Rare-Plane Detective 1/60 Convair XF2Y-1 Sea Dart
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 This
limited reissue of the ancient Strombecker kit was produced by Mandrill
Manufacturing from the original tooling in 1989. My example is number
198 out of 1000 manufactured. I've never examined an original Strombecker
version but the molds were apparently pretty well-preserved. There isn't
much flash on the thirteen navy blue parts and a dry fit shows no assembly
problems other than warped fuselage halves. The only other piece provided
is a sheet of clear plastic from which to cut cockpit windows using patterns
provided on the instruction sheet.
 
There's no display stand and I doubt that the original Strombecker kit
featured one since there's no trace of a mounting slot on the fuselage
bottom.
Surface detail consists of fine rivets and raised (!) lines for the
control surfaces and canopy separation joint. The skid struts are very
crude and there's absolutely no cockpit detail whatsoever, not even a
pilot figure. The exhaust is blanked off but the intakes reveal the model's
hollow interior.
 On
the plus side, the instructions clearly show two of the many markings
variations and the decals appear to be of good quality and quite usable.
They actually look much better than the pic shown here since I had to
darken the scan considerably to show the white markings.
This is another perfect example of the early days of plastic kits; because
of its odd scale and lack of detail it's not really a candidate for a
serious model but would look good posed in-flight on a stand, which is
exactly the way I intend to build it. I picked mine up for $25 but it's
probably worth more than that to a collector.
Till next month, "Build what YOU like, the way YOU want to",
and be sure to visit Al's
Place while you're surfing the 'Net!
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