[snipped]
I must had at least one of the early metal ones that came out for the film, The Battle Of Britain as I find bits of an Me109 when I'm gardening. Please don't tell me that they are rare collectors items!
Richard.
They've been reissued countless times since destroying any collectors value they might have had. The same is true for the armoured vehicles from the same period.
(kim)
If ever a kit needed a silver finish it is the Lightning. I had a magazine cover shot of a Lightning F6 on my coffee table for many years. A rival firm did one in silver but it was only 100th scale. Likewise the MiG 21.
(kim)
Nope, not in those sizes. :)
Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.
I've bought a few of the Model Power Mini-Planes. One was the DH Mosquito and I decided to go with my own paint job. Stripping the paint off reveals how much of the plane is actually plastic. Currently it's in overall Sea Grey Medium awaiting its Dark green camo. Finding decals close to the right size is a bit challenging for a 1/120th model. I find using some of the littler pieces off my 1/72nd sheets covers some ground toward the goal.
It's such a sharp little model I've been thinking of other schemes I could do.
Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.
"Chuck Ryan" wrote in news:tFyeg.183110$ snipped-for-privacy@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
I've worked in a model shop and had (still have) the same thought. I do think it is very important to have low priced kits in your collection (being a shop) but what is also very important is (well at least I always did) to have low priced kits that FIT. If you want your (a) youngster to start building, you want him to like building. Not being put off by a cheapo that can't be glued together how hard you try.
I know a lot of youngsters (starters) start out with a CHEAP kit, so if they screw up, the loss ain't that big, but they get put off by the fit and don't bother buying a second kit.
Dennis
post a pic, i have no clue what they look like.
Well, I took some but the son put them on a 700mb disc and my computer can't read it. Once we upgrade the CD reader I'll be able to post them. Hey, maybe by then I'll have the finished pics too. ;)
Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.
We seem to have strayed a bit but IMO Airfix kits were always a perfect fit whatever their other shortcomings. (They also took paint very well). Their weakness today is that they are not nearly as cheap or sophisricated - relative to the rest of the model market - as they were in the 1960's.
[Bore everyone to tears Dept]In the 1960's I used to subscribe to Model Airplane News despite living in the UK. It staggered me then that Americans considered Airfix as being "pocket money priced" despite being three times as expensive as they were in the UK. The price at the time for a typical 1/72nd A/C kit was 2/6d in the UK and $1 or 7/6d in the USA.
(kim)
There are two Corgi 1/72 diecast models that I just couldn't pass up:
B-17G "Nine-O-Nine" B-24J "Dragon and His Tail"
I have the B-24 and it is awesome. Panel lines and a litle heavy handed detailing aside, it has a prime place in my collection.
I am waiting for the B-17 with crew. It shall be placed next to the B-24, giving me both of the Collings aircraft that I have flown and flown in (both on one weekend) in the markings that they carried at the time.
"Drag> > Airfix is alright with me - I made the EE Lightning, which I liked
When I started buying and building Airfix aircraft Fokker Dr.Is were going for 29¢, P-38s,-40s,-51s for 39¢, Ansons and Beaufighters for 49¢, Hudsons and Bostons for 89¢, B-25s for $1.09 and B-17s and B-24s for $1.29. When Craftmaster took over distribution we started to see some stranger prices like the $1.63 B-17 and PBY. The period here is
1963-66. I'll let you figure out the shillings as it never made sense to me. :)Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.
Mad-Modeller wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@nextline.com:
I never had anything against Airfix Kits, but I always saw it as a kind of duty for me to encourage youngsters to build models. If I had the notion that it was a starter or parents that came in and wanted to buy a kit for a starter, I wanted to be sure I sold them a "GOOD" kit to start with.
I've had an interesting day!
I finally got hold of the new Airfix 1/48 Spitfire IX. As some of you may know ('cos I'm constantly wittering on about it) I build quite a few Spitfires. I was very interested to see the new Airfix kit. I have seen no online reviews about it at all!
Well... The first thing that strikes one on picking up the box is that it is *very* heavy. As soon as one opens the box the reason becomes apparent. There is a *lot* of plastic in this kit. There are two complete wing assemblies, which at first I found quite puzzling. It turns out that the wing assembly from the Spitfire Vc is also included, simply because there are a number of parts on the sprues that are needed for the MkIX. Despite Airfix's claims, this is not a *wholly* new kit.
Some people have commented on the sprue gates in the Airfix TSR2. If you thought that they were big, you want to see the ones in *this* kit. The Vc sprue gates are horrendously huge! The gates on the new sprues are better, but not at all what one would expect on the 21st century. Early '70s perhaps... To be honest, the large gates don't really matter as long as you cut the parts from the sprues. The plastic has a very nice texture and cuts easily. Where the large gates may cause problems are for kids who tend to tear or twist the parts off. The plastic will definitely tear and leave a scar.
The surface detailing on the new parts is really rather nice. The panel lines are slightly deeper than the equivalent lines on the Hasegawa kit, but they are by no means trenches. I like them. However, the detail parts themselves are quite heavy and slightly crude. There are ten parts which go to make the cockpit interior, plus a three part pilot figure. I have a feeli ng that these parts came from the earlier Vc kit. Although they will build into a busy looking cockpit, the parts have no finesse whatsoever. They will be acceptable with a closed access door and canopy, but a lot of work will be needed to display the door and canopy open (there is a seperate door part to allow this). I much preferred the cockpit parts from the Mk24 kit.
The spinner and airscrew are abysmal! The spinner is greatly oversized. The propellor blades look like four breadknives! Just awful. I suppose that the blades could be reshaped, but I'm afraid that the only alternative with the spinner is to buy a new one from Ultracast - which also solves the blade problem.
The fuselage seems to be of scale length and has two alternative upper cowlings - one for the Rolls-Royce engined MkIX and one for the Packard engined MkXVI. A MkXVI *can* be built from the kit, but only in full fuselage guise.
Obviously, I haven't built this kit yet, nor will I be doing so in the future (sounds ominous, I know, but see later). However, I have done a quick dry fit. The parts fit very well. As I've mentioned before, the fuselage seems accurate. Sadly, the same cannot be said of the wings.
The planform is great. There are four sets of wingtips (standard, factory clipped, field clipped and extended). There are three types of gunbay covers. But the problem doesn't lie with the planform, it lies with the cross section. The Spitfire wing was a triumph of engineering design. The cross section and incidence change constantly along the span of the wing. The tips actually have *negative* incidence. It is very important to capture this feature - Airfix have tried valiantly to do so, but have just missed the mark.
The wing on the earlier Vc was dreadful - it looked like a plank of wood! I had a number of concerns about the wing on this new kit when I saw pictures of the test shots on the Airfix website. It didn't look quite right but I couldn't quite put my finger on the problem. Now that I have seen it, I know what the problem is. The wing roots are far too deep. Not as deep as those on the Academy MkXIV, but deeper than they should be, and it is quite noticeable. The flaps are seperate items and the trailing edges are about three scale inches thick! This thickness is shared by the tailplanes and alternative rudders. There is detail in the wheel wells, but it is crude. There is no detail whatsoever in the radiators, although the cooling flap is moulded in the open position. The wing simply lacks the finesse that a Spitfire wing should have.
As for the undercarriage doors... I simply don't want to think about them. Horrid!
The decals are nicely printed and in perfect register (unlike the decals in the Mk24 kit!). They are very glossy indeed, but should look good under a coat of flat varnish. I can't speak to the thickness of them. There is a lot of stencil data, which is good to see. The decal placement guide is on a seperate sheet from the instructions and is printed in full colour on very high quality paper.
I am neither impressed nor disappointed with the kit. It is a very workmanlike kit and is ideal for a newcomer to the hobby. They will get something that looks very like a Spitfire out of it. The problem for me is that it is just not quite accurate enough to make it into the line-up with the rest of the Spitfires on my display shelf. I could live with the dreadful spinner and thick trailing edges - a visit to the Ultracast website and an hour's work with file and wet & dry paper would solve both problems adequately - but I'm afraid that I can't live with the far-too-thick wing. I was looking forward to the forthcoming 70th anniversary composite kit which features this MkIX, a Mk24 and a sepcial edition MkI, but now I think I'll give it a miss. I'll stick with the Tamiya kit for MkIs and MkVs and the Hasegawa kit for MkIXs. I know that the Hasegawa kit has problems lengthwise, but they don't detract from the appearance nearly as much as the thick wing does from the Airfix kit.
All-in-all, it is not a *bad* kit. It just seems to be a retrograde step from the Mk24, which is one of my favourite kits. I think it is an ideal kit for those just starting out in the hobby, who may not be quite as anal about the wing as I am. The problem is that it costs eleven quid. Is that the sort of "pocket-money" price range that a kid starting out could afford?
As I said above, I'm not going to actually build it - at least not as a MkIX. I have a number of Mk24 kits that I bought as parts-only at a knock-down price. The fuselage on the new MkIX is very nice, so I am going to combine it with a Mk24 to build a Mk21. Sadly the wing roots on the two kits are totally different so I'm going to have to do a nifty bit of cutting to take the wing roots and nose from the Mk24 and graft them onto the MkIX fuselage. But hey... I'm supposed to be a modeller, aren't I? I'm looking forward to the build now...
What this all boils down to is we still have no definitive late Merlin Spitfires in 1/48 scale, after all these years. I'm 68 and I have a hunch I'll be dead and gone before we ever see one.
Bill Shuey
in article snipped-for-privacy@starpower.net, William H. Shuey at snipped-for-privacy@starpower.net wrote on 6/8/06 12:02 AM:
I had very good luck with the ICM Mk.XVI in spite of all the reported quality control issues. It doesn't cost an arm and a leg, so adding Ultracast replacements for wheels, elevators, prop etc. won't break the bank.
Pip Moss
Enzo:
This goes against what I have heard about the Italeri kit. I was told it was a re-pop of the Occidental kit, not ICM. There is quite a difference!
Bill Shuey
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