







Part II here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2023/01/27/fly-fiat-g-50-build-in-1-72-scale-part-ii/
SUMMERY
The Sword kits are the most recent issue of the three. They are limited-run kits but still nice even without the locator pins. They are not Tamigawa kits but still go together well, with the exception of gaps at the wing roots. You get two complete kits in the box with decals for seven different machines, and the kits provide the option for both styles of vertical tails. Shapes look good, they have captured the outline of the G.55 well. This is the preferred place to start as it will be the most accurate out of the box and the easiest to build, plus you’re getting two kits for the price of one.
The decals are printed by Techmod and are of the best quality. However, if you follow Sword’s marking guides you will apply the flags backwards on the starboard side, and they do not provide wing fasces with the axe on the right side facing forward, which will certainly be wrong for some if not most of the schemes included.
The Special Hobby kit is another limited run effort and is a decade older than Special Hobby’s. The molding has thicker attachment points on the sprues and more pronounced mold lines, and the parts show a little less finesse and detail. Many of the finer parts are cast in resin, and there is a small fret of PE included as well.
The Special Hobby kit has some fit issues at the wing roots. The wheelwell is provided as a resin piece, and this also does not fit well between the wing halves which results in another seam to fill along the leading edge. The PE fret is stainless steel which makes it difficult to remove the parts, I wound up only using the radiator grids and sway braces and skipped all the rest. The shapes look good on the finished product though. It can still be built up into a nice model, just not as easily as the Sword kit.
Being much older, the Supermodel kit is surpassed by both the others and is not the best place to start to get an accurate, detailed model. It completely lacks any cockpit or wheelwell detail, so these will have to be added by the modeler. Panel lines are raised and the detail at the control surfaces is soft, so you will need to either ignore this or re-scribe the whole kit. I built it as a skills exercise and for the fun of adding the improvements.
The kit does have some glaring shape issues once you get to looking at it. The biggest of these is the fuselage is about 4 mm too short aft of the cockpit. This can be corrected with a little surgery. The wings are also too broad in cord, so you’ll need to reduce the trailing edge about 2 mm at the roots and 1 mm at the tips, and then thin the trailing edge from the inside. This will throw off the dimensions of the flaps and ailerons so those will have to be re-scribed at the very least. The fuselage appears thick and bloated compared to the other two and I couldn’t find an easy way to fix that. I think the wing is positioned a little bit too far forward on the fuselage, another issue which I left alone.
I knew what I was getting into when I opened the box and looked forward to tinkering with the Supemodel kit, but the Sword kit is where you want to start if you want an easier row to hoe and a better finished model.
G.55 Construction Part I here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2022/12/16/fiat-g-55-centauro-comparison-build-in-1-72-scale-part-i/
Part II here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2022/12/23/fiat-g-55-centauro-comparison-build-in-1-72-scale-part-ii/
Part II here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2022/11/18/plastic-soldier-m3-stuart-honey-build-in-1-72-scale-part-ii/
Pretty Pat was named after her pilot’s wife, and was assigned to the 499th Bomb Squadron of the 345th Bomb Group. 43-3698 was converted to a strafer and began operations in November 1944. On 27MAY1945 she was hit by flak over Formosa, her pilot made it out over the ocean and ditched successfully. Her crew were in the water less than a half an hour before they were rescued by a waiting Catalina, all survived. Hasegawa kit, markings from DK Decals sheet 72041.
DK Decals 72041 345th Bomb Group Summary
The 345th Bomb Group Mitchells displayed some of the more interesting nose art schemes you’ll find. The DK sheet provides fourteen choices, more than enough to keep any Mitchell fan busy. The print quality is excellent, and the colors are opaque so no problems with coverage.
I knew the markings were going to be the major challenge of these builds, and sure enough I screwed up the decals on two of my Mitchells the first time I tried. You’re never really beaten until you give up, so my stubborn streak manifested itself and I ordered another set. This time I got the decals on okay, not perfect, but okay. So what did I learn?
If you look at the picture of Pretty Pat above, the white bat wing is all one big decal, port and starboard. The mouth and eyes are separate, Dirty Dora is laid out the same way. DK provides a downloadable PDF file on their site which can be used to make a stencil to paint the black background, and the white border can be positioned over the color separation. This gives you roughly +/- one millimeter to play with when positioning the decal. This is obviously tricky even on a good day, and there are three potential source of error – the size and positioning of the stencil, the size and positioning of the decal, and the dimensions and shape of the model. All three need to be in harmony for the application to work.
Another problem is the design of the decal itself. The artwork is printed as one large decal on a very thin carrier film. Given the design is basically a white outline, a large portion of the decal is just carrier film with no ink. Once removed from the backing sheet, the carrier film has no rigidity to speak of, and is more likely to wrinkle rather than to allow itself to be pushed into position. Add a rather sticky adhesive and you soon have a torn ball of film where your decal should be. I was not able to “float” the decal to get it into position, it wanted to stick, bunch, and tear.
On the second attempt the solution was to cut the single decal into several pieces. All the boarders were cut loose and into sections, allowing them to be positioned individually, and any portion of the decal which “stuck out” was separated to prevent it from folding over. Each side was cut into 9 – 10 sections, and I worked my way around the black background until I got everything in place. Still, the decal turned out to be bigger than the stenciled background, and I ended up trimming bits from the borders to get it to fit. If I were to build Pretty Pat or Dirty Dora again (or any of the others), I would set my printer to increase the size of the PDF stencil to 105%, and maybe even a little more. I think that would ultimately result in a better fit.
Airfix B-25C/D Summary
Airfix continues to step up their game, and their Mitchell kits are some of their better offerings. The “trench digger” is gone, panel lines are appropriately sized and there is rivet and fastener detail on some surfaces as well. Fit is excellent throughout. The interior is nicely rendered and the detail is good for what can be seen through the transparencies. There are parts provided to position the flaps in either the raised or lowered positions, and all the tail control surfaces are molded separately as well. There are two sets of cowls included, the early type with the single collected exhaust or the individual Clayton stub exhausts. Bomb bay doors can be open or closed, and there is a bomb load of four 500-pound bombs. The clear parts fit well, which can be the difference between a good kit and a bad one, and two slightly different cockpit canopy styles are included. The astrodome opening should be round, not rectangular, but this is easy to fix. The Airfix kit is a pleasure to build and results in an attractive model when completed.
Hasegawa B-25H and B-25J Summary
Hasegawa has a reputation for excellent fit and fine surface detail, and these kits certainly live up to that reputation. Hasegawa is also known for simplified cockpits and basic wheelwells, the interior does need a little extra help but the wheelwells can’t be seen on the Mitchell anyway. I did replace the small open portions of the wheelwell doors as these were overly thick. The Hasegawa business model is to mold subassemblies which allow for kitting several variants from the same set of molds. Sometimes this can result in an overly-complicated build but in this case all the differences are concentrated in the nose and the parts breakdowns make sense. There should be two fuel dumps at the back of each nacelle, not one, and the landing lights at the wingtips should only be at the tips, not on the top and bottom. These issues are easily fixed. Another improvement which is well worth the time to correct is the size of the cowling front. The kit cowling opening is too small, but can be enlarged to the proper size with a 0.5 inch drill bit – just take your time so the hard plastic doesn’t crack. This solution is easier and cheaper than substituting the Quickboost replacements which have their own set of issues. The Hasegawa Mitchells are great kits and a pleasure to build, and can be easily improved with a few simple adjustments.
More completed model pictures here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2022/10/11/airfix-north-american-b-25c-mitchell-of-the-487th-bs-340th-bg-in-1-72-scale/
Part II here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2022/09/09/north-american-b-25-mitchell-batch-build-in-1-72-scale-part-ii/
More completed photographs here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2022/09/06/rs-models-kawasaki-ki-100-of-major-yohei-hinoki-in-1-72-scale/
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