Hello everyone,
I’m a modeller form Portugal and this is my first post in this section of this great Forum (my other posts are in the ships’s section).
I’d like to know if you know something about the 1/72 aicraft kits of Hobby Boss from China. They have a new concept of kits. For example, the wing is of one piece, the fuselage is also of one piece… And how about the acuracy, forms, dimensions, details of the cockpit, ect.? Do you know something about this?
Many thanks in advance.
Filipe
Hi, Welcome to the forums!
Hobby Boss is brand new and I don’t think that any kits are on the market yet. (correct me if I’m wrong) That is a neat concept. I haven’t seen a review anywhere (not that I have gone looking either) so I don’t know about their accuracy or anything. I eagerly await the kits though.
Welcome Home and what he said 
Bud
Hobby Boss kits have been on sale in the UK for about six weeks. Basically they are designed and constructed like a diecast but moulded in plastic. They are well produced and made and virtually click together. No dimples or sink marks and very little flash. The mould seams are almost nonexistent. The cockpits are just a pit with perhaps a seat and a little peg for the control stick. It is almost impossible to add any detail and very difficult to paint. They are great for children who can glue them together quickly and paint them without filling and sanding the seams. They would still look quite good and much better than a regular kit built the same way. However I don’t think the serious modeller will have much use for them unless they wanted to build a lot of models very quickly and weren’t too bothered about having a very accurate, detailed replica. Fathers (or mothers) with young children who want to take part in the hobby might also find the range just what they are looking for. The price in the UK is £3.99 which is quite reasonable and less than Airfix were charging for 50+ years old re-releases of some of their kits. From adverts it looks like the price in the USA is the equivalent of £8 to £9. I wouldn’t pay that much. Hobby Boss also have 1/48 scale armour kits and looking at their website they also seem to be planning a range of 1/48 scale aircraft. Hobby Boss kits are also sold already assembled and painted under the name Easy Model.
Out of curiosity I bought the kit of the Spitfire Mk Vb. The cockpit is as I have already described. The propeller is extremely feathered.There is no indication on the fuselage side of the door but the starboard side seems to have an extra panel line not found on the original. On the upper wing surfaces the bulges over the wheel wells are at a peculiar angle (45 degrees) and don’t look right. Underneath the cannon bulges are very prominent and there is a wedge shaped lump of plastic in front that needs to be removed. Perhaps it is required by the moulding process? There are no doors for the undercarriage included in the kit which will have to be sourced from another kit or made from card. The undercarriage legs hand down vertically instead of being angled forward. The worse fault is the canopy which is overlarge and hangs over the fuselage by several scale inches.
The decals have two options, both for aircraft from Polish squadrons. Unfortunately the squadron codes are printed in white not sky.
BM144 RF.D 303 Squadron. This is Zumbach’s well known Spitfire with the Donald Duck emblem. In fact Zumbach flew three different Spitfires in succession which featured four different Donald Ducks. The scheme is generally correct but there are too many kill markings for BM144 and the style of the Donald Duck looks like it is based on a later Spitfire, EP594.
AD140 JH.H 317 Squadron. Apart form the white squadron codes the marking are spot on. The colour scheme however is risible. To begin with Spitfires in Polish squadrons never had red and white spinners. These only featured on their late and post war Mustang IIIs. AD140 was photographed in late 1941 at Exeter (hence the seagulls). It is obvious that it is painted Ocean (or Mixed Grey) and Green with Medium Sea Grey under surfaces, not Earth/Green/Sky. The spinner is Sky and the dark band was caused by oil leaking from a faulty propeller pitch mechanism.
When I first posted the photos/scans were fully displayed. Now they are too big. Sorry about that. When I have some time I will try resizing them. In the meantime try this link to see the them properly. Hope it works.
Hopefully the picture problem is fixed now.
Those “wedges” might be someone’s idea of how the landing lights would look, when they were deployed. As they would only have been used at night, and immediately retracted after landing, cutting them off would seem to be best option.
Edgar
Hobby Boss kits have been available in the Czech Republic for about two months and I recently took a look at the ME-109E in its box.
While you certainly couldn’t seriously take one of these to a competition or get a nut and bolt accurate replica from it, I can see where it would have serious appeal to beginners in the model hobby and for war gamers who want a quickly constructible representation of a vehicle for their gaming table.
If I were a war gamer, I would find them particularly attractive not only for speed and ease of construction, but also the low parts count would also result in higher durability to handling than the average model can cope with.
Edgar may well be correct. It’s such an obscure detail to include it hadn’t occurred to me. Also not found on later versions so another good reason to remove them.
Upnorth. The plastic used is quite soft and pliable and not brittle. The cannon barrels tend to bend rather than brake off.
I took a look at a first look review over on www.missing-lynx.com of their 1/48 T-34/85, and all I can sayis WOW. I want mine now.
Hello again,
Thank you very much for your great help.
Today I bought the F4F-4 Wildcat and I´m now comparing it to the line drawings and photographs of the Squadron/Signal’s In Detail and Scale Vol.65. With the exception of the aircraft lenght, the general kit dimensions seems accurate. However, I think it’s the line drawing’s length of this book it’s wrong (but I’m not sure), because I have compared it with my other Wildcat (of Academy). If one wants to detail the cockpit, one has to carve it with a tool like Dremel and put the Aires or TrueDetails cockpits. If not, maybe one can paint the cockpit in black or to put pilot figure to hide the lack of detail! The cowl flaps, represented in the “opened position”, are solid, so one must carve and hollow them out. Or one can cut them off and score the flaps in the closed position. There are no exaust pipes under the engine, so they must be made out of scratch. There are some holes under the wings to atach the tanks, but as these are not included the box, the holes must be filled. There are no detail inside the whell well. There are only the portbord foot step in the fuselage. One has to score the other one in the starbord.
You’re right when you say these are kits for the beginners or war gamers. The serious model builders maybe will build them as a quick weekend build or after a long and super detailed project. But maybe I’ll buy the F4F-3 Wldcat too…
Antoni, some years ago I tried to make two 1/72 Spitfires Mk.Vb (the Airfix and Revell one) , but unfortunately things went wrong. I couldn’t get the right wing diedral with the Airfix airplane and the Revell one doesn’t have the inverted gull wing. But Hobbyboss Spitfire Mk.V’s does have the inverted gull wing! Maybe we can combine these three kits, with the Hobbyboss major parts and the small ones from Airfix and/or Revell.
I can’t imagine how Hobbyboss could forget the undercarriage doors of the Spitfire or to make a too wide canopy!!!). How Hobbyboss can claim in their website that their models are accurate? Today, there are no excuse (and the low price of kit is not one of them) not to make these MAJOR details correctly. And they do make exquisite models, like the tanks (you’re right, Rudy_102) with full detailed interior!
Filipe
Filipe, in the Uk the Italeri Mk Vb costs about the same as Hobby Boss kit. It is much more accurate and there are enough spare parts to make almost any version. Internal and external armoured windscreens, two types of rearview mirror, trop air filter, two types of props and even a slipper tank and gunsight. It is so good Fine Scale Modeller gave one away free with the magazine a few years ago. Eduard also made a very cheap PE set for it. Get yourself an Italeri Mk V and save yourself a lot of work and you will even have a spare canopy left over for the Hobby Boss kit.
Please. The Italeri Spitfire Vb and IX are wrong.
They have nice decals, and a cockpit interior, and the canopy is ok, but they have a lot of inaccuracies:
I started making Ezra Eker’s Spitfire earlier this year … but I have put it aside.
Brews, I learned at a very early age that not everyone necessarily shares my opinions. You may not like the Italeri Spifire, fine, but a lot people do.
Martin Garrett, Model Aircraft Monthly, October 2006, page 49:
“My chosen kit was the excellent Italeri 1/72 scale Spitfire Mk Vb. … The Italeri offering is very nearly, (but perhaps not quite), perfect, and being only £3.50, (current UK price), is in my opinion the best injected moulded Mk Vb avaiable.” You pays your money and takes your choice.
I’m not going to dispute what’s “best” or “best value for money”. However, the Airfix Spitfire Vb is more accurate than the Italeri, despite not having good decals, subtle scribed panel lines, wheel well or interior detail. It IS accurate in outline. It’s not a case of paying money and taking choice. It’s balancing the choice by weight of effort to fill in recessed lines, or sand down raised lines … settle for underscale wings, or thin down thick trailing edges.
The perfect 1:72 injection spitfire has yet to hit the shelves, but the most accurate is from Airfix. If you want a quick build that looks half-decent, then the Italeri will be your choice, but it takes a lot more work to make it accurate.