Airfix 1:72 B-25 New tool
Discussion
My last project was a car so the new one have to be a plane.
This is a really nice kit, with some great detail. At £25 it’s not too expensive either.
The first stage is to paint and assemble the front cockpit area up to the bomb bay bulkhead.
The only aftermarket parts I’m going to use here are going to be the Eduard canopy masks currently enroute from hannants.
The kit so far goes together really nicely, so I don’t think it’s going to be an overly long build.
This is a really nice kit, with some great detail. At £25 it’s not too expensive either.
The first stage is to paint and assemble the front cockpit area up to the bomb bay bulkhead.
The only aftermarket parts I’m going to use here are going to be the Eduard canopy masks currently enroute from hannants.
The kit so far goes together really nicely, so I don’t think it’s going to be an overly long build.
Well, lots of reviews say they are out of scale and too deep, but by the time they’ve been primed and painted I think they’re no problem.
The surfaces really are beautifully moulded with great attention to detail. The only slight negatives are the Airfix one bag for all sprues issue and the slightly nasty plastic they use. I also think they could charge a few quid extra and throw in some die cut canopy masks though.
Going back to the Tamiya jeep. I would say this would be a much better kit for a first timer or someone getting back into the hobby.
The surfaces really are beautifully moulded with great attention to detail. The only slight negatives are the Airfix one bag for all sprues issue and the slightly nasty plastic they use. I also think they could charge a few quid extra and throw in some die cut canopy masks though.
Going back to the Tamiya jeep. I would say this would be a much better kit for a first timer or someone getting back into the hobby.
robemcdonald said:
Well, lots of reviews say they are out of scale and too deep, but by the time they’ve been primed and painted I think they’re no problem.
The surfaces really are beautifully moulded with great attention to detail. The only slight negatives are the Airfix one bag for all sprues issue and the slightly nasty plastic they use. I also think they could charge a few quid extra and throw in some die cut canopy masks though.
Going back to the Tamiya jeep. I would say this would be a much better kit for a first timer or someone getting back into the hobby.
Hmm crap panel lines are a common problem with new-tool Airfix. The surfaces really are beautifully moulded with great attention to detail. The only slight negatives are the Airfix one bag for all sprues issue and the slightly nasty plastic they use. I also think they could charge a few quid extra and throw in some die cut canopy masks though.
Going back to the Tamiya jeep. I would say this would be a much better kit for a first timer or someone getting back into the hobby.
dr_gn said:
Dr Jekyll said:
Is there any easy way to tell a recent tool Airfix from a 1960s relic in a new box? Or do I have to research the individual kit?
Nope, Scalemates gives a timeline of a particular kit though. Make sure you get the right box art and/or kit number!dr_gn said:
robemcdonald said:
Well, lots of reviews say they are out of scale and too deep, but by the time they’ve been primed and painted I think they’re no problem.
The surfaces really are beautifully moulded with great attention to detail. The only slight negatives are the Airfix one bag for all sprues issue and the slightly nasty plastic they use. I also think they could charge a few quid extra and throw in some die cut canopy masks though.
Going back to the Tamiya jeep. I would say this would be a much better kit for a first timer or someone getting back into the hobby.
Hmm crap panel lines are a common problem with new-tool Airfix. The surfaces really are beautifully moulded with great attention to detail. The only slight negatives are the Airfix one bag for all sprues issue and the slightly nasty plastic they use. I also think they could charge a few quid extra and throw in some die cut canopy masks though.
Going back to the Tamiya jeep. I would say this would be a much better kit for a first timer or someone getting back into the hobby.
Yertis said:
dr_gn said:
robemcdonald said:
Well, lots of reviews say they are out of scale and too deep, but by the time they’ve been primed and painted I think they’re no problem.
The surfaces really are beautifully moulded with great attention to detail. The only slight negatives are the Airfix one bag for all sprues issue and the slightly nasty plastic they use. I also think they could charge a few quid extra and throw in some die cut canopy masks though.
Going back to the Tamiya jeep. I would say this would be a much better kit for a first timer or someone getting back into the hobby.
Hmm crap panel lines are a common problem with new-tool Airfix. The surfaces really are beautifully moulded with great attention to detail. The only slight negatives are the Airfix one bag for all sprues issue and the slightly nasty plastic they use. I also think they could charge a few quid extra and throw in some die cut canopy masks though.
Going back to the Tamiya jeep. I would say this would be a much better kit for a first timer or someone getting back into the hobby.
It's personal preference. Even the finest panel lines at 1:72 are likely to be over-scale. If you somehow scaled down a real aircraft to 1:72, I doubt the panel lines themselves would be visible at all from any reasonable viewing distance, but the weathering resulting from them might be. However, in a small scale model you're treading the line between reality and what you expect to see.
If they're well rendered and fine, they're pretty much indistinguishable from drawn-on lines once finished. That's what I aim for. If they get too wide and deep, any panel wash makes the model look like a jigsaw puzzle. You might say "so don't use a wash", but then a model can often look too flat and featureless, plus the wash adds to any subtle weathering.
It's not much of an issue if you're just using he most basic painting techniques, but for those of us who prefer some refinement and subtle weathering, wide panel lines (along with poor transparent parts) are the two aspects of a kit that are the most difficult to correct.
designforlife said:
i remember building this airfix kit (or an iteration of it) as a kid some 25 odd years ago...the fuselage plastic was so warped it was impossible to build! One very disappointed 9 year old birthday boy.
That would be the 1965 tooling.Anyway, enough of hijacking the thread - looking forward to what robemcdonald can do with it.
dr_gn said:
No. I have drawn panel lines on models before - on a 1:72 Mosquito and an old 1:32 Spitfire. It's a massive pain in the arse. Finely moulded lines are far better overall.
It's personal preference. Even the finest panel lines at 1:72 are likely to be over-scale. If you somehow scaled down a real aircraft to 1:72, I doubt the panel lines themselves would be visible at all from any reasonable viewing distance, but the weathering resulting from them might be. However, in a small scale model you're treading the line between reality and what you expect to see.
If they're well rendered and fine, they're pretty much indistinguishable from drawn-on lines once finished. That's what I aim for. If they get too wide and deep, any panel wash makes the model look like a jigsaw puzzle. You might say "so don't use a wash", but then a model can often look too flat and featureless, plus the wash adds to any subtle weathering.
It's not much of an issue if you're just using he most basic painting techniques, but for those of us who prefer some refinement and subtle weathering, wide panel lines (along with poor transparent parts) are the two aspects of a kit that are the most difficult to correct.
Thanks for that. My wife has just started dress-making again, which affords me the opportunity to restart my modelling. And like all projects I undertake, I'm massively over-thinking it beforehand. It's personal preference. Even the finest panel lines at 1:72 are likely to be over-scale. If you somehow scaled down a real aircraft to 1:72, I doubt the panel lines themselves would be visible at all from any reasonable viewing distance, but the weathering resulting from them might be. However, in a small scale model you're treading the line between reality and what you expect to see.
If they're well rendered and fine, they're pretty much indistinguishable from drawn-on lines once finished. That's what I aim for. If they get too wide and deep, any panel wash makes the model look like a jigsaw puzzle. You might say "so don't use a wash", but then a model can often look too flat and featureless, plus the wash adds to any subtle weathering.
It's not much of an issue if you're just using he most basic painting techniques, but for those of us who prefer some refinement and subtle weathering, wide panel lines (along with poor transparent parts) are the two aspects of a kit that are the most difficult to correct.
Once I've bought a new compressor that Tempest may get completed...
designforlife said:
i remember building this airfix kit (or an iteration of it) as a kid some 25 odd years ago...the fuselage plastic was so warped it was impossible to build! One very disappointed 9 year old birthday boy.
That kit is now withdrawn so won't be issued by Airfix again. All the reports I've seen and read of the new B-25 have been pretty positive. I saw a built one at my last club meeting and it looks lovely.
Here is a pic of a section of the fuselage
And the upper wing
I don’t think they’re overly deep or wide and there is some very fine rivet detail.
Whether you’d see this level of detail at this scale is another question, but for me it’s not too over the top.
On to a progress update.
I have managed to complete one side of the fuselage.
And the upper wing
I don’t think they’re overly deep or wide and there is some very fine rivet detail.
Whether you’d see this level of detail at this scale is another question, but for me it’s not too over the top.
On to a progress update.
I have managed to complete one side of the fuselage.
Great progress, nice to see one of these being built up 
the old kit was of a later J model, which has a deeper fuselage to fit the tail turret in. The new kit is of the early type aircraft.
what scheme are you going for?
re. panel lines. they're no deeper or wider than any other recent Airfix release. No they're not tamigawa fine, but they make their moulds in a different way, which costs an order of magnitude more. I've seen some really odd comments about this kit (think it was on ARC) that bear no semblance to reality, so take what you read on forums with a pinch of salt
the old kit was of a later J model, which has a deeper fuselage to fit the tail turret in. The new kit is of the early type aircraft.
what scheme are you going for?
re. panel lines. they're no deeper or wider than any other recent Airfix release. No they're not tamigawa fine, but they make their moulds in a different way, which costs an order of magnitude more. I've seen some really odd comments about this kit (think it was on ARC) that bear no semblance to reality, so take what you read on forums with a pinch of salt
Edited by lufbramatt on Monday 23 April 16:15
lufbramatt said:
re. panel lines. they're no deeper or wider than any other recent Airfix release.
Is there something different about the new tool 1:72 Bf109 E3/4? I built one of the first ones, and the panel lines seemed much finer than other kits.I bought another recently (E3) for my son, and that too looks to have slightly finer surface detail, particularly the fuselage. I also noticed that the stbd fuselage wing root issues and the tailplane strut hole errors had been corrected - was it partly an injection pressure issue on the early release or something, or were the moulds re-worked?
Gassing Station | Scale Models | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff