SR-71A/B, YF-12A & A-12
Super Detailed Exhausts

Cutting Edge Modelworks, 1/48 scale

HyperScale is proudly sponsored by Meteor Productions

New from the folks at Cutting Edge Modelworks is CEC48516, a resin conversion/detailing set which contains a pair of three-piece exhausts in 1/48 scale that are designed to fit the old Testor/Italeri SR-71 and YF-12 kits.

The Testor/Italeri was released a long, long time ago. The detailing on the kit was state of the art back then but it falls short of today’s standards, looking a little pedestrian in detail terms when parked next to the newer Hasegawa and Tamiya kits on your model shelf.

Cutting Edge Modelworks comes to your rescue here with this new detail set. Comprising of just six pieces, it will certainly lift what is already an impressive kit and go a long way toward reeling in the years.

The parts are cast in a light grey coloured resin. They are highly detailed yet thin and petite at the same time. There is far more detail on the resin parts than what is on the kit parts as the accompanying photographs reveal. My sample is absolutely perfect; there are no thin spots or bubbles at all. Cutting Edge Modelworks have also made the parts “user friendly” by casting a definite line between the pouring stub and the part to ease the clean-up process considerably.

Building instructions are provided via an A-4 sized sheet that hold construction notes and photographs of a one-to-one-scale SR-71 as well as photographs of the assembled kit parts incorporated into the kit.

The parts and instruction sheet come packed in a corrugated cardboard box with the parts themselves held in a clear plastic zip-loc bag which is in turn wrapped in a foam sheet. Good stuff if you rely on the postman for your modelling supplies!

To further assist you in the use and painting of the parts, Cutting Edge Modelworks has loaded a short information page on their website at http://meteorprod.com/cec48516sr-71exhausts.html. The page also carries full colour photos of a preserved SR-71 at the National Air and Space Museum.

To me, this is what resin details sets are all about. It enables you to bring older classic kits that are not likely to be re-tooled right up to date in detail terms.

Recommended!

A thanks to Rob Woodbury for the loan of his Testor kit parts for the comparison pics in this review.