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eduard
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Info Eduard - March 2011
WORKSHOP
same month that this kit was released (Febru-
ary, 2011). This time, I decided not to employ
the services of our gifted builders, and allocated
the responsibility to myself. This was a bit risky
in the sense that this would be my rst kit build
in some twenty years! The end result is up to
you to judge, especially through its coverage
in the ‘Built’ section of our newsletter. It can also
be compared to the work from the workbench
of master modeler Zdenek Sebesta.
First, though, I would like to share some ob-
servations that were evident in the straight-
forward assembly, present a few ideas on the
completion of your panel, and to point out some
minor items that you may want to be aware
of along the way.
The kit itself contains around 120 plastic com-
ponents, color self adhesive dial faces, and two
photoetched frames with dial hands and stencil
placards. The construction of the interior of the
individual instruments and their related placards
is similar to that of the actual panel, and so the
end result is that much more realistic. After that,
its up to you to decide how much further to take
it with respect to modeling and weathering tech-
niques to attained your own desired look.
MOLDING PREPARATIONS
With the initial preparation work, there is not
much to do, really. The parts are molded very
cleanly, and the only prepping required will
be the removal of the injection gates. Potentia-
lly more labor intensive would be the clean up
of the ejector pin marks, but these have been
situated in the middle of the instruments, so they
don’t interrupt the overall look of the instrument.
But, on the application of the dial face, a subt-
le depression or protrusion may develop, and
so some cleanup of the pin marks is in order.
As you can see on my panel, (page 15), I unde-
restimated this concept, and it is visible on the
end product. Zdenek Sebesta eliminated this
problem (page 14). The most visible illustration
of this point appears on the engine instruments
on the right side (K20, K19 and K10), and also
on the clock (K40).
BASIC PAINTING
The color of the plastic, from which the indi-
vidual parts are molded, allows the building
of the entire model without painting. Neverthe-
less, I would recommend spraying, although the
plastic parts shades are very true (for example,
when painting the panel RLM 66, it was tough
to tell where the paint was and where it was-
n’t). In this way, a ner, consistent nish can be
attained. It should be noted that, in general,
the panel should be matt to semi-matt, and the
dial frames from semi-matt to lightly glossy.
Jan Zdiarsky
TACKLING THE 1/4 SCALE
BF 110 INSTRUMENT PANEL
The instrument panel of the Bf 110 in 1/4 scale
by Eduard was originally a bonus inclusion in the
Royal Class kit of the Bf 110 (Cat.No. R005, still
available here. In view of the collectible nature
of this boxing, the panel kit itself did not see the
widespread distribution that it deserves. Even
back then, it was clear that it would be released
on its own at some point, and its time came
in February, 2011, when it was released as a Li-
mited Edition kit under Cat.No. 14001. The ‘001‘
portion of the number suggests that this will not
remain a lone item, and that there will be other
instrument panels in the same scale, perhaps
along with some other interesting components,
especially those that are connected with other
Eduard originals.
An advantage to a kit of such an instrument
panel comes in not only its attractiveness and
uniquely specic nature, but also that such
an item rendered in a large scale does not take
up a lot of display real estate that so many
modelers ght to get in the rst place. Sim-
ply displayed, it can be framed and mounted
on a wall, or propped up against the back secti-
on of a display cabinet, and will not hog a lot of
room. As we Czechs say: ‘a lot of music for little
money’. I don’t know what your local equivalent
may be, but I would suspect that you get the gist
of the saying.
To build this panel in model form reminded me
of my attempts to have it ready for this year’s
convention at Nurnberg at the beginning of the