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Scotia Grendel Collectair 1/300 miniature aircraft
Battle of Britain
Finally! I have gottenaround to reviewing the miniature airplanes of the 1:300 scale that Scotia puts out.
As a change, I will cover the majority of aircraft used in the Battle of Briatain. These are the aircraft that I reviewed:
ME-109E, ME-110, JU-88, DO-17, JU-87 Stuka, HE-111, Spitfire, Hurricane, Defiant, Beaufighter, Blenheim.
I ordered about $110 worth of miniatures from Scotia a couple of years ago, and most of them have been sitting idle in my to do box, but I managed to get
them out and start work on them.
CABS2 £0.75 Spitfire Mk I
The spitfire along with the ME-109E are the best sculpts in this collection. There is a nice amount of detail. They are easy to clean up, very little flashing, and no carving to be done on this aircraft. I wish the same
could be said for the rest of the Battle of Britain aircraft from Scotia. I do not have any bare metals to show for this aircraft to show, but I DO have some painted pictures of this aircraft that I will put up as soon as I get them back
from my friend Stu who was great enough to paint and decal them for me.
I was able to clean up each and mount a set screw for use with Airestands in a little under 3 minutes each, so not a whole lot of prep work. As is always the case, it was a little touchy mounting the
setscrew, but everything went off without a hitch once I got the first 3 done.
Generally a good sculpt I have to give it a 4.5! A good addition to your collection, very accurate and fun to work with.
CABS6 £0.75 Hurricane MK I
This would be an acceptable version of the Hurricane if it were not for a major flaw in the sculpt. The wings are not accurate at all. The rest of the aircraft is decent, but the Hurricane is my favorite aircraft of the World War 2 period,
and I tend to be a little picky when it comes to the sculpts of the Hurricane. The model cleaned up nicely, had enough metal to mount the set screw relatively easily, and painted up real well.
I did not take a raw metal pic of this one before my buddy Stu went to town painting it up, so I will post the painted version, as soon as I get it back.
I have to give it a 3.0, the wings are just not right.
CABS35 £0.75 Boulton Paul Defiant
I will try to be as dipliomatic as possible on this one: utter junk! I almost wept when I looked at the package of my three Defiants. They were pitted, twisted, wings bent to hell, with some bits missing out of the wings.
It took me about 35 minutes per defiant sculpting, cutting, shaving, crying, sculpting some more, before I could even call them close. I have to mold parts of the wing back after having to cut some off because the casting was so bad
that the wings didn't even look straight. Steer clear of this sculpt, dont waste your money. Seriously. Unless they have redone the mold, fired their casting staff, or gotten a decent pair of glasses, I would not
order this piece of junk again. I kept one of the least damaged ones from the pack and used it for the image here.
Next to the Do-17 this is the worst sculpt I have seen. I thought I had gotten my minis from the mistake bin. After calculating what it would cost to send them back, I decided it was not worth the effort.
I have to give it a 2. The worse sculpt/molding/casting I have seen yet. (Well, other than that load of Genestealers I got from GW ten years back!) ICK!
CABS15 £1.00 Bristol Blenheim I
This is a very decent reproduction of the Blenheim short nose. It was fairly easy to clean up, but required a little work on the (in my opinion) too-long propeller shafts. I had to file them down a bit, but it really was quite quick.
The turrret and other details on this aircraft were nicely done, and there was easily enough meat on its bones that mounting a set screw was a piece of cake.
While this aircraft only served a secondary role in the Battle of Britain, I thought it would be nice to have a vic of them in case we wanted to do a night fight, or an attack on German shipping or something along those lines.
I have to give it a 4. Nice model with very little clean up.
CABS8 £1.00 Beaufighter TFX
Another one I cringed at. Each of mine had gouges missing from their wings and the tails were bent to hell. I spent a goodly amount of time using putty and super glue to replace the missing parts of the
wings, and a nice pair of pliers and felt padding to bend the tail parts into their proper shape.
Other then the obvious flaws, the rest of the model is has fair detail and decent accuracy.
The molding needs to be cleaned up or redone on this. A 3 in my book. When I buy a model to play with, I want the uncrashed one.
CGSA2 £0.75 ME-109E
The ME 109 in the Scotia Grendel Collectair line is on par with their well done Spitfire. Nice lines, great detail, very easy to clean up, and a decent time putting the set screw into it.
It also paints up real nice, and when mine get their decals on, I will get the painted version online. Again, I was overzealous and started painting before I took pictures of them.
A good model with nide lines, historical accuracy and detail. I really liked the way these turned out. I will post a painted version when I get it back.
A very solid 4.5 from MNA.
CGSA20 £1.00 ME-110
The ME110 of this collection is okay at best for your tabletop. What I found is that the centerline of the aircraft is curved, giving the model a lopsided appearance that even a few good tugs with the
pliers couldn't strighten out for fear of snapping the thing. The tail fins were bent and pitted as well, and it took a while to remold them.
the engines also seemed a little too small for my liking, and the fuselage was a bit thick, so that while I was mounting a set screw in one, I drilled clean through it. Now, granted, I cant fault the model for my
clumsiness, but the fuselage needs to be a little thicker for better historical accuracy.
A 3.5 is all the higher I will go on this one.
CGSA5 £1.25 JU-88A4
This is a decent model with very little cleanup to it. Historically, it is acceptable, and if the nose were a little more rounded, it would get a higher score from me here.
The wings on mine all had a couple scarring spots, but once I slapped some putty on, it became a non issue. (In fact, you can see the scar on the starboard wing in the image here).
These look great pained, and were easy to mount the set screws for Airstands on.
I have to give it a Solid 4. Minor flaws, but really a nice, usable figure.
CGSA9 £1.00 JU-87G & D Stuka
One look at the raw metal figure and you can pretty much guess why I scored this model a 3.5. I hate putting on landing gear, especially when the landing gear are of two sizes, two short or do not match up with the bloody holes they are supposed to go into.
The aircraft itself is a good 4 rating. A little flawed in the rear fuselage, but overall okay. Its those darned landing gear that bring this aircraft down on my list. The wheel pods are so thin that you can hardly
drill into them to pin them to the wings, so I tried putty and glue, and when they snapped of a dozen times, I tried pinds, putty, glue and curses. I was able to get two out of four built with the landing gear of the other two being completely wrecked.
I am in the process of making some out of spare bits of lead.
One thing I learned was that if you are going to mount these babies, mount them BEFORE putting on the lending gear. if you have the set screws in first, then you can build a bridge of putty from the screw to the landing gear that will help to support the
landing gear as the glue is drying. Be careful if you are drilling to put in pins, and be triple sure that you drill straight, as you will not be able to bend the landing gear or pin without risking something snapping on you.
I am in no rush to complete the last two that are missing landing gear.
I have to give it a 3.5.
CGSA12 £1.50 HE-111H
The first thing I noticed about my HE111H models were that they were NOT HE111H's!!! They are actually HE111Bs that were used in the Spanish Civil War. I could find no reference materials in which the HE111H could in any way be confused with the HE111B model. So right off,
they sent the wrong model. I had the dickens of a time actually finding out what the heck they had sent me and was even more confused to find that they don't even list a HE111B on their airplane roster. So, rather than tisk any more money and mishap, I have decided not to procure the HE111H for fear of getting the wrong item again.
In all reality this is a review of the HE111B used in the Spanish Civil war, and NOT the HE111H.
This is an acceptable model, very little cleanup and easy to mount to the set screws. The wingsa are nice and accurate, and even the profile looks good historically. The dorsal turret needs a little finesse to get it just right, but really is not all that bad.
There is definitely enough metal to mount he set screws without any problems.
I have to give the HE111B a 4. They are going to have to send me a model H.
CGSA13 £1.25 Do-17z
First off, let me just say BLECCHHH! This is a terrible cast, the tail on all of my Flying Pencils were all twisted and bent, pitted, etc. There was so much flashing on it that I spent more time carving on each ONE of these than I
have for an entire schwarm of other aircraft. It really is a pitty, as the general structure is decent. All the work on the thin, bent tail really colored me on this casting. The model here isd after I spent about 10 minutes shaving, carving, and bending things back into place.
Granted, this is a £1.25 piece of lead, but man! Don't send junk out your door like this. It looks like it was bent to heck being pulled out of the mold.
I have to give it a 2.5. Poor cast.
Scotia Grendel Collectair Overall Rating
The Spitfire and the ME109 are by far the best models in this collection, with the majority of the others having some issues such as
pits, flashing, historical inaccuracies, and just plain old mushed up parts. I hope that they have redone some of the molds since I ordered last.
The cost is right, even if you calculate shipping these are far cheaper than most you can get in any retail store in the United States. I will give them
an overall rating of 3.5 until I can see some newer castings of the ones reveiwed herein.
Johann
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