The latest edition of Random Thoughts arrived on my doorstep a day or so back, and as usual, it is a superb issue that covers a variety of subjects. Once past the editorial and columns by the national director and chapter liaison, we get into the articles. 

The first build article is by Michael Novosad of a very nicely done FAA Hellcat Mk II using the Hasegawa 1/48 kit and the now requisite aftermarket bits.

Next we have a straight out of the box Airfix 1/72  Spitfire PR.XIX by David Knights. He built his in a day, and that includes painting and decals. Quite a feat and shows it can be done.

Gary Barling does his usual exemplary work building the huge Wingnut Wings 1/32 Junkers J.1. An excellent effort on this one.

Moving away from aircraft we have Harvey Low's fine build of a 1/72 Dragon Tiger I. It shows what can be accomplished with these small scale kits.

Kevin Smith provides us with a timely and well done article on spray masks, very much a safety concern, especially if you are not using a spray booth.

Then Yves Fournier does a masterful job of building the Classic Airframes 1/48 CF-5D. A great job on a most difficult kit.

Gary Maddin then takes us underwater with a Resin Shipyards 1/350 HMCS Onondaga. This fine model includes doing a water base for it.

Finally, a Portuguese Hurricane by Randy Lutz using the Hasegawa 1/48 kit and several bits of aftermarket. A fine way to end another excellent edition.

In all another outstanding issue and well worth the price of admission. 

If I might, a couple of editorial comments on things that really struck me with this edition. One is that the background images used on many of the pages are so overpowering that it makes the article difficult to read. I learned long ago to do away with these things or to tone them down to where they are nearly invisible and suggest the same be done here. Secondly, I found the tendency to put into bold font those words and phrases thought important to be incredibly distracting. So much so that I gave up reading several of the articles because of this. They block the smooth flow of the sentences and to me, seemed as if the author was shouting out those bits of the article.

It is good to try new things, but to me, these just don't work.  I would recommend they be discontinued.

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May 2011

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