Aircraft Review
Kit No. #1191
Pros- The best Spitfire Mk IX in its scale
Cons- Where are the invasion stripe masks? I thought stripped spitfires was what the boxing was all about!
This kit was highly anticipated by myself, and I refrained from buying this until a limited edition came out, knowing it would come with extras and hopefully, a special boxing. I was rewarded for my patience, and Eduard released this Limited Edition boxing of their widely acclaimed Spitfire Mk IX. The Limited Edition boxing is pretty much a Profipack, except that it contains resin and it has a wider variety of boxart compared to the profipacks. Although not a large manufacturer of model kits in the scale of Airfix, Hasegawa or Tamiya, Eduard have built a name for themselves for their fantastic aftermarket accessories, the incredibly detailed and accurate kits and multimedia boxings containing masks, PE and Resin. This boxing contains resin for the bomb and it’s bay, 1 die cut mask, 1 Photo etch fret, 5 highly detailed sprues of grey plastic and a round wheel of clear parts. Box art is great, reflecting the Spitfire and its involvement in D-day. The surface detail is truly exquisite, with overlapping rivet rows as seen in the photograph below which was taken from the eduard Spitfire Blueprints. The rivets are truly a work of art and they are definitely the best I have seen in 1:48 scale. There is absolutely not flash present on the sprues. The double ribbed effect is rendered perfectly. Wheel bays have excellent detail to display. The engineering of the upper cowling is a little questionable, due to its two part nature, but it should not pose any real problem. There are 2 wing sets with this boxing, permitting the modeller to build a “c wing” or an “e wing” version. The clear parts are extremely clear with highly thin and in scale parts. There is a comprehensive fret of PE for the cockpit and exterior parts. The detail is superb as seatbelts, dials and various other instrumentation are replicated in PE in the cockpit. A grille for the carburettor intake are included along with wheel covers. The decals are printed by eduard. The decals looked fine and in register, although the Spitfire Mk IXc profipack boxing did have some problematic decals. The masks were up to the usual eduard standard. These were for the canopy only. It is a little disappointing that the masks for the invasion stripes were not included, as these can be bought from the eduard store. The resin for the bomb and its racks were sublime and there were no moulding imperfections. The casting blocks were extremely thin and the parts did not contain any resin moulding flash.
This is a highly recommended kit. The extra Brassin parts are sublime and the plastic itself has nothing to fault. The plastic is really amazing in all aspects and this kit overall is one of the best kits I have ever seen (in 1:48).
. Just wondering mate!
