the Hasegawa 1/32 Mustang offering? I have seen several for sale and they average in price around $15. This seems quite affordable for any 1/32 plane. Any opinions?
I built one not too long ago. I say it is an ok kit. I ran into some fit issues but that may have been my lack of expreience. But I would build another one, deffently for that price.
It’s not a bad kit but not a great one either. Check out Large Scale Planes for several good builds of the kit with commments on accuracy and fit. What it comes down to is how much work you want to do and what you are happy with.
Well, the only kits I’ve ever worked with are Revell/Monogram (also never done one larger than 1/48) so I imagine this will be a step up regardless. I landed the Man O’ War Hasegawa kit and it will soon be on it’s way!
Blunce,
I’m working on one right now. The fit and the overall quality is not too bad but there’s still lots of room for improvements. The wheel well details in the Tamiya 1/48 kits are far better than the 1/32 Hase offering. The radio compartment behind the pilot’s seat is mediocre at best. It’s not bad but at this scale there could sure be a lot more. I know there are after-market sets out there for the cockpit and radio area. If you don’t mind paying twice what you paid for the kit then I suppose one could invest in these. I decided not to for budgetary reasons. Also, at this scale it’s not too hard to add your own improvements without much effort.
The gun bays are, again, okay but are not the most accurate. This is most obvious when you compare the Hasegawa gun bay up to a picture of the same area in the P-51 Detail & Scale book. In fact, I’m using this as my resource. I’m pretty much using the kit instructions to put the plane together and I’m using the D&S book to make the corrections. I’m not going overboard but I’m just trying to hit the most obvious areas.
The kit comes with a Merlin engine which I think is fairly decent. This too can also be improved but I’m not going to display it with the cowl off. The cowl is slightly wider than the rest of the fuselage below it. The kit has many fine raised rivet details which I’m going to hate losing when the sanding starts. I know 99% of the world hates raised rivets but on this kit they are vary finely done and not overstated at all.
There are a couple of deep troughs…er…I mean panel lines along the fuselage which are quite prominent. I don’t know why Hasegawa singled out just a couple but they did. I think I’m going to fill those in just a little bit to lessen the trench like look of them.
So in a nutshell, the kit does have its faults BUT, if you can pick it up for $15 then it is WELL worth it. The kit is not bad at all. It just has room for improvement which you can do with just a tiny little bit of extra scratchwork here and there.
Hopet his helps,
Eric
Well, here is my build of the kit. I put some goodies into it. True Details resin pit, squadron vaacuform canopy and A WHOLE LOT of elbow grease. The main area of concern is the engine access cowling, and the spinner/prop gaps and mismatch. This is an “old school” kit, complete with raised detail. I shimmed, filled and sanded the cowling hood to a perfect fit, and also did some scratchbuilding in the engine compartment. If you want to realize all your modeling skills, this kit will make a decent looking stang:
regards,
Steve