Review by: Geoff Coughlin (April 2011)
Price: £11.00 approx (UK)
Our thanks to Revell Germany for supplying our review sample: www.revell.de
A little bit of inspiration: Short and sweet!
The ‘new’ Revell Kit
It’s easy to raise one’s expectations too quickly after the stunning releases from Revell in recent months – their Arado Ar.196A-2 and BAe Hawk come to mind. This kit is very different in nature, being a re-release of an older Monogram mould. The inclusion of a round moulded base is a tell-tale sign!
Click on Image to Enlarge/go back.
Box and Contents
Revell persist with rather flimsy boxes that are doubtless cheap to produce but not so good in protecting the contents or proving useful during construction. Having said that, the artwork is usually very good and it’s decent enough here. Let’s go inside…
The light blue-grey sprues are packaged well and no damage is apparent. Taking the main components first, they are well tooled, feeling quite hard and brittle-like. No distortion was apparent and a dry fit of the fuselage promises a decent fit. Moving to the wings, they are reasonable although the wheel wells are blanked off and simplified.
Detail sprues
Sadly the components feature raised panel lines and the cockpit is Spartan when compared to references – this is looking more and more like an old Monogram release and well, this kit sits in the pocket-money bracket and so it’s fair to say that the kit is surely aimed at the junior and novice market. Nothing wrong with that of course, but it’s important to point out the facts here.
Basic crew figures are provided.
Clear Parts
The clear parts look clear enough but do have heavy frames moulded onto the surfaces that may need reducing in order to look more authentic.
Instructions
The Revell instructions follow their usual exploded stages format. Location of parts is clear but colour paint coding is for Revell paints only. However, the colour names are provided and this will help you to match your own choice of paints. This is a basic model and so should present little difficulty in working out where all the parts are located, even for inexperienced modellers.
Decals
The decals seem quite good. Certainly colour saturation and register is good and all markings are accurate and sharp in their detail. This is probably the best part of the package; good quality decals will make a world of difference to your completed model.
Conclusion
This isn’t a bad model for the price even though it’s an older tool re-release. Having said that, at around £11 you can get a decent model and with some work, who knows?
Recommended for inexperienced scale modellers.
Geoff C.
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