Italeri Fw 190A-8

Clifford Keesler
Nice FW-190.

Hayden Scott-Williams
Thanks Clifford 🙂

Clifford Keesler
How was the kit?

Hayden Scott-Williams
It's a funny thing because there were times during the build that I thought it was a complete DOG of a kit. But looking back on the build and looking at the final product, I must say that it was actually quite a good kit. Although this is a 2015 rebox, the molds are showing their age. Quite a bit of flash and burring but once cleaned up, most of them fit and look good. There is one thing to watch out for, though. When you fit the two fuselage halves together, test fit the wings and nose section. The front part of the fuselage tends to warp inwards and will require some spacing to make sure that you don't have a HUGE gap at the wing root join. Also, the nose section may have steps if the spacing is not quite correct. This caught me out quite badly and almost killed the build for me. Once I got past that, though, I really enjoyed the rest of the build. I think the addition of the PE and the Cartograph decals were a great move by Italeri and raise the kit to a new level

Clifford Keesler
I have their Spitfire MKVb, and have read about fit problems with it also, Mainly with the cockpit bulkheads and instrument panel being to wide. I think it is a re-boxing of the Accurate minatures MKVb. But it has the PE and Cartograph decals also.

Hayden Scott-Williams
If you're talking about the 1/72 Mk Vb then it's a rebox of their own tooling. Haven't built that one but I have found their own tooling to be a little hit-and-miss. I actually bought this one because I'd just finished their 1/48 Ju 87G-2 which was, in most respects, a superb kit (hell, Tamiya even did a rebox of the kit that it's based on!) but I can recall not being very impressed with one of their other kits (though which one it was escapes me right now 🙂 ). In the Spitfire line, I can recommend their Mk IX "Beer Truck" kit (which is a rebox of an Occidental Replicas (WHO?) kit). That was also a beauty, although looking at the completed kit, there seems something wrong with the spacing of the undercart. The thing I've found with their stuff is that it may not just drop together but the amount of additional work to get it fitting is normally fairly small and simple and well within the abilities of most modelers. In fact, to some extent, I actually prefer having to do the little extra work. It makes me feel that I'm actually 'modeling' rather than simply slapping plastic together 🙂

Clifford Keesler
It is their 1/48, and I agree with you I enjoy a challenge, that is why they call it modeling. I do not believe in unbuildable kits.