Scale Plastic & Rail

Royale Resin 1/48 Latest releases

Royale Resin 1/48 Latest releases

One of my favourite resin producers of the moment has to be Royale Resin. Doug produces some of the best looking and creamy smooth resin parts, plus he’s a darn good guy too! I was over the moon to receive a new pack of review stuff, but would it be as good as the previous items I’d seen?

My review pack contains the following:

First up on the ‘slab’ is the F-16 set

F-16 Antenna Upgrade

A slight diversion here from Doug’s excellent weighted wheel replacements, is this upgrade set for F-16 kits. This set comprises of one block of resin parts, 1 sheet of resin parts, and a replacement radome. A colour instruction sheet is also included. This splendid set includes the following parts.

All parts are perfectly cast in Doug’s creamy coloured pale yellow resin. No blemishes or other mould faults are to be found anywhere. The radome has an easily removed casting block with a ‘buffer zone’ of resin so it may be removed without touching the main part. The remainder should be ground down then on wet ‘n day paper. The antenna come on a single casting block and all parts are easy to remove.

A small flat sheet or resin incorporates the remaining parts. Again, easy to remove, these parts are beautifully cast with some very fine detail. A total of fifteen parts are presented on this sheet.

The instruction sheet is superb and clearly shows where all items need to be fitted, and where there is a little rescribing to be done, this is also clearly depicted.

Royale Resin have made it clear that not all of these parts will be used at once, but rather a combination of them, depending on the variant or individual machine you wish to depict. In case of a screw up, some of the smaller parts are duplicated for your use.

So what do we think?

This is a must have set for the F-16 enthusiast, and even if your kit has some of these parts in plastic, these would still be very good as replacements due to the great casting work. Highly recommended.

Overall 9/10

 

 

F-4C/D/E/F/G Phantom II Weighted Wheels

This is a simple but effective upgrade set for pretty much any model Phantom II in 1/48, with the variants mentioned in the title. Four beautifully weighted wheels are cast in RR’s creamy yellow resin, and each has a small casting block with a very small contact area to the part. The detail on these has to be seen to be believed. All hub detail, including ribs and bolts are crisply rendered, as is the tread detail. I really should model more in 1/48!

So what do we think?

Another no brainer. The consistency of casting, along with both detail and very reasonable costs make this a vital component for any jet modeller. Highly recommended.

Overall 10/10

 

Ju-88 Replacement Spinner Back

This set should pretty much fit most manufacturers of Ju-88 kits, as well as most variants of the Ju-88. Royale Resin don’t actually give any specific variant of Ju-88, but looking through some detail on available kits, I imagine that the Dragon and Hasegawa kits, in A/C/G variants are the main contenders, along with perhaps the Dragon Ju-188 kit.

 

The set consists of 2 corrected spinner backplates, plus the prop blade attachment parts, plus a resin template for finding the centre of the spinner so it may be correctly mounted to its attachment pin. Cast in creamy yellow, flawless resin, each spinner back has a relatively large casting block and an area through which to saw the block off. Once finished off, these are in turn sat into the recessed template, being the same diameter, and the prop pin position marked on, ready for drilling. That’s a far better idea than having to manually find the spinner centres as I’ve done so many times in the past.

So what do we think?

A set which is well worth having in order to improve the Ju-88 prop area. Very easy to use, and definitely recommended.

Overall 8/10

 

Ju-88 Weighted Wheels

To go very nicely with the previous item, is this fine set of balloon tyres, nicely weighted. Cast again from Royale’s excellent creamy yellow resin, this set of 3 wheels are flawless in their execution and very highly detailed. Royale haven’t made the same mistake as most other resin manufacturers when it comes to this type of German wheel, by casting the brake hose onto the part, but instead, a thin length of wire is supplied, and the necessary holes into which to place it. Please check your refs for the shape and position on this line, as unfortunately, no detail is supplied.

So what do we think?

I love the Ju-88 and these will look great on my own forthcoming build. Great product at a very reasonable price. Highly recommended.

Overall 9/10

 

So Where are the Wellington items? They will have a page to themselves as they are, together, quite special. Watch this space very soon.

 

Many thanks to Royale Resin for the samples used within this review. To buy any items here, or others from this range, click HERE or click on the banner below to visit the vendors site.