Styrene

Styrene

Friday, July 14, 2017

SBS Macchi M.C.72 hydro speed record breaker completed (resin, 1/72nd)

 Here is this sleek and long neglected by the industry Italian speed record breaker that still holds its title for the category many decades later:
The model was photographed without beaching trolley, since there is none available at this point.
When the aftermarket industry comes up with one, I'll re-photograph the model. For other seaplanes I built I made the trolleys, but I am sure someone will come up with one sooner rather than later:
The kit review and building post is here:
http://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2017/06/sbs-172nd-macchi-mc72-record-seaplane.html
Beware that the box represents the plane without the aft fuselage belly surface radiator, but it is engraved on the kit. The plane flew with and without it, depending on the ambient temperature (season).

What I did like about this kit:
-The very appealing subject, until now execrably ill-represented by the industry.
-The sturdy box.
-Not a single part arrived broken, unlike other resin kits, thanks to the good thinking on part of SBS adding features on the casting blocks to protect the parts and bagging them properly.
-The casting is flawless, spectacular.
-The detail is truly amazing.
-The engineering is good...mostly.
-The decals are good and gave no problems.
-The instructions are good, but with a couple minor tiny glitches
-The aftermarket P.E. steel set* has the right rigidity; you may like to enlarge those locating holes just a bit on the model, as primer and paint build up.

What could be improved:
-The potentially problematic super-fine texture of the wing radiators, that has to be dealt with using the right approach, otherwise problems may ensue.
-The lack of a guide to get the floats parallel and at the correct distance of one another. This could have been obtained either with an aftermarket beaching trolley or a very simple four-part resin jig, or even a pattern for the modeler to make his own jig, or just a 1/72 scale top view. SBS missed the ball here.
-The not so good way the back legs attach to the fuselage (they attach very well to the floats, though)
-*It would have cost nothing to include one spare P.E. rigging wire length. If you lose one, or mess-up one, you are in trouble.
This other winged creature was present and curious during the photo-shoot:
I understand that SBS released another version of this plane (there were three of them built, two were destroyed) and some were modified during their lives).
Beware that the subject represented here is not in the same finish of the one currently at the Vigna Di Valle museum in Italy -with black exhausts, a long metal plate on the sides and intake duct in black-, but the plane at a different stage of its life.























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