benjaminsummerfield

I have an old Hasegawa Vb nose for just such a conversation if I ever find a cheap Tamiya IX. I've offered it up and it's a decent match. I think the Hobbyboss spit has the wrong cross section to the top cowling so might not match up. Suprised Alleycat or similar haven't offered it as a conversation, could do alsorts like a Mk XII or Seafire family.

Right I'm in. Preordered at HLJ! Not sure if an NFII will be included as the engines are earlier versions of the Merlin than the VI I believe, although I think the differences are Largely cosmetic.

1/32 Corrected Oil cooler and Rotol Propeller Eagle Editions Catalogue# 70-32, 71-32 Available from Eagle Editions Oil cooler $7.50, Rotol Propeller $19.75 A little bit of a special one for you all today, earlier this year we reviewed the new tool Revell 1/32 Spitfire IIa. Perhaps I was a little critical in my review of this kit but chief among my criticism was the fairly obvious over sight of not including the blunt Rotol Spinner that typified the Spit MkII and the early style oil cooler. At the time of my review, LSM's very own Jim Hatch was already well along into his build of this kit which was destined to be used for the latest "How to build" Book by ADH publishing, such an oversight as the wrong spinner certainly couldn't go unaddressed in such a book! After surveying his options Jim realised he had no choice but to take matters into his own hands, and now I present the results to you. These upgrades have been brought to market by Eagle Editions Ltd (EE) which should immediately speak volumes about their quality, they are intended to complement their latest range of decals for the Revell kit reviewed here on LSM. Presented in fairly minimalist clear blister packs adorned with images of Jims finished model these relatively simple sets will have a big impact on the final appearance of your kit, let's start with the Rotol Spinner and propeller. Rotol Spinner and prop blades #70-32 Among the distinguishing features of the Spit MkII the most immediately obvious was the blunt Rotol spinner and broad wooden jablo propeller blades, that said this also featured on many Mk1's and admittedly some MkII's had the pointier DeHavilland spinner. The new spinner was designed for Eagle Editions by LSM staff member Jeroen Peters who used his experience with CAD to design the part with the utmost accuracy, this was then 3D printed to ensure it would fit the kit perfectly. The set consists of the spinner, separate back plate and three propeller blades. Interestingly EE have chosen to reproduce the spinner itself using 3D printing rather than resin casting, this means the detail will be perfect every time with no loss of definition as you may get over time with repeated casting. The spinner is reproduced in a creamy semi-transparent material which at first glance looks a little odd, 3D printing produces objects by layering material to form the shape and this results in a very slight ribbed effect to the surface, this will easily be smoothed out with some light sanding and to be fair EE allude to this in the instructions; a bonus of using 3D printing is a total lack of any flash! The spinner really captures the bulbous look of the Rotol and features fine fastener detail and panel lining, the spinner backplate and prop blades however are cast the old fashioned way in fine grey resin. The wooden Jablo propeller blades are very nicely depicted and have virtually no flash or casting bubbles etc and feature a small peg to locate them correctly so the blades will have the right pitch. A quick test fit revealed that the tubular lug inside the spinner (which is a by-product of the 3D printing process) interferes with the fit to the backplate slightly and will need paring down by a couple of mm. The instructions are fairly minimal as construction is straight forward and pretty obvious, as I mentioned they do suggest a light sand to smooth the surface texture of the spinner and also to reduce the height of the circular plate on the tip of the spinner. They also give a nod to LSM's involvement in the development of the correction, something which is also proudly emblazoned on their website. Corrected Oil cooler#71-32 Another obvious mistake Revell made with their Spitfire MkII was to give it a circular oil cooler as seen on the later Spitfire MkV, this was something that couldn't go unaddressed in a "How to build" book and Jereon's CAD skills where called upon again to correct this. This is a really simple correction and actually much simpler than the multiple piece kit part Revell provide, consisting of just the oil cooler itself and a blanking plate to fill the recess on the kits wing, cast again in fine grey resin that is pretty much flawless with nicely recessed panel line detail; the semi-circular look of the real thing is captured perfectly. Instructions are again fairly simple but provide enough information to assist you. Conclusion: There we have it, two simple sets that easily address the main issues with the Revell kit in one fell swoop. You can be assured of their quality and accuracy as not only are they produced by Eagle Editions Ltd but also researched by the enthusiasts at LSM, it's great to see modellers themselves directly influencing companies and making sure new products are exactly what modellers want, I think we can expect more involvement from LSM in the future which can only be good news for the hobby. Highly recommended. My sincere thanks to Eagle Editions for the review samples seen here. To purchase directly, click the links in the article. Ben Summerfield

Glad to hear the resin parts and kits will live on! Some excellent conversions and I still fancy the Hawker Fury!

1/32 Meteor F.4 wheels for HK Kit Eduard Catalogue # 632041 Available from Eduard for 11,25€ Bunny Fighter Club price: 9,56 € We're big Eduard fans here at SP&R, they always seem to know exactly what the particular short comings of a kit are and are usually first across the line in correcting them. The HK kit has been largely well received since its release, we reviewed it earlier this year. We noted several short comings that could be improved (although the undercarriage and wheels weren't one of them!). Fisher and Profimodeller have dealt with most of these and we recently reviewed Eduard's excellent cockpit upgrade. Hot on the heels of this release comes another comprehensive upgrade dealing with the Undercarriage and wheels. Let's get down on the deck and see what's included. This set deals with the nose and main wheels and their related mudguards. The upgrade comes packaged in a plastic blister pack with plenty of foam to protect the parts, this is successful and upon opening it you find the more delicate parts sandwiched between yet more foam. Included are 17 extremely fine flash free Pale grey resin parts and a small set of masks for the wheels, Eduard's clear and concise instruction form the header. I wouldn't describe the wheels and undercarriage of the HK kit as a particular weak point or fault and I struggled to think how they could be improved, upon opening this upgrade set all became clear! One thing I did notice in my original review of the HK kit was that the nose wheel was of the plain hub type seen more on later Meteor variants, period photos clearly show early Meteors had what I would describe as a Spitfire type nose wheel which was spoked and dished. I attempted to correct this on my HK kit using spare parts from the Tamiya Spitfire. You can view the build thread here. Eduard have done a far better job than I possibly could have and I'll be replacing the nose wheel on my kit. The nose wheel is cast in two halves and incorporates some very fine detail on both halves including the wheel nuts and tyre valve, one side is very deeply dished and once removed from the casting block will give a perfect representation of the early type wheel I described earlier; Small locating tabs are incorporated on each halve to perfectly align them when fitting to the tyre. The tyre has perfectly cast tread all the way round with no seam and should need very minimal cleaning up, the side wall has ribbed detail and very clear lettering for the Dunlop branding and even the tyre pressures are readable! To round it off the tyre has a subtle flat spot for extra realism. The main wheels are equally catered for, the HK kit wheels were a good representation to begin with but these take it to another level, the real wheel is a multi-part split rim type and all the nuts that hold it together are crisply cast and they have real depth; again locating tabs are provided to align them with the tyre. The tyres have tread detail to match the nose wheel which again has no seam to clean up, this time they are branded as Goodyear tyres, I'm not sure how accurate this is but it will certainly add plenty of interest and look great with some subtle dry brushing to make it stand out. These again have flat spots although the side wall isn't noticeably bulged. Moving onto the mud guards, admittedly the kit parts could be improved as removing the seam on them does destroy some detail and their thickness isn't quite to scale. The Eduard parts are lovely and thin and naturally seamless, the raised lip along the edges is ridiculously thin as is the raised detail for the rivets. Care will be needed to accurately remove the kit mudguards to allow these to be seamlessly blended with them, while you're at it the front undercarriage leg could use some more compression as the kit part causes the finished kit to sit a little high and gently heating and bending it is one solution to this. The supports for the mudguards are given as separate items and are extremely thin, again a big improvement over the kits. The last piece is a very small block of resin which I believe represents the towing hitch on the main gear. Instructions This is a simple set and construction is therefore straight forward, Eduard's instructions are their usual clearly illustrated type with various colours showing what is to be cut, glued or removed. That said it doesn't explicitly show where the kits mudguards are to be cut for removal but this should be fairly obvious after comparison with the new parts. Conclusion Another winner from Eduard, a simple and Straight forward set that has a big impact on the final sit and appearance of your "Meatbox" As I said at the start, the undercarriage and wheels aren't a particular weakness of this kit but the detail HK are able to offer is restricted by the limitations of injection moulding, Eduard can offer even more detail using 3D printing technology that reaches the parts injection moulding cant. A worthwhile upgrade to an already excellent kit. Highly recommended Our sincere thanks to Eduard for the review sample. To purchase directly, click THIS link. Ben Summerfield

Hey did you hear? Trumpeter just announced a new 1/24 Tigercat! Seriously tho. Wow!

Something else I spotted... The F8 had trim tabs across the whole length of the aileron, Fisher dont mention this. Luckily I visted Newark air museum recently and got some pics of their Meteor, so I've made a start by cutting the trim tab so it doesnt protrude and filled it so it's one piece.

It's in one piece!

This is a must. Glad to see they've done the seal around the canopy for the pressurised cockpit

Sorry for the lack of updates fellas, managed to get the cockpit done, the ejection seat is excellent and a few airscale placards have livened up the "Coal hole". Found it quite hard to make the black interior interesting so scruffed it up a bit. Few more bits to do like the framing for the gunsight and the ladder structure over the ammo bay but I'll leave them off until the end so they don't yet damaged.

You've tamed the beast!! Superb job pal, you've really brought the bare metal scheme to life there.

Yep. Liking that.

Cheers Tony. shouldnt the crosses be gold rather than yellow though? Wish I'd seen those pics of the 610sqn F.4's I would have done it in that scheme! Need to get a copy of Cold War shield I reckon.

Not yet mate, I emailed a fella from the 610Sqn association who might have more pics. Waiting to hear back.

this will do well!

I realised i hadn't posted any proper pictures of the finished kit! Thread here http://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/2911-hk-132-gloster-meteor-f4-609sqn-raf/

Cant believe i forgot to post the completed pics of this! One of the most fun builds i've ever done, quite a few frustrating errors mainly the intakes but i'm happy with the results. I used the Fisher corrected resin intakes which fit pretty well, although the difference isn't obvious until its next to one that hasn't been corrected. Decals are Xtradecal with the stencils from the Kitsworld sheet. Build thread here: http://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/2172-hk-meteor-f4/

Right haven't had a lot to report as I've mainly been cleaning the resin up, but I sprayed the inside of the intakes silver today and that's allowed me to get the wings together. The way the resin intakes are cast means you can't put them in place once the wings together, so I've glued the wings and left the intakes loose and I'll Super glue them tomorrow once the plastic has fully dried. I also added a bit of wiring and piping to the intake faces to add some interest for anyone daft enough to look inside. You might also notice that the tails on, I cut it off as accurately as I could with dymo tape and used a sanding block to make sure the mating surface is truly square but i have a slight step between the two. After a first attempt I plugged the kit fuse with two part epoxy putty and added a brass rod to give it some strength and allow me to take my time adjusting it. I'll be interested to see how other modellers fair and wether it's my shoddy cutting or slight shrinkage.

Hell of a review! I need a rest after reading that!

1/32 Spitfire Mk.1a decals Eagle Editions Catalogue # EC#157 Available from Eagle Editions for $19.50 Here at Scale Plastic and Rail were definitely fans of the new Revell 1/32 Spitfire MkII (check out our review here), sure it has some accuracy issues but nothing that can't be fixed with some good old fashioned MODELLING! It represents huge value for money, chuck in a few aftermarket parts and you'll have the makings of a real show stopper. One burning question I posed when I originally reviewed the kit was that surely a Mk1 Spit would have been more marketable? It's not a huge leap from a MkII to a Mk1 and almost as if in preparation for the inevitable aftermarket releases Eagle Editions have wasted no time and released a Decal sheet that's got the subject covered! Presented in the traditional re-sealable poly bag we have full colour instructions with art work by the renowned artist Thomas A Tullis, two decal sheets are provided containing the national insignia and unique markings for each aircraft and also stencils for one aircraft. First impressions are that Eagle Editions (EE) seem to of used a lower grade paper for the instructions than I have been used to from their previous releases, more of a satin finish than the glossy type I expected; for me this has a slight detrimental effect on the Art work and I don't think the printer resolution does Mr Tullis's art work justice. The profiles themselves are excellent and show a real cross section of Battle Era Spitfires, although Dark Earth & green are the flavour of choice whether you like it or not. The decal sheets themselves make up for the satin finish of the instructions, in fact they are so glossy I struggled to photograph them without any glare! Proudly proclaiming "Printed by Cartograf made in Italy" they are as you would expect perfectly in register with strong bold colours, the medium sea grey codes are just the right shade as is the red of the roundels which is separate thus avoiding any problems with register; with some markings a choice of colour options is provided letting you decide which to use based on your own research. The decals do appear slightly thick but SP&R's illustrious leader James Hatch has used EE's earlier MkII sheet and found they settle down nicely with use of setting solutions, the stencils are clearly printed and even the smallest lettering is perfectly readable and in the correct font for the period. Despite the limited choice of camouflage schemes during that period EE have certainly managed to choose some interesting schemes with lots of combat history between them, each has its subtle differences and they exhibit no less than three styles of fuselage roundels, the 610 squadron example has the early black/white undersides used for recognition at the start of the war and Al Deere's machine had the blunt Rotol spinner that EE plan to release themselves in the near future. The schemes provided are: AZ-H Dirty Dick 234 Sqn P/O Richard Hardy KL-B Kiwi II 54 Sqn Al Deere QV-K 19Sqn S/L Brian Lane/ F/L Walter Lawson DW-Q 610 Sqn F/O Albert Medcalf The detailed instructions provide a short history of each aircraft with the subtle idiosyncrasies pointed out to you for each example, Al Deere's aircraft is possibly the most accurate depiction yet and benefits from EE's own Jerry Crandell's interviews with Al Deere himself. A four view line drawing is provided to show the position of each stencil and on the rear of the sheet colour top and bottom views show the location of the wing roundels. Conclusion Eagle Editions certainly do their Homework, despite the Spitfire being a popular subject with acres of off the shelf references available some companies fail when it comes to the finer details so it's great to see a thoroughly researched decal sheet that meets the demands of modellers today. Battle of Britain era Spitfires will always be a popular subject and this will no doubt be a huge seller for EE, I understand they have an accurate oil cooler due out soon and also the blunt Rotol spinner so us RAF modellers have never had it so good in this scale! Highly Recommended. Our sincere thanks to Eagle Editions for the review sample. To buy directly, click THIS link. Ben Summerfield

Hardly seems worth using that little of the kit fuselage, gonna be bugger all left of the HK kit for the two seaters! Done all the major cutting now, fits pretty good, especially as I haven't done any cleaning up yet.

Wow i was looking forward to this, I'm sure it'll be worth the wait but I'm gonna have to release the funds I was holding for this

I've been enjoying your choppers on Facebook Ralph, this looks like a blinding kit, advanced for its day I'm sure.

PROGRESS!!! Got chance to do a bit tonight so thought I'd break the back of it and do the two main cuts. Dymo tape was the trick here to keep the cuts straight and accurate and I used progressively bigger scribers until I could use the razor saw. Not a lot left of the kit fuselage!! Lots of excess plastic!