JeffreyK

They say the kit is entirely manufactured in Turkey which is not a place known for scale model tooling. So my hunch is the moulds were tooled by a company with little experience in plastic model kits and the panel line width is simply what the tooling (and injection moulding) engineers advised the Red Pill designers to adhere to as design parameters. They don't know (yet) how to get to the point of refined and sharp surface detail. You cannot go from making car headlight reflectors to Tamiya-like quality scale models without a ton of experience and their next kit will likely be more refined. As an aside, again we have an F-4B release without Mk H5 seats so only post-'70s configurations can be built. Were there unslotted stabilators on the box? J

Can you elaborate on that, the specific equipment? I would have reservations about running resin-infested alcohol through a mechanical device like a pump. Even the very simple agitation wheel in the wash station can get clogged and needs thorough cleaning with every alcohol change. Phrozen have recently released a cloth filter “bucket” that is supposed to work well, but you need space for it and it’s all in the open, stenching up your workspace for hours… J

Hi friends, just a quick note to say that the NF-104A conversion set that had been sold out and out of production for a while (due to non-availability of the decals) has been produced again and is stocked (in batches) in my web shop. Also to all US customers: Japan Post now ships again to the US, duties pre-paid. Everything will be paid at checkout in my shop, nothing else is to be paid upon receiving the parcel stateside. Many thanks for looking!! Cheers, Jeffrey

Hi Adrian, not entirely sure what you mean...? The entire nose (or noses, all of them) was lifted (or rotated) 2° up at the join in front of the cockpit, so there is a break or kink in all lines looking from the side. Top and bottom contour line (you can't really see it at the top as it's so close to the wind shield area) and the chine line. This is the same on the SR-71B (and C) too. Other than that there is no kink. Just ahead of the nose wheel well there is a flat surface that bulges out sideways a little. This used to be optical glass and housed the TROC (Terrain Objective Camera), a low res camera that recorded the flown path. It wasn't very useful and was later deleted and the camera window replaced by sheet metal. My CAD is based on a 3D scan so I was able to get the ECM bulges pretty close. The scan is of an ASARS nose (Duxford) so the bulges had to be altered in design for the OBC and SLR/CAPRE noses, using close scruitiny and overlay of photos. J

The SR-71 noses don't follow the downward slope of the chine edges, there is a distinct break in the line. The reason: early in aerodynamic testing there was some instability discovered that the Lockheed engineers fixed by tilting the nose up by 2°. So the edge of the chines slope down, that line is then lifted by 2° at the nose but the pitot is again pointing into the original direction, i.e. 2° down from the nose centre plane. Some factory drawings show the original design without the lift, others do incorporate it. You need to know what you're looking at. (My design is based on a 3D scan, original Lockheed technical drawings (not blueprints though, they were all destroyed) hand-measurements and lots of verbal/tex info.) Whether or not Revell have been accurate in capturing this I don't know, but it looks ok-ish to me. J

That's Trumpeter in a nutshell. Could be their business mantra. J

I love Hueys and this one's a real gem!! Well done. J

Hi everyone, again I keep neglecting posting news on here... I've just moved over to a new web shop platform! If you fancy, please come and have a look around. The design is similar to the previous one but quite a bit "cleaner" visually and content wise, but providing more functionality (like corrency and language converters, more payment options...) and there's a nice model gallery too! Cheers, Jeffrey hypersonicmodels.com

It would be a completely new kit. almost all the large main parts would have to be new. Just one example (apart from the obvious things like the chines and tail): The cross section at the fuselage/nose itersection is much larger on the YF-12 due to the large radar. The cockpits sit higher, also the upper outline of the canopies is shaped differently. As for the SR-71: it's been one of the most frustrating things in my business life. I did my part and the kit could have /should have been out 4-5 years ago. It would have been a pioneer in its hybrid injection moulding and 3D print design and it'll still be stunning if it comes out and appeals to a different market than the Revell kit. It may sound self-serving, but the fact is the Revell kit is very inaccurate. The errors are more subtle than on the Testors/Italeri kit and it is certainly a notable step up from it but there are plenty of problems. I have released a few detail sets for the kit and there are many more available elsewhere on the market. But some of the issues are very hard if not impossible to correct as they concern sizes, shapes, feature spacing/distribution etc. I haven't given up on our kit, I'm sure it will be released eventually. Tremendous amounts of work went into it and it's so close to getting produced. J

The "quality" of mainstream resin printers these days is less defined by their (theoretical) ability to make high resolution prints. When looking at printers' specs, look for the x/y pixel size and anything below 30µm is already very very good. Many are now even below 20µm. This paired with anti-aliasing from your slicer program and clever positioning of the parts will give you very smooth results. The "quality" is the printer itself. The quality of the individual components, the assembly, level of quality control, the "brain" and the software features. Low prices are mainly attained by churning out masses of machines built to lax tolerances and very varying quality. You can get a great printer that delivers fantastinc prints with little to no effort time after time or you can get a lemon that sucks the life out of you trying to even get basic prints to work without issue. Or in between, initially everything works so well and then, for no apparent reason, things go south and you're pulling your hair out. This is where good customer support comes in. In the consumer bracket, Phrozen is at the upper bracket in terms of price, but also in terms of build quality and their support is generally pretty good too. I use both Mini and Mighty printers. Elegoo can be very good too, I've had some good working machines (Mars 3), but also a lemon (Mars 4U) that I let go eventually. Their customer support is generally quite good though. I'd say something of the size of an Elegoo Mars or a Phrozen Mini 8KS would do nicely. J

I am considering it, but business needs to improve, outsourced production means upfront investment. In particular I hope it won't be too long before I can finally sell/send to the US again. No sales for over 2 months already... Just not sure whether to make some sort of adapter for these stabs or modify the stabs masters themselves for the new kind of mounting tab. It would require new photoetch though.

People have been asking for this for decades. Here it comes and people are complaining Certainly one of the coolest fighters of WWII.

Hi folks, I just realised I haven't been posting any new stuff on here for ages... Apart from the mostly F-104 themed items I've been doing mostly of late, I've revamped and re-released a couple of F-4 items. The masters for the F-4 stabilators (for Hasegawa and Academy kits) were reworked and are now cast by my expert Japanese vacuum-machine caster. The material is very hard and durable, there is no casting block, just one runner gate to clean up and the slots are actually open. The unslotted set: The other re-release I wanted to metion is something for 1:72 fans: I've re-designed the 1:72 McD 370gal wing tanks (which had been discontinued) in CAD and they are now produced 100% in 3D print. I've also modified the pylon design a little so that they are a drop fit for the Fine Molds kits (F-4B, F-4C...) but can be easily adapted for Hasegawa et.al. Available in my shop! Thanks for looking, Jeffrey

Ah, ok - I don't know why 2x 1:72 F-4 kits would have cost that much?? This easily fits into the size and weight bracket of a Small Parcel for maybe 2500 JPY max... The price sounds more like Parcel Post, which has no upper weight and size limit (like EMS) but is totally unsuitable for small and light items. Cheers! J

I'd happily invite you to run Japan Post and get things moving. The only way to ship from Japan to the US is using expensive couriers like UPS, FedEx etc. All normal postal service by Japan Post to the US is and remains suspended as they haven't implemented a tariff pre-payment system. And no word on when it may be ready or whether they are actually even working on it at all. Japan Post are famous for a "head in the sand" way of operating, it was the same during the Covid phase of 2020-22. For a company like myself, and others in Japan it makes no sense going the courier route as hardly anyone would order goods worth say 3000 yen, then have to pay 4500-5000 shipping, +15% tariff + admin fees. Goes without saying that I cannont "absorb" those costs on my end either. So it's only waiting and hoping. Hoping that we can survive... J