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Never having laid claim to a mind of sense or reason, reading the reports of how terrible Infinity Models' first venture into injection molded territory was, awoke something in my few remaining brain-cells. With every word of admonishment that adorned build review, just like that red flag to a bull, I wondered what sort of a Worst-Kit-Ever was hiding within the quite large box. Looking over the sprues revealed a interesting combination of raised and engraved details, miles of flash and plenty of mould release lines. One curious detail was that whilst some parts were (randomly) numbered on the sprues, others had no numbering at all. A check of thr sprue layout in the instructions cleared up which part was supposedly which, but more on that later. Whilst infinity offers all manner of add-on detail kits, I like my models closed up, preserving the shape of the aircraft, so luckily those won't be a further hindrance of dragging this kit across the finish line. One addition I do think needs be made, is the PE dive flaps. They're a fairly costly necessity, but given the fragile, multi-layered nature of these flaps in real life, compared to the somewhat representative blobs of plastic provided in the kit, I think they're a must for anyone contemplating this build. Other than these and a set of Master perforated gun barrels for the rear guns, I'm aiming to go OOTB with this. The plan is to build the 3 tone paint scheme (or something similar) as provided in the kit. On to the plastic! Denzil

Did you ever build a kit as a kid, perhaps multiple times? For me, it was the old Monogram 1/48th Helldiver with all the working gizmos. Like many, I dreamed one day somebody would come to the rescue and produce a "museum quality" 1/32 Helldiver that I didn't need to buy more stuff to make it what it should have been. Well folks, Today is the day! One VERY nicely packed box arrived from HpH this morning and suffice it to say I am absolutely in awe of what they have created for me to build. I will spend the next day or two ( or more) carefully cleaning up the thin casting wafers and flash, and then it's into the "bath" to remove any oils present. I am hoping by Friday I'll be able to show you this thing with some primer on the parts, maybe even a little color! I am very impressed with the level of detail on ALL the parts from the metal to the resin. All of this kit is executed with such precision, and the instructions on the DVD are very clear ( at least to me so far) on where things go. I'm lucky and I have a copy of the - 4's pilot handbook I found online, and what I can identify in the cockpit and Radio Operator/Gunner positions is exactly what I see on the photos of the real deal. I would like to ask one favor. If you have reference material you would like to post for me to assist in the build, that you do so at my request and not just randomly on my post. Please ASK me in PM first. Believe me I love help, I'd just like to keep this thread informative, fun to watch and on track without folks having to read through 3 pages of discussion and pics of whose colors are right or wrong or what shape has an issue etc. I may post a few more pics here after the formal review is posted in a little while. Hopefully this will be the incredible journey that I have hoped for when dreaming about a 1/32 Helldiver. Based on my initial impressions, this kit will do it for me! I look forward to you following along. Paul