F4U Corsair Cockpit Stencils PDF Now Online!

A meticulously restored F4U-1D Corsair cockpit shows just some of the many stencils and placards that litter the cockpit. Our new stencil set will add life and interest to an already beautiful cockpit.

Hi Guys.

Another quick note to let you know that the Corsair stencils and placards instructions are now finished and uploaded to the Barracuda Studios website. Everyone who pre-ordered this set, and those of you who bought them in person at the IPMS nationals earlier this month have gotten instructions that did not include placement diagrams. This problem has now been remedied.

Click on the link below and scroll down to near the bottom of the page. Between the product description and the price is a link to a PDF. Click on that link. Print the pages and Bob, as they say, is your uncle.

http://barracudacals.com/proddetail.php?prod=BC32129&cat=33

Note that there are some decals on the sheet that cover different wartime versions of the F4U, and not all of the decals will be used on your model. Not that you can't use them if you like! There are even a few stencils only found in warbirds, and these are noted on the sheet.

Remember, these decals are TINY! Work slowly and carefully. For some of the bigger decals, you might want to cut them into smaller parts and apply them one at a time. In the end, I'm sure they will make a huge improvement in your Corsair model, surely bringing you a Best Of Show award at the next model contest (your mileage may vary!) and the admiration of fellow modelers. :-)

Finally, I'd love to see your work. Send me pics of your stencil sets (or any of the other new sets) installed in your model. Email me at:

barracudacomments@gmail.com

Happy modelling!  Roy

Hell Hawks and Corsairs and Tempests... OH MY!

The long awaited Thunderbolts of the Hell Hawks sheet in 1/48 is finally available! Featuring over 21 aircraft, 19 of which have never been done in decal form before.

Hi Guys.

Just a quick update today. A full show report and commentary will follow. But for today, a little news update for our customers.

The nationals was a great show, and I am still trying to dig out of the vast pile of orders and emails that piled up while I was gone.

Those that have purchased the new Hell Hawks decal sheet will find that the printed instructions are very basic. The full instructions, which are quite exhaustive, will comprise 26 pages. It was decided that this was too much to include with a decal sheet. It would have pushed the price up by at least 8 dollars. making the sheet over 32 US dollars.

What we decided to do was to make the instructions available as a free PDF download. You can print the entire booklet, or just the pages that you need. There is a link inside the decal sheet instruction sheet to the site where the download can be found.

Don, the artist and researcher who is doing this, is working hard on it and hopes to have it done and uploaded sometime this week. I will make an announcement when it is up. Sorry to keep you waiting. As you know, August is the month when most folks take their vacations, so many things slow to a crawl till the month has played out.  Hey, where's MY holiday? :-)

A closeup of some of the Corsair cockpit stencils to show the level of research and fine detail represented on this sheet. They are are really tiny, but , like the P-51D cockpit stencil sheet, 

will really bring your cockpit to life!

As to the Corsair stencil decal instructions, that one's my fault. I am in the final stages of laying this out. It will go up as a PDF download (nice and big) on the website, at the bottom of the product page just below the price. Stop back later today and you should find it there, ready to download.

http://barracudacals.com/proddetail.php?prod=BC32129&cat=33

Working hard to get caught up on orders. We should be there by Wednesday latest.

Happy modelling!  Roy

Coming soon! 1/48 Special Hobby Firefly Mk. I

Borrowed from my good friends at Aeroscale, here is a shot of the forthcoming Special Hobby Firefly in 1/48th scale.

This is good news for lovers of the Fairey Firefly. Apparently, a whole family of Fireflies is coming soon from Special Hobby. This shot is of an early production Firefly I with unfaired long barrel cannons and the early low profile windscreen. While the Grand phoenix firefly is still a nice kit, the special hobby kit sports much finer panel lines, which were my only real complaint about the kit, other than the few parts I made resin replacements for, such as the prop and spinner, the mainwheels (two styles), the cannon barrels (both long and short) and the replacement vac canopy.

Here is a link to Aeroscale's sneak preview article:  http://www.aeroscale.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=14377&mode=thread&order=0

The good new for modelers is that the BarracudaCast sets will also upgrade this new SH kit. The kit prop blades are a big improvement over the GP blades, but are still a little thick looking and lacking in outline accuracy. The mainwheels shown are the later 4 slot wheels as fitted postwar to all variants of the Firefly, but they have mixed up the wheel and tire, putting the balloon tire from the early 5 spoke wheel onto the 4 slot hub, which never happened. Finally, the vac canopy should be very useful to anyone who intends to display their model with the canopies open, or just for those who want thinner and distortion free clear parts.

Right now, the vac canopies are out of stock, but a fresh batch is coming shortly. 

I can't wait to pick up one of these new kits. Its a great time to be a modeler of British and especially Fleet Air Arm subjects!

Here is a link to the 1/48th scale page from the Barracuda website. The first 5 products are for the Firefly.

http://barracudacals.com/products.php?cat=14

Happy modelling!  Roy

Eduard's New Spitfire Mk. IXc in 1/48th scale

Hi Guys.

Yes, once again its been quite a long silence here on the blog. I am trying to rectify this and am planning at least a once a week update. There is just SO much other stuff to do! 

We have been very busy, as you can see by the pretty active release schedule we have maintained for the last 6 months. This will continue into the foreseeable future, and the backlog of almost-ready-to-go products is getting bigger all the time. There are about 40 products approaching release, and the only holdup is the time necessary to get them into production. It takes a lot of work to get a single product from concept to in stock status! And despite my lamentations, there is still only 24 hours in a day!

Now, on to the subject at hand.

For as long as I can remember, the Spitfire VIII and IX series has not been properly served in 1/48th scale. Back about ten years ago, Hasegawa gave us a newly tooled Spit IX which set new standards in quality and detail, but unfortunately suffered from an underscale (not short) fuselage. ICM was next with a very nice kit of the Mk IX. It was much better shape-wise and very detailed (with a complete engine compartment), but over engineered and suffering from some nasty shrink marks, poor decals, and crappy open ended, crush insistent boxes that actually concentrate and focus gravity waves (the science is very complex, so you'll have to take my word for it...) to ensure that the boxes end up smooshed.

Now, Eduard have released what is looking to be the closest thing to a perfect 1/48th scale kit Spit IX right out of the box. A full review will follow once the kit has arrived and I've had time to slobber all over it, but from what I've seen and read, its designed using excellent drawings and the molding looks beautiful.

The one comment I've heard, and seems to be backed up by photos, is that the roundels on the kit sheet are a bit brightly colored. Fortunately, there are plenty of aftermarket decals available for this kit.

And, what's this?? Why, Barracuda Studios just happens to have 2 very nice decal sheets just perfect for this new kit! While both sheets are now sold out in 1/32nd and 1/72nd scale, both are still available in 1/48th scale, but with the release of this new kit, will probably not remain in stock for too much longer. If you are looking for some interesting alternate schemes to the kit decals, you might find these interesting.

http://barracudacals.com/proddetail.php?prod=BC48004

http://barracudacals.com/proddetail.php?prod=BC48008

More 1/48th Spitfire flavored products are in development and will be available soon!

Happy modelling!  Roy