(looking for) Some opinions on Special Hobby WWII Kits

[stevej60]

Evening folk's, Thinking ahead for later this year I'd like to slow down the pace and do a few 1/48 aircraft that have long been favourite's, being the Skua,

Barracuda,Firefly and Fulmar,Special Hobby seen to cater for most and although a bit pricier than I prefer not an issue if the quality is there,I have to say I loved

the build of Revell's Seafire re-box and picked up their 1/32 Airacobra which I've started  again very nicely done on the sprue,just wondered what the opinion's

 fellow BM'ers have on these or any alternative option's? 

[e8n2]

I build in 72nd and have started many Special Hobby, Azur, and Azur Ffrom kits, but finished only a few.  The Nieuport/Delage 672 looks nice, but when it cake time to attach the top wing, there was no way it was ever going to fit properly even with enlarging the opening for the strut in the bottom wing and thinning the width of the strut (it looked like the molds were not properly seated when the plastic was injected.  The Lia 37, or something like that, an interwar French flying boat was another one that ended up in the trash.  The dimples for where to put the struts were more like suggestions as there were NO pins on the struts to even try to fit into the wings.  The struts for the engine were a mess and enough was enough.  The very first Special Hobby kit that I tried was the P-59A.  The wings ended up with anhedral instead of dihedral.  The first one that I ever completed was the Northrup floatplane used in Little Norway and by the FAA.  Sorry I can't think of it's designation right now.  Way too many parts for some really unnecessary items that can't be seen once you succeeded in thinning down the width of the cockpit floor.  The Special Hobby BT-9 had the opposite problem.  The cockpit floor is too narrow and other items that go in the fuselage are not shown clearly in the instructions as to where they go.  I did manage to finish it, but have purchased the Pavla AT-6 cockpit and seats for the remaining three Azur/Special Hobby kits that I have of this aircraft.  They will apparently fit just fine from what I can see so far.  The new CASA C-212 on the other hand turned out to go together very nicely.  There was no cargo floor so I used some sheet plastic to make one.  There is not much interior detail back of the cockpit, but a floor would have been nice.  Somebody with AMS could have some fun opening up the cargo doors and detailing the cargo hold.  Well not intended, the assembled wing did not want to stay on very much, but that worked out nicely as I was able to easily spray the camo on the insides of the engine nacelles and mask of the de-icing boots on the inner portion of the wing.  I did the Columbian Navy version and got the wing back on at the end.  In short, the newer kits should be fine, the older ones, watch out!

Later,

Dave

[Stew Dapple]

I've built the Skua and the Roc, albeit in 1/72 and they were both very nice kits - I have the (1/72) Fulmar in the stash and it looks good too. I can't remember which of us it was but a fellow BMer rated both the 1/48 Fulmar and Firefly as excellent if I recall.

 

Some of the Special Hobby kits do have a reputation for being a bit iffy, but I think the ones you mentioned are probably amongst the better releases. Besides, who else are you going to go to?

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Grey Beema]

I have just finished the SH 1/48 Skua and have completed the Fulmar, Seafire III Seafire II and have a Firefly for the Pacific War GB in the stash.  To complete my collection I need at least one more Fulmar and one more Skua.

 

SH kits are great.  I see people saying they are hard to complete but I don't think they are any harder than any other so long as you plan ahead and are prepared to do a bit of fettling and fitting.  So when you nail together the fuselage, and there are no locating pins, make a set of small tabs from plastic, and glue them, spaced out, along the joint and use them to line up the fuselage halves, wing joins or whatever.  You might not be able to complete them at the same pace as other kits but they will build up into great models..

 

If you wander around my main build thread, I think you'll bump into the Seafires, Fulmar and Skuas..

 

Enjoy...

[stevej60]

Thank's folk's with the Northern show on the horizon it's alway's a good place to find something different from the mainstream released so I'm

placing a self imposed ban on anything new till then and saving up the pennies,as I said I loved building the Seafire so I know they are buildable.

[tempestfan]

7 hours ago, e8n2 said:

The first one that I ever completed was the Northrup floatplane used in Little Norway and by the FAA.  Sorry I can't think of it's designation right now. 

N3-PB, IIRC.

 

I have the Barra, Fulmar and Firefly, all look nice in the box. The only alternative I could think of for the Firefly would be the Grand Phoenix kit from ca. 20 years ago, which certainly would be much harder to build. Beware that there's some problem with (early issues of) the Firefly 4/5 in that it has something like four identical drop tanks halfs (four prt sides, or four stbd.), or similar.

[Mike]

Had to alter that title, as it was making my eye twitch, both with the "grocer's apostrophe", and the slightly misleading title

[tempestfan]

7 minutes ago, Mike said:

Had to alter that title, as it was making my eye twitch, both with the "grocer's apostrophe", and the slightly misleading title

Don't want to sound split-hairy, but it should read WWII

[Mike]

26 minutes ago, tempestfan said:

Don't want to sound split-hairy, but it should read WWII

Please accept my humblest apologies...

 

I'm gonna blame the extra painkillers I'm on today

[JWM]

I like very much SH /MPM/Azur (and most of otheres) out of mainstream model makers - those are models designed by modellers for modellers. I love the variety of types offered. BTW - perhaps due to this variety they are already in the middle of main stream??? 

What I do not like sometime overdone PE parts. I often replacing them by soem scratch copies. 

With all my positive feelings for SH/MPM/Azur it is good to check shapes with some drawings.... Just to recall problems with accuracy of Special Hobby Polikarpov  R-Z shapes which I (as many others) have found constructing it. How deep are problem you may see in WIP 

 Cheers

J-W