****complete**** Marcel Bloch MB 151 - Hellenic Air Force

[ModelingEdmontonian]

@John Masters beat me to it, joining the GB with a Dora Wings MB 151. I picked up the same kit today, albeit different boxing. I plan to build it with Greek markings.

 

 

This is literally the most expensive kit I've ever purchased! So, I had high expectations when I opened it today. Looked nice enough at first. Here are the sprues (presumably same in all of the boxings):

 

 

And these are the decals (unique for this boxing) and photo etch and masks :

 

 

I've gotten far enough already to say this kit is a tremendous disappointment for the price. I'll update more later. For now I will just say that the seat involves 5 styrene pieces and 4 PE, which is insane in 1/72 scale. I think the whole cockpit is 30 pieces, not including the fuselage halves! And these are not Tamiya "fit together intelligently" pieces, believe me... But, more to come.

Edited May 18, 2023 by ModelingEdmontonian

[John Masters]

2 hours ago, ModelingEdmontonian said:

I plan to build it with Greek markings.

 

Nice!  I'll be French...Looks like a good kit.

[Sam]

Hello @ModelingEdmontonian, and welcome to the group!

 

The greek scheme looks great, I love all the 🇬🇷 liveries. I am sure your build will look great, even if you say the kit is disappointing. 

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good morning ModelingEdmontonian

Welcome aboard , enjoy your build

Best regards

Patrice

[John Masters]

On 2/12/2023 at 7:06 AM, ModelingEdmontonian said:

But, more to come.

Let's see the cockpit!   😄

[ModelingEdmontonian]

Thanks, @Sam, @TEMPESTMK5, @John Masters!

 

Here are the sprues after a bath:

 

 

Here is the cockpit to the extent I've assembled it, plus the wheels and the prop/spinner.

 

 

You can see all the sanding dust on the cockpit... I basically decided to not incorporate most of the tiny parts and PE (i.e., probably about 15 parts all together!). I will stick a joystick on but otherwise can't be bothered. I don't think much will be visible, anyway. What a miserable cockpit, very disappointing...

 

Here are the same parts after some black sprayed with a rattle can:

 

 

As miserable as the cockpit is, assembly of the fuselage looks complicated too, as there are three parts in addition to the cockpit that need to be stuck in between the two fuselage halves, all without adequate locating mechanisms. And, of course, I can't use the "nothing will be seen" excuse when it comes to the fuselage!

[John Masters]

2 hours ago, ModelingEdmontonian said:

there are three parts in addition to the cockpit that need to be stuck in between the two fuselage halves, all without adequate locating mechanisms. And, of course, I can't use the "nothing will be seen" excuse when it comes to the fuselage!

I saw this too.  Looks like the fuel tank, a bit of armour up front...oh, that little nubbin for the radio aerial fits in a specific way, btw...

I think your cockpit looks just fine.  

[ModelingEdmontonian]

21 hours ago, John Masters said:

I think your cockpit looks just fine.  

Thanks, took a lot of sanding and ultimately giving up on the tiny parts to get to this point! 😅

 

21 hours ago, John Masters said:

I saw this too.  Looks like the fuel tank, a bit of armour up front...oh, that little nubbin for the radio aerial fits in a specific way

I count five pieces you need to fit in, including the cockpit. The cockpit and "nubbin" have obvious spots, but I don't feel the other three pieces have obvious locations. I'll look more closely when I get to that point, but again feel this could have been much more intelligently designed. 

 

Sorry for the bad photo, but I am finish up the prop... little white strip decals on the prop blades.

 

 

Found a nice photo on the Dassault website to help give a sense for the location of the stripes.

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by ModelingEdmontonian

[John Masters]

Nice photo indeed.  I'll grab it for my own use, if you don't mind?

[Andwil]

That head on shot really makes me wonder to what degree Kurt Tank was influenced by the MB 151.

 

AW

[Rabbit Leader]

Good to see this kit on here, however equally disappointing to read how complex some of these new models are getting. I don’t know why some manufacturers think we like and need all this minute stuff, as you say it just bumps up the price to silly levels and either it cannot be seen or doesn’t get used anyway. Dora are not the only ones guilty, however they all seem to emanate from the same part of Europe. Give me a mid 90’s era Tamiya 1/48 kit any day! 
 

All that said, it’s looking good so far, so I hope you get your monies worth. 
 

Cheers.. Dave 
 

 

  

[Graham Boak]

1 hour ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Good to see this kit on here, however equally disappointing to read how complex some of these new models are getting. I don’t know why some manufacturers think we like and need all this minute stuff, as you say it just bumps up the price to silly levels and either it cannot be seen or doesn’t get used anyway. Dora are not the only ones guilty, however they all seem to emanate from the same part of Europe.

  

I wholeheartedly agree.  I think it is because the producers have become blinkered as to the true skills of the majority of kit builders, and are concentrating on satisfying the "super-builders" who actually like all this stuff - and are generally younger with good eyesight and slim fingers!  

 

However, if you think this is all coming from one area of Europe, I suggest you look at (but don't buy!) a Flyhawk warship kit.#

 

PS  This is not a general edict against the superb Flyhawk models ideally suited for less-limited modellers!

[ModelingEdmontonian]

On 2/22/2023 at 9:35 AM, John Masters said:

Nice photo indeed.  I'll grab it for my own use, if you don't mind?

Of course! This was where I found it: https://www.dassault-aviation.com/fr/passion/avions/bloch-militaires/mb-150-157/

 

On 2/24/2023 at 5:53 AM, Andwil said:

That head on shot really makes me wonder to what degree Kurt Tank was influenced by the MB 151.

 

AW

Hadn't noticed this "angle;" interesting... especially since we'd be talking about one of the biggest failures of a single-engined fighter influencing one of the best!

 

20 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Good to see this kit on here, however equally disappointing to read how complex some of these new models are getting. I don’t know why some manufacturers think we like and need all this minute stuff, as you say it just bumps up the price to silly levels and either it cannot be seen or doesn’t get used anyway. Dora are not the only ones guilty, however they all seem to emanate from the same part of Europe. Give me a mid 90’s era Tamiya 1/48 kit any day! 
 

All that said, it’s looking good so far, so I hope you get your monies worth. 
 

Cheers.. Dave 

18 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

I wholeheartedly agree.  I think it is because the producers have become blinkered as to the true skills of the majority of kit builders, and are concentrating on satisfying the "super-builders" who actually like all this stuff - and are generally younger with good eyesight and slim fingers!  

 

However, if you think this is all coming from one area of Europe, I suggest you look at (but don't buy!) a Flyhawk warship kit.#

 

PS  This is not a general edict against the superb Flyhawk models ideally suited for less-limited modellers!

Thanks, Dave and Graham. Sadly this kit is enough to put me off Dora for(ever?) a long time... It's one thing to struggle with a kit, but it's quite another to pay the kind of price I had to and find this reality two minutes into the build...

[John Masters]

22 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

equally disappointing to read how complex some of these new models are getting.

I find the new Airfix moulds to be outstanding.  It seems to have all started with Eduard and then trying to out-do each other.  I do love the Eduard kits.

[ModelingEdmontonian]

I got back to the MB 151 last night. I actually really got into a zone and next thing I knew the a/c was together. It took a lot of dry fitting and sanding and I'm grateful for having been able to watch @John Masters assemble his MB 151 and know to watch out for a few things. For example, I assembled the wheel well walls after the fuselage was together. But, I'm getting ahead of myself...

 

First I finished up the cockpit to the extent I wanted to. A lot of parts are not being included as I think I noted above.

 

 

The instructions seem to callout different shades of blue for the cockpit tub vs the walls. I don't know what to make of that, but I obliged without worrying too much about it. I want to forget about this cockpit as soon as possible...

 

 

I stuck the cockpit in and then the fuel tank behind it and that was all I did before putting the fuselage together. 

 

 

Dora wants you to include two pieces of the wheel well as well as the antenna mast base circular piece prior to fuselage assembly, but I was worried enough about getting a good fit already without adding those complications. In the end, with a ridiculous amount sanded off the cockpit tub, the fuselage did go together fairly well. You can, however, see that the fuel tank is a bit off centre. Oh well...

 

 

Next I worked on the wheel well, mostly working on the lower wing to figure out all the pieces... I think six total just to assemble the wheel well! This is it after three pieces are fitted:

 

 

With significant carving and sanding and dry fitting it came together fairly well. Instead of assembling the wings immediately, I fitted the lower wing to the fuselage first, then the uppers. I was pretty happy with how these came together. I moved on to the tail and stabilizers--six more parts to assemble here!

 

 

Alright, onto the 55 pieces for the cowling and engine. I exaggerate, of course, but it is nine pieces, I think, not including prop and spinner. Again, lots of sanding and so on, but honestly in the end it came together quite nicely!

 

 

I stuck the rear skid on (first time I've modeled an aircraft without three wheels!) and got the front UC doors and legs together.

 

 

The starboard one fitted nicely into the wheel well, but for some reason I struggled with the port. Eventually it all came together though.

 

 

Granted, it was a lot of work, and I would still have many criticisms of the design, but overall I have a much better attitude about this kit after the work this weekend than I did weeks ago. Here she is, getting close to ready for primer!

 

Edited March 26, 2023 by ModelingEdmontonian

[Wings unlevel]

That’s a fair day’s work! It looks to have come together quite well all told, and is quite the elegant little thing from the overhead view. Looks like you’ll get a terrific result from it.

[ModelingEdmontonian]

I was trying to figure out the armament on the MB 151. This website says the Hellenic Air Force MB 151s had 4 x 7,50 mm MAC 1934 machine guns, 2 x 20 mm HISPANO 404 machine guns; which would mean six guns total. But, I'm not so sure about that and am inclined to think they would have just had four guns, which I believe was typical of the MB 150s family, and I'm assuming two 7.5s and two 20s. Why I'm talking about this is that the Dora wings kind of have the MG holes, but I needed to drill them out better and wanted to understand what I was doing. I opted to assume the inner guns are the 20s and need larger holes, so I went with 0.6 mm, and the outer the 7.5s and I went with 0.4mm. The starboard wing also has a hole for the pitot tube, and the port wing has a port for the landing light. 

 

 

By the way, it was interesting to me to see in this photo that the a/c in the foreground has no MG ports in the wings (or maybe they're covered up?), but the ones in the rear appear to.

 

[ModelingEdmontonian]

I proceed to clean up a few seams and gaps with Mr Dissolved Putty, but really in the end it all came together quite well and there wasn't much to do. I attached the cowling and here she is, ready for primer. The whole off-centred cowling is a weird MB 150 family quirk, but I think I got it positioned more-or-less correctly. Dora has not done a good job with this in my opinion, but you can just add that to a long list of my criticisms! Despite that long list of complaints, I am very happy with where she is now. 

 

[Rabbit Leader]

Great to see you persevere with this kit. Now that it’s assembled, it does look quite good and I’m sure you will be very relieved once it’s finally finished. I must admit, I’ve never built a Dora kit before, although there’s a few which have caught my eye. I wonder if they are all this challenging?
 

Cheers.. Dave  

[ModelingEdmontonian]

14 minutes ago, Rabbit Leader said:

I wonder if they are all this challenging?

I don't know, it's the only one I've looked at. A few weeks ago I would never have considered building one again, but now I feel differently. To be honest, although I didn't feel like this throughout, now I'm fairly proud of the work--nice to have a challenge and get past it and be happy with it. There were moments where I thought I might just give up--probably closer than I've been with any other model.

 

I actually do have Dora's P-63 kit and I expect I will build it someday. 

[Rabbit Leader]

23 minutes ago, ModelingEdmontonian said:

I actually do have Dora's P-63 kit and I expect I will build it someday.

That was one of the kits I had in mind. There’s also their series of Vultee Vengeance kits which have a zillion parts count as well. 
Cheers.. Dave 

[ModelingEdmontonian]

1 minute ago, Rabbit Leader said:

That was one of the kits I had in mind. There’s also their series of Vultee Vengeance kits which have a zillion parts count as well. 
Cheers.. Dave 

I haven't checked the part count on the P-63... I do know it was about half the price of the MB 151 (at least it was for me), so that helps. Part of my bad attitude about the MB 151 was the ridiculous price--most expensive model I've ever bought, so I had higher expectations.  

[ModelingEdmontonian]

I have her primed! 😀

 

[Wings unlevel]

Looking really neat!

[ModelingEdmontonian]

I sprayed some rattle can black into the cowling last night.

 

 

I'll use a hairy brush to get some gunmetal in there over top of the black, but the rattle can let me get black into some of the nooks and crannies that will be difficult by hand. As with the rest of this, not striving for anything fancy, just a general "engine-y" feel of metallic darkness.