> I'm a good way through the new Eduard 1/48 Sopwith Pup and I think it's
a
> little beauty! Excellent use of photo etch, nice injected pieces,good
> white metal. Looks like the real aeroplane. All you need to do is
> rig, and you'll have a fully detailed model, "straight out of the box".
and Matt responds:
>Not true, if you like accuracy. Eduard did the same thing that
>Airfix did, and forgot the exhaust channel and the kingpost at the
>rear.
The key issue is engineering of the parts. WAY back when I was an
undergraduate engineering student discovering I had no talent for pattern
design I was taught a little that has stuck in the soup within my head.
Have a look at the halves of the Pup kit and note that you can't have the
exhaust channel without either
1) A complex 3 part mould way outside the means of a short run moulder
like Eduard
or
2) leaving a cutout and adding a exhaust channel part. Note that the
Eduard kits have generally only got simple but joins (fuse half to half,
wing to fuse), and the complications of moulding an accurately fitting
part which has to mate in other than one plane has been avoided.
Frankly, if I were designing it I'd leave the exhaust channel out too,
and assume that knowledgeable modellers would easily fix it, and
unknowledgeable ones would never know !
However, I think they copped out on the kingpost, since some etch and a
piece or two of rod would put the deficiency to right admirably.
Shane