IPMS/USA Reviews

Brengun is a new company to me, but what I have seen they are producing a wide range of unique resin and photoetch accessories in 1/32, 1/48, 1/72 as well as 1/144. These nacelles were previously produced by Attack Squadron (Arma Hobby) and that product line was sold to Brengun, which is a big relief to C-130 fans.

This resin set comes in a sturdy cardboard box containing four complete engine nacelles, prop spinners, cowl flaps, blade antenna, and sixteen propeller blades. There is a small instruction sheet explaining the modification required to the inboard nacelle attachment point. The modification corrects the alignment of the prop blades between engines. The correct arrangement is the propeller blades are all in line with each other instead of how the kit is produced placing the outboard prop slightly behind the inboard prop. There is a very small amount of flash on the propeller blades, which is expected, and the remaining parts are very crisp with no visible surface blemishes or bubbles. The photos show the Italeri kit parts next to the resin parts for reference.

When Eduard released its 1/72 MiG-21MF kit last summer it also released several resin and photo-etch sets to go with it. One of the sets is a package of resin wheels. The set provides two sets of main wheels (one with solid wheel covers, the other with spoked wheel covers) and two nose wheels. The instructions note that the solid wheel covers were seldom used on the MF version of the MiG-21, so check your references to see which type the aircraft you are modeling has. I used the spoked set and I have put the other set aside on the assumption that the MiG-21MF is just the first of a MiG-21 series by Eduard, therefore it will come in handy later on.

This set is designed to fit Eduard's new MiG-21 kit. The package includes two complete sets of gear, so you can outfit two kits. Each set includes left and right main gear legs (with helpful tabs marked "L" and "R" at the top), a scissor link for each of the main gear struts, two main gear retraction struts, and two-piece nose gear.

The parts are drop-in replacements for Eduard's kit parts, although I had to do a little filing and sanding to get the kit wheels to slide onto the main gear axles, which are keyed just like the kit parts to ensure that the wheels are correctly orientated. I also had to do some work on the scissor links to get them to fit correctly as the gap in the center of each connection point was a little narrower than the mounting points. The castings are nicely done and require just a little clean up on the casting seams. I cleaned the seams up using a Xacto knife and sandpaper. I then used a brass wire wheel in my battery operated Dremel tool at slow speed to polish up the struts and finish smoothing out the casting seams.

This is another resin set that Eduard released to upgrade its new MiG-21MF kit. The set provides the five base pylons for the MiG-21, two for each wing and one for the centerline station. The pylons are drop-in replacements for the kit parts and require the same holes to be drilled out as the kit pylons do, so no additional work is required to use them.

In reviewing the kit's instruction sheet, it states that for the outer pylons, there is a difference between the ones used when weapons are mounted and the one used when fuel tanks are mounted on the outer wing stations. The set does not say whether the set's outer pylons (parts R4 and R5) are weapons or fuel tank pylons, so I checked the instructions for Eduard's R-3S missiles and pylons set (#672 18). This set also lists parts R4 and R5 as being used for the outside pylons to which the missile rails are attached, therefore I assume that the ones included in set 672 184 are also weapons pylons, not fuel tank pylons.

Thank you to the Eduard Company for sending this detail set for review, it is always a pleasure to see what your new products bring to the scale modeling world. Thank you also to the IPMS Reviewer Corps staff members who do the hard work in getting us modeling products to review, the reviews posted, and the news spread to the world.