Trying to discover the origin of this kit

[Peter O]

I got this 1/72 resin Boulton Paul P.111 from a Facebook modeling page. The seller has listed dozens of similar kits, which I assume he bought in a collection sale. Has anyone seen similar kits?

 

Here's how it looked in the bag:

 

 

All of the various kits are similarly bagged and labeled, and none include decals or instructions. Here are the parts, top and bottom:

 

 

 

The casting seems very well done, with no bubbles or short shots, and the two-part wings and fuselage fit well. The only clue I have is that the fuselage breakdown is the same as the Pegasus kit, being split horizontally rather than vertically. The pilot's seat is also very similar. (Sorry, this is the largest image I could find.)

 

 

Can anyone shed any light on this? Thanks!

 

Peter

[72modeler]

Both Olimp and CMR did 1/72 resin kits of this airplane, but the parts breakdown isn't the same as the kit you posted. Wish I could be more helpful. Maintrack also did one in their Project X line, but it was a vacform.

Mike

[Nigel Bunker]

This looks like one of the kits that emerged from Czechoslovakia in the 1980s. These resin kits were made by small groups of people and covered various subjects, usually unkitted by mainstream manufacturers.

[SafetyDad]

48 minutes ago, Nigel Bunker said:

This looks like one of the kits that emerged from Czechoslovakia in the 1980s. These resin kits were made by small groups of people and covered various subjects, usually unkitted by mainstream manufacturers.

 

+1 for this. I have a number of resin Luftwaffe kits cast in a similar way, with all small parts enclosed in a 'wafer' of resin.  

 

Here's one

 

 

I think they were the precursors of the likes of CMK and Planet, whose earlier models also looked a lot like this, but with better presentation, moulding and they had decals!

 

 

 

HTH

 

SD

[Paul Thompson]

11 hours ago, 72modeler said:

Both Olimp and CMR did 1/72 resin kits of this airplane, but the parts breakdown isn't the same as the kit you posted. Wish I could be more helpful. Maintrack also did one in their Project X line, but it was a vacform.

Mike

Still, it looks like a CMR production, but an early one (green resin).  Perhaps they changed it? I think they retooled several of their kits , not certain, but definitely repackaged many later with decals and decent instructions, as well as changing the resin type.

 

Paul.

[Space Ranger]

5 hours ago, Nigel Bunker said:

This looks like one of the kits that emerged from Czechoslovakia in the 1980s. These resin kits were made by small groups of people and covered various subjects, usually unkitted by mainstream manufacturers.

I concur.

[Peter O]

1 hour ago, Paul Thompson said:

Still, it looks like a CMR production, but an early one (green resin).  Perhaps they changed it? I think they retooled several of their kits , not certain, but definitely repackaged many later with decals and decent instructions, as well as changing the resin type.

I've had the CMR double P.111/P.111a kit in the past, and it's a completely different molding. The new kit's fuselage is split vertically and is completely hollow. But they probably did retool other old kits.

[Peter O]

5 hours ago, SafetyDad said:

 

+1 for this. I have a number of resin Luftwaffe kits cast in a similar way, with all small parts enclosed in a 'wafer' of resin.  

That certainly looks the same, even down to the resin color and the typewriter font used on the label.

[tempestfan]

5 hours ago, SafetyDad said:

 

+1 for this. I have a number of resin Luftwaffe kits cast in a similar way, with all small parts enclosed in a 'wafer' of resin.  

 

Here's one

 

 

 

But West Germany is not really the same as Czechoslovakia? 😉  Even though Werner Killesreiter aka WK models definitely sourced kits in Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic; but the header clearly states "Made in W. Germany". 

The typewriter label screams 80s, and a kit "inspired" by a Pegasus would make sense, especially for "internal" circulation, so an early Czech effort looks very plausible.  I also had Magna on my mind, but admit I have no idea if they ever did one.

Somewhat unrelated, but recently when researching an ancient vacform, I came across a reference that Victoria Products from Canada appear to have imported a number of Eastern Bloc garage kits.

[Peter O]

23 minutes ago, tempestfan said:

But West Germany is not really the same as Czechoslovakia? 😉  Even though Werner Killesreiter aka WK models definitely sourced kits in Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic; but the header clearly states "Made in W. Germany". 

The typewriter label screams 80s, and a kit "inspired" by a Pegasus would make sense, especially for "internal" circulation, so an early Czech effort looks very plausible.  I also had Magna on my mind, but admit I have no idea if they ever did one.

Somewhat unrelated, but recently when researching an ancient vacform, I came across a reference that Victoria Products from Canada appear to have imported a number of Eastern Bloc garage kits.

Since my kit doesn't have the header, decals or instructions, perhaps it's what WK would have received from Czechoslovakia, and then completed the packaging?

 

In the case of my P.111, how much information would have been known in the 1980s? My copy of Hygate's British Experimental Jet Aircraft was published in 1990, but were there earlier references that provided scale drawings to make a kit from?

[Mr T]

Possibly old Aeromodeller magazines that until the advent of Scale Models in the late sixties had scale plans in 1/72nd or /144th. I still I have on old Aeromodeller with some Kittyhawk plans in it. Also could have scaled from three view. 

[The wooksta V2.0]

It's definitely an early Czech master kit.

 

It's more likely that the Pegasus kit used the Czech resin as the master as there were quite a few masters sourced there. I've several kits from both manufacturers and they are identical. The first tooling of the Pegasus Spiteful has an odd mould seam on the fuselages halves that shouldn't be there with injection moulding but is in the exact place where the resin wafer would be on a Czech resin.

 

Offhand, I'm fairly sure that the following originated as Czech resin:

Boulton Paul Balliol

Boulton Paul P.111

Martin Baker MB5

Supermarine Spiteful 

Supermarine Seafire FR47

Supermarine Swift FR5

[Nigel Bunker]

The Czechs published a number of their own aviation magazines, the most prominent being Letectvi + Kosmonautika, which was published under that title from 1965 and is still going strong, being published bi-weekly. It is the only one I have seen from the 80s but it carried detailed aircraft plans in every copy, enough to make a resin kit from.

[SafetyDad]

16 hours ago, tempestfan said:

But West Germany is not really the same as Czechoslovakia? 😉  Even though Werner Killesreiter aka WK models definitely sourced kits in Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic; but the header clearly states "Made in W. Germany". 

 

Quite correct - I saw that as I was taking the picture. . I was more concerned about sharing the nature of the kit parts. The 'Made in W. Germany' label certainly helps to date the kit though. 

 

Thanks for the extra information about WK models - appreciated. 

 

SD

[Rob de Bie]

There are some great stories behind these kits. Years ago I chatted a bit with a Czech guy who manned a large stand at a model show. I remember bits and pieces. He told me things started in the army or the air force, where they had access to silicone rubber. They were caught however, but bluffed their way out of it. His girlfriend had a diplomatic passport, and that allowed him to buy resin in Germany, and to export kits (probably WK Models), without being stopped at the border. They earned so much with their business that they drove the only two BMW M3s in the country! I wish someone would take the trouble to document this era..

 

Rob

Edited August 25, 2021 by Rob de Bie

[John]

In the early 1980s our Eastern European brothers produced lots of very well detailed and comprehensive vacforms. I remember having a Polish vacform of a Defiant Mk1 that was streets in front of the Airfix kit. 

I used to be able to pick up examples at the old Model Engineer shop in Stirling.

As resin became viable many producers adopted it and we saw some absolutely spectacular products. 

This does have the look of one of these early resin kits. They learned fast. 

J

[Peter O]

This is great information - thanks everyone! Rob's and John's posts bring up another question I've had for years... Why was (and is) there so much model manufacturing going on in Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic? It seems to be the hotbed for resin kits in particular.

[tempestfan]

11 hours ago, John said:

In the early 1980s our Eastern European brothers produced lots of very well detailed and comprehensive vacforms. I remember having a Polish vacform of a Defiant Mk1 that was streets in front of the Airfix kit. 

I used to be able to pick up examples at the old Model Engineer shop in Stirling.

As resin became viable many producers adopted it and we saw some absolutely spectacular products. 

This does have the look of one of these early resin kits. They learned fast. 

J

I think I know (and have) that kit - JWK if I am not mistaken. I wouldn’t be surprised if its creator is a member here.  

[upnorth]

8 hours ago, Peter O said:

This is great information - thanks everyone! Rob's and John's posts bring up another question I've had for years... Why was (and is) there so much model manufacturing going on in Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic? It seems to be the hotbed for resin kits in particular.

 

It's been explained to me that plastic modelling has its popularity here due to it being a safe activity to talk about during the Socialist era. It was an activty that people could meet over and the old secret police, the StB, wouldn't get worked up over it.

 

Back in the days of Socialism; if you got together in a group to talk in a public place, you were sure to be joined by a "friend" from the StB to see what was going on. As nobody really knew for sure who was on the StB payrole, a safe topic of conversation that the StB couldn't use to their advantage was needed. Plastic modelling turned out to be such a topic.

 

Vacuum forming and the resin that came after it, were accessible ways that model builders could advance the hobby and create kits of subjects they wanted.

 

[dwh]

On 8/23/2021 at 8:40 PM, Peter O said:

I got this 1/72 resin Boulton Paul P.111 from a Facebook modeling page. The seller has listed dozens of similar kits, which I assume he bought in a collection sale. Has anyone seen similar kits?

 

Here's how it looked in the bag:

 

 

All of the various kits are similarly bagged and labeled, and none include decals or instructions. Here are the parts, top and bottom:

 

 

 

The casting seems very well done, with no bubbles or short shots, and the two-part wings and fuselage fit well. The only clue I have is that the fuselage breakdown is the same as the Pegasus kit, being split horizontally rather than vertically. The pilot's seat is also very similar. (Sorry, this is the largest image I could find.)

 

 

Can anyone shed any light on this? Thanks!

 

Peter

This lower picture looks very much like a version of the Pegasus kit, without the sprues

[Peter O]

24 minutes ago, dwh said:

This lower picture looks very much like a version of the Pegasus kit, without the sprues

Yes, that is a photo of the Pegasus kit that I found online, to compare to my resin kit.

[John]

13 hours ago, tempestfan said:

I think I know (and have) that kit - JWK if I am not mistaken. I wouldn’t be surprised if its creator is a member here.  

That does ring a distant bell 🙂

I remember George Lowe of GALDecal fame displaying one at the Scottish Nationals back in the days they were held in the Albert Hall in Stirling. 

George later got into microscopic ship models, which I could scarcely see let alone work on. 

 

John