OzMods
Scale Models is an
Australian company that produces kits and conversion sets. This latest
offering is their
little 1/144 Grumman Panther model kit. It is a injection molded styrene kit consisting
of styrene parts with 2 vacuformed canopies and a sheet of decals for 2 different
Panthers.
There are a variety of 1/144 kits
on the market and surprisingly enough they have very good detail....recessed
panel lines and such. As far as I know...this is a sweet little 1/144
Panther.
1/144 kits usually lack cockpit detail and also have very thick canopies for
their tiny scale. This kit does very well in these 2 areas and all other
areas for that matter. The cockpit on this kit has very good detail
considering it is 1/144 scale. Now....this isn't the sort of detail you'd expect to see in a
1/48
scale kit, but for 1/144 scale...the detail here is better than you'd find on
any massed produced kit. On main
stream kits, the cockpit is nothing more that blobs of plastic....but on this
kit you have a separate seat with molded in seatbelts and impressively done
headrest and seat detail. This seat would be very good detail for a 1/72
kit, but in 1/144 it is quite good. My
guess is you would paint the cockpit and follow that with a wash and drybrushing
to
bring out all the recessed and raised detail....switches etc. I could fit
3 of these cockpit tubs on my thumbnail......very small indeed.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
|
cockpit tub |
ejection
seat |
tail |
wing |
The instrument panel is quite
well done, considering you can get 10 of these on my thumbnail.....it is quite
impressive. The detail is recessed, so the plan here would be to paint the instrument
panel in the proper shade of grey(?) and add black to the recessed
instruments by doing a wash and maybe follow that up with some tiny amounts
of Future if you have the skill for that. Detail on
the wheels is quite well done and they even added hydraulic line detail to the main landing gear
bays.
|
|
instrument
panel |
main
landing gear bay |
The panel lines on the wings and
fuselage etc are all recessed and very fine....these should take a wash with
great ease. The kit comes with 2 vacuformed canopies, which is good for
those of you keen on opening up the canopy to expose the stellar cockpit
detail. The canopy frames are raised.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
fuselage
showing recessed panel lines |
vacuformed
canopies |
There are 2 decal
options.....both for the US Navy. One is a Grumman F9F-2 Panther,
123494/115/C on board the USS Midway in 1951. The second aircraft is
a Grumman F9F-5 Panther, 125584/201/B on board the USS Oriskany in
1954. For more details about the 2 different paint
schemes.....see the instruction sheets below to the right.
The decals are printed on a clear carrier film, so you'll
have to cut each decal from the carrier film separately, but this isn't a
big deal.....go slow, don't scratch the decals and you'll do just
fine.
|
|
The kit plastic is a hard
styrene....neither good or bad....just letting you know. I test fit some
major parts and they seemed to fit well with panel lines lining up etc.
There are 2 pages of B&W
instructions. Pretty straight forward stuff.
|
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
You can order this
kit
Drop by their
website for full details on ordering and prices.
I highly recommend
this kit for anyone wanting to add a 1/144 USN Panther to their display case or any
1/144 builders. If you've never built 1/144....then give them a
try....they are a great scale to build for a variety of reasons.
Special thanks to OzMods
Scale Models for the review sample.
Steve
|