48221 is another in the Ultracast series of resin cast wheels for the Lockheed P-38 Lightning

The set provides you with two mains and a nose wheel with covered faces shod with diamond treaded tyres.

If you have built the Hasegawa and Academy 1/48 scale kits you will be aware of the shortcomings of both makers’ wheels.  The Hasegawa nose wheel has two great ejection pin scars on the nose wheel tyre which are a real pain to fill and sand.  The Academy kit’s wheels are shod with “rubber tyres” which are very difficult to paint and weather so this new series of resin P-38 wheels from Ultracast will address all of these problems.

The parts are crisply cast with sharp, clear screw slot holes on the wheel covers.  This set is shod with diamond tread tyres.  The tread appears to be representational of brand new tyres so those of you who want to model a “used” P-38 might want to reduce the tread with sandpaper.

My sample wheels and tyres are perfectly cast with no pinholes whatsoever and preparing them for use will only take a few minutes use of a razor saw and sandpaper.  Once the casting plug has been removed, a quick tidy up with a file will introduce a “flat spot” for your scale P-38 to rest on.

As previously stated in the review of the Ultracast 48219 review (block tread tyres with spoked wheels), examination of P-38 images show that the machine wore several different styles of tyres, smooth (no tread at all), block tread and diamond tread and indeed a mixture of two block or diamond tread mains and a different nose wheel tyre so as always, check your reference when it comes to P-38 tyres.

Again, a vast improvement over either of the two readily available P-38 kits in 1/48 scale and well worth the $9.95 Canadian Dollars that Ultracast are asking for them as far as I am concerned.

You can order this set as well as look up the other P-38 resin detail sets direct from the Ultracast website at http://www.ultracast.ca/

Thanks to Ultracast for the review sample.

Ultracast figures and accessories are available online from their website

Review Copyright © 2010 by Rodger Kelly
This Page Created on 10 August, 2010
Last updated 10 August, 2010

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