Mistercraft 1/72 Hawk

[Mark Cassidy]

Good day folks am looking to prod the hive collective mind. 

 

Having just built 1/72 airfix p-40b in the markings of one of pearl harbours defenders I rather fancied completing the duo of pearls defenders by buying a P36 or Curtis's Hawk. 

 

I know that mistercraft get a poor rap and I have had my own horror experience with their fulmar. But I wondered if anyone had built their curtiss Hawk and how the build went?

 

If its a horror show then is there any other reasonably priced 1/72 P36 kits out there?

 

Thanks in advance for all your help 

 

😀

[Jure Miljevic]

Hello Mark

I believe Mistercraft kit is a repack of the old Heller H 75 A-3 kit. Unfortunately I do not know much about it. In my stash I have Monogram H.75 A-3 and Azur H.75 A-4 kits in 1/72. Especially the former shows its age and I understand both have somewhat slim fuselages, although this flaw is not that noticable. Also, they both build into nice models. Cheers

Jure

[John Thompson]

Scalemates is a useful resource for this kind of question; just Google "Scalemates 1/72 Mistercraft P-36" (without the quotation marks), and you get this timeline:

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/mistercraft-d-214-p-36-h75-hawk--1247430/timeline

...which tells you that it's a reboxing of the old Heller kit from ~1966. It was originally released as the French version of the Hawk 75. Is that going to give you an accurate representation of a Pearl Harbor P-36? I don't know - you'll have to research that yourself.

 

If you want to know what kits are currently available, just go to the site of your chosen online hobby shop, and enter "P-36" (w/o quotes) into the search bar. Some sites will give you options to narrow your search - scale is the most common.

 

John

[MACALAIN]

Most of the time, Mistercraft kits are bad copy of old thinks.

 

Alain

[Mark Cassidy]

Thanks guys I had looked at scalemates before and couldn't find any reviews of the mistercraft kit as they are sometimes at the bottom of the scalemates listing.  I really just wanted to see if anyone had first hand experience of the kit.  I'll just need to take the plunge and see how I get on.

 

Thanks again 😊 

[alt-92]

If I had the choice, I'd see if there's a Smer copy of the same available. 
At least the decals are a bit better than MC. 

 

 

That said, the Heller/Smer H.75 can certainly made to look good considering it's a kit first released in the late 1960s!

[DaveyGair]

AZ models did/do a nice kit of the Hawk in 1/72. I did one in RAF markings, pretty easy to put together, a little fiddling with the cockpit interior but OK other than that.

 

Davey.

[alt-92]

AZ tend to be a bit more pricey though - ranging from £12-15. 
A more long-term option may be the Clear Prop P-36 version should it see the light of day. 

[Jazzie]

2 hours ago, alt-92 said:

AZ tend to be a bit more pricey though - ranging from £12-15. 
A more long-term option may be the Clear Prop P-36 version should it see the light of day. 

Dont consider myself of the skill level of the many on here, but ive added an AZ Mohawk to my shelf and while it was used to try a new and semi-successful finishing process, i have to say its one of my better efforts. Didnt have any build issues and was worth the money.

 

Not sure about the price remarks as the early H-75 Clear Prop kit that i think you hope spawns more variants is coming in at £20-22, and while it will probably be better than the AZ, £6-10 is too much for me. 

[PhantomBigStu]

Yep ancient heller kit, what you expect for a heller kit of vintage, decals are pants, mine disintegrated, ended up using smer spares. 

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by PhantomBigStu

[Mark Cassidy]

On 07/04/2022 at 13:02, Mark Cassidy said:

 

Folks thanks for all the replies appreciate your help once again , think am going to go for the az kit, I've sourced one and put it on order. Thanks again. 

 

I am impressed by your builds folks if mines comes out half as good as that I will be well chuffed 

 

Regards 

 

Mark