First 1/48 build

[Guest]

OK, as I continue to practice for The Big Project , I've now got myself a few cheapish 1/48 kits to get the hang of modelling bigger stuff.

I've got the ARII P-40e Warhawk which I brought back from Japan and two Šmer Italian birds en route from Hannants; the Fiat G.55 and the Reggiane Re.2000.

I'm hoping to do something of a blow-by-blow thing for the forum so you can all kibitz and tell me what I'm doing wrong/right, so first of all I'd like you to vote on which of these kits you reckon I ought to attack first.

Secondly, can anyone recommend any nice but not too expensive after-market stuff that might just jazz them up a bit? I know the ARII kit basically just has an L-shaped piece of plastic as a seat, for instance.

[Dave W]

Get some Eduard prepainted seat belts from Hannants.They only cost about £5 and make a big improvement to the cockpit.You get enough in a set for 4 single seat aircraft as well.

[yak face]

Got to agree with dave, a set of p.e. belts makes a world of difference. The other thing thats very noticeable is the instrument panel, maybe a basic eduard zoom set might have both? cheers tony. p.s my vote is in for the p40

[stona]

I'll second what Tony said above.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

The Eduard Zoom sets (like this one) all say they're designed for Hasegawa kits. Is this likely to be an issue with an ARII kit?

[mossiepilot]

Hey Matt.

Just been looking at the kits you have got.

The Warhawk looks lovely and the review I read on Model kits review.com was good.

But I do like the stubby Re.2000 and the minimum amount of parts gives lots of room for scratch building if you want.

If it was me asking the question I'd go for the Warhawk, but..........

Sorry I'm no help.

Tony

[Guest]

Scratchbuilding?

Ahahahaha hahahahaha hahahaha!

No.

[Guest]

Well, it's 6-0-0 for the Warhawk so far, so the Warhawk it is.

I'm not overly impressed with the OOB decals (and particularly the fact that all the box art and instructions suggest that you have the option of the Aleutian Tiger on the cover or good old GA-Y of 112 Squadron, but only the Aleutian decals are provided...), so I've ordered some Red Stars from Hannants and will do a Soviet scheme. Maybe something with a winter camo wash, try out this "hairspray method" I've heard about.

The Eduard Zoom cockpit set I mentioned earlier is also on the way - I figure if it doesn't fit right in this kit then I'll just have to suck it up and build a Hasegawa Warhawk sometime. Shucks.

[yak face]

The zoom set should fit the arii kit ok, perhaps the empty cockpit on your kit might mean that not all the bits have somewhere to be stuck to , but most of them will be fine and should make a great difference. Funny you should say that about the decals, ive got the arii 1/48 kawasaki ki 61 hien in the stash ,and thats the same--the box top illustration is different to the colour scheme on the instructions- which is itself different to the decal sheet!!! Luckily when i bought it the guy threw in some spare decals so its not a problem, cheers tony

[Guest]

Well, the two Smer kits arrived yesterday and I'm kind of glad you guys all voted Warhawk, because they look well rough. More flash than Dale Arden, and on the G.55 someone had the bright idea of moulding the radio antenna on top of the fuselage and then splitting it in half lengthwise - leading to two curly half-antennae on the top of my kit.

I think that one at least is going on the shelf until I feel more confident to tackle it. Not least I want to do it in ANR colours, which has that sort of fading-fuzzy-blobs thing going on, and I'm thinking that's going to be a lot easier to airbrush than paintbrush...

At least I only spent a fiver each on them.

[Guest]

The P-40 build has been put back until the new year now as I've got involved with a couple of group builds over on UAMF - the Dora! Dora! Dora! build (Fw190D) and the Hampden build.