Scale Plastic & Rail

About Us

Well, here you'll find all the information you want about Scale Plastic and Rail. We are dedicated to giving good honest reviews of scale plastic and rail model products, if you want to send your products into us at SP&R then us the contact us section.

Now lets get onto the reviewers - if you dare read on, each reviewer has written a brief article about themselves and their modelling history to give something behind the reviews they write

Thomas Mayer

Now, this name doesn´t sound too British, doesn´t it? This is for I am the only German reviewer at SP&R so far. My good friend Jim Hatch invited my late in 2010 to do reviews for his website. I had no clue how much friendship and fun was ahead of me!

Born in 1962 it was my father who made two bad mistakes when I was about eight years old: first, he banned me from going up to the attic and play with his Lindbergh B-17 model and second, he gave me my first model kit to be built by myself!

The old B-17 with four electric motors taught me how to disassemble a plastic kit, so my fun was short...

My life as a modeller really started with the first kit he gave me as a gift: a Messerschmitt Me 109 by Aurora Plastic Corp. This kit got me into a hobby I never stopped to have fun with!
 

I have never forgotten the raspberry coloured plastic and the box art! This kit has made such an impact on my life that I began to search for this kit again about 10 years ago. With some luck I found one that now has a place of honour in my display cabinet!

Over the decades I did build everything I could get. Ships, tanks, aircraft, cars, guns, whatever piqued my interest. Building slowed down when getting more skilled and ambitious, but buying kits never slowed down until the last years. I even made an excursion into radio-controlled tanks, building Tamiya´s big 1/16 scale King Tiger and having fun driving it in mud and snow! When Tamiya´s released its 1/16 scale Tiger I full option kit I immediately bought it, buying some expensive aftermarket stuff to improve it over the years.

Realizing that I would not be able to build all the kits I have bought I started to sell most of my car kit collection and ships. I began to concentrate on aircraft kits (mostly WWII in 1/48 scale), tanks (WWII, 1/35 scale) and a little bit here and there... You know what I mean!
 

Modelling introduced me to the history of WWII. In my school days the teachers did not touch Nazi Germany in history lessons, so I got myself some books to learn more. I also acquired a lot of books on the aircraft and tanks I got interested in, widening my stash of reference material more and more over the years. After all, doing research by books or the internet began to absorb a lot of time in place of working on my models. So I decided, after having finished Revell´s fantastic Ju 88 A-1 in 1/32 scale (to be seen in the gallery here on SP&R) to regain some fun by doing less research on a kit and build it instead!

Doing reviews for SP&R has opened a new and exciting door for me. To write my reviews in English is an interesting challenge and a chance to improve my knowledge of this beautiful language. Having spent a lot of years in the pre-print industry I want the pictures I do in my reviews of the highest possible standard I as a non-professional can achieve to the benefit of our readers and our valued supporters. But most of all the reviews that are done on SP&R are honest! This is what Jim Hatch told me to do when I started doing my first reviews: to tell the reader what I see, what I think of a kit, an aftermarket set or a book. We don´t write our reviews only to please the sponsor, we want to tell the reader what we as modellers have in our hands, what we like and what we don´t like. Honesty pays!

Happy modelling!

Jim H

I started building models around 1975, and since I was but a wee nipper, I started with the typical click-fit kits and the Airfix 'bagged' kits that hung on those wireframe carousels. Over the next few years, I must have built nearly all the kits available to me in my hometown of Darwen, Lancs. Pocket money was hard earned, and saving up for the 1/32 Matchbox aeroplane kits, then going down to town to pick them up was a real thrill. In the early 1980's, I was no stranger to Drem Models in Darwen Market Annexe, and I could be found there most Saturdays, with the very patient proprietor letting me open the boxes and taking a peek. I'd get insider information on the latest Revell or Italeri releases. Italeri was about my limit; Tamiya kits were beyond my reach for expense.

I carried on building every week and trying to improve myself when I also began to build models out of wood. For a while, I was a member of the Blackburn & District Model Aircraft Club and used to fly Control-line models on Sundays. I also helped my dad to build them too. Keilkraft was the order of the day. I carried on with my plastic building, experimenting with masks and the Humbrol rattle-cans and attempting to get that elusive professional finish. I failed miserably, but had great fun doing it. My plastic building ceased around 1992, when I went back, for a period, to building in wood. I began to design scale flying model aircraft for rubber-power and CO₂, and even Jetex. I designed a Hawker Hurricane model in around 1/18 scale, resplendent in scale stringering and panelling. This model was presented to Squadron Leader Andy Tomalin of the Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight, and now resides at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire.

I re-entered modelling again in 2001, by building timber warships and setting up a very large forum based website at www.modelshipworld.com,  catering for this topic. The site currently has over 12000 members and is the largest English language site of its kind on the internet. I actively built in timber until around 3 years ago when I began to hanker for placcy again. I bought my first return kit from P&S Hobbies in York; the 1/35 Dragon Pz. Kpfw. IV Ausf.C, and simply HAD to buy some resin bits for it, so opted for the CMK kit. Firstly, I'd never used resin and when I tried to paint it with a brush, the paints wouldn't cover. Yes, everything had changed, so I stripped the kit of paint and put it away. I needed an airbrush, no doubts. All signs had pointed that way and I'd tried to ignore it through airbrushophobia.

Eventually I bought an airbrush and began the learning curve, and here I am so far. The fear is conquered and I've built a shameful stash of around 60 kits so far; most of them being 'deals I coudln't resist' or 'limited run' kits. For aircraft, I model in 1/48 and 1/32 scales primarily. I have to say that I suffer badly from AMS, or 'Advanced Modeller Syndrome' which means that is any resin or photoetch part exists, then I HAVE to get it. I simply can't build a kit OOB anymore; it's shocking! Do I count rivets? No. I do want to get the best from my hobby though and not build in ignorance, so to some, I'm probably just a Joyless Modelling Nazi!!  On the other hand...I know I'm not. 

I enjoy modelling more than ever now, and this is my hobby for the foreseeable future. I can't ever see myself giving up. In the words of a respected modeller on my favourite website 'Large Scale Planes', they will have to 'take the kits from my cold dead hands'.

I also read Modern German History with the intention of doing a Degree at some time. I have an avid interest in militaria too, again, primarily German WW2.

Peter Buckingham

I am probably (well, not probably actually, but definitely) the oldest of Jim Hatch’s band of gallant reviewers. Suffice to say that I am old enough to have done National Service. Having said that, I am actually the modeller with the least experience, having only become interested in the hobby when I retired about three years ago. It had been announced in the modelling press that Tamiya were bringing out a 1/48 version of one of my favourite aircraft, the Fieseler Storch. I had to have one!

The skills gradually came and I was helped along the way by many fantastic modellers, one of which was Ted Taylor who had actually produced many of the display models at Hannants. I was enthused, and every model I completed I felt I was slowly improving, but it was a long apprenticeship. In fact, do we ever stop learning? With the completion of each model there was (and still is) always something I felt which could have been done better. I was never satisfied. In other words – the endless pursuit of perfection.

It was with this thought, and following  a discussion with Graham at Relish Models, that I decided to write a weekly column for Graham’s website www.relishmodels.com and the Peter Buckingham Column, ‘In Pursuit of Perfection’ started just over a year ago. Basically, it is the everyday story of (not The Archers on the radio) the thoughts, trials and tribulations of a modeller! Graham tells me that it is very popular and I certainly enjoy writing it. One good thing it does is to instil discipline into my model making because every model I build is written about and photographed for all to see warts and all. There is nowhere to hide!

To date, I have countless models tucked away in boxes in the loft and regularly attend two clubs, Medway Modellers at Gillingham and East Kent Modellers at Manston which, for atmosphere, is actually held in an old hangar on the airfield.

I have received much help from modellers at both clubs and I find it very refreshing that that they find time to help and assist an old fart like me with my sometimes bottomless pit of questions. I have also been fortunate enough to win some competitions, but what I really like to hear is constructive criticism – it is that which really helps to improve the breed.

I would say that the model which has given me most plaudits to date has been my version of the 1/32 Trumpeter Swordfish Mk.I which I completed about a year ago, and strangely, that very first 1/48 Tamiya Storch which I had put away for the first year of it’s life in order to preserve it from my inexperienced fingers. I have now built five plastic Fieselers in all scales. My latest, and sixth, is the smallest, it is white metal, 1/200 scale and purchased at this year’s Telford show!

As I write this, I have four projects on the go:

1/32 Paul Fisher resin Sea Fury T20 Trainer

1/32 Paul Fisher resin Hunter T7 Trainer conversion using the Revell Mk.6 kit

1/32 Marsh Models 1927 Supermarine S6 Schneider Trophy float plane racer

1/32 Special Hobby Polikarpov I-16

I have been involved with Jim Hatch and his website from virtually the start of the site and enjoy giving my thoughts and views on the kits, accessories, books et al so that the reader can obtain an unbiased view of the product.

Why should one so inexperienced be allowed the opportunity  talk on such things. For one very good reason, I have no pre-conceived ideas from times past on matters plastic. I tell it as I see it and I have slated a few that have come my way over the past year  where I have thought a manufacturer could have tried harder.

It is not just modellers that should be in pursuit of perfection.

Peter Buckingham

Nick Mayhew

Born in the early 1970s, I think I belong to the last generation for whom World War Two was still prominent in the psyche of most people. My Grandfather was in the 9th Royal Tank Regiment, and drove Churchills in Normandy, whilst my Great Uncle was a highly decorated sailor, serving on Vosper MTBs (motor torpedo boats). Just as important, during my childhood, I lived in Kent and East Sussex, the skies over which The Battle of Britain was fought.

My earliest memories of things historic or military are of “Dad's Army” on tv (it seems that programme is destined to outlive us all!), and of bursting with excitement every week when it was time for the next issue of  comics "Victor" and "Battle". The character 'Johnny Red' from the Battle comic showed me Stalingrad and the Russian Front; whilst "Charlie's War" (Victor) taught me all about the war in the trenches in WWI. But it was The Battle of Britain, the RAF's heroic stand against seemingly insurmountable odds, that always caught my imagination as a child.

Whilst I could proudly tell my friends how many guns a Spitfire had, or whether this or that was a Heinkel or a Junkers (the latter pronounced quaintly with a hard "j"), my attempts early at modelling were rather less accomplished. Embarrassingly, I can still remember using glue to stick on decals the first time I tried to apply them. My confidence grew, however, and from the age of about 6 to 13 I churned out kits at a prodigious rate in small scale aircraft and armour, with the odd foray into 1/48 aircraft and Star Wars.

Hubris did the better of me when I attempted Airfix's 1/24 monsters – they seemed almost as big as me I thought at the time: I started and failed miserably to finish their Ju87, Fw190 and Hurricane (they all  languished at the back of the wardrobe for decades). Still, I remember to this day the Christmas morning I looked at the end of my bed to find Airfix's Short Sterling AND Short Sunderland in my seemingly life-sized stocking.

As with many modellers, adolescent interests changed, and whilst I remained interested in military history, it was only back in 2000 when I quit my job as a trader in The City that I decided to get back into the hobby. Jumping straight back in, my first kit was Academy's 1/35 Tiger with full interior. I soon discovered that the hobby had changed immeasurably in the intervening 15 years. Beyond all the changes in moulding technology etc, I believe it is the internet which has had the most profound effect on our hobby, but that's another story...

These days I have moved up the scales, mainly because my eyes simply cannot see anything in 1/72 anymore! So it is 1/35 armour and 1/32 aircraft for me at present. My interest in The Battle of Britain remains, along with British Normandy armour, anything related to the North African Campaign and the siege of Malta (both Axis and Allied). To compliment that, I am also interested in subjects relating to WWII Czechoslovakia, as my fiancée (long suffering, and very patient!) is from Prague.

Whether it be a Battle of Britain plane that crashed nearby, or German plane stationed in Plzen, Czechoslovakia (a current build), I find my interest aroused far more by subjects which have some “personal” meaning or connection to me. This is especially the case now that there is a seemingly endless list of modelling subjects on offer. I still don’t consider myself a “good” modeller, but I do try hard and, far more importantly, I really enjoy it. I will happily confess to “flying” any plane I make around the room, both during and at the end of a build!

Outside of modelling? My City days are long gone and I am now a coin and antiques dealer. I live in an old farmhouse in Kent, with my fiancée, our cats (Spitfire and Hurricane – what else?), our chickens and a few sheep. The ‘mrs’ and I have both love the outdoors, and try to grow as much of our own fruit and veg as possible. I love sport - cricket, rugby, tennis and the NFL. I am lucky to have a gym at home, played rugby until a couple of years ago, and still play tennis regularly. Oh and my local pub has a Heinkel 111 propeller blade on its wall, so even when I’m having a nice pint of bitter, the “hobby” is still close at hand!

Robin Jenkins

My first ever model was built with the help of my Dad back in early 1969 when I was 8; somebody bought me an Airfix 1/72 B-29 Superfortress as a Christmas gift, and with my Dad’s help I was off and running.

Little glass bottles of paint started being bought with gusto around a year later, and then my interests widened, discovering armour, ships, cars and figures over the next five years. I also quickly learned that jumpers painstakingly knitted for me by my Mum did not go well with polystyrene glue! I also flirted with sci-fi and horror, building several of the Aurora “Glow in the Dark” monster figures.

Then Radio Control impacted on me and soon I was learning to fly and sail much larger models than I was used to building. I’ve kept going to one degree or another in both modelling spheres ever since, though I had to stop flying R/C after a bad neck injury a number of years ago.

Personally, I see modelling largely as a private affair; I enjoy going to the occasional major show and seeing other modellers’ work, but could never envisage entering anything I had built myself. Some may think this an odd stance to take, but I have always been comfortable with it. Perhaps it has something to do with the competitive nature of my working life; I always want my hobby to be a relaxing event – and I always want to improve.

My favourite modelling haunt was always ED Models in Shirley, Birmingham, before it closed a while back. I can think of nowhere that I felt more welcome as a customer, whether I was buying one pot of Humbrol matt varnish or the latest 1/350 Tamiya battleship.

I’m a strong supporter of the airbrush as a modelling tool, but haven’t really moved with the times. My Devilbiss 93 was bought in 1994 and I’ve never bought another since. Similarly, my Revell Profi compressor is nearly as old (although I lost this in a garage fire recently).

I love resin as a modelling medium almost as much as I love wood. Etched brass is best utilized, I feel, in the arena of ship modelling; in aircraft, car and AFV modelling, scratch building can often give an equal result and a greater feeling of achievement than using etched brass.

I’ve lived in many parts of the UK and have spent time with many modelling clubs everywhere. I’ve been a member at IPMS Avon, Avro Lancs, IPMS Milton Keynes, Medway Modelling Club, Sprues ‘R’ Us, East Kent Scale Modellers and IPMS Chiltern at different times to name but a few, as well as just as many R/C flying and sailing clubs

My modelling interests are wide and varied but centre around 1/35 early WW2 allied AFVs; 1/48 and 1/32 aircraft 1914-1945; aircraft carriers, destroyers, monitors and river gunboats of the same period; American cars of the 1930s and British cars of the 50s, 60s and 70s; and the Wars and actions of the Samurai, Napoleonic period and the second half of the 19^th Century.

My greatest modelling fault lies with faults! I tend to see faults readily in all models, in my own as well as others, and often miss the beauty, the skill and the quality on first examination. I’m never totally happy with anything I produce, but that could be seen as striving to ever improve rather than just being negative.

I’ve done a bit of reviewing previously, for my friend Roger Wallsgrove’s now defunct Mushroom Model Magazine. This was some years ago, but it taught me a style of review that I hope to continue here – make it honest, make it interesting and make it personal. (I’ve also contributed to specialist magazines for fishkeeping and classic cars over the years as well).

Models have improved dramatically over my lifetime, in all areas except one. I maintain that the sort of instruction sheets produced by Airfix in the late 60s and early 70s were the gold standard. They were clear, concise, a mixture of pictures and text and, above all, informative. They named the part and often told you its actual function. You learned about the subject as you built it. Compare this with any modern Dragon 1/35 armour kit; bar the name of the vehicle on the box, you learn nothing about the subject whatsoever.

Modelling heroes (and I have been lucky enough to know them all personally, though some have now sadly passed on to the great modellers’ den in the sky):

Figures – Sid Horton

Aircraft – Geoff Prentice

AFVs – John Sandars

Ships – Dave Abbott

Cars – Gerald Wingrove (in my view, the best modeller living in my lifetime)

R/C Aircraft – Brian Taylor

And finally, key models in my life, at different times, for differing reasons……………….

1972 - Tamiya’s original 1/35 M8 Greyhound armoured car, poor by today’s standards and needlessly motorized, but my first 1/35 AFV and my first Japanese-manufactured model.

1974 - Ray Lamb’s Taisho bowman made for Hinchliffe, 6” tall, animated and full of ridiculous amounts of colour and pattern, it showed me what good figure modelling was capable of producing, and took me 5 years to finish to a standard that I was happy with

1976 – The old Frog 1/72 Focke Wulf Fw 190A-3, complete with solid wheel wells and horrible decals. Important because it was the first time I was paid to make a model for someone.

1979 – John Piper’s 1/96 Flower Class Corvette. A quantum leap forward in ship modelling, with a multimedia approach which included a resin hull, white metal fittings and, wait for it,  sheets and sheets of etched brass, the first commercial kit to feature this medium so heavily

1980 – Tamiya’s 1/48 Brewster Buffalo I. I’ve never built a 1/72 kit since the day I bought the Buffalo

1994 - Cooper Details 1/48 Westland Whirlwind fighter, then first truly great multimedia aircraft kit, with high quality vacform, resin, white metal, clear transparencies, decals – it had it all.

1997 – Accurate Miniatures 1/48 Grumman Avenger series, still, pound for pound, the best aircraft kit ever released

2004 – D.B. Sport and Scale 81” wingspan R/C Spitfire 1a – the nearest mere mortals will come to flying a Battle of Britain Spitfire.

2009 – Wingnut Wings 1/32 Bristol F.2b – first world war modellers finally get a chance to join the modern world

And my favourite kit of all time? No hesitation, the Airfix 1/24 Wallis Autogyro “Little Nellie” from the James Bond film “You Only Live Twice”, first released in 1969/70. I’d need a website of my own to explain why!

And top of my wanted list? A decent 1/32 or 1/24 Boulton Paul Defiant, a 1/16 Vickers VIB tank and a 1/350 model of the carrier HMS Glorious. Ah, we can all dream……..

I certainly have a life away from modelling, with an original degree in Genetics and Microbiology, a postgraduate degree in Management and a career as a marketing consultant with my own company working in the Pharmaceutical, Healthcare and Medical Device industries. Prior to this I was also a photographer in the pop/rock music industry in the 1980s. My other passions in life are classic cars and the protection of endangered species of birds.