By Gary Wickham
There has been quite a buzz around this release for one simple reason. Its a "Snap Tite" kit. Ok, so MENG refer to it as "Cement-Free Assembly" but whatever you call it, you are meant to assemble it without the need for glue. Normally this type of engineering is reserved for the basic, beginner style kits to make it easier for novices to construct their first model without making a mess with all that pesky glue. We have come to expect such kits to be very basic, often lacking detail with low part counts, to suite beginners.
By Mario Covalski
Chevron presented us some time ago a conversion kit, that allows us to transform the Tamiya's 1/12 Tyrrell P34 1/12 scale in its 1977 homonym. In this note I will describe which were the problems I found in building this complicated and compound kit, and the way I solved them.
By Mario Covalski
The goal of this short tutorial is to share with the reader the construction of the 1/16 RC Leopard 2A7, based on the Tamiya 2A6 and trying to copy the Meng 1/35 kit, which is an excellent reproduction of the real tank. To avoid creating false expectations about this tutorial, I’ll not make any reference to the assembly of the Tamiya kit, or the painting of the model, I just will focus on the modifications. During the construction I took some artistic license (as I use to do).
By Modeler Site
Over the end of the year, we are offering a preview of the articles we were proud to have during 2018. Enjoy them and happy new year.
By Fabrice Marechal
The Porsche 917 is a Paddock kit that is no longer commercially available. It's sometimes available on collector sites such as Modelart111. The body has been completely reworked at the level of the vents, all was perforated. The body was painted with Gulf Gravity Colors blue, the orange decals were then applied and retouched with a brush with X-6 Tamiya orange. The body was then clearcoated with 2-component Zero Paint varnish. Here pictures I have taken during the build.
By Fabrice Marechal
The Ferrari Dino 206 is a Le Phoenix kit which is no longer available commercially and very difficult to find even on collector sites. As the Porsche 917, all air vents have been perforated. The bodywork was first painted in red with DS Colors and blue stripes delimited and painted Gulf blue also from DS Colors. The white lines were made using white decals. The body was then varnished with 2-component DS Colors. Here pictures I have taken during the build.
By Fabrice Marechal
The kit has been completely reworked so that the front and rear cover and the wheels can be removed and re-placed, I have shared a video to show it. Details have been added to the engine, such as spark plug wires and fuel lines etc. The rest of the build was completely done out of the box, less the necessary modifications to make workable the mentioned parts. The bodywork was painted with Ferrari red from Gravity Colors Spain and has been varnished with 2-component lacquer also from Gravity Colors Spain. Here pictures I have taken during the build.
By Fabrice Marechal
Revell have going on offering Super cars and luxury reproductions in 1/24 scale, this article will be about the Porsche Panamera Turbo. I’ll not extend in a complete kit review , however every time I open a Revell box, the first things I examine are: the bodywork, the brakes and wheels. For these last ones, it must be recognized that Revell have improved them. The wheels size is correct and not undersized as it happened at times, besides they are molded in a single part. What still doesn’t’ like me is the chromed they’re provided with, lack of realism and adds extra work to the modeller. Unfortunately, the brakes are not well represented. This tutorial aims at showing with images the steps I followed to correct the problems and get the finished model.
By Mario Covalski
A couple of years ago, I discover www.Ludwigs-Hobby-Seite.de, a web site where Christian Ludwig offers his kits mostly made of plastic, cut with the CNC technology. So, I found a kit to convert a Heng Long 2A6 to the 2A4, that is to say a previous version.
By Mario Covalski
Since I built the Tamiya Leopard 2A6 I was always interested in the evolution of the tank, the Leopard 2A7. I had seen few scratch conversions on forums and youtube but, I’m not brave enough to do that. When OKMO through DKLM offered the conversion I fall in love with it. The parts are 3D printed and of very good quality, includes the FLW 200 robotized weapon station. I managed to add some servos to make the machine gun mobile. I didn’t write a tutorial as I didn’t take many pictures during the build, but this gallery could help others to face the project I hope so.
By Michael Mandau
There is always this one kind of projects that you ever wanted to build and pops up in your mind once in a while. This was it for me: In my mind I saw a gantry style signal tower in a fighting scene and under which a panther is positioned. This kept me fascinated for a long time, until I finally decided to build it. I always had an inclination for railway scenes; probably back from the days when I played with the model railroad at my grandfather’s house. So, tracks need to be on the diorama, that’s for sure and as well as something track bound.
By Antonio Busciglio
The model I wanted to build was the version that ran on the Tour de Corse in 1984 season, driven by Attilio Bettega (who lost its life in the same car during the 1985 season) with Cresto as a co driver. The Martini livery makes this car absolutely stunning, but also quite demanding for the modeler. Moreover, the only plastic kit available on the market is the not so recent Hasegawa kit. In my opinion It’s quite well designed, easy to assemble parts, good general fitting, good materials quality. However...
By Michael Mandau
Brach Models, who is known for their wide range of conversion sets and full resin kits of almost unknown variants and models of World War II tanks, recently released another great product. This time they brought up a set of Italian Assault Guns, one of them is the Semovente M42 75/18, which I am going to build here.
By Mario Covalski
To improve the Heng Long T-90 I read some books and gathered information/photos from the web. This little research made me know more about these compact Russian tanks T-72/T-90, and so it grew my interest in them. So I bought the 1/16 T-72 Trumpeter kit. This kit was designed not only for static but also for RC. The static version has some extra details and modifications, reminds me the, T-34 from WSN, a brand with which Trumpeter sold the T-34 RC. The philosophy of the T-72 is the same, I still believe that the T-34 gearbox with its motors, would fit in the hull. Perfectly.
By Antonio Busciglio
The model nicely reproduces the shape of the car, but most of the details are missing, or oversimplified due to production and technology issues. On this basis, I decided to build this model adding as much detail as possible for my skills. As an additional difficulty, there are nearly no detail sets for this kit, so it would be necessary to add them from scratch. In particular, I used a large number of resin rivets and bolts, some turned bolts, leftover photoetched from my spare box and a lot of scratch-building. In this tutorial I’ll describe all the building process in detail. I hope you’ll enjoy building this model as I did.
By Michael Mandau
I was always fascinated by those tiny tanks with their unique and compact design and I had planned to build one for quite a while. Recently I got an old 1/35 scale Dragon #6030 Hetzer early version. This kit is almost 13 years old and you can clearly see some missing details but in overall it’s a good model. For some additional details I bought the Eduard 35385 Hetzer photoetched set which would be used. For me it’s a big inducement to use the old despised kits with minor additional parts and show what still could be done out of it. Together with the etch-set the total price was below 20€ and therefore also something for modelers with an economical budget.
By Fabrice Marechal
Certainly, Italeri offer us a kit that, once finished, is really a beautiful and shocking model due to its size, we are not accustomed to seeing a Fiat 500 in 1/12 scale. There is very little to be changed or improved to make the most of it. Unfortunately, some construction steps are not easy to understand and instructions are not always clear. In this respect, Italeri did nothing to facilitate the modelers’ work, and assembling the headlights, window frames, bodywork, etc., are a bit complicated. I built the model almost out of the box, enhancing the painting and assembling was correct and error free as far as possible, and I think it will be an excellent guide for those who want to face this project, having in advance the difficulties you’ll have to face and a good painting guide.
By Mario Covalski
In May 2001 I wrote a brief preview on the Protar's 1/12 Alfa Romeo 179. This wonderful Formula One was one of the few cars in modern F1 history which chassis and engine were the same brand. Is this model really difficult? This is the key question for this model, and the answer is NO. If it were a Tamiya model, that is to say the same matrix but injected with Tamiya plastic and having the quality control of this huge Japanese company, I would say that this is one of the most delicious models I have ever built. Unfortunately, it has some flaws, mainly due to its poor quality than to the work of the Protar craftsmen.
By Mario Covalski
This article will be useful to anybody who wants to pursue this project, I decided to write it in the form of an instruction manual, following the steps set forth in the Tamiya's instruction manual, but also indicating all modifications to be made in order to insert the "Perfect Parts" metal parts, along with suggestions and advice on my experience with this model on every stage of the construction.
All general recommendations on the use of CA and handling of metal and photoetched parts can be found in the previous articles.
By Jose Angel García Martin
The aircraft I’m representing here belonged to the Cyclons of the US Navy and I considered to build it due to its attractive camouflage even the radar cone what makes it very interesting for the modeler. Its yellow and sand colors weathering and “washes” were the final push that made me take the decision of choosing this version. My idea was to represent the aircraft in its first stages of the Ejercito del Aire. The aim of this tutorial is to share with the reader the work, with simple techniques and materials available to all, it can be easily reproduced by a less experienced modeller.