Main components…
The resin parts and very well moulded and especially pleasing is the fact that most of the parts are cleanly moulded and cleaned up requiring very little preparation before you can use the parts. Immediately apparent are the metal stiffening rods moulded into the wing sections to allow the parts to be attached securely and these are aided by resin stubs, all designed to make the wing-to-fuselage join a strong one. I was a bit concerned that I could see the rods through the surface of the wings and that they may have broken the surface making it impossible to sand back but not so. When handling the parts it’s clear that the surface is intact but you’ll need to be careful with handling to ensure no cracking occurs.
Moulded on detail is refined and there are hardly any imperfections and this is promising looking ahead to the undercoat and silver paint finish that will be applied later.
Smaller components…
The cockpit and engine are made up of lots of parts, yet the former looks quite straightforward and familiar. I remember building the Wingnut Wings Bristol F.2b Fighter and this is simpler yet everything seems to be there.
The inclusion of the Photo Etched fret is good as the instrument panel, seat harness and multitude of other smaller parts can be created in scale thickness to improve realism. A small sheet of acetate allows you to make up the clear instrument faces and I’m looking forward to that part of the build a lot.
The Jaguar engine is a little masterpiece of engineering with the separate cylinders beautifully moulded and if the cockpit gets you going, the engine will send you into overdrive!
The undercarriage construction is a little like the wings, featuring the metal strengthening rods that will improve the model’s stability no end – nice touch.
The propeller is very smooth and a great canvas onto which you can paint your desired wooden finish. We have several builds in Finished now where Les V and I have shown how a realistic wooden finish can be achieved, so that may be worth a look if you want a steer on this.
Decals and instructions…
The decals look great – in register, high quality printing and colour saturation as well as featuring simply HUGE roundels that are appropriate to the type. The red ‘X’ markings for No. 29 Squadron will also look awesome when added to the model and I can’t wait to get stuck in!
The instructions are not in the same league as those provided by Wingnut Wings, but are, nonetheless in colour with paint colours, part numbers and location seemingly clear to me; well, at this stage anyway. When I get into the build we’ll see how they work out in terms of helpfulness. The rigging diagram is useful although looking at the main wing rigging it’s unclear which wires pass on the inside or outside of each other. I suspect that this will become clear when I get to that stage though looking at the location points. Happily, the rigging on the Siskin IIIA is not complex and certainly nothing like the complexity that Dave C had to deal with in his WW FE.2b!
In conclusion…
There’s no doubt that in my mind this is an impressive package and my summary below tells you what I think. What I love about this model and all those that are being produced by others like Wingnut Wings and Roden is that WWI modelling is getting, at last the investment by the manufacturers that’s been needed for so long. We will continue to do our bit to support these manufacturers because there are so many more subjects that I still want to see built in SMN. What I hope that we are showing is that these good quality kits are much easier to build than you may imaging and you shouldn’t be put off at all, on the contrary – be inspired to take one on and see what pleasure it brings. One thing’s for sure, you will have plenty of support at hand here at SMN where you can ask any questions and follow the builds and look in the SMN Techniques Bank for more help.
Highly recommended
| FEATURE | STAR RATING (out of five) |
|---|---|
| Quality of moulding | **** |
| Accuracy | **** |
| Instructions | *** |
| Decals | **** |
| Subject choice | ***** |
| Overall | **** |