thierry laurent

The idea may look good but is not that easy for two reasons. First, you can consider easy something I would consider to be difficult. There is no 'standard' modeller capability and there are a lot of grey hues between the white (lego-like fit) and the black (too large to fit whatever is the amount of material to remove). Second, resin casting is not a perfect science. Two castings of the same large parts may commonly show some percents of dimension differences. This may explain why the same set can be a drop-fit in one kit, asks for heavy sanding in another one or even asks for plastic strip shims here and there as it is too small!

You need to do it freehand as the pictures of such camos always show slight oversprays here and there and zero hard edge. No way to do that easily with masks alas.

Well that set looks nice but it does not solve one stupid problem of the kit: the step between the side inserts and the front of the nose. The only easy way to remove that seam asks for cutting the front fuselage section in a right and left part. This is a pity as this negates the benefit of the nose single part. I love your idea of that postwar scheme.

Erwin, take the time to look more closely as I saw the kit sold by Belgian resellers for more or less 130 euros.

Well, we should not compare apples and oranges. Takom and Meng are far more recent companies that were either initially created in Hong-Kong or have been created in collaboration with a Hong-Kong partner. By the way, MENG is the sponsor of two British magazines (Air Modeller and AFV modeller). So, they really have a western flavour and/or collaborate intensively with the west. Dragon is older and was also initially created in Hong-Kong. Trumpeter/HB are in a completely different league. This is why I really stressed the continental China aspect. I also wrote "most" as Shangai or Shenzen companies are more opened to the external world. This is just an observation. Thierry

Hi Carl, This chart was unfortunately not in my book. Was it announced as a special offer? Thanks for the clarification BR Thierry Edited post: I just saw you can download it on their website: https://ak-interactive.com/downloads/

If the plastic is highly polished adherence of decals is excellent. However I do not recommend that approach except for clear parts.

It looks like there is a generic problem regarding accuracy when one considers most continental China model companies. I believe this is probably linked to a combination of factors such as cultural perception of historical or technical accuracy, easy access to relevant data, national pride, perception of user-friendliness importance, business-oriented time to market approach and surely other things. This explains why this will not change soon. Western or other eastern companies that manage everything themselves except the final plastic production in China do not have the same amount of issues but they are not perfect either. The problem with companies like HB is the fact their learning curve shows hectic rather than regular progress. This is the frustrating part but who else was going to release such a monster for such a price in 2019?

Hi, Just look at that page and you will find what you need: https://www.1999.co.jp/m/10553900 Hth Thierry

Don't despair. There is no perfect way to do it and believe me, I've tested nearly everything! I even tried structured paint intended to be used on clothes! Finally, Gunze dissolved putty stays the best solution. However, I generally store the putty container upside down. This ensures you use the thickest part when you use it. I apply it with a toothpick. Nonetheless, at least three to five steps were required to correctly fill the huge rivet holes in my Trumpeter MiG or the wings of my Revell reco Spitfire. CA glue may look better but you have the same issue of half-filled rivet holes here and there and it is far more time-consuming to sand. I tried with or without accelerator, with or without baking soda, talc, flour or glass micro-balls! This bring some advantages but also other issues. I do not recommend paint, dissolved styrene or thinned putty either as the retraction factor is higher and consequently you need more applications, notwithstanding the generally longer drying time. No perfect solution, alas! Last, dissolved putty is stable. I do not have "ghost" rivets reappearing. Hth Thierry

My favorites of the ones of that thread are "Hangover Haven" and "Stripped for Action". Beautiful nose arts!

Very frankly this puzzled me as well. To me the fact a decal is correctly sticking to a surface is a mechanical/physical question and not a chemical one! As I do not really see a difference between polished plastic, gloss paint or a clear coat, this does not seem relevant from that perspective. I rather think they recommend paint as this may be useful for the small areas not covered by the decals. I do not see any other logical reason.

Well, in comparison, the MiG-15 is far better! It looks like they started with a badly pantographed copy of the Tamiya 1/48th kit to make the 15 and then modified it to create the 17. Unfortunately, I do not know where they got their measures or which plan they used but the wings need a complete reconstruction as the chord and angles are erroneous over the whole length! There are other errors such as wingtips shape issues, fences length, aileron shapes, stab shapes, panel lines and wrong LG bays but in comparison they can be "more easily" corrected. Last, correcting the wing implies a modification of the fuselage wing fairing! The nose has also issues, as well as the front LG bay, the canopy shapes, the rudder chord, the airbarkes shape, the full cockpit is a toy, etc... Should I go on? I have one on which I already worked a lot. The very sad aspect is the fact the Profimodeller and Eduard sets are made to detail the erroneous features of the kit rather than correct them (e.g. wing or airbrake details). So, either you correct and scratchbuild everything, either you just correct most of the issues and use the detail sets but do not really change the wings or fully correct the airbrakes. Finally this is the option I have chosen as I did not want to change that build into a close to full scratchbuild... :-(

The MiG-17 is one of their worst kits. The wings are horrible and would ask to be scratchbuild to be accurate.

It is quite incredible no good recent kit has been released. I have yet to understand why Hasegawa released a new Zero rather than an Oscar.