Mistercraft 1/72 Siebel Si-204D, previewed by Spiros Pendedekas

Together with the post war variants, total production of this less sung but nevertheless important and sufficiently performing plane in a variety of tasks, was around 1735 units, the prototypes included.

THE KIT

This kit was first introduced by KP in 1976 as Aero C-3, then reboxed (updated with new parts) after around 20 years by Flugzeug as Si-204D and from then onward is regularly reboxed as Si-204D, Si-204A or Aero C-3 by mostly KP/Kopro, Mastercraft, Mistercraft and Smer, which, I believe, are “cousin” companies, with occasionally new or updated parts and decals and revised instructions. In total this venerable mold has been reboxed more than 30 times(!). My specific copy was the Mistercraft Si-204D 2018 edition, bought in 2022 from one of my usual Hobby Shops in Athens in the old-fashioned (beloved) way, i.e. “go there, have nice, teasing modeling talks, grab the kit and pay cash”.

The kit comes in a relatively large good quality top opening box featuring a very attractive box art of a Lutwaffe bird, flying over a snowy mountainous landscape. Upon opening the box, I was greeted with 51 almost white styrene parts, arranged in two equally sized sprues. One of the sprues holds the four wing halves, whereas the other sprue holds all the rest. Molding is old fashioned with thick sprue gates, with the molds showing their age as there is quite a bit of flash that has to be cleaned and also some minor mold imperfections which have to be attended to. Panel lines are, of course, raised all over, tad on the heavy side, but looking good.

The cockpit is quite well appointed for the kits old origins, as it features seats, yokes, instrument panels, rudder pedals, front and rear bulkheads and some side panel details, all on the simplistic side, but, at least, there. There is no passenger interior to speak of, but, nevertheless, no part of it would be visible through the small windows.

Props look acceptable and the same can be said for the engine nacelles, but their intakes lack depth. Landing gear is passable, but the bays are non-existing, again, something to be expected.

Clear parts are a pleasant surprise, as they do not seem to come from the original molds, but are of a more recent design, being well molded, clear and not too thick.

Instructions are well done, provided in color as a folded A3 paper, containing a short history of the type, a parts list, with the construction spread in 9 steps. The seven of the above steps are simple, whereas the rest two are more complex and contain a number of sub-steps. Each step or sub step carries a description of what is dealing with, together with color callouts where applicable.

No less than nine schemes are provided, for two Luftwaffe, two Swiss, a Slovak, a Soviet and an English Si-204 (the latter two captured) and also for a Polish and a French NC-701. Decals look very well printed and are expected to behave very well.

Instructions want you to first assemble the cockpit, then the engines, followed by slicing in half the molded “shut” gear doors (meaning that a “gear-up” option might be possible, though not mentioned in the instructions).

The wings are next assembled, followed by the first “multi-step”, which contains the sub-steps of fuselage assembly and attachment of wings, tail planes, engines, front canopy and side windows.

The main landing gear is finally assembled and attached, together with some (optional) bombs, for what looks to be a relatively uncomplex build (but, bear in mind that “uncomplex” might not always mean “uncomplicated”, especially taking into account the old kit origins and well used molds which might present some degree of difficulty in putting the model together).

CONCLUSIONS

This is your prime candidate upon thinking of old fashioned, venerable kits, General shape looks good as does the cockpit detail with the newer mold transparencies looking even better! Instructions are nicely updated and the decals look superb in both terms of variety of schemes offered and of print quality. The lack of passenger interior is not a real minus, as, practically, is invisible. What is evident, though, is the fact that the molds start to show their age with the amount of flash and some spotted imperfections, nothing too serious, though.

The kit is offered at sensible prices and can be found even cheaper on occasional offers.It builds quite well and can result in a gorgeous looking bird, like our Editor’s build in 1997. Still your only 1/72 option of this important plane, it is an old mold but solid kit, from which an attractive representation of this important plane can result.

KIT #:	F-14
PRICE:	Around €15
DECALS:	One option
REVIEWER:	Spiros Pendedekas
NOTES:	Reboxed KP kit