Pilot Replicas 1/48 SAAB J29F Tunnan and some Hobby Boss J29F
Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2015 9:33 pm
Finally Pilot Replicas J29 is released! There where supposed to be two 1/48 Tunnan released during 2015, this and one from Hobby Boss. The Hobby Boss one ended up being 1/52 and the decals in that is a joke! So this is the only 1/48 scale fully styrene kit available of the Tunnan. Luckily it looks like it's a good kit, and is should be for the price you're paying for it, about 65€.
Nice box art, the box is sturdy top opening.
On the sides you have the three decal options and a couple of their other kits.
First sprue, Wheel wells looks pretty good, whighted tires are nice. But the two part wheels not so much and there are no tread detail at all. There are small amounts of flash on some parts, this is something that isn't too much of problem on these parts but it shouldn't be there on a brand new kit costing this much.
Second sprue is really nice and the elevators/horizontal stabilizer are covered in super fine panel lines and rivets.
Third sprue with a lot of small detail parts, most of them are really nice and crisp like the cockpit side wall. The control stick has way too much flash and will be a bit hard to clean as it's really thin. Also a couple of the parts like the seat and cockpit sides have a bit of a rough surface, I assume it's from vibrations during milling of the molds. It's not that deep and hopefully a coat of primer will cover it.
Forth sprue has the fuselage that is split into four main parts. I would suspect that they have done this to be able to release other versions later without having to redo the whole tooling. All of the fuselage is covered in super fine details and rivets, you'll have to put down really thin coats of paint not to cover some of the rivets. Also nice to see that some of the small air intakes are open, could use a bit of thinning of the edges but it's a good start.
Fifth and final sprue with the wings. Not much to say, well molded and covered in the same fine rivets as the rest of the parts. Only thing is there is a small dark grey brown spot on one of the parts. It's not dirt on the part, seems to be in the plastic I saw this on one of the other sprues as well but on that one it was on the sprue gate.
Clear parts are super clear and shiny, there are a couple of really small scratches on the top of the canopy not sure if you'll notice it in the end. There is a little bit of distortion but not too bad.
Small fret of PE with belts and mirrors, they could have fitted a couple of more parts on there. It feels pretty stiff so it might be hard to get the belts to look natural.
The decals are printed by Cartograf so they should be really good. The colors looks good and all in register and luckily the font isn't Comic sans as the Hobby Boss ones are. You can read even the smallest stencils, the text is about 0.25 mm high.
The instructions and decal placement are printed on thick glossy A3 paper folded once. The instructions are easy to follow with color call outs in Tamiya, Humbrol, Vallejo and FS595. The decal placement sheet and paint guide is really nice with good colors.
Overall the kit looks really good and if the fit anything like their J21 kit it should be almost perfect. The biggest problems for me are the two piece wheels with no tread detail at all and the flash on some of the smaller parts. Also considering the price of the kit I think the drop tanks should have been included and not just offered as resin for an extra 13€. But at the end of the day it's a 1/48 scale Tunnan! And I can understand the price as it's a small start up company, it's only their second injection kit, and I'm not sure how many kit's they expect to sell.
Nice box art, the box is sturdy top opening.
On the sides you have the three decal options and a couple of their other kits.
First sprue, Wheel wells looks pretty good, whighted tires are nice. But the two part wheels not so much and there are no tread detail at all. There are small amounts of flash on some parts, this is something that isn't too much of problem on these parts but it shouldn't be there on a brand new kit costing this much.
Second sprue is really nice and the elevators/horizontal stabilizer are covered in super fine panel lines and rivets.
Third sprue with a lot of small detail parts, most of them are really nice and crisp like the cockpit side wall. The control stick has way too much flash and will be a bit hard to clean as it's really thin. Also a couple of the parts like the seat and cockpit sides have a bit of a rough surface, I assume it's from vibrations during milling of the molds. It's not that deep and hopefully a coat of primer will cover it.
Forth sprue has the fuselage that is split into four main parts. I would suspect that they have done this to be able to release other versions later without having to redo the whole tooling. All of the fuselage is covered in super fine details and rivets, you'll have to put down really thin coats of paint not to cover some of the rivets. Also nice to see that some of the small air intakes are open, could use a bit of thinning of the edges but it's a good start.
Fifth and final sprue with the wings. Not much to say, well molded and covered in the same fine rivets as the rest of the parts. Only thing is there is a small dark grey brown spot on one of the parts. It's not dirt on the part, seems to be in the plastic I saw this on one of the other sprues as well but on that one it was on the sprue gate.
Clear parts are super clear and shiny, there are a couple of really small scratches on the top of the canopy not sure if you'll notice it in the end. There is a little bit of distortion but not too bad.
Small fret of PE with belts and mirrors, they could have fitted a couple of more parts on there. It feels pretty stiff so it might be hard to get the belts to look natural.
The decals are printed by Cartograf so they should be really good. The colors looks good and all in register and luckily the font isn't Comic sans as the Hobby Boss ones are. You can read even the smallest stencils, the text is about 0.25 mm high.
The instructions and decal placement are printed on thick glossy A3 paper folded once. The instructions are easy to follow with color call outs in Tamiya, Humbrol, Vallejo and FS595. The decal placement sheet and paint guide is really nice with good colors.
Overall the kit looks really good and if the fit anything like their J21 kit it should be almost perfect. The biggest problems for me are the two piece wheels with no tread detail at all and the flash on some of the smaller parts. Also considering the price of the kit I think the drop tanks should have been included and not just offered as resin for an extra 13€. But at the end of the day it's a 1/48 scale Tunnan! And I can understand the price as it's a small start up company, it's only their second injection kit, and I'm not sure how many kit's they expect to sell.
