Info-Eduard 2016 01, Modelarstwo
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//-->INFOKITSP-400 Air A Cutie 1/48Avia B.534 III. série 1/72SBD-5 Dauntless 1/48Bf 108 1/48EDUARDVol 15, January 2016ISSUE 67price US $ 0.00Captain Hillin‘s Bloody ValentineMy father’s treasuresHISTORYGladiatorNaši se vracejí 1/144Spitfire Mk.II cocpitFw 190A-8BUILTINFOISSUE 67EDUARD© Eduard - Model Accessories, 2016FREE FOR DOWNLOAD, FREE FOR DISTRIBUTION!This material may only be used for personal use. No part of the textor graphic presentations can be used in another publication in anyother media form or otherwise distributed without the prior writtenpermission of Eduard - Model Accessorie and authors involved.Editorial and Graphics - Marketing department, Eduard - ModelAccessories, Ltd.CONTENTSEDITORIALP-400 Air A Cutie 1/48Avia B.534 III. série 1/72SBD-5 Dauntless 1/48Bf 108 1/48January 20164KITS814182728293445BRASSINPHOTO-ETCHED SETSBIGEDRELEASEJanuary 2016HISTORYCaptain Hillin‘s Bloody ValentineMy father’s treasuresBUILTGladiatorNaši se vracejí 1/144Spitfire Mk.II cocpitFw 190A-8ON APPROACHFebruary 2016Issued by Eduard-Model Accessories, spol. s.r.o.Mírová 170, Obrnice 435 21support@eduard.com www.eduard.comeduardEDITORIALDear friends and fellow modellers,welcome to the first newsletter of 2016.Thank you for your support over the pastyear, and we hope that we will deservea continuation through the upcoming year.We will attempt to give you all a long listof reasons to make that come true, wea-ther in the form of new products, or eventsthat we organize or support. In the caseof events, we will have our first of the year,as has become tradition, at Norimberk, andparticipation in home grown events will kickBratislava.Turning our attention to products, we haveseveral items to settle left over from lastyear. To that end, the oft asked questionwhy it takes Eduard so long to do every-thing is relevant. The answer to that ques-tion is simple: because Eduard does thingsright. Past that answer, however, there arisea long list of other questions,the most nota-ble of which, for me, is what exactly doesdoing things right mean? What makes a kitregarding this theme. The writer praised ourmodels, but sees them as somewhat com-plicated, and as an example, he presen-ted the wheel wells of the Spitfire kit thatis made up of 16 parts. This is true, andeven I think that the construction is compli-cated and somewhat tedious. but this was-n‘t really something we could skirt around.Those sixteen parts are an approach dicta-ted by the tunnel of the well being cha-racteristically angled with respect to thewing axis. As an aside, this generated a lotof discussion around the Spitfire, lastedseveral days and had many contributors,before the consensus was reached that thisoddity was not a fault lying with Eduard.And furthermore, if this area of the kit isto display some detail work that would gre-atly enhance it, and that ultimately raisedthe level of praise of this kit to that of oneof the best kits today, then there was littlechoice but to approach the concept in thisway. Simpler approach would‘ve broughta simpler result. You decide, which is better.By nature, we tend to find the best com-promise between complexity and simplicitywith maximum detail allowed by thoughtfulsimplifying of the process. This end is great-ly helped by current modelling engineeringconsiderations that include resin aftermar-ket details. These raise the level of the de-tail, for those who want that, and are willingto pay for it. From my point of view, thisworks well, but on the other, I wouldn‘t dareto hope to not run into criticisms that oftentimes cross the line into hysteria. But eventhat brings with it certain satisfaction. Takeas an example the current comparisonsof the poor Fw 190A-8 kit with the olderbut excellent Hellcat, both in 1/72nd sca-le. That the Hellcat is a better kit, that cu-rrently appears to be without question. Butoff with Prosek, and that will be followedup with Moson in Hungary. There will be noBrno show this year, which is a shame, butI must admit that I fully understand thereasoning behind having that an every--other-year affair. In the summer, we will bein the US, in South Carolina, somethingI am looking forward to like a little kid.I love American history, and my list of thingsto do and places to visit between Colum-bia in South Carolina and Washington DC,from where we will be flying home, wouldtake two months. So, over the spring, I willbegin to whittle said list down to somethingmanageable in the usual two week period.Maybe three week...we‘ll see. If there willbe a show in Pilsen, we will go there, too,and after that, it will be the usual seasonalclimax, E-day in the Butovice garage. Wewill not be abandoning the garage, at leastnot of our own free will. It‘s not only that thenumber of critics of the venue died off, butsomehow, the venue has become our own.Among other reasons,a significant amountof our business, at least here at home, emer-ged out of some garage, and a significantpercentage of it will stay in one. There is noulterior motive here. I have a certain amountof pride in those beginnings. This year‘sE-day, if it all goes according to plan, willbe unusually interesting, especially withrespect to our guests. More on that later.A short time after E-day, we will be takingpart in the 24-hour Iron Bunny event at Bub-lava. After that comes Novemberfest, butweather or not we will be following Modell-Brno‘s lead into an every other year for-mat remains to be seen. We will make thatdecision in the first quarter of this year andyour comments and suggestions on this ma-tter are more than welcome. After this yearsexcellent experience at Telford, we intendto be back, and the same goes for4eduarda ‚quality‘ kit? Is it clean moulding, detailfinesse and fidelity, or well fitting parts?It occurs to me that the better our productsare, the more intense their development,criticisms typically concern less importantitems that were relatively recently be-yond the scope of criticisms. This puts a lotof pressure on us to deal with these smallerand smaller details. I see this very clear-ly among developing 48th scale kits, withthe Fw 190A, Bf 109G and the Tempest.In the case of all three, we kept their pre-ceding experiences very much in mind, andwe focused on criticised and critical aspects,and design times began to be exceeded.Even before, kit design, especially details,was always a time intensive affair, and thatdoesn‘t even begin to address other designsteps, and if it continues this way, prep timewill get longer and, of course, more expen-sive. This takes us to a dilemma. Modellerswant virtually perfect kits, as inexpensive aspossible and with as few parts as possiblethat can be built quickly. A few days ago,I read an interesting and I would say re-presentative article on a modelling forumINFO Eduard - January 2016its a little like reminiscing about how muchbetter things were here under the commu-nists, not to mention the Austro-HungarianEmpire. It makes me happy, because I re-member the initial reaction to the Hellcatat the time of its release. Yes, it was verycritical. According to that initial reaction, thekit was oversimplified, especially in the whe-el wells, which sere deemed to be too sha-llow, and ‚unmodelike‘ and the landing gearlikewise oversimplified (which is true, butwhat should be expected from this scale?).It was also accused of suffering from sha-llow panel lines not allowing for wash appli-cations, incomplete riveting, overemphasi-zed flying surface separation lines, panellines that were not exactly variant specific,engine that lacks detailing, same for thecockpit, poor photoetching with a significantraster effect and a wide cockpit. The tireswere said to be inadequate, poor weaponsoptions, wrongly shaped droptank, and theworst off was said to be the Hellcat grinon the front of the cowling.. Some of theparts were said to suffer from poor fit. De-cals, awful! The data could not be read,and in all. they came off as ‚soft‘. Cartografis better. Even the decal options were saidto be poor, with better available. In short,it came across as a tragedy, and anothermissed opportunity compared to other kitsof this type offering no advantage, and wellshort of Tamiya, and to top it off, the bestkit of the Hellcat was still considered to bethe good ol‘ Frog kit. I was quite disappoin-ted at the initial response to our Hellcat kit.As is my custom, I glued together several kitsprior to their release, and although a fewbugs did exist, I felt that the end result wassatisfying, and as tends to be the case, wecaught some of the issues before release,some were realized later. In short, to me themodel came across as very good, definitelythis kit was re-released as a Weekend Edi-tion kit, and and it was compared to theTamiya Corsair and that, in that regard,it falls flat. I put both kits together asa comparison, and I honestly didn‘t think thatthe Hellcat noticeably lagged. So now, therelease of the Fw 190 brings with it a cer-tain satisfaction, even a level of catharsis,and admittedly, not a small level. The Hell-cat suddenly is the example of the good ol‘kit, achieving a standard not yet reached,and maybe even cannot be reached again,while the 190 has dethroned it as the kingof the missed chances, although I suspectthat the MiG-15 and the B.534 have donethe same to one degree or another. I justdon‘t understand why it had to take fouryears. If it was just the Hellcat, but thishappens with every new kit, the only thingdifferent is the time any given kit needs toachieve a level of acceptance. Even withour most accepted model of our produc-tion, the Spitfire Mk.IX, it took about a year.I don‘t expect it to happen, but I would gre-atly value if the official critics were ableto tweak their approach in critiquing newkits. Criticism has its own value, as long asit offers relevant feedback.So, what are we working on? First off,a new lease on life for older items. Januarysees the introduction of the Avia B.534 III.one that raised the bar, and a good star-ting point for a line of kits in 1/72nd sca-le, but it was met with this kind of welcome,and it came under severe scrutiny. Recently,Serie in a 1/72nd scale ProfiPACK kit. Thisis an older kit, one that will not likely exci-te anyone too much. What might generatea bit more excitement, however, areother versions of this famous Czechoslo-vak bi-plane. We are preparing the I. ,II.and Bk.534 versions and we would liketo box these through the second half of theyear. The Bk.534 is practically a new kit,and inherits only the wheels, radiator andpropeller from its predecessors. Also thecanopy, actually. The I. and II. series arederived from the current III. and IV. seriesitems, with some changes, most notablynew wings. The original wings were critici-zed for having heavy surface details. Wehave prepared a new procedure that wewould like to try here, and it should resultin greater acceptance. I have already beenfaced with the argument that this will result5INFO Eduard - January 2016eduard
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