NigelR32

It is now Monday Feb 10th and I have added some more to the review above.. enjoy.

Hi Bob.. I think I've seen your dio over on Military modelling, and am really looking forward to seeing it here. please post a million images with full how to articles on all your scratchbuilt projects!! Welcome to the friendliest site on the planet..

Nice work Paul, I really like the clean demarcation between the red and silver rims. Brad, I just checked my kit and am happy to say I don't have the misalignment issue on my sprues..

Been there, done that....PITA!!!

F4U-1 Birdcage Corsair Placards Eduard Catalogue # 32 795 Available from Eduard for €7.10 Bunny Fighter Club price: €6.04 Yes, another Photo etch set from Eduard for the brilliant Tamiya 1/32 F4U-1 Birdcage Corsair. This time we look at the Placards set which consists of one plated and pre-painted fret of brass measuring 70 x 39mm with 74 parts on it. As can be seen, the set includes much of the detail panels around the cockpit, some detail for the Instrument panel shroud, some engine detail and a couple of placards for the main U/C legs. If you have looked at my review of the cockpit set, you will have noticed that most of this set is supplied with that set, so you may decide not to buy this one? However, the engine placards and undercarriage leg placards in this set are not included in any other set. You may also want to buy this one if you have the Eduard "Zoom" set for your cockpit. The instructions are supplied in the set as an A5 "printed on both sides" sheet. I have downloaded and printed the instructions in colour on A4 paper for this review. Sheet 1, covering cockpit detail and IP shroud instrumentation. Sheet 2, more cockpit detail, engine and undercarriage placards. As mentioned earlier, you may want to mix and match to get all the detail you want for your Tamiya Corsair, remembering one thing, any surplus parts from this set can be used on other kits of the same era. I'm sure some of the parts could find a home in the cockpit of a Hellcat, Avenger or Wildcat?? Thanks to Eduard for supplying this and all the other sets for the Tamiya 1/32 Corsair. All the sets will be used on my build of this wonderful kit here on LSM.

F4U-1 Birdcage Corsair Seatbelt Set Eduard Catalogue # 32 784 Available from Eduard for €7.10 Bunny Fighter Club price: €6.04 Yet another upgrade set for the Tamiya F4U-1 Corsair, this time we look at the seat belts. This set is made from plated and painted brass, at the time of writing Eduard had just released the fabric belts, but they were not available for review. This set comes packaged in the normal clear sleeve with card insert, containing one plated and painted brass fret and one A5 sheet of instructions printed on both sides. The brass fret measures 70 x 34mm with 36 parts. As can be seen here, the stitching detail on the belts is nothing short of incredible. If you've ever used this medium for seatbelts you will know that they can be great or awful!! In my experience a gentle warm with a hair dryer before carrying out any sharp bends helps prevent the paint cracking. These instructions have been downloaded from the Eduard site and printed in colour on A4 paper... Sheet 1.. Sheet 2.. With care in the assembly process this set of belts will be very realistic. I will use them on my F-4 build and add a little wash to weather them and a coat of matt varnish to really make them pop. Sincere thanks to Eduard for supplying this review sample.

F4U-1 Birdcage Interior Detail Set Eduard Catalogue # 32 781 Available from Eduard for €14.38 Bunny Fighter Club price: €12.23 Continuing with the reviews of all the Eduard sets currently available for the Tamiya F4U-1 Corsair, we now take a look at the Interior set. This is the full interior set, #32781. There is also a "Zoom" set available which does not include much of the pre-painted panelling or most of the second fret. For the extra cost, this set is by far the better choice in my opinion. So, what do you get for your money in this one?Two frets of brass is the answer, one plated and painted fret measuring 70 x 59mm with 75 parts and one unplated fret, measuring 111 x 70mm with 81 parts. The instrument panel and associated gauges are made up by laminating the gauge faces behind the panel itself. Sealed off with a drop of clear to replicate the glass, these panels will look awesome and really bring your cockpit to life. Fret 1.. As you can see, most of the parts are pre-painted, saving time as you build and giving you that superdetail that it would be near impossible to do with a paint brush. Much of this fret is also self adhesive.. Moving onto the larger unplated fret, we can see that much of the cockpit structure and ancillary equipment is included here... All of this thin sheet metalwork will raise your cockpit detail even higher than the wonderful Tamiya kit already does.. remember, the Corsair has a very deep cockpit with no floor as such, so is a major feature on any model, especially at this large scale. Here we can see the multi laminate design to accurately replicate the lever block attached to the starboard cockpit sidewall. More detail parts... The set is supplied in the usual clear plastic envelope with card insert. Also included are 4 sides of black and white printed A5 paper instructions. I have downloaded and printed off the instructions in colour, All Eduard instructions are available on their site as pdf. files. Sheet 1, Side consoles and rudder pedals are covered here... Sheet 2 looks at the bulkhead, IP, seat and "floor" structures. Sheet 3 covers yet more detail on the cockpit sidewalls and canopy framing. Notice top right the lever block we looked at close up earlier... Sheet 4 covers how to use the self adhesive panels. So there we have it, a very comprehensive detail set for a very comprehensive kit. I will be using all of the reviewed Eduard sets on my Corsair build here on LSM very soon. This is one section of the model I am really looking forward to, as it is such a major part of any Corsair model. Is this set worth the money? You bet it is!! Sincere thanks to Eduard for supplying this and all the other F4U review sets seen here on LSM.

Hey, I'm not finished with this review yet!! Once you see the rest of the kit you'll be wanting one too!!

You're right James, it is not normal to want to build one of these... but.. to actually go out and buy one is pretty darn crazy . I've lost the plot I think!! I'm currently washing the sprue's in washing up liquid. More reviewing tomorrow I hope?

1/35 Dora Railway Gun Soar Art Workshop - Metal Troops Creation Catalogue # MT 9511 Currently out of production, but soon to be re-released. Approximately £500 retail There are plastic model kits, and then there are plastic model kits... this one, claiming to be the biggest in the world is something to behold. The packaging is absolutely massive and the total kit weighs around 24 KG!! Here is a picture of the huge box, that door behind the box is 2ft 6" wide. Note the Tamiya paint pot at the bottom to give an idea of size. As mentioned above, this kit is not currently available at the time of writing, but it will soon be available again through all the major kit suppliers. Obviously the kit is available now on E-bay, with a very wide range of selling price... Postage can be very expensive, so check the kits location before bidding.... The kit is advertised as having over 3000 parts, well, I've counted them, and can confirm there are no less than 3315 parts including plastic, PE, wire, screws and springs. The model is packaged in plastic bags, all labelled to describe what is in the bag, these bags are found in four boxes within the large outer box, each box is labelled to describe what bags are in the box. There are no fewer than 91 sprue's in the model, not including the large parts which aren't mounted on a sprue. There are large PE parts to depict the grids on the second level rail cars and some grating around the rest of the model. We also have three springs, a large bag of screws and some wire for the cranes. As already mentioned, this kit is massive and as a result will require an age to review properly, so I'll do this one in stages, starting today with the instruction manual presentation and the rail cars. The manual is supplied as a 284 x 210mm book, containing 38 pages and 31 build stages and made using very high quality paper. When we open the book up we find some great information all about the Dora railway gun. I have included some pictures of the pages here, for discussion only. On pages 3, 4 and 5 we find some great pictures which will help you superdetail or correct the kit. Page3.. Page 4.. Page 5.. So moving on to the kit itself, we will see we have many many parts moulded in black plastic. It is worth noting that the plastic used in the manufacture of this kit requires some pretty strong glues to make it melt. Your usual Tamiya extra thin or Humbrol liquid poly will apparently not work... I use this Plastruct liquid poly or EMA plastic weld when I am in doubt about the materials suitability to the other glues.. It is very strong and will melt pretty much all plastics. I would not recommend using superglue to assemble this kit, due to the brittleness of the product. EMA plastic weld.. Another note about the plastic.. it is greasy and will need to be washed in the bath tub with some washing up liquid and warm water. If you use acrylic paints, it will not stick to the parts if not washed first. We start the building of the kit with the rail cars. There are four rail cars supplied, each with 10 axles and a total of 20 wheels each. The main chassis of each car is made up of four parts each, left and right sides and two floor sections, top and bottom.. There is some nice detail on these parts, with bolt heads and rivet detail nicely done.. OK, let's get something straight.... all this is wrong!! The real gun had eight cars, each with five axles and ten wheels.....the way the kit is made, the gun would never go round a bend, which, considering a curved piece of track was used for aiming the gun laterally, is a big mistake to make. These sections will need to be cut in half and the pivots need to be moved outwards to place them centrally over the middle axle. if I actually build this beast, I will do a WIP here on LSM...then I'll be able to demonstrate what I'm talking about here. There are no less than eighty wheels in the kit.. Moving on to the sprue's, here we have sprue B, with 34 parts on it.. Those 12 off hand wheels go all along the sides of the model. each one will need to be cleaned up, thankfully the mould seam lines are very faint. There are no less than 20 of these sprue's in the kit!!! Yes, there are 240 of those hand wheels!!!! The kit contains three of these C sprue's, with the flooring parts attached.. The wood grain is nicely done.. will look great under some careful painting and weathering.. There are another 29 of the C sprue, without the wood floor parts... yes I said 29!!! Sprue D covers most of the parts around the endplates, rail car linkages and electric motors. There are "only" 4 of these sprue's in the kit. The detail is nice on the endplates.. shame about the ejector pin marks though. More nice detail on a gear cover part.. Just as a little treat, I thought I'd show you the barrel, here shown against a 1/35 Morser Karl Gerat, which I've nearly finished. These parts go end on end together, but there is an error in the length, apparently the barrel is approximately 300mm too long?? Back to the rail cars, we'll have a look at the instructions... this is stage one, the start of the braking mechanism.. all very similar to the trumpeter kit parts for the Leopold and Morser Karl Gerat. This is all a little beefier than the Trumpeter parts, I guess it had to carry a LOT more weight!! Continuing through the book... Building up the chassis... Apparently the track needs to be narrowed to be more accurate and fit the Trumpeter track?? Buffers... Finishing up and starting to move onto the second level car... Due to the errors in the kit, I have bought this book by Gerhard Traube, which is apparently the best book out there on this subject? it is currently out of print, but is available from book dealers used. it is quite pricey though... Here's a sample of the kind of images you get in this great book, it covers other railway guns including the Leopold. This image is for discussion only... Ok, so now we have seen the actual rail cars themselves, and had a quick look at my lovely new book. It's now Monday Feb 10th, and I'm adding some more info, this time covering the finishing off of the rail cars and adding the next step up, what I'll call the bogies. There are four of these, each of which connects two of the rail cars together, (if you've modified your model to correctly depict the eight cars). So, here we are with the four "bogies". They are each a single moulding and all have some nice detailing especially the recessed bolt/rivet heads which will be visible under the PE grilles you'll see in just a minute... Soar Art supply some PE grilles in the kit, which are intended to cover the "bogies" and some other smaller pieces dotted elsewhere around the gun.. the PE is supplied in a stiff card envelope for protection. It appears to be made of stainless steel so will remain very rigid. There are four of the larger pieces... Ok, what I'm going to now for the next few shots is just select the Sprue's that the instructions call up for the relevant steps in the instructions, so will now see many parts that are not applicable to the bogies or rail cars... We'll get there eventually, as I mentioned earlier, there are no less than 91 Sprues in this mammoth kit, that doesn't include the larger parts which don't have a sprue!! This is sprue P, 1-29. The way the sprue's are identified is unusual in this kit, for example there are three P sprue's each carrying different numbers, so we have 1-29, 30-38 and 39-53. We will only use a few of the smaller parts in the bogies, as most of the parts on this sprue are for the interlocking mechanism between the two halves of the main gun structure. We get eight of these in the box... Here's a close up of some of the nice bolthead detail on the sprue P1-29. Next up we have sprue R 21-46. There are four of these sprue's in the box. Again, only some of the smaller parts and small railings will be used here. Here we can see the smaller detail parts of this sprue... Now we look at sprue O20-49, where we will get a couple of small parts from for the windy handle (I assume it's a parking brake?) on the rail cars and some more wooden planking. Two of these are in the kit. Not relevant to the rail cars or bogies, but this is a massive solid lump, which will form part of the mechanism locking the two sides of the gun together. Have a look at the original photograph on page 5 of the instructions above, this part can be clearly seen in the middle picture. Sprue N 1-6. we will use parts 3 and 4 from this sprue. Said parts... Sprue S 15-22. Only the planking is used from this one... We may as well have a look at the grid detail here..quite nice for an old kit.. I think I'll add to or replace it with wire mesh?? For the final sprue today we look at sprue R 1-20. We get two of these and it is one big sprue, measuring nearly 600mm wide!! More grid detail.. The instructions are shown here, with the stages required to finish up the rail cars and bogies... So, that's the rail cars and bogies finished.. next we will move on to the actual gun pivot structures, the triangular sections at the top of the massive structure.. I shall continue this review in the forthcoming weeks so please keep looking back here if you have an interest in this lovely kit... Thanks to my pocket for this one!!

Dora Railway Gun Decal set Nordland Models Catalogue # Bubi Decals 55012L Available from Nordland models for £21.02 The Soar Art 1/35 scale Dora Railway Gun is probably the biggest plastic injection moulded kit in the world, building into a very impressive model of a very interesting subject. The kit has a few issues, all of which are easily ignored or corrected by the modeller, but one of the biggest disappointments by far is the total lack of decals in the kit... Nordland models have come to the rescue with this beautiful set, available from their E-shop which is linked above. It is worth noting these decals also appear regularly on E-bay, but the prices do vary.. you have been warned ;-) This is not a new production, having been around since 2008, but I've just bought these and felt a few people might like to see them. So, what do we get for our money.. a LOT is the simple answer. The set is supplied in a clear A4 envelope, with a double sided cover come colour guide on the front. This is the colour guide... Note the wording on these sheets explaining a temporary camo scheme, believed to be used in June '42. There are no less than three sheets of decals in the set, all crisply printed and perfectly in register. One sheet is 287 x 205mm, the second is 145 x 124mm and the third, marked correction sheet measures 98 x 60mm. There are no fewer than 788 decals on these sheets!! This set will take a month to apply!! Sheet 1... Sheets 2 & 3.... With the majority of the decals being white, it was extremely difficult to photograph these sheets... sorry.. Here, I've tried to capture the crispness, but it may not have worked very well??? Now we move on to the instructions, which speak for themselves really.... There are no fewer than eight sides of A4 printed paper with this set!! I guess you need that many sheets to describe where nearly 800 decals go!! So there you have it, probably the biggest decal set to go with probably the biggest kit in the world.. Thanks to my pocket for this lovely set for my newly acquired Dora model. Is it worth the money.. you bet it is!!! Thanks for taking the time to look at this review, the kit itself will also be reviewed here on LSM....

OK, I'm at home now, so can show you what I mean with some pictures I've found on the internet.... The Soar 1/35 kit is supplied with four rail cars like these, each with 10 axles. this is wrong, the thing would never be able to negotiate a turn in the track!! I've borrowed this picture from Michael's great build on a German site. Here we can see one of the cars has been cut in half and a panel has been added at the rear. the horizontal arrow denotes the "front" of the car. As we can see, the pivot point is forward of the third axle, whereas it should be directly above it. When looking at photo's of the real thing, we can see the staggered pitch of the axles between the two cars. if we don't change the pivot point on the soar model, the axle pitch will remain constant. So, moving onto the HB kit... in this next picture, again borrowed for discussion only.. we can see the pivot points are well toward the middle of the cars, but the pivot points on the second tier structure are also too close together, which lessens the error on the overall appearance of the model Here is the HB kit built up. You can clearly see the cars are too far apart, but at least you get the correct total number of cars in the HB kit!! I started looking into this issue because I noticed a big difference between the two available kits and thought "which one is wrong"? well I now know the answer.. both of 'em!! So, I have asked a question and answered it myself, but, I would like some dimensions please if anyone has them...

Sorry Kev, bad explaining on my part.. I should have said "Axles" rather than "Wheels". I'm pretty sure now that the HB kit is in error with the biased fore and aft pivot points. It makes sense to have the weight over the middle axle eh???

Hi all, Just so you know I haven't given up on this kit... I thought I'd post a pic of where I am up to now. As you can see, the end is nearing, though I still haven't started on those friul tracks yet??? I think I should stick with this military modelling as opposed to aircraft? I have not even thought about putting this back in the stash unfinished, when I build aircraft.. well, that's a different story...

I've just noticed something which has confused me a little... We all know there is a HB kit of the Dora in 1/72 scale right.. well, look it up and see what you think about the spacing of the rail cars? The 1/35 kit is wrong as it has one ten wheeled rail car for each corner whereas it should have eight off, five wheeled cars. The HB kit has the pivot to the rear of the front car and to the front of the rear car at each corner, leaving a great big gap between the cars. So, if we cut the ten wheeled cars in half, which kit is correct HB or Soar??? I have the Gerhard Taube book on the way, but I need to know now please...

Great work going on here Jeroen. I love the scheme you've chosen, the colours over the upper surface contrast beautifully... I have this in my stash, and getting it out for a quick build is hard to resist with builds like this going on...

Thanks Kev, I did as suggested, and look what happened!! Thanks mate!!

F4U-1 Birdcage Exterior Detail Set Eduard Catalogue # 32 344 Available from Eduard for €12.74 Bunny Fighter Club price: €10.83 Eduard wasted no time whatsoever in releasing all the Photo etch and Resin wheels for the amazing Tamiya F4U-1 Birdcage kit. This lovely Exterior set is one of those releases. I know what you're thinking right now... "The Tamiya kit is amazing, surely it doesn't need more detail"?? Yes, the Tamiya kit is a masterpiece and probably THE best engineered kit out there, in my opinion, but injection moulding does have limitations. Eduard have stepped in here to add the finest of details to the areas that even Tamiya couldn't produce in their amazing kit. Did I mention I like this kit?? This set of Photo etched parts is presented in the usual Eduard plastic sleeve with card insert, containing one unplated sheet of brass measuring 139mm x 70mm. Although the set is titled "Exterior", it consists mainly of parts for wells and the wing folds. The fact that the set contains a comparatively small number of parts is testament to the detail provided in the box of the Tamiya kit. So, what do we get in this lovely little set? Here's the Fret with 78 parts of etched brass... As we can see, there are many small brackets and pipes along with some larger panels. In this picture, we can see the panels that go onto the walls of the undercarriage bays. The kit parts have no rivet detail in these areas Along the sides of the large opening in the tail for the tail wheel and arrestor hook there is no detail in the kit. Eduard have provided these slim panels to add interest to this are. There are also many parts to superdetail the tail wheel bay internals. If you want to display your Corsair with flaps dropped, they look great this way in my opinion, you may want to add some detail to the outer edges of the plastic parts? Eduard provide the parts you need in this set, pictured here.. The wing fold area of the kit is lovely, with many beautifully moulded parts. Eduard have supplied all the necessary pipework and retracting elastic/springs to make this area of your model really come to life. Here's an example of what you get... The instructions for the set are supplied as two sides of black and white printed A5 paper. I have downloaded the instructions from Eduard's site and printed them in colour on A4 paper... Sheet 1, Tail wheel bay detail, oleo detail and flap end finishers. Sheet 2, Wheel bay detail and pipework for the wing fold. Note parts 3 and 4, the springs which pull the cables into the wing fold when retracting. So, we have a little set provided here which will enable us to build a masterpiece from an already amazing kit. If you are building your model wheels up, on a stand, there's no point in buying this set, however, if like me you will build your model on the tarmac with flaps down, this set is worth every penny. I will be using this set on my forthcoming build of this kit here on LSM. Thanks to Eduard for manufacturing and supplying this set. Watch this space for more reviews of Eduard sets for the Tamiya F4U-1 Birdcage Corsair.

F4U-1 Birdcage Engine Detail Set Eduard Catalogue # 32 343 Available from Eduard for €14.38 Bunny Fighter Club price: €12.23 Eduard wasted no time whatsoever in releasing all the Photo etch and Resin wheels for the amazing Tamiya F4U-1 Birdcage kit. This lovely Engine dress up set is one of those releases. I know what you're thinking right now... "The Tamiya kit is amazing, surely it doesn't need more detail"?? Yes, the Tamiya kit is a masterpiece and probably THE best engineered kit out there, in my opinion, but injection moulding does have limitations. Eduard have stepped in here to add the finest of details to the areas that even Tamiya couldn't produce in their amazing kit. Did I mention I like this kit?? So, on to the set.... supplied in the usual plastic wallet with card insert containing two frets of unplated brass measuring 139 x 70mm each holding 57 and 89 parts respectively. Thanks go to Eduard for stopping the nickel plating on their brass frets, this makes soldering so much easier!! The set allows complete replacement of the cowling in a, "far more realistic than plastic" sheet metalwork assembly with crisp and precise inner and outer detail. There is also some beautifully rendered flap detail which is absent on the kit parts. This is Fret 1, covering the cowling inner framework and some smaller clamps and pipes... Fret 2, covering the outer cowling skins and cowl flap detail... So, now we will take a closer look at this lovely photo etch.. starting with the inner cowl detail.. Note the parts fold over to double the thickness adding more realism. Once rolled and mated up with the outer skins these will be very strong and realistic, and would look even better with added dents and corrosion ? Staying with Fret 1, here we can see the ring clamps to be added to the ends of 9 of the inlet manifold pipes. To the lower right, we can see the castellated nuts which will be rolled around the other 9 pipes. Stunning detail if you are showing your engine off. Moving on to Fret 2 we can see some of the finer cowl flap detail. Here we can see the inner flap skin and the three parts which make up each actuator!! Remember, all this is very visible on the Corsair with flaps open, it would look even better if one added the cabling between each actuator!! More inner flap detail.. The instructions are supplied as four sides of black and white printed A5 paper. I have downloaded the instructions form Eduard's site and printed them in colour on A4 paper. Sheet 1, covering removal of some of the plastic detail, drilling and adding the ignition cables... Sheet 2 , fitting of the hose clamps and inner cowl flap detail... Sheet 3, cowling assembly time.. Sheet 4, advertising their other sets, which will be reviewed fully here on LSM. This detail set is a valuable addition to an already well detailed kit, turning an amazing OOB model into a masterpiece. The set provides you with absent detail in the kit, and those beautiful cowlings will really bring a diorama to life. The cabling and pipework may not be to your liking, but it could always be coated in PVA, thick Gloss Enamel or even replaced with lead or copper wiring. I will be using this set on my forthcoming Tamiya F4U-1 build, along with every other Eduard set available for the kit.. Thanks to Eduard for designing, manufacturing and supplying this review sample. Watch this space for more Eduard reviews.

Any idea what these are?..... They are the kit supplied formers to make these tiny PE brackets... You can see them here along with many many plastic parts that make up the fragile, but well detailed folded railings... that's one side taken care of, now to tackle the other side... I'm off with man flu at the moment. Trying to put these assemblies together whilst coughing is not recommended, let's just say you should keep all the loose parts in some kind of pot... ask me how I know. I would like to ask a question of you armour modeller people.. what else should I do to these exhausts to make them more realistic? Obviously I need to paint the brackets, but what more can I do...

Thanks for that Matt, It would appear the seat is shiny black leather and indeed, it is very dusty!! I guess it would get absolutely filthy in a short time on the railway? I intend to model mine with everything in transport mode, attached to the rail cars but with the drivers compartment open and the lid thrown down somewhere on the top deck. I've been working on the folded up handrails tonight, they are driving me insane!! I'll post some pics tomorrow.

By Jove i think you're correct Matt. Those extensions do indeed have square drive shafts on their ends, so there must be some kind of mechanism in there, and the tracks do look very flat in those areas??? Well done sir!! EDIT:- You are correct Matt, check the link..http://www.one35th.com/morser/karl_gheuer.htm notice the ratchet with cable going down to loop hooked through track horn. I think the vertical bracket between it and the idler could well support the saggy track?

Thanks for the images Matt. I think that steel part you refer to is a loop at the end of the turnbuckle? Strange though, those tracks still look fairly taught don't they???? Do you happen to know what colour the drivers compartment was painted> I have made up all the lovely Eduard bits for that area tonight, but am stuck with the correct colour?? I assume it's the same colour as the rest of the hull with a brown leather seat??

This is the best modelling I have ever seen. I can only dream of getting this good!!

Thanks for that link Kev.. I ordered that very book, used from a dealer in Finland. I don't know if I'll ever receive it though?? I've not had any confirmation of posting??