sroubos

I've had an AS186 clone for four years now. Very reliable piece of equipment, it has never let me down and I have sessions where I use it for three hours on end.

Having recently build both the HobbyBoss easykit and the Hasegawa P-40N I can state that the Hasegawa, though old, is still the kit to go for of the two (don't know the Academy). HB kit has three issues. From bad to worse: Lack of cockpit detail, an insert for the straight edged canopy which doesn't fit very well and a large step between the top and bottom halves under the exhausts. This last issue is caused by the bottom half being smaller in cross section than the top, and it's difficult to correct. With the Hasegawa available everywhere for less, having more detail and being a true shake 'n bake kit, the HB kit is truly only useful as a kid's easykit build.

I've never tried post-shading. I suppose it leaves less room for error than pre-shading, which for me just constitutes roughly following the panel lines. With post-shading any error would show up a lot quicker. I think I will try JasonC's tip on my next build

I checked out HLJ for this one but there is an order stop. Is anybody aware of a place where it is available for a decent price?

I was going to buy the Academy but seeing this I will wait. It's all about pricing. A 'normal' Hasegawa release would be about 40 quid, but I agree that this kit looks like a simplified release, it is certainly not comparable to their Eurofighter. One would expect a more attractive price point. Since the Academy is not cheap (for an Academy kit) at 25 quid, it will be interesting to see what this will go for. At an equivalent price level I would probably forsake all the additional detail on the Academy kit in favor of a more accurate Hasegawa kit. On modern fighters I prefer a sleek look and opening all the bays will spoil that, and if the door inserts don't fit well (they never do) it will be a lot more work to build the Academy.

On my last few builds I've tried doing pre-shading before putting on the main camouflage colors. I like the effect, and I'll definitely keep using it. However, when doing a this weekend Spitfire I ran into an issue. I sprayed the upper side in Ocean Gray, then masked it, then sprayed the dark green. As I suspected, the green obliterated all the remaining pre-shading. The effect is quite ugly: The ocean gray shows lovely shading, the green is just a uniform area. I considered some options: - Mask both the first as well as the second color. Very laborious. - Spray the first color, mask for the second color, reapply the preshading, spray the second color. I'm afraid if I do this I may get seepage of the thin pre-shade paint I use under or around the edge of the tape or see the second layer of preshading stand out on the boundaries. Does anybody have any better ideas or techniques?

The main issue with this kit for me is the way the clear part of the canopy is molded separately from the opaque part. This leaves a very visible mating surface. Tamiya has the same issue, which kind of necessitates a vac canopy on both kits as far as I'm concerned.

Looks quite crude to me to be honest. Instead of Italeri's spaghetti surface detail we have noodles here. Separate outer wing panels... oh noes...

Out of the box? Not really. I visited Cosford last month and they are making quite a spectacle of the Dornier restoration (rightly so). The shop was stacked with the old Revell 1/72 kit. Releasing this kit is a license to print money for Airfix as Cosford will undoubtedly pick the Airfix kit over the Revell one as soon as it's in stock.

Interesting choice - I recently had a look at one of the ESCIs in my stash and that still holds up quite well I think. Curious to see what benefits the Airfix will bring to the table and if it's worth shelling out the money for it. Edit: Just noticed it's 25 quid... that is very steep for a kit this size. Airfix is losing their financial edge with prices like this. Same with the Lightning, that is not cheap either at 17 pounds.

While I'm more a WWII enthusiast I love the lines of this plane, and it seems like an excellent opportunity to draw me away from all the prop-driven machinery I usually build

I'm currently building a Dutch ML-KNIL PBY-5 Catalina and the various photographs I've found show there is very little consistency to be found among the various planes and paint schemes. Among the areas of concern: - Color or propeller hubs (natural metal or black) - Antennas - Color of over-painted orange triangles and rudders - Exhausts - Paint scheme on the floats and areas surrounding them To make matters worse I do not have an identified picture of my specific Cat, Y-63. I suppose the advantage of that is that I can basically pick and choose between the various options and I can never be proven wrong (except the day after I finish it when a photo will pop up of course). Incidentally, I like the exhausts in this picture: Anybody know where I could get some aftermarket exhausts like this in 1/72? Ooh: These look pretty good http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234944456-catalina-fishtail-exhausts-172-red-roo-models/

Will there be a joypack release of these? That would be great news, I love that approach.

Yes, this may be taking it one step too far for my taste... Plastic food container it is.

Sounds counter intuitive to go back to brushes but I will give it a shot after all these comments Not sure I understand the comments about getting something to attract the dust: use a polystyrene enclosure large enough to go over your painting area, that will also attract dust etc. Me I just use a large plastic food container! Do you mean to put the model under a food container after applying the kleer? I don't really see where I can get something big enough to work inside WHILE I'm applying the kleer

If you can get an old boxing of this kit it will definitely be cheaper, although my ancient boxing has yellowed decals. The ICM is allegedly a pig to build, and my experience with these old Mania kits is that they go together like a dream...

A recurring issue I have when building kits is the dust that seems to settle after I have applied Kleer/Future to the model. I use Gunze and Tamiya acrylics with my airbrush and they perform very well, I get a very good finish from them. Moving on to the application of Kleer, I find that no matter how carefully I build up the layers, there always seem to be plenty of dus particles to settle in the finish. I tried polishing with a cloth but this doesn't help all that much. I'm also wondering whether these particles are not actually on there before I applied the Kleer, because they tend to be less visible on a matt or satin surface? To be honest I'm always scared I will destroy my nice airbrush job after I've applied the acrylics so I don't do much polishing before I apply Kleer. Any tips appreciated!

Like another poster before me I had a chance to finger the sprues at Telford and that effectively dropped the kit of my list. The raised panelling, while perhaps technically accurate, is represented in such a heavy-handed way it makes the kit look like a short-run kit from 20 years back. My modelling skills nor time allocation to the hobby are not able to rhyme this with building a decent representation of the aircraft Shame, because after 15 years debating the Dutch government finally decided to buy the damn thing. I even have some decals for it, courtesy of FlevoDecals! Needless to say, as on all Italeri decal sheets, the Dutch roundels are hopeleslly out of register. Seems like I'll have to wait for another manufacturer to do a decent job on this, but I'm sure that won't take too long. By the way, it was selling for 20gbp which I find an enormous amount of money from a mainstream manufacturer for a relatively simple kit of this size. It is no more complex than most of their other jets which go for slightly more than half that amount.

To be honest there is a perfectly fine Beaufighter available from Hasegawa although at extortionate prices nowadays... I'd wish Revell would do one of their reboxings with that kit, I've picked up the otherwise very expensive He-111, B-25 and Mosquito that way for very reasonable prices. That way Airfix can focus on some of the lesser known planes mentioned above. Personally I'd like to see a Defiant or Battle sooner. However, when all is said and done my money is on the Beau because they know it is a popular plane and because they know we are all sick of laying down GBP 30 for the Hase...