Special Hobby 1/72 Piaggio P.108B

SPECIAL HOBBY 1:72 PIAGGIO P.108B

Reviewer: Paul Wherran (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 1 July 2008

Kit Details:

Special Hobby 1/72 Piaggio P.108B # SH72035

The Kit:

Not surprisingly for this type of heavy bomber the kit is packaged in a fairly large box and there are 150 parts in total inside. These are made up of approximately 90 limited run plastic parts, 47 nicely cast and detailed resin and 13 crisp and clear parts. The level of detail is typical of limited run type kits but overall is very good, with nice fabric effect and finely engraved panel lines. The instructions follow special hobby’s usual format although a little larger than other kits I have worked with given the size of the model and provides history, sprue map, assembly diagrams, four-view markings and humbrol paint information.

Instructions:

TBA

Construction:

The first stage was to remove the plastic parts carefully from the sprue and clean them up a little with a wash, removing some ejector pin stubs and other marks. The resin parts were also carefully removed from their casts and set aside ready for assembling.

Most of the cockpit area is covered by resin parts such as seats and instrument panels, however, overall there is not a lot of detail in the cockpit. There’s no sidewall or other detail and if you extend this to the interior, you find that this kit is sparse internally. There’s no option to open up waist gunner positions or to fit out the interior. I painted the interior aluminium based on information I have researched on the Net, but the instructions call for anti-corrosive dark green, so I will leave that up to you to determine your choice.

All the parts need very careful rubbing down given their limited run nature and preparation before they are affixed to each other. The standard statement of test fitting first applies throughout this project. With test fitting, tweaking and trimming it is possible to achieve quite a good fit of the resin parts inside the fuselage but when affixing the halves together, because of their size and the engineering of the moulding, needs very very careful alignment and time to dry afterward.

Upper and lower wing halves make up the large wing pieces and I found it best to assemble these with the engines and attach the full sub assemblies later to the fuselage. After giving the wings appropriate attention to clean them up a bit and test fit they were affixed into place. Meanwhile I added the tailplanes as well and found these fitted well but needed a jig to dry in the right position given the butt join nature of the attachment.

The first stage of the engine sub assembly was affixing the cowling halves together and adding the resin parts which are the air scoops. The engines were assembled separately and painted before inserted into the rear of the cowling halves. Again, the emphasis is on test fitting first and a bit of trimming to achieve a good fit. While this took a while to finalise more time was spent on putting the cowlings onto the nacelles where the fit is well under par. Initially I thought that because I had removed parts from the sprue and laid them out, even though I have what I think is a sound system to ensure the parts are not mixed up, there had been a mis match of the cowlings to their respective nacelle. But truth be known, no matter what combination or order I tried, the result was the same, a terrible fit with large gaps. It took a fair bit of extra work trimming, test fitting and the like to finally achieve a reasonable fit, which I will live with but am far from happy with. At this stage I left the propellers off until later.

With the major wing sub assembly completed they were carefully fitted to the fuselage and glued into place. Needless to say, a handy jig and enough time to leave to dry will aid in the process of getting this big bird to settle properly. Then it was time to move onto the various glazing areas. The only two notable concerns are some seam lines in between the two nose glazing parts, which is mostly covered by later painting and the belly gun glazing just does not seem to fit very well at all and required enlarging the hole. The canopy however was a surprisingly good fit after a test fit and small trim around the edges.

The landing gear and propeller assemblies presented no unusual challenges than you will generally find or expect in a limited run kit. A bit of clean up of the parts, test fitting and a bit of trimming here and there and everything goes together okay. The only real issue I found was that the propellers were not very clear in the instructions so I fitted them in a manner that seemed right! It must be said that overall construction was straight forward, a few challenges and issues as mentioned above needs to be taken care of, but then again this is generally to be expected in these kits.

Colour Schemes:

I was a bit disappointed with the colour options that the kit presents, hoping for a nice looking Italian warbird! Instead you have the choice of either a night bomber version from the Italian air force in upper olive green over black undersides with the markings, fuselage band and rudder cross all blackened as well, or a captured plane in USAAF markings. Naturally I chose the Italian night bomber version.

Decals:

A basic decal sheet is supplied with attempts at a blackened rudder cross and markings for the Italian version although there is no fuselage band supplied. The decals have a good register and are nice and thin but a little prone to curling in luke warm water. Once applied to the model they were hard to move and needed a bit of extra water to coax them but otherwise they bedded down very well and looked painted on once sealed in with a gloss cote afterward.

Accuracy:

Without too much reference material to compare I had to rely on a few photos and artist impressions as well as the dimensions as stated in the instructions, which concurred with one of those references I had. The finished product looks a convincing replica and the dimensions are almost spot on down to scale.

Overall Recommendation:

If you are prepared to tackle limited run kits that present a few challenges to overcome along with the fact that this is probably the only way you are going to get an injection mold version of this aircraft in this scale then I can certainly recommend this kit. It was an enjoyable build and a great finished product was the result.

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