Radub

It is definitely "Red 4". There is a photo of "Red 4" taken next to a Ju 88 on the Munchen-Riem airfield and published in Jerry Crandall's books. You can see the Ju 88 behind this aircraft. Nice find. Radu

WNW kits are not "rare", they were made by the thousands. The only "rarities" are test shots. If you got a "test shot 1" (TS1) of any kit, then you have a valuable item on your hands. TS1 always contain errors, then the moulds are modified. So, a TS1 with "errors" is a unique, never to be repeated "upside-down Jenny". You got a WNW TS1? Name your price. You got an off-the shelf WNW kit? So have thousands of others. Radu

I love it! Great work, Eric. Congratulations. Radu

Sounds like a Brick Tamland company. https://images.app.goo.gl/9MsdyxPpJzYYdj2V7 According to Scalemates it is a division of Trumpeter (which, to be honest, is yet another weird name). https://www.scalemates.com/brands/i-love-kit--12227 Radu

I agree! I am so tired of people arguing over their preferred Kool-Aid flavour. Radu

Yeah, HKM! Do something else! No! Not that! I said do something else! Sheesh! When will these manufacturers learn? Radu

I booked my hotel for Vegas. Hopefully we will all be well by then. Radu

The B-3 is not an entirely "lost cause". This was not a "napkinwaffe" dream. We have good photos of the test bed, with codes and everything and we know for sure that this was flown and has fired its cannon. There are also the photos of the aircraft abandoned in Poland, which prove that the aircraft was used in combat. Photos keep showing up on eBay every day and some day a new photo of a B-3 may show up. The cannon and loading mechanism included in the B-3 kit is a kit in itself. A similar example may be the ZM Horten 229, which is a model who favourite even though the real thing only got to the prototype stage. Radu

I got mine from the manufacturer's shop: http://www.ibg.com.pl/ It was the best price I could find, delivery was fast and problem-free. Radu

Romania did not capitulate in WW2. At first it was neutral, then Russia attacked, then Romania attacked Russia and in 1944 it joined Russia on the Allied side after which it continued to fight until the end of the war, when they were included among the "winners". Very convoluted, but no capitulation. Radu

This is not a new concept. HpH issued a 1/18 B-17 Memphis Belle nose section more than a decade ago. WNW announced that they were going to release a nose section kit of their Lancaster and I have seen test shots of the WNW Lancaster nose at at the IPMS shows in Chattanooga and Telford last year. Plenty of photos on the net too. Personally, I have little-to-none interest in a 1/32 Lancaster and I have no room for such a large model, but I was interested in the nose section when I saw ithe WNW kit because it is small emough to display on a shelf or a desk and, anyay, the cockpit is a focal point for me on any model. This cockpit section is a large enough model to be noticed, about the size of a 1/35 Opel Blitz truck. I like this idea a lot! Radu

No! Whatever moulds were made for WNW in the past by whatever tool shop are the property of WNW. Meng has no say in that. Radu

No. Meng does not "do" tooling for anyone. Meng's "parent company" is a large conglomerate that produces a wide variety of products. The "parent company" is involved in making moulds for a lot of companies. That is the "connection". Once the tooling is completed, paid for and shipped it becomes the property of the customer. Previous WNW kits were tooled in China and Korea and they were the property of WNW when they left the tool shop. Radu

China is not that "cheap" anymore. What China has is "capacity". There are toolmakers in Europe but they are busy - there are two companies near where I live and I know one of the mid-tier managers in one of these companies. We were talking about the possibility of making a small conversion set, which would require a small mould. His reply was that they were so busy working for a number of medical and pharmaceutical companies that it would take a while until they could "slot in" my idea for a product into their schedule. I know a "dealer" in Hong Kong who has produced a number of moulds for models I designed. There are number of such dealers. They have a network of manufacturers and they can find one for you that has an available "slot" in their schedules. You pay the dealer and the dealer does the rest. BTW, these "dealers" get moulds done for a number of companies, which are "technically" in competition with each other. That explains how two companies that have no connection with each other, one company from... let us pick one place out of the air... let's say New Zealand and another company from another place... again, let us pick a place from the air.. let's say China... end up using the same "dealer" to get their mould done. I heard stories from a product manager who went to a factory in Eastern China for a production meeting and while walking the floor he saw a model for another company that was not even announced yet - and incidentally, this was a company that no one even had any clue that they were using a Chinese tool manufacturer - everyone thought that this company did all their tooling "in house". Anyay, to make a long story short, I contacted this "dealer" about the possibility of making this mould for me and I was told I could get it done in four months (again, it is a relatively small conversion). So, that is the reason why people go to China - they can get stuff done within your schedules. You can get stuff done locally, but you join the queue. The machinery and materials needed to make moulds is off-the-shelf standard equipment, there is no "magic" to it. In fact the most specialised "skill" is polishing the mould and I have seen some beautiful detail destroyed by clumsy polishing. I know that some of you were at my seminar about model design that I held at the IPMS show in Chattanooga last year - I showed some examples of the importance of mould finishing there. Radu

They are announcing a what? What were they thinking? Whatever this is, I am so disappointed. When are we going to get a kit of that model that everyone has avoided so far because it is unsaleable and I won't buy anyway because it is not the version I want and, anyway, Ken from the internet said it has a flaw that may not even be real? Radu