The Little World

I get to choose my own holiday presents. The best way to do this is to go to the shops, buy them, and hand them over to the people who plan to surprise me. They do surprise me too – when they reimburse me.

This was one of 2020’s lot – a Mister Craft cheapie snuggling amongst the Messerschmitts and P-51’s. I’ve built Mister Craft kits before and find them to be curate’s eggs, but some of the results have been so good as to justify the gamble.

I know very little of Polish aviation, but a previous Mister Craft re-boxing of a Heller PZL dive bomber was such a nice build that I thought to give it a stablemate on the Polish shelf. And I am a sucker for planes with gull wings – I built an ICM Soviet biplane fighter with a top gull wing and loved the shape.

The box opening was a little less encouraging than with the previous Heller-re-box. I have no idea where this mould originated, but it may be native Polish – certainly the sprue trees and flash areas suggest that they are learning their trade from the beginning…

The plastic also has a peculiar ” dirty ” look about it that reminds me of Mach 2. I don’t mean to to be mean when I say that – but there are swirls of darker colour in the grey. Perhaps they were moulding something in a darker styrene before they poured into this mould. The surface texture is markèd, though some of that is deliberate – the upper surface of the wing is designed to look very fabric-like. I wonder what will happen with the decals.

Now Mister Craft decals have been intriguing in the past – look good on the paper but break apart easily in the application. I distrust them, but have plans to re-enforce them with an acrylic spray before they are cut out. I do want to use the Polish scheme as opposed to the Greek, Turk, Bulgar, or Romanian ones…however it will have significant clear carrier space between the lettering and this has silvered in the past. More on this as the kit develops.

Instructions are typical Mister Craft – offering more in the drawings than exist on the sprue trees. I think their designers and moulders should coordinate better with the graphics department. The latter is more skilled than the former.