My apologies but there are no pics yet. Just reporting in. I’ve started working on the new 1/32 P-39D from Special Hobby. So far, it’s sort of a mixed bag. There’s some nice detailing in places but in others, it sort of gets lost in the mold. It’s the soft style gray plastic. The instructions are a bit confusing as you can interpret assembly in more than one way. The box is nice. The packaging is nice. The decals look excellent. The moldings are ok. Some flash here and there but nothing obscene. There’s some PE from Eduard - mostly seatbelts and some resin. Well, only 3 parts in resin, two of which are the engine exhausts.
There aren’t many pin guides for assembly, mostly all flat surfaces. There’s a couple small ones around the edges of the fuselage but I have a feeling they are going to be rather worthless when the time comes.
The front wheel well assembly is very tricky. Again, the instructions aren’t really clear which surfaces get glued together. Some of the small parts have large injection mold tags on them. You have to be very careful when removing small pieces as they may break in half.
Still, it’s going together fairly well and looks like it might be very nice when finished. I’ll post more as work progresses. I’ve been waiting for a 1/32 P-39 for a long time!
-Ro
p.s. There are several parts on the trees that are marked as “do not use”. These look like they might be parts to future versions.
Would love to see some progress pics. The P-39 has always been a favorite. And Ro, whats the deal? You live in GIBSONia and it looks like you are playing an PRS? Maybe I’m just old fashioned loving my Les Paul.
Yes please keep us posted on this build. I might be interested in adding one to my stash. Of course I would like a good build review before I lay my cash down. As far as some of the parts being hard to remove from the sprues may I suggest using a razor saw to cut them off the sprue well away from the actual psrt then sanding down the sprue till you get to the part. It sounds like the plastic is of the same type from the early Classic Airframes kits. You are definelty correct the are brittle and will snap if pressure is applied incorrectly when using cutters to remove then.
heh. The PRS is my second guitar (although a very worthy second!). It’s a 1988 Custom 24 with a one-off paint scheme of blue, black and silver. My main guitar is a custom made Ibanez UV-7 Universe 7 string that I had custom made YEARS before the young whippersnappers in Korn and Limp Bizkit popularized them (7 stringers). LOL! Exactly how the UV-7 ended up being my main guitar is a long story but if I am not playing it, I am playing the PRS. Sorry to say but both are better than any Gibson I’ve ever played - and I’ve been playing for 39 years and have played tons of different guitars. Oh man…now I really feel old…[sigh]
I’ve played some other guitars that have played nicer than my Paul, but I haven’t played ANYTHING in about 15 years. I sold all of my gear except the Les Paul and a Dean Markley practice amp. It just wasn’t fun anymore and I knew I wasn’t going to make a living out of it. I have a 1980 Silverburst Custom that I changed the humbucker with a demarzio (is that right? I did it 25 years ago) in the treble position. Between the pick-up and the different sound that came from the silverburst paint (Gibson said that the high metal content in the paint affected the pick-ups) it sounded great.
Actually, that was quite popular to do some years ago. Way back, a good friend of mine took his brand new '79 Les Paul Black Beauty Custom and replaced the pickups with MightyMights (ugh!). Around 10 years ago, I bought it off him for a paltry $400, shortly thereafter I installed some Gibson '57 classics, thereby restoring the guitar’s soul. It is one of my favorite guitars now.
Not to hi-jack the thread, but I have two PRS guitars ('87 CE-24 & ‘90 EG-1) that will be buried with me - my Les Paul florentine is the secondary axe in my stable, along with my Ric and several other Gibs, and a couple Carvins…don’t play any of them enough, but sure do like lookin’ at 'em!
