Look at what’s arrived.

[BarryW]

One very big box..





Packed tight with plastic….


If I get a chance I might post a few pics of the plastic later today, if not it will be Monday….

Many thanks to John for the kit and usual great service.

[BarryW]

I could not resist a very quick look as there are two thing I wanted to check. First the internal canopy framing, on some kits it was broken but is OK on mine.

The other issue are the transparencies.

These are not so good, with a lot of distortion. What I don't know is whether they have managed to produce replacement transparencies that are better.

I am going to have to take a much more detailed look at them before reaching a conclusion. Some are also a but scuffed despite their being wrapped in bubble wrap and a soft polystyrene material but these scuffs can be polished out of course.

More on this later.

[Tim Marlow]

Glad you’ve finally got it, and I hope the kit lives up to your expectations Barry.

[Gern]

This is where we find out what sort of willpower Barry has! Will he wait until he's sorted out any replacement and/or AM parts, or will this jump straight to the top of his build queue?!

Watch this space!

[Jim R]

I'll bet your poor old postie has a hernia.

I hope the kit lives up to your expectations

I'm sure it will. A lot of planning, checking, research etc to do now.

[wotan]

Barry

I am sure you will enjoy every minute of this. Just for interest my father worked in an intelligence section during WW II. One of the assignments he worked on was testing the security of Bomber Command's airfields. He and his team were assigned to infiltrate various airfields and to mark an X on to aircraft that they could have sabotaged without being detected. In this image my nephew has imagined one of these scene's with my Father's team being apprehended and explaining their task to a Bomber Command security team.



Once again good luck with your build.

John

[Ian M]

Wonder how this works with replacement parts after Border have announced that there will be no replacement parts due to the very limited stock and that the tooling has worn out....
Could be a while before any after market canopies start turning up.

[boatman]

YES Barry very good luck with this biuld an i'll be following along
chrisb

[Gern]

Wonder how this works with replacement parts after Border have announced that there will be no replacement parts due to the very limited stock and that the tooling has worn out....
Could be a while before any after market canopies start turning up.

Makes me wonder why the tooling has worn out. They surely haven't produced that many kits since it was first released? I mean, look at Airfix who are still churning out kits from moulds that are 50+ years old.

[Ian M]

I read that due to the fine detail and the size of the tool they don't last.
I guess that they are also not quite the good old Sheffield Steel that Airfix used, them buggers never going to wear out.

[BarryW]

I have just had a closer look at the transparencies under a good light and I can confirm that they are OK. I have seen better transparencies but there are no significant issues to worry about.

Part of one of the sprues


The other sprue that is reported to have issues is this one with the cockpit inner frame and other fragile parts. I have no broken pieces here I am glad to say.



Let’s have a look at some of the detail close up….










I think we can all agree on how fine and crisp the detail is. I would say it is right up the with the very best Tamiya has to offer.

Now what about the legendary surface detail. Here we have the sprue with the nose section.





Wow is the only comment I can come up with. Hopefully the fit will be good so the detail does not get damaged by sanding.

Now look at these cockpit wall sections. I have never seen such superb detail that rivals what you find on resin cockpit replacements.






Remember there is a lot more detail to add to that….

The main fuselage





What can you say that’s not already said.

I will leave the sprues there, it is just more and more of the same superlative moulding.

The decals look nicely printed but I won’t be using them, certainly not at least for the main markings. When you have spent this much on a kit then you do really need to go a little further and paint on the markings. Of 1 Man Army produce a set for stencils then I will paint those too.


There are etch seatbelts but there is a seat option with superbly moulded in seat belts. I will most likely use those.


A set of brass gun barrels. As
Expected they don’t have cooling jackets and are therefore useless. I will get a Master Barrels set for the kit simply because the plastic ones are so vulnerable and will easily snap off.

Whoops……. I will load the picture below in a separate post as I have hit the 20 picture limit.

[BarryW]

A look at some pages from the instructions. You can see that there are no colour call outs as you work through and I am also aware of a number of issues regarding build sequence, parts in the kits not in the instructions etc. these are the weak point of the kit, largely I suspect as a result of it being produced by a company that did not design the kit. Look at YouTube, for Nigel’s Modelling Bench, he has done a video of the instruction errors and erratum which will be a must watch for people with the kit.







All in all not a perfect model, not shake and bake, but it certainly has the wow factor and a level of detail unsurpassed. Worth the money? hell yes.

[Tim Marlow]

Surface detail does look good Barry. Texture on the fuselage side, in particular, is very well rendered.
However, there is evidence of flash there, significantly so on part B13, for example. Mould alignment seams look quite pronounced on the mould runners, as do blow holes from incomplete plastic fill, so I hope that doesn’t give you issues with the parts themselves. Ejection pin marks look conspicuous by their absence though, so that’s a big plus.

[adt70hk]

It does look very impressive Barry. Will look forward to this being built.

ATB.

Andrew

[Jim R]

It certainly looks good. It's got a lot to live up to with all the hype and there will always be those who "live to look for problems".
I'm sure you will thoroughly enjoy building it and we'll enjoy following your progress.
Jim