The Little World

Those of you who read the reviews of Amodel kits from Ukraina here in the column may have formed the impression that they were clumsy things…and assumed that all the other products of the Eastern European scale moulding industry would be the same.

Cheer up – such is not the case. The 1:72nd Fairey Fulmar Mk I from Mister Craft is a little gem of precision.

It doesn’t have the heavy pin and socket guides that other major makers put into their kits – the things that slot the fuselage or wings together even if you are gluing in the dark. Mister Craft has a few guide nubbins and some internal shelf support for the cockpit floor, but you are still going to need to line up wing edges and fuselage halves by eye.

Ah, but even with my old eyes, these match up very well indeed. I followed the instructions and set the cockpit tray into the starboard fuselage half with the usual cynicism about whether anything would close up – and it all went perfectly. I was able to assemble the entire interior prior to painting with the assurance that it would settle correctly onto the port fuselage supports.

The wings dropped together with razor-sharp trailing edges and no nasties on the leading edge. Preliminary dry-fitting of fuselage and wings suggests that no filler will be needed. The Mister Craft people are several levels above their Amodel compatriots.

It’s a bare cockpit, but I’m not judging it badly for that. 1:72nd scale can be bare without looking sad, and I will be closing it in with the full canopy. I daresay the PE boys could spend weeks in there – but I prefer to do it out of the box.

So far a good Easter. This egg’s a sweet one.

Later note: The fuselage is together, the wings are on, the tailplanes are on. The merest scrape of a sharp blade to make it all meet perfectly, and the tailplanes didn’t need bracing as they set. I shall definitely buy more Mister Craft models as they offer.