Again, I’ll leave it to Mr. History Reviewer Tom Cleaver to do the honors on this jet.

The kit have already been previewed. E version here.  Me? Well, I’m tackling both kits at once! This is because usually, I don’t go down to 1/72! Sorry they are too small and too many small fiddley parts for my taste but however, while at a friend’s dad’s house, I discovered these two kits sitting on a shelf there and being the fact “curiosity killed the cat”, I asked and as it turned out, the man’s dad served in the Korean War and flew the “plank wing” and received both kits from his other kid for his birthday several years ago. Unfortunately, being at the age that he is now, he doesn’t know how to do it anymore and doesn’t know how to get paints and none of his friends know how either. So I gladly jumped in and told him I’ve been making models since 13 and would love to build them for him! He gladly gave both kits for me to build but with the caveat not to use the kits’ markings cause he is trying to get a special guy to making customized decals for his personal Thunderjets that he flew in the War. So with that in mind, I scanned both kits markings instead.

Both are part of Hobbyboss’s “Easy Assembly” line and they are not kidding. Total parts are only about 40 or so, excluding the armaments and the fuel bags, total for jets are just 30. To start, I snapped off both wing tanks’ in-flight refueling probe. I’m building two Korean War birds here and they are not needed! Just don’t throw them away though. When I fed one of the control stick to the carpet monster, I was simply able to grab one of the snapped off probe, modified it for the new control stick. Cockpit assembly is easy. Both the late and early version seats are included and a small instrument panel. Now, the cockpit, along with the nose wheel well, are molded into the whole fuselage. This way not only makes the kit easy, but also allows Hobbyboss to inject two huge blocks of plastic into the nose so you don’t need any nose weight to weight the nose down. Clever!

The only places which gave me problems are the two nose panels. Now, the G version has two blow in slits, to do this difference, Hobbyboss, like the 1/32 version, made two different side panels. The E has the non-slit version while the G has the slit version. However, these two panels, for some strange reason was very ill-fitting on both kits and it took a bit of cajoling and puttying and sanding to get them into place. Other than that, the rest of the kit might as well be a snap fit. I still used glue, but most of it fit so tightly, you can have you kids fit one together without using any cement. I did not attach the “Holly Moses” or the drop tank since 1. The rockets will get in the way of the markings under the wing and the guy is trying to source some bombs to hang under the pylons. 2. As stated before, my friend’s dad is trying to get custom decals made to represent the planes he flew during his flying career.

Colors are NMF. I used Testors small bottle silver for this. Now, since I’m building two of these, the E version will be somewhat clean while the G will look like it has gone through a war.

To start off, both planes were washed with Tamiya flat black. Then the silver were sprayed on lightly at first before a second coat went on on the E. For G, I did a second wash with flat black, especially darken around areas that are heavy usage, such as footsteps, armament panels etc. I then spray on the second and third coat. For the G, some pinwashes were done on the airframe, especially the wings and I “streak” the flat black when it was half dry to simulate airflow down the wings. For the gears, I also added some artistic cream color to simulate dirt on the wheels and gears.

When that was done, I took some masking tape, and tape up the anti-glare areas and prepared some olive drab and sprayed that on. Both planes are complete except some details, such as adding burnt-iron and exhaust to the jet pipe, which I did. I also streaked some thinned burnt-iron down the G’s entire tail pipe to simulate the heat generated around this area. I did not put on any decals per instructions but if experience is to go by, they should go on easy like any Trumpy-boss decals, just be aware to dip them in water, wait until most of the decal solutions are gone, then take them out and put it on the kit by wetting the area first. After drying it, zap it with Mr. Marks and you are good to go.

Final construction consists of just putting on the canopy and landing gears. No, I did not tape up and paint the canopy. Again, Not used to working with 1/72 scale here and almost busted an eyeball trying to tape and then cut the panel lines.

To say these kits are easy is to say the least! They are wonderful kits to get your kids started on and they are easy and cheap as hell too! In fact, you can track down these kits and they cost as little as $6 bucks in some places! If you want to do more than one, you can buy a dozen for the price of one of the competitors, get some extra decal sheets and paint up several markings without breaking the bank since the F-84 was used in several air forces with some very neat markings. The tradeoff of course, is that the details are so so and may not be the cup of tea of those who are all about these things but then again, if you can scratch build, you can get some aftermarket parts and still come under your budgets! With these two kits, I’m seriously thinking about some other Hobbyboss’s easy build kits. They are extremely fun and a distraction to keep your mojo when say, you are burnt out on one of your ultimate kits that has over 1000 parts and cost a small fortune!

Donald Zhou