Junkers Ju 87B-2
|
-792-p.jpg?v=7b0ce7d1-41f6-48a7-8641-66648361c982)
-792-p.jpg?v=7b0ce7d1-41f6-48a7-8641-66648361c982)
-792-p.jpg?v=7b0ce7d1-41f6-48a7-8641-66648361c982)
-792-p.jpg?v=7b0ce7d1-41f6-48a7-8641-66648361c982)
See the in-box preview for this kit here.
Construction
The cockpit is usually where it all begins and this snap-together kit is no exception, but this time most of parts are being installed on the upper part of the wing. You are provided with instrument panel with delicate raised dials (an optional plain bare part ready for etched or a decal is available also), pilot and gunner's seats with moulded on seat belts, control stick, basket for spent ammunition, spare MG17 magazines and safety framework with radio set; the sidewalls feature delicate ribs and other control boxes, so all looks very reasonable and busy once the cockpit is closed. The interior was airbrushed RLM 66 (Gunze-Sangyo H416), new seat belts were cut from lead foil (the moulded items on the seats looked too soft and flat), and the fuselage halves were then joined. I recommend you dry fit the parts first and eventually shorten by 1mm or so the aligning pins otherwise these slightly spread the join at the rear of the fuselage, and then fix the parts with extra thin cement. In this way I proceeded with construction of the nose, which is formed from sime pretty complex shapes, but the parts are suitably split to match the panel lines of the real aircraft. Therefore all was just cleaned up with fine sanding sticks and next the wing could be snapped on to the fuselage. The joint was again almost perfect, so I could quickly continue with the tailplanes and undercarriage spats. Be warned though, the latter items should not be pressed too deeply into the wing openings, otherwise you may break the surrounding material, which is what I did and had to repair it with cyanoacrylate to close up the cracks. On the wing’s underside I replaced the thick flap actuating rods for new items cut from Albion Alloys 0.2 mm nickel rod. In my spares I also found some Quickboost exhausts designed for the Fujimi kit, but they fit this kit with little adjustment as well as they looked much more convincing than the kit parts. Once the basic construction was done, I rectified all panel lines as some were almost invisible, especially on the fuselage sides. Moreover, larger parts like the wing halves featured a kind of cross hatching on them, probably a residue of tooling process, but this disappeared after polishing with Gunze-Sangyo Mr Grinding Cloths and the application of a primer layer. At the end I replaced the upper solid part of the gunsight for a clear one and installed the canopy. This is designed with a separately moulded roundel panel housing the machine-gun and it needs to be carefully snapped into place from the inside; quite fiddly, but it eventually worked and just for sure I secured it in place with a miniature drop of caynoacrylate.
Colour Options
The kit provides markings for two machines; an 3./St.G 3 machine dated 1940, in Western Europe, and an 9./St.G 2 aircraft from the North African campaign. However, I’m afraid the latter scheme can’t be built without modifications as this was the B-2/Trop version that featured the larger dust filter, amongst other modifications, that are not included in the kit. As a result I haven’t chosen any of the kit options as my intention was to depict one of the early Italians ‘Picchiatelli’ so I opted for Xtradecal sheet (X72223) instead and selected a machine from 237a Squadriglia, 96°Gruppo based in the autumn of 1940 at Lecce-Galatina airfield. This plane wore standard Luftwaffe camouflage with painted-over insignias, so once the RLM70/71 over RLM65 (Gunze-Sangyo H65, H64 and H67) has been airbrushed on, the painted over areas were over sprayed with the corresponding Italian shades of Grigio Mimetico underneath (H317) and Verde Mimetico (H302) on the upper surfaces. From the kit decal sheet I therefore used only the stencilling and wing walkways and these worked fine: I therefore don;t see why the main markings shouldn't be fine as well.
Final Details
The barrels of the wing-mounted machine-guns were replaced with 0.2mm brass tubing from the Albion Alloys range and I reduced thickness of the 250kg bomb fins because these were too thick. I suggest some may want to replace the outer racks as they look a bit simplified, but once the bombs were in situ they looked quite acceptable. The kit includes a pair of drop tanks, which I suspect are more appropriate to the long-rage R version, therefore I do not recommended that you use them (on the other hand they make easier conversion for this version, which is actually a simple affair). I scratchbuilt the pitot from brass tubing and added the air brakes (the optional extended version is provided as well). The machine I was building seemed to lack the antennae mast so it left it out, while the MG17 barrel was replaced with an item from the spares box including an etched sight.
Conclusion
Zvezda have already proved that 'snap-together' does not mean any compromise in detail or accuracy, as we have seen from other companies attempting this sort of kit. Conversely, I believe this kit belongs to the current top level of 1/72nd scale releases, because the designers have skilfully hidden the simple nature of the kit, resulting in a model that on the outside looks like a regular mainstream kit with fine surface and a great amount of detail. For me its thumps up and I look forward to their next snap-together kit, albeit hopefully a little faster than this one has appeared since the previous one in the range.
Our thanks to The Hobby Company and Zvezda for the review sample.
Construction
The cockpit is usually where it all begins and this snap-together kit is no exception, but this time most of parts are being installed on the upper part of the wing. You are provided with instrument panel with delicate raised dials (an optional plain bare part ready for etched or a decal is available also), pilot and gunner's seats with moulded on seat belts, control stick, basket for spent ammunition, spare MG17 magazines and safety framework with radio set; the sidewalls feature delicate ribs and other control boxes, so all looks very reasonable and busy once the cockpit is closed. The interior was airbrushed RLM 66 (Gunze-Sangyo H416), new seat belts were cut from lead foil (the moulded items on the seats looked too soft and flat), and the fuselage halves were then joined. I recommend you dry fit the parts first and eventually shorten by 1mm or so the aligning pins otherwise these slightly spread the join at the rear of the fuselage, and then fix the parts with extra thin cement. In this way I proceeded with construction of the nose, which is formed from sime pretty complex shapes, but the parts are suitably split to match the panel lines of the real aircraft. Therefore all was just cleaned up with fine sanding sticks and next the wing could be snapped on to the fuselage. The joint was again almost perfect, so I could quickly continue with the tailplanes and undercarriage spats. Be warned though, the latter items should not be pressed too deeply into the wing openings, otherwise you may break the surrounding material, which is what I did and had to repair it with cyanoacrylate to close up the cracks. On the wing’s underside I replaced the thick flap actuating rods for new items cut from Albion Alloys 0.2 mm nickel rod. In my spares I also found some Quickboost exhausts designed for the Fujimi kit, but they fit this kit with little adjustment as well as they looked much more convincing than the kit parts. Once the basic construction was done, I rectified all panel lines as some were almost invisible, especially on the fuselage sides. Moreover, larger parts like the wing halves featured a kind of cross hatching on them, probably a residue of tooling process, but this disappeared after polishing with Gunze-Sangyo Mr Grinding Cloths and the application of a primer layer. At the end I replaced the upper solid part of the gunsight for a clear one and installed the canopy. This is designed with a separately moulded roundel panel housing the machine-gun and it needs to be carefully snapped into place from the inside; quite fiddly, but it eventually worked and just for sure I secured it in place with a miniature drop of caynoacrylate.
Colour Options
The kit provides markings for two machines; an 3./St.G 3 machine dated 1940, in Western Europe, and an 9./St.G 2 aircraft from the North African campaign. However, I’m afraid the latter scheme can’t be built without modifications as this was the B-2/Trop version that featured the larger dust filter, amongst other modifications, that are not included in the kit. As a result I haven’t chosen any of the kit options as my intention was to depict one of the early Italians ‘Picchiatelli’ so I opted for Xtradecal sheet (X72223) instead and selected a machine from 237a Squadriglia, 96°Gruppo based in the autumn of 1940 at Lecce-Galatina airfield. This plane wore standard Luftwaffe camouflage with painted-over insignias, so once the RLM70/71 over RLM65 (Gunze-Sangyo H65, H64 and H67) has been airbrushed on, the painted over areas were over sprayed with the corresponding Italian shades of Grigio Mimetico underneath (H317) and Verde Mimetico (H302) on the upper surfaces. From the kit decal sheet I therefore used only the stencilling and wing walkways and these worked fine: I therefore don;t see why the main markings shouldn't be fine as well.
Final Details
The barrels of the wing-mounted machine-guns were replaced with 0.2mm brass tubing from the Albion Alloys range and I reduced thickness of the 250kg bomb fins because these were too thick. I suggest some may want to replace the outer racks as they look a bit simplified, but once the bombs were in situ they looked quite acceptable. The kit includes a pair of drop tanks, which I suspect are more appropriate to the long-rage R version, therefore I do not recommended that you use them (on the other hand they make easier conversion for this version, which is actually a simple affair). I scratchbuilt the pitot from brass tubing and added the air brakes (the optional extended version is provided as well). The machine I was building seemed to lack the antennae mast so it left it out, while the MG17 barrel was replaced with an item from the spares box including an etched sight.
Conclusion
Zvezda have already proved that 'snap-together' does not mean any compromise in detail or accuracy, as we have seen from other companies attempting this sort of kit. Conversely, I believe this kit belongs to the current top level of 1/72nd scale releases, because the designers have skilfully hidden the simple nature of the kit, resulting in a model that on the outside looks like a regular mainstream kit with fine surface and a great amount of detail. For me its thumps up and I look forward to their next snap-together kit, albeit hopefully a little faster than this one has appeared since the previous one in the range.
Our thanks to The Hobby Company and Zvezda for the review sample.
