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Help Identify This Soviet Kit


caszerino

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I just received this today. It was really cheap off eBay and I may end up just keeping it as a neat piece of history (I didn't buy it myself in Russia, but I have lived in Russia in the past). It's a 1/72 EE Lightning F.6 ... but it's a Soviet kit. I say Soviet instead of Russian because the price of "1 Ruble 50 Kopeks" tells me this was from the 1980s. There is no English anywhere on the box or the instructions. I can read and understand a bit of Russian, but nothing stuck out as a brand name. There is, however, a logo in the corner.

It's actually not a bad kit. Good deal of flash, raised panel lines, visibly rough machining of the molds visible on some plastic parts, but it doesn't look terrible (I'm looking at you, Academy, and your "MiG-21" kit!). No internal detail to speak of and the decals are shot (the tissue has stuck to the decal film somewhat but they could probably be salvaged with Micro Scale or varnish or something), but it looks alright overall. Haven't decided whether or not I'm going to try to build it yet.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

qjsle5S.jpg

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Is it a Novo kit?

Here's something similar, if not the same:

http://www.kingkit.co.uk/product_detail.php?prodID=9839

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Is it a Novo kit?

That's the same! I should've included a photo of the box reverse, I just forgot. Thank you very much, sir!

Bet it will turn out to be ex-Hasegawa via Frog

Could well have been licensed to a Soviet firm or created under some sort of partnership. But apparently "Novo" is the Russian brand name. That just means "new" in Russian, though.

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Oh ho! Now we're getting somewhere! Thank you very much, Bill!

*EDIT: OK, so it is a Frog repop based on the Scalemates link. I wonder how many of these are out there, and I bet I can get the Soviet ones for less than the ones with vintage Frog boxes and English instructions (I knew one of these days speaking Russian would be useful)!

Edited by caszerino
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The FROG/Hasegawa connection with regard to the Lightning kit is a bit weird. Apparently, there are two old FROG kits.

The first was originally a Hasegawa mould, re-boxed by FROG, and released in 1968:

https://sites.google.com/a/cocardes.com/catalogue-frog/bac-lightning-f-mk-6-ref-f266-hasegawa

The second is from FROG tooling (obviously based on the Hasegawa tool, but distributed differently on the sprues) and released in 1975:

https://sites.google.com/a/cocardes.com/catalogue-frog/bac-lightning-f-mk-6-ref-f266-frog

I think your kit is the second one. Oddly enough, Revell of Germany has re-popped each one of these at different times.

I find the Virtual FROG Museum site to be quite helpful in some of these old kit searches.

Cheers,

Bill

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It is quite wild how many different companies release kits in their own box that were tooled by someone else. I think mine is probably the "new tool" (which makes me laugh because it was re-tooled 40 years ago! :D) but I'll pull the sprues out and photograph them. Canopy was fairly thick, bit of flash, lot of scratches (no big deal, I have Novus). The other parts are a sort of dark brown/deep burgundy color with some scratches and surface imperfections that look like they would need to be removed in a lot of spots in order to achieve a decent fit. Lot of flash around some of the massive ejector pin marks inside the wings (which would be hidden after assembly but still have to be de-flashed).

I might save this for when I feel Froggy enough (get it? oh dear me, I'll show myself out) to sand down and do a re-scribe job. The Airfix looks so, so much better and now I'm about to forsake the Saudis in favo(u)r of the good old RAF for my first Lightning build.

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Ok, quick version. Frog had a marketing tie up with Hasegawa. When thatf ell through, Frog tooled many of the Hasegawa kits and put them in their own range. When Frog went bust, the moulds were sold/transfgerred to Russia under an agreement that a certain % would be re-imported into the uK. the import company then went bust.

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Whoops, for some reason I never clicked the second link. Yes, it's definitely that one. Fairly "crisp" but raised panel lines. Better kit than I expected, but I think I'd rather just fork out another $10 for a new tool Airfix for ones I'm actually going to build. Who knows, though! I may end up wanting to do a nostalgia build. For me, though, since I wasn't even born when they redid the tooling on this kit (and I'd [shamefully] never even heard of an EE Lightning until I joined this forum), the nostalgia is more Monogram kits from the late 80s hehe. :D

Dave, thanks for the info!

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Novo kits played a role years ago as they made ex frog kits available at a time when the original frog were already expensive and there was no other choice for certain types. I've bought a few when I first got interested in postwar British types.

Some were imported in frog style boxes including frog decals, these would be better. The massive amount of flash was still there though and if the price is not too high I'd rather build an original frog

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IIRC, the Soviets did not take any of Frog's German (Nazi) types - for political reasons.

Also - Frog should be written as FROG - as it is an acronym for 'Flies Right Off the Ground'.

Not a lot of people know that (said in a Michael Caine accent).

Ken

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I have 2 of these. 1 built, and one boxed. If they are that horrid brown plastic, beware when it comes to painting. Somehow it is unstable and bleeds through the colour coats.

I did manage to master it, but it needs to be sealed somehow, especially if you try NMF.

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"Novo" was I believe short for "Novoexport". If you want Frog kits, and don't care about the box, instructions, or decals, they are cheaper than mint Frog boxings.

Now that makes sense. I think I'm going to skip all of these old kits from now on, but I feel like it was worth buying this kit just for everything I've been taught about FROG and the Soviet scale model industry in this thread alone.

Not a lot of people know that (said in a Michael Caine accent).

:lol: That made my morning.

I have 2 of these. 1 built, and one boxed. If they are that horrid brown plastic, beware when it comes to painting. Somehow it is unstable and bleeds through the colour coats.

Thank you for that warning. It's the brown plastic. I'll leave this one in the box as part of my collection of Soviet history.

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The story is more complex than that: Frog were to help create a Soviet plastic model industry, and tooled four Russian types. The Anatra, the Lagg3, the Yak3 and the MiG3. There was talk of an IL2 to follow but I don't believe that got anywhere. To pay for this, and help set the ball rolling in the USSR, large numbers of the earlier Frog kits were run off. When everything fell through, the new tooling stayed in the UK with initially only test runs available, the re-runs appeared in the UK cheap under the Novo label, and the tooling was distributed to various factories around the USSR with very variable histories. The new four were then produced by Red Star in the UK, and later by other companies - Emhar?

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Interesting story, Graham. There wasn't an Il-2 by Frog (FROG) or Novo, but KP did one - a rather limited release kit, but it appears to be thoroughly KP. Emhar did do a LaGG-3 - not a bad kit actually (I built one), maybe it came from the "new" Frog kit?

Regards,

Jason

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I don't recall a KP Il2 - do you mean the Mikro one? I don't think it was up to KP standards. The Emhar Lagg3 was the Frog one, I'm sure. For a long time the MiG3 was quite nice and the best one available, but then the only competition was the g-awful Croix Du Sud, so it could have been a lot worse than it actually was!

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The Frogspawn kits are an endless source of discussion.

Many of the moulds are pretty well shot by now. I believe some were left outside somewhere and rusted. Others were dropped and broken. Yet others became nomads And have been re popped by several companies. The (current!) Revell Shack and Sea Vixen even came with disclaimer slips regarding the quality.

One odd thing I've noticed is that the Ukranian company Mikro Mir are using what can only be described as a 'classic' Novo style boxing on brand new kits. Here is the Valiant.....

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Am-qh5C2-xs/U9X2mIzDmWI/AAAAAAAAJtQ/52B4Rxqt0UQ/s1600/vickers+valiant.JPG

Trevor

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Interesting story, Graham. There wasn't an Il-2 by Frog (FROG) or Novo, but KP did one - a rather limited release kit, but it appears to be thoroughly KP. Emhar did do a LaGG-3 - not a bad kit actually (I built one), maybe it came from the "new" Frog kit?

Regards,

Jason

If I recall correctly, KP did an Il-10. I don't remember an IL-2. Did I miss that one?

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If I recall correctly, KP did an Il-10. I don't remember an IL-2. Did I miss that one?

I think youi're right. I have the KP IL-10 & quite a nice kit it is too. I've not come across a KP Il-2 though. Before the Academy & Tamiya ones which are the top of the tree now as I understand, the was the Zvezda, Eduard & Smer ones, possibly others or these were repopped from others that I don't know about. We're talking 1/72 for all of these btw.

Steve

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