Junkers Ju 88 A-1/5/C-2/4 Early Main Wheels and Tail Wheel

CMK Quick & Easy, 1/48 scale

Reviewed by Brad Fallen

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When Special Hobby reissued ICM’s 1/48 Junkers Ju 88 A sprues as Ju 88 C-4 and D-2/D-4 boxings, the new kits included replacement resin wheels.  The C-4 mainwheels featured the early, ribbed tyres, and the D-2/D-4 wheels the later, slightly larger untreaded tyres also fitted to Ju 88 A-4, C-6 and G series machines.

These wheels have now been released as standalone items in the Quick and Easy range from Special Hobby’s partner brand, CMK.  The early wheels were provided as a review sample, but I’ll also make some comments on the late wheels since I have access to these from the Special Hobby Ju D-2/D-4.

As points of comparison, I’ll look at ICM’s plastic wheels in the Special Hobby kit (which are marked not for use) along with the relevant parts from Dragon’s 1/48 Ju 88 G-6, released back in 1993.

Both CMK sets contain three resin parts – two mainwheels and a tail wheel.

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The mainwheels are well cast with no imperfections.  The casting has been engineered so that the pour stub is underneath the slight flat where each tyre sits on the ground, so any imperfections left from removing the waste resin won’t be visible.  That said, cleanup should be straightforward, with each wheel attached to the casting block by only a small neck.

CMK’s early mainwheels have ribbed tyres with the logo of the manufacturer – Continental – on the sidewalls.  Hub detail is okay apart from the brake lines, which are soft to the point of being indistinct; I would probably sand them off and scratch build new lines from lead wire or the like. 

Hopefully this is just an anomaly of the review sample, because the brake lines on the late mainwheels from the Ju 88 D kit are crisply done.  So is the rest of the detail on these wheels, including the delicate raised tread on the tyres.  But how do the CMK wheels compare with their kit equivalents?

• Dragon’s two-part mainwheels have excellent hub detail – in some respects sharper than the CMK mouldings, albeit with no brake lines.  The tyres are also smooth, with no raised or engraved detail.

• ICM’s mainwheels are also moulded in two halves.  They have minimal hub detail, and the engraved detail on the tyres doesn’t closely match tread patterns on the early or late CMK wheels, or indeed what I could find in reference photos of the real thing.

So based on this, both CMK’s early and late wheels are superior to what’s provided by Dragon and ICM.

The tailwheel is a different story.  Unlike the mainwheels, the tailwheel is identical in each CMK set and consists of an integrally cast wheel, yoke and mudguard.  This simplicity should make cleanup, painting and weathering a breeze – but it comes at the price of some detail and realism.  For example, what in reality would be a gap between yoke and tailwheel is filled with resin in the CMK part – not obvious, but it’s there.  And in my view the replacement tailwheel doesn’t offer much if any advantage over either the Dragon or ICM plastic parts. 

• Dragon’s tailwheel is a surprisingly detailed assembly for the scale and age of the kit.  The single piece tailwheel is trapped between two yoke/mudguard halves, which means it can rotate, and the only seam that needs to be cleaned up is along the top of the mudguard. 

• ICM’s tailwheel is even better.  It’s a sharply detailed one-part moulding, which includes the mounting/location strut for attaching the wheel to the fuselage (CMK’s tailwheel is just wheel and mudguard, and would need to be attached to ICM’s location strut). One or two details are better on the CMK part than on ICM’s – for example, the strap that goes from the yoke around the back of the mudguard – but overall I think ICM’s tailwheel has the edge.

CMK’s Quick and Easy 1/48 Ju 88 early wheels set is something of a mixed bag.  The mainwheels are better than their kit equivalents, but have soft detail in key areas; these details are better represented on CMK’s late wheels.  CMK’s tailwheel is a useful single-piece casting, but also compromises on detail and modellers may find Dragon’s and ICM’s kit parts deliver a better solution. 

Thanks to CMK for the review sample.

Review Text Copyright © 2017 by Brad Fallen
Page Created 30 October, 2017
Last updated 30 October, 2017

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