attaching the intake ring requires
some care, as it is supplied as a
separate piece and requires a little
clean up before being attached
to the nose. Using superglue to
attach it, you have very little
room for error and it’s easy to get
it slightly off, making the intake
splitter vane not quite vertical.
The wings and tailplanes on
the F model are supplied without
any mounting support, so I added
small locator pins made from small
sections of dressmaker’s pins. I took
a little time to clean up and ensure
the mating faces were completely
square, removing the need for filler.
The underwing pylons are
provided separately, and these
were added next (note that the
instructions show them upside
down). Leave off the drop tanks, as
the team aircraft were seldom, if
ever, seen with them on. Note that
the pitot tube should also be omitted.
To make decaling the fin a
bit easier, I elected to leave off
the tailplanes at this stage. I
did attach the undercarriage
doors, although again, leaving
them until the end would have
made decaling a lot easier.
The cockpit consists of a seat,
decals for the seatbelts, and the
instrument panel. I added these
as the cockpit is quite visible
through the canopy. The cockpit
was painted using Ammo of Mig
Acrylic Zinc Chromate Green
and Citadel Miniatures Black.
Once the seat was in, I added the
vacform canopy, of which two
are (thankfully) supplied. The
masking was now added and was a
very welcome addition to the kit.
Oddly, the exhaust is moulded as
a blank face, so I used a small drill
to open it up to give it some depth.PAINTING
In each case the model was given
an initial coat of Halfords White
Primer. Once dry, the tail surfaces
were given a coat of Tamiya Gloss
White and the undercarriage bays
sprayed with zinc chromate yellow.
On both models the anti-dazzle
panel is olive drab, not black as
indicated on the F model. This was
sprayed and masked before paintingthe remainder of the airframes.
Both aircraft are natural metal
and I used Alclad Gloss Black Primer
as a base for this. I have had some
issues with Alclad metallics in the
past, and after some discussion
with Paul Fitzmaurice at w w w.
modellingtools.co.uk, I decided to
try the AK Extreme Metal range. I
used Aluminium, Dark Aluminium
and Duraluminium and they turned
out to be superb paints, spraying
easily and drying quickly enough to
allow masking after only an hour.FINISHING
You would think that for such small
kits, decaling would be quick. It
actually took quite a while, as being
so small it was too easy to disturb
one drying decal whilst trying to
place another. The decals themselves
are very thin, yet surprisingly
resilient, although they will fold
over on themselves if you give
them a chance. Fit was pretty good
overall and they responded very
well to Mr. Mark Softer and Setter.For the G model the scallops
on the tip tanks are provide as
the white section only, leaving
you to paint the tanks red and
blue before applying the decal.
The scallops are applied as three
parts, which makes life a lot easier.
It turned out that I should have
added the top and bottom sections
first, to make alignment easier.
The flag panel decal should
be ignored, as that came into use
in 1954 when the Luke AFB badge
on the port side was also replacedwith the team badge. The box gives
the correct markings for the 1953
scheme. One small point is that
decals 21 and 28 are transposed
on the instructions, but that is
easily spotted and remedied.
The F model comes with
markings for two aircraft, the lead
and right wing. I went with the right
wing aircraft as it lacked two very
fine red lines on the upper wing
surfaces. Otherwise everything
was pretty straightforward.Once everything was dry there
was a little retouching work to
be done before sealing the decals
with Johnsons Klear and adding
the undercarriage. The G model
nose gear leg could have done
with about a millimetre trimming
off to improve the sit and help
reduce the tendency to tail sit.CONCLUSION
Never having built a full resin kit
before, I was a little apprehensive,
but any fears I may have had were
soon put to rest. All in all, the kits
are very well produced and can
be turned into very nice models
without excessive effort – just a little
preparation of parts before joining
to make everything fit very well.
Miniwings should be commended
for producing such nice models in such
a small scale. I’d recommend this for
anyone with modelling experience
looking to branch into resin models.
My sincere thanks to Miniwings
for providing the review kit and
to Paul Fitzmaurice at Modelling
Tools for persuading me to try
the AK Extreme Metal paints.“MINIWINGS SHOULD BE COMMENDED
FOR PRODUCING SUCH NICE MODELS
IN SUCH A SMALL SCALE”
KIT REVIEWS
WWW.SAMPUBLICATIONS.COM • APRIL 2018 • 63
062-67-Reviews-0418.indd 63 09/03/2018 16:09