Italeri 1:72 Macchi C.202 "Folgore"
Discussion
Not having had much luck with getting on with current projects, I decided to make a start on this one, picked up from Telford last year:
It's an aircraft I've never built before, but have always been intrigued with due to its combination of novel Italian engineering and style, German engine and a fairly unique and complex camouflage pattern. By most accounts is was a good aircraft, which could have matched or even exceeded the performance of the Bf109E (both used the DB601 engine) had it been more heavily armed. One interesting aspect of the design (and common to some other Macchi designs) was that the port wing was around 8.5" longer than the stbd. wing. This gave asymmetric lift, and provided a neat solution to counteracting the torque of the engine.
The kit dates form 2001, so fairly recent, and features a decent number of nicely moulded parts:
It will make an interesting comparison with the FROG version of this kit which I picked up at Huddersfield show for £1:
Despite the vast age difference, the FROG kit compares surprisingly well, although unfortunately, the asymmetric wings are not represented.
I also picked up a full Eduard photo-etch set, including flaps:
Resin exhausts (which I might not use):
And an Eduard canopy mask set:
Last but not least, a set of Mike Grant "Smoke Ring" decals:
So, we'll see if this one gets beyond the parts clean-up stage before hitting any snags...
It's an aircraft I've never built before, but have always been intrigued with due to its combination of novel Italian engineering and style, German engine and a fairly unique and complex camouflage pattern. By most accounts is was a good aircraft, which could have matched or even exceeded the performance of the Bf109E (both used the DB601 engine) had it been more heavily armed. One interesting aspect of the design (and common to some other Macchi designs) was that the port wing was around 8.5" longer than the stbd. wing. This gave asymmetric lift, and provided a neat solution to counteracting the torque of the engine.
The kit dates form 2001, so fairly recent, and features a decent number of nicely moulded parts:
It will make an interesting comparison with the FROG version of this kit which I picked up at Huddersfield show for £1:
Despite the vast age difference, the FROG kit compares surprisingly well, although unfortunately, the asymmetric wings are not represented.
I also picked up a full Eduard photo-etch set, including flaps:
Resin exhausts (which I might not use):
And an Eduard canopy mask set:
Last but not least, a set of Mike Grant "Smoke Ring" decals:
So, we'll see if this one gets beyond the parts clean-up stage before hitting any snags...
Bookmarked.
A work colleague has just started getting back into modelling, he is currently buying tools and the like and practicing painting techniques on cheaper models and scored plasticard.
He brought in an Eduard FW190 kit the other week. The mouldings seem to be excellent quality and the PE parts sent me cross eyed - some of them are tiny. Seems a long way away from the Airfix kits that I built in my early teens.
A work colleague has just started getting back into modelling, he is currently buying tools and the like and practicing painting techniques on cheaper models and scored plasticard.
He brought in an Eduard FW190 kit the other week. The mouldings seem to be excellent quality and the PE parts sent me cross eyed - some of them are tiny. Seems a long way away from the Airfix kits that I built in my early teens.
PanzerCommander said:
Bookmarked.
A work colleague has just started getting back into modelling, he is currently buying tools and the like and practicing painting techniques on cheaper models and scored plasticard.
He brought in an Eduard FW190 kit the other week. The mouldings seem to be excellent quality and the PE parts sent me cross eyed - some of them are tiny. Seems a long way away from the Airfix kits that I built in my early teens.
I built a 1:72 Eduard Hellcat - it was one of the best kits I've seen. They do sometimes use base kits from other manufacturers and add their own parts though. My pal just bought a 1:48 Eduard Tomcat with all brass p/e, resin etc, but the base kit is, I think, Hobby Boss. I think the Eduard 1:48 Lightning was in fact Airfix plastic. Nothing wrong with doing that though so long as the base kit is good.A work colleague has just started getting back into modelling, he is currently buying tools and the like and practicing painting techniques on cheaper models and scored plasticard.
He brought in an Eduard FW190 kit the other week. The mouldings seem to be excellent quality and the PE parts sent me cross eyed - some of them are tiny. Seems a long way away from the Airfix kits that I built in my early teens.
Eric Mc said:
I was browsing through an old modelling magazine (PAM News from 1977) and found a review of the Supermodel 202. Is the current Italeri 202 a reboxing of the old Supermodel kit?
If it is, would you like a scan of the article?
Thanks for the offer, but I don't think it is - Scalemates says it was "New Tool".If it is, would you like a scan of the article?
With a bit of work (the m/g trough panel wasn't a very good fit), it goes together Ok, but not up to Japanese Tamiya standards even though, like several Italeri kits, this one was once re-boxed as a Tamiya kit.
I've since cut off the pitot tube and the aerial mast; they'll never survive the build in-situ. I'll pin the aerial and replace the pitot with brass tubes.
I've since cut off the pitot tube and the aerial mast; they'll never survive the build in-situ. I'll pin the aerial and replace the pitot with brass tubes.
4321go said:
Hey, Doc. Get your printer out and print off a sheet of tiny race circuit decals. I bet they'd look almost identical! This is "Pistonheads" after all......
Good idea! If I had a printer I might just do that: I've given the FROG version of this aircraft to my son to build.Any recommendations for decent photo printers/scanners?
Some progress on the FROG version being built by my son: I got the him an "empty felt tip pen", filled it with Vallejo desert yellow + retarder medium and set him to work on the camo. It was very easy to get a great result - no brushes were harmed during this process:
This could be a viable way of doing "smoke rings" and the Luftwaffe "squiggle" camo (the stuff that looks impossible to do), at least at 1:72
This could be a viable way of doing "smoke rings" and the Luftwaffe "squiggle" camo (the stuff that looks impossible to do), at least at 1:72
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