Revell's F-94C By Al Superczynski

History

The 1/54 scale H-201 F-94C was one of Revell's first three aircraft kits and by its assigned kit number should probably be considered *the* first. It was released in 1953, without landing gear and displayed on a simple stand. In 1954 it was reissued as H-210 with landing gear, crude rivet detail, wing-mounted rocket pods, and a new and revolutionary swivel stand. As far as I know the F-94, F7U, and F9F are the only Revell kits that came initially without landing gear and then were later retooled to add it.

The Kit

I've never seen an example of the H-201 release ' in the flesh' but beginning with H-210 the Revell Starker has been reissued a number of times and by a number of Revell's foreign affiliates and subsidiaries. The most desirable version seems to be the 'S' kit with the swivel stand ; later releases deleted that stand and their values seem to suffer for it. As old kits go, this one is about par for the course. It fits together fairly well, largely due to the paucity of parts. The gear wells are nothing more than gaping holes and the cockpit 'detail' consists of a single all-encompassing piece featuring seats, crew, instrument panels and floor. That said the result can be fairly convincing after careful painting if one overlooks the complete lack of the side consoles and the sides of the cockpit part being open to the inside of the fuselage. There is likewise nothing to block off the view from the intakes through the empty fuselage out the exhaust opening. The model seems to be fairly accurate overall except for the lack of splitter plates between the intakes and fuselage.

Construction

Our old German friend and Revell-Miester Wolfgang Perez has worked his kit restoration magic with yet another derelict old Revell kit. He bought this one off eBay Germany for about a dollar. His first step was to disassemble and strip it of old paint using butyldiglycol (whatever the heck *that* is!), reducing it back to the original kit components. All the parts were carefully cleaned up and reassembled with as little PRESTO finishing putty as possible so as to retain as much of the original surface detail as possible.

The original kit decals were unusable and after measuring Wolfgang found that the national insignia and USAF lettering didn't match the engraving on the kit parts anyway. He decided to create entirely new decals using Corel Draw and his ALPS MD-1000 printer. The national insignia for the upper left wing wouldn't have fit over the rocket pod since the sheet was originally designed for the first issue kit that lacked the pods so he split that into two parts.

Conclusion

And here's the result of all that careful work! A truly impressive save and a tribute to Wolfgang's modeling skills and his talent with Corel Draw. The natural metal finish is entirely Bare Metal brand foil - combined with careful detail painting and flawless decal application this Starker is proof positive of the attraction and value of nostalgia modeling.

References

"Remembering Revell" by Schiffer Books

Thanks for sharing your work with us again, Wolfgang! As always, until next month, "Build what YOU like, the way YOU want to", have fun and be sure to visit Al's Place while you're surfing the 'Net!