cutting them in half, however the nose gear doors will need the hinges cutting off so they will fit. Four small probes are glued over engraved marks under the nose, adding wingtip lights, plus a pair of position lights under the belly and on the top of the fuselage. Finally, the optional opened load area is dealt with, attaching the cut sections, now glued together, to the top of the open front by an angled connector that is glued in position. Then two arms are mounted on the pins moulded on either side of the cut-line, and in the next step a large insert is slid into the fuselage, but this isn’t on the sprues, which makes one wonder whether it was originally intended to be a styrene part. The modeller is told to visit step 37, where two drawings that show a pattern for the floor and rear bulkhead are to be used, an icon showing that a cutting motion is taking place. There are a line of small circular turrets to support the floor on each side of the fuselage interior, but they don’t offer a lot of support, so it may be wise to increase that by adding more material, and whilst doing that there are several ejector-pin marks inside the fuselage halves that you could also obliterate. Whether you use sheet styrene or cardboard is entirely up to you, and then you must decide whether to also detail the interior of the fuselage with ribbing and ancillary equipment, or depict it in the process of disgorging its cargo, thereby hiding the emptiness of the interior. That’s a fun question to ask yourself. Markings All five Belugas wear the same scheme, with a blue stripe up the rear of the fuselage and tailfin with stylised arcs in different shades of blue on the fin itself, the Airbus and Beluga names on the sides, whilst the only differentiating markings are the numbers on the front of their cargo doors, and their civil registration numbers. Only airframes 1, 2 and 3 are depicted on the sheet, so from the box you can build the following: Number 1 TA F-GSTA Number 2 TB F-GSTB Number 3 TC F-GSTC Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. There are also blue wingtip decals included on the sheet, with a spare in one corner, plus a triangular piece of blue decal to help with any gaps between the stripe decals, which are made from four parts, two per side. Conclusion There’s a ready audience for the Beluga, as it is an unusual-looking aircraft, and that is possibly about to increase if they are being drawn down from service. Whether we’ll see them back on the shelves in an AiBT livery remains to be seen, but it is a good time to pick one up with the official Airbus scheme, just in case it’s a while before it is back. Highly recommended. Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit or

Hello everyone I've recently finished 2 builds 1 by Pioneer2 the other by Revell both in 1/72. These 2 kits couldn't more different. The Pioneer2 kit is very rudimentary and isn't labelled as any particular model type, however I'm going to presume it's the V2 based on the undercarriage. I will note that if it is the V2 it's not in correct scale. The Revell kit is type IX. Quite a nicely detailed kit which lends itself to additional work. I'm actually going to do a little more work on the wings at a later date. The intention is to build a workshop diorama for this plane. Here is the Pioneer2 kit fully assembled and painted. And the Revell kit, partly left in wood finish unpainted. scratch built workshop stands.

Mercedes-Benz Unimog U1300L TLF 8/18 (07512) 1:24 Carrera Revell The Unimog U1300L is based on the 435 chassis, although the original U1300 was built on the different 425, and sibling the 1700L is also based upon the 435. It was introduced as a specialist fire engine for the German Fire Service and the Bundeswehr staring in 1975, and by the time it was retired in 1987, under a thousand U1300 and over 21,000 U1300L has been produced. The L variant used the enhanced 435 chassis and has a more powerful engine to improve its traction and load-carrying capabilities, with a choice of two lengths within the designation, driven from the rear wheels with selectable four-wheel drive for rough or muddy terrain. A straight six-cylinder diesel engine provides the power, sometimes with a turbocharger, and that power is put down through two or four wheels via an eight-speed gearbox that gives it a top speed of just under 70mph for an empty vehicle. Speaking of load, it can carry up to 1,800 litres of fire-fighting water supply to make a start on remote fires, and has a capacious load area that can be stacked with fire-fighting equipment and supplies, accessing them via large lift-and-retract doors on the sides and rear of the vehicle, a fenced-off roof area for more equipment and a ladder, and seating in the cab for three crew. The roof of the cab is the location for the blue flashers and the siren horn, with a movable search-light at the top of a post on the bonnet, as fires don’t just happen during daylight hours, although they do bring some of their own illumination. It was replaced by a 437 based truck that is still in service today. Incidentally that same chassis is also the basis for the Dingo 2 MRAP Armoured Vehicle. The Kit This kit is a reboxing of a kit from Revell that was first released in 1985, with new parts being added during the remainder of the 80s. The kit arrives in a large end-opening box with a painting of the kit in front of a burning building of some type, with a few fire-fighters seen in the background in their hi-viz protective gear and helmets. Inside the box are five sprues in styrene, two in red, one each in silver, black and white, plus a clear sprue, four flexible black tyres, a small piece of widely spaced mesh, a large decal sheet, and the instruction booklet that is printed in colour with profiles at the rear for the marking options. It is of course a product of its time, but still has some good detail where it counts, although there are a few moulded-in tools that would have benefitted from separate parts when looking at it from a modern perspective. There isn’t any mould damage visible, and a tiny amount of flash is relegated to the sprue runners, so shouldn’t be an issue. Note: The red sprue photos have been processed to reveal more of the detail, as they were a little bright. Construction begins with something you wouldn’t necessarily expect of a kit from the 80s, which is an engine. The big inline block is built from two halves and includes the sump, adding the serpentine belts with alternator to the front, and a depiction of the turbo on the left side. The chassis is moulded as a single large part, adding some ancillaries, the engine, drive-shaft, transfer box with additional drive-shafts moulded-in, and the exhaust muffler with exit pipe and feeder pipe that links to the engine in the front. The front suspension mounts are each made from two-part springs with rubber covers and connections on the bottom that accepts the seven-part front axle with pivoting hubs that have brake discs and callipers moulded-in. Additional struts, dampers and anti-roll bars are fixed to the axle, and a steering linkage ensures that the two hubs move in unison, providing you haven’t overdone the glue on the pivots. The rear axle is supported by another pair of covered springs, but its assembly is more complex and rugged to support the weight of the rear of the vehicle. The two assemblies are slipped over a transverse beam near the rear of the chassis, then the four-part rear axle is fitted, with two cross-braces, dampers, anti-roll bars and ancillaries layered over it. Two hydraulic reservoirs and their hoses join them together, then the assembly is attached to the chassis just forward of the rear axle, with more parts around them, adding fuel tank, foot-steps, stowage boxes and a rear cross-beam with towing shackle and reversing lights, one on the beam, the other on a bracket to the side. The vehicle’s wheels are each made from two hub halves that hide a mushroom pin to attach to the axle, and a rubber tyre is slipped over the completed hub, all of which requires no glue. The cab is a single part that is created via sliding moulds to produce all four sides in one part including detail, minus the doors and windows, with a pair of support beams that must be nipped off from the door openings, ready for the installation of the doors later. The two seats are moulded from two parts each, consisting of the upper pencil-quilted portion, and the base with integrated rails, one seating two on a wider cushion, while the driver gets his own individual seat. The cab floor is detailed with foot pedals, gear and drive shifting levers added to the centre, and the dash perched atop the centre console, applying four decals over the painted part before it is installed. The seats are mounted on the rear of the floor, the steering wheel and column are inserted, and another two decals are applied to the ends of the dash panel. Starting with the cab body inverted, the front grille is fixed under the bonnet, the windscreen slips in from inside, and a rear-view mirror is added to the centre, then building up the doors with door cards, fixed quarter-light, and a three-part hinge that is selectively glued so they remain mobile. They are glued at the front edge by the hinges, taping them into position until the glue dries. The cab is then lowered over the interior, adding a detail insert with ribbed roof and circular panel over the recessed top. The details are then applied, including the siren horn, a three-spoked circular part, and the blue lights on the front corners of the roof. Two small panels over the front wheels are inserted on the sides, with arches mounted on pegs from below. The load area is a complex assembly, starting with the partially tread-plated floor, adding four sides, taking care to mount the floor above the supporting lip inside each face. The internal dividers create four compartments, with moulded-in equipment, some of which are surprisingly deeply recessed to add realism, with a few that aren’t quite so good. Additional equipment, including rolled-up hoses, a simple cot, and the two up-and-over doors are inserted into the visible compartments on the right side, then some more details are added. This includes fire extinguisher, manifolds, nozzle, another hose, and a trio of yellow containers, which are fitted under the moulded-in hose racks, one of the more impressive moulded-in portions of the interior. The roof is fitted, and each side is edged by a length or double railings, fixing an extending five-part ladder into position along one side, and a vertical roof ladder that is moulded from vertical and horizontal sections, plus two mounts that fit on pins to the back of the vehicle and extends onto the roof for ease of access. The rear light cluster has clear lenses, hanging on a single stalk under the back of the vehicle, joined by a pair of lollipop reflectors on the corners, and number plate with light on the left side. Turning the body over, supports and pivots are inserted into location guides, then are joined by four mudguard halves, which will help when gluing the body on the rear of the chassis, adding the cab to the front, then making up the front bumper, which has the reflectors moulded-in for the running lights, fitting clear lenses over the top, and cutting two pieces of the supplied mesh to 7mm x 14mm to act as their protective cages. The vehicle is essentially complete, although the cab exterior needs detailing, adding the two wing-mirrors on large C-shaped mounts, the searchlight with clear lens on the scuttle in front of the windscreen, a pair of separate wipers, two grab-handles for access to the bonnet area, and two contoured clear indicators that should be painted clear orange. Markings There are a surprising eight decal options included on the sheet, but you’d be safe in guessing that the predominant colour is red. There are however TWO different reds, depending on which option you choose, so make your choice early, as you will have to apply some red paint to the exterior during the building process. From the box you can build one of the following: Trier, Germany Bad Oeynhausen, Germany Höxter, Germany Braunschweig, Germany Venlo, Netherlands Salzburg, Austria Switzerland, Altstätten Hasselt, Belgium Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. Conclusion It’s an older kit, but it checks out. With careful painting and detailing, this should build up into a creditable replica of this workman-like fire-engine that saw extensive service in Germany and Europe. Highly recommended. Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit or

The German Junkers F.13 was the world's first all-metal airliner manufactured at the end of WWI It was a cantilever-wing monoplane, with two pilots in an open cockpit and an enclosed cabin compartment for four passengers. Over the years 322 planes of this type were manufactured and they were used by a many international airlines. The Finnish company Aero Oy (nowadays Finnair who, in fact this year are celebrating their 100 th anniversary of operations) inaugurated their operations on March 20, 1924 by flying mail from Helsinki to Tallinn with the Junkers F.13 type D-335, After the ice in the Gulf of Finland had melted the planes' skis were changed to floats. Between 1924−1935 Aero had a total of seven Junkers F.13 planes in their fleet. In addition to Tallinn the other destination was Stockholm. The Finnish Air Force and the Border Guard were the other Finnish operators of this plane type. The Revell Junkers F.13 kit in 1/72 scale dates back to the 1990's. The boxing I bought included decals for the Aero Oy livery but I additionally bought the Arctic decals set which gave markings for more versions of the Finnish planes. The kit was of good quality and the quite small number of parts had good fit and almost no flash at all. The only tricky part in the assembly were the floats and the many struts, One needed a great deal of accuracy and patience in building the construction and attaching it so that it was correctly in line and not tilting to any side. I warmly recommend to build the floats and the struts separately and attach the "mess" to the fuselage only at the end. After having assembled the kit I first primed it with gray Mr. Surfacer 1200 and sprayed it then with Tamiya's Glossy black TS-14. The metal areas were then air brushed with Ammo's polished aluminium lacquer. Since the hue of the metal in the actual plane was satin I first attached the decals and at the end air brushed the model with the acrylic satin varnish of Vantage Modelling Solutions. This new Polish stuff was excellent in my opinion. Since the whole plane was made of very dense corrugated metal I had bad doubts of how the decals would stick to it without silvering. Strangely enough there's only little silvering to be seen.

Panzerhaubitze 2000 (03347) 1:72 Carrera Revell The PzH2000 is Germany's self-propelled howitzer, and has some impressive stats at its disposal, especially the rate of fire, which in burst mode can fire up to three rounds in 9 seconds. Don't you just love the name "burst mode"? For sustained fire, it can fire between 10-13 rounds per minute, although with a suggested maximum of 100 rounds per day, that won’t mean 24/7 bombardment. It is also accurate out way beyond 40km, and has plenty of advanced features that allow it to land multiple rounds on a target at the same time by altering the trajectory of each subsequent round to shorten the flight time, leading to simultaneous arrival. The main gun is a 155mm unit designed and made by Rheinmetall, and is highly advanced with separate charge and ammunition packages allowing for tuning of the round in the barrel, all of which is done automatically by the auto-loader mechanism. A new gun that is in prototype at time of writing has already extended the effective range of the gun even further to in excess of 67km, and they are hoping to increase that further to 75km by the end of testing. The crew are well protected from counter-attack, even though the vehicles by their nature are usually some way behind friendly lines due to their long reach. In conflicts such as Afghanistan, where it first saw action with the Dutch, the boundaries of engagement aren't fixed, so additional armour has been added to the roof of the turret to protect it from mortar rounds. A few issues were reported based on its use in Afghanistan due to heat and cold problems affecting the gun's operation at extremes of temperature, but these have been addressed in subsequent upgrades. Some PzH2000s have been used in Ukraine, provided by Germany, the balance coming from the Netherlands’ stock. They have seen extensive activity there, firing well in excess of their recommended 100 shells a day, which has resulted in stress and degradation of the auto-load systems, and those have needed to be repaired, with additional attritional replacements being supplied in the meantime, increasing the overall numbers in-theatre over the period of the conflict so far. As a consequence of their active service, the barrels that were rated for 4,500 rounds before replacement have been found to be lasting far longer, some reaching 20,000 rounds before they were replaced. The Kit This is a reboxing of Revell’s 2001 kit of the type, arriving in a small end-opening box, containing four sprues of grey styrene, decal sheet and colour-printed instruction booklet that has profiles for the decal options on the back pages. The detail of the kit is good for the age and scale, showing neither mould wear nor flash, with crisp moulding, plenty of detail, plus raised and recessed features where it matters most. Construction begins with the assembly of the lower hull from the base structure, which is detailed with a pair of sides that have the suspension arms and other detail moulded-in. The fourteen paired road wheels, twin idler wheels and two-part drive sprockets are made up and fitted onto the stub axles on the hull sides, adding two of the four return rollers on the outboard positions, the inner two being moulded into the hull sides. The tracks are link-and-length, with two long runs top and bottom, short runs on the two diagonals, and ten individual links that accomplish the curves around the ends of the track runs on both sides. A scrap diagram shows the colours suitable for the steel track links and their rubber pads to assist with painting. The upper hull is made from the deck with moulded-in glacis plate, plus the two side panels, after which the two hull halves are mated, and the rear bulkhead with moulded-in access doors is inserted into the space on the back of the vehicle. There is a choice of where to locate a beam on the vehicle, either on the right side or across the glacis plate, fitting a shallow box on the left side of the hull. The rear bulkhead is completed by adding hooks, towing shackles and other small parts to it, then filling the void at the rear of the sponsons with inserts that have detail engraved that include light clusters and the doors for stowage boxes inside the sponsons. The skirts slip into position on the hull sides, then the front of the vehicle is outfitted with light clusters and their cages, towing shackles, and a pair of warning lights that are painted red for operation on civilian roads, finished off with a pair of wing mirrors, one each side. The hull is finished off with a towing cable that is mounted around the side and rear of the turret perimeter, placing a pair of track links on the deck, plus the driver’s hatch and armoured vision-block covers on the front right. The massive turret is made from a curved roof/sides that is mounted on the floor, and closed at the rear by a semi-circular bulkhead, adding three hatch-tops and a warning flasher to the top and rear, the most forward hatch also getting a machine gun ring for an MG3 with moulded-in pintle-mount, and a rail on the right-most hatch that is fitted at an angle. The pivot-point for the main gun is built from two halves two plus additional detail parts, then the front of the turret is detailed with a four-part mesh stowage position with a small panel and bracket above it on the right, and a tapering louvred panel on the left cheek. The barrel is moulded in two halves, and once complete is inserted into the breech/pivot on a keyed lug, then the assembly is clipped into position without glue inside the turret. The mantlet has four-barrel smoke grenade launchers on each side, and this is then slid over the barrel to cover the pivot drum, the interior of which isn’t meant to be accurate, just functional. A pair of aerials are made from stretched sprue and glued to the rear of the turret roof, and the turret is locked into position by lining up the bayonet lugs and rotating it to the front. An optional travel-lock for the barrel can be installed on the front deck, illustrated by two diagrams and a front elevation that notes that the centre of the lock is 16mm from the left side of the raised guides. Markings There are two decal options on the sheet, one in German service, the other in Ukrainian wartime service in 2022. From the box you can build one of the following: Batterie/Panzerartillerielehrbataillon 325 Muster 2011/2012 Ukraine/Ukrainian Army 2022 Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin satin carrier film cut close to the printed areas. Conclusion This is a reboxing of a very nicely detailed model, especially when you consider the tooling is now over 20 years old. The decals have been updated to reflect a more recent user of the type too, which will appeal. Highly recommended. Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit or

M1A1 AIM(SA)/M1A2 Abrams (03346) 1:72 Carrera Revell The M1 Abrams is at time of writing and likely to remain that way for some considerable time, the current Main Battle Tank employed by the armed forces of the USA. Named after General Creighton Abrams, Commander of US forces in Vietnam, the Abrams entered service with the US Army in 1980, gradually replacing the M60 MBT. Since then over 9,000 examples of the gas turbine-powered tank have been produced and it is now in service with the armed forces of Australia, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as well as the US. The US Marines operated the M1A1 (HA), which utilised depleted uranium as part of its composite armour package, the M1A1(SA) Situational Awareness had improved armour and a forward-looking FLIR turret installed, while the M1A2 variant is an upgrade over the original M1A1, with enhanced targeting and armour capabilities. The Tank Urban Survival Kit (TUSK & TUSK II) are field-installable armour upgrades that incorporates various elements such as Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA), a shallow V-keel underneath to deflect IED blasts away from the crew compartments, and armoured screens around the turret hatches, all of which were developed in response to experience acquired during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, particularly in urban environments. The Kit This is a reissue of a 1997 tooling, although some of the detail must have been quite impressive when it was originally released, including the anti-slip coating on the horizontal portions of the vehicle. It arrives in a small end-opening box, and inside are six sprues in light grey styrene, a small decal sheet, and the instruction booklet that is printed in colour, with profiles in the rear to assist with painting and decaling. As already mentioned, the detail is good, especially for the time, with individually moulded wheels that must be paired up, IFF ID panels, link-and-length tracks, turret basket framework and the exhausts for the gas turbine engine at the rear. Construction begins understandably with the lower hull, which is made from the floor, two side panels that have the wheel-stations moulded-in, plus the rear bulkhead that has heat-exchanging grilles moulded-in, with a gap for the hot exhaust from the engine. The road wheels are made up into pairs, the drive-sprockets are built from two halves with slightly simplified details on the outer face, then they are glued into position along with the two return rollers along the upper run. The tracks are link-and-length, as already mentioned, and are made up from two flat lengths on the horizontal, two short diagonal lengths at the ends of the run, and ten individual links to fit around the drive-sprocket and idler wheel, repeating it on the opposite side, painting the tracks when you feel it best. The exhaust insert has a choice of two styles, and a large towing hook underneath, then the upper hull is fitted with a pair of side-skirts, cutting off the rear curved section for the M1A1 option. The driver’s hatch and light clusters are glued to the shallow sloped upper glacis plate, then the top and bottom hull assemblies are mated. The turret is a single upper that needs four flashed-over holes drilling out before it is mated to the turret floor, adding stowage boxes to the sides and rear, located on recesses, and with the Vehicle Meteorological Sensor (VMS) mast on the rear. The commander’s cupola with thick hatch and machine gun mount, or a simplified alternative are glued into the right cut-out, then the turret baskets are fitted around the sides and rear, along with the towing cables with moulded-in eyes. Although the tubular frames of these are a little oversized through necessity, they’re not overly large, so don’t look out of place. The M1A1 and M1A2 turret fittings differ, so there are two pairs of steps dealing with those, then the mantlet with moulded-in coax machine gun is inserted into the front of the turret, adding the gun barrel into the hole, adding the other half of the fume extractor “hump” from midway down the barrel, which was moulded as an insert to avoid sink-marks. The crew-served weapons on the turret differ between versions, with differing mounts for the commander’s hatch, and a 7.62mm gun for the other hatch, all with ammo cans mated to their sides. The turret is then twisted into the hull to lock the bayonet lugs into position. The M1A1 has a pair of spare road wheels and a tubular part that may be a Manpad missile, although it’s hard to tell. The M1A2 has a large aircon unit in the bustle rack, the same tubular “thing”, spare road wheels and four ammo cans that are fixed to the back of the bustle rack. Both variants then have another spare road wheel mounted on the turret top that appears to block the view of the Gunner’s primary sight for the M1A2, so seems a bad idea. Markings There are two decal options on the sheet, and for a change there is an Australian option provided, rather than US only options. From the box you can build one of the following: M1A2 Abrams, 194th Brigade Task Force, 1-70 AR National Training Centre, Fort Irwing, California, 1995 M1A1 Abrams, Australian Army, Armoured Cavalry Regiment, B Squadron, 3 Troop, 1st Adelaide, South Australia, 2015 Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin matt carrier film cut close to the printed areas. Conclusion A surprisingly well-detailed kit of this modern Main Battle Tank, which is still reasonably large in 1:72 scale. The camouflaged decal options add some individuality to the boxing, which is always a good thing. Highly recommended. Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit or

I just have to have a go at this blue camouflage! Sure, it has been done loads of times but it will certainly brighten up my display cabinet. Quite a bit of flash from what I am used to these days. The original mould is from 1999 and I managed to pick it up for £10 so I guess I can’t really complain. I also found this in the depths of the loft. I must have brought this in the early 80’s. Not sure I am brave enough to attempt it though. I am a bit behind on my GB’s so I might not be able to start this for a couple of weeks, time will tell. George

SBD Dauntless Control Surfaces & Dinghy (4463 & 4462 for Acc.Min & Academy) 1:48 Special Hobby The Accurate Miniatures SBD Dauntless in 1:48 was originally tooled in the late 90s, and was well-received at the time, being well-detailed and researched. It has since been reboxed by many manufacturers, including Academy, Monogram and Revell, the latter seeing an outing as an SBD-5 in 2021, which we reviewed here. It’s still very much a modern-looking kit, despite its 25+ year history, but a few aspects could stand some upgrades. Special Hobby have created these two resin sets to assist in this manner. The sets arrive in Special Hobby’s yellow themed blister pack, with a header card and the instructions forming the slot-in back to the package, and holding the resin in place within the blister, whilst remaining visible to the prospective purchaser. Control Surfaces (4463) This set includes seven control surfaces on their own casting blocks, plus six small hinge parts on another block. The new flying surfaces include replacement ailerons for those that are moulded into the kit wings, new elevators and their stabilising fins, plus a new rudder panel to replace the moulded-in original. The detail on the new parts is substantially better than the originals, with crisp panel lines, raised ribs, a fine trim-tab actuator on the rudder, and rounded leading edges to add realism. The elevators are drop-in replacements that can be posed deflected once the small hinge-points are installed, while the rudder and ailerons need their locations clearing by cutting away the originals along the pivot-line. The instructions suggest thinning and bevelling the edges of the wing at the cut to allow the curved noses of the resin parts to fit snugly into position in a realistic manner. The rudder also needs two more hinge-points gluing to the kit fin, marking their location by using the rudder as a template. When complete, it should add extra detail and a more individual look to the model. Dinghy (4462) Consisting of four small parts, the set includes the cylindrical bay for the dinghy, a stowed dinghy pack that slots inside, and a choice of two styles of door, so when cutting away the round panel on the port side of the fuselage you don’t need to worry about keeping the styrene part in one piece. It’s worth noting that on many decal options this panel appears under where one of the fuselage markings will be, so it is wise to plan ahead, and it might also be a good idea to consider masks for the affected markings, so that matching the colour won’t be an issue. If you are careful however, you could cut the decal once you have placed it, and apply the cut-out section to the door, touching in any damage or blemishes that were likely to happen on the real aircraft around a bay that was often opened for checking by crew and maintainers. Conclusion These sets will make a good model better, and the increase in the detail will be noticeable to all but the most oblivious of viewers. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Krupp Protze Kfz.69 with 3.7cm PaK 36 (03344) 1:76 Carrera Revell The Krupp Protze was easy to spot due to its sharply sloping bonnet that was unusual then, and still looks strange to modern eyes. It was a general-purpose artillery tractor and transport vehicle that was used significantly on the Eastern Front and in North Africa before the rout of the Afrikakorps by Montgomery’s Eighth Army and the Allies. The Kfz.69 variant was the generic tractor for the PaK36, which fired a paltry 36mm shell that was considered sufficient for pre-war anti-tank warfare before the arms race rendered it little more than a pop-gun against armoured targets. It was powered by a 60hp Krupp petrol engine that allowed it to carry a crew of six including the driver as well as tow the relatively light PaK36, although top speeds wouldn’t have been earth-shattering with a full load plus ammo to feed the gun. It was manufactured from 1938 until 1941, by which time around 7,000 had been built of various styles, including troop transports, generator wagon, radio truck amongst others, each one having its own Kfz. designation. It had some relatively novel features, amongst which was its low bonnet profile that gave the driver excellent frontal visibility, advanced independent suspension that gave it good traction over rough ground, helped further by its six-wheel drive through three axles. As the weight of the guns it was expected to tow increased however, the vehicle’s limited towing ability counted against it, and it was gradually drawn down from its function as a gun limber. The Kit This is clearly a reboxing of the 1982 Matchbox kit in a new box and with modern decals. The diorama base, part numbers of the back of the sprues, along with the scale are enough to mark it as such, although the original stamp on the base has been obliterated at some point, but the original product code PK88 on one of the sprues gives the game away. The kit arrives in a small end-opening box with a painting of the subject matter in front of a knocked-out French Char, and inside are two sprues in pale grey styrene, a small decal sheet and instruction booklet that harks back to Revell’s earlier black and white era. Detail is as you would expect of the time, with some simplification of parts, and a very shiny surface to many of the parts. There doesn’t appear to have been any tooling damage over the years however, and any flash seems limited to the sprues except for the base of the truck bed that will be the work of moments to remove. Construction begins with painting the driver figure who is sitting with his hands by his side and legs firmly together to ease moulding, but for his scale and age he’s not too bad. He quickly gets somewhere to sit when he is inserted into the cab lower and joined by the firewall and moulded-in windscreen frame that also has the steering column and wheel pushed into it. There is no glazing, but if you feel the urge, you could carefully cut some thin acetate to size and glue it in place with some non-fogging adhesive. The sloped engine bay is then built from sides, grille and bonnet cover that fills the void in front of the driver, completed by the front wings that are moulded into the floor. The load bed is based on a simple planked floor with short risers at the sides, which have the bench seating fitted to the outside, and front head board, plus added double wheel-arches and the tailgate at the rear. The chassis is the base for the sub-assemblies, and work starts by adding the raised wheel pair that sits to the rear of the cab on a cranked axle, with the two back axles and their simplified suspension arms fitted to the rear along with a pair of trapezoid suspension units that link them together from above. The front wheels are mounted to their axle and fixed to the front of the chassis along with leaf-spring suspension. A simple tow hook is fixed to the rear of the chassis, then the cab and load bed are mated on two pins and lowered onto the chassis, adding an optional two-part tilt over the top. The frog-eye lights, front bumper, exhaust, convoy light and door mirrors complete the truck, allowing the gun to be built. The gun-trails are sandwiched between the boxy chassis halves of the gun, leaving them mobile if you are careful with the glue. Entrenching spades are fitted to the rear of the trails, adding stub-axles and adjustment gear to the chassis, before mounting the gun on its support and pushing the barrel through the splinter shield, finally gluing the assembly onto the chassis and adding the wheels to the axles. The diorama base is moulded in two halves, and consists of a cobbled street and a rough rise to one side with the remains of some duckboards over a trench, a piece of pipe in the bottom, and overgrown fencing to one side. A disused telegraph pole is inserted into a socket in the corner to give the piece some height, while sections of the road have been pock-marked with shallow craters where small explosions have lifted the cobbles. There is enough space for the model to sit on the road, but if you value its safety you could pin or glue it into position to prevent it rolling off if someone picks it up. Markings There are three decal options on the small sheet, but the profiles are all in black, white and shades of grey. You can depict one of three schemes, in Panzer Grey, Dunkegelb with green and red brown camouflage, or plain dark yellow. Other than different number plates, there is no other information given on where and when they were used. Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin matt carrier film cut close to the printed areas. Conclusion There’s a lot of nostalgia value to this kit, and the scale difference shouldn’t show up too badly next to 1:72 armour, especially if you squint. With some careful building and painting, it could result in a good replica of this bug-eyed gun tractor. Recommended. Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit or

Once again, an old kit reboxed, but I’m a sucker for a bargain. £14 I think this cost me. Unlike expensive kits, there is no pressure to “get it right” so I relaxed into it and had fun. New for me on this was scratch building engine cables and photo etch seatbelt. And it was my first attempt at painting strips which was good practice before I did the Seafang. The base is made from an old kitchen draw face which I routed out and glued sticks down , stained and sanded. (Yes I know British carriers had metal decks, but it looks good).

Star Wars The Mandalorian Razor Crest (01213) 1:350 Carrera Revell We’ve all heard of Star Wars, the three trilogies, the spin-off films and now under the auspices of the massive Disney corporation, we are being treated to some television series on their streaming service Disney+ that are bringing back some of the magic that perhaps had been lost, or at least dulled over the years under the helmsmanship of J J Abrams. The Mandalorian series reached our screens in 2019, right around the time the Covid-19 pandemic first hit, and it has helped keep us Star Wars fans entertained for three seasons now, with a fourth in the offing for 2024, hopefully. It has brought us new characters into the much-loved Star Wars universe such as the Mandalorian, Din Djarin himself, Grogu the baby Yoda, and it has reintroduced the previously reviled but nevertheless popular Boba Fett, who seems to have mellowed and become more well-rounded during his short time being digested in the Sarlacc Pit, and has now got his own series on the strength of his cameo performance in season 2, as has former Padawan of pre-lava bath Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka. Even Luke Skywalker has made a brief appearance at the end of season 2, heavily de-aged using CGI and an actor with a similar physique to his younger self to fit in with the show’s timeline of being set just after Return of the Jedi. The Razor Crest is an ST-70 Assault Ship that has seen better days since its service with the Republic, having survived the rise and fall of the Empire, to become The Mandalorian’s mode of transport around the Outer Rim of the Star Wars galaxy catching bad guys for bounty. It was originally a scout ship, but is armed with a pair of laser cannon in the nose, and is capable of faster than light travel thanks to hyperspace engines that are presumably hidden inside the same twin nacelles that house the sub-light engines. Inside the ship is an extensively glazed cockpit and a large hold with a well-stocked weapons locker and a carbonite freezer chamber to store reluctant guests that he’s taking back for bounty. Yes, it’s a Mandalorian thing, apparently. She survived several space battles, being stripped down to a bare chassis by Jawas, and a drowning on Trask, only to be thoroughly atomised by a blast from Moff Gideon’s cruiser at the end of season 2, much to my disappointment. I really liked that ship, although the retro-fitted hot-rod Naboo fighter is starting to grow on me. The Kit This little gem of a kit is another collaboration with Bandai, but I won’t prattle on about how good they are at squeezing detail into relatively small model kits. It was originally part of Bandai’s Vehicle Model series, which were usually 1:144 for the fighter-sized kits, 1:350 for larger ships such as the Millennium Falcon, and even smaller scale for the largest ships, and a ridiculous scale for the Death Star II. Revell have this on their website as being in 1:220 scale, which caused me to rub my chin and look up the original scale, finding that it was in fact 1:350, so matches the Falcon and other kits in the range. The kit arrives in a small black-themed box that is all Bandai styling, apart from a low-profile sticker that has been placed over the majority of one of the longer sides with Revell’s details and their usual boiler-plate text in various languages, plus barcode, product code, certifications and some copyright/trademark details. Inside the top-opening box are two sprues in a muted silver-grey styrene, a small sprue of black styrene, and a sheet of stickers. That’s correct. Stickers. If you’re looking for the instructions, pick up the lid again and look at the inside, where you will find nine steps to build up your model and its stand, which is what you’ll find on the black sprue. Detail is superb, and fit is excellent too, as I’ve built one, but in true “me” style, I painted it a beautiful shiny silver and subsequently got distracted by something else, although it can’t have been anything shinier. Construction begins with the hull halves that just push together, as do the underside and rear access ramp parts. The upper portion of the hull is moulded with the winglets, and this is made from an upper and lower half with a small detail insert trapped inside the rear. This assembly is pushed into position on the pegs in the top of the lower hull, completed by adding the nose of the ship, which has the front panels of the canopy moulded-in, the rest of it to be found on the upper hull section, as the kit is just too small to warrant clear parts and cockpit details. The engines are each made from two cylindrical halves, with tapered end caps finishing them off, after which they can be mounted at the tips on the short winglets that are high up on the hull. A pair of two-part cannon mounts insert in holes near the front of the hull, and that's the kit completed. Not many parts, but a ton of detail and personality. The stand is just three parts, but incorporates a choice of three slots to mount your model’s support, and at the top is a ball-and-socket joint that permits the posing of your finished Razor Crest at almost any angle you wish. Here’s a photo of my painted but not finished example: Markings Here is the only mild negative of the kit, which is that decals aren’t also included, but it’s the same with most of the Vehicle range of kits, and as the markings consist of some extremely heavily weathered yellow stripes on the hull sides, a set of black canopy stickers, and weathering for the engines, which could all be done better with paint, possibly using the stickers as a guide for masking or hand-painting the striping. There was only one Razor Crest, and these are the stickers: Conclusion Everyone loves the Razor Crest. It’s Mando-tory, but if you want to keep your model of his ship on the small side, this kit will barely take any space in the cabinet, but is packed with detail. I really should finish mine. Very highly recommended. Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit or

On holiday in North Yorkshire. NONE of my tools or paints etc. with me. Bought a Revell P51D Mustang model that comes with the brush, three paints, and cement. Had to get a craft knife, and also bought a pot of thinners. Let's see what I can do with so little!

So my son asked me to build him a “combat helicopter” which I did at work at my desk during my lunch hours. As I was building it a work colleague said he had something for me and gave me the Revell kit telling me he was never going to build it and that if I wanted it it was mine. The kit is from 1980 and fairly simple, but there were some fit issues, filling and sanding to do and the decals had yellowed. I hit Hannants for some new decals, Master Detail for a couple of pilots and scrap pieces of wood and metal to make the base. No, this is no Tamiya kit, but then it doesn’t cost anything like a Tamiya (yes I know this one was free, but you know what I mean) and you get one big good looking aircraft at the end.

Hi folks. I've finished this today having started it on the 19th June. It's OOB with the exception of a couple of wires here and there and mesh for the open apertures around the boom area. The seats were give sheep skin effect by using a sponge when it was tackle. A fire extinguisher from the spares box for the rear of the RHS. I edged the cabin wooden flooring with tamiya clear red, which worked quite well. I didn't want to load up the aircraft with a full load, so just chose the gun option only as I quite like the clean look. I scraped out the ammo box holder so it looked more like the real thing and opened up the moulded flash eliminator on the barrel. The stretched wire is a EZI line alternative. It's a single piece and with my razor saw I cut a groove and ran the wire through those antennas and filled the fillet afterwards. Now those pesky intakes. The kit clear parts are the best they could do I suppose with the budget. I tried mesh but it still looked way oversize to thee real thing. Which unless you're up close it melts away. So I've used a cut up tea bag, yep you read right. Up close it does have the holes. Now I know it's going to be marmite but unless I take the notion to make paper machè for guards, it'll do. The rear wheels were set at 27.5 degrees. The blades are correct as I used to overhaul them so have done both variations of the colours and stripes etc.... Not overly weathered. Tamiya paints for the main colours and kleared halfords primer for the darker/shiney head. Followed by a Windsor & Newton Matt varnish. I used Tamiya clear blue for the tints and tonned it down with smoke, but I think it could go darker. The blades are correct and I've done the 2 main differences as they went out of Bay maintenance. The biggest gripe is the instructions. They refer to different number on the sprue, but picture the bit to be assembled and would have you try to fit the orange crop parts on opposite ends to where they should be. So if you have the kit dry fit and check references!. So during this build one of our labradors (Finlay) lost his life to liver cancer aged 8. He'd lie down beside my modelling chair every time waiting for me to move. So he was alive when I started but gone at the end. The modelling was a bit of medicine whilst my wife and I adjusted but equally its not my usual standard as at times I couldn't be bottomed. So a few photo's. This last photo is on my Boscombe Down base. Both the sandy and grey are to 1/32 scale. Steve.

’71 Ford Mustang Boss 351 (07699) 1:25 Carrera Revell Ford’s Pony Car was first introduced in 1964, and immediately struck a chord with the American car-buying public, claiming a place in motoring history as it did so. By the time the 1971 edition came about, there had already been a series of annual redesigns as was common back then, when cars were a little less technologically challenging and safety-conscious than they are now. The aggressive styling had been toned down a little, and the chassis kept getting longer with three main body styles available, including hardtop, convertible and fastback, although the latter was unimaginatively called the Sports Roof at the time. There were three basic trim levels, plus the Mach 1, which was the sports model with two-tone paint and fancy striping, plus ducts in the bonnet to appeal to the petrol heads of America, of which there were many. The Boss 351 was essentially a tricked-out Mach 1, with grille-mounted fog-lights, additional spoilers front and rear, twin tail pipes, chrome bumpers, and blacked out bonnet to give it a more racing look. Coupled with the sloping rear of the Sports Roof, these cars were a huge draw to those with a bulging wallet, but the vehicle’s emissions were such that it was short-lived, and was dropped the following year due to the more draconian emissions regulations that were putting the brakes on oversized cars with immense engines under the bonnet, and while petrol prices were also starting to climb, America still had it pretty good when compared to other countries at the time. A de-tuned Boss 351 engine was made available as an option for most models in the following year, and some components were re-used, but that was the end of the 351, although its memory still lingers amongst those of a certain age. The Kit This is a new tooling from Revell, and I had to scratch my head about the choice of 1:25 scale, although I suspect that it might be more popular in the US, and let’s face it, that’s where many of these kits will be heading. It arrives in an end-opening box with a painting of the car on the front, and thankfully the people inside the car this time don’t immediately ring any bells as to any particular celebrities, as has been the case with a few of their recent issues. Inside the box are nine sprues and a bodyshell in white styrene, two chromed white sprues, four flexible black tyres, a clear sprue, large decal sheet, the instruction booklet in A4(ish) portrait form, printed in colour, and with a safety sheet folded up inside, just in case your common sense has temporarily deserted you. Detail is good, with modern aspects to the tooling, which has been moulded for Revell by (or in) Dongguan in China, as evidenced by black printing next to the raised Revell 2022 copyright details in the boot/trunk areas. Construction begins with the engine, starting with the two-part block and transmission assembly, which has the sump and ancillaries added to the front, then the two four-piston cylinder heads with their oil filler caps that form the V that gives the V8 its name, installing the two manifolds and more ancillaries along the sides. The fan belt with its mountings are put together separately and have the fan fixed to the front before it is joined to the front of the engine along with the air intake pathways, carburettor and the distributor that nestle in between the piston banks. There are eight decals applied to various locations during the building of the engine, adding extra detail to the bay, then the lower hose that leads to the radiator is inserted low down at the front of the motor. The dashboard is well-moulded, with recessed dials and raised bezels that are enhanced by applying eleven decals if you include the two on the steering wheel, which is mounted on a short column with integral indicator stalks, with detail painting called out along the way, which is also the case for the rest of the model. The front seats are each made from front and rear parts, and you have a choice of two decal styles for the contrasting inserts on the quilted cushions, either silver or black. The centre console has a gear selector and its gaiter inserted into the front, and there are three decals applied here too, adding four seatbelt decals to the rear seats as the front seats and centre console are installed in the floor pan, with four more seatbelt decals added to the front seats once they are in place, plus four foot pedals on a carrier glued into the left side of the kick panel. The door cards are detail painted and have two wood-grain decals applied on each one so that they can be fitted to the sides of the floor pan and create the complete interior with the addition of the dashboard that gets yet another decal in the left corner that appears to be the US equivalent of the British VIN number. So far we have an engine and an interior, but not much car to go around it. That changes when the firewall is trimmed to add a pair of recesses on the top edge, and has the brake master cylinder fitted to it, before it is put to the side for a moment. The underside of the car is well-detailed on the exterior, and has the sub-frame mounted on two coil springs in the front, then the front axle with all its steering and suspension parts moulded into it is overlaid, after which the underside is flipped over to install the firewall after checking that you have removed the cross-brace piece of sprue in the transmission tunnel before you started. A couple more ancillaries are added in the engine bay, then the engine is lowered into the bay, sliding the transmission through the firewall and mounting it on its cradle in the centre. With the glue cured, the chassis is flipped onto its back again to install the twin downpipes that each mate to their own muffler that plugs into some large turrets under the body. Two shocks and an anti-roll bar are glued into the rear axle space before the exhaust pipes are inserted into slots in the back of the mufflers, then the leaf-springs are fixed across the rear axle, which also has its differential input fairing glued into the front, dropping the assembly and a long drive-shaft into position on locating pegs. To put the power down we need wheels, and these are made from three parts each, a chromed outer hub, a white plastic inner hub, and a mushroom washer that sits loose inside the pair to allow the wheels to rotate, then slipping the flexible black tyres over the hub to complete it. One is added to each arch, being very careful with the glue if you want them to spin once you’re done. Attention shifts to the engine bay again, adding stiffening beams to brace the suspension turrets against the firewall, fitted diagonally and meeting at the centre. The battery and a few more ancillaries are installed around the capacious bonnet space, and another four decals are applied here and there to add more authenticity to this Ford approved model kit. The radiator is made from three layers, and has a decal applied to the rear layer before it is inserted into the front of the engine bay, locating on the lower hose installed earlier, and adding a top hose to the opposite side that also disappears into the engine. The exterior of a car like this is very important, as a sports car is always at least partly about looks. The rear light panel is first to receive its clear parts, painting them the appropriate colours with transparent paint, then installing it into the rear of the bodyshell after it has been prepared by removing the supporting sprue from the engine bay, and drilling the holes for the rear spoiler. The rear quarter lights are also fitted from the inside, to be joined by the windscreen with rear-view mirror and sun visors, a courtesy light in the centre of the ceiling, and the rear windscreen. Before inserting the interior into the bodyshell, the transmission tunnel should be painted black, then it locates on a set of pins and sockets, to be covered over by the underside of the vehicle, with important gluing locations pointed out by red lines around the engine bay edges. A car is nothing without a face, and the Mustang definitely had this part of its design language dialled in for much of its lifetime. The grille is provided as a single part with the headlamp reflectors moulded in, to be painted with the best approximation of chrome that you can muster. The fog-lights are chromed, and insert into recesses in the grille, and should then be painted a clear orange, as should the sidelights in the bottom corners of the grille part. Its air-dam and optional splitter are joined together, and before you install them all in the front, there’s another decal for the engine bay. The grille, chromed bumper with a choice of number plate holder shapes are fitted first, then the dam and splitter assembly is brought up from below. At the rear, the panel below the boot opening is installed first with another numberplate holder, fixing the chromed bumper over it, hiding the seam. The central badge is glued into its recess in the boot, and the boot spoiler with separate supports is inserted into the holes drilled earlier. It's not over yet! A large circular air filter “box” is laid over the top of the engine, adding a hose that snakes away to the lower part of the engine, and applying a choice of two styles of decals around the shallow cylinder. Chromed door handles and wing mirrors with chromed inserts are fitted to both doors, with two more chrome parts that portray the latches fitted to the well-detailed bonnet, which has structure and other feature moulded into the inside so you’ll want to display your engine. You also get instructions to assist you in masking and painting the black portion of the bonnet, which has a body-coloured border around the edges. Two hinge guides are glued to the back of the bonnet panel, and it is inserted into position, with pins on the ends of the guides locating in the space under the scuttle. Markings There is just one vehicle depicted on the decal instructions, and it is blue with silver accent lines that are supplied as decals for your convenience. In case you plan on painting your Boss 351 a lighter colour however, there are also the same decals in black, so if you have seen the same yellow car that I have, you could use those. Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. Conclusion My experience of vehicle modelling doesn’t go back very far, so I’m unsure why Revell chose 1:25, but that aside, this model is well-detailed and does a good job of looking like one of my favourite old Mustangs. A bit large and wallowing for British roads, but nice to look at. Highly recommended. Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit or

The ancient Revell 727,first issued back in 1964 is in my opinion a pretty nice kit. Its a bit on the heavy side with all its rivets but I like it more than the Airfix offering. I replaced the cockpit section with a DACO canopy.Its actually designed for their 737 kits but it can be used on Revells 707,727,Airfix 707,727,737 and on Minicrafts 707 with little to no adjustments. The rather simple wheels from the Revell kit were replaced by resin wheels from Brengun, the decals for the JAL delivery scheme comes from 8A decals Mexico and are very well made. Paints are my usual mix of Gunze and Revell. Metallics are all Gunze. The 60s JAL livery is amongst my favourite liveries and suits the 727 very well. Thanks for looking Alex The Brengun wheels make a huge difference

This was one of the first releases by Revell of their 737-800 kit. It had no winglets added back then. The provided KLM markings are very nice and provide almost everything necessary. Painted with Revell enamels,sky blue 52 with a few drops white 04 for the upper fuselage,grey 374 for the rest. The corogard panels are decals provided with the kit. The usual conversions were made to the engines.Otherwise straight from the box. Thanks for looking Alex

These 2 kits are the Revell offerings of the Boeing 737-800. Revell were the first to offer the -800 Series,first release in 1999. Its a nice kit that goes together easily but suffers from some errors. Too low cabin windows,wrong shaped engines ( more of the -300 to -500 types) and on later releases,completely off shaped winglets. I tried to adress these issues on my Revell 737s as good as possible. What was not possible to be corrected on those 2 were the cabin windows,because of the design of the decals.Otherwise they wouldnt fit.But its not so noticeable,so i oversee that matter. What I spent the most work on were the engines. I found a very helpful guide here on BM regarding the Revell 737s flaws. So the engines were mostly corrected by the ways described in that BM thread. The winglets were cut and sanded to shape. TUI FLY is well known for their many different Logo Jets and the Haribo liveries are among the most popular. Revell issued both of those liveries in 2010 with superb decal sets by NAZCA. I planned to go with the open window option but as no silver frames were included in those sets,the windows tended to disappear,esp. on the blue one. So in the end I used the provided cabin window decals. All painted with Revell enamels. The blue one with Revell blue 54 and the golden one with Revell copper as the gold paint was way too bright. Thanks for looking Alex

Revell's 747-100/-200 kit had been around almost as long as the original. The first kit came out in 1974 and was since the constantly on offer by Revell in many markings. The last one came out in 2019 in demonstrator markings,celebrating the 50th anniversary of the queen of the skies. The moulds were really worn out and it was probably a good decision to take the 747-100 out of their program. My build of the first KLM 747 is a earlier release,which is very nice to build. The decals are from a much later reissue and so their quality was very good as well. Paints are Revell blue 52 with a few drops white 04 for the fuselage top. Wing grey is Gunze 315 which is a close match for Boeing grey. Corogard is Tamiya metallic grey mixed with Tamiya neutral grey. Some weathering was done as well with Humbrol graphite powder as pictures showed the KLM Jumbos quite dirty at times. Another 747 for my ever growing fleet of Jumbo Jets. Thanks for looking Alex

This is my first build of the new Revell A320NEO kit. To my surprise,the A320NEO is not in the same league qualitywise as their A321NEO kit. The fitting is not as good and the kit already showed some flash and excess plastic. The decals for the colourful Air Seychelles livery are from PAS decals and are of great quality. All other decals are from the kit. The fuselage was painted with Gunze white primer 1500,the rest are Testors,Revell and Gunze paints. One of my next NEOs will be a Zvezda kit,hopefully a better quality than the Revell offering. Thanks for looking Alex

The Air Belgium livery is another of my favourites. Authentic Airliners offers the decal set for it,so I went for it. In 2018 I saw one of those on approach to Rhodes airport and I knew I had to add this to my collection. The paintjob is straight forward,all white fuselage,painted with Gunze white primer 1500. The black stripe had to be painted,masks for it are provided with the decals. The fit of the decals is a bit iffy,I guess they are designed for the AA resin kit,which showed some errors probably on the Revell kit. So a few adjustments had to be done to get everything in place as good as possible. The build of the kit went fairly well,just the usual conversions on the engines had to be done. Thanks for looking Alex

Brussels Airlines introduced around half a dozen special liveries on their A320 fleet,all representing Belgium arts. In this case the Smurfs. I assume everybody remembers the cartoons with those blue dwarfs and their enemy Gargamel... PAS decals offers almost all of those liveries,but I guess some of them are just too difficult to reproduce in decal and kit form. The smurf design has its fair share of difficulties as well but it can be done. The decals are very nicely printed and of excellent quality. The most tricky part is the paint and masking job. Lots of photo reference was needed and I also made a copy of the decals that went over the windows to line out the demarcation between the blue and white. For the blue I used Revell blue 52 which I found a good match. The fading black to blue on the fin was achieved with a piece of paper holding in front of the blue.A few trials were needed to get it right. Its a funny livery and a real eye catcher in my cabinet. Thanks for looking Alex

To celebrate its 50th birthday,Lufthabsa painted one of their A321s in this very attractive retro livery. Revell was of course to the service and provided a reissue of their A321 kit with the retro decal set. They even served both modelling fractions,those who want window decals and those who like open windows,by providing 2 sets of cheatlines. I went for the open window version,I only had to use a decal for the cockpit as I cracked the clear part while installing it. The build is straight forward,everything fits nicely. For the paints,a mix of Revell enamels,Testors and Gunze was used. The underbelly is a mix of Revell aluminium with Revell grey 374. Its a bit tricky to get it right. Revell tells you to paint it entirely aluminium but as the Airbus is more compisite material than metal,its completely wrong. The decals fit very well,only around the nose a few touch ups are required. Another airliner with a special livery can ve added to the collection.😊 Thanks for looking Alex