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INFO
KITS
P-400 Air A Cutie 1/48
Avia B.534 III. série 1/72
SBD-5 Dauntless 1/48
Bf 108 1/48
EDUARD
Vol 15, January 2016
ISSUE 67
price US $ 0.00
Captain Hillin‘s Bloody Valentine
My father’s treasures
HISTORY
Gladiator
Naši se vracejí 1/144
Spitfire Mk.II cocpit
Fw 190A-8
BUILT
INFO
ISSUE 67
EDUARD
© Eduard - Model Accessories, 2016
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Accessories, Ltd.
CONTENTS
EDITORIAL
P-400 Air A Cutie 1/48
Avia B.534 III. série 1/72
SBD-5 Dauntless 1/48
Bf 108 1/48
January 2016
4
KITS
8
14
18
27
28
29
34
45
BRASSIN
PHOTO-ETCHED SETS
BIGED
RELEASE
January 2016
HISTORY
Captain Hillin‘s Bloody Valentine
My father’s treasures
BUILT
Gladiator
Naši se vracejí 1/144
Spitfire Mk.II cocpit
Fw 190A-8
ON APPROACH
February 2016
Issued by Eduard-Model Accessories, spol. s.r.o.
Mírová 170, Obrnice 435 21
support@eduard.com www.eduard.com
eduard
EDITORIAL
Dear friends and fellow modellers,
welcome to the first newsletter of 2016.
Thank you for your support over the past
year, and we hope that we will deserve
a continuation through the upcoming year.
We will attempt to give you all a long list
of reasons to make that come true, wea-
ther in the form of new products, or events
that we organize or support. In the case
of events, we will have our first of the year,
as has become tradition, at Norimberk, and
participation in home grown events will kick
Bratislava.
Turning our attention to products, we have
several items to settle left over from last
year. To that end, the oft asked question
why it takes Eduard so long to do every-
thing is relevant. The answer to that ques-
tion is simple: because Eduard does things
right. Past that answer, however, there arise
a long list of other questions,the most nota-
ble of which, for me, is what exactly does
doing things right mean? What makes a kit
regarding this theme. The writer praised our
models, but sees them as somewhat com-
plicated, and as an example, he presen-
ted the wheel wells of the Spitfire kit that
is made up of 16 parts. This is true, and
even I think that the construction is compli-
cated and somewhat tedious. but this was-
n‘t really something we could skirt around.
Those sixteen parts are an approach dicta-
ted by the tunnel of the well being cha-
racteristically angled with respect to the
wing axis. As an aside, this generated a lot
of discussion around the Spitfire, lasted
several days and had many contributors,
before the consensus was reached that this
oddity was not a fault lying with Eduard.
And furthermore, if this area of the kit is
to display some detail work that would gre-
atly enhance it, and that ultimately raised
the level of praise of this kit to that of one
of the best kits today, then there was little
choice but to approach the concept in this
way. Simpler approach would‘ve brought
a simpler result. You decide, which is better.
By nature, we tend to find the best com-
promise between complexity and simplicity
with maximum detail allowed by thoughtful
simplifying of the process. This end is great-
ly helped by current modelling engineering
considerations that include resin aftermar-
ket details. These raise the level of the de-
tail, for those who want that, and are willing
to pay for it. From my point of view, this
works well, but on the other, I wouldn‘t dare
to hope to not run into criticisms that often
times cross the line into hysteria. But even
that brings with it certain satisfaction. Take
as an example the current comparisons
of the poor Fw 190A-8 kit with the older
but excellent Hellcat, both in 1/72nd sca-
le. That the Hellcat is a better kit, that cu-
rrently appears to be without question. But
off with Prosek, and that will be followed
up with Moson in Hungary. There will be no
Brno show this year, which is a shame, but
I must admit that I fully understand the
reasoning behind having that an every-
-other-year affair. In the summer, we will be
in the US, in South Carolina, something
I am looking forward to like a little kid.
I love American history, and my list of things
to do and places to visit between Colum-
bia in South Carolina and Washington DC,
from where we will be flying home, would
take two months. So, over the spring, I will
begin to whittle said list down to something
manageable in the usual two week period.
Maybe three week...we‘ll see. If there will
be a show in Pilsen, we will go there, too,
and after that, it will be the usual seasonal
climax, E-day in the Butovice garage. We
will not be abandoning the garage, at least
not of our own free will. It‘s not only that the
number of critics of the venue died off, but
somehow, the venue has become our own.
Among other reasons,a significant amount
of our business, at least here at home, emer-
ged out of some garage, and a significant
percentage of it will stay in one. There is no
ulterior motive here. I have a certain amount
of pride in those beginnings. This year‘s
E-day, if it all goes according to plan, will
be unusually interesting, especially with
respect to our guests. More on that later.
A short time after E-day, we will be taking
part in the 24-hour Iron Bunny event at Bub-
lava. After that comes Novemberfest, but
weather or not we will be following Modell-
Brno‘s lead into an every other year for-
mat remains to be seen. We will make that
decision in the first quarter of this year and
your comments and suggestions on this ma-
tter are more than welcome. After this years
excellent experience at Telford, we intend
to be back, and the same goes for
4
eduard
a ‚quality‘ kit? Is it clean moulding, detail
finesse and fidelity, or well fitting parts?
It occurs to me that the better our products
are, the more intense their development,
criticisms typically concern less important
items that were relatively recently be-
yond the scope of criticisms. This puts a lot
of pressure on us to deal with these smaller
and smaller details. I see this very clear-
ly among developing 48th scale kits, with
the Fw 190A, Bf 109G and the Tempest.
In the case of all three, we kept their pre-
ceding experiences very much in mind, and
we focused on criticised and critical aspects,
and design times began to be exceeded.
Even before, kit design, especially details,
was always a time intensive affair, and that
doesn‘t even begin to address other design
steps, and if it continues this way, prep time
will get longer and, of course, more expen-
sive. This takes us to a dilemma. Modellers
want virtually perfect kits, as inexpensive as
possible and with as few parts as possible
that can be built quickly. A few days ago,
I read an interesting and I would say re-
presentative article on a modelling forum
INFO Eduard - January 2016
its a little like reminiscing about how much
better things were here under the commu-
nists, not to mention the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. It makes me happy, because I re-
member the initial reaction to the Hellcat
at the time of its release. Yes, it was very
critical. According to that initial reaction, the
kit was oversimplified, especially in the whe-
el wells, which sere deemed to be too sha-
llow, and ‚unmodelike‘ and the landing gear
likewise oversimplified (which is true, but
what should be expected from this scale?).
It was also accused of suffering from sha-
llow panel lines not allowing for wash appli-
cations, incomplete riveting, overemphasi-
zed flying surface separation lines, panel
lines that were not exactly variant specific,
engine that lacks detailing, same for the
cockpit, poor photoetching with a significant
raster effect and a wide cockpit. The tires
were said to be inadequate, poor weapons
options, wrongly shaped droptank, and the
worst off was said to be the Hellcat grin
on the front of the cowling.. Some of the
parts were said to suffer from poor fit. De-
cals, awful! The data could not be read,
and in all. they came off as ‚soft‘. Cartograf
is better. Even the decal options were said
to be poor, with better available. In short,
it came across as a tragedy, and another
missed opportunity compared to other kits
of this type offering no advantage, and well
short of Tamiya, and to top it off, the best
kit of the Hellcat was still considered to be
the good ol‘ Frog kit. I was quite disappoin-
ted at the initial response to our Hellcat kit.
As is my custom, I glued together several kits
prior to their release, and although a few
bugs did exist, I felt that the end result was
satisfying, and as tends to be the case, we
caught some of the issues before release,
some were realized later. In short, to me the
model came across as very good, definitely
this kit was re-released as a Weekend Edi-
tion kit, and and it was compared to the
Tamiya Corsair and that, in that regard,
it falls flat. I put both kits together as
a comparison, and I honestly didn‘t think that
the Hellcat noticeably lagged. So now, the
release of the Fw 190 brings with it a cer-
tain satisfaction, even a level of catharsis,
and admittedly, not a small level. The Hell-
cat suddenly is the example of the good ol‘
kit, achieving a standard not yet reached,
and maybe even cannot be reached again,
while the 190 has dethroned it as the king
of the missed chances, although I suspect
that the MiG-15 and the B.534 have done
the same to one degree or another. I just
don‘t understand why it had to take four
years. If it was just the Hellcat, but this
happens with every new kit, the only thing
different is the time any given kit needs to
achieve a level of acceptance. Even with
our most accepted model of our produc-
tion, the Spitfire Mk.IX, it took about a year.
I don‘t expect it to happen, but I would gre-
atly value if the official critics were able
to tweak their approach in critiquing new
kits. Criticism has its own value, as long as
it offers relevant feedback.
So, what are we working on? First off,
a new lease on life for older items. January
sees the introduction of the Avia B.534 III.
one that raised the bar, and a good star-
ting point for a line of kits in 1/72nd sca-
le, but it was met with this kind of welcome,
and it came under severe scrutiny. Recently,
Serie in a 1/72nd scale ProfiPACK kit. This
is an older kit, one that will not likely exci-
te anyone too much. What might generate
a bit more excitement, however, are
other versions of this famous Czechoslo-
vak bi-plane. We are preparing the I. ,II.
and Bk.534 versions and we would like
to box these through the second half of the
year. The Bk.534 is practically a new kit,
and inherits only the wheels, radiator and
propeller from its predecessors. Also the
canopy, actually. The I. and II. series are
derived from the current III. and IV. series
items, with some changes, most notably
new wings. The original wings were critici-
zed for having heavy surface details. We
have prepared a new procedure that we
would like to try here, and it should result
in greater acceptance. I have already been
faced with the argument that this will result
5
INFO Eduard - January 2016
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