SCALE MODEL NEWS

WE HAVE ALREADY LOOKED AT the 1:72 scale Zvezda kit of the Soviet/Russian SS-25 missile. Now we’ve built a kit, so here is the complete report. We also took the opportunity to add the conversion kit from LVM Studios. This turns the military missile into a commercial satellite launcher. Mat Irvine: The first task is to construct the Transporter-Erector-Launcher (TEL) vehicle. The first decision is to decide whether to build it for travel or launch. Optional parts are provided for the truck’s 14 wheels to be on the ground or raised on jacks for launching. However you can leave a decision for the rocket’s angle for the time being. The main task is really getting your head around the number of parts for the chassis - and working out which are for the travelling and which for the launch version. Most of these parts are very similar in appearance, and you need to cross-check constantly with the detailed instructions to make sure you have the correct items. This not exactly helped by two run...

The Tamiya January 2015 announcement at the Nuremberg Toy Fair of its own 1:24 scale kit of the Mercedes Gullwing was a delight to hear. Mat Irvine: The Mercedes-Benz 300SL kit will be a fully detailed static display model, produced with Tamiya’s usual attention to detail. The real car was built around a ‘birdcage’ tubular space-frame, and the kit ( below ) mimics this form of construction. It was because of this birdcage structure that the car ended up with its distinctive lift-up gullwing doors. Conventionally-opening doors would have been more difficult to hang, so the top-hinged doors came about. On the Tamiya model, these can posed open or closed. The fuel-injected straight six engine is also fully detailed, as is the interior. Plus the under-body pan is moulded in clear plastic, and can be left as such, so not to hide all that glorious tubular frame detail. Metallized decals are included for wing-mirror glass, name plates and the distinctive Mercedes-Benz star. There is nylon me...

INTERESTED IN NAVAL MODELS? Well, here's a kit that may have slipped in under your radar. It features the submarine that featured in the 1981 German film Das Boot (The Boat) which tells the story of a German crew and their vessel during World War II. Mat Irvine: The Airfix kit makes a small model at 1:400 scale, and it represents a type of sub that wasn’t particularly large in the first place, one of the points that the film demonstrates in showing the claustrophobic atmosphere on board. The kit supplies 52 parts ( below ) although only 36 of these are actually used. Some components are very small, so you do need to take great care during the build. The comprehensive plans are in six stages, and the neatly-printed box back ( below ) shows the finishing scheme in colour. Perhaps the oddest thing about this kit, bearing in mind the fiddly nature of many parts, is that it is available only as a Starter Set. However, that does mean that four Humbrol acrylic paint pots, a paint brush a...