Airfix 1968 Grumman Duck J2F-6 OA-12 Vintage Model Airplane Kit Unboxing Review
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- Опубліковано 17 тра 2024
- Howdy! Welcome back to the channel. Today we have our first Airfix kit on the channel. Box art by the late great Roy Cross. Typical of the 60-70s era Airfix kits with heavy rivets and poor molding it still has a lot of details other companies skipped at the time. Have you built one of these? Any experiences withe the Duck? Let us know in the comments. Thanks for watching!
Talking Roy Cross - his Sunderland and Stirling box art is among the most evocative and shriek "buy me!" back in the 60s. So I did!
Wonder if Airfix would have been as popular without Roy Cross
Yeah! If Airfix tooled the FW-200C then it could have been a dogfight dual with the Sunderland! 😁
Love these old kits. Roy Cross sadly passed away the day after his 100th Birtday.
..
He will be missed!
@@CelebratingVintageModelKits he most certainly will be.👍👍
Built this kit in around 1979. At a time when if one needed a Duck, the Airfix Duck was perhaps the only one in town.
Glorious box art. 👏👏👏👏👏
There was an ITC model in 1/54 scale. Glencoe repoped it boxed as 1/48. The original issue came with a clear blue wave base, really cool. I have the Ringo Toy issue of it that will be getting a review.
@@CelebratingVintageModelKits
I bow to your expertise!! Could we commence another scientific discipline called kitology or even kitolographic science? 🥸
Built this kit 2 years ago. A great kit. Fit was good and it's on my shelf. 😊
Thanks for watching! Send some pics in of your built kit. I am going to put together a vid of viewer built models of the kits reviewed. Email is in the channel description.
Good vid.
Nice tribute to Roy Cross too, his artwork sold those kits.
I completely agree! Without Roy there sales would probably be half what they were. I certainly got kits of planes I didn’t care much about just because Roy made them look so good!
I am just about to start building this kit in a later release and vale Roy Cross thank you for making my childhood memories fun.
Fantastic! Let us know how it turns out. I will be making a vid of viewers builds of featured models. Email is in the channel description if you want to send pics to be included. Thanks for watching!
@CelebratingVintageModelKits I have sent you a email, hopefully you have received it.
Kind regards Matt
@@matthillsscalemodels7067 it ended up in spam. Just sent you a reply.
I built that kit back in the mid 1970s. I remember being very pleased with how it turned out.
Thanks for the comment! Glad to hear its a good builder.
Good photos and historical information on this aircraft, interesting subject.with new decals and some detailing to the basic kit it will probably build into a nice model.😊
A couple viewers have sent in their builds of the Duck and will be in an upcoming video. They look great!
I built one just recently from 90's boxing. Yes the parts needed a bit of clean up, and there were sink marks on it , particularly the top wing where the centre cabane struts fit . I did it in the US Navy three tone scheme after sanding the rivets down a bit. Turned out well and was really happy with it. I thought they had the bombs fitted for anti submarine patrols.
Thanks for comment. Yes, they were able to carry a pair of 100lb bombs. I was referring to the kit decals being for a rescue plane wouldn’t need bombs but they were probably planning ahead for future releases. Send in pics of your built one. Im putting together a vid of viewer builds. Email is in the channel description. Thanks for watching!
Not the most elegant float plane ever but cool enough to put on the list of float planes to buy. Found a version from Valom available new, may be others. Thanks for the vid. Cool history as always.
Thanks for watching!
I do have several of these kits in my vast Airfix collection .
Thanks for watching!
@@CelebratingVintageModelKits Fantastic info' many thanks
Never built one of these, but if Airfix re-released it in their Classic series I think I'd give it a go.
Hopefully they will!
@@CelebratingVintageModelKits depends on the condition of the toolimg
The Duck was re-released a few years ago, with a beautiful decal sheet printed by Cartograf. When I made my original one, I hated the decals, and 'Frankensteined' a set from other models. There wasn't much of an 'after-market' in the early 1970's. It's a nice kit, though.
Airfix has really stepped up their game when it comes to decals. Still have the one you built in the 70s?
@@CelebratingVintageModelKits - Sadly, no. Like a lot of my favourite youthful things, it 'vanished' when I left home. I have the reissue, and do intend to build that - I'm very fond of amphibian aircraft.
Built this one when it came out. For a single engine the aircraft is large and a good size model in 1/72.
I have one of the ITC 1/54 scale ones that will be getting a review. It is a big plane! One version of the kit even came with a clear blue ocean wave base
That’s cool
Thanks for watching!
1971 movie "murphy`s War" I think the Duck was one of the Stars of the film.
I haven’t seen the film but I’ve read the Duck is the star!
It's pretty obvious from your tanned hands that you're playing more golf and/or sitting at the pool than you are building. 😉With that in mind, I think many of us would really like to see some of YOUR builds. Can you come through on this? As always, really enjoy what you're doing. Please keep it up. Thanks!
I do most of my building on the course between rounds! Lol. Builds are coming. I have 4 on going right now. When I get one or two done I will make a build vid from the beginning.
@@CelebratingVintageModelKits Super!!!
Its not a bad kit when you take into account the age of the tooling.
It is definitely a product of its time. Trying to get more details than previous kits but not enough technology to not make them overly fussy.
@@CelebratingVintageModelKits exactly spot on
About the bombs, actually, this Duck could indeed bite you with a bang: according to page 2 of Ginter Books' volume on the Duck, their Naval Fighters Number 84, "Navy ordered one prototype, BuNo 9218, in the fall of 1932 under contract 26467 ... and had provisions for two 100lb bombs on wing racks." Page 39, "The Grumman J2f-2A Duck and VMS-3" has, "The aircraft were fitted with twin .30 cal machine guns in the aft cockpit and wing racks for mounting 100lb or 250lb depth bombs." Page 33 of Schiffer Books' "Legends of Warfare Grumman J2F Duck" has photo courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration showing "Five fragmentation bombs are shackled to the port underwing bomb rack of a J2F-1." Page 50 of same book mentions VMS-3 Ducks doing neutrality patrol in the Caribbean carrying 250lb depth bombs on wing racks. Page 100 of the Ginter book has that same 5 fragmentation bomb photo stamped with id number 4092 plus a photo of a single larger bomb with photo stamped 8096. Page 83 cockpit photo and diagram has "D" as the bomb release, it being a throttle quadrant looking thing placed ahead of and below the actual throttle quadrant. One more from the Ginter book, pages 58 and 59 have a walk around photo set of BuNo 00659 armed with a 100lb bomb under each wing.
Thanks for the detailed comment. Yes, they were able to carry a pair of 100lb bombs. I was referring to the kit decals being for a rescue plane wouldn’t need bombs but they were probably planning ahead for future releases.
@@CelebratingVintageModelKits Ah, as is now publicly obvious to even the most causal observer my brain took it as being about the Duck overall.
I wonder if the excessive thickness of vintage clear parts like these has something to do with how very brittle clear polystyrene is. Can't have disappointed builders cracking the canopy while handling it to install it, you know.
Could be a reason for Airfix. There were other makers at the time or earlier that were able to produce better clear parts.
I'm not sure it would have been a "company" called Warner Robins in Georgia. Warner Robins is a city in central Georgia not far from Macon and Robins Air force Base is adjacent to Warner Robins city. I believe the overhaul was done at Warner Robins Aircraft Maintenance Center on base. I don't recall what the maintenance center was named in the 1970s when I was a child, but a lot of B-52 and C-141 types came and went for maintenance.
Makes sense. The reference I found said Warner Robbins AMC. Thanks for the clarification!
@@CelebratingVintageModelKits We were there but Dad was in the Navy, go figure!
I have one of these i made about 15 years ago , at the time i was edging my way back into the hobby , I'd bite their hand off for an up to date 1:24 scale one Airfix ?
Thanks for the comment! I am collecting pics of viewer builds of featured kits for an upcoming vid. If you would like to contribute yours, email is in the channel description.
I think your comments about Airfix kits having excessive flash, poor canopies, etc. is a little too sweeping; and your comments about a lot of the kits having poor fit is IMO plain wrong. Certainly some of all of that affected some of the kits, and as a lot of the moulds got older the problems would get worse (and the successive changes in Airfix ownership tended to lead to some neglect of the moulds). However I think that most of the kits were just fine when they were new and continued to be just fine for some time, and as a boy in the '70s I built many with no issues; as an old man today I have more issues because I'm tempted to scratch-build stuff and try and correct obvious problems! I think Hornby are to be congratulated for taking real care of these ancient moulds, even occasionally doing new parts to replace particularly poor originals, and providing truly excellent decals that combine the "spirit" of the originals with genuine quality and a high degree of accuracy.
Thanks again for your comment. I agree with your sentiments. My point with this kit was this was 1968 and i think Airfix could have been doing better. This was the first issue of the kit so it shouldn’t have the problems that it would have after decades of mould abuse. I built a lot of Airfix kits in the 70s and 80s. Turned a couple of them into award winners.