New additions (2 of 2)

I have been known to start a new model for the weirdest reasons. A movie, a documentary I stumbled across on the Military Channel, books I’m reading. As I was reading the Schiffer Project X book on the Ho-9 (while getting ready for the Go-229 build), they mentioned a foursome of the plane’s contemporaries that were in various states of development when the war ended. Me-262, Ar-234, Ju-287, and He-162. Though I own them all as kits, I was amazed to find that I had only built one of them, the Me-262. So out came the DML Ar-234 and He-162 and the Huma Ju-287.

Both of the DML kits are from their first big effort at 1:72 aircraft. These models were notorious for looking great in the box and not fitting at all. The Ar-234, for being multi-engined, is surprisingly small.

The Ju-287 was one of the later Huma products, and was one where they used their technique of producing plastic pieces that were amazingly small and delicate. Almost like photoetch, but in plastic, these pieces used regular styrene glue. Much of the cockpit details are on this small fret, along with some exterior details. I have no idea exactly how they did it – or what they made the molds for these bits out of. But no one seems to have pursued the technology since Huma went toes-up. A definite loss for those of us with an abiding distaste for photoetch and superglue.

I’m on the fence about the last kit that I pulled out after seeing it in the Ho-9 book: the Planet Models Gotha P-60 project. Although it is an interesting shape (the upper view is reminiscent of an F-117 of all things), I already have a Planet Models resin in the queue, the Northrop N1M. So this one may return to the garage and await further inspiration.

So that should give you a flavor of what will be coming to a blog near you in the next few months. I can’t guarantee that others won’t be added or that some of these won’t drop off the list, but if there is one thing you can say about the Lord High Executioner of 72 Land, it is that he is a capricious cuss.