My God, what have I done!?

[Quailane]

Hi all, I mostly just lurk here on the forum, popping my head up from time to time. I bought a rare, very old, and expensive kit on Ebay last week I really wanted one of these in 48th since that is my scale and I have a fascination with inter-war aircraft, specifically aircraft of the Spanish Civil War. These kits come in two flavors, the engines and nacelles being different. I have seen the bis version of the plane on Ebay before go for over $100, but I had never seen the original version on there or for sale anywhere, so I decided I wasn't going to let any price get in the way of that model! However, it arrived at my house today and I almost cried after looking over the parts. I thought I would share the terrifying sights I saw and attempt to show a neat and unusual model many people around here may have never known existed.

Here we have the box. It's definitely on the bigger side and it isn't super inviting. Any time you see a model packed in a cardboard box, you know it is probably not for beginners.

Next we have two pictures showing the instructions. They are the weirdest layout I have ever seen in my life, although they are adequate. The history section in English is probably better than Google translator could have done.

Then we have the decals. They are super thin, and combined with their age might be quite fragile. The printing is ok, but it is obviously not done at the same resolution as modern decals, although surprisingly this does give them a fairly decent scale man-made feel to them. They give the option of Czech, Spanish Republican, or Soviet schemes. They don't give you much else other than the insignias though. I wouldn't be too upset if I couldn't used them because they don't have anything a modeler with a decent decal stash couldn't replace in 5 minutes or that you couldn't simply paint instead.

Now we move on to the injected plastic pieces. They are a chocolate brown of the same color I have found in another of MPM's other old kits. If it is the same plastic, it is a little on the soft side. There is lots of flash on the sprue and the detail is soft or missing on many pieces compared to what you would find on a Tamigawa. The detail on the machine guns, while not very sharp, is actually not bad, but I'd love to source new two-blade propellers for it.

Finally we get to the vacuformed parts, the meat of the kit. The first thing that struck me were the bumps over all the parts. I shouldn't have been surprised since they come with the territory of vacuforming, but their placement is a bit annoying since there are many right on panel lines that will make it a little more difficult to clean up since scribing will be necessary to complete the panel lines and get them to look just right. Of course MPM could have gotten around this in the first place by not drilling the holes in the mold where they did, which was just careless. Also about the panel lines is that some of them don't look right and are a little off, so some sections will need some help to look 100%. Other than the lines being slightly soft, there is nothing else I can really pick on the vacuformed parts for. The plastic they use is not flimsy at all and is slightly off-white. I would guess the plastic is .03" thick except for the fuselage, which I would say is around .05" thick. The plastic is definitely on the hard side.

Continued below.

Edited October 24, 2010 by Quailane

[Quailane]

Now we have the photo-etch parts and acetate instruments. Both look to be of excellent quality. The only problem is that this bomber seats I believe 3, yet there are only belts for one. Some other small detail parts could be beneficial to jazz up the model a bit.

Now, I've saved the worst for last. The clear parts are absolutely atrocious. First of all, they are yellow. Second of all, they have those vacuforming bumps all over them, in some cases on the part that is supposed to be transparent itself! Lastly, there are plenty of other imperfections on them, some worse than others. In short, these are garbage, or would be if there was any other alternative. If I build this plane, this would have to be the first thing I tackle. The only real solution in my mind is to make new ones. I figure the originals can be used to cast new ones out of resin that could be worked on to make a mold for vacuforming a new set. I have maybe one or two other ideas as well. A plus is that on the fuselage halves the clear parts are there but without framing and obviously in white plastic. I'm not sure if the pictures can do them justice to how bad they really are.

Anyway, there is at least on other build of this kit documented, although it is of the other version of the kit. Swanny knows what he is doing and often has excellent results, but I don't think this plane came out as well as his other work. This scares me, because he is better at this than me! He did have the crappy canopies to contend with, threw some cheap crew in there to hide the interior, and did it gear up, and those are the parts that I think need most improving. So really the worst parts of this kit are the clear parts, followed by the lack of detail in the interior and with the landing gear. I'm sure that if the clear parts can be overcome, that finding some references and scratch building some interior and landing gear stuff shouldn't be too hard and will greatly improve this kit. Other than that, going by Swanny's pictures, it looks like thinning of the trailing edges might be in order, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I didn't check the accuracy of the model very well, though it looks alright. Compared to a few pictures I've looked at of the original, I can't spot anything obviously wrong with the kit. I did measure the wingspan as best as I could, which comes in at around 16.25". According to the instructions, I calculated the proper wingspan to be 16.67" for a 1/48th scale model.

Anyway, I hope you liked taking a look at this model with me.

[dahut]

Pretty cool - thanks for the tour.

This is why I gave up that sort of thing. There are far too many kits out there these days to force me into such torture.

The clear parts really do suck, don't they?

[ikar]

Those engines have a strange shape to them don't they? The kit somehow reminds me of an old Airmodel kit.

Good luck with it.

[J.C. Bahr]

Other than the clear-bits, the rest of the kit doesn't look too bad. I've heard that those yellowed clear pieces are the result of using an inferior plastic. Have seen several kits like that where the parts initially WERE clear, but then have yellowed after several years.

[Massimo Tessitori]

However, the clear panels of real planes can become yellowish too. I read some interviews of Soviet wartime pilots complaining for the yellowish shade of their canopies.

Massimo

[HistnScale]

I built one of these about fifteen years ago and recall no real problems with the build. The only issue was the clear nose piece which was almost paper thin due to the depth of the mold pull. The kit builds into a nice looking replica. So far the clear parts have not yellowed. Still have two more of them sitting in the stash, somewhere.

Cheers,

Dave

[Romanator21]

^Yes that's true - what a nice detail included by MPM! :)

Check your references though - some didn't have bubble turrets like that, and simply had a bird-cage like this:

I imagine that could save you some trouble.

If you were into 1/72, you could just go ahead and build the ICM, MPM, or Frog version of the kit, ICM being the best from what I've read.

[Steve N]

Not to derail the topic too much, but I've got all three of the aforementioned 1/72 kits. "Best" is a relative term. Certainly the ICM kit is the most detailed, but it's also got a ton of flash, and a lot of very "fiddly" parts. The MPM/Special Hobby kit is typical limited run, with PE details and vac canopies (the nose having the same thinness problems as the 1/48 kit.) The Frog kit is typical Frog: simple, raised panel lines, no interior, and really thick canopies. Mind you, I haven't actually built any of them, and I haven't compared them to any plans so I can't comment on accuracy.

SN

[Quailane]

I noticed I had a duplicate picture up, which I've removed, and I forgot a picture of one of the vacumformed sheets. Here it is:

I've been looking over pictures to see how accurate the kit is and what sort of extra detailing it needs. First and foremost, the vertical and horizontal stabilizers are too thick. These were quite thin on the real plane. The horizontal stabilizers should be an easy fix, but the vertical stabilizer will be a bit trickier since it is molded into the fuselage halves. Also the photo-etched grills are a bit inaccurate. They are very wide and flat, but what I gather from pictures shows the grills to be much thinner and have lots of depth, more like slats than anything else. I am trying to do an aircraft of the Spanish Civil War (not sure on the exact aircraft yet), and it looks like some if not many had a very unconventional landing gear door that was affixed to the strut and came down forwards with it instead of the usual two doors opening up sideways. There are bunch of small details here and there on the exterior that would need to be scratch-built, but none of any concern. The tail and grills are the major things wrong with the kit.

However, the clear panels of real planes can become yellowish too. I read some interviews of Soviet wartime pilots complaining for the yellowish shade of their canopies.

Massimo

That is interesting. But I just don't think I would be happy with these parts on my model, especially considering all of their other problems. The only part keeping me from starting work on the model are the clear parts, which I don't know when I'll ever get around to buckling down and trying to make new ones.

^Yes that's true - what a nice detail included by MPM!

Check your references though - some didn't have bubble turrets like that, and simply had a bird-cage like this:

I imagine that could save you some trouble.

If you were into 1/72, you could just go ahead and build the ICM, MPM, or Frog version of the kit, ICM being the best from what I've read.

Actually for this version of the SB-2, I think the turret isn't even an option since the directions don't cover it. But one option not covered by this kit that is shown in many photographs of SB-2's during the Spanish Civil War shows that area completely and permanently open, with a large windscreen in front of it. Other pictures show airfcraft with the greenhouse, and all the aircraft whether greenhouse or windscreen have the rails to mount the greenhouse. I would go with an aircraft that has the greenhouse since it can hide some of that position that would otherwise need to be quite detailed and the fact that the windscreen would have to be scratch built. It would just save a whole lot of work.