PaperModelers.com

Go Back   PaperModelers.com > Card Models > Kit Reviews

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 12-08-2020, 09:46 AM
ccoyle's Avatar
ccoyle ccoyle is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Greenville, South Carolina
Posts: 1,049
Total Downloaded: 0
Curtiss Mohawk from Answer - 1:33 - 2019 design by Lukasz Fuczek

Summary: Awesome kit subject, nice graphics, terrible build experience.

Hello, gentlemen.

I haven't posted any reviews here in quite some time, but I thought I would toss this one out to you. I have always liked the lines of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk, so I was quite excited to see this one from Answer available on line. The kit is designed by Lukasz Fuczek, who probably needs no introduction in this forum. The kit is dated 2019 and became available very early this year. The kit shows an export version of the P-36, the H-75 or Mohawk in RAF service, in the colors of an Indian Air Force training squadron. The printing is quite nice, and the coloring exhibits some nice weathering. I purchased the kit and a set of laser-cut formers.

I really wish I could say that I enjoyed building this kit, but sadly it had a number of unforunate -- and surprising, for a Fuczek design -- drawbacks that resulted in an early termination of the build. These included:
  • Formers and skins that did not match up well, e.g. wing formers that required nipping and tucking to fit the dimensions of the wing skins.
  • A lack of joiner strips for fuselage sections.
  • A substantially oversimplified engine assembly.
  • Inner and outer skins that combined to form overly thick parts.
  • Sometimes baffling construction methods, e.g. wing to fuselage fit. I had to cut away a substantil portion of the fuselage skin at the wing roots in order to get the wing to fit, as well as trim about 3 mm off of the wing's trailing edge to get it to fit into the fuselage bay. Fortunately, the wing fillets were able to hide all the surgery.
And last, but certainly not least:
  • Incomplete and often incomprehensible build diagrams.

The final item on the list proved to be the deal breaker. By the time I got around to assembling the landing gear, I had already had to navigate my way through several head-scratching assembly sequences that were not clearly illustrated in the diagrams, required no small amount of guesswork, and resulted in parts being left over thanks to their being both not illustrated in the diagrams and having no obvious location on the assembled model. The landing gear were especially irksome in this regard, thanks to the P-36 already having a complex set of gear doors, and after much time spent trying fruitlessly to figure out the construction sequence, and not having any fun while doing so, I finally decided enough was enough. So this kit has been packed off to the Island of Misfit Models.

As I suggested earlier, this is not the kind of experience one would expect to have with a Fuczek design, so I'm rather disappointed with the outcome, especially since the P-36 is one of my favorite warbirds. However, I still have Lukasz's Ki-43 Oscar from Orlik in my stash, and upon close scrutiny it does not appear to have the same shortcomings as the Answer kit. So hopefully, that one will be much more enjoyable to build -- whenever I get around to it.

Cheers!
Chris
Attached Thumbnails
Curtiss Mohawk from Answer - 1:33 - 2019 design by Lukasz Fuczek-hawk1.jpg   Curtiss Mohawk from Answer - 1:33 - 2019 design by Lukasz Fuczek-hawk2.jpg   Curtiss Mohawk from Answer - 1:33 - 2019 design by Lukasz Fuczek-hawk3.jpg   Curtiss Mohawk from Answer - 1:33 - 2019 design by Lukasz Fuczek-hawk4.jpg  
__________________
Chris Coyle
Greenville, SC
"When you have to shoot, shoot! Don't talk."
Reply With Quote
Google Adsense
Reply

Tags
answer, curtiss mohawk

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:07 PM.


Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.

Parts of this site powered by vBulletin Mods & Addons from DragonByte Technologies Ltd. (Details)
Copyright © 2007-2023, PaperModelers.com