[WWI] 1/144 OT Kits

[jmikl2957 at comcast.net]

Some time back I bought six METAL 1/144 kits, to include a Roland C.II, Pfalz D.XII, R.E.8, Hanriot Hd.1, Nieuport 28, and another I can't find.  The kits come in plastic boxes with a small decal sheet and a colorful but basic instruction sheet in multiple languages.  However, the Roland instruction sheet DOESN'T MENTION THE NAME OF THE MANUFACTURER, ONLY THE KIT NUMBER!  Therefore, I can't help on ordering the things, other than to say I got them from some (unremembered) large flyer from Florida.  Model Mart?  Micromark (unlikely)?  There were perhaps 30 different offerings, but I only bought six to start, just to see if they were decent.

The kits come with three basic pieces, a fuselage with tail group attached, plus the upper and lower wings, with separate struts and various other items.  The metal on the smaller pieces is quite soft and overall pretty rough, but it could be filed and sanded to work it up (I've not tried yet).  As to accuracy, I'd have to scale down a 1/72 drawing to 50%, then place the parts on the xerox, which I also haven't done.

On the Roland there are no windows so you have to paint them in somehow, and the two cockpits are really just round holes, though there is an observer's gunring as a separate part.  The upper wings have relatively delicate impressions of wing ribs but the lowers are flat.

On the instruction sheet there's a color drawing of the Roland showing green, purple and blue, with fuselage Eisernekreuze on white squares, and with wing crosses with white surround.  The decals, however, are pretty simple affairs with no white at all, so I'll have to paint the white, unless I can get decals from hobbyshop.cz or wherever.

Maybe someday... (after I make some kind of dent in my plastic stash).  Perhaps if Hobbyshop has some stuff to enhance these puppies...

                                            Mike
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