IPMS/USA Reviews

Kit:

The Douglas A-26 Invader was an American twin-engine light bomber / ground attack aircraft. From 1948 -1966 it was re-designated as the B-26 and served in the Korean War from 1950-1953.

The paints were provided by Tru-Color Paint. http://trucolorpaint.com/

This is a combined review of the 1/48 Italeri Mirage F.1 "Bye-Bye Mirage" and a selection of Tru-Color paints provided for the build review.

When you open the box you find a total of 5 sprues (one clear) with many parts marked as "not for use" -weapons for the most part. The overall look of the plastic parts is good. No flash, smooth surface, finely recessed panel lines and the transparent parts are free of scratches. You also get an excellent decal sheet with markings for 3 airplanes, all of them in the retirement scheme of the Mirage F.1

Based on my limited research the plastic parts were originally molded by ESCI back in 1978. Back in 2002 Italeri improved the molds to add newer parts (due to the modernization of the airplane new antennas, air scoops, etc. were needed). The newer parts also included a few replacement parts of the original ones.

IPMS/USA welcomes the proprietors of Masterpiece models back, and serious appreciation for supporting the IPMS USA reviewer corps with yet one more of their newest releases, in a scale never before attempted: 1/35^th! A perfect diorama subject, we certainly will see some of these in a D-Day or Market Garden setting... And my personal thanks to IPMS leadership for sending it to me to be reviewed.

Sometimes I wonder at my sanity; then my wife reminds me that I really am over the edge and I know...

Resin kits are a case in point; requiring truly radical and different skill sets for a project. Rare (Usually) subjects or subjects which economically do not make sense to cut a mold for injection molding. Resin is rarely forgiving, and on occasion makes you question why you are in the hobby.

2018 seemed to be the year of the Panther from the start and there certainly was no shortage of releases of the variants from many of the big companies. As 2019 rolled around, Jagdpanthers and Bergepanthers seemed to continue the trend. However, about mid-year, there were whispers of the companies releasing their own version on the venerable US Sherman tank. Taska, now Asuka, certainly has set the bar high and we have seen as the summer rolled along that Rye Field Models and Meng have entered their own horses into the race. My focus here is on the M4A3(76)W release by Meng, complete with an extra added resin sandbag armor set SPS-070 ($57.00).

In Part 2 of my build of Zoukei-Mura's latest Release, the 1/32^nd scale Henschel Hs-129 B-2/RIII, we'll get the wings and horizontal stabs on and get the kit ready for paint As a bit of background, the Hs-129 was a WWII version of the modern A-10 and was designed to and good at killing tanks. In Part 1, we built the engines cockpit and got the fuselage assembled. Let's finish the rest of the assembly.

To start, the wing spars were cut from the sprues. If you want the interior parts to show, you will need a little sanding to get rid of the seam lines. These slot brilliantly into the previously shown slot and provide a nice fit. This should also provide the needed dihedral for the wings. The four fuel tanks are built and added along with MG151 magazines and lastly, the wing guns themselves were added. The Mg 17mm magazines are also added at this time. This does a great job of showing how this plane was a flying weapon- lots of guns, cannons and ammunition.