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Post by tcoat on Jan 25, 2024 17:23:12 GMT -5
Inspired by Kyle's build( Here: modelerssocialclub.proboards.com/thread/15693/revellogram-61?page=1 ) and intrigued by John's White Box version build ( here: modelerssocialclub.proboards.com/thread/15793/monogram-white-box-48-61a ) I decided to break out one of my four of this kit and see how it compares. Sort of a micro Group Build. This will be a very, very quick OOB build with no frills. I have three more I can get fancy with some day. First off is the packaging. It may sound trivial but the box is not much heavier than a couple of pieces of paper. I mean it offers ZERO support to the parts inside. Look at how the sides are all bent in just from opening it. This is a brand new kit from this Christmas so it hasn't been abused in my stash. Lucily the parts are very well bagged.   Next are the sprues. Note the missing (oviously short shot) landing gear strut in the upper center. This did concern me as I was removing the sprues. Kyle see... Three figures!  Well that is some QC folks!! There in the bottom of the box is a separately packed replacement for the missing part.  The only flash of note is the little bit on the cowl flaps and a bit between a couple of engine cylinders.  The rest pf the sprues appear to be completly flash free, flat and straight.    Not sure if they have cleaned up the molds somewhere between the White Box and latest issue but so far I am not seeing any of the things that give this kit such a bad rep. Will see what happens when I actually start building though. |
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kyledehart5
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Post by kyledehart5 on Jan 25, 2024 18:34:33 GMT -5
Oh yeah looking forward to this!! I wish I had sprue shots of mine. But wonder what happened to my figures? 😂😂 It was definitely the same box art. Mine had a bit more flash too. It wasn’t awful, but there was definitely a little clean up. Yours looks very nice indeed!!
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Post by tcoat on Jan 27, 2024 0:33:12 GMT -5
OK so far there have been no serious issues. Is it a shiny new high tech kit? well, no. It is (so far) better than some much newer kits I have done. Little bit of flash on some parts on the large sprue but nothing that two or three swipes with a sanding stick couldn't handle.  Fit was fine and detail more than enough for me.  Some detail painting and a nice wash will make all this pop.  |
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kyledehart5
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Post by kyledehart5 on Jan 27, 2024 0:46:20 GMT -5
Oh yeah. Off to a good start and rumors of the demise of this kit have been greatly exaggerated. Not nearly as bad as they’d have you believe. Lol
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Post by tcoat on Jan 27, 2024 1:14:42 GMT -5
Oh yeah. Off to a good start and rumors of the demise of this kit have been greatly exaggerated. Not nearly as bad as they’d have you believe. Lol The interior is fine but after test fitting the fuselage halves I am a bit nervous. It will be interesting to see if John's white box one is better in that area. |
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lyle
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Post by lyle on Jan 27, 2024 8:08:34 GMT -5
Eager to see how the canopies fit. Great work so far.
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kyledehart5
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Post by kyledehart5 on Jan 27, 2024 14:11:17 GMT -5
Oh yeah. Off to a good start and rumors of the demise of this kit have been greatly exaggerated. Not nearly as bad as they’d have you believe. Lol The interior is fine but after test fitting the fuselage halves I am a bit nervous. It will be interesting to see if John's white box one is better in that area. Yeah, I had some issues there as well. Didn't want to line up or close up very well. I wish I had a build thread but I wasn't active on any forums when I built it. I did find this photo of it closed up after much sanding and cursing.  Eager to see how the canopies fit. Great work so far. They don't at all. Or at least mine didn't. Much window making clear glue was deployed to get them somewhat close. Lol. I hope his are better than mine. |
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lyle
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Post by lyle on Jan 27, 2024 14:32:27 GMT -5
The interior is fine but after test fitting the fuselage halves I am a bit nervous. It will be interesting to see if John's white box one is better in that area. Yeah, I had some issues there as well. Didn't want to line up or close up very well. I wish I had a build thread but I wasn't active on any forums when I built it. I did find this photo of it closed up after much sanding and cursing. Eager to see how the canopies fit. Great work so far. They don't at all. Or at least mine didn't. Much window making clear glue was deployed to get them somewhat close. Lol. I hope his are better than mine. Sorry to hear that. Guess they did not fix anything. Keyda has a thread over on SPAM build the 61 and rhe canopies we’re horrible. |
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Post by tcoat on Jan 28, 2024 9:34:01 GMT -5
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Post by 406 Silverado on Jan 28, 2024 9:48:39 GMT -5
Yeah, I had some issues there as well. Didn't want to line up or close up very well. I wish I had a build thread but I wasn't active on any forums when I built it. I did find this photo of it closed up after much sanding and cursing. They don't at all. Or at least mine didn't. Much window making clear glue was deployed to get them somewhat close. Lol. I hope his are better than mine. Sorry to hear that. Guess they did not fix anything. Keyda has a thread over on SPAM build the 61 and rhe canopies we’re horrible. I remember that. Hopefully Tony will be able to mitigate that issue here. Details are looking good on this one so far Tony. |
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Post by handiabled on Jan 28, 2024 9:53:29 GMT -5
This is coming along wonderfully, it will be interesting to see both John and yours come together at the same time. I hope the demons others have faced with this won't become an issue for either one of you
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Post by tcoat on Jan 28, 2024 10:18:08 GMT -5
This is coming along wonderfully, it will be interesting to see both John and yours come together at the same time. I hope the demons others have faced with this won't become an issue for either one of you Well I have no idea how deep John plans to go but this one will be a very basic build to see how it goes together and where the issues are. So far the only thing I have really come up against where the age of the moulds may be a factor is the fit of the top and bottom of the starboard wing. No matter how much I sanded the joints I had a big gap at the end and the bottom was much larger than the top.  The port wing was fine (not great but still OK)  A bit of crazy glue filler and a pile of sanding and they are OK. Contrary to how the pic looks they are actually pretty smooth.  Up to this point, other than that one wing I have not found anything else where I would think the older moulds would have made any significant difference. |
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Post by kyledehart5 on Jan 28, 2024 13:27:33 GMT -5
Awesome work. You’re making this one look really nice! It’s going to be cool to see both of these builds once they’re done.
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jeaton01
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Post by jeaton01 on Jan 28, 2024 13:57:50 GMT -5
I'm going to keep mine out of the box, Tony, except for taking a nacelle from another kit so they are both closed up with open cowl flaps. I have two sets of Flightline Engineering updates so missing a cowl in that kit won't matter. So we will have an equal comparison.
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Post by tcoat on Jan 28, 2024 14:36:58 GMT -5
I'm going to keep mine out of the box, Tony, except for taking a nacelle from another kit so they are both closed up with open cowl flaps. I have two sets of Flightline Engineering updates so missing a cowl in that kit won't matter. So we will have an equal comparison. Since I have 4 of these I will be doing all three schemes from the kit and one crashed in a swamp. This one will be markings for kit version A which is the olive over grey with invasion stripes. I will open this one completly up as per the instructions but completely OOB. There are a couple of pictures of the Husslin' Hussey in that scheme.
  Next one I will do all closed up in the black. I will not do the stripes as the instructions show since I really doubt they painted the plane black at a later date and redid the stripes. Picture of it in black. Pretty sure this is the picture that sparks all the debate about what the material for the rad dome is since you can sort of see the dish through it. So where did my pictures go? Why won't they load all of a sudden?
Oh good they are back! |
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Post by tcoat on Jan 28, 2024 14:44:03 GMT -5
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jeaton01
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Post by jeaton01 on Jan 28, 2024 16:11:16 GMT -5
Yeah, it was plexiglass on the early ones. I don't think they had the handle on any other radar transparent materials back then, though I have no idea what the thimble nose Mosquitos used. Somewhere I have also seen a photo of a damaged P-61 radome. But the text here seems to indicate that it was maybe not the case on later P-61's. Warren Thompson's article in Wings of Fame says later in production the plexiglas radome was replaced with resin impregnated fiberglass because the plexiglas could deform if exposed to too much heat and had to be kept covered on the ground. He does not say when the change occurred.  |
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Post by tcoat on Jan 28, 2024 17:07:48 GMT -5
Yeah, it was plexiglass on the early ones. I don't think they had the handle on any other radar transparent materials back then, though I have no idea what the thimble nose Mosquitos used. Somewhere I have also seen a photo of a damaged P-61 radome. But the text here seems to indicate that it was maybe not the case on later P-61's. Warren Thompson's article in Wings of Fame says later in production the plexiglas radome was replaced with resin impregnated fiberglass because the plexiglas could deform if exposed to too much heat and had to be kept covered on the ground. He does not say when the change occurred. It would appear that 25536 was an early one since even in this pic it is not only still olive but the dome is not painted like the other two. Sort of a mot point with the kit since it is just normal plastic anyway. Just going to paint it off white and call it a day. |
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Post by keavdog on Jan 28, 2024 17:15:33 GMT -5
Wow 4 of these dudes? Impressive. Lot's of shelf space I imagine.
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Post by tcoat on Jan 28, 2024 18:26:50 GMT -5
Wow 4 of these dudes? Impressive. Lot's of shelf space I imagine. I have 4 because they are one of only about 6 kits that Michaels sells in Canada so my brother in law keeps giving it to me for Christmas. Not really a subject that even interests me much but free models are free models and I will build just about anything.  |
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Post by tcoat on Jan 30, 2024 18:37:40 GMT -5
So test fitting the fuselage halves and forward canopy showed a couple of things. First off the port side was much thicker than the starboard side creating quite a step. The starboard side also had a couple of very large sink marks on the top. The other issue was that there was quite a space between the interior bulkhead and the starboard side of the fuselage. This caused the canopy to sit too low and be too narrow. The port side fit perfectly all around the the bulkhead I dealt with the bulkhead by first gluing and clamping the offending side.  Then the top.  If I tried to sand down the top to eliminate the sink marks and make both sides even it would have been too thin to mate with the canopy so I sanded down what I could and built up the rest with putty.  This resulted in a very nice fit for the canopy.  With all the work on the top the bottom lined right up and the seam pretty much disappeared all on it's own.  The rear canopy fit just fine with no real work. |
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Post by kyledehart5 on Jan 30, 2024 18:59:19 GMT -5
Good stuff!!! You’re doing some really nice work bending this one to your will.
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stikpusher
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Post by stikpusher on Jan 30, 2024 19:36:01 GMT -5
Looking good so far! Difficult seams, but not horrendously so...
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Post by tcoat on Jan 30, 2024 19:44:41 GMT -5
Looking good so far! Difficult seams, but not horrendously so...  |
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Post by brandonk on Jan 30, 2024 20:10:42 GMT -5
I have two of these in the stash with resin pits waiting to go. I'll be lurking and taking notes.
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Post by tcoat on Jan 30, 2024 20:30:54 GMT -5
I didn't think that the sight mechs for the remote turrets looked right in the deployed positions in an aircraft that will be all opened up so I swung them around to be "stowed". Have no idea if that is accurate but I can not for the life of me see those guys climbing in and out of the seat and doing entire flights with those things stuck in their faces.  |
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TJ
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Post by TJ on Jan 31, 2024 3:47:58 GMT -5
You're making this look easy
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Post by 406 Silverado on Jan 31, 2024 5:24:36 GMT -5
That was some good problem solving on getting the "step" taken care of so the canopy would fit that good Tony.  You're doing better with this kit than I've seen alot of folks do. |
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Post by tcoat on Jan 31, 2024 7:34:34 GMT -5
That was some good problem solving on getting the "step" taken care of so the canopy would fit that good Tony. You're doing better with this kit than I've seen alot of folks do. The fact remains that this is a kit designed in the late 60's and released in 1973. When you consider those molds have been in almost constant use suppling big box stores since then the issues I have come across are very minor. Of course it is no Tamiya shake and bake but much of it is no worse than what I have run up against on much, MUCH newer kits. At this very moment I have several "new" kits sitting half done since I gave up in frustration. For that matter we have recently seen a state of the art ZM kit abandoned due to bad fit on this very forum! There is still a way to go to see how this release stacks up against John's White box issue but I really don't see any more surprises. From everything I read on the kit I knew what I was getting into and I expected it to be far worse than it actually is.  |
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lyle
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Post by lyle on Jan 31, 2024 8:55:44 GMT -5
bang up job on this one. ALMOST makes me want to pull one of mine out. Then send it to you to build...
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