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Beaufort Mk.I Cockpit & Dinghy Upgrade Sets (7506 & 7508 for Airfix) 1:72


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Beaufort Mk.I Cockpit & Dinghy Upgrade Sets (7506 & 7508 for Airfix)

1:72 CMK by Special Hobby

 

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Airfix’s recent Beaufighter has been around for a year now, and it has been well-received and many have doubtless been built already.  Special Hobby’s designers have now completed a number of resin upgrade sets to improve on the detail that the kit provides, on the basis that resin can perform some casting tasks that would be difficult or impossible in injection moulded styrene.  As usual with CMK's resin sets, they arrive in the familiar clear vacformed box, with the resin parts safely inside, and the instructions sandwiched between the header card at the rear.  Decals and Photo-Etch (PE) when included is separated from the resin parts by a clear piece of acetate to prevent scratching and damage during transit.

 

 

Interior Set (7506)

This set includes twenty-seven resin parts on nine casting blocks, a small fret of PE parts, and a small slip of clear acetate with printed dials for the instrument panel.  The first act is to add the wafer-thin inserts into the forward fuselage after sanding off the moulded-in details, using three to cover the area.  The cockpit is based upon the kit floor and the bulkhead/wing spar, although heavily augmented with new parts.  The bulkhead first has a closed section removed, then has a new resin replacement placed over it along with three angled add-ons, and an additional box and cylinder applied to the new bulkhead skin.  The cockpit floor has thin resin panels added at the front, the leftmost of which has the well-detailed pilot’s seat placed on top after building it from four resin parts and with four PE seatbelt sections, plus a two-part resin/PE control column in front of it.  To the pilot’s side, a console, twin throttle quadrant with a total of eight PE levers, and the instrument panel, which is laminated up from two pieces of film, three of PE, and a resin backing layer, to which PE rudder pedals are glued.  At the front of the floor a pair of seat parts are glued to the semi-circular front bulkhead, and on the port fuselage, a side console with two additional resin parts hanging from it are fixed to the sill.

 

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Dinghy & Bay (7508)

This set holds just three parts, and requires a panel to be removed from the port wing, into which the bay is glued, with the packed dinghy placed within after painting.  The bay cover is supplied as a separate part to replace the section of the skin previously removed from the upper wing, so you don’t have to be unduly careful with the removal process until you get toward the panel lines and begin testing for fit.

 

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Conclusion

A pair of excellent new sets to add more detail and interest to your model, setting it apart from the others out there.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Review sample courtesy of

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