I too really enjoyed the Tamiya P-47 kits.I also enjoyed the Hasegawa P-400 Aircobra
The Accurate Miniatures 1/48 B-17G! What a fantastic piece of work!! Oh wait, that is just me wishing again.
Sorry…
I was about to say!!! I’d be pretty mad at myself if I somehow had missed that one.
tamiya hands down for the P-47
tamiya and eduard for the early BF 109 and hasegawa for late 109’s
tamiya for the early spitfires Mk.I and Mk.5. theres a couple of brands for the mid and late spits. you either want accurate or fit. ICM is accurate but the fit is not there. hasegawa has good fit but isn’t accurate.
1/48th B-17G from Accurate Minatures…he got me with that one too!
Definitely a beautiful cockpit, using Prepainted PE or not. I’ve used it in the past and it’s not automatic so nicely done. Anyway – One way to get incredibly small ‘dots’ of paint is to use a toothpick. I blunt or cut the end to the diameter I want and touch it to the inside of the top of the paint jar, then practice on a spare piece of plastic till I get the size I want. Good luck!
A kit you don’t see a lot of is the Mustang III, so I really liked doing the RAF Mustang III in 1/48 from Tamiya. It has the Malcom hood (of course) and the interior OOB has good detail without driving you crazy. Any of the Tamiya Mustangs are wonderful, as are the Eduard P-39/P-400 kits. If you want added challenge - get the Eduard Profi-pack kits that come with photo-etch.
http://s1301.beta.photobucket.com/user/chris_nicoll1/media/Evelyn1_zps08731cc3.jpg.html?sort=3&o=
I did the Revelle PBY and the Doriner DO 217E last year had a good time doing these two. ACESES5
I concur that the Tamiya P-47 series are great. Actually, in my opinion, they are the best plastic model airplanes in any scale. I also agree that you need to check out the P-47 Group Build. There is some great work in there. If interested, somewhere in there you should be able to find my Tamiya D-5 Razorback (IMO is better than their Bubbletop) which has some build tips and tricks, along with a tutorial on rigging the R2800. I don’t know about opening the cowl, but I have a technique for rigging the radial with a harness. Its another option with no surgery needed. If you want to just see the tutorial, see the link below.
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/2/t/149327.aspx
Hope this helps,
Joe
I’ve got an admitted Navy bias, but here are some of my 1:48 favorites:
Accurate Miniatures: TBF, SBD
Revell/Monogram: ProModeler SB2C (don’t confuse with the older Helldiver kit). I also love the old Monogram kits from the 60’s: the F4F, SB2C, TBF, SBD, F6F, P-38 & P-51. Even the ones with all the moving parts are generallly accurate shape-wise and are good starting points for scratch-building details.
Airfix: Seafire.
Mark
Best 1/48th WWII models with OOB accuracy in mind, in approximate order from best at top to least at bottom:
Hasegawa Hawker Typhoon cardoor (not bubble)
Revell Ju-52
Hasegawa J2M3
Hasegawa C6N
Hasegawa F1M
Finemolds A7M
Tamiya F4U
Tamiya Ki-46
Hasegawa FW-190A-5/6/7/8/9
Zvezda Me-109F
Tamiya A6M
Finemolds D4Y3
Hobby Boss TBF-1
Zvezda La-5FN (would be at the top with AML conversion canopy parts)
Monogram B-17G
South Front Yak-1
Eduard I-16
Eduard Me-108
Note the specific sub-variant here implies the other variants from the same moulds are not so well done. I ignored the wrongly walled-in wheel wells of the Typhoon, as I feel the kit is so superior otherwise this can be overlooked.
Unlike the often-heard mantra that “there are no perfect kits”, the first ten kits on this list have virtually no flaws, except for a mild error on the shape of the FW-190A’s prop blades, and a moulded solid rudder trim tab actuator on the F4U…
By contrast, the often mentionned Tamiya P-47D/Ms kits are a long, long way from being anywhere near this list: The fuselage’s sides and cowling are not paralell in plan view, being “swollen” instead by one mm each side at cockpit level (admittedly hard to see, but awful just the same). Far worse: The canopies of all versions are poor accuracy-wise, the old Otaki being far better in both fuselage and canopy outlines at least, if not for the overly heavy canopy framing, although the Tamiya wings are much better (and can be adapted to it).
The Hasegawa P-39 is the best P-39, but has too thin wingtips and the wing is mounted 1 mm off according to a factory station dimensions drawing. The Monogram fuselage corrects this, but the wings look crude in comparison, and the Hasegawa wings can be thickened at the tips and adapted to it…
Avoid at all costs the Eduard FW-190A/Fs which, even with a ton of corrective Karaya resin, are still hopeless, especially in the 20% too wide canopy. Similarly, stay well clear of Accurate Miniature’s career-ending B-25s, if you care about non-fictional looking models that is…
Avoid the Eduard P-39s as well (about 6X too blunt leading edges), the Hasegawa P-40s (windscreen width again), and virtually all the Spitfires, until we see what the incoming (and apparently excellent) Eduard Mk IX looks like… Many Tamiya kits are dreadful accuracy-wise, especially the Fi-156, and none more so than their recent Il-2M3, with its 1/53rd scale canopy (according to the Flying Heritage Collection’s Il-2M3).
1/32 scale often seems to be doing much better these days, and in twelve short years has produced a better selection of accurate kits than sixty years of quaterscale “big size” market dominance… There are exceptions though, like the recent Revell He-219, the utter disaster of which can be marveled at in a roughly 30 page thread on LSP’s WIP section (30-some pages of flaw spotting before any work has even begun…). For once, the Tamiya one in 1/48th is better!
Gaston
You must forget the Eduard 1/48 ww2 kits. The profi pack series is outstanding.